CHAPTER II
She pointed past the trees at a Parc Montsouris motor bus standing against the curb. Two fat women and a black-skirted priest were climbing aboard.
"See the Montsouris bus there?" Yes, he saw it. "Close your eyes." He obeyed. "Now open them!" With her forefinger she was slowly describing a circle in the air. "Watch that bus turn over," said the witch.
And that, as Flecker watched, is what the motor bus did. It took the air slowly like something in a slow-motion cinema, hung in the air for a moment then turned over backwards and lit again on its four wheels in the exact spot it had left.
The faces of the two fat women and the priest were turned towards them. It seemed from their expressions they were pretending they had noticed nothing unusual. They sat properly, hands folded, looking straight ahead of them.
On the sidewalk a pompous fellow in a silk hat had watched with his mouth open. Now he hurried away, saying with the tilt of his nose that he had experienced no such silly delusion, and never would!
The driver of the bus, however, did not pretend. He climbed down from his seat and, leaning against a tree, gazed at his vehicle, holding his head in his hands.
Flecker and the witch burst into wild laughter. They laughed so loudly the waiter thrust his pallid head out the door. They laughed louder to see his bewilderment. And as if their laughing did it something began to happen to the trees. A darkness lifted from them. Jewels gleamed from all their leaves. The gray pavement was washed with a golden light. Beyond the low roof of the Bal Bullier appeared the beginning of a rainbow.
"Look, the sun is out!"
The witch said yes, complacently dabbing tears of laughter from her eyes.
The sun gathered confidence. It poured a clear, warm light over everything. A red taxi-cab scampered across car tracks flinging its hind wheels in the air.
"You started to make a wish," the witch said. "I am interested because I have magic. I can grant your wish."
Flecker stared.
"There are hardly any conditions to my magic. You must wish whole-heartedly and of course you must know what sort of thing it is you are wishing for.... Do you know what you want?"
"Of course." He thought for a moment and added: "Well, I'd have to think about it. Anything?"
"Oh, yes! Money, fame, power."
"Happiness?"
"Do you know what it is?"
"Yes!"
"Then you could."
Spike was confused. His mind was not made to accept magic, but his eyes had seen it! Why should seeing something impossible that really doesn't happen be less impossible than seeing something impossible that really does happen? He did not know.
"What do I do, rub a lamp?"
"You place my ring on your left ring-finger and you go off by yourself, and when you have decided what it is you want most of all you turn it three times and say your wish aloud."
She took his hand. It was cold, her soft palm burned against it. Flecker raised his blue eyes to meet hers. Imagine feeling a movie fade out instead of seeing it. That was the sensation he had inside him. The witch's red lips were parted, her teeth were shining white.
Flecker smiled shyly. "I like you," he said.
Her pale cheeks were suddenly rosy. She covered them with her hands.