We knew exactly what we were supposed to do. We transferred the ingredients from the kettle to my Bloomingdale’s shopping bag. Then we carried the kettle, the shopping bag and the wagon to near the center of our magic circle where we placed them on the ground around the bottom of the water fountain. That done, we silently marched around the circle seven times. Each time around we went faster and faster. Then we went to the picnicking part of the park where there are barbecue grilles for people if they want to use them. I placed the charcoal on the grille and doused it with lighter fluid. Jennifer lit the match since she no longer had to obey Taboo 7. Together we lifted the huge cauldron to the top of the grille.
First we opened the can of Crisco and emptied it into the cauldron. Then Jennifer threw in the key that opened the can. We marched around and marched around the cauldron. We marched around and marched around. It seemed to take awful long for three pounds of Crisco to melt. We kept silence the whole time. The Crisco melted; then we added the other ingredients. She chanted, and I stirred after each addition. In went the deadly nightshade. “Xilka, Xilka,” stir, stir. The snowballs; the Crisco steamed and cackled. “Besa, Besa,” stir, stir. Next the foxglove. “Xilka, Xilka,” stir, stir. Then the Lion’s Milk. “Besa, Besa,” stir, stir. The watermelon seeds. Chant and stir. The fingernails. Chant and stir. The food of the Greats. Chant and stir. All went into the pot. “Xilka, Xilka, Besa, Besa,” stir, stir, stir.
Then Jennifer lifted the screen from the wagon and slowly withdrew Hilary Ezra from his home. She didn’t look at me. She kept chanting as she reached up and dangled my lovely pet by one leg over the cauldron.
I gasped. I had forgotten that Hilary Ezra was a proper ingredient. Jennifer heard my gasp and saw the look of horror on my face. She gave me a cross look in return. We were not supposed to speak until we finished all our chanting. She was chanting and dangling my beautiful Hilary Ezra over the pot. I couldn’t stand it one second longer. I yelled, “STOP,” grabbed her wrist, and shook her hand until she dropped Hilary Ezra to the ground. He hopped away from us forever.
Jennifer said nothing. She picked up the empty Crisco can and walked to the magic circle water fountain. There she filled the can with water. She threw the water on the fire.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Putting out the fire,” she answered.
“I know that. I mean why are you doing it?”
“Ask what you mean,” she answered.
“All right,” I said. “Then why are you doing it?”
“Because the spell is over. You’ll never make a proper witch. You still want too many reasons and you are too sentimental.”
“And you, Jennifer, are too hard-hearted. You never even hesitated.”
“You are dismissed,” she said. She didn’t even look up at me.
“You . . .” I screamed, trying hard to think of something awful to call her. “You . . . you . . . you . . . you, JENNY!” I yelled and I walked away. I waited until I was out of the park before I began to cry.
I cried at first because I had lost Jennifer, Hilary Ezra, and the flying ointment. I cared in that order. I cried because I was angry with myself. Like flunking a test because you didn’t study and there’s no excuse. I had flunked the flying ointment test. We had worked hard on it. As I got closer to home, I began to think about Hilary Ezra. Then I got mad at Jennifer. Not hurt feelings. Good mad feelings. That had been the first time I had ever disobeyed. I thought that Jennifer was mean. She was mean to Hilary Ezra, and she was mean to me. And I kept saying “mean” to myself, but by the time I reached our apartment building, I realized something else. Jennifer was not being mean to Hilary Ezra. She wanted me to stop her from boiling him in oil. I remembered about the witches in Macbeth; the toad was supposed to be the first ingredient. She had told me that. She had purposely kept him until last. She had purposely dangled him over the pot so long. She always found a way to not get mad at herself but to get mad at me instead. I was sure if I hadn’t stopped her, she would have stopped herself. By the time the elevator came, I was crying with rage.
When I walked into our apartment, my mother looked at me and said, “What in the world happened to you?”
“I had a fight,” I answered.
“With whom?” she asked.
“Jennifer,” I replied.
“And who is Jennifer?” she asked.
“Some old witch,” I yelled and ran to my room and slammed the door.
10
IF JENNIFER HADN’T TOLD ME that I was no longer a journeyman witch, I would have known anyway. The spell was over. The next morning, I came down with a cold. Not only did I have a virus, but my mother said that I probably got it from Cynthia. I had the same symptoms as she had had. I had picked up Cynthia’s nasty germs. And they got ripe during vacation. I didn’t even have a chance to miss school.
I cried a lot during that vacation. My mother thought it was mostly because I was sick and because my temperature really was not 98.6; it was higher. But, of course, it was only partly that. I got mad a lot, too. Like when I remembered that no one, absolutely no one, would notice when I snubbed Jennifer at school. No one at school knew that we even knew each other.
I was well enough to return to school on schedule. We began right where we left off, New Math and all. I didn’t enjoy it too much. I still walked to school alone, of course. But for the first time since Halloween it seemed lonely. Thoughts of Jennifer had been good company. Looking for notes and leaving notes on the Jennifer tree had made each trip to school a tiny adventure. For a couple of days I tried walking to school by the sidewalk route. I didn’t enjoy that any more. The men from the road department were shoveling the sand out of the gutters. In the winter they had thrown the sand out to keep the cars from slipping in the snow. Their shovels scraped along the sidewalk and gave me chills. My days as a witch were truly over.
I went back to walking through the woods. The ground was soft and moist; even the most sheltered snow had melted.
On Friday I searched the Jennifer tree during each of my four trips. I didn’t find a note any time. On Saturday my mother started getting ready to go to the A & P. I yelled, “Wait a minute; I’m coming, too.”
She looked surprised and said, “I thought you’d be going to the library as usual.”
“Oh,” I said, “that project is finished.”
“Did you get an A on it?” my mother asked.
“Not exactly,” I answered.
“For all the work you did on that project, I thought you’d not only get an A, you’d get a medal.”
“Well,” I said, “sometimes you work real hard on something and all you get for it is a stupid virus.”
“What does that mean?” my mother asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. I began to cry.
“It’s that virus,” my mother said. “You still haven’t recovered. It must be the virus; you cried on and off that whole week you were in bed. I think it’s one of the symptoms.”
Of course I was crying! Of course I had been crying! Jennifer had made the witches’ warning come true. Hilary Ezra did cause me deep pain. Even though I couldn’t explain the rest of that warning.
My mother was looking at me. She came over to me and put her hand under my chin and tilted my head upward. She said very gently, “Maybe you ought to stay in the apartment while Dad and I go to the store. Or maybe you’d like to invite Cynthia over.”
The thought of spending a morning with Cynthia while my spirits were so low made me stop crying. “I’ll stay. I’ll stay alone,” I said. I said it loud, and I said it fast.
“I’ll never understand why you don’t like Cynthia,” my mother said. “I think she’s charming.”
“Mother,” I said, “if you really want to know, I’ll tell you why. Cynthia is a phony. I’ve known for a long time that she’s a phony. And worse than that, she doesn’t know she’s a phony. She believes in Cynthia. She’s a serious phony. And the only way I can stand her is
to absolutely ignore her.”
“All right. All right,” my mother said. “Stay here and don’t let anyone in the apartment without finding out who it is. Peek through the peek hole.” She meant the eye-sized hole in the door that most apartments have. It has a tiny one-way mirror in it, and you can see out without the outsiders seeing in.
After Mom and Dad had been gone about twenty or twenty-five minutes, I was beginning to feel like the loneliest girl in the whole U.S. of A. I made myself a glass of chocolate milk using enough syrup for three normal glasses. I also made myself four peanut butter crackers. Then I walked out the living room door to our terrace.
The trees were coming! New green was all over . . . green so new that it was kissing yellow. The windows of the greenhouse on THE ESTATE caught the sun and winked it back to me. As the shadows of the branches waved across the windows, the light seemed to blink on and off. A private kind of Morse code, I thought. I sat there staring at the roof of the greenhouse. It was pleasant on our terrace. I was happy that my mother had washed away the soot of winter and bought the porch furniture. The view from the terrace was far nicer than from anywhere else in the apartment. We hadn’t really used the terrace since we moved in. In September we hadn’t had porch furniture yet, and in October it had been so cold that we kept the terrace door locked. Then in April, right after Mom got it all ready, I got my virus.
THE ESTATE was the prettiest view we could see from our terrace. Looking in the other direction, we could see down Providence Street, but it was not nearly so peaceful. My eye kept wandering back to the greenhouse. The sun kept splashing on the windows. Blink. Blink. I decided that someday when I was rich and famous, I’d have a greenhouse. I’d have flowers all year round. I’d have fresh grown onions in winter, and I’d have watermelon in January.
WATERMELON IN JANUARY! Of course! TOADS IN MARCH! Of course! A place where no rain falls! Of course! The greenhouse was where Hilary Ezra had been born. And Jennifer’s father was the plant wizard who grew the watermelon and the deadly nightshade. And Hilary Ezra’s home did come to me that awful day in the park. Jennifer carried the greenhouse plants to the park in her wagon. There was a message in that Morse code of the windows. I was brilliant. I was a genius!
I was so pleased with my brilliance that I was angry that there was no one to tell about it. At least Jennifer would know I knew. I’d send her a special delivery letter in care of the Samellson Estate, and when she had to sign for the special delivery, she’d know that I had found her out. Or maybe I’d write her mysterious notes and leave them on the Jennifer tree . . . but then I couldn’t be certain she’d get them. I’d call her on the phone except that I couldn’t use the phone. No, of course I could use the phone. I had been dismissed. I’d get the phone book down and look up Mrs. Samellson’s number. Wouldn’t Jennifer be surprised when she heard my voice. She’d wonder how I knew where to reach her.
I was growing more brilliant by the minute. Mrs. Samellson was famous for her antiques. She would have a big three-legged kettle, and she would have a genuine Pilgrim dress. It had been easy for Jennifer to get my notes. Jennifer and I were neighbors! I was pacing the floor and eating salted cashew nuts, which I don’t even like. I had to tell someone. I absolutely had to tell someone! I would cast a small spell. My mother would come home. I’d tell her! I’d test to see if I had any witchcraft left over. Then the doorbell rang. I pulled a chair over to the door so that I could look through the peek hole. I didn’t see anyone at first. Then I stood on tiptoes and looked way down at the floor. I saw a wagon. Jennifer’s wagon! I jumped down from the chair and yanked the door wide open.
Jennifer walked into my house for the first time. Her eyes were up on the ceiling.
“Hi,” I said.
“Do you have anything to eat?” she answered. I stood with my mouth open. How could anyone have such terrible manners?
Then I answered, “Oh, yes. What would you like? A raw egg? Or a raw onion? Perhaps you would like five uncooked spaghettis or some raw oatmeal? Which would you prefer?”
Jennifer looked at me and said, “I really want just a drink of water.”
I laughed, “But look at your empty wagon. You must, absolutely must, let me fill it up with trick or treat.”
Jennifer looked at me and smiled. First she smiled and then she laughed. Jennifer laughed. She really laughed and laughed and laughed. I also laughed. And then I laughed and laughed and laughed. For the first time we laughed together. We were laughing and playing together when my parents came home, and I introduced them to Jennifer. My mother smiled and said, “Hi, can you both give me a hand unloading these groceries?” We both did. Jennifer seemed to know where everything went.
Now we laugh together a lot. We walk to school together, too. Sometimes I play at her house, the caretaker’s house on THE ESTATE. Sometimes we visit Mrs. Samellson who is even older than the Greats. She tells wonderful stories about her antiques. We don’t even mind Cynthia too much. Neither of us is lonely any more. Sometimes we even play with Maria or Grace. But not too often. We don’t have too much time to spare.
Neither of us pretends to be a witch any more. Now we mostly enjoy being what we really are . . . just Jennifer and just me . . . just good friends.
Read on for a special preview of THE MYSTERIOUS EDGE OF THE HEROIC WORLD, another page-turning, thought-provoking novel by E.L. Konigsburg
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON ON the second Friday in September, Amedeo Kaplan stepped down from the school bus into a cloud of winged insects. He waved his hand in front of his face only to find that the flies silently landed on the back of his hand and stayed there. They didn’t budge, and they didn’t bite. They were as lazy as the afternoon. Amedeo looked closely. They were not lazy. They were preoccupied. They were coupling, mating on the wing, and when they landed, they stayed connected, end to end. They were shameless. He waved his hands and shook his arms, but nothing could interrupt them.
He stopped, unhooked his backpack, and laid it on the sidewalk. Fascinated by their silence and persistence, he knelt down to watch them. Close examination revealed an elongated body covered with black wings; end to end, they were no longer than half an inch. The heads were red, the size of a pin. There was a longer one and a shorter one, and from what he remembered of nature studies, their size determined their sex—or vice versa.
The flies covered his arms like body hair. He started scraping them off and was startled to hear a voice behind him say, “Lovebugs.”
He turned around and recognized William Wilcox.
William (!) Wilcox (!).
For the first time in his life Amedeo was dealing with being the new kid in school, the new kid in town, and finding out that neither made him special. Quite the opposite. Being new was generic at Lancaster Middle School. The school itself didn’t start until sixth grade, so every single one of his fellow sixth graders was a new kid in school, and being new was also common because St. Malo was home to a lot of navy families, so for some of the kids at Lancaster Middle School, this was the third time they were the new kid in town. The navy seemed to move families to any town that had water nearby—a river, a lake, a pond, or even high humidity—so coming from a famous port city like New York added nothing to his interest quotient.
Amedeo was beginning to think that he had been conscripted into AA. Aloners Anonymous. No one at Lancaster Middle School knew or cared that he was new, that he was from New York, that he was Amedeo Kaplan.
But now William (!) Wilcox (!) had noticed him.
William Wilcox was anything but anonymous. He was not so much alone as aloof. In a school as variegated as an argyle sock, William Wilcox was not part of the pattern. Blond though he was, he was a dark thread on the edge. He was all edges. He had a self-assurance that inspired awe or fear or both.
Everyone seemed to know who William Wilcox was and that he had a story.
Sometime after William Wilcox’s father died, his mother got into the business of managing estate sales. She took charge
of selling off the contents of houses of people who had died or who were moving or downsizing or had some other need to dispossess themselves of the things they owned. She was paid a commission on every item that was sold. It was a good business for someone like Mrs. Wilcox, who had no money to invest in inventory but who had the time and the talent to learn a trade. Mrs. Wilcox was fortunate that two antique dealers, Bertram Grover and Ray Porterfield, took her under their wings and started her on a career path.
From the start, William worked side by side with his mother.
In their first major estate sale, the Birchfields’, Mrs. Wilcox found a four-panel silk screen wrapped in an old blanket in the back of a bedroom closet. It was slightly faded but had no tears or stains, and she could tell immediately that it had been had painted a very long time ago. She priced the screen reasonably at one hundred twenty-five dollars but could not interest anyone in buying it. Her instincts told her it was something fine, so when she was finishing the sale and still couldn’t find a buyer, she deducted the full price from her sales commission and took the screen home, put it up in front of the sofa in their living room, and studied it. Each of the four panels told part of the story of how women washed and wove silk. The more she studied and researched, the more she became convinced that the screen was not only very fine but rare.
On the weekend following the Birchfield sale, she and William packed the screen into the family station wagon and tried selling it to antique shops all over St. Malo. When she could not interest anyone in buying it, she and William took to the road, and on several consecutive weekends, they stopped at antique shops in towns along the interstate, both to the north and south of St. Malo.