Clive Cussler Read Free

stood side by side, petting Mr. Periwinkle for the last time. "Will you come back next harvest season?" asked Casey.
    Sucop tugged at his long gray beard and smiled. "I never know where my travels will take me. Mr. Periwinkle and I simply follow a road until it ends and then take another until that one ends. Should the roads take us in a circle and we arrive back here, we'll be happy to work for you again."
    Ever Nicefolk tried to pay Sucop a little money as a bonus, but the man slipped both hands in his pocket, saying, "I can only take what we agreed upon, but thank you kindly." Then he looked down at Lacey and Casey. "Before I leave, there is something I'd like to show you in the barn."
    Sucoh Sucop, looking very mysterious, walked into the barn with the children trailing behind him and Floopy loping beside Mr. Periwinkle. Inside, he stopped in front of the locked workshop. Then he dug into his pocket, produced a key and opened the door.
    The interior was dark, but he pressed a tiny switch on the wall and the workshop was flooded with a light that shone with all the colors of the rainbow. The workshop was empty of all his paraphernalia—he had loaded all that on his cart. The walls and workbench were clean of tools except a small copper box with two levers protruding from the top. Other than the box, all the children could see was a large, square mat on the floor that shimmered under the mystical light. Sucoh Sucop took a toy out of a pocket on his overalls and placed it on the mat. It was a small hand-carved model of his cart.
    "Now watch closely," he said in a measured voice, smiling widely, "and see what you have never seen."
    Then he pressed the left lever on the box.
    Slowly, very slowly, the little toy cart glimmered and sparkled. Next came a wisp of what looked like purple smoke but was really a heavy mist. The mist swirled and whirled for nearly a minute, then began to scatter in a shower of tiny glittering stars before fading away.
    Suddenly, the toy cart seemed to grow and grow until it was as big as Sucop's real cart.
    Lacey and Casey's eyes were as wide as the dishes on Mrs. Nicefolk's dinner table. They stood rooted in astonishment before jumping up and down with excitement. Then they began to calm down and wonder if their eyes were playing tricks inside their heads.

    Reading their minds, Sucop said, "It's real. Go ahead and touch it."
    Lacey was afraid, but Casey, wanting to show his sister that he was brave, approached the cart and cautiously extended his hand until his fingers touched one of the wheels. Quickly he pulled his hand back, then reached out again and ran his hand over the staked sides.
    "It is real," he gasped. "I can feel it."
    Still not fully convinced, Casey abruptly turned and looked toward the barn door. Believing that Sucop had somehow moved his cart into the barn during the mist, he ran outside. There was the cart, still hitched to Mr. Periwinkle, with Floopy sitting next to it, his tongue dangling out one side of his jaw.
    Returning as if in a daze, Casey stared at the second cart, then looked up at Sucop and asked, "How did you do that?"
    "Enchantment," Sucop answered easily.
    "It must be a magic trick," said Lacey.
    Sucop shook his head solemnly. "No trick. I have given you both the secret of enchantment. All you have to do to make a small toy big is set it on the mat and push the left lever of the mystical box. Then you must believe with all your heart that your toy will become as real as life itself."
    "What does the right lever do?" Casey wondered, relying on his inquiring mind.
    "That one makes the object tiny again. Just watch." He touched the lever, and in a puff of purple haze, the cart became little again.
    Lacey threw her arms around Sucop—actually her arms couldn't quite reach around his waist—and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you for such a wonderful gift."
    Casey, trying to act grown up, shook Sucop's hand. "How can we ever thank you?"
    Sucop smiled. "Use the gift only