Magic Street

Chapter 10

WORD Mack and Ceese stood on the back porch of Skinny House, looking at the orange trees and the rusty barbecue and the umbrella-style clothesline.

"We're standing on the back porch of an invisible house, and you still don't believe me?" said Mack.

"Well, there wasn't a fridge in the kitchen, either," said Ceese.

"Because it was your mama's fridge. It was probably all your mama's stuff. I showed you the pants. I showed you the claw marks and the bloodstains. I showed you the five-dollar bills I took out of all the pockets."

"That doesn't prove anything. Lots of people got more five-dollar bills than that."

"But not me," said Mack.

"Miz Smitcher didn't up your allowance?"

"Ceese, you gave me the original five dollars."

Ceese hooted. "That was three years ago!"

"I don't spend much."

"Mack, I believe you, of course I do. But it takes getting used to."

"What's to get used to? Either it's in front of your face or it isn't. This is, so you got to believe it."

"And if it isn't in front of my face?"

"Then you got to have faith."

"When you have faith in something a lot of other people believe, then you a member of the church," said Ceese. "When you have faith in something nobody believes, then you a complete wacko."

"Well, I believe it and so do you, so between us, we half a wacko each."

"And you been keeping secrets like this your whole life?"

"Nothing like this. I only found this place yesterday."

"And there was a man in the house."

"I call him Mr. Christmas." For right now, Mack wasn't interested in bringing Puck's real name into the conversation. He had a feeling that might make things too strange for Ceese.

"Cause he looks like Santa Claus?"

"Well, then, the name 'Mr. Christmas' make perfect sense. I always think of Bob Marley at Christmastime."

"I wish I knew where he was," said Mack. "He could explain things to you a lot better than me.

Except that he lies all the time."

"All the time?"

"No. He tells the truth just enough to keep you from knowing what's what."

"Well, then, I can't wait to meet him. I don't have half enough liars in my life."

"Come on out into the woods with me. Just a little way," said Mack.

"Why?"

"For one thing, so you can see that I'm not making it up."

"I really do believe you now, Mack. I really do."

"You scared of the woods?"

"I'm scared of that panther. He likes you fine, but I don't want to test to see if my pistol can kill a magic cat. Besides, a cop shooting a Black Panther is such a stereotype."

"Ha ha," said Mack. "It ain't that kind of panther, and you no kind of cop at all, yet."

"I don't even have a gun yet," said Ceese.

"Then why you worried about whether you can shoot a panther?"

"Thinking ahead."

Mack took him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the patio. But the cement didn't turn to brick under their feet, and when they stepped off into the grass they squished rotting oranges, which was fine for Ceese, wearing shoes as he was, but pretty icky for Mack, whose feet were bare.

"I guess I don't have permission to enter Fairyland," said Ceese.

"Then why were you able to get into the house?"

"Maybe halfway is as far as I can go."

"No, let's try getting you in sideways."

They tried crossing the patio with Ceese's eyes closed, and with Ceese walking backward, but there was no woods and no brick path and finally it occurred to Mack that maybe the problem wasn't Ceese.

Where Puck had turned small and slender and green-clad, Ceese had changed in an entirely different way. It was as if the house had shrunk behind him. Ceese was at least twice as tall as the house, and he looked massively strong, with hands that could crush boulders.

Now I know where all those stories about giants come from, thought Mack. Giants are just regular people, when they come into Fairyland.

Except Ceese can't get in. And what about me? I'm regular people, and I'm just the same size I always am.

"Mack!"

The voice was faint and small, and for a moment Mack thought it was Ceese calling him. But no, Ceese was looking off in another direction and anyway, a man that big couldn't possibly make a sound that thin and high.

Mack looked around him there in the woods, and finally found what he was looking for. Down among the fallen leaves, the grass, the moss, the mushrooms, with butterflies soaring overhead, was Puck. Not the big man with the rasta do, but the slender green-clad fairy he had glimpsed last evening on the porch of Skinny House.

He looked dead. Though he must have been alive a moment ago to call to him. Maybe it took the last of his strength. Maybe his last breath.

Puck was bloody, and his wings were torn. His chest looked crushed. One leg was bent at a terrible angle where there wasn't supposed to be a knee.

Mack gently scooped him up and started carrying him toward the house.

Trouble was, Puck grew larger in his hands. Heavier. More like his human Rastafarian self. Too big for Mack to carry safely.

At first he tried to carry him over his shoulder, but that worked for only a few steps before Mack collapsed under the weight of him. Then he got his hands under the man's armpits and dragged him. But it was hard work. His shoes kept snagging on stones and roots. Mack's heart was beating so fast he could hear it pounding in his ears. He had to stop and rest. And in the meantime, he knew Puck was still bleeding and probably dying even deader with every jostle and every minute of delay.

If only Ceese could enter the forest of Fairyland, he could pick Puck up like a baby and carry him.

And then it dawned on Mack why it was Ceese couldn't get in.

"What?"

"Mr. Christmas is in there, hurt bad, and I can't drag him out."

"Well I can't get in."

"I think maybe the reason you can't is that the passageway into Fairyland isn't tall enough for you."

"I'm not all that tall," said Ceese.

"In Fairyland you are. I saw you from inside the woods, and you're a giant, Ceese."

Ceese laughed at that—he wasn't all that tall a man, just average—but soon he was doing as Mack suggested, crawling on hands and knees while holding on to Mack's ankle and looking off to the side, and whether all of that was needed or it was just the crawling, he made it onto the brick path—which was no pleasure, on his knees like that—and then onto the mossy path.

"Open your eyes," said Mack.

Ceese did, and he truly was a giant, looking down at Mack like he was a Cabbage Patch doll.

And there, two strides away, was a grown black man in a rasta do, just like Mack described him.

"How come I'm a full-grown giant and he's not a tiny fairy, this far into the woods?"

"How do you know you're full-grown?" asked Mack.

He didn't, and he wasn't. In the two strides it took him to reach Mr. Christmas, Ceese grew so tall that his head was in the branches of the trees and he had to kneel back down just to see the path.

He scooped up Mr. Christmas just the way Mack had done and then, a few steps later, he had shrunk enough he had to set him down again and carry him in a fireman's carry. By the time they got to the back door, with Mack holding the screen open so Ceese could get inside, the man was so heavy and huge that Ceese was panting and staggering.

But he remembered how it felt to be so huge, and he kind of liked it.

Now the house was full of furniture again. Ceese took this in stride and laid Mr. Christmas out on the sofa. Now he was able to check his vital signs. "He's got a pulse. I don't suppose there's a phone."

"I wouldn't count on it," said Mack.

"Let's get him outside then, out to the street where somebody can see us, and try to get him to a hospital."

"I was hoping his own magic could heal him."

Mack helped Ceese get him up onto his back again, the old man's arms dangling over Ceese's shoulders. "Get the door open, Mack, and then run out into the street and flag somebody down."

Mack obeyed. First car that came was a nice big one, driven by Professor Williams from up the hill. He pulled right over when Mack flagged him.

"We got a man needs to get to the hospital!"

"I'm not that kind of a doctor," said Professor Williams. "I'm a doctor of literature."

"You the driver of a big car," said Mack, "and you can get this man to the hospital."

By now, Ceese had staggered to the curb, so he was visible.

"That man looks hurt," said Professor Williams.

"That be my guess, too," said Mack.

"He'll bleed all over my upholstery."

"That going to stop you from helping a man in need?" asked Mack.

Professor Williams was embarrassed. "No, of course not." A moment later, he had the back door open and then helped Ceese get the man into the car without dropping him or banging his head against the door or the car roof. It wasn't easy.

And at the end, when Mr. Christmas was laid out on the seat, Professor Williams took a good long look at his face. "Bag Man," he whispered.

"You know this guy?" said Ceese.

Professor Williams handed his keys to Ceese. "You take my car to the hospital. I'll walk back home and get my son Word to drive me to work."

"You sure you trust me with a car this nice?" said Ceese.

Professor Williams looked from Mr. Christmas to Mack and then back to Ceese. "I'm never riding in a car with that man again," he said. "If you're determined to save his life, then go, I won't stop you."

"I just hope I can get to the hospital in time. Unless you got a siren in your car."

Professor Williams gave a bitter little laugh. "I have a feeling you'll have green lights all the way, son."

Mr. Christmas didn't wake up at all, not on the way to the hospital, and not when the orderlies came out and hauled him out of the car and laid him on a gurney and rolled him into the emergency room.

That caused some raised eyebrows, and when they signed Mr. Christmas in as a John Doe, Ceese turned to Mack and said, "You watch, they'll have a cop coming by here to ask us if we the ones who beat this man up."

"Why would they do that?"

"Take a look at the color of your skin."

Mack grinned. "This just a suntan, Ceese. You know I spend all day outdoors in the summer."

"What I'm saying, Mack, is, let's go home. Let's not be here when the cop shows up."

"I can't do that," said Mack.

Ceese shook his head. "What is this man to you?"

"He's the man in Skinny House," said Mack. "He's the man who led me into—"

"Don't say it."

"Don't say what?"

Ceese lowered his voice. "Fairyland. Makes you sound two years old."

"He's more than two years old, that's what he called it."

"So don't you wonder how he got so beat up?"

"It could have been anything, he was so small."

"How small was he?" asked Ceese.

"You know how small he was in your hands when you picked him up?"

"Yeah, but that's because I was..." Ceese looked around at the other people in the emergency waiting area. "Well, I was what I was right then."

"That's how big he was to me, and I was normal size."

Ceese turned himself on the couch and leaned close to Mack's ear. "That's something I want to know. I got big, and that old bum got small, but nothing happened to you at all."

"So, why?"

"I didn't read the instruction manual, I guess."

"I'm just trying to think it out and make some sense out of it."

"It don't make sense, Ceese."

"I mean, if humans turn into giants, and... whatever he is... gets small, what are you?"

"I wish I knew," said Mack. "I never met my mother. Maybe she was regular size, too."

Ceese looked away, then turned to face front. "I wasn't saying about your parentage. Don't get sensitive on me all of a sudden."

"I'm not," said Mack. "I just don't know. I could be anything. I mean, if a regular-looking homeless person with a rasta do can be a fairy."

A new voice came out of nowhere. "Is that why you boys beat him up? Cause you thought he was gay?"

It was a cop standing ten feet away, so his voice carried through the whole room. Mack had never been rousted by a cop, though he'd heard plenty of tales and he knew the rules—always say sir and answer polite and don't ever, ever get mad, no matter what stupid thing they say. Did it make a difference that this cop was black?

"We didn't beat him up, sir," said Ceese. "And we were honestly not referring to anyone's sexual orientation, sir."

"Oh, so you were telling fairy stories to your little friend here?"

Mack didn't think he was so little anymore. Then he realized the cop was being sarcastic.

"As it happens, sir, I used to tend this boy when he was little. I was his daycare while his mother, who is a nurse in this very hospital, worked the evening shift. So I've read him a lot of fairy tales in my time."

The cop squinted, not sure if he was being had. "I've heard a lot of fairy tales, too."

"Not from me, sir."

"So you really did just find that unconscious man by the side of the road," said the cop, "and you happened to flag down the only man in the universe who would hand you his car keys and let you drive his fancy car to the hospital with a dirty bleeding old bum with a broken leg and five broken ribs and all kinds of contusions and abrasions bleeding all over the nice leather interior."

"Except," said Mack.

Ceese turned to him, looking as casual and politely interested as could be, but Mack knew his look really meant, Don't touch my story, boy, it's the best one we got.

"He wasn't unconscious when we found him," said Mack. "When I found him, I guess I mean. I heard him. Calling out for help. That's why we found him in the bushes and we dragged him to the street and that's how we knew we couldn't carry him, and maybe we caused him more pain because he was unconscious after that. But we didn't know what else to do."

"Could have called 911," said the cop, "and not moved him."

"We didn't know how bad hurt he was at first," said Ceese. "We thought maybe he was just drunk on the lawn."

"Where was this?" asked the cop, and from then on he was all business, taking notes, and then taking their names and addresses. When it was all done, and he was about to leave, he said, "You know why I believe your story?"

"Why?" asked Mack sincerely, since he didn't think he'd believe it himself.

"Because you'd have to be six kinds of stupid to make that shit up. Cause it's going to be so easy to check. First call is to this Professor Williams."

"We don't know his number at Pepperdine, sir," said Ceese.

"I'm a policeman, a highly trained professional. I am going to use that subtle instrument of detection, directory assistance, and find out the number at Pepperdine, and then I'm going to ask the nice lady who answers the telephone to connect me with Professor Williams. Meanwhile, I think I'll hold on to these car keys, since they might be evidence if things turn out wrong."

"So you don't believe us," said Ceese.

"I mostly believe you," said the policeman.

"If you take the keys, how will we get home?"

The cop laughed.

Ceese explained. "If he doesn't get the right answer from Professor Williams, then we won't be going home."

The cop winked and they followed him out into the corridor, where he pulled out a cellphone and called directory assistance and then talked to the Pepperdine switchboard and then must have got voicemail because he left a message asking Professor Williams to call him about a matter concerning his Mercedes automobile and then he said the license plate number.

"Of course not," said Ceese. "He's a professor. He's in class, not in his office."

"But where does that leave me?"

"Well, you could ask Miz Smitcher," said Mack.

"Who's that?" asked the cop.

"His mother," said Ceese.

"He calls his mother 'Miz Smitcher'?"

"He's adopted," said Ceese. "And Miz Smitcher was never one for taking a title she hadn't earned. So she taught him to call her Miz Smitcher like all the other neighborhood kids."

The cop shook his head. "The things that go on in Baldwin Hills." He got a little simpering smile on his face. "I didn't grow up with money like that."

"Neither did we," said Ceese. "We grew up in the flat of Baldwin Hills."

"That like the flat of Beverly Hills? Half a million's still a hell of a lot more than I had, growing up."

"So that's what this is about," said Ceese. "You're giving us a hard time after we brought a crime victim to the hospital, not because you think we did anything wrong, but because you don't like our address. How is that different from rousting us because we're black?"

The cop took a step toward him, then stopped and glared. "Well, I guess we're definitely having a ride to central booking and getting your names down in the records. The kid, he's a juvenile, but you—Cecil, is it?—I guess you'll be just another black man with an arrest sheet."

"So you get a little power," said Ceese, "and it turns you white."

"All that race talk, that's not going to help you much in the county jail, my friend," said the cop.

"Everybody we arrest has a master's degree in victimization."

And that was the moment when Word Williams showed up. "Sir," he said.

The cop whirled on him, ready to be furious at just about anybody. "Who the hell are you?"

"I believe you're holding the keys to my father's car," he said. The way Word talked, like an educated white man, made the cop's attitude change just a little bit. Less strut, more squint—but not a speck nicer.

The cop tossed the keys in his hand. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Who's your father?"

"Dr. Byron Williams, a full professor at Pepperdine University and a noted poet. He called me on his cellphone and told me that Ceese and Mack were taking an injured homeless man to the hospital in his car. He asked me to trade cars with them and get his car cleaned."

The cop had that smirk again. "So I guess everybody in Baldwin Hills is really close friends with each other."

Ceese rolled his eyes.

But Mack answered him sincerely. "No, sir, most people only know their neighbors. I may be the only one who knows everybody."

The cop just shook his head. "Why am I not surprised by anything anymore?"

"Perhaps you'd like to call my father," said Word.

"I already did, but he didn't answer his phone."

"His cellphone?"

"How will I know it's really him?"

Word looked at Ceese. "You must have really pissed this man off. Look, I'll give you his cellphone number. But call the Pepperdine switchboard, ask for the chair of the English department, and then ask her if this is indeed Professor Williams's cellphone number. You'll know she's really the department chair, she'll confirm the number, and then we'll be square, right?"

"Just give me the number," said the cop. He dialed it, without bothering about the switchboard and the department chair. After a minute of listening to Professor Williams, he handed the keys over to Word, with a faintly surly thank you. He didn't so much as say goodbye to Mack and Ceese.

When the cop was out of earshot, Word turned to them and said, "That's how people with petty authority always act. When they're caught being unjust, the only way they can live with themselves is to keep treating you badly because they have to believe you deserve it."

"He was nice enough at first," said Mack.

"No he wasn't," said Ceese. "He just acted nice."

"But that's what being nice is," said Mack. "Acting nice. I mean, if you're really nice, but you act mean, then you aren't really nice, you're really mean, because nice and mean are about how you act."

"Is he going to law school nights?" asked Word.

"No, he's so young he thinks the world ought to make sense," said Ceese. "So you want me to drive home whatever car you drove here?"

"I had a friend drop me off," said Word. "I mean, I can't drive two cars home."

"How we going to get home?" asked Mack.

"Your mom, I guess," said Ceese.

"She doesn't get off till late in the afternoon," said Mack.

"I'll find your mom, get her keys, drive her car, and then come back and pick her up after work," said Ceese.

"No, no," said Word. "Let me take you. We're practically neighbors."

Mack didn't know why that felt wrong to him, but it did. Something about Word made him uncomfortable. Which was crazy because nobody ever spoke ill of Word.

Ceese had his own reasons for declining. "We kind of want to stay long enough to find out what's happening to Mr.... the guy we brought here."

"Mr. what?" asked Word, smiling. "I thought he was a homeless guy. You know his name?"

"No," said Ceese.

"We had to call him something," said Mack. "So I started calling him Mr. Christmas."

"He look like Santa Claus?"

"More than Tim Allen does, yes sir," said Mack.

Word laughed and slapped Mack lightly on the shoulder. "Mack Street. I've seen you walking through the neighborhood your whole life, but I don't think I ever heard you say a word."

"I say lots of them," said Mack. "But mostly when people ask me questions."

"I guess I never thought you knew something I needed to find out," said Word. "Maybe I was wrong."

What Mack was thinking was: You never heard a word from me, and I never felt a dream from you.

That wasn't so unusual—there were plenty of people in Baldwin Hills who never had a wish so strong it popped up in a cold dream. But there was something about Word that said he had a lot of strong wishes, a kind of intensity about him, especially when he looked at Mack. Like he was just the tiniest bit angry at Mack but he was holding it inside. Or maybe he was really angry, and he was barely holding it in check. Something like that. Something that made Mack wonder why a guy with so much fire inside never showed up in a dream.

"No," said Mack. "You weren't wrong. When people ask me stuff, all they find out is I don't know anything much."

"I think," said Ceese, "a lot of them hope that Mack knows good gossip, wandering around the neighborhood like he does. But see, he doesn't tell stories about people."

"What?" said Word.

Mack leaned around Word to see what Ceese was looking at. But Ceese grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back, so all Mack caught was a glimpse. It looked like an alien out of a sci-fi book they made him read at school. Like a big ant. Only when he thought about it, he realized it must have been somebody dressed in black, with a black helmet. Like a motorcycle rider.

Word turned around, but too late. When Mack looked, the alien or motorcycle rider was just turning away, so when Word turned, the corridor was empty.

Mack didn't like it when Ceese acted weird, and he was sure acting weird now, gripping Mack's neck so hard it was like he was trying to break a pencil with one hand. So Mack tore away and took off up the corridor the other way, to ask the nurse at the counter what was happening with the man they brought in.

"I don't know if I should tell you," the nurse said. "You're not his next of kin or legal guardian."

"Well, I was sure his guardian when he needed somebody to find him in the bushes and carry him to safety," said Mack.

"You carried him?"

Mack shrugged. Didn't matter whether she believed him or not. "He wouldn't be here if I didn't hear him in the bushes."

"You're Ura Lee Smitcher's boy, aren't you?"

Mack nodded.

She nodded, too, and picked up the phone.

A few minutes later, Miz Smitcher was down there with them and hearing their story. "I guess we just want to know what's happening with the old guy," said Ceese, when they were through telling just enough of the truth to avoid having to spend time with a psychiatrist.

So Miz Smitcher went off and got permission from a doctor, on the basis that these were the boys who found the man, and she'd be with them. Pretty soon they were in a draped-off space gathered around the man's bed. His leg was in a cast and his chest was wrapped up and he had a needle stabbing the back of his hand, connected up by a tube to a bag hanging from a hook.

But the cast and the wrappings and the sheet were all so clean that it was actually an improvement. And seeing him asleep like that made Mack feel safer somehow. Not that he'd felt all that threatened when Puck was awake. But then, maybe he had felt a little bit afraid, but just didn't admit it to himself.

Talk about fire. Talk about intensity. It's like he thought he was Superman and he was going to use his X-ray vision to bore a hole right through the man's head.

"Did you know him?" asked Mack.

It took a moment before it registered on Word that Mack was talking to him.

"Me? No."

"But you saw him before."

Word shrugged.

"Then why do you hate him so bad?"

Word looked at him, startled, and then laughed. "I never heard you were crazy."

"Then you haven't been paying much attention," said Ceese.

Miz Smitcher looked at them like they were all crazy. "Let's leave this poor man alone," she said, and ushered them all out.

Word drove them home, with Ceese sitting in the front seat beside him and Mack in the back, looking for bloodstains, but there wasn't anything at all.

"You cleaned this up pretty good," said Mack.

"There wasn't much to clean," said Ceese. "He didn't bleed much."

"Dad's still going to make me get the car detailed," said Word. "He hates that guy. Wants every trace cleaned off."

"So your dad knows him?" asked Ceese.

Word shook his head. "Nobody knows him. But he came to our door once. I let him in. And then he left again."

"You let him in?" Ceese asked. "A guy like that, in your house?"

Word nodded. "My dad thinks I don't remember. Nobody else in the family even remembers.

And for a while I didn't—for an hour or so. Then it all came back to me. Mom was sick in the bedroom, and Dad got home and went in there and then that guy came to the door and... I let him in."

"What did he do?" asked Mack.

"I don't get it," said Mack. "If you wanted to stop him, how could you also not want to stop him?"

"You can't imagine it till it happens to you. All of a sudden it's like you don't even have a vote on what your body does and thinks and feels. You can think about how you don't want to do it, but at the same time, all you want in the world is to please that son of a bitch."

Mack could see Ceese stiffen a little.

"Come on, Ceese," Mack said. "You said 'son of a bitch' in front of me often enough."

Word gave a sharp little bark of a laugh. "Sorry."

"I just didn't realize this man's been around so long," said Mack. "How long ago was it?"

Word laughed again. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Thirteen and two months," said Mack. "Since the day I was found, anyway, and Miz Smitcher says I couldn't have been born very long before that."

"Then that man came to our house thirteen years and two months ago," said Word.

Mack thought about that for a minute. And added into his calculations the way Ceese was glaring at Word.

"So he had something to do with me, too, is that what you're saying?" asked Mack.

"Let's just say that when he came to our house, he had all kinds of empty grocery bags on his belt and in his pockets. But when he left, there was a baby in one of them."

Mack felt a rush of feeling, like his blood was trying to move to different parts of his body all at once. He was a little faint, even.

"And you didn't say anything?" said Ceese softly.

"Nobody would have believed me," said Word.

"Why not?" said Ceese.

"Because my mother wasn't pregnant an hour before," said Word. "But I caught a glimpse of her through the door and her belly was swollen up and... who's going to believe that? Especially when she didn't remember it even happened, half an hour later? She swelled up, had the baby, and forgot all about it in about two hours. You don't believe it even now."

"Yeah," said Ceese. "We do."

"Because of him," said Word. "Because of Bag Man."

"Mr. Christmas," said Ceese.

Puck, thought Mack. "So am I your..."

"I don't know," said Word. "You might be my brother. Or my half brother. But considering that things like that are impossible in the real world, I'm not altogether sure that you exist." He laughed again, that harsh laugh that said he really didn't think it was funny. "And if you do, what put you in my mother's uterus? Who could I tell? Who could I ask? All I could do was watch. I saw Ceese find you. And soon I heard that Miz Smitcher had taken you in. So you were okay."

"And what if I hadn't found him?" said Ceese. "Or what if Raymo..."

"I knew Raymo," said Word. "I wouldn't have let anything happen."

"So you just watched," said Mack. "Like Miriam watching Moses in the bulrushes."

"So you're a Bible reader," said Word.

"I listened in Sunday school," said Mack.

"Exodus. Moses was in danger of being murdered by Pharaoh's men, so they put him a basket and floated him down the river. I suppose today it would be a grocery bag, and he'd be set down in a field by a drainpipe."

"I'm not Moses," said Mack. "And nobody was trying to kill me."

Both Ceese and Word laughed grimly at that, then glanced at each other. Both of them probably wondering what danger the other one had known about.

"Do you read Shakespeare?" asked Mack.

Word shrugged. "My father almost named me William Shakespeare Williams. Instead of William Wordsworth Williams. So I might have been called Shake instead of Word."

"Or Speare," said Ceese helpfully.

"That would have guaranteed I never got a date in high school," said Word, and this time his laugh was a little more real.

"What can you tell me about Puck and the queen of the fairies?" asked Mack.

"Puck? Why?"

"Why? You think that Bag Man's an overgrown fairy or something?"

"Just asking," said Mack. "But if you don't know, I guess I'll have to read about it."

"Good luck on Shakespeare," said Word. "It's written in a foreign language. I heard a black linguist from Berkeley once say that English-speaking people are the only ones who never get to read Shakespeare in their native language. Instead we have to suffer through reading his stuff in the kind of English they were speaking back in 1600."

"I got through Shakespeare okay," said Ceese. "Romeo and Juliet. King Lear."

"High school's one thing. They spoonfeed it to you."

"In college I mean," said Ceese.

"Okay, well, fine," said Word.

"All I want to know is about the Queen of the Fairies," said Mack.

"Titania," said Word. "And her husband is Oberon. They fight all the time. Puck is Oberon's servant, and he plays terrible tricks on people. He takes this guy who's lost in the woods and magically makes him have the head of a donkey, and then Puck gives Titania a love potion and she falls in love with this half-assed guy."

"So Puck is a bad guy," said Mack.

"No, he's a trickster. Like Loki in Norse mythology. He just... plays pranks on people. But they're mean tricks. He has no conscience."

They rode in silence for a while.

Then Word glanced back and asked Mack, "So you think this guy is Puck?"

Ceese said, "He's just talking."

"I have a word of advice for you," said Word.

Ceese snorted. "You have a word."

"I know it's a pun on my own name. Don't you think I hear enough of that crap?"

"Your advice?" said Ceese.

"Leave it. Forget about it. My father broods about it. It still poisons him. He watches you from the window. He watches you whenever he passes you in his car. Because he knows. Baby found in a grocery bag, not an hour after Bag Man carried you out of the house. Dad hates that guy. But what good does it do?"

Then Word spoke again. "In the play—in Midsummer Night's Dream, that's the play that has Puck in it—what they're fighting about—the queen and the king of the fairies, Titania and Oberon—is a changeling."

"What's a changeling?" asked Mack.

"A little boy. That's all they say. I think there's an old legend that fairies sometimes come and steal away human children and leave fake children in their place. I suppose it's the kind of legend that was invented to explain autistic children. The changeling looks like a perfectly normal child, but he just doesn't respond right."

"Is that what I am?" asked Mack.

"You're not autistic," said Ceese. "Weird, but not autistic."

"How could you be a changeling?" said Word. "There wasn't a baby to swap you for. I don't know what you are. Maybe you're just... my magical brother."

"I don't see how you're any kind of brother to him," Ceese said irritably.

"Cecil," said Word, "you're his brother. His real one. Or his father or some combination.

Everybody knows that. Everybody in Baldwin Hills knows you gave up half your own childhood to look after Mack. They love you for it. I'm not making any claim that I mean anything in Mack's life."

"Less than nothing," said Ceese quietly.

"If I had told this story back then, would it have changed anything?"

Silence again, until Ceese finally answered, "They would have locked you up in the loony house."

"He had you in his life. And that was good. What if I had 'found' Mack in that grocery bag? I thought of it. But I couldn't have brought him home. If I had come in that door with that particular baby, I think my dad would have lost it. Might have killed the baby or run out of the house and never come back or... I don't know. Dad was crazy. You finding him, that was a good thing, Ceese."

That was the last thing Mack heard for a little while, because right at that moment, he slipped into a cold dream. Didn't even fall asleep first. Just felt himself walking into a hospital room that he had never seen before and firing eight rounds from a handgun right into Bag Man's bandaged-up head.

Only the bandages were nothing like the real ones, and the room was nothing like the draped-off area where Mack actually saw Bag Man, and suddenly Mack understood what he was seeing. It wasn't coming out of Mack's memory of the hospital, it was coming out of someone else's imagination. What Professor Williams wanted more than anything else in the world right now, far more than he wanted to be a great poet, was to murder Bag Man.

Mack had never thought of Puck as "Bag Man," but in the cold dream that's absolutely who the man was, what his name was.

Until he awoke shivering, with Ceese pinching the skin on his arm.

"Ow," said Mack.

"You fainted," said Ceese. "You were shivering like you were having some kind of fit."

"I was cold," said Mack angrily. "You don't have to punish me for it by pinching like a girl!"

"Just trying to bring you back."

And that's what Mack wanted him to do.

"We okay back there now?" asked Word. "We're almost to your house."

"I had a dream," said Mack.

"In three minutes?" asked Ceese. "That's quick dreaming."

"He's an efficient dreamer," said Word from the front seat. He pulled back into traffic and a moment later turned right on Coliseum and then left on Cloverdale. Both Mack and Ceese looked at where Skinny House was hidden but from the street, of course, they saw nothing.

When they got to the Smitcher house—Mack's house—Word got out of the car to help Ceese get Mack out.

"I'm okay," Mack insisted.

"You just fainted. That suggests you're not exactly okay," said Word.

"I had one of my dreams," said Mack. "Not a sleeping-type dream. A different kind. And somebody was trying to kill Bag Man."

"Who," said Word, laughing. "My dad? I'd believe it!"

Mack just looked at him.

Word stopped laughing. "Oh, come on. I don't really believe it."

"Your dad knows which hospital he's in," said Mack.

"My dad's not a murderer."

"I don't want him to be," said Mack. "But the things I see in dreams like this—sometimes they come true."

"Like Tamika Brown dreaming she was a fish and waking up inside the waterbed."

That knocked them both for a loop. They stared at Mack for a long moment. "You mean Tamika's dad wasn't crazy?" asked Ceese.

"Or lying?" asked Word.

"Like you, Word," said Mack. "Who could I tell?"

"Weird shit's been going on for years, and I never had a clue," said Ceese.

"So you think my dad might just magically appear in Bag Man's hospital room?" asked Word.

"I don't know what might happen," said Mack. "But when these dreams come true, it's always the thing the person wants most in all the world—only it happens in the ugliest way. If your dad gets his wish to have Bag Man dead, then I bet your dad gets caught. Or maybe shot down by the police.

And all of us arrested as accomplices, probably. All part of a big setup."

Ceese and Word looked at each other.

"I'm going back," said Word. "It's crazy, but so is everything else. I've got to stay there until... or I could call my father."

"No, let's go back," said Ceese. "But not you, Mack. It's too dangerous."

Mack just looked at Ceese with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Oh, don't give me that vulture look," said Ceese. He turned to Word. "But he's right. We got to take him, because he's more in tune with this weird stuff than either of us."

So they piled into the car and headed back for the hospital.

"I'm blowing off an exam to do this," said Word as they pulled into the hospital parking garage.

"So what do we do? Sneak into the emergency room? They know us there."

"He won't be there now," said Mack. "They move them out of there after an hour or so."

"Where will he be?"

"I'll find out."

It was easy, as long as they didn't go through Emergency, where they would all be recognized.

Instead, Mack went to an ordinary nurses' station where he was recognized only as Ura Lee Smitcher's boy, and nobody even noticed when he looked up the John Doe who had been admitted to Emergency as an indigent about two hours before—had it already been that long?

Mr. Christmas was still asleep, but now he was on a hospital bed and there wasn't a tube anymore.

"So what do we do," said Word. "Wait for my dad to appear?"

Ceese looked around. "Move the old man?"

"This isn't The Godfather," said Word. "We can't just move him. They'd notice. And besides, if he comes here by magic, we can't fool the magic, can we? He'll come to whatever room Mr.

Christmas is in."

They were interrupted by Mr. Christmas whispering from the bed. "Come here."

They all turned. The man was holding up a feeble hand. He was reaching for Mack. "Hold my hand."

Mack took a step toward him.

"You trust him?" asked Word.

"Don't do it, Mack," said Ceese.

"Help me," said Mr. Christmas.

Mack looked at Ceese and Word, then turned back to Puck. "The doctors already did what you needed."

Mr. Christmas glanced at Ceese and Word, and suddenly they smiled and began pushing Mack gently toward the bed.

"It's all right," said Ceese.

"He needs you," said Word.

And Mack knew right then that Puck was doing to them the thing he had done to Word Williams thirteen years ago. Making them want to do something they didn't want to do. Encourage Mack to obey Puck's command.

The thing was, Mack didn't want to do it. Didn't want not to, either. It's as if Puck had no power to make Mack want or not want anything.

"I touched you before," said Mack to the man on the bed. "I... carried you. It didn't help you."

Mr. Christmas responded by wiggling his fingers. Give me your hand, his fingers were saying.

his pocket.

Mr. Christmas still wiggled his fingers.

Okay, so I proved I could do it. But now as I take my hand out of my pocket and reach out to him again, is that because I want to or because I...

I could keep going back and forth on this all morning, and in the meantime, Professor Williams might pop out of thin air and blast eight rounds into Puck's body.

Mack took the man's hand.

His grip was weak. But the longer he held, the stronger it got. Until Mack said, "You're hurting me."

"Sorry," said Puck. But now he looked stronger. And when he let go of Mack's hand, he sat right up and pulled the bandages off his head and his body. "That really hurt."

"What happened to you?" asked Mack. "Was it the—"

Puck put up a hand to stop him from saying more. Then he stood up and looked down at the cast on his leg.

"Mack," said Puck, "can I lean on you to steady me?"

Mack came closer. The man leaned on him. He took a step. Another.

And then Puck wasn't leaning on him anymore. Mack looked at him, and now he was fully dressed as a homeless man, with grocery bags hanging out of every pocket and looped over his arms.

"No reason to hide these from you now," said Puck to Mack. "Now that Word here has told you everything."

And with a nod to Word and Ceese, and a wink to Mack, Puck flung open the door and strode boldly out into the hall. Nobody challenged him.

"You healed him," said Word.

"He healed himself," said Mack. "He's the magical one, not me."

"But he had to hold your hand to do it."

"That's crazy," said Mack.

"And when he was leaning on you," said Ceese, "his cast just disappeared, and he was wearing those clothes."

"We saved your father," said Mack. "From committing a murder and going to jail for it."

"If he was coming."

"Now we'll never know," said Ceese. "But isn't that better than knowing because we didn't stop him?"

"Yes, it is," said Word.

"Now let's go home," said Ceese, "before the nurses catch us here and demand to know what we did with the old man."

As they approached the car, Word pushed the button that made the Mercedes give a little toot and blink its lights. "You know what I don't want to do now?"

"What?" asked Ceese.

"I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure all this out. I spent years trying to make it make sense and I decided long ago that the best thing for me to do is act as if it never happened, just as my dad does, because there's not a damn thing we can do about it and it's never going to make sense. In fact, not making sense is why we call it magic instead of science, right?"

"Right," said Ceese.

Mack didn't like it. He had finally found not one but two people who believed him, and Word might have even more information about Mack's origins. "I got to talk about it," said Mack.

"Fine," said Word. "With each other, not with me. Because if you start telling people this stuff, and they come to me for corroboration, I'll tell them I just drove you guys home in my dad's car and I've got no idea what you're talking about. I'm not letting magic ruin my life."

"I understand," said Ceese. "That makes sense."

"Like hell it does," said Mack.

"Watch your language," said Ceese.

"Yeah, you two got your nice birth certificates and your moms and dads and your damned last names."

Ceese reached over the back of his seat and laid a hand on Mack's head. Mack pulled away.

"Mack," said Word from the driver's seat, "I understand how you feel."

"Like hell," said Mack.

"Mack, don't—" Ceese began.

"You've got to let this boy watch George Carlin and learn more words," said Word.

"Hell," said Mack, toward Word this time.

"The thing is, Mack," said Word, "you already know everything I know. I didn't hold anything back. And I don't want to talk about this or think about it. You've got a family. You even have a mom and dad, if you aren't too picky about standard definitions. Read Midsummer Night's Dream. You'll learn more from that than you ever will from me."

This time Mack didn't faint on the way home.

And late that night, after Mack was in bed, he heard Ceese come in and give something to Miz Smitcher. She brought it to Mack as Ceese left the house. It was a big thick book.

"A complete Shakespeare," said Miz Smitcher. "What is that boy thinking? If you read this in bed and fall asleep with that book on your chest you'll suffocate long before morning."

"I won't read it in bed, Miz Smitcher," said Mack.

"Why Shakespeare? Is that summer reading for school? Surely not the whole Works of Bill!"

"He and I were talking about a play I remembered," said Mack. "So I guess he wanted me to be able to read it for myself."

"But why the book?" said Miz Smitcher. "Doesn't he know there are places online where you can get the full text of any Shakespeare play, free of charge? This is so expensive!"

"Ceese is still looking out for me," said Mack.

"He's a blessing in your life, that's for sure," said Miz Smitcher. "But no reading tonight. Plenty of time tomorrow."

Mack thought he'd have trouble getting to sleep, he had so much to think about. But he'd been thinking about it all day, brooding about it, trying to figure out what it all meant and why Puck was living in Skinny House right in their neighborhood and what it might mean to be a changeling and how that might explain why he didn't change size going into Fairyland and...

And he was asleep.