Beginning

The First Summer - Part 1 

 The purple texts are orientation helpers. 

* * *  separates the blog-installments - I'm not sure this is meaningful, but there they are.

 Aunt Dina and uncle Kurt had finally finished building their new summerhouse. Last summer Susan and her little sister, Linda, had been watching, while uncle Kurt laid the first bricks for the house, not one but many times. He had tried different ways to lay the bricks in patterns and chose the best, not the one Susan liked best of course, but not the one Linda voted for either.
The summerhouse was brand new all right, but it was ever so boring. The adults found it was practical and compact. It was mostly just a big cube with glass on the side facing the water. To the right when you entered was a bathroom and Kurt and Dina's bedroom. The rest was one large room with lots of airy space and a fireplace on the wall opposite the bathroom. The garden was as boring as the house. Newly planted ornamental trees with support rods and windblown hedges bordering the plots on two sides where the neighbouring plots looked just the same. The fourth side was open, leading to a big, rolling field of some grain and behind that the cliffs and finally the beach. Last summer, they all had still slept in the small wooden shed that now had been downgraded to a garage and fortunately also to a guest rooms for the girls.
Susan and Linda were warmly welcomed by their aunt and uncle. Then they helped carry things from the car into the house. When that was done, they rushed to see if everything was as it used to be. The summerhouse was totally uninteresting, just a base for hiking trips in the area. The excitement began where the hedges and the yellowing lawn stopped. Out in the corn field that everybody was allowed to play and walk in! You could build intricate complexes in the style of beaver holes, but you could also just go for a walk, picking grains and wild flower bouquets. You could sit quietly hidden, hoping that a rabbit came by. They often raced the rabbits, but the rabbits always won. Or you could just lie on your back and look past the slowly moving ears of corn up on drifting white clouds, that created always new patterns and pictures.

At first they played in the grain field, making the almost ritual tunnel from the path down to the water. Then they ran down the path to see if the stairs leading to the water was still there. It was. Solid railroad sleepers curved down towards the shore. They ran down the sleepers loudly counting the steps 29, 30, 31, 32! Yes, they were all there. They did not go for a swim, only waded in the water, because the waves were big that day. Big enough to push over a little girl. The water was wonderful, Susan loved the big waves, it was wonderful to skip through them, and over them tumbling like a dolphin. But this pleasure had to wait.
Out at sea, a boat sailed past, loaded with strange looking people in Icelandic sweaters and with looking glasses around the neck.
"It's probably the ornithologists, aunt Dina talked about," Susan said, feeling relieved to have remembered the strange word.
"Oy," Linda replied, "why do yo always have to use all those big words. It's just a boat full of bird watchers." Susan resisted the temptation to answer that she had read it in a book somewhere, partly because it was not true, partly because she did not want to start the holiday with a quarrel.

The two sisters were very different. Susan, the eldest, had just turned 13, her hair was straight, common dull blonde and almost always tousled, the elastic bands fell out, or broke, or got lost, she almost always ended the day with both braids gathered in one hair band. She was tall, not very slim nor fat. Just plain. Unlike Linda, she loved reading books. Linda would rather sit on the back of a horse, or dress up in new clothes, or play with baby dolls. Her hair was fair and wavy, her hair bands - the fashionable ones with two balls in them - never got lost, her teeth were neat and white, and she newer had any cavities. She had many girlfriends, and they talked and giggled in her room. Right now she was only 11, This was the half of the year when Susan was two years her senior, and she was not happy with that. She was almost 6 months away from her 12th birthday.

After having reassured themselves that their large stones were still there at the water's edge where they used to, they went looking for belemnites in the rubble below the cliffs. Today, Linda was lucky and  found the first one, but a little later Susan found a petrified sea urchin half hidden in a stone. They agreed to go home again, it would soon be time for dinner. Linda and Susan raced one another on the paths back to the summerhouse.

After supper, the television was turned  on. The Olympics had just begun and the adults sat watching drinking soda and Campari and cheered on all the Danish participants, whether they were good or not. Susan took a red soda and a book went outside to sit on the terrace. She pondered the strangeness of adults in general and more specifically her parents. Why did they cheer on someone, just because he was a Dane. That swimmer was not even very good. And the stuff they were drinking! By accident, Susan had happened to drink from her mother's glass. Even diluted in lots of soda, it was awful! And to boot Mom and Dad and the others just became stupid from drinking it. Susan would remember this. She did not want to grow up and behave like that. She wanted to live alone in a small cabin near the forest, with a large, lovely garden and a wood burning stove inside. And people would only be allowed inside if they were nice. Susan sat with the book in her lap and her legs stretched out on the terrace boards. The stars began popping out in the sky, and with them the mosquitoes. She hurried into the garage and into bed.


***

- Part 2
Next morning  they had the traditional first morning in the summer house breakfast of pancakes and syrup, Linda was quick to eat, while Susan sat meticulously rolling her pancakes and licking her fingers. As soon as her plate was empty, Linda excused herself and ran off to the house near the forest. It was the living house part of an old farm, the rest had long since been torn down, and the fields had been sold in square lots to people wanting to build new summerhouses. Linda was going to see if Wilma and Beth had arrived. Susan carried her plates, and Linda's to the sink, then she took her book and found a place with shadow for the book, and sun for the rest of her. She had only just begun reading, when her mother came out and called her. She lifted her head and looked up.
"Shouldn't you go and play with Linda and the girls?" Mom asked with just a hint of irritation in her voice. Susan sighed. They just wanted to sit on hanging branches and pretend they were riding real horses, or discuss boys and clothes and horse magazines till the moon turned blue.
"Well," she said, "Linda has already left."
"She'll be back soon," Mom replied. And sure enough, they came giggling in from the street through the hole in the hedge. Susan got up and put the book back on the table in the garage.
When all the girls had reached the cornfield, Susan suggested that they went for a walk along the edge of the cliffs, down towards the old abandoned farm. Linda, Wilma and Beth agreed, but they hadn't gone far before Beth started complaining that it was too hot, and that the ears of corn were tickling her bare legs. A hare suddenly jumped up in front of them, and they ran after it as fast as they could. Of course, they did not catch up with it, but now they were almost down by the fence that separated the fields of the old farm from the rest of the island.

"My mom and dad say that strange things are happening at the old farm," Wilma said. "Strange flashes of light, are seen at night, like thunder in there, even when there are no clouds at all. And then there are some people around, but only sometime." Mother says it's probably just tramps, but my father is not sure. He says the place is haunted. They both say it is dangerous to play in there. "As if to confirm their words, they noticed a sign by the fence, right where the path ended and you could slip through. A cardboard sign read: Beware - Danger - Falling objects! in big red letters,
"What is a filing oject?" asked Beth. "Falling objects it says. That means things falling down upon your head," Susan explained.
"Well, that's what Dad warned us against," Wilma said. "Let's go home now, I don't want anything falling on my head."
"Ahr, let's take a look," Linda said. "You can only have something falling on your head if there's something above you that can fall down. And right here's only trees above us."

Linda and Susan went over to a large lilac bush and looked through the branches. The farm looked older than old. One corner of the barn was sagging, the barn door was ajar and the thatched roof was full of holes. It was hard to see clearly. On the other side of the dense leaves the air felt less transparent, kind of heavy. Wilma and Beth came over to them, and Beth pushed her way in front of them. Susan moved slightly to the left and in between the bushes to make room for her. The weird air around the farm bothered her eyes and she rubbed them while pushing a little further into the bush.
"Look!," Susan exclaimed in an astonished voice: "a unicorn!"
"A unicorn," Linda sneered, is it the white horse in there you rave about? It is a drab, old nag. Hanna from Hilly Farm would not even look at it. "Hanna from Hilly Farm was the heroine of an ever continuing story in one of the horse magazines, the three girls swallowed.
"You are right," Wilma agreed, "and ... girls, today is  Tuesday, 'The horse magazine' has come out. Let's go to the kiosk and get it?"
"Yes," Beth said, "then we can have an ice cream at the booth as well. It opened yesterday. And maybe some candy."
Susan sent her a wounded look. She didn't want to go all the way to the bridge just to watch the other girls buy horse magazines, ice and candy. She was saving all her money for a new bike. She always got used bikes, but a brand new, blue bike ... just her own. It would be wonderful. Maybe even better than a horse. The word 'horse' made her think of the white horse. Had it really been a unicorn? It had looked just like one. Susan really wished there were unicorns, fairies and trolls, and maybe even a wicked witch - just not too evil. She went back to the lilac bush and looked through the leaves. The horse - or the unicorn - was still there, but it had gone farther away and turned it's back grazing the sparse grass for sustenance, so that Susan could not see its front, only the tail.
"Maybe I don't know much about horses, like Linda and the girls, but it doesn't look like a pitiful nag," Susan thought. "At least it has a very nice tail.

***

- Part 3
Without thinking, she walked slowly past the lilac bush, beneath a huge, old weeping willow and on to the fields of the old farm. A low, buzzing sound, almost like a gnat, made Susan's ears itch, she shook her head to get rid of the sound, and it stopped. She looked up. The air had become clean and crisp and she noticed an old man sitting on a log.

Thoughts flew through Susan's head. It was probably the very kind of man her parents had always warned her against. He had long, grey hair gathered in a ponytail, his tanned, wrinkled face looked like it was carved in wood and his chin was covered with dense, white stubble. Susan looked a little closer. He was old, she could tell what with all the wrinkles and his grey-white hair. But he did not look old and tired. Susan wasn't quite sure she would be able to outrun him if he turned out to be dangerous, maybe even one of those bad men mom always warned her about. Susan was not certain she knew what a bad man looked like except for not being nice. But she always imagined someone a bit like her great uncle Tom; squarish and sweaty, who always wanted a kiss and gave her nasty sweets. The man on the log didn't look like Uncle Tom at all. Most of all he looked like a sheriff or cowboy hero from a movie. An old scar ran from his right temple down the neck and disappeared behind the collar of his blue and white striped shirt. He sat playing with a beautiful branch and hummed to himself. Susan was about to turn around and leave, when he looked up at her. His mouth and eyes smiled warmly as he got up from the tree trunk and said: "Welcome!"
The hand he extended toward Susan was great as a bear paw. It wasn't too clean, and the nails were frayed and worn, but Susan couldn't help smiling in return and extend her hand: "Good day, my name is Susan," she said, making a clumsy attempt at a curtsy. It was not really in to curtsey any more, but her grandmother had always wanted Susan to, when greeting older people.
The man smiled even broader, bowed formally and answered: "My name is Gilvi, and you'd better sit down." Gilvi pointed at the log, he had gotten up from, and they sat down. Gilvi and Susan sat for a while on the log. Gilvi was twiddling his stick between his fingers, making strange scribblings in the air.

"Who are you, Susan?" Gilvi finally asked and waited patiently for her answer.
Susan thought hard before answering: "I'm Susan. I'm 13 years old, not particularly brave or good at anything but reading. My mother says I'm a dreamer and my classmates mostly think I'm boring ..." Scared by her own honesty, she stopped.
"Do you think you are something special?" asked Gilvi.
"Something special ... No," Susan replied, shaking her head. "Different, maybe. I don't much care about new clothes, bands, make up or horses, and I like playing with boys better than giggling at them. Maybe I'm a little ... weird?"
"I have to tell you that you are more different than you think," Gilvi said meeting her enquiring gaze with a pair of steady blue eyes. "Do you remember what happened an afternoon just a few weeks before the summer holidays. Think. You were alone in an empty classroom; we don't have to talk about the reason why. And you found an old, green book on a shelf?"

"Yes," Susan whispered, "I remember. That book looked interesting, but also a little scary. It felt different ... strange when I picked it up. At first I didn't even think I could read it. It was written in Faroese or Icelandic, I think." Susan looked up at Gilvi, who nodded.
"Strange. I can't remember what it was all about. I just remember being very happy, almost overwhelmingly happy to be able to read it. I wanted to tell it to my teacher. Uh ... we had ... we were learning the other Nordic languages. First we had to read a Norwegian poem, then something in Swedish ... and one of the girls was a Swede. She teased our teacher by reading aloud better than her. Then there were some very short texts in Icelandic and Faroese. We were told we didn't have to read those. I tried anyway, but I couldn't. And now I was standing there in that classroom reading Icelandic ... But I completely forgot to tell her, I actually totally forgot all about it. Until right now. "
"Yes!" Gilvi replied in a decisive voice, "and if you had not met me or any of my friends, you might never have remembered it. It was a test. You're a witch, Susan! "
"I am a WHAT!" Susan spoke loud from sheer surprise. "I'm not an old crone with a warty nose, or something like that!"
"No, you are not," Gilvi said, almost smiling, "but do you think witches are born old, maybe?"
Susan was completely silent, Gilvi just stood waiting, watching the clouds and playing with his stick.
"And you. What are you?" Susan finally asked.
"I'm a wizard. Just look at this!" Gilvi said. He swung his stick, which Susan realized, had to be a magic wand, and then the grass around her was covered with flower buds. They grew and opened, grew, wilted, and became ripe strawberries before Susan's eyes. Gilvi bent down and picked some berries. He put some into Susan's open mouth, and she had to close it.
"Yes!" Susan said, when she had eaten the tasty berries. "You're a wizard."
"Indeed I am," replied Gilvi smiling, "and today I'm a happy one." With another twist of his wand, he made golden leaves fall around them. "But come on. The others are waiting for us. It will be a pleasant summer."

***

 - Part 4
And yes, there's a bit missing.
It is now later, very late in the afternoon the same day.
I don't know how to write out the missing scenes yet. I remember it, I see it clearly in my mind's eye, but the words turn out wrong or not at all every time I try. 
The young witch who had distributed the cards, rose and introduced herself as Martine from Norway: "Everyone with blue charts come with me and Torben. You can't overlook him," she added and smiled at the tall man, who bowed politely and joined her. Meanwhile, the yellow team had disappeared from the hall following Tahti and Taavi, and Susan had not noticed where they went. She decided to keep a better eye on Torben and the blue ones, but then Gilvi got up. His weathered face lit up, and he reached out to Thora: "We two," he said slowly, "are Gilvi and Thora from Iceland, and we will ask everyone with a green schedule to follow us. And also you, Knud, you are so far the only one with a black chart." They went to the front of the wardrobe, where six piles of T-shirts lay in neat plies,  red, yellow, green, blue, yellow, black and purple. Thora jogged her hand into the stack of green T-shirts, they hovered over the heads around them, and everyone caught a T-shirt in mid-air. Gilvi got the top black T-shirt up and flying with a single finger, and it hovered neatly over Knud.
"Gee," Gilvi said and wiped his forehead. "I have exercised more magic today than the last ten years put together."
Thora looked at him with an outgoing smile and told him it was good for him. Then the two magicians went through a small door in the side of the building, and all the green children followed them into the sunshine, Susan was amazed to see how low in the sky the sun was already. They went all the way to the fence that separated the Unicorn farm from the rest of the island. There Gilvi and Thora sat on two big tree stumps, the children settled on the fallen trees and Thora said: "Before you go home today, you must have found the material for your magic wand. Now go to the fence and find a tree or a bush that appeals to you. When you are sure it is right, put your hand on the tree and call Gilvi or me. Give yourself some time and stay on this side of the trees."
Susan and the other wizards apprentices went to the trees. "It's funny," said a short-haired boy, "it's as if all the trees are different."
"Yes," said Knud, "there are no two of the same. Imagine that there are so many different trees." They went up and down the row of trees. Susan became conscious of the fact that as she moved round the tree; only on the Farm side of course, the tree changed in appearance from a wintry look tree with bare branches to one with buds leaping out. When you were closest to the farm, the tree was in its summer suit, and further on, fruits grew on the tree, the leaves turned yellow or brown and fell off, and finally it was wintery again. Very reasonable, she thought. There were trees that were beautiful with flowers, some had wonderful fruits, and some were definitely at their best in the autumn. Other children also discovered the magic of the season, and soon they all shared the secret.
Susan took her time. She saw the other children one by one putting a hand on the trunk and calling for Gilvi or Thora. She saw Thora questioning the girl with the pigtails, shaking her head and sending her off again. Suddenly a tree caught her eyes. Here from the spring side it was like a sumptuous delicate cloud. She leaned her head a little further to the left and the flowers turned into pink buds on the bare branches. If she walked a little to the right, the petals fell into close drives around her and beautiful green leaves unfolded. She continued to the right, anxious to see which fruits the tree might have, but the leaves just turned shining yellow  and fell off without Susan noticing a single fruit. It overwhelmed Susan. All that beauty just to be beautiful. She went closer to the tree and saw the bark. Everywhere the dark brown bark was full of reddish scales that looked like little smiles. Susan smiled herself and laid her hand against the bark. Then she stood still. She could feel the song of the tree - that was the word that came into her mind. She could sense how it was to bloom so overwhelmingly. There was also a tone of sadness in the song, a longing to bear fruit. Susan wanted to give the tree a hug and tell it that it brought as much joy with its beauty as other trees with their fruit. She saw Thora passing by and gave her a sign.
"Did you hear the tree's song?" Thora asked gently. Susan just nodded, she didn't want to say anything at all and let go of the quiet music from the tree.
"Japanese cherry," Thora stated. "Pretty, but hard to make fruitful. Lovely and pliable. It's a good choice, my girl. ... Let me see ... are your parents tall?"
Susan nodded, but Thora's questioning eyes forced her to reply with words: "My father is probably as tall as Torben, almost two meters, and my mother is also tall, taller than most ladies. None of them are fat" she added hesitantly.
"Good!" Thora swung her magic wand, and a branch high up in the tree detached itself and fell straight into Susan's outstretched hand. "Bring it with you everywhere until we meet again tomorrow," Thora admonished. "And by everywhere, I mean everywhere! Even to the toilet, and into bed, and while eating. Will this be hard for you?"
Susan shook her head: "I often have sticks or stones or small animals in my pockets. The only problem is my little sister, she always wants to have what I have."
"Ahh, a completely normal little sister," Thora said smiling, "she will probably not be a problem today. She has experienced a lot."

Inside the barn they pulled their own clothes from the pegs and hung the wizard's clothes. The other three groups had also come back and it was crowded. But soon everyone was dressed. Gilvi smiled, and a clear sound like a bell made everyone silent. Then he said: "We'll meet again tomorrow. Blue and green teams meet at the straw bales out front. Yellow team in the barn. Purple team and the three red apprentices meet in the kitchen. It's down behind the little door there," he said, pointing to the right under the hayloft, from whence Tahti and Taavi had come returned with the chairs. Then he swung his magic wand over the apprentices and said: "Skiljast maul" He added some words that Susan didn't understand "Það er okkur fyrst!" But the Icelandic children understood and went with him and Thora. They walked together into the sunshine in the courtyard and disappeared.
Taavi gently called: "Ja sitten meitä!" and a few children went with him and Taahti out of the barn and disappeared between two golden straw bales.
The witch from the Carl Larsson painting said, "Vår tur." Most of the boys Susan had been together with, Helge and the smiling girls ran after her out through the small door Helge had come in through the same morning.
"Oss fra nord!" shouted the pirate clad black man and ran in front of his little flock out in the courtyard. Here they took each other's hands and disappeared into thin air.
"Og oss fra sør!" said Martine, shaking her golden hair so that the sun flashed from it. She and her little flock disappeared between the trees.
"Then we're the only ones left," Torben said. You just have to return the same way you came this morning. Do you remember? The two flower power girls nodded and went for the trees. The girl with the pig tails and her two siblings looked doubtful at each other.
"Hey," Susan said to her own surprise.  "Don't you live along the paved road, in the small yellow house? Then we can go home together." She was completely stunned at her own courage, but Torben smiled at her. "Well, you just get off, we'll meet tomorrow. It's best we don't all leave together. I'll wait here with Knud, David and Sara until you're gone."
Susan resolutely took the small girl with pigtails by the hand, she smiled up at her, and together they went to the entrance formed by a large, old willow-tree bending over a hazel bush. As they walked through the fence, Susan again felt the same buzzing feeling, she had felt as she slipped through the hole that morning.
"My name is Susan."
"Heidi," said the girl with the pig tails,
"Lis ... Tage ..." said the two big ones simultaneously. and began laughing. Susan had not been able to understand what any of them had said.
"These two ...," Heidi moaned, "they are twins, they always do everything at the same time. They are Tage and Lis."
Smiling and trampling on each other's long shadows they ran home through the green fields.

***

 - Part 5
As Thora had foreseen, Linda had had so much fun with the children from near by, farm that she talked all through the evening meal. Mom and Dad didn't have time to question  Susan how the summer school had been, they were satisfied by her "very nice!". Neither did they wonder why she was even quieter than she used to be. Linda's horse magazine also included a small gift. A small suitcase with miniature horses inside. When you opened the suitcase there was a tiny barn and a riding track inside. Linda's fingers and eyes were busy as well, and she let Susan have her stick to herself.
After dinner, the adult continued the ritual with soda, Campari and the Olympics. Linda was tired, and Mom sent her to bed early. Susan sat outside on the patio with her stick. She sat watching the setting sun bring colour to the clouds and let the fingers run up and down the stick feeling all the little smiles in the bark.
"A magic wand ..." she thought. "Maybe I can conjure up rabbits out of hats or flowers out of silk scarves just like the magician at the party." She shook her head. Magicians were cheats, everyone said so. They couldn't do magic at all. It was done with invisible strings, mirrors and dexterity. What she had seen today could not be explained away like that. She swung the stick tentatively through the air, just like she had seen the wizards do at the Unicorn Farm. She could feel the joy flowing through her, and suddenly small greenish and white sparks sprang from the end of the wand. She almost dropped it. Quietly she went to bed. She would not ruin the evening by trying more.

Next morning, Susan woke up very early. At first she could not understand why she was in such an exceptional mood. Then she remembered it all and was afraid that it had only been a dream. She closed her eyes again and saw the strange people, Torben's beautiful beard, the black man who looked like a pirate, the tow headed twins with all the friendly wrinkles. The children from all the Nordic countries, the undressing and selection. It was far too long and detailed for to be a dream.
"My wand!" she thought, and her hands groped under the quilt until her fingers closed on the slender stick, and a smile spread on her face. It was real! Linda turned over with that little grunt that usually annoyed Susan no end, but today she only smiled indulgently.
After breakfast, Susan told that there were others from the summer school who lived nearby and that she would go together with them to school today. As soon as Mom and dad nodded, she ran out of the door and found her way to the small, yellow farmhouse up the road. It was one of the few houses in the area that was not a summer house. 
Susan noticed the door rapper. It was formed a bit like a pirate's flag only with an old fashioned top hat for the scull, and two cross-laid wands below with stars sprinkled around it. She hesitantly raised it and let it fall. Shortly a friendly-looking lady with long, brown curls dressed in a sunshine yellow dress opened the door. "You must be Susan. I'm Sandra, mother of Heidi, Lis and Tage. They told us about you last night. Do come in and wait for them."
Susan thanked her and went in. It was a small, cosy home, filled with strange objects. It was not messy, just very, very full. There was a fireplace, with a small, but warm fire, and near the fire a man sat in a rocking chair with his lap full of balls of fuzzy, grey yarn. He had a long, pointed beard, Susan remembered having seen such a beard before. As the man caught sight of Susan, he moved and all the yarn balls fell on the floor. They jumped and scuttled around, and Susan realized that it was not balls of yarn at all, but baby rabbits.
"Kai at your service!" he said, bowing to Susan. He was dressed in a bottle green dressing gown with purple, flowery patterns and big, sky blue buttons.
"Kai, you're scaring the girl," Sandra warned, but Susan was too curious to be really scared. Her eyes went all over. There were quirky flower bouquets in vases, silk scarves hung out to dry on a string in front of the stove and there were at least 10 wands in a disorderly pile on the table.
"The magician from the party," Susan gasped. "But ... how. I mean ... why? uh ..." Susan fell silent.
Kai laughed quietly. "Isn't it the easiest way to hide my magic? I mean, nobody believes that stage magicians really use magic, they know it's all cheating and sleight of hand. But I'm the real thing." He laughed even louder, an infectious laugh and both Sandra and Susan laughed with him. At the same time, Lis and Tage came bumping down the stairs.
"You're late. Where's Heidi?" said Kai still smiling. Susan breathed deeply to stop the bubbling laugh, and looked up when Heidi came in from the garden.
"I dropped one of my hair bands, the ones with blue balls and it fell out of the window. Now it's gone," she complained, "Oh! Hello Susan, good to see you again."
"Mom, why can't we use magic, just a little bit. It would be so easy to find my hair band myself."
"Stop pestering me, Heidi," Sandra sighed, "I do understand how you feel, and yes, it would be great, if only to stop you bothering me. But no! And that's final."
Kai stopped his index fingers all the way into the ears with the other fingers pointing in all directions. "I'll find it. Don't you worry." He grabbed a wand from the table and went out into the garden. There was a loud bang. and when he returned inside, his face was black. He laughed again and the kids and Sandra laughed with him.
Kai looked dramatic. "It was one of the wands I use for the performances," he laughed, "Sandra, you must find it."
Sandra walked into the doorway, pulled out her magic wand and muttered a spell. Heidi's hair band sprang up from the grass and landed in Sandra's outstretched hand. She handed it to Heidi. "Here you are, honey. And now scram, you'll be late."
Heidi hurriedly wrapped the hair band around her pig tail and the four children went smartly along the path towards the Unicorn Farm.

"Are your parents real magicians?" asked Susan.
"Yes!" Tage and Lis answered simultaneously. Heidi, who had anticipated this, nodded energetically.
"Mom always boasts that they both descend from ancient wizard families. They are related to all the well-known witches in history, all the way back to Merlin and the ancient Greeks." It was Tage who replied, and Lis continued: "But Dad works as you saw as a stage magician, and Mother takes a turn at the local Supermarket when it is needed. That is not very magic."
"Isn't it great to be able to do magic?" Susan asked.
"You heard what Mom said," Lis replied, "we're not allowed to do any magic at all, even though Tage is very good at it."
"She's scared to be found out  and burned at the stake. No, I don't mean that," Tage said, "the stake, that is. She's afraid of being found out. Then something terrible will happen," she says. 
"Yes, that's how she is," Heidi said. "But I'm looking forward to the summer school. We're going to do loads of magic."


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