A WAND FULL OF GOLDEN LEAVES

“This is the house of your dreams,” said the bubbling real estate agent.

The five Schuberts looked at the house doubtfully. With its two stories and three pointed gables piercing the roof in different places, the house appeared to have wandered into the wrong neighborhood since all of the other houses on the street were one-story ranch style homes. But the Schuberts were desperate for a place to live. Frank Schubert had already started his teaching job in the physics department at the University of Minnesota. School would have started for his children a week ago if they had found a house and known which school district they would be in. Diane Schubert could write her music reviews anywhere she could plug in a computer, but she wanted a roof over the heads of the whole family sooner rather than later.

“How many bedrooms does it have?” asked Frank.

“Why, that depends on how many bedrooms you want,” said the real estate agent. The two older children, Peter and Cindy, were standing close to their parents, all attention. The youngest, Peter, wandered over to the oak that shaded the front lawn. “There are many rooms in the house, Mr. Schubert, and the use you put them to will be up to you.”

“What we are trying to ask you is: Just how many rooms are there?” asked Diane in her crisp voice.

“Why don't you come in and see for yourself, Mrs. Schubert?” suggested the realtor.

Frank shrugged his shoulders and followed the agent into the house with the rest of his family. Except for Tim. He leaned his body against the oak tree's trunk and looked up into its thick leaves, looking for another glimpse of what he thought he had seen. Circling the tree three times hadn’t made whatever he’d seen visible again. He thought he had seen a shadow, only it couldn't have been that. The sun’s light at the time would have cast a shadow in the opposite direction. Tim understood that much science.

“Come on, Tim!” his father called out.

“Coming,” Tim answered.

But he did not move. The tree made him shiver, but not with fright. He just knew that something beautiful inside the tree was trying to reach him. If he could just do the right things, something good would come his way. He figured he was about due for that. Things had gone wrong with his life long enough. Tim stepped away and looked up. Happy little faces peered out from between the leaves. Or so Tim thought. Everybody else’s idea of reality was always different from what he saw as real. He knew anybody else would have said it was just sunlight was playing with the leaves.

“Come on, Tim!” called Cindy, “Don't you ever know where the rest of us are going?”

“I'm coming.”

“You said that before.”

“All right, I'm coming.”

Cindy stayed on the front porch, making it clear she was not about to go away until her younger brother came with her, so Tim had no choice but to comply. He took one last look up the oak, but couldn't see the faces anymore. He decided he needed a magic wand that would make the faces appear when he wanted them to.

Cindy grabbed at Tim's hand as if her brother were even younger than his nine years, but Tim jerked it away from her.

“Remember what Mom and Dad said,” Cindy reminded her brother, “all of us have to decide which house we're going to buy.”

“We'd better get this one,” said Tim.

“How do you know? You haven't even seen it yet.”

“I know because I know.”

Cindy gave Tim one of those looks that he was used to. Maybe he was supposed to help the rest of the family decide on what house to buy, but his point of view never seemed to count for much. Having no choice but to follow, and curious about the house, Tim followed his sister up the front porch steps.

“Not all that big a living room,” Diane's voice echoed off the walls.

“That depends on what you need a living room for,” said the salesman. “Just wait until you see what else you have here.”

“Looks like the last paint job didn’t get finished,” said Diane, noting that half the room was painted off-white and the other half was a pale green.

“Either that or this is the New Look,” Peter quipped.

“The last owner was transferred to another city when he was half-way through with remodeling the house,” said the salesman, “this gives you a choice as to which way you want to go. Now just across the hall you have a drawing room.”

He took the family over to show them.

“We could make a music room out of this,” suggested Peter in his cracked adolescent voice as he looked around. “Mom, the piano could go against this wall and I can practice my cello in here and we can play our duets, and there’s still room for an audience when we're ready for one.”

“I suppose we could,” said Diane as she appraised the room critically. She clapped her hands and listened to the reverberation. Peter sang a phrase from a Bach cello sonata while his mother concentrated on the acoustical effects. “It might work,” she said. “We’ll think about it.”

The Schuberts continued their tour through the house. As the salesman had promised, there were several rooms upstairs, perhaps more than there should have been room for, judging by how the house looked from outside. Each child earmarked a private room and their parents identified the master bedroom. Frank noticed a small room next to the master bedroom and Christened that his office. There was enough room for the whole family and a guest room or two.

Tim noted with satisfaction that the room he had picked out gave him a view over the front lawn with the oak tree that fascinated him so much. He stood in the small alcove that formed the gable and looked down at the treetop. Try as he might, he could see nothing unusual about the tree. Perhaps his imagination was playing tricks on him as everybody in his family said it did. He checked the walls and figured out where to post his monster pictures. Then, as he started to leave the room, Tim saw a child staring at him. He jumped, then realized he was looking into a full-length mirror on the wall next to the closet. He hadn't known that he was quite so short or that his complexion was so dark. Then the boy in the mirror raised a hand. Tim had not moved. Tim raised his hands in a mock threatening gesture. The boy in the mirror suddenly ran away as if some monster were chasing him, leaving Tim alone with his own reflection in the mirror.

“Where can we have a laboratory?” Tim heard Cindy asking the salesman as he left his room.

“The basement has all the room you could want for a secret laboratory,” answered the realtor. “Wait until you see it.”

The basement was cold and damp, but it was spacious. The Schuberts decided they could use a corner for laundry and still have space left over for the laboratory. The walls were all stone as if the basement had been cut out of living rock. Frank rang up the figures in his head for the extra expenses that would be necessary, such as a dehumidifier. Also, there was one long crack in the wall that would have to be repaired.

The Schuberts went back upstairs to inspect the kitchen. Both parents were pleased with the space they would have for their cooking projects. Something was said about how Peter would blossom as a chef, a comment that brought both a grimace and a blush to his cheeks. Cindy speculated on the possibility of putting in a Bunsen burner on the long counter so she could heat chemicals when it was her turn to cook.

Tim turned away. For better and for worse, nobody thought he was old enough to cook. For better, it meant that he did not have to cook. For worse, it meant he had to do the dishes more often. It also meant that nobody thought he could do anything right. He wandered off into another room, which was the size of a TV lounge. Perhaps they could use it for that. Or better still, it could be a computer room. Yes, the whole system would fit very well. Father and Cindy could work on the results of their experiments and Mother and Peter could catalog musical performances. Tim could --- he stopped in mid-thought. He could do what he felt like doing. Maybe he would program monsters in his computer game that no human had conceived before. This room, too, was funny. There were three kinds of wallpaper that did not match at all. It appeared that two different people had started to re-paper the room, starting from opposite directions, and neither had finished the job. The design in the middle was a pattern made of little brown frog-like monsters, very much to Tim’s liking. He was glad nobody had managed to cover them all up.

Tim eavesdropped on the conversation in the next room. It was the usual sort of talk he heard when the family was being introduced to somebody. His parents were telling the real estate agent that Peter was taking after his mother by going into music and might be the musician his mother wasn't. Mother's joke with the world was that since her musicianship did not meet her own standards, she decided to sit back and criticize others who did not meet them. As a result, she was one of the best-known music critics in the country. Cindy was taking after her father and was already preparing to be a biochemist. As usual, the conversation did not get as far as Tim. He was taking after nobody. He was nothing. One or two of the frog-like monsters on the wallpaper scurried up the wall. Or did they? When Tim focused his eyes on them, nothing moved.

With a shrug of the shoulders, Tim walked on into the room off the computer room. A colorful oriental rug graced the floor. Tim's eye followed the swirling design. The pattern looked like so many ornate teapots mixed with leaves on a maroon field. Then Tim saw faces in the teapots. Little hands waved at him, as if trying to tell him something. Then they were teapots again. Just in front of a light turquoise sofa, there was a coffee table with a full tea set laid out with little china cups and saucers. To the side, was one dish filled with peanuts and another dish filled with jelly beans. Next to the couch was a cane chair with a footstool made of a gray furry substance.

Tim blinked his eyes as it finally dawned on him that he had been wandering through an empty house that was waiting for a buyer. This room looked lived-in. Old books filled the shelves. The window had a stained glass pane with a picture of a dragon in it. Another pane was open, letting in a cool, pleasant breeze. From where he was standing, Tim could see nothing but a bright fog through the window.

Tim walked back to the tea set. He wasn't sure he wanted a cup of tea, but he did want to sample the peanuts and jelly beans. He did not know if he was supposed to touch anything or not. He had not been invited. Or had he? Tim sat down in the cane chair and tried to think. He had not entered this room by choice. Had the room chosen to come to him or let him in it? Was all this a daydream? If so, it was his dream and he was looking at his dream peanuts and jelly beans. That train of thought did not make perfect sense. Feeling uncertain, Tim stood up and strolled over to the window.

When he reached the window, he saw a tree branch with golden leaves swaying in the wind. The bright fog surrounded the branch, but he saw a few indistinct shadows. Tim squinted and tried to make out the shadows. He thought he could see the shape of a large tree, and the movements of children playing in it. He heard the faint sound of the children’s laughing voices. The delicate golden leaves on the branch moved in a kind of dance. Then the branch blew in and brushed against Tim's face. Tim snatched at it and caught it. When the branch moved away, a large leafy twig broke off in Tim’s hand. The wind grew a little stronger, making Tim fear he had done something wrong. But there was no way he could put the twig back on the tree. He had not plucked it off on purpose. The twig was just thick enough to be a wand. He would keep it. Maybe it was the magic wand he was looking for and it would come in handy.

Tim returned to the table with the tea set and looked at the cups and saucers and the dishes with jelly beans and peanuts. He thought so hard about whether or not it was all right for him to help himself that he reached the point where he couldn't think anymore. The arm holding the wand dropped so that the leaves touched the top of a cup. A wisp of smoke curled up from inside the cup. When the smoke cleared, the cup was filled with tea.

That settled it for Tim. He was invited to his own little tea party. He put as much sugar in the tea as there was room for, sat down in the cane chair, put his feet up on the footstool and began to sip his tea. As he drank, he munched on the peanuts and the jelly beans, but he made sure he left some of each for somebody else.

When he had finished his tea, he looked inside the cup since he had heard some people could read fortunes in tea leaves. In the leaves, he saw the face of a cat. At the far edge of the cup was a cluster of dark tea leaves that threatened the cat. Tim shrugged and put the cup down. He stared at the twig in his hand. The leaves seemed to move ever so slightly, no matter how firmly he held the twig. The wand had made tea appear in the cup. What else could it do?

Still thinking of the cat in the tea leaves, Tim touched the footstool with the wand. The footstool turned into a large gray cat with thick fur growing out in all directions. The cat slid out from under Tim's feet, jumped up on the couch and looked at him. Tim looked at the cat. His whole body was shaking. He looked about the room for a way out. There was not a door anywhere. He walked towards the wall where he thought he had come in. The cat jumped in front of him. Tim followed the cat into an empty room. Once again, he could hear the voices of the real estate agent and his father talking things over. The gray cat sniffed around the room. When it didn't seem to find what it was looking for, it looked at Tim with a piercing stare.

“What do you want to be?” the cat asked him in an old womanish voice.

“What?” asked Tim, hardly believing that a cat had spoken.

The cat did not answer. Instead, it darted into the shadow and was gone. Only then did Time realize he was back in a room that looked like it was part of an empty house for sale. Tim slid his magic wand under his shirt and sauntered into the room where the rest of the family was gathered.

“What do you think of this house?” his Father asked Tim, showing no sign he had wondered where he was.

“Huh?”

“Do you think we should buy this house?” asked his mother.

Tim sank into his thoughts for a moment and felt his wand against his chest. 

“Definitely,” he answered, startling his family with his firmness.

The four of them looked at each other with the kind of look that made Tim fear they weren’t so sure they wanted the house if the dumb member of the family wanted it. Tim shrugged his shoulders, pretending he didn’t really care about the house and walked away. The strategy worked. His parents bought the house

* * *

Moving day came and went. Peter, Cindy, and Tim experienced the sensation of walking into a strange house after school and trying to call the place home. Diane and Peter set up their music room as they had planned and the sound of the piano, the cello and the stereo flowed throughout the house at all hours. Cindy and father assembled their laboratory in the basement where they conducted endless experiments. Everybody got lost from time to time, stumbling into each other's rooms and wondering if the house rearranged itself at will.

The first night, Tim unpacked his things, and placed them in carefully stacked messes about his room. Looking at his desk, he decided he had probably set a world record for creating the fastest mountain of papers on a clear desk top. The finishing touch was to post his monster pictures. Tim’s favorite monster had a wolf’s head with lots of sharp teeth on a large gorilla-like chest, but the sharp claws of a wolf. Against an orange background, this monster was threatening a medieval knight who was attacking with a sword. Tim was in one of those moods where he thought the poster would be even better if it was one of his parents, or Cindy or Peter who were about to be devoured by the monster. Tim placed the poster so that the mirror caught its reflection at several angles. He nudged his violin case into the closet. Whatever had made his mother hope that he would become a great violinist was beyond him. Leaning against a book case was his juvenile chemistry set. He hadn’t used it since last Christmas when he got it. On his pillow was a sketch pad he had bought with his own money. He had already sketched out half a monster that might be good for his new computer game.

Tim pulled his wand out from under his shirt and examined it. Not being a scientist, he didn’t know much about biology, but he rather thought that the leaves from a broken-off branch should have shriveled away by this time. But the leaves on the wand were as fresh and golden as the day he had picked it. Tim touched the leaves gently. They were still moist. He decided he had stumbled upon a scientific secret that neither Cindy nor his father knew about.

Now it was time to find out if the wand had more secrets for him. He stood in the middle of the room, and poised his wand for action. That gesture made him feel foolish because he hadn’t figured out what he wanted to do. He thought of the tree in the window that had been surrounded by light fog—the tree that had given him the wand. He could hear the sound of Peter's cello as his brother tested the acoustics in the music room. Down the hall was the sound of his father's typewriter.

Tim waved the wand about the room aimlessly. Nothing happened. No rabbits hopped out of the closet. He waved the wand in front of the mirror and stuck his tongue out at himself. He waved the wand over his stack of school papers and the mountain rose even higher. He turned around to face the mirror again and this time, he saw a short staircase leading up to another room. A golden light shone down the stairs from the room above it. But Tim’s bed was supposed to be there. Tim turned around. He was right. His bed was where he thought it was. He looked back at the mirror, and this time he just saw his own face staring back at him and the reflection of the monster poster behind him. He looked again to make sure it was himself he saw. As far as he could tell, it was.

* * *

In the days to come, other members of the Schubert family had experiences that made them wonder if there might be something strange about the house. Cindy thought she had caught a glimpse of a face in the kitchen window she did not recognize when she looked up from peeling potatoes. Another time, she was examining cells in a microscope in the basement and she thought she saw little lizards crawling about. She lifted her head up from the microscope, blinked her eyes, and then looked again. The cells were back to normal. Peter thought he heard music from strange places in the house, or from the music room when he was sure nobody was there. One time, when he thought he heard music from the music room, he tiptoed to the door and peeked in. There was nobody there and everything was situated where it was supposed to be. The sound of music continued for a bit but faded away before long.

From time to time, Tim took a tour about the house in search of the room with the tea set. The more his father and Cindy set up shop in the basement and mother and Peter became absorbed in their music, the more Tim wanted a room that nobody else knew about. But he never found the room again. Several times he tried looking at the crack in the wall in the basement but it seemed to be just that: a crack in the wall. He stroked the crack with his magic wand, but nothing happened. Every time he wandered into the computer room, he looked out of the window that was in the spot where he could have sworn was the opening to the tea room where he had seen the tree and where the tree had given him his wand. But he saw nothing out of the computer room’s window but the ranch house next door.

“What you looking for?” Cindy asked when she caught him red-handed in the middle of a fruitless search.

“Nothing.”

“Then nothing’s what you'll find.”

Tim ignored the jibe and walked back up to his room where he worked on his sketches for the monsters who would challenge the hero in his new computer game.

One afternoon, when Cindy was working alone in the basement, the crack in the wall opened up. Hearing the creaking noise, Cindy looked up from the nerve cells in her microscope and went over to see what was there. It was dark, but after a few seconds, Cindy could make out an array of stars in sky. She did not recognize any of the constellations. Then she remembered that it was still afternoon and she hadn’t even had supper yet. As her eyes grew more used to the dark, she could make out rolling hills. Another star, close to the earth was moving her way. Then she saw it was a bright unicorn. The graceful animal galloped towards the door, its eyes growing brighter.

“It can't be!” Cindy exclaimed to herself.

The door suddenly closed to the crack in the wall it was before. Cindy returned to her work. It was hard to concentrate when she kept seeing the unicorn’s eyes in the cells she was examining.

That same afternoon, Peter entered the music room and heard the sound of an instrument similar to a harpsichord. The light was on, only he had not turned it on. He looked. There was a keyboard instrument the size of a harpsichord, but whoever was playing it was invisible. The keys pressed up and down just like a player piano. Several stringed instruments lay about the room. At first Peter thought they were viols from the Renaissance period, but when he picked one up and started to play it, the sound was different. Its range was about the same as a viola's but it had a richer tone quality.

Peter played along with the harpsichord, improvising his own melodies, pleased with what he could do with the strange instrument. Other viols and lutes joined him. Suddenly, Peter could see what could only be little brown elves playing them. Their playing rose to a frenzied climax of joy so intense Peter could stand it no longer.

“It can't be!” he cried to himself as he tried to remember where he was. The music faded and Peter found himself holding his cello case. Seeing that he was all alone in the music room, he sank into a familiar chair and pondered the dream he had just had.

The biggest advantage to Tim of everybody else in the family having a consuming interest was that the computer was often available to him when he wanted it. He played his favorite games until he had mastered them so well that he became bored with them. Then he got more serious about designing the monsters for the computer game he was working on. Since he was getting in a bit over his head, he had no problem with boredom. He just had to cope with the frustration when he couldn’t make things work. Tim found himself studying the frog-like creatures on the wallpaper and modeling some of the monsters in his game on them. He even gave three of them the names of Floozy, Goozy and Doozy. They weren’t necessarily evil monsters if you got to know them. Part of the challenge of the game was for the player to figure out which monsters to attack and which ones to make friends with.

In school, Tim had reached the point where he could not concentrate in class. Nothing new there. He paid little attention to his classmates and they paid little attention to him. Again, nothing new. His teacher wrote a note to his parents and Tim was subjected to a kind talk from his parents on the need to study more and make friends. It was the same old story as the last school. But even as his parents talked, all Tim could think of was the room that was his, if ever he could find it again.

Peter and Cindy did make a few friends at school. Frank and Diane knew that was so because Peter and Cindy talked about them and they often visited their houses. But one evening, when the two happened to be home together, they asked each other why none of their children had ever brought a friend to the house.

* * *

A couple of days later, the whole family sat round the dining room table to look at the wallpaper samples spread all over it.

“Why aren’t you looking at any of these, Tim?” his father asked him.

“I know what I want,” Tim replied, stubbornness written all over his face.

Cindy and Peter rolled their eyes.

“I thought I had gotten it through to you that the pattern with the toads on it is not available and is not an option.”

“Thank the indeterminate Universe for small favors,” said Cindy.

“Then I want the room to stay the way it is,” said Tim. “And I’ll have you know that it isn’t toads on that wallpaper; they’re frouses.”

“What are frouses?” asked Peter.

“Plural of frice,” Tim replied.

“And what is a frice,” Cindy asked.

“A frice is a little monster that looks a bit like a mouse but also a bit like a frog.”

“That’s not very grammatical,” said Diane.

“Grammar’s boring,” Tim retorted in that tone of voice that didn’t even allow his parents any room for argument.

“And what do frouses have to do with this?” asked Frank.

“I like them and I don’t want them papered over.”

“Why do you like them?” asked Peter.

“I’m putting them into my computer game. That makes them my friends.”

“We can’t live with a room with three patterns of wallpaper on it that don’t match,” said Diane.

“Yes we can,” said Tim. “It hasn’t bothered me so far and it won’t bother me next month or next year either.”

“Maybe other people in this family would rather not be saddled with your tastes,” said Frank.

Tim stood up and gave his chair a good kick.

“So much for family democracy,” he muttered as he stomped off to his room.

* * *

“TIMMY!”

Tim smiled to himself, placed another dish in the dishwasher, then answered his father’s summons to the computer room.

“Yes,” said Tim, in that voice he used when he knew he had gotten somebody’s goat. It was almost enough to make the new wallpaper in the computer room with its umbrella pattern bearable

“Did you make this wallpaper?” Frank asked as he pointing to the computer with its replica of frog-like monsters providing the background to the icons on the PC. Just as Tim had intended.

“I didn’t design the umbrellas and I didn’t put up one scrap of this horrid wallpaper.”

“I mean the computer wallpaper.”

“Oh, that,” said Tim innocently. “Don’t you like it?”

“It’s creepy, and it makes it hard to see the icons in front of it.”

“You can suppress all the frouses you want for all I care, your majesty,” said Tim as he returned to the dishwasher.

* * *

On Saturday morning, the Schubert children were working on the front lawn. Peter was raking up grass clippings and the first leaves that had fallen. Cindy was edging, and Tim was sweeping the walk behind his sister. Each time he looked down at the yellow leaves, Tim did a double take because they looked like the leaves on his wand that were still as fresh as they were the day he broke the branch off from the mysterious tree. He kept looking up at the tree, hoping to see the faces as he had seen it the day his family bought the house, but the leaves were brown, red and yellow, not golden. And no faces. Even if it had all been a dream, why couldn't he have the dream again? he asked himself.

“Ever see a unicorn?” Cindy suddenly asked her brothers.

Peter looked at her, not knowing what to say. Tim looked down at the leaves, afraid that his brother and sister would see his ears perk up as high as the tree.

“You mean you have?” asked Cindy coyly.

“No,” Peter stammered, “but . . .”

”But what?”

“I saw—you wouldn't believe me.”

“You wouldn't believe me if I said I saw a unicorn either, so we're even,” said Cindy. “So what won't I believe?”

“That—I saw a different room in the music room and . . .”

”And?”

“It had instruments a little different than any I knew and—little brown elves were playing them.”

By this time, Tim's ears were burning, but he kept his eyes riveted on the clippings and leaves he was sweeping. He still wasn’t ready to tell Peter and Cindy about the strange boy he saw in his mirror.

“I don't believe you,” said Cindy.

“Of course not, you're a scientist.”

“Who says I can't believe you because I'm a scientist?”

“Because scientists only believe what they see.”

“And what if a scientist sees a unicorn?”

“Scientists don't see unicorns because they know there aren't any.”

“Likewise, I know there isn't a music room in place of the music room I normally see, when I bother to look at it at all.”

“I guess not.”

“You mean you won't let me believe in your room and your elves as long as I'm a scientist?”

Peter and Cindy had stopped working. The only sound besides their voices was the swish of Tim's broom as he created a large pile of clippings in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I guess you can believe what you want,” said Peter. “You can believe in unicorns for all I care.”

“Thanks a heap. I suppose you don't believe in cells because you're a musician.”

“Maybe I don't.”

Tim asked himself if he should still believe in the golden tree because he saw it once, or stop believing in it because he saw it no longer.

“What am I?” Tim suddenly asked. “What do I believe in?”

Peter and Cindy both looked at him as if they had forgotten he was there.

“Why, we don't know,” said Cindy.

“And we won't as long as you never try anything,” said Peter.

“I have been trying,” said Tim, as he thought of his room. But there was no way he could explain that to anybody.

* * *

As soon as the yard work was done, Tim went straight up to his room, fetched his wand from the top drawer of his dresser and went through the house with it. He tapped the walls as if he had the power to knock them down and make a magical room appear. In the computer room, his mother was typing useless musical information into the computer. She didn’t seem to notice her younger son’s odd behavior. His father was correcting papers in front of the television in the living room. Tim figured he could have stroked his face with the wand and he still wouldn’t notice the crazy and dumb member of the family. Nowhere in the house did Tim any of Tim’s efforts bring any results.

By the time he returned to his room, he was frustrated. He couldn’t believe that Cindy and Peter would talk about unicorns and secret music rooms the way they did if they hadn’t seen what they were afraid to admit straight out that they had seen. If they can see these things, why not me? Tim asked himself. It wasn’t fair. Tim stood up and waved his wand more wildly than ever. He tapped his bed, his dresser, his mirror, the closet, his monster pictures, everything.

“Come on, Wand,” said Tim. “I know you can do it. You can make anything appear anywhere if you want it to. I know you can!”

Somebody laughed at him.

Tim swung around in a circle, looking for the culprit. Was Cindy spying on him? No. A small boy with light brown hair was standing in the mirror with sunlight reflecting off his face. A ball, almost the size of a kickball, came out of nowhere and landed in the boy's cupped hands. The boy took a step out of the mirror and threw the ball away from himself. A girl appeared just in time to catch it. With each step either child took into Tim’s room, the floor turned into grass. Tim stepped back as one child after another appeared until his whole room was a lawn under the shade of a large golden tree. Tim waved his hands at the children to get their attention. The boy who had appeared first winked at Tim, but when he caught the ball, he threw it to somebody else. Tim wormed his way in between two of the children, hoping he, too, might be included in the game.

But he wasn’t. Tim finally decided that the children were playing a game of Keep Away from him. After a while, all the children were winking at him when they caught the ball, but they never threw it his way, although a couple of times a child faked a throw in his direction. One girl even threw the ball straight over Tim’s head, but just beyond his reach and into the arms of a boy behind him. Suddenly, a loud roar filled the yard. The children screamed. A girl torpedoed the ball into Tim’s stomach and ran off. A large gorilla with the face of a wolf and the claws of a lion lumbered after the children. They fled up a small flight of steps into a house with the monster chasing after them. Tim brandished his wand and ran after the children, determined to save them. But a glass door blocked his way. As the children's cries faded, Tim found his nose pressed against his nose in the mirror of his room.

Tim gradually pulled himself back from the mirror and looked at the cloud of vapor his breath had made. Then the vapor cleared up. Tim looked about his room. Everything seemed to be in place, but not quite. The third time he made his survey, he saw what was different. The gorilla-like monster with the wolf's head was missing from the picture, leaving only the red sky background and the human assailant on the poster.

* * *

 Tim paid little attention to the conversation at the dinner table. He could only think of the monster, the children, and how it was all his fault that the monster had attacked them. Cindy and Peter were teasing their parents about whether or not it was scientific to believe in unicorns or other creatures that do not exist, even if one were to see them under experimental conditions. Diane did not let the children get her goat, but Frank was drawn into giving long boring explanations about how something had to exist before it could be seen.

“But nobody's seen an electron,” said Cindy.

“That's different,” said Frank. “We see the traces of electrons in their experimental effects.”

“So what if I see the hoof prints of a unicorn?” asked Peter.

“They would surely the prints of something else,” Frank answered.

“What if you see something once but you don’t see it again?” Tim asked. “Does that mean I should stop believing in it?”

“Remember, Tim,” said Frank, “one of the bulwarks of science is replicability. That is, only if you can verify what you see in repeatable experiments have you gotten beyond hypotheses to some real knowledge.”

“Mozart and Bartok can’t be replicated by experiments,” said Peter. “Does that mean their music doesn’t exist?”

“You’re just making fun of science,” said Cindy.

“Do you mean that if you see a monster once,” asked Tim, “but you don’t see it again, there is no monster?”

“Monsters only exist in your mind,” said Frank.

“We’ll see about that,” Tim pouted as he excused himself from the table without asking permission.

Upstairs, Tim grabbed the wand from his room and wandered down the hallway, so lost in thought that he lost track of where he was. Only when he ended up in a dark room that didn't feel like his own did he come to himself. A window was open, letting in the same warm breeze Tim had felt the first day, and a soft golden glow was framed by the window. Could this be his secret room at long last? he asked himself. If it was, it had moved from where it was before, but in this house that would be natural. Tim groped for a light switch but did not find one. The only light came from outside the window. With his wand in hand, Tim felt brave enough to explore. He had to be. Whatever door he had walked through was no longer behind him. Cautiously, he tiptoed over to the window to get a closer look. Yes! The glow was coming from the leaves on a tree and they were glowing. The branches moved about as if they were gently playing with each other. Then the voices of children playing in the tree filtered back into the room. Tim turned around. Yes! the couch and the tea table were in their places. It was hard to see the design on the carpet, but it felt like the right one. He had found the room! He had duplicated his experiment! And the children were all right! Something on the wall caught Tim’s eye. He squinted at it. It couldn’t be, but it was! The wallpaper that everybody else in his family had so callously covered over had been restored to him in the tea room! His friendly frog-like monsters were crawling up the wall the way they did when Tim first discovered the computer room. He even picked out his three favorite frouses: Floozy, Goozy and Doozy.

Then Tim heard the movement of heavy footsteps followed by the sound of heavy breathing. Something was in the room. Tim held his breath. Then he saw it: a hulking shadow engulfed the tea table and the couch. After a resounding crash, the shadow filled the window, with a silhouette against the tree's light. It was the monster! It jumped into the tree, grasped one of the branches and shook the tree, making leaves fall like rain. The children screamed. Tim ran to the window and plunged the wand at the monster.

“Do as you’re told you mean little toad!” Tim cried.

But Tim had not found the magic words to stop the monster from shaking the tree. The monster only turned its face toward Tim, growled, and showed its teeth.

“Floozy, Boozy and Doozy come and make this guy all Woozy!” Tim cried out in desperation. The three toad-like monsters jumped off the wall and hopped onto the monster's back. It bellowed and turned in Tim’s direction.

“You stand back,” Tim ordered the monster, his voice shaking. “If you don't, I'll turn you into a toad.”

The monster froze where it was and scratched its head, as if puzzled by what Tim had said. Floozy, Boozy and Doozy wrestled with each other on the monster’s back as if they had just found a new playground. The monster looked at Tim’s brandished wand uncertainly, shrugged its shoulders, then disappeared into the darkness at the other end of the room, leaving Tim alone with his wand. He surveyed the damage. The tea table had been smashed to pieces and shattered cups and saucers lay about on the rug. The teapot was dented as if it had been struck with a sledge hammer.

Tim held his breath and listened for any sound from the monster, but he heard nothing at all. The room felt totally empty. Cautiously, Tim walked back to the window, stumbling over the broken coffee table on the way. The branch the monster had shook so hard hung limply through the window, its leaves gone. With tears in his eyes, Tim walked away, back to his room. He hoped the children were okay and he wished he knew what had just happened.

* * *

Several days went by before Tim had to the nerve to try using his wand again. From time to time he would open the dresser drawer to peek at it, but memories of the footstool turning into the gray cat, the prowling monster, and the destruction of the tea room prompted him to close the drawer again. Other little treasures went into the drawer as well: his sweaters and his marbles and his computer magazines. Day after day, Tim kept looking at his blank monster poster, waiting for the picture to return, but it did not. Somewhere, the monster was on the loose, and it could be anywhere, in any universe.

On a Saturday morning, Tim was sitting in the front yard underneath the oak tree, busily doing nothing. He looked up, trying to find the faces of the illusive children in the tree, but couldn't find them. Leaves were falling off of in clusters. That was strange. It was awfully early in the Fall for leaves to be falling that hard. Not even the walnut trees had lost their leaves as yet. “But what could one expect in the front yard of such a topsy-turvy house?” Tim sighed to himself. Tired of sitting where he was, Tim picked up a handful of acorns, carried them up to his room, and put them in his top dresser drawer, next to the wand.

That night, Tim heard a scratching sound from the top dresser drawer while he was trying to sleep. He flicked on his bedside light and ran over to investigate. No sooner had Tim opened the drawer then he squealed and slammed the drawer shut. But he wasn’t quick enough. Several brown mice ran down the side of the drawer and across the floor. His father came running. When he flung open the door, the mice scurried out of the room. Tim tried to explain the matter, but his disjointed sentences explained nothing. The mice were not to be found. After his father had kissed him good night, wished him a better nightmare next time, and tucked him back into bed, Tim went back to his dresser to search out the drawer with his flashlight. There were no more mice. The acorns were gone.

Next Monday, Tim found the gray cat sitting on his bed when he came home from school. The cat seemed so self-assured that Tim saw no reason to question its existence. Even if it had once been a footstool, it looked and purred very much like a cat. Tentatively, he petted the animal. It felt like a real cat. He noticed that although the thick fur made it look large, its body had grown thin. Feeling sorry for it, Tim brought up some food scraps from the refrigerator, only to find that the cat was no longer in the room. He left the scraps on the floor. The following morning, they were gone.

The same day, Cindy spotted a brown mouse running about in the laboratory. She tried to catch it, but the little animal eluded her and soon disappeared into the dark corners of the basement. Frank was startled that night when a mouse suddenly ran right across the computer keyboard. Diane found herself competing with a mouse for the piano keys right in the middle of a Mozart sonata. Peter yelped when he opened his loose-leaf notebook and a mouse jumped out. Tim saw the gray cat chasing after one mouse or another, but she never saw it catch one.

* * *

The next afternoon, Tim was treating himself to an after school snack in the kitchen when his mother returned from her shopping. When he snooped about in the grocery bags, he spotted a box of mouse poison.

“Don't you like mice?” asked Tim.

“Not for breakfast, I don't,” his mother replied.

Tim grunted as he read the instructions and warnings on the bag.

“Mother, don't use this, you might poison the cat.”

“What cat?”

Tim's tongue tangled up when he realized what he had said.

“Are you imagining things?” asked Mother.

“I guess so,” said Tim. At that moment he felt like fetching his wand and turning his mother into a crow.

But that very evening Frank asked who had let the cat into the house. Diane looked over at Tim, but Tim said nothing. The gray cat was sitting grandly in Cindy's lap, but Cindy had not let it in. She was only making friends with it.

“I saw the cat in the computer room just after the news,” said Frank, “so I escorted it out of the house. Next thing I knew, it was back in the computer room rubbing against my legs while I was trying to work.”

“Is this the cat you were talking about?” Diane asked Tim.

“Yes.”

Frank focused his controlled wrath on Tim.

“How did it get in here?” he asked.

“Don't know. Found it in my room one day.”

“Can we keep it?” asked Cindy. “It might help catch the mice.”

Peter looked over to the animal affectionately and patted its furry head.

“If it's a boy, can we call it Sebastian?”

Frank shook his head. He knew when he was beaten. Besides, it was no big deal if other people were willing to do the work that went into taking care of the cat.

Cindy turned the cat over and gave it a quick look.

“It’s female, Peter,” she announced.”How about Sebastiana?”

* * *

A steady diet of good cat food made Sebastiana gain weight quickly. But she did not act like a mouser. Not once did she display a gruesome trophy to her adopted family. Time saw a mouse run in front of her, but Sebastiana just looked at it calmly as if she were the mouse’s adopted grandmother.

The next morning, Cindy was eating an early breakfast so she could check up on an experiment before school. The sound of Peter's cello came from the music room. Half the notes sounded sour. A brown mouse scurried across the floor toward the stove where the poison was. Sebastiana appeared out of nowhere and pounced at the mouse. The mouse scurried away and the cat gave up the chase before it had even begun.

“What kind of cat are you?” Cindy asked Sebastiana.

Sebastiana looked up at Cindy as if to ask her what kind of girl she thought she was.

* * *

Cindy was alone by the time she reached the house after school, once again, puzzled and disappointed. As had happened several times, she had walked most of the way from school with two of her new friends, and they were showing an interest in the experiments she talked about. But once again, when it came to inviting them to her house, they had an excuse for not accepting. It was enough to make her think that everybody in the neighborhood knew that something was wrong with the house. And they were right. The front lawn was covered with leaves. The oak tree was already bare. Cindy knew that made sense if it was a ginkgo tree, but not for an oak. It seemed that the house and its property were re-inventing the laws of biology.

When Cindy walked round to the back of the house, she came across something else to puzzle think about. A bush next to the back porch had been torn to shreds. Cindy went up to take a closer look at it and found large footprints all around it. They were too big to be unicorn tracks. They looked more like footprints of the abominable snowman. The only problem with that was that she did not believe in the abominable snowman.

A high-pitched screech interrupted Cindy's meditation. She flipped herself around, expecting to see a monster attacking her, but saw instead Sebastiana driving off the neighbor's tabby cat while a brown mouse hobbled away to safety. With her heart beating hard, Cindy went into the house, wishing she had seen the unicorn again. There was no question about it, the house and its property were reinventing the laws of biology.

* * *

Tim pounded the computer desk again and swore up a storm. He looked in the direction of the music room, fearful that his mother had heard him, but their was no indication she had. He re-examined the program he was writing, but still couldn’t find the problem.

“Either I’m stupid or the computer is stupid,” he concluded. “And I don’t think I’m the one who’s stupid.”

Tim drew the graphics for Floozy, Boozy and Doozy for about the fifth time. He had that part down pat. He reviewed the instructions in the booklet for creating custom-made monsters in this game. Then he tried he tried to play the game with these monsters once more. Again, the hero was walking through the enchanted woods. Again, the three creatures jumped out and surrounded the hero. But then, yet again, all three of the creatures jumped off the screen and disappeared.

* * *

“This house is crazy!” cried Peter when a pair of mice ran right across the supper table.

“Where do they all come from?” asked Frank.

“Spontaneous generation,” suggested Cindy. “The walls breed eggs and . . .”

“And rooms that don't exist,” added Peter.

“And unicorns, too,” said Cindy.

“This house does not breed mice by spontaneous generation, neither does it breed unicorns or secret rooms,” Frank insisted.

“The salesman said this was the house of our dreams,” said Diane.

“We should have asked what kind of dreams,” said Cindy.

“A fine choice you made, Tim,” said Peter. “Leave it to you to choose a weird house where The Nutcracker plays live every night.”

“You blame me for everything,” pouted Tim. “I thought I only had one vote. Same as you. What house did you vote for?”

“Kids - kids . . .” said Frank in a peacemaking gesture.

“Well, what did you like about this place, Tim?” asked Diane. “Sometimes you act like you're more scared of the house than the rest of us.”

“I'm not scared of anything,” Tim insisted.

“But—we do see strange things around here,” said Cindy. “It seems like this place is haunted.”

“It's haunted all right,” said Peter.

“Let's get one thing straight,” said Frank. “This house can't be haunted. That's final. We've been over this before. We are just letting our imaginations get the better of us. It is possible for us to see figments of our imagination or images of things we wish were there. If we want to see a unicorn or a perfect music room badly enough, we'll see them.”

“What if you want to see a monster?” asked Tim.

“I suppose that if you like monsters, you can see those, too,” said Frank.

“But what about the mice?” asked Diane. “I don’t want to see them and I don’t like seeing their droppings everywhere.”

“There is a perfectly natural explanation for existence of mice in a house such as ours.”

“But there is no perfectly natural explanation for why these mice don’t act like ordinary mice,” observed Cindy.

“Maybe these mice are projections from our psyches,” Peter suggested. “What about it Tim? Are the mice figments of your imagination?”

Tim shot up from his chair, his hands shaking.

“Who do you think I am? Some magician? Some monster?”

Tim started to run off, stomping his feet noisily on the linoleum floor.

“Tim!” called Frank.

Tim did not answer, but he stopped where he was.

“Whose turn is it to clear the table and wash the dishes tonight?”

Still no answer, but Tim, his cheeks flushed with anger began to pick up the plates with a loud clatter.

“You are supposed to wash the dishes, not break them,” said Diane.

Tim let out a loud puff of anger and then moved the plates with exaggerated quietness.

“I'm not ready for algebra yet,” said Peter. “Want to make a hash out of the Beethoven with me, Mom?”

“Sure,” said Diane. “I'll just make sure I don't write it up in the papers.”

“Or. . .” said Peter as he looked over to Tim. “We could have a three-part jam session of creative chaos. How about it, Tim?”

“No.”

“Aw come on,” said Peter. “You can just play what you want any old way without worrying what it sounds like. Just be yourself.”

“No.”

“Then be yourself,” Peter returned as he left to table for the music room.

That left Frank and Cindy at the table.

“Tim, you could join us if you like when you're through,” said Cindy.

Tim started to fill the sink with water.

“No.”

“You'll find something to do, I suppose,” said Cindy. “Even if it's playing worthless games on the computer.”

“I thought you liked Lizards and Larks,” said Tim.

“Oh, I did, Tim. Really. Maybe we can play it again this weekend.”

“Maybe.”

“Enjoy yourself once you finish the dishes,” said Father.

That left Tim alone to think about all the things he could turn his mother, father, Peter and Cindy into if he really got his wand to work. A mouse ran out from hiding. Sebastiana was not in the room to chase it. Tim dropped a morsel of food from his unfinished supper. The mouse came over and devoured it greedily. Tim dropped another bit of food. Another mouse appeared, and then another. Tim kept feeding the mice until he had nothing left for them. When the mice realized they had gotten what they were going to get, they scattered throughout the house to liven things up for everybody else.

One mouse ran right up Peter's cello when he was in the middle of his favorite theme of the Beethoven sonata.

“What happened?” asked Diane in response to Peter's outcry. “Did you suddenly think this was Schoenberg?”

“It's that atonal mouse again,” said Peter.

“For crying out loud. We may have to call in an exterminator.”

“She's already here,” remarked Peter as he heard the thump of Sebastiana's feet on the hall floor.

In the basement, Frank was explaining his diagram to Cindy.

“You see, it is the atoms with an odd number of electrons which are open to bonding with other chemicals. Maybe the chemical reactions look like magic, but actually, the rules for such reactions are governed by the strictest of mathematical principles.”

Three mice ran over the paper and Sebastiana lumbered right behind them. When the animals had gone, the paper was in shreds.

“Those mice!” growled Frank.

“And that cat never catches them,” added Cindy.

* * *

As Tim finished drying the dishes and putting them away, he meditated on all the ways he could get revenge. Maybe he could turn everybody into spiders and step on them. Maybe he could turn them all into skunks and drop them off at a movie theater. Maybe he could turn everybody into leopards with coyote heads and donate them to the zoo. When he had finished with the dishes, he went upstairs to his room, he picked up the wand from its usual hiding place and began waving it around the room as if he had the universe at his command.

“Abracadabra, abracazil. Be a candelabra, be a gazelle.”

The magic words accomplished nothing. Tim looked around, trying to think of something specific he could do. He spotted the violin case and the chemistry set.

“Abracadabra, abracagringo, don’t be a candelabra, be a flamingo,” Tim commanded the violin.

The violin obediently turned into a rust brown flamingo, ruffled its feathers, and started to fly about the room. Its shape was odd, as if it were still trying to be a violin with stubby wings. The flamingo looked back at Tim with glittering eyes and a mocking smile.

“Fly away!” Tim commanded the bird.

The flamingo flew out the door.

Tim applied his wand to his chemistry set.

“Abracadabra, abracasire! Don’t be a candelabra, be a good fire!”

Instantly the chemistry set exploded into a ball of fire. The fire floated in the room as if waiting for further instructions.

“Go away!” Tim commanded the fire,

The ball of fire floated out the door.

“Now what are you?” asked a voice that sounded like that of an old woman.

Tim whirled around and faced his bed. Sebastiana was sitting there, looking at him. Surely, she was not the one who had spoken.

“Yes, what are you now?” asked another voice, a voice filled with darkness.

Tim whirled around again. A dark figure was coming down the stairs in the mirror.

“What are you?” asked the cat with doubled urgency.

Tim waved his wand desperately at the cat, and then at the dark figure coming at him out of the mirror. When it reached the bottom stair, there was enough light for Tim to recognize the monster who had run off his poster.

“How do I know?” Tim cried. “What are you?”

Tim raised his wand in a threatening gesture at the monster. The monster raised its hand in exactly the same way. The cat screeched.

Abracadabra, abracadalabastor. When are you going to stop being a hairy monster?”

Tim waved his wand in a swirling motion. The monster waved its hands in the same swirling motion. Tim stuck his tongue out at the monster. The monster stuck out its tongue at Tim.

“You’re just an image in the mirror,” said Tim.

He turned away, his hands folded. It was time to decide what to do with his new found power. A dark furry claw grabbed Tim's hand from behind. Two hands struggled over the wand. Tim's body swelled. Next thing he knew, he was holding the wand with a furry paw. He opened his mouth and roared with a voice he didn’t know he had.

“Who are you?” asked the cat for the third time, and then it shot out of the room.

* * *

Peter cried out and played a long glissando on his cello when he saw the bird fly into the music room.

“What is this?” Diane spluttered.

Her jaw dropped when she saw the misshapen flamingo hovering over the room like a vulture. Peter lifted his bow to ward off the creature. The bird croaked out a twisted version of the Beethoven sonata Peter and his mother had been playing.

“No!” he cried, with his hands over his ears. “That's not it!” 

Those were the magic words. The warm sound of a string instrument silenced the bird. The bird perched itself on a window sill and put its stubby wings against its ears. The music room opened up to the music room Peter had seen once before. Several mice ran up and down the keys of the keyboard instrument. Strangely enough, the notes they played made sense. Other mice ran up and down the string instruments lying about the room, some plucking the strings, others stopping the strings with their little feet. Again, the music made sense. Diane and Peter stopped questioning the music and listened. They were totally into the strange music when they heard a beast roar from upstairs.

* * *

“Fire!” cried Frank.

The test tube he was holding dropped to the basement floor and shattered.

Cindy grabbed for the fire extinguisher and sprayed the flames that sprang up around them, but the chemicals had no effect on the fire. Cindy and her father shrank back. The flames floated before them, suspended in the air. Nothing in the basement was burning. Cindy began to see a face in the middle of the flames. She saw so much pain in that face that she could not help but reach out to it. She felt the fire's heat, but was not burned by it.

“Cindy, what are you doing?” cried her father.

“I don't know,” was the reply.

A finger in the fire pointed to the crack in the wall. The door opened, and there stood the unicorn, bright with life with rolling hills extending behind it into the far distance. The fire moved back as the unicorn advanced toward Cindy and her father. Cindy tentatively put out her hand. The unicorn licked it. Cindy climbed on its back.

“Get on!” she called to her father.

“Are you out of your mind?” Frank asked his daughter. “This can’t even be happening!”

Cindy gave the unicorn a hard pat on the side of its neck.

“Tell me about it,” said Cindy. “This is the second time I’ve seen this unicorn. That makes it a repeatable experiment.”

The unicorn paced about the basement floor and nickered with a high silvery sound that hardly belonged to his world. A loud outcry of a beast could be heard from the distance. Frank stiffened even more. The unicorn let out an answering bugle call.

“Either get on now or spend the rest of your life in this basement,” Cindy challenged her father.

Having no choice, Frank jumped up onto the back of the unicorn. It sauntered through the crack in the basement wall into the strange night.

“These are all new stars,” said Cindy softly.

“So I see,” said her awestricken father.

Once outside, the unicorn gathered momentum and galloped over the hills and through golden trees to the rescue.

* * *

“Tim!” Peter called up the stairs, cello bow still in his hand.

The bird flew over their heads and croaked discordantly. Peter and his mother heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming from the second floor. The thump of little paws and a streak of gray shot down the stairs. There, Sebastiana arched her back and hissed at what was coming after her.

“What’s going on in this house?” cried Diane, as if she could restore order to the universe with her authoritarian ways.

The high-pitched roar sounded again, and a furry foot showed itself at the top of the stairs. Peter and his mother remained frozen at the foot of the stairs as the monster showed more of itself with each step on the way down. Sebastiana hissed fiercely, but stood her ground.

“Holy minor scales and atonal tone rows!” Peter gasped.

“Holy let’s get ourselves out of here fast!” cried Diane.

She pulled hard on her son until he had no choice but to come with her. Sebastiana turned and fled in front of them. Diane thought she was flinging open the front door of the house, but she ended up in a room that neither she nor Peter had seen before. Sebastiana curled herself up in an easy chair as if she owned the place. Peter almost tripped over a broken tea table. Broken cups and saucers were strewn over a red oriental rug. The monster’s roar sounded again from a distance that neither Peter nor Diane could judge.

“Where are we?” asked Diane.

“Archangelo Correlli knows,” Peter replied.

The thing Peter wanted the most was a door, but there was none. The thing he wanted second most was a window. There was one, and it was open. The branch of a tree with golden leaves hung through the window.

* * *

The speeding unicorn took Cindy and her father round to the back of a large house where there was a golden tree surrounded with mist. The unicorn slowed down and stepped over to an open window by the tree. The fire hovered above them, nibbling at the nearest leaves of the tree without burning them. Cindy, understanding the hint, climbed through the window, and then helped her father in.

“Who’s there?” Peter called out, fearing an invasion of more monsters when he heard a loud rustling of the tree branch.

“Whom do you think?” was the reply as the familiar face of Cindy poked through the leaves.

Peter gave Cindy a hand with climbing through the window and then they both helped their shell-shocked father into the room. The unicorn nickered and then galloped away.

“Gosh!” Peter gasped as he got a glimpse of the animal.

Frank, Diane, Peter and Cindy looked at each other and looked about the room.

“Looks like the Mad Hatter had a tea party here,” said Cindy, uneasy with her humor.

But it was Frank who noticed something else.

“Who put up this wallpaper?” he bellowed.

All four of the Schuberts looked at the frog-like monsters papered on all four walls of the room and shook their heads.

“Looks like this room is Timmy’s joke on us,” suggested Diane.

“Frouses he called them,” said Peter.

“They are cute in a way,” added Cindy.

The monster’s roar drowned out any further speculations. Frank and Diane and Peter and Cindy became one human block as a bookcase collapsed, knocking books all over the floor. A monster with the trunk of a gorilla and the head of a wolf stomped over the books in its path and advanced on the cowering group, waving a leafy wand as it came. It kicked the broken tea table, scattering the pieces in all directions. The misshapen bird landed on the monster's shoulder and glared at the Schuberts. The fire floated in through the window and formed a halo of flames around the beast.

“Who are you?” asked the voice of the old woman.

But there was no old woman in the room. The cat was sitting on the couch, strangely unruffled by what was happening. The monster roared again. The Schuberts shrank back. All except Cindy, who stood her ground and looked straight into the frightened eyes of the monster. The wallpaper design gave her an inspiration.

“All right you frouses, do your thing!” she commanded.

Instantly, three frouses jumped off the wall and landed on the misshapen flamingo. They playfully wrestled the bird off of the monster’s shoulder and continued the match on the floor. Three more frouses jumped off another wall and landed on the ball of fire. The fire lifted itself away from the monster, carrying the frouses with it who frolicked inside the ball of fire, unharmed by the flames. Three more frouses landed on top of the monster’s head and batted each other about as if they were the Three Stooges. When the monster swiped at the frouses ineffectually, the four spectators could not help but laugh.

The monster roared once more. That wiped off the smiles from everybody’s faces. Now more sure than ever of whose eyes were staring out of the monster’s face, Cindy decided it was time to put a stop to the circus. She grabbed the cello bow out of Peter's hand and tapped the monster’s furry head.

“For crying out loud, Tim! What are you doing?”

The beast stepped back, as if stung. The frouses hopped off the monster’s head and landed on their places on the wallpaper. The bird and the ball of fire respectfully withdrew from the room. The monster’s fur began to turn into pink flesh, a shirt and a pair of pants. One pair of arms after another embraced a weeping Tim Schubert.

* * *

“It's all right now,” an old woman assured him, “Its all right. And even more shall be all right, thanks to you.”

Tim found himself on his bed, flat on his back when he woke up hearing those words. He was still shaking, but now it was with excitement rather than fear. Sunlight flooded his bedroom. That meant it was already late in the day and he’d gotten off school. Sebastiana was sitting at the foot of the bed, purring. In the dream he’d just awoken from, Tim had been climbing around the branches of the golden tree with as many children as there were leaves for play mates. Then an old woman called him down and carried him through her house, down the steps, and back to bed.

Tim placed his hands behind his head and thought some more. He still had clouded memories of his hands turning all furry while a mindless rage drove all thought out of his mind. But it had been worth it all to find himself in the hands of his parents, his sister and his brother. They told him that they had been trying to tell him all along that he did not have to be a musician or a scientist, and they really did want him to be Tim Schubert. Tim looked over at the wall. The monster was safely back on the poster, frozen in its threatening pose. The wand was on the lamp stand. Tim picked it up and examined it.

“Now do you know who you are?”

It was the voice of the old woman, but only the cat was in the room.

Tim looked at the chemistry set and his violin case. Both were back to normal.

“Yes,” Tim answered the cat.

“Are you sure?”

Tim looked about his room again.

“Well no, but—well, I'm not a monster anymore, am I?”

“Not for as long as you don't want to be.”

Tim stroked the cat's head affectionately for a while, then jumped out of bed. As he dressed himself, he looked out the window, he was startled to see the oak tree in the front yard full of golden leaves that matched his wand. That clinched it. Whoever had said everything was going to be all right had it right. When he went downstairs, Tim could hear the sound of a typewriter coming from the music room. His mother must be finishing a review. He walked into the tea room. The shards of tiny tea cups still littered the floor. Tim picked them up and carried them to the kitchen. He fixed himself some breakfast, found some glue, then worked on the teacups and saucers as he ate. When the glue did not work, he tried his wand. The pieces assembled themselves together as if they were a disciplined army. By the time his mother came in, the tea set was back together.

* * *

Peter came home from school humming a Bach sarabande. He still could hardly believe he had seen his brother turn into a monster. For that matter, he still couldn't believe a number of other things he had seen in the house since moving in. Perhaps seeing wasn't believing after all. Life in his house had gotten to be a fugue gone mad in twenty different keys. His math teacher, noticing his inattention, had berated him for having “too much Beethoven on the brain.”

Once in front of his house, Peter noticed something odd about the oak tree. Little buds were beginning to sprout new leaves; a strange thing to be happening in autumn. Just like this house to have a weird tree in the yard, Peter thought to himself as he walked into the house.

“Would you like some tea, Peter?”

It was a relief to hear Tim's voice sounding so strong. Peter braced himself and looked into the music room, where the voice had come from. The rest of his family was seated in the room of his dream, musical instruments, Tim’s wallpaper, and all. Peter poured a cup of tea from a badly dented teapot.

“Any milk or sugar?” asked Tim.

“No,” said Peter, feeling more grown up that way.

Peter took his cup and sat on a cane chair next to the tea table. Seeing a pair of dishes containing nuts and jellybeans, he helped himself. From where he sat he could see an open window and a large branch of a tree with golden leaves sticking into the room. He looked at the tree and then noticed the wand on Tim's lap.

“What is all this about?” asked Peter.

“What's all what about?” asked Tim, sounding very superior all of a sudden.

“This tree—your wand—this room?”

“Beats me,” said Tim.

“It's all in Heisenberg,” said Cindy.

“Who's he?”

“A scientist who said anything can happen anywhen,” answered Cindy.

“It is not in Heisenberg,” insisted Frank. “The principle of indeterminacy does not apply to macrocosmic reality. Trees act like trees and houses act like. . .”

Frank's voice trailed into a squeak when about half a dozen mice suddenly appeared and jumped onto the tea table, the couch and Tim's lap. Peter spilled some tea while twisting away from one. Diane jumped up, then seated herself quickly and gritted her teeth. Cindy caught one of the mice in her hands.

“Let me see it,” said Tim.

“You don't know how to hold it,” she told him.

“I don't have to hold it, I want to see it.”

Sebastiana came bounding into the tea room, her eyes darting in all directions in search of the mice.

“Now is the time for you to do your job,” Diane told her.

The mice still on the loose took refuge behind one person or another. Peter laughed when one tickled his neck. Sebastiana jumped up on the tea table and looked about so imperiously that nobody dared shoo her off. Tim, having thought of something, looked carefully into the eyes of the mouse Cindy was holding.

“Now I know,” said Tim. He picked up his wand and tapped the mouse on the head while saying, “Mousie, Mousie, wishing on a star, turn back to what you really are.”

Suddenly, Cindy found herself holding the hand of a boy, and the room filled up with jubilant children jumping about. In the middle of it all was an old woman dressed in gray. She was all smiles. The cat was gone. One child began playing the keyboard instrument, others picked up the strings, and the rest just sang. Several of the frouses jumped off the wallpaper and danced in among the children. The Schuberts, dazed beyond any further thought, took in the sight and the sounds, drank their tea, and ate the jellybeans and nuts.

When the old woman had heard enough, she clapped her hands. The music stopped. The frouses hopped back to their positions on the wallpaper.

“You may go out and play now,” she said. One of the boys leaped for the window. “Wait! There is something you must say, first.”

The boy jumped back and bowed before Tim and the rest of the family.

“Thank you very much for changing me back into a boy,” he said. “I didn't want to be a mouse any more.”

“And thank you for turning me into a mouse first,” added a girl. “Being an acorn was fun only for a little while, then it got boring. Nothing to do.”

“I'm sorry,” said Tim, “it was my fault. But that monster won't come back any more.”

“It won't?” asked a girl. “Why not?”

“Because I don't want it to come and hurt anybody ever again,” answered Tim.

“But it was such a nice monster,” said a boy.

“It just needs to learn a few manners,” said a girl.

“We could get it to give us monster-back rides next time,” added a boy.

“Then I'll let the monster come back when he's ready to behave,” promised Tim.

One by one the children thanked the Schuberts and then climbed out the window to play in the golden tree. The old woman remained behind.

“I need to thank you too,” she said, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “I really did want my children back in spite of what I might think of them from time to time.”

“You're the mother for all those?” asked Cindy.

“In a manner of speaking. But then all speaking is a manner, isn't it?”

“What happened?” asked Peter.

“Why my children turned into mice.”

“What for?” asked Cindy.

“Because a monster was chasing them and that's what Tim's wand thought they were for a little while,” the woman explained. Time, be sure not to lose your wand. You never know what else might come up. Needless to say, you have a lot of friends in your house in Sarabania who will come to your help if you ever need it.”

As she spoke, the old woman gently walked the Schuberts back into their music room.

“How can we call you?” asked Tim.

“Oh, if you need help, just dream. Simple as that.”

She smiled again and she was gone. So was the tea room.

The Schuberts looked at each other helplessly.

“There's—so much more we want to know about them,” said Cindy.

Peter stared at his wand, thinking.

“If we stick around,” he said, “maybe we’ll find out.”