Free A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd Page B

fast as I could.
    “I fell asleep underneath that very window.” Oliver pointed toward the second story again. “And when I woke up the next morning, that’s when I saw the shadow” — Oliver fluttered his fingers in front of his face — “just weaving back and forth across the room. I glanced out the window and hey-yo! As sure as I live and breathe, there was a hot air balloon swooping back and forth across the sunrise. I staggered outside just in time to see it crash-land in my front yard, honest truth.”
    As Oliver spoke, my mind called up a peculiar memory.
    … the picture on my aunt Cleo’s wall.
    … the sad man beside the hot air balloon.
    “Who was in the balloon?” I whispered.
    “An old man,” Oliver said. “A very, very old man. He was a stout-looking fellow, though, despite his age. He tumbled out of the balloon basket and shook the dust out of his thick white hair, cussing up a firestorm of words until he looked at me. Then his eyes opened up wide, big as gumballs.
    “That old man put his hand over his heart and blinked at me like I might disappear. And then he said … ‘ Berry? ’
    “I said to him, ‘ Yes, sir? ’ But then I corrected myself real quick. ‘ No, sir. Berry Weatherly was my grandfather. I’m Oliver Berry Weatherly, his grandson, named in his honor. ’
    “Hey- yo ,” Oliver sighed, taking another bite of Blackberry Sunrise. “That man looked like he might fall over dead when I told him that. He kept his hand pressed against his heart when he said, ‘ What do you mean … was your grandfather? ’
    “And I told him that I’d never actually seen Berry Weatherly. He took off long before I was even born and never came back to town.”
    Oliver shook his head sadly. “Those words barely left my mouth before the balloon man started crying. I’ll never forget the big tears rolling down his face. ‘ You look so much like Berry ,’ he said to me.”
    I reached over and patted Oliver’s tattooed arm. “What’d you say back?”
    Oliver sighed. “I got feisty with him, I admit. I askedhim how the heck he knew my grandpa Berry. And where the heck he came from. And why the heck he’d crashed a balloon into my yard.
    “That old man looked me right in the eye and said, ‘ I come from everywhere now. But before that, I came from this town. I landed my balloon here because I have words worth saying. And I knew your grandfather … I know your grandfather … because he’s my brother .’ ”
    I put down the carton of Chocolate Orange Switcheroo with a thud. “So that means …” My eyebrows raised so high I thought they might float off my forehead. “That man was …”
    Oliver settled back into his chair. “You remember how I told you there’s always more to the story than what you hear? Well, this is exactly what I was talking about. Most people in this town only know the story of the Duel.”
    Oliver looked up toward the second-story window with a sad sparkle in his eyes. “They don’t know about the day Stone Weatherly came back to Midnight Gulch.”

“Oliver Weatherly!” Charlie Sue peeped back in the door. A pair of thin purple glasses were balanced on the tip of her nose. “Don’t hold this meeting too long. The weatherman says a bad storm is headed this way.”
    Oliver rolled his eyes. “Virgil Duncan is not a weatherman. He’s a meddling old farmer with a transmitter in his barn.”
    “Does it always rain here?” I asked.
    Charlie Sue nodded. “Most of the time, yes. You should get Oliver to tell you his theory about why, but not today. Y’all don’t wanna be stuck here in a storm, and Virgil says it’s going to be one of the worst of the year.”
    Storm or not, the light in Oliver’s library was fading fast. That meant that the sun was sinking on into the mountains for the night. If the sun was nearly tucked in for the night, that meant the birds were finishing up their daytime songs and that meant that the crickets were tuning up their string