Wizard of Washington Square Read Free

their bodies caused the lanterns to sway, making colorful, eerie shadows dip and dive along the wall.
    David put his hand out along the wall to guide himself. The peculiar angle and turning left all the time were making him slightly dizzy. He was right-handed and so he was feeling very off-balance. The wall was cold and slightly damp. It was covered with patches of something crinkly and velvet to the touch.
    “Moss?” thought David, and at that moment Leilah leaned forward, tugged at his shirttail, and hissed to him. David turned his head slightly, trying to keep the Wizard’s swiftly moving figure in sight.
    “How can there be moss inside Washington Square Arch?” she whispered.
    David realized that Leilah had been leaning against the wall too. It made him feel better. So he answered in a voice that sounded braver than he actually felt. “I think” he said, “that we are no longer under the Arch. Did you notice, we’ve stopped going down. It’s mostly flat now.”
    “No,” Leilah admitted. “I guess it happened too slowly.”
    “Well, it is flat now,” said David. “I think we’re under the fountain. Way under. And that might account for the dampness and the moss.”
    He had no sooner said that when they came around a final turn. The Wizard was nowhere in sight. The tunnel suddenly widened out and where it widened there were three different roads, each marked with a lantern. There was a sign on each of the branches. On the right the sign said TO THE DRAGONRY . On the left was TO THE IRT . And in the middle was a sign that said TO THE WARREN . There was also a sign pointing back the way they had come that read simply WORLD.
    “I’d rather not go to the dragonry,” said Leilah. “We might be eaten.”
    “Well, the warren sounds like a place to get lost in,” said David. “Guess we’ll have to go to the irt, though it does sound ferocious.”
    “Silly!” said Leilah with a giggle. “That’s a subway. The I-R-T.” She pronounced each letter separately. “It stands for Interboro Rapid Transit.”
    “Well, how was I to know?” said David. “I’ve only lived here a week. To the warren, then,” he said. “I’d rather get lost than eaten.”

The Wizard’s Warren
    D . DOG GAVE THREE short staccato barks and ran through David’s legs. He raced down the middle tunnel, the one marked to the warren. Just as he reached what must have been the end, a door opened and David and Leilah saw light. Bright yellow light.
    They ran quickly after D. Dog and reached the open door together. They peered in.
    “Well, and what took you so long?” the Wizard asked.
    David and Leilah stood at the entrance with their mouths wide open. Inside the doorway was another world.
    The Wizard sat in a large velvet-cushioned oak chair in front of a tremendous table. The table was as long as a large door and had nine sturdy legs, each ending in a claw. One claw clutched a wooden ball and, at odd moments, it would suddenly roll the ball to another leg. Then that claw would snatch the ball and stand very proudly on it. In this way, every few minutes, the table would take on a slightly different tilt. Each time the game began again, all the beakers and bowls and pitchers and jars on top of the table—for the table was littered with glassware and crockery—would jangle and clank. But, surprisingly, nothing was ever broken.
    The Wizard seemed unaware of the moving table and sat, with his legs crossed, on the velvet-cushioned chair.
    On the wall behind the Wizard was a large tapestry. It seemed to be woven of glistening thread. Yet it was like no painting or tapestry David had ever seen. Though he could never quite catch them moving, the figures of the tapestry were in new and different positions every time David looked. When he stared directly at the tapestry, there was absolutely no movement at all. But the minute he looked away, from the corner of his eye he seemed to see a blurred, frantic scurrying.
    “You’ll never catch