Peter Beagle - The Line Between

But she saw very little evidence of Marvyn fooling any further with time. Nor, for that matter, was he showing the interest she would have expected in turning himself

into the world's best second–grade soccer player, ratcheting up his test scores high enough to be in college by the age of eleven, or simply getting even with people (since Marvyn forgot nothing and had a hit list going back to day–care). She could almost always tell when he'd been making his bed by magic, or making the window plants grow too fast, but he seemed content to remain on that level. Angie let it go.

Once she did catch him crawling on the ceiling, like Spider–Man, but she yelled at him and he fell on the bed and threw up. And there was, of course, the time — two times, actually — when, with Mrs. Luke away, Marvyn organized all the shoes in her closet into a chorus line, and had them tapping and kicking together like the Rockettes. It was fun for Angie to watch, but she made him stop because they were her mother's shoes. What if her clothes joined in? The notion was more than she wanted to deal with.

As it was, there was already plenty to deal with just then. Besides her schoolwork, there was band practice, and Melissa's problems with her boyfriend; not to mention the endless hours spent at the dentist, correcting a slight overbite. Melissa insisted that it made her look sexy, but the suggestion had the wrong effect on Angie's mother. In any case, as far as Angie could see, all Marvyn was doing was playing with a new box of toys, like an elaborate electric train layout, or a top–of–the–line Erector set. She was even able to imagine him getting bored with magic itself after a while. Marvyn had a low threshold for boredom.

Angie was in the orchestra, as well as the band, because of a chronic shortage of woodwinds, but she liked the marching band better. You were out of doors, performing at parades and football games, part of the joyful noise, and it was always more exciting than standing up in a dark, hushed auditorium playing for people you could hardly see. «Besides," as she confided to her mother, «in marching band nobody really notices how you sound. They just want you to keep in step.»

On a bright spring afternoon, rehearsing «The Washington Post March» with the full band, Angle's clarinet abruptly went mad. No «licorice stick» now, but a stick of rapturous dynamite, it took off on flights of rowdy improvisation, doing outrageous somersaults, backflips, and cart–wheels with the melody — things that Angie knew she could never have conceived of, even if her skill had been equal to the inspiration. Her bandmates, up and down the line, were turning to stare at her, and she wanted urgently to wail, «Hey, I'm not the one, it's my stupid brother, you know I can't play like that.» But the music kept spilling out, excessive, absurd, unstoppable — unlike the march, which finally lurched to a disorderly halt. Angie had never been so embarrassed in her life.

Mr. Bishow, the bandmaster, came bumbling through the milling musicians to tell her, «Angie, that was fantastic — that was dazzling! I never knew you had such spirit, such freedom, such wit in your music!» He patted her — hugged her even, quickly and cautiously — then stepped back almost immediately and said, «Don't ever do it again.»

«Like I'd have a choice," Angie mumbled, but Mr. Bishow was already shepherding the band back into formation for «Semper Fidelis» and «High Society," which Angie fumbled her way through as always, two bars behind the rest of the woodwinds. She was slouching disconsolately off the field when Jake Petrakis, his dark–gold hair still glinting damply from swimming practice, ran over to her to say, «Hey, Angie, cool," then punched her on the shoulder, as he would have done another boy, and dashed off again to meet one of his relay–team partners. And Angie went on home, and waited for Marvyn behind the door of his room.

She seized him by the hair the moment he walked in, and he squalled, «All right, let go, all right! I thought you'd like it!»

«Like it?» Angie shook him, hard. «Like it? You evil little ogre, you almost got me kicked out of the band! What else are you lining up for me that you think I'll like ?»

«Nothing, I swear!» But he was giggling even while she was shaking him. «Okay, I was going to make you so beautiful, even Mom and Dad wouldn't recognize you, but I quit on that. Too much work.» Angie grabbed for his hair again, but Marvyn ducked. «So what I thought, maybe I really could get Jake what's–his–face to go crazy about you. There's all kinds of spells and things for that — "

«Don't you dare," Angie said. She repeated the warning calmly and quietly. «Don't. You. Dare.»

Marvyn was still giggling. «Nah, I didn't think you'd go for it. Would have been fun, though.» Suddenly he was all earnestness, staring up at his sister out of one visible eye, strangely serious, even with his nose running. He said, «It is fun, Angie. It's the most fun I've ever had.»

«Yeah, I'll bet," she said grimly. «Just leave me out of it from now on, if you've got any plans for the third grade.» She stalked into the kitchen, looking for apple juice.

Marvyn tagged after her, chattering nervously about school, soccer games, the Milady–kitten's rapid growth, and a possible romance in his angelfish tank. «I'm sorry about the band thing, I won't do it again. I just thought it'd be nice if you could play really well, just one time. Did you like the music part, anyway?»

Angie did not trust herself to answer him. She was reaching for the apple juice bottle when the top flew off by itself, bouncing straight up at her face. As she flinched back, a glass came skidding down the counter toward her. She grabbed it before it crashed into the refrigerator, then turned and screamed at Marvyn, «Damn it, Ex–Lax, you quit that! You're going to hurt somebody, trying to do every damn thing by magic!»

«You said the D–word twice!» Marvyn shouted back at her. «I'm telling Mom!» But he made no move to leave the kitchen, and after a moment a small, grubby tear came sliding down from under the eyepatch. «I'm not using magic for everything! I just use it for the boring stuff, mostly. Like the garbage, and vacuuming up, and like putting

my clothes away. And Milady's litter box, when it's my turn. That kind of stuff, okay?»

Angie studied him, marveling as always at his capacity for looking heartwrenchingly innocent. She said, «No point to it when I'm cleaning her box, right? Never mind — just stay out of my way, I've got a French midterm tomorrow.» She poured the apple juice, put it back, snatched a raisin cookie and headed for her room. But she paused in the doorway, for no reason she could ever name, except perhaps the way Marvyn had moved to follow her and then stopped himself. «What? Wipe your nose, it's gross. What's the matter now?»

«Nothing," Marvyn mumbled. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, which didn't help. He said, «Only I get scared, Angie. It's scary, doing the stuff I can do.»

«What scary? Scary how? A minute ago it was more fun than you've ever had in your life.»

«It is!» He moved closer, strangely hesitant: neither witch, nor pirate nor seraph, but an anxious, burdened small boy. «Only sometimes it's like too much fun. Sometimes, right in the middle, I think maybe I should stop, but I can't. Like one time, I was by myself, and I was just fooling around … and I sort of made this thing, which was really interesting, only it came out funny and then I couldn't unmake it for the longest time, and I was scared Mom and Dad would come home — "

Angie, grimly weighing her past French grades in her mind, reached back for another raisin cookie. «I told you before, you're going to get yourself into real trouble doing crazy stuff like that. Just quit, before something happens by magic that you can't fix by magic. You want advice, I just gave you advice. See you around.»