Wizard of Washington Square Read Online Free PDF Page A

him was D. Dog. Furiously the man poked D. Dog with his umbrella, which made the terrier scream and run under the table.
    “Hey, you can’t do that to my dog!” shouted David, but the man walked off without a word.
    David started to run after him, but Leilah caught his arm. “We always know where to find him if we want him,” Leilah said, and held up the man’s card. It said Joseph Pickwell, Decorator. VIP Interiors, 190 East 58th Street. “The petition is more important.”
    The Wizard nodded.
    David settled back. He looked at the papers spread out on the table. “And he didn’t even sign,” David said in disgust.

Swinging Statues
    “F IFTY-SEVEN,” SAID LEILAH , after a slow hour had gone by. She counted the names on the petition again. “Fifty-seven signatures. That’s including you and me and D. Dog’s paw-print.”
    “Is that good or bad?” asked David.
    “Good, I think,” said Leilah.
    “Then let’s stop for a while and get an ice cream or something,” suggested David.
    They packed up the pencils and petition and the Wizard put them under his pointed hat. Then they sent the table back to the warren. “It doesn’t care for ice cream,” the Wizard explained. “So we certainly won’t hurt its feelings.”
    “How can you hurt a table’s feelings?” asked David.
    “It’s easy. I do it all the time. They’re extremely sensitive,” said the Wizard. And though David wanted to pursue the matter, the Wizard would say no more.
    After they got their ice cream, with the Wizard treating, the three walked over to the maples and sat down. The Wizard leaned his back against the keep off the grass sign.
    David had barely gotten to his third lick of cherry vanilla when a very large policeman started yelling at them from the sidewalk. “Hey, can’t you kids read?”
    “Read what?” asked the Wizard, turning around.
    “The sign, wise guy,” said the policeman, who was tired of being in the hot sun. Besides, he didn’t like being stationed in Washington Square where, as he had told his wife that morning at breakfast, “It’s not only hard to tell the girls from the boys, it’s hard to tell the people from the animals.”
    “This sign?” asked the Wizard, pointing to the one he was leaning against.
    “That sign!” said the policeman, wiping his forehead. His normally rosy cheeks were even pinker in the heat.
    “Oh, yes,” said the Wizard, squinting at the sign and taking a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from an enormous pocket in his robe. “It says ‘Enjoy the grass, that’s what it’s here for.’”
    “Okay, wise guy,” shouted the policeman. Shouting was his normal tone of voice. It was loud enough to have interested three bearded young men, a teen-aged girl with long beads and dark glasses, and an old man who carried his possessions everywhere in a paper bag. They all came over to see what was happening. “Okay, wise guy,” shouted the policeman again, “I’m going to—” He stopped and stared. The Wizard had moved away from the sign. And it was true. The sign, somehow, did say ENJOY THE GRASS, THAT’S WHAT IT’S HERE FOR .
    “Wow, dig!” said the three boys, and they threw themselves on the grass and rolled in it, kicking up their heels. The girl pushed up her dark glasses onto her head and smiled a very slow smile. The old man bent down and plucked a few blades of grass and put them in his paper bag. And the policeman wandered off mumbling to himself, “I know that sign did say ‘Keep off the grass.’”
    “How did you do that?” asked David.
    “Do what?” asked the Wizard, who was puzzled by all the fuss.
    “Change the sign,” David said. “It did say ‘Keep off the grass’ when we sat down.”
    “I don’t know,” said the Wizard.
    “If you could only figure out how you do things like that—and the handkerchief—you could be a first-class wizard,” said Leilah.
    The Wizard looked thoughtful. “I suppose so,” he said. “But the more I think about the