The Magic Spectacles Read online

  John suddenly wanted to buy them all. Marbles were like any sort of treasure; you needed a pile of them. The bigger the pile the better.

  On the sign over the door was painted a picture of a man walking along a road, carrying a bundle of sticks. There was a full moon with a cheerful face in the sky above him. Under the painting were the words, “Come In.” So John pushed the door open, and he and Danny stepped through it, into the dimly-lit shop.

  Chapter 4: The Fishbowl Full of Marbles

  The shop was cool inside and full of odds and ends, all of it dusty. Stuff was piled on old tables and falling in heaps out of open wardrobes and spilling from the shelves of bookcases. Hanging from the rafters in the high ceiling was the skeleton of a giant bird held together with silver wire. There were books everywhere, all of them dark and old. There were stuffed bats and pictures of apes and clipper ships and old houses and serious looking people in bonnets and top hats. There was a jar with an enormous eye in it, and no end of old candles and silverware and crystal glasses. On the counter sat a lamp built out of an iron fish.

  The little man in the green cap sat behind the counter on a tall stool. He had a book in his hand, and he peeked at John and Danny over the top of it. His bag full of tied-together sticks lay on the floor in front of the counter.

  “What do you need?” he asked them. “Or more to the point, what do you want?” They could only see his eyes and half his nose. The rest of him was hidden by the book and the counter.

  “Marbles,” John said, looking around. There was probably lots of other stuff in there he wanted too, but right now the marbles were enough. They didn’t have much money left after the pancakes.

  “In the fishbowl,” Danny said. “In the window. We don’t need the glasses, though.”

  The little man nodded. The point of his green cap wagged up and down. “You see very clearly, then?”

  John shrugged and kicked Danny’s foot just to make sure that Danny knew how weird all this was. “I guess we just don’t want the glasses,” John said. “Just as many marbles as we can buy.”

  Danny dug the rest of the change out of his pocket. “We have about a dollar,” he said.

  Slowly the man’s head rose over the top of his book, until his whole face peered down at Danny’s handful of nickels and dimes. He rubbed the side of hi nose and asked, “Do you have a penny with the face of a man on it?”

  “Abraham Lincoln,” Danny said.

  “I was thinking of a different man, actually. The Man in the Moon.”

  The wind blew so hard outside right then that it rattled the windows, and the air was full of leaves and dust. The sign over the door creaked and banged. The little man pretended to read his book again, but he watched Danny out of one eye.

  For a moment John hoped that Danny wouldn’t find the moon penny. They shouldn’t have taken it from the fountain. It was connected somehow to the wind blowing outside and to autumn leaves and fish skeletons and window and sparrow sleeping in the grass.

  But then Danny took it out of his pocket. He held it under the light of the iron fish lamp, and John stepped up next to him in order to get a better look.

  The eyes of the moon-faced man on the coin were shut now, as if he had fallen asleep but hadn’t taken his spectacles off. John couldn’t be completely certain that his eyes had been open before, but he thought that they had been. And now, just as he looked more closely at the face, the eyes seemed to move behind their eyelids, like the eyes of a man dreaming.

  The little man put his book down and took a magnifying glass out from under the counter. Except for the sound of the wind, it was ghostly silent. The shadows of leaves danced on the window pane and threw shadows across the floor. Through the magnifying glass the little man’s eye was enormous, like a whale’s eye.

  “This is just what I want,” he said, nodding at them. “Moon penny. These are very rare. You don’t see one in a thousand years. I had one very much like this but I threw it into a fountain and made a wish. Are you sure you want to spend it?”

  Danny didn’t say anything for a moment, as if he had swallowed something and was waiting for it to go down his throat. “Sure,” he said finally.

  “I told you to leave it in the fountain,” John whispered.

  “Take the marbles,” the little man said. “But it’s only fair to tell you that they aren’t all there; this is only some of them. They used to belong to a man, but he…lost them. Some day maybe he’ll want them back, and then you’ll have to give them up.”

  (Chapter 4 continues after illustration)

  “No problem,” Danny said. John nodded. It didn’t seem very likely. The little man dropped the moon penny through a slot cut in the top of the iron fish. Several seconds later there was a clank and a rattle of coins, as if the penny had fallen a long, long way, to the bottom of a well, maybe.

  “Take the spectacles too,” he said. “You’ve bought the whole package, fishbowl and all. But if you meet the man who lost his marbles, think twice before you give him the spectacles. Don’t mean to alarm you, but they can be used for fell purposes. Like water, you know; you can drink it, and you can drown in it. Do you follow me?”

  John nodded again. He didn’t follow a thing. He didn’t want the spectacles, but somehow he had them anyway. Or at least Danny had them. It had been his coin, after all….

  “No exchanges, no refunds,” the little man said. He pointed to a sign on the wall. “All Sales Final,” it read.

  He picked up his book again and pretended to look at it, but John was pretty sure that he watched them over the top of the pages as they picked up the fishbowl and went out. The wind slammed the door shut, and both of them jumped in surprise. When they turned around to look, the interior of the shop was dark again except for the fish lamp glowing way back in the shadows.

  The sign hanging over the door was turned around. The old man painted on it was walking away from them now, carrying his sticks. The moon was asleep overhead. “Closed Up,” the sign read.

  Chapter 5: The Treasure Under the House

  They parked their bikes under the carport in the driveway. It was nearly noon. Across the street old Mr. Skink was raking dead leaves into a pile on his lawn, and Harvey Chickel, who lived at the end of the block and around the corner, was riding his skateboard up and down the sidewalk. Harvey looked bored, like he was having a terrible time. Being bored was his second favorite thing to do. His first favorite was causing other people trouble.

  John knew that Harvey had seen them ride up. Harvey hadn’t waved because he wanted to let them know how bored he was. That meant Harvey hadn’t seen the fishbowl, which was good. Harvey had a problem with stealing things, and he wouldn’t look nearly so bored any more if he had seen it.

  The fishbowl felt extra heavy, as if John had been carrying it for ten miles instead of ten blocks. When he was sure that Harvey wasn’t looking, he took the spectacles out of the marbles and put them into his jacket pocket. At once the fishbowl felt about half as heavy, as if the spectacles had been too full of gravity. He wondered if that was scientific. Did gravity make things heavy by filling them up? Or did it just sort of sit on things, and mash them down? He would have to start a gravity chapter in his book.

  Carefully, he put the fishbowl down on the porch, hiding it behind a potted plant. Across the street, Mr. Skink paused to light his pipe, and just then the wind picked up his pile of leaves and blew it in every direction. Mr. Skink tried to stop them by waving his bamboo rake around as if he was trying catch butterflies in a net. Harvey Chickel burst into loud laughter and fell off his skateboard onto the grass. He rolled around and beat his hands on the ground.

  “It wasn’t that funny,” Danny said. Danny didn’t like Harvey Chickel at all.

  Mr. Skink said something to Harvey then, but John couldn’t hear what it was. Harvey stood up and said something back, and then Mr. Skink pointed at him with the stem of his pipe and said, very loudly, “I oughta…” and Harvey rode away on his skateboard b
efore Mr. Skink had a chance to say what he oughta do. When he was half a block farther down the street, Harvey turned around and laughed out loud again, as if he had just then remembered how funny the whole thing was.

  A door shut a couple of houses down, and an instant later their friend Kimberly stepped off her front porch. Actually it was the front porch of Mrs. Owlswick’s house, Kimberly’s aunt. Kimberly was a year older than John. She had long blonde hair and dreamy eyes. Her hair was tied into a pony tail with a red ribbon, and for some reason she was wearing a dress.

  “Are you looking at her hard enough?” Danny asked. “Maybe you should take a picture.”

  “It’s you that should take a picture,” John said.

  Smiling, Danny said, “Right.”

  Harvey Chickel hadn’t turned the corner toward home, but was skating up and down at the end of the block now. He must have seen Kimberly come out. Go home, John thought, but Harvey sat down on the curb as if he was waiting for something. He flipped his skateboard into the air so that it banged down onto the street. Then he pounded it against the curb a couple times, showing off.

  Kimberly carried a red metal box about half as big as a loaf of bread. “Look at what I found,” she said, walking up to John and Danny and holding out the box.

  The lid had a picture of a fountain on it, like the fountain in the Plaza. Beyond it sat a house on a hill. The house had diamond-paned windows and smoke curling up out of three chimneys. Flowering vines grew across the porch. On the roof stood a weather vane shaped like a fish skeleton. It pointed toward the rising moon, which was coming up between two hills. Under the picture were the words, East, West, Home’s Best.

  “What a great can,” John said, staring at the fish skeleton. “Where did you get it?

  “It used to belong to my uncle,” Kimberly said. “I found it under the house, behind where the old window was. Look at all this stuff.”

  She opened the lid. Inside was a heap of costume jewelry, with big rhinestones that looked like diamonds and emeralds. There were glass prisms and tiny glass perfume bottles and a glass saltshaker shaped like… a fish.

  “You found all that under the house? It’s like a treasure or something,” John said.

  Kimberly nodded. “My aunt says it’s a goblin treasure.”

  “There’s goblins under your house?” asked Danny. “I never heard anything about goblins leaving treasures under houses.

  “I never heard about them being under houses at all,” John said.

  “They live under houses when they have too,” Kimberly said. “That’s what my aunt says. I mean, where else? They can’t just go down to the motel. They’d rather live in the woods, but there aren’t any woods around here, so they get under your house through secret tunnels.”

  “That’s a lie!” someone said in a loud voice.

  It was Harvey Chickel. No one had heard him come up. He had an unhappy face, as if someone had tricked him into eating brussels sprouts. Usually he looked that way when other people were having fun. Kimberly closed the lid of the box.

  “There’s nothing under houses but dirt,” Harvey said, and he spit on the ground, nearly hitting his own foot.

  Kimberly looked straight at him and said, “Some people think that everything is just dirt. But they’re wrong.”

  “They’re not as wrong as you are,” Harvey said, and he looked for a moment like he was going to hit her.

  John’s stomach felt suddenly empty. He wondered what he was going to do. He hated this kind of thing. Harvey was famous for it. In a second he would start pushing people. He had hit Kimberly at school once. Harvey had hit nearly everyone at school at least once. That was all he could think of to do when he got mad. Kimberly had hit him back, right in the stomach, and she looked like she was ready to hit him again.

  “Miss perfect,” Harvey said. “What are you all dressed up for, a tea party?”

  “My aunt’s taking me to lunch,” Kimberly said. “So what?”

  “Your uncle going?” Harvey asked. Kimberly didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.

  “I heard he was in the hatch,” Harvey said. The men in white suits came to get him with big nets. That’s what my dad said. That’s where he is right now, I bet –in the hatch. My dad said that your uncle didn’t change out of his pajamas for five years. He used to stick a fishing pole out the window and fish in the bushes with junk tied to the end of the line for bait. One time my dad tied this rubber fish to the line and yanked on it.” Harvey snorted through his nose. Probably it was meant to be laughter. “Why don’t you shut up?” Danny said.

  “You shut up,” Harvey said. “He used to live in your house. That’s who owned this place, a nut case. I heard he went crazy when his wife corked off.”

  Kimberly didn’t say anything. She stood there looking at the lid of the treasure box.

  “Where is he then if he’s not in the hatch?” Harvey said.

  “What do you care?” Kimberly said. Maybe he took a bus to the moon.

  “What I think…” Harvey started to say.

  “What we think,” Danny said, “is that nobody cares what you think.”

  “You want to make something out of it?” Harvey asked. Here it comes, John thought. He got ready to grab Harvey’s arm. He couldn’t think of anything else. This was just what Harvey wanted. All of a sudden he would get going with his fake karate and would start making grunting noises and kicking the air. Danny didn’t say anything, but just stood there looking into Harvey’s face.

  Harvey spit again and shook his head. I’ll tell you so what,” he said to Kimberly. “I bet you stole all this junk.”

  “Who asked you?” Danny said. “We don’t care what you think, remember?”

  “Nobody has to ask me nothing,” Harvey said, giving Danny another hard look. What he said didn’t make any sense, and John hoped that Danny wouldn’t point that out. Maybe if no one said anything he would just leave. Instead of leaving, he spit again, but some of the spit ran down his chin, and he made a slobbering noise with his mouth when he tried to suck it back in. His face got red. “You wait,” he said, probably to Danny. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He wouldn’t look at anyone now, but rode away on his skateboard, really fast, as if he was going someplace important. “Wimps!” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “That was really gross,” Kimberly said when he was gone. “How come boys spit?”

  “I don’t spit,” John said.

  “Boys just spit,” Kimberly said. “I don’t understand it. Harvey Chickel’s head must be full of spit or something. He’s like a squirt gun.”

  “He’s a hoser,” Danny said.

  “He didn’t used to be that bad,” John said. “I remember a couple of years ago when he gave me two jelly doughnuts, just for no reason at all.”

  “That must have been before I knew him,” Kimberly said.

  “They must have been poisoned,” Danny said.

  “He used to like to do all kinds of stuff,” John said. “Hide-and-go-seek, climbing trees, riding bikes, whatever.”

  “Now he’s too tough,” Danny said.

  “Right,” Kimberly said. “I bet that’s why he spits, because he’s so tough.”

  “I was over at his house,” John said, “on the day he gave me the doughnuts. His father was supposed to come and pick him up. They were going to the mountains or something for the weekend. He only gets to see his father every once in a while. Anyway, Harvey was all packed and everything. He was waiting around for hours, and his father never came.

  “Ever?” Kimberly asked.

  “Not for a couple weeks. He just forgot, I guess. He was always doing that. Later Harvey tried to tell me his father had showed up late, and they went anyway, but I knew he was lying. He never went anywhere.

  “Did you call him a liar?” Danny asked.

  John shook his head.

  “He would have called you one.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “I guess that’s why I did
n’t.”

  Kimberly opened the treasure box again, and they sat down on the porch to look through the stuff. John didn’t want to say so, but he knew that Harvey might be partly right. The jewels in the box might be part of the stuff stolen from the shops around the Plaza. Of course Kimberly hadn’t stolen any of it.…

  And right then she pulled Dr. Stone’s pocket watch out of a tangled string of blue glass beads.

  Danny looked at John, but didn’t say anything.

  “I wonder if it’s real gold,” Kimberly said.

  “I think so,” John said, having a look at the watch. The initials A.W.S. were engraved in the back of the watch case. “I know so.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Because he knows whose watch it is,” Danny said, looking over John’s shoulder at the engraved letters.

  It was the stolen jewelry, or at least some of it. Kimberly set the box down on the porch and pushed it away from her, as if there were bugs in it. They told her about Dr. Stone losing the watch and about what he had told them about the stolen things. Then, as if he had gotten an idea, Danny suddenly jumped up and ran around the corner, into the carport. A moment later he shouted.

  When John and Kimberly arrived, he was pointing at the crawlspace under the house. It was a square hole, just big enough for a person to creep through. There was a screen door covering the hole in order to keep cats and possums out. The door was unlatched and pulled partly aside.

  Someone, or maybe some thing, had been under there.

  Chapter 6: Fish Bones and Rat Shoes

  The police came shortly after that. No one knew who had called them. It seemed like half the neighborhood was standing around in the carport. When Kimberly got back, John and Danny’s parents were talking to the police. Their dog Ahab wandered around sniffing the ground, smelling out clues. A man in brown coveralls and carrying a flashlight was just then climbing through the crawlspace, disappearing under the house like the wicked witch of the east.