Free The Misadventures of the Magician's Dog by Frances Sackett Page B

was ten feet above his house. It was easier than swimming,he thought, in the sense that small motions moved you farther. He looked down with wonder at his gray gravel roof, marked by veins of black tar. He was flying! Really flying! The anger that filled him in no way diminished his amazement that he was staring at his house from above.
    â€œNow you’re getting it,” said The Dog, flying up beside him. “Next try going forward and not just up. The key is to learn to control your speed and direction at the same time.”
    Peter couldn’t help himself: every time The Dog spoke, he wanted to smash him with the electricity that still tingled through him, sending that furry body whirling across time and space. It was such a strong impulse that it was all Peter could do to keep from acting on it. “I can figure this out by myself,” he grunted instead.
    The Dog sighed and obediently moved away.
    For the next twenty minutes, Peter practiced his kicks and strokes and dives. It was trickier than he had initially thought: if you pushed too hard in one direction (say, toward a cactus or a chimney), it was almost impossible to stop in midair or turn around. Flying wasn’t like running on the ground, where you had some traction to work with. In the air there was no resistance, so Peter had to figure out how to make corrections in his flight path by changing the way he curved his body or moved his arms.
    â€œThere, is that good enough?” Peter demanded after maybe twenty minutes of tumbling into trees and slamming into the ground. His whole body felt sore, and they still were no more than a block from his house.
    â€œIt’ll do,” grunted The Dog, who had been silently watching the whole time, only commenting when a car drove near or Peter got too close to a window.
    â€œWell, let’s get it over with, then,” said Peter. Irritation had taken the place of his earlier dread; what could some old man stupid enough to turn himself into a rock do to someone as powerful as Peter, anyway?
    The Dog gave him the strangest look; if Peter had had to describe it, he would have said it was pitying, but that didn’t make sense. Not at this moment, when for perhaps the first time in his life, Peter felt not the least bit pitiable. “Whatever you say,” said The Dog, taking off into the night sky, and then he was out of earshot, a streak of dirty fur racing through the stars.
    From then on, no matter how fast Peter flew or how much he dawdled, that plumy tail always seemed to be exactly at the edge of his sight, no closer and no farther away than before. This suited Peter perfectly. Away from The Dog’s annoying presence, Peter started to actually enjoy himself. It was like flying with his father in the Cessna, but better. Peter dove down to let his fingers skim the top of a palo verde; then swooped up, up, up, until he was shaking with cold and the air was so thin it was hard to breathe. What he liked best was the feeling of the wind wrapping itself around his body. If he moved his arms and legs correctly, he could travel amazingly fast, and the air responded by curling around him, almost as if it were racing him, or better yet, racing with him, his partner as he flew through the night.
    In the blackness beneath him, swimming pools glinted like gems, and rooftops hid houses as though they weresecrets. It was hard not to feel superior to all those people huddled so helplessly below. Theirs was the world of interiors, of small rooms lit by even smaller lights. Peter’s was the boundless world of the night sky. He owned it all: the stars, the wind, the desert below and the planets above. He could hold out his hand, he thought, and encompass the hopes and dreams of the whole universe.
    He let himself dwell on that idea for a while as he flew, following The Dog’s tail. It was a satisfyingly powerful thought.
    And then something strange happened. Peter was flying along, thinking