“What did you say, Mother?” Muffs asked.
“I said he was different,” her mother replied quickly. “Watch, darling! He’s doing this for us.”
Muffs wondered why her mother said that. But there wasn’t much time to wonder. The Bramble Bush Man was chanting something and waving his wand over Mary. There was that same flash of light and then—Boom!
“She’s gone!” cried Muffs but nobody heard her because at the same time exclamations of surprise went up from everyone else in the audience. The table top was empty. The magician had done what he said he would do. He had made a girl vanish right there on the stage.
“That’s magic,” he said, beaming. “But it wouldn’t be real magic if I couldn’t bring the girl back again. Have you ever heard of Mistress Mary Quite Contrary? Would you like to see how her garden grows?”
The clapping below the stage showed that everybody did want to see it so the Bramble Bush Man, still holding his wand, walked over to the edge of the platform where the large vase that Muffs thought she had broken stood on its stand.
“We have to say a few magic words first,” he explained, “and then wave the wand and presto! Up comes a rose bush. Why, hello, Mary! There you are. I thought you disappeared a while ago.”
Right out of the vase, if it wasn’t some strange dream, grew first the rose bush and then Mary herself smiling through the parted branches.
“They’re real roses too,” declared the magician, “not wooden like the egg. Here they are! Catch this one! And this one!”
He and Mary were throwing all the roses out to the children who were watching. Muffs’ mother caught one but instead of giving it to Muffs she kissed it and put it away in her purse.