balls his mother and father hung on the Christmas tree each year (Hilly longed to hang some too, but experience had taught him - as it had his parents - that to hand a glass ball to Hilly was to issue that glass ball's death-warrant). To Hilly the world was as gorgeously perplexing as the Rubik's Cube he had gotten for his ninth birthday (the Cube was gorgeously perplexing for two weeks, anyway, and then Hilly began to solve it routinely). His attitude toward magic was thus predictable - he loved it. Magic was made for Hilly Brown. Unfortunately, Hilly Brown, like Dunstable Ramsey in Davies' Deptford Trilogy, was not made for magic.
On the occasion of Hilly's tenth birthday, Bryant Brown had to stop at the Derry Mall to pick another present up for his son. Marie had called him on his coffee break. 'My dad forgot to get Hilly anything, Bryant. He wanted to know if you'd stop at the Mall and buy him a toy or something. He'll pay you when his check comes in.'
'Sure,' Bryant said, thinking: And pigs will ride broomsticks.
'Thanks, honey,' she said gratefully. She knew perfectly well that her father - who now took dinner with them six and seven nights a week instead of the previous five -was the sandpaper on her husband's soul. But he had never complained, and for this Marie loved him dearly.
'What did he think Hilly might like?'
'He said he'd trust your judgment,' she said.
Typical, Bryant thought. So he had found himself in one of the Mall's two toy-stores that afternoon, looking at games, dolls (the dolls for boys going under the euphemism 'action-figures'), models, and kits (Bryant saw a large chemistry set, thought of Hilly mixing things up in test-tubes, and shuddered). Nothing seemed quite right; at ten his eldest son had reached an age when he was too old for baby-toys and too young for such sophisticated items as box kites or gas-powered model planes. Nothing seemed quite right, and he was pressed for time. Hilly's birthday party was scheduled for five, and it was a quarter past four now. That barely left him time to get home.
He grabbed the magic set almost at random. Thirty New Tricks!, the box said. Good. Hours of Fun for the Young Prestidigitator!, the box said. Also good. Ages 8-12, the box said. Fine. Safety- Tested for the Young Conjurer, the box said, and that was best of all. Bryant bought it and smuggled it
the house under his jacket while Ev Hillman was leading Hilly, David, and three of Hilly's friends in a rousing off-key chorus of 'Sweet Betsy from Pike.'
'You're just in time for birthday cake,' Marie said, kissing him.
'Wrap this first, will you?' He handed her the magic kit. She gave it a quick glance and nodded. 'How's it going?'
'Fine,' she said. 'When it was Hilly's turn to pin the tail on the donkey, he tripped on a table leg and stuck the pin into Stanley Jernigan's arm, but that's all so far.'
Bryant cheered up at once. Things really were going well. The year before, while wriggling into Hilly's 'neatest all-time hiding place' during a game of hide-and-go-seek, Eddie Golden had torn his leg open on a strand of rusty barbed wire Hilly had always managed to miss (Hilly had, in fact, never even seen that old piece of sticker-wire at all). Eddie had to go to the doctor, who treated him to three stitches and a tetanus shot. Poor Eddie had had a bad reaction to the shot and had spent the two days following Hilly's ninth birthday in the hospital.
Now Marie smiled and kissed Bryant again. 'Dad thanks you,' she said. 'And so do L'
Hilly opened all his presents with pleasure, but when he opened the magic set, he was transported with joy. He rushed to his grandfather (who had by that time managed to wolf down half of Hilly's chocolate devil's food birthday cake and was even then cutting himself another slice) and hugged him fiercely.
'Thanks, Grampy! Thanks! Just what I wanted! How did you know?'
Ev Hillman smiled warmly at his grandson. 'I guess I ain't forgot everythin' about being a boy,' he said.
'It's boss, Grampy! Wow! Look. Stanley! Thirty-four tricks! Look, Barney - '
Whirling to show Barney Applegate, he whacked the corner of the box into Marie's coffee-cup, breaking it. Coffee sprayed and scalded Barney's arm. Barney screamed.
'Sorry, Barney,' Hilly said, still dancing. His eyes were so bright they seemed almost afire. 'But look! Neat-o,