Free Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager Page A

almost."
    "My sitting-down part's cold," said Martha. "It's damp, too."
    "Do icebergs always go this fast?" said Katharine. "We're passing all those others already. And I think it's getting warmer."
    "Isn't it?" said Jane. "That penguin must have sent us by special express. We must be getting up in the Temperate Zone already."
    "
I
think we're shrinking," said Martha. "Look!"
    Jane and Katharine looked. It was true. The edges of their icy float were visibly melting away before their eyes.
    "This is awful," said Jane. "We're down to half-size already. How long do you suppose we'll last?"
    Mark said nothing. He was scanning the horizon. Now he suddenly took off his coat and started waving it. "Ship ahoy!" he called.
    A ship had appeared on the horizon and was steaming swiftly toward them. Soon it was so near that the four children could see the faces of the people who lined the deck. But the faces didn't seem friendly a bit.
    "Keep away!" called the people on the ship. "How dare you run your nasty old iceberg across our course? Don't come any nearer. You'll run us down!"
    And the ship turned in craven flight and hurried away, fearful of being rammed and caved in. "Though for all the damage we could do by now," said Jane, "we might as well be a mere popsicle!"
    It was true. The iceberg had dwindled away till there was barely room for the four of them and Carrie to sit, huddled together as closely as they could huddle. The four children took off the thick coats the magic had provided in order to make more room (and because it was growing so very hot all of a sudden), and the coats sank to a watery grave as the edges of the iceberg melted away under them.
    "Darn!" said Katharine. "I liked mine lots better than my regular winter one."
    "Never mind," said Jane. "They'd probably have vanished at sundown, anyway."
    "Speaking of sun," said Mark, dashing perspiration from his forehead and beginning to take off his shirt, "this must be the tropics. It's hot!"
    "The tropics?" cried Martha in alarm. "You know what they have there, don't you? Sharks!"
    Katharine glanced ahead. She turned pale. "Don't look!" she cried; so of course everyone did.
    A curved fin was bearing down toward them. No one needed to be told whose fin it was. Martha began to cry.
    "Don't give up. Not yet," said Mark grimly. "Look over there."
    Everybody looked the other way. The tropical sun, a hot red ball, was sinking toward the blue waves. In its heat the last remnants of the iceberg were dissolving fast. The four children could hear small tinkles and crackings below them now as its underpinnings gave way, and when they looked down, they could see heaving sea through the poor final fragment that was just big enough to bear their weight. It was a race between the iceberg and the sun. The shark could afford to wait. Martha had her hands over her eyes, but she peeked between her fingers and saw the curved fin hovering nearby.
    Then the last thin ice melted, and the four children felt themselves sinking. But they didn't plunge into watery saltness, or into sharky, toothy sharpness either. For as the iceberg sank, so did the sun, and the four children landed with a thud on hard, dry flooring.
    They were sitting in a circle on the living room floor looking at a dishpan full of water.
    Their mother came into the room. "What are you doing in here?" she said. "The storm stopped ages ago. Don't you want to go swimming?"
    Mark and Martha and Jane and Katharine rose crampedly to their feet and staggered to fetch their bathing suits. And the mind of each grappled dazedly with the fact that it was still only morning after the long full day they'd already had.
    As they came out into the sunlight, a black-and-white towhee was scratching among the weeds near the porch. Thinking it was the penguin grown to handier, convenient size, Carrie hurried away after it.
    The four children paid her no heed. The lake was waiting. They ran into it.

5. The Bottle

 
    When Mr. Smith came home from