Magic Street Page 0,76

it was still full dark, he got up and jogged down the street to Skinny House. If he woke Puck that was too damn bad. Puck was immortal - waking up early one morning wouldn't kill him.

He should have known Puck would be awake, racking up a game of pool on a table that nearly filled the living room. The other furniture was stacked up along one wall, and there was more of it than could have fit in the living room even without the pool table.

"Going into the moving and storage business?" Mack asked him.

"Quiet. This is a tricky shot."

"It's the break," said Mack.

Puck looked up at him, put a finger to his lips, then let fly with a sharp stroke of the cue.

The white ball struck at only the slightest angle from dead center on the front ball. All of them took off, four of them going directly into four different pockets. And after only another rebound or two, all the others but the eight ball and the cue ball were in the pockets. And the eight ball teetered on the edge.

"You distracted me," said Puck. "Ruined my shot."

Mack snorted. "Like a three-year-old. 'Look what you made me do.' "

"I don't use magic on shots like that," said Puck.

"Bullshit," said Mack.

"Not to an exorbitant degree, anyway," said Puck. "I've had a lot of practice."

"She's in my dream and it's not like the others," said Mack. "It's not her wish."

"You mind telling me who 'she' is?"

"Yolanda White. Yo Yo. Girl on a motorcycle, lives just below the drainage basin. She gave me a ride to school a couple of weeks ago."

"Stay away from women on motorcycles," said Puck. "They're usually bad for you."

"Why do I get her dream when it's not a wish?"

"Doesn't explain why I dreamed her dream."

"Backup," said Puck.

At first Mack thought he was giving him a command, and he took a step back.

Puck rolled his eyes. "Come on, Mack, you're not stupid. I mean you're like a backup device for a computer. She's storing copies of her most important dreams in your head."

"I don't mean to repeat myself, but bullshit."

"You asked me a question, I did my best to answer."

"That wasn't your best," said Mack. "You know what happens with those cold dreams is magic, and magic is something you know about."

"I don't always know what he's doing."

"Tell me what she's doing in my dreams."

"Maybe she's not doing anything," said Puck. "Maybe she doesn't even know you're having her dreams."

Something occurred to Mack. "What do you have to do with my dreams?"

"Think of me as being an appreciative audience. Front-row seat."

"You see my dreams?"

"I see you dreaming," said Puck.

"You have anything to do with the way they sometimes come true?"

"I don't have the power to make wishes come true."

"That wasn't what I asked."

Puck sent the cue ball into the eight ball with such force that it struck the back of a corner pocket and flew straight back out, zipped across the table, and dropped into the opposite corner pocket.

"That is such crap," said Mack. "Why is that even fun, when you can make it go wherever you want?"

"I'm trying to entertain you," said Puck. He snapped his fingers, and the balls all flew up as if the pockets were spitting them out. They hit the table and rolled back into a triangle at the opposite end from where they had been before the break.

"Is it working?" Puck broke again. The balls flew around the table and, when they finally came to rest, they were back in their original order, except that the cue ball was where the eight ball had been, in the midst of the triangle, and the eight ball was now in the cue ball's position on the opposite dot.

"How long were you doing this before I got here?" asked Mack.

"None of this stuff was here until you slid into the yard a few minutes ago," said Puck. "When you're not around, I just hang on a hook in the closet like your pants."

"You're the one who makes them come true," said Mack. "The dreams, I mean."

"Am not," said Puck. "He is."

"But you... you bend them."

Puck shrugged. "Believe what you want."

"What does her dream mean? And mine?"

"Can't tell you less I know what the dreams are."

"You know all my dreams."

"I know the dreams that come from other people's wishes," said Puck. "But I don't see her dreams, nor yours either. Weren't wishes anyway, right?"

Mack knew that if he told Puck the dreams, there was