Wizard of Washington Square by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online Page B

get it, otherwise how can I get into the subway?”
    “Well, we can’t go back, because we’ll be arrested by the policeman,” said Leilah sensibly. “We’ll just have to walk.”
    “Walk?” said David. “How far is it?”
    “Well, since we’re on Fifty-ninth Street and Lexington Avenue, it’s fifty-nine blocks and two avenues.”
    “That’ll take hours,” said David.
    “Let’s see…if twenty blocks make a mile, that’s about three miles,” said Leilah. “If we could walk a mile in twenty minutes, twenty blocks in twenty minutes…we’d have to walk a block a minute. And if the lights are with us and not too many people slow us down, we could be back at the Square in about an hour.”
    They started off at a brisk pace, walking a block a minute by David’s watch. They had to pause at several red lights, losing five minutes in all and causing David to shift from one leg to another and snap his fingers nervously each time they waited. But in less than an hour, because Leilah had forgotten that Washington Square is on Sixth Street and not on First Street at all, and because in the end they decided to run one block and walk the next, the Arch loomed ahead of them.
    “We’re here!” shouted David, who was beginning to limp because the heel of his sock had slipped down into his shoe and had rubbed a blister. He began to run toward the Arch, favoring the one foot.
    Leilah started to run with him, but stopped abruptly and shouted, “David—look!”
    David stopped and followed her finger. There, under the Arch, was the Wizard. His pointed cap was quivering. And he was shaking hands with a tall, skinny man with a waxed moustache.
    “It’s old Pickleface Pickwell,” said David. “What’s he doing here? And why is he shaking hands with our Wizard?”
    As they watched, Pickwell got into a large truck that was standing by. It said Pickwell Pick-up on the side. Then he drove off. The Wizard, his hands clasped behind him and his head down, walked back into the Arch.
    “They must have been in cahoots all along,” said David. “Why, I bet that old Wizard goes around turning dogs and cats (and maybe even people) into statues and then Pickwell sells them as ‘priceless possessions.’”
    “David, what a gruesome thing to say,” Leilah protested. But her protest sounded faint, even in her own ears.
    David went on. “Think of all the animals and people that are missing every year. I bet they are all on display in someone’s living room.”
    Leilah looked thoughtful. “I had an Uncle William John who went out for groceries one day and never returned. We suspected he ran off to Tahiti.”
    “Your Uncle William John is probably standing marble-fied in some rich person’s garden, snowed on in winter, rained on in spring, leafed on in the fall, and carrying a summer bird’s nest in his hair.”
    “Poor Uncle Billy Jack,” said Leilah sadly. Then she giggled. “And he never could stand birds, either.”
    “It’s not funny,” said David. But they both started giggling uncontrollably at the thought of Leilah’s Uncle William John with robins nesting in his Italian marble hair.
    “But if it’s true,” said Leilah suddenly, “then the Wizard is a menace. Maybe we ought to call the police.”
    David shook his head. “Leilah, you said yourself that no adults would believe us. We’ll have to do it ourselves. We’ll have to face him in his warren.” He stood up as tall as he could. “We owe D. Dog that much.”
    “But I don’t want to end up a statue too,” wailed Leilah.
    David didn’t either. But once he had made up his mind, he rarely changed it. And so he said, more bravely than he really felt, “Nothing will happen. We’ll tell him we’ve sent letters home to our parents to be opened in case we disappear. And they will know who is to blame and go directly to the police if anything happens to us.”
    “But that’s not true. No one will know anything if we disappear,” said Leilah.
    “You