Wizard at Work

The wizard has big summer plans: to garden, to fish, and to nap. The only thing better would be if he had someone nice to share the days with. But the only people who show up want him to rescue yet another princess, lift the usual vile curse, confront a fearsome ghost, deal with a pack of magical hooligans, harvest a crop of golden cucumbers, and on and on. . . . A wizard's work is never done!

How It All StartsThe wizard was minding his own business-well, mostly-when the witch either put a hex on him or didn't.It happened like this: The wizard was a young man who often magically disguised himself to look like an old man because that was how people expected a wizard to look. Because he ran a school for young wizards, he spent the school year looking like an old man, for he figured he'd get little respect from his students if they guessed he was only a bit older than they. So once school was over for the year, it was a relief to take off his magical disguise and relax-sort of like taking off shoes that are too tight and fancy clothes that you've been worried about catching on something or spilling something on.After what seemed an exceptionally harsh winter and a spring that surely had taken longer than usual to arrive, he had packed the last of his students off for home. On this, the first day of summer vacation, he magically transported himself to the village of Saint Wayne the Stutterer. Saint Wayne was not one of the major saints, and the village was a small one. The wizard knew most of the people there, and most of them knew him in his true form. He needed to buy supplies for his garden, including a new hoe, and he was waiting in line at the blacksmith's shop when the witch-whom he did not know-suddenly appeared with her three children.Magically appeared. As in: One moment, not there-the next, there.Appeared directly in front of him about five seconds before the blacksmith finished with the previous customer, looked up, and asked, "Who's next?""That would be me," the witch said, stepping up to the counter.The wizard was willing to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, to believe that she had magically transported herself to where she wanted to be, and that she hadn't intentionally cut in front of him. He was even willing to let her get waited on first, for he was in no rush. He was ready for warm, leisurely days of peace and quiet.The witch's children, two boys and a girl, were poking, bumping, taunting, and teasing one another. The older boy was a bully, the younger boy was a sniveler, and the girl was a whiner. All three of the children called "Ma!" in shrill, annoying, insistent voices-as in, "Ma, he's doing it again!" and "Ma, she started it!" and "Ma, aren't you through here yet?"The witch ignored them while she explained to the blacksmith about the gate latch she wanted repaired.The wizard didn't have children of his own, but he thought that having students was almost like having children. He thought to himself, I would never let my children misbehave like this. Of course, the youngest of his students was twelve, and the oldest of these children was seven, but that was no excuse.The older boy knocked the younger boy backward so that he stepped on the wizard's toes."Careful," the wizard said, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder, for the boy gave no sign of recognizing that he wasn't, in fact, sta

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Excerpted from Wizard at Work: A Novel in Stories by Vivian Vande Velde
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