M Is for Magic

Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises...

I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge.

It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale - they are well-equipped to deal with these

I'm just going to stay here, in the darkness under the arch. I can hear you all out there, trip-trapping, trip-trapping over my bridge. Oh yes, I can hear you. But I'm not coming out.

I know,” said November. He was pale and thin lipped. He helped October out of the wooden chair. “I like your stories. Mine are always too dark.” “I don’t think so,” said October. “It’s just that your nights are longer and you aren’t as warm.

There were dozens of stones of all sizes in the small meadow. Tall stones, bigger than either of the boys, and small ones, just the right size for sitting on. There were some broken stones. The Runt knew what sort of place this was, but it did not scare him. It was a loved place.

And then there is the black cat. Who has no other name than the Black Cat and who turned up almost a month ago. We did not realize he was going to be living here at first: he looked too well fed to be a stray, too old and jaunty to have been abandoned. He looked like a small panther, and he moved like a patch of night. One day, in the summer, he was lurking about our ramshackle porch: eight or nine years old, at a guess, male, greenish-yellow of eye, very friendly, quite unperturbable. I assumed he belonged to a neighboring farmer or household. I went away for a few weeks, to finish writing a book, and when I came home he was still on our porch, living in an old cat ben one of the children had found for him. He was, however, almost unrecognizable. Patches of fur had gone, and there were deep scratches on his gray skin. The tip of one ear was chewed away. There was a gash beneath one eye, s lice gone from one lip. He looked tired and thin.

Tramps and vagabonds have marks they make on gateposts and trees and doors, letting others of their kind know a little about the people who live at the houses and farms they pass on their travels. I think cats must leave similar signs; how else to explain the cats who turn up at our door through the year, hungry and flea-ridden and abandoned?

When I was a boy, Ray Bradbury picked stories from his books of short stories he thought younger readers might like and published them as R Is for Rocket and S Is for Space. Now I was doing the same sort of thing, and I asked Ray if he'd mind if I called this book M Is for Magic. (He didn't.) M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises...

You cannot hear a poem without it changing you," she told me. "They heard it, and it colonized them. It inherited them, its rhythms becoming part of the way that they thought; its images permanently transmuting their metaphors; its verses; its outlook; its aspirations becoming their lives.

You’re playing with fire,” she warned him. “That’s how I know I’m alive,

I'm Jill Dumpty." "So your brother was Humpty Dumpty?" "And he didn't fall off that wall, Mr. Horner. He was pushed.

Non puoi ascoltare una poesia senza che questa ti trasformi" mi disse. "L'ascoltarono e li colonizzò. Divenne loro retaggio, abitò in loro, i suoi ritmi divennero parte del loro modo di pensare; le sue immagini trasmutarono in maniera permanente le loro metafore; i suoi versi, la sua apparenza, le sue aspirazioni divennero le loro vite. Nel giro di una generazione, i figli nacquero che già conoscevano quella poesia e, ben presto, non vennero più al mondo figli. Non c'era più bisogno che nascessero. C'era solo una poesia, che s'incarnava e camminava e si espandeva tra le vastità dello scibile.

Gentlemen, consider: of course the ancient Egyptians made beer cans; where else would they have kept their beer?

Nosotros escuchábamos a los Adverts y a los Jam, a los Stranglers, los Clash y los Sex Pistols. Aunque en las fiestas, la gente ponía a la ELO, o a 10cc o, incluso, a Roxy Music.

E c'era davvero qualcosa che si avvicinava dal vialetto, in direzione della casa. Lo vedevo dal binocolo, chiaro come il giorno. Era il Diavolo. Non avevo mai visto il Diavolo prima, e pur avendo scritto di lui in passato, se costretto avrei ammesso che non ci credevo affatto, se non come figura immaginaria, tragica e miltoniana. Ma la sagoma che si avvicinava dal vialetto non era il Lucifero di Milton. Era il Diavolo. Il cuore cominciò a martellarmi in petto, a battere così forte da far male. Sperai che non potesse vedermi, e di essere, in una casa al buio, protetto dai vetri delle finestre, invisibile. Nel percorrere il vialetto, la sagoma tremolava e si tramutava. Un attimo prima era scura, taurina, minotauresca, quello dopo era magra e femminea, il momento successivo ancora era lei stessa un gatto, un gatto selvatico sfregiato, enorme, grigio-verde, il volto contorto dall'odio. Ci sono dei gradini davanti alla nostra veranda, quattro scalini bianchi di legno che necessitano di una mano di vernice; sapevo che erano bianchi, pur vedendoli verdi, come tutto il resto, attraverso il binocolo. Davanti agli scalini, il Diavolo si arrestò e gridò qualcosa che non riuscii a comprendere: tre, forse quattro parole in una lingua di mugolii e ululati, che già doveva essere perduta quando Babilonia era giovane. Sebbene non comprendessi le parole, sentii i capelli rizzarmisi in testa al suono di quella voce. E poi udii, attutito dal vetro ma ancora udibile, un ringhio gutturale, di sfida. Lenta e malferma, una figura nera discese i gradini della casa, in direzione del Diavolo. In qui giorni Gatto Nero non aveva più le movenze di una pantera: incespicava e vacillava, come un marinaio da poco tornato sulla terraferma.

La prossima volta è il tuo turno con la sedia" disse Ottobre. "Lo so" mormorò Novembre. Era pallido, con labbra sottili. Aiutò Ottobre a sollevarsi dalla sedia di legno. "Mi piacciono le tue storie. Le mie sono sempre troppo tetre. "Non sono d'accordo" replicò Ottobre. "Il fatto è che le tue notti sono più lunghe. E non sei caldo come me".