"Are you an author?" she said suddenly. She had never met a real one.
The man peered at her nearsightedly over his spectacles. "More or less," he said. "I'm a poet," he added rather apologetically. "Does that count?"
"Why, so am I!" said Abbie, delighted.
"Good," said the man, and went on writing. But he didn't seem to mind Abbie's being there; so she sat beside him on the rock, as one author by another. "Do you finish many poems?" she asked after a bit.
"Yes," said the man, "I do." "I don't," said Abbie.
"You will," said the man, "if you keep trying." There was another pause. And since her own poem didn't seem to be getting any further, Abbie looked idly at what the man was writing. "That's not a poem," she said, "is it?" The man looked at her. "What makes you think so?"
"It doesn't rhyme," said Abbie. "And the lines are all different lengths."
"It's a play," said the man. "It's my first play. But it's a poem, in a way. It's an opera in a way, too. At least part of it has to be sung. That's what makes it so hard."
"To finish?" said Abbie.
"No," said the man rather defensively. "It is finished. I'm just polishing. No, I mean that's what makes it so hard, getting it on the stage."
Abbie nodded wisely. In her experience of the entertainment business, hopes were often blasted.
"You mean nobody'11 want to put on a play like that."
"Oh, it'll be put on all right. You see," and again he looked rather apologetic, "I happened to win a poetry prize a few years back. And a man came to me and said if I'd write a play, he'd produce it, no matter what it was. I think he's crazy, myself. It won't make a penny. Probably won't run three weeks."
"What's it about?" said Abbie.
"That's a good question," said the man. "You might say it's about modern times and what's wrong with them. Or you might say it's about a nice little man who's lost in a world of bombs and advertising and big business, and yet he won't give up. Or you might say it's about human dignity."
"Really?" Abbie beamed at him. "This is a coincidence. That's what my poem's about, too!"
"It is?" said the man, looking at her with new interest.
"I think it sounds like a wonderful play," said Abbie. "I don't see what you're worried about."
"Finding the right man to play the part, for one thing," said the man.
"You want some big star, I suppose," said Abbie.
"No, that's just what I don't want. I want somebody who's good, but people don't know about him yet. I've been looking at actors and listening to singers till I'm sick of the thought of them. I've even suffered through television shows. I saw a little man the other night who might almost do. He had the voice for it and the right face, too. Friendly-looking and lost and puzzled."
Abbie had an exciting thought. "Was he singing 'Chickadee Tidbits'?"
"Some trash or other. I even thought of finding out his name and sending him the play to read. But he probably wouldn't understand a word of it. Probably just another mindless idiot."
There was a silence. Abbie could hardly trust herself to speak. Finally she said, "Will you do me a favor?"
The interest went out of the man's face, and he looked tired and cross. "No," he said, "if you mean will I read your poem for you and tell you how to finish it, I will not. Students always ask me that, and it's something you have to figure out for yourself."
Abbie forgot her father and "Chickadee Tidbits" and everything else but her own outraged artistic feelings. "Of course I didn't mean that! I wouldn't let anyone else touch my poems or even look at them!"
It was the man's turn to be silent. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. "That shows you're a true poet," he said, "and I apologize. I see I misjudged you. Why not show you forgive me by making an exception and letting me see your beginning? Since we're working on the same theme?"
With many misgivings Abbie handed him her sheet of paper.
"'Alas for human dignity,'"
he read. He seemed to think for a minute. Then he handed the paper back.
"That's a very good first line," he said. "In fact, it's so good that I wouldn't try to do anything more with it now. Put it away and take it out every year or so and look at it. Some year you'll know what to say, and then you'll have a poem. And now, what was the favor you were going to ask me?"
"If it isn't too much trouble," said Abbie, "will you walk me home? I want you to meet my father."
Later that morning Abbie left her father and the famous man (for that is what he was and her father had recognized him right away) talking to each other in the living room and went out on the lawn, where Barnaby and John and Susan and Fredericka lay idly chatting.
"You've still got the book," said John, seeing it in her hands. "I suppose we might as well take it back to the library, since the magic's all finished."
"Is it?" said Abbie.
"Barnaby said would I give up my wish," said John, "and I said I would, and I guess it worked. Your father's going to be famous, singing 'Chickadee Tidbits,' and that's a pretty good happy ending. Nothing more'll happen now."
"Won't it?" said Abbie.
"Only let's not walk to the library just yet," said Fredericka. "It's too hot." For the fresh promise of the morning had turned to blaze and humidity, as too often happens in June.
"Who's the man with Father?" said Barnaby. "What are they doing?"
"I think they're talking business," said Abbie. She sat down and pulled up a blade of grass to nibble at the juicy white part. "Daddy'11 prob'ly tell you all about it."
At that moment her father and the famous man came out on the porch.
"I still say you ought to think twice," the famous man was saying. "It'll be hard work, and it won't make you rich. You'd do far better with that 'Chickabiddy Itch,' or whatever it was."
"Let's forget about that," said Abbie's father. "And I don't mind how hard it is. It'll be an honor to work with you, sir."
And they shook hands.
The famous man started down the walk and stopped near Abbie. "That's a good father you've got there," he said. "And you"—he turned back to the porch—"have quite a daughter."
"I know it," said Abbie and her father at the same time.
"We shall meet again," said the famous man. And he walked away up the road.
Abbie's father came to her and stood looking down. And in spite of the mystified others, for a minute it was as if he and she were alone together on the lawn.
"I wonder if you know what you've done for me," he said. "You've brought me the biggest chance of my life, just when I thought it was too late. Do you know that man's probably the greatest living poet in this country?"
"No, I didn't," said Abbie. But looking back, she wasn't surprised. "He's awfully understanding," she said.
She remembered wonderingly that the greatest living poet in the country had said her first line was a good one. With a shiver of joy and awe in her heart, she promised herself that she would do just as the great man had said and think about human dignity every so often, and when she finally had a poem, she would show it to him again, if they were still friends. And she felt somehow that they might still be.
But first, she would show it to her father.
Right now her father was staring at the playscript he held in his hands. "I can't believe it yet," he said. "How did it happen? How did you find him?"
Abbie thought of all the things that had happened since the day before yesterday that she could never tell him because there were no words for some of them and the rest he wouldn't believe.
Then she looked around at the others and winked.
"I made a wish," she said.
7. Keeping It?
That night after dinner Abbie's father read the play out loud to the whole family, and to John and Susan because they asked to be included.
Parts of it were exciting, and parts were so funny that Abbie's father could hardly read for laughing. Other parts were hard for the children to follow (though Barn
aby claimed he understood every word), but the poetry was so beautiful that Abbie felt humble. When she said as much, her father admitted to feeling humble, too, at the thought of acting a character that was so long and complicated and demanding and rewarding.
"Are you sure you ought to do it, Roy?" Abbie's mother wondered.
"I'm sure," said Abbie's father, "that I ought to try."
And then everyone separated for bed.
But for the third night that week, Barnaby came tiptoeing into Abbie's room, after all the lights were out.
"I've been thinking," he said. "I promised to give up my wish if it'd help Father, and so did John. But how can we be sure we have to now? It was your wish that made that poet turn up. Maybe he'd have come along anyway if John and I hadn't promised a thing. I don't think it'd do any harm to test the book and see if there's still some magic left."
"Maybe not," said Abbie. But when Barnaby had departed for his own room, she lay waking and doubtful. It seemed suspiciously like double-dealing to her. Still, who was she to say so? She had had her wish, and it had turned out in the end to be the best wish of all.
And Barnaby hadn't had a turn but had been having ideas and helping the others, from the beginning. Who could blame him for wanting a wish of his own before all magic failed?
Meanwhile, in the house across the street, John was having the same thought. But because his mind worked more slowly than Barnaby's, light didn't fully dawn until breakfast-time next morning. When it did, he hustled Susan through her oatmeal and across the street, where Barnaby and Abbie and Fredericka were weeding the petunia bed, which was their morning chore.
Many hands made light work, and soon the petunias were free of the sourgrass and plantains that had gotten into the bed with them, and the five children sought the shade.
"Now," said Barnaby, and he and John started talking, both at once, each explaining his own idea. But since their ideas were exactly the same, the general sense came through.
"How about it?" said Barnaby finally. "Shall we have a try?"
"Why not?" said Fredericka.
Abbie said nothing, but she felt troubled.
As for Susan, she was only half listening as she idly glanced through the book, reviewing its colorful descriptions of their adventures in the past. Now she closed the cover, but it fell open again at the back flyleaf, and something caught her eye. She looked closer. Then she looked up.
"We can't," she said. "You forgot. So did I. It's a seven-day book, and today's Saturday. It's due back at the library right now."
"Then the magic's over," said Abbie.
"Not necessarily," said Barnaby. "I could have my wish, and then we could take it back. It'd still be today."
"What about me?" said John.
"I was forgetting," said Barnaby.
"I wasn't," said John. "I could have my wish, too, and then we could take it back."
"Two wishes in the same day?" Susan was doubtful. "It might be awfully hard on it."
Barnaby had an idea. "Or even better," he said excitedly, "why take it back at all? Till we're good and ready, I mean. We've kept books out overtime before this when they were due and we hadn't finished with them. We could club together and pay the fine!"
Susan still looked doubtful, and Abbie thought it was time to speak.
"It'd be wrong," she said regretfully. "I know it would. It'd be breaking the rules of the magic, and you know what happens when somebody does that!"
"That's usually the most exciting part," said Fredericka. "Let's!"
"Three against two," said Barnaby. "That's fair enough."
He looked at Abbie. But what could Abbie say?
"All right, then," he went on. "We win. The book stays out till we're through with it. You won't mind if I have my turn today, will you, old man? You can have yours tomorrow. I know just what I'm going to wish."
"Yes, I do mind," said John with unwonted stubbornness. "I know just what I'm going to wish, too."
"Later," said Barnaby, reaching for the book. But John got in his way.
"Your family's had the book for the past three days," he said. "It's time we had a chance. Besides, I'm oldest."
"But wait till you hear what my wish is," said Barnaby.
"I don't want to," said John. "You're always so sure your ideas are best. Well, maybe somebody else can have an idea for a change!"
Abbie looked worriedly from one to the other. "It's all going wrong," she said. "It started the minute you said you'd keep the book. Let's change our minds before you start fighting. Remember last time!"
Once in the past John and Barnaby had had a fight, and it had been awful, maybe because they were usually best friends, and when best friends fall out, it is worse than any other quarrel. All their regard for each other seems to sour and turn to spite and meanness. And the hurts that friends can do each other cut deeper and take longer to heal.
Right now John and Barnaby were eyeing each other in a way that reminded Abbie of that other awful time. John's face was red and his forehead creased in an ugly frown. Barnaby was pale and he was smiling, but it was a dangerous smile.
"You couldn't have an idea like this one," he said tauntingly, "in a million years."
"That's the worst of you little runts," said John, "always boasting 'cause you're too weak to do anything else!"
"Little" is a fighting word, and so is "runt," and "weak" is unforgivable. To hear them all in one sentence was too much for Barnaby, and his smile seemed to freeze on his face. "Oh, can't I?" he said. "Where's that book?"
Dodging past John, he grabbed it rather roughly from Susan's hand.
"You can't push my sister around!" cried John.
"He didn't," said Susan mildly, but John was past heeding.
"You give that back," he said, and he, too, laid hold of the book.
"Stop them, somebody!" wailed Abbie. "Let's take the book back to the library right now, before it's too late!"
But it already was.
The tug of war the book was undergoing proved too much for its age-worn spine. Suddenly it gave way, and John was left clutching a few torn-out pages while Barnaby waved the rest of the book triumphantly before his eyes.
"Just for that," he cried, "I'm going alone. I don't need any of you! Good-bye!"
And he was gone.
John looked stupidly from the place where Barnaby had been standing to the piece of book in his hand. His face was pale now and not angry at all. "Gee," he said. "I didn't mean that to happen. Why'd I get so mad?"
"It's the magic," said Abbie. "It wants to go back to the library. When you said it couldn't, it made you get all horrible."
"I know," said John, shamefaced. "I could hear myself being awful, but I couldn't stop. I'm sorry." He looked at the torn pages in his hand. They were blank, save for the back flyleaf of the book, from which the library slip stared up at him ironically with today's date stamped on it.
Susan saw this at the same time, and now it was her turn to utter a cry. "Oh!" she said. "You've got the last pages. That means Barnaby's off somewhere in the middle of some adventure with a magic book that hasn't got any ending! And that prob'ly means his adventure won't have an ending and he'll never get out of it and come home again!"
"We'd better find him right away," said John, all his anger forgotten in concern for his friend. "Where would he be?"
"Somewhere in some book," said Fredericka. "Trust Barnaby!" But her smile was a shaky one.
As for Abbie, she was near tears, but she forced her mind to think. "Maybe Robinson Crusoe," she ventured. "One whole year he hardly read anything else."
"Well," said John, "here goes. I hope."
Everyone joined hands, and he wished on the tattered remnant of magic that was all they had left. And perhaps because the end of a book is its most important part in a way and a key to all that has gone before, the magic worked as well as if its outward and visible form hadn't been mutilated at all. The next instant the four children found themselves standing on a
rocky and beach-rimmed isle by a blue and sounding sea under a hot and cloudless sky.
In the distance a familiar figure was silhouetted against the horizon. It wore a jacket and cap of goatskin and carried an umbrella of the same material. Following it at a respectful distance was another figure, of native aspect. Otherwise, and in every direction, the island was plainly uninhabited. As Fredericka said afterwards, desert was putting it mildly. And the only extra footprints on the sand were the four children's own.
"He isn't here," said Susan.
"Unless he's turned into one of them," said Abbie, pointing at the distant figures. But this was plainly nonsense. Robinson Crusoe and Friday are Robinson Crusoe and Friday forever and ever, and no one could take their place, magic or not.
"Where'll we try next?" said John. "What's he been reading lately?"
"Dickens," said Fredericka. "Ever since we saw that old movie of David Copperfield on television, he's been working his way through our set of Complete Works. He says they're worth it. I say they're too long. Too sad, too."
"We might as well try everything," said John. Once more the four children joined hands. But first they rubbed their footprints out carefully so Robinson and Friday wouldn't think ghosts had been visiting their beach. And then John wished.
It was quite a change from the island's tropic glare to Christmas Eve in old London. The children's breath smoked on the chilly air, and a few snowflakes fell. Chimes rang and carol-singers sang carols.
"Humbug!" muttered an old gentleman, emerging from his office. But "Merry Christmas!" said almost everyone to almost everyone else.
A ragged boy who was sweeping the street crossing didn't seem merry at all, however, and Abbie, touched by his poor and friendless looks, pressed her only nickel into his hand, hoping he could later exchange it for coinage of the realm at the nearest bank.