Red Hart Magic Read Online Free PDF

get him to turn in anything at all.”
    But she was studying him more closely than usual, and Chris felt just a little guilty at the lie. Only a little guilty, however, not enough to send him to the living room to watch TV with the others. He closed the door and stood listening. Yes, there was the sound of the TV being turned up. But he'd give them just a little more time. He had forgotten all about this show.

    When he could be reasonably sure both Aunt Elizabeth and Nan were listening only to the show, he burrowed into the closet, drawing out the suitcase. He sat on the floor, his back carefully between it and the door, ready to slam the suitcase back into hiding should anyone come.
    He shook off the old shirt and brought out the inn, carefully cupped in both hands. It was even more perfect than he remembered it. He had made many models, and quite difficult ones, but this was a work he was sure he could never equal.
    A peep show, the man had said. You looked into those tiny windows, and what did you see?
    Slowly Chris lifted the inn, so that the largest of the diamond-paned windows was at eye level and brought the whole of the small house close to his eyes.
    But his glasses—those were in the way!
    Hastily he swept them off and laid them on the bed. If he held something very close without them, he could manage all right. Now, with the window only an inch away, Chris strove to see what might indeed lie inside. There was—
    Chris lowered the inn and rubbed at his eyes. Queer—it was as if there were a thick mist inside. He tried again. No, if there had ever been a way to see the interior, it was now gone; as if someone had pasted some whitish material over the inside of the window. One after another, he tried all the rest. They were all the same. You simply could not see in.
    As he moved the inn about, he could hear that rattle. It came, he was sure, from a room with a single window, on thefirst floor. He could not be mistaken—there must be something inside.
    Warily Chris turned the inn upside down to inspect the smooth piece of wood which formed its base. He could not see any nails or screws there. But there must be a way to open it somehow, the boy was sure of that. Maybe it was a trick—like a Chinese-box puzzle he had once seen. Only he must be very careful in trying to solve it; he did not want anything to break.
    Longingly he thought of the small tools he used for model building. Dare he try to pry off the bottom? No. Maybe if the inn was very old, the wood itself would split. He would just have to solve the puzzle some other way.
    With regret he returned the model to his suitcase, shoved that back into hiding. He began to undress. Aunt Elizabeth didn't approve of reading in bed. But he could; at least until the program was over. Chris had discovered long ago that if you had a problem and could put it out of mind for a while, then when you thought about it once more, sometimes you saw the solution.
    Nan watched a big-eared elephant squirting water over its baby. Chris said animals ought to be free, as this one in the picture was. She tried to think only of what she was seeing and not of tomorrow's trip to school. Chris was lucky. He had been here a month, had had time to learn what he had to do, to meet the other students. She was starting late in the term and that would mean she would have an awful lot tomake up. City schools were different from those in Elm-sport. They must have a lot harder subjects. And she did not know anyone at all. She hated going into a new room, having everyone look at her as if she were as different as the strange bird now stalking across the TV screen.
    She felt rather sick, and she was going to have a headache, she was sure. Not that she would try to beg off from going tomorrow. Grandma had always said there was no use trying not to face things; that only made them worse. Though Nan could see nothing really worse than what was going to face her tomorrow.
    She did not eat much of her