Four Different Stories by Pinkwater Daniel;

Author:Pinkwater, Daniel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2018-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

2. Magic

My other favorite book, The Haphazard House Junior Dictionary for Little Scholars, is a killer. It’s got everything. I read it every night.

On this particular night, I was reading about fowl.

fowl \foul\ 1: a bird of any kind 2a: a domestic cock or hen; esp: an adult hen b: any of several domesticated or wild gallinaceous birds 3: the meat of fowl used as food

Fascinating. Next, I looked up “gallinaceous,” because that was a word I did not know.

gallinaceous \gal-in-ay-shus\: of or relating to an order (Galliformes) of heavy-bodied largely terrestrial birds, including the pheasants, turkeys, grouse, and the common domestic fowl

Then, I had to look up “terrestrial.” I almost knew what that meant, because I knew that an extraterrestrial is a being from outer space. It turned out that terrestrial means living on land or the earth.

You can’t beat The Haphazard House Junior Dictionary for Little Scholars. I wonder what sort of book Nathaniel Inkblotter would write if he had a copy.

After I had read for as long as I could, when I felt my eyes closing, I switched off the light, rolled over, and went to sleep.

One moment I was sleeping, and the next moment I was awake. At first, I thought I might be dreaming I was awake. I wiggled around. I was pretty sure I was awake. I kept my eyes shut. I could not remember waking up like this, in the dark. It was an odd feeling.

Plus, I had an odd feeling on top of the odd feeling. I felt a tingling all over my skin. My nose kept wrinkling, all by itself, as though it were trying to smell something—but at first there was nothing to smell. Then I thought I smelled a smell like the smell of my Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave smokes cheap cigars.

Something’s up, I thought.

I opened one eye.

I opened the other eye.

Something is in this room, I thought.

I sat up. “Who’s there?”

“Me. I’m here.”

“Who said that?” I said.

“I did.”

I looked around the room. I saw something pale and gray. It was in the corner. It was dim, and hard to see—but it was there. Something was certainly there.

“Are you a ghost?” I asked.

“Would you be scared if I were?” the dim gray thing asked.

“I’m not scared,” I said.

“I’m not a ghost.”

“Are you something magic?” I asked.

“I sure am,” the gray thing said.

“I’m turning on the light,” I said.

“Go right ahead.”

I turned on the light.

“You’re a goose!” I said.

“I am. You have a problem with that?”

It was a very large goose, larger than any goose I had ever heard of or imagined. This goose was larger than a large person. I was not sure whether I had actually ever seen a live goose before—but I’d seen pictures of geese, and a goose is what this was. In the light the goose was a beautiful gray. Its beak was orange. It smelled of cheap cigars.

“You aren’t a magic goose, by any chance?” I asked.

“A magic goose. Yes, indeed I am!” the goose said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.