A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

other parts of the world.”
    â€œSo what makes you think we’ll find one here? Now?” Kai had asked.
    Doodle shrugged. “Just a feeling. Stuff is going un-extinct all the time.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike Miller’s Grizzled Langurs.”
    â€œThat sounds like something on a fancy dinner menu. I’d like the grizzled langur in chipotle sauce, please .”
    â€œIt’s a primate. A monkey in Indonesia. Scientists thought it was extinct, and then they found some. So maybe the problem with this moth isn’t that it’s extinct. Maybe the problem is that nobody’s been looking for it.” Doodle grinned. “Nobody except me. So nobody’s gonna find it . . . except me. I’ve got a good feeling about it.”
    Kai had to admit that there were probably not a lot of people out looking for this particular moth. Personally, she had never gone looking for any moths, or heard of anyone who did. So she said okay. She said that she would see Doodle later, as long as Lavinia said it was okay to go on a moth hunt.
    Kai clomped up the stairs to lie down for a while before dinner, still giddy from her (very small) adventure.
    Kai had never had this kind of freedom before. Her mother always acted as if the city were crawling with drugaddicts and child killers, and she wouldn’t even let Kai walk to the bodega on the corner by herself.
    Kai reached for her suitcase (she still hadn’t unpacked) and plopped it onto her bed. As she unzipped the top, she noticed something peeking out from beneath her pillow. It was the corner of a book. She shoved the pillow aside. Old-fashioned gold letters spelled out The Exquisite Corpse .
    Weird! She didn’t remember putting it there.
    She flipped it open and nearly dropped it again.
    Someone had written in it. Right after Ralph T. Flabbergast was a complete fool , someone had added,
    Yes, Ralph was a fool. But he didn’t know it.
    You see, Ralph believed in magic. He believed in it with his whole heart. He had ever since he was a small boy, when his oma told the most magical stories of fairies and talking beasts. He loved his grandmother dearly, and cried bitterly when she died, although he was only three years old and everyone said he was too young to understand what death meant. Four years later, he still remembered the smell of her kitchen and the feeling he had whenever she told her tales.
    One sultry afternoon, he shuffled down a hot city sidewalk with a nickel in his pocket. Ralph had a problem: only one nickel, and so many ways to spend it. The smell of hot pretzels wafted over to him. Jewel-colored candies smiled at him from behind a glass window. Toys and whistles, chestnuts, or a movie. It was a torment.
    â€œRoll up, roll up, roll up, and see if you can find the ball beneath the magic shell! Winner doubles his money! How about you, young lad?” The man had a long nose and large teeth, and looked rather like a horse in a top hat. It was impossible to be suspicious of a man who looked like that.
    â€œWhat’s this?” Ralph asked, so the man explained the game. There were three walnut shells and a pea. The man placed the pea under one of the shells, and then mixed them up.
    â€œYou tell me where the pea is,” the man said, “and you’re a winner! Double your money!”
    Ralph watched the shells weave in and out, back and forth. It was like a dance. A slow, gentle dance. He pointed to a shell, and the man turned it over. There was the pea. This is easy! Ralph thought as he handed over his nickel for another try.
    â€œAre you ready?” The man made the walnuts dance. Ralph watched. He pointed. There was the pea.
    â€œA winner!” the man crowed. “Really, son, that was amazing. Most people can’t keep their eyes on the shell at all. You’re a natural, you are.”
    Ralph held out his palm, but the man said, “Blasted if you don’t get another try for your