The Wishing Box

(c)2011 Ian G Hobson

The young wizard yawned and stretched before pushing back the covers and climbing out of bed. He could hear a song-thrush singing outside, and the morning sunlight was so strong that he didn't need to draw back the curtains to look around his bedroom. He put on his slippers and walked over to his wardrobe which had a full length mirror attached to the door.

'What a handsome wizard you are,' he said to himself, as he looked in the mirror and then reached for the hat that sat on a chair beside the wardrobe. It was a tall black pointy hat and, as he pulled it firmly onto his head, something quite remarkable happened. Well, remarkable if you are not a wizard that is; because the blue and white pyjamas he was wearing instantly changed colour and became a bright red shirt and a pair of dark blue trousers, while his purple slippers became a pair of black leather shoes.

He admired himself in the mirror once more before checking the colour of his socks. 'Of course: red socks to match my red shirt. What a clever wizard I am. I don't know how I do it.' Which was quite true because he was very new to wizardry, having only taken it up a couple of days before.

The wizard winked at his reflection and then strode purposefully out of the room and down the stairs. He lived in a cottage on the outskirts of a small village; nothing too grand, just a two up, two down little place, with a thatched roof and a garden full of vegetables and flowers. With a click of his fingers, he drew back the living room curtains and then made his way into the kitchen where, with a few more clicks, he opened the curtains and all of the cupboards.

'Decision, decisions,' he said, as he looked at the food on the shelves: carrots and onions, apples and pears, cheese, bread, cake, jars of honey and strawberry jam, to name but a few. 'Ah, yes, I'll try some of this.' He reached for a large round pot with a lid on top and a label on the side which read: Instant Porridge.

He lifted the lid and sniffed and then sneezed loudly, as the pot was full of a powdery substance, some of which had gone straight up his nose. But, undeterred, he read the instructions printed on a label at the back of the pot, and then followed them carefully.

1.Put three large spoonfuls into a pan.
2.Add a cupful of water.
3.Put the pan over a low heat and give a good stir.

Here he had to stop and think for a moment. 'What does it mean by a low heat? A heat that's close to the floor, perhaps?' He looked over at the large iron stove, that sat against the far wall. It had lots of little doors and flaps and, as yet, he had not figured out how to use it, having only lived in the cottage for two days. He opened the big door in the middle, finding a neat pile of sticks and logs inside.

'Ah, now I see. First I have to light the fire.' He wondered if it might be as easy as opening and closing curtains and cupboard doors, and so he clicked his fingers and found that it was, as the sticks and logs immediately burst into flame. 'What next? Oh, yes.' He closed the door again, put the pan on top of the stove, and gave the contents a good stir.

It was then that he heard someone knocking loudly at his front door. 'I wonder who that can be?' he said. He went to investigate and was surprised to find a man wearing a purple uniform and a very official-looking cap.

'Is this Dragonfly Cottage?' the man asked.

'It is,' answered the young wizard.

'And are you Mister Wizard?'

'I am,' said the wizard, sounding a little unsure, but giving the man a broad smile.

'Well, in that case, I have a delivery for you.' The man walked down the garden path and out into the road, to where a horse and cart was waiting, and immediately returned with something big and box-like, wrapped in brown paper. 'Sign here,' he said, setting down the package and offering the wizard a delivery note and a pencil. The wizard signed the note and bent down to pick up the package which, though large, was not heavy.

'Cheerio!' said the postman as he walked back towards the road. But the wizard didn't wait to see him go; he was too intrigued by the unexpected delivery and, leaving the door wide open, he hurried inside, plonked himself down in the middle of the floor, and started to tear off the brown paper.

'What did the postman bring?' said a voice.

Startled, the young wizard looked up to find a little girl standing in the doorway, watching him curiously. 'Who are you?' he asked. Though he thought that the girl looked familiar.

'I'm Lilybeth, don't you remember me?

'Oh, yes,' replied the wizard, 'I do remember now. We met just the other day.'

Lilybeth came closer, to see inside the half-opened package. 'So what did the postman bring?'

'If you'll wait a minute, I'll find out.' The wizard removed the rest of the brown paper, revealing a cardboard box labelled, Wishing Box. 'How very odd,' he said, as he removed the lid and looked inside the box. 'It's empty!'

'So it is,' said Lilybeth, leaning over the box to see for herself. But then she wrinkled her nose and said, 'What's that smell?'

'Smell?' queried the wizard. 'Oh no! My breakfast!' He got to his feet and ran into the kitchen. His instant porridge had boiled over, black smoke was coming from the pan and rising toward the ceiling and the stove was so hot that he couldn't get near it. 'Oh no!’ he cried again, clicking his fingers to see if that would put out the fire, but unfortunately it didn't. 'Oh, no! I wish I'd made jam sandwiches for breakfast instead!'

Suddenly the smoke cleared, there was no pan, no spilled porridge and the stove was no longer lit; and there, on the kitchen table, was a plateful of jam sandwiches.

'How did you do that?' Lilybeth asked, looking at the empty stove and then at the jam sandwiches.

'Ah,' said the young wizard, taking a seat at the table, 'it's just something we wizards learn to do.' In truth, he didn't know how he had done it, but he was very glad that he had. 'Would you like some breakfast?' he asked.

Lilybeth shrugged her shoulders and sat down at the table. She had had breakfast at home, but she couldn't resist an offer of jam sandwiches. 'Thank you,' she said, helping herself to one of the sandwiches. 'Have you got any milk? I like milk with my breakfast.'

'I wish I had. I'm feeling quite...' The wizard stopped in mid sentence as two beakers of milk appeared on the table.

'You've done it again!' said Lilybeth. 'You only have to wish for something and it happens.' She reached for one of the beakers and drank some of the milk. 'Mm, lovely and cold.' But then she stopped drinking and exclaimed, 'It must be the box!'

'What must be?' the wizard asked through a mouthful of jam sandwich.

'The wishing box! Lets have another look.' Lilybeth leapt from her chair and ran into the living room, soon followed by the wizard. The box was still where they'd left it in the middle of the floor, and it still looked quite empty.

'But it's just an empty box,' said the Wizard.

'No it's not!' exclaimed Lilybeth. 'It's full of wishes. Invisible ones, but you can probably wish for anything you want.'

'Really?' The wizard sat in a chair, lifted his black pointy hat for a moment and scratched his head. 'But I can't think what to wish for,' he said. 'Would you like a wish instead?'

'Me?' said Lilybeth. 'But I'm not a wizard. The wishes won't work for me, will they?'

'They might,' replied the wizard.

'Well,' said Lilybeth, 'I've often wished that I could fly, so... I wish that I could fly like a bird.' And suddenly she was doing just that, because she had changed into a thrush and was flying round the room. Then she swooped down and landed on the chair arm beside the wizard. 'I didn't mean I wanted to be a bird,' she said, in a twittery sort of voice. 'But this is fun!' And with that, she took off again and flew out of the open front door.

'Wait for me!' the wizard shouted, jumping to his feet. 'I mean, I wish I was a bird too.' And, as he ran towards the door he turned into a blackbird and flew after Lilybeth, soon catching up with her as she soared over fields and the hedgerows and trees.

'Weeeeeeeee!' the thrush twittered, as she dived towards the ground and then spread her wings and flew higher again. 'I can see my house from here!'

'Look at meeeeeeeeeee!' twittered the blackbird as he made a similar manoeuvre. 'What an excellent idea: to be able to fly like a bird.' And, as the two of them soared over the village, they went higher and higher and higher until...

'Arrggghhhhhhhh!' they had both turned back into human form and were tumbling towards the ground. The wizard flapped his arms but it made no difference, he still kept falling. Lilybeth wished and wished to be a thrush again, but she still kept tumbling out of the sky. Then the wizards black pointy hat came off, and then, 'Arrggghhhhhhhh!' they landed in an enormous haystack.

'Are you all right, Mister Wizard?' asked Lilybeth, scrambling out of the hole she had made in the hay.

'Achooo!' sneezed the wizard. He had made a similar hole and some of the hay seeds had got up his nose. 'I seem to be all right,' he said. 'It's a good job we landed in this haystack.'

'Yes,' agreed Lilybeth, making her way to the edge and climbing down. 'But it's very odd. I mean, look around. This is a turnip field. I've never seen a haystack in a turnip field before.'

'I see what you mean,' said the wizard as he scrambled down the side of the haystack and then tripped over one of the turnips. 'You didn't wish for it, did you?'

'No,' Lilybeth replied. 'I just kept wishing to be a bird again. Perhaps the wishes don't last that long. Or maybe we flew too far away from the wishing box. What happened to your black pointy hat?'

'I don't know.' said the wizard, feeling the top of his head. 'I remember it coming off as we were falling, but I don't know where it went. And I feel quite strange without it.'

'Perhaps we better find it then.' Lilybeth began looking in between the turnip leaves, wrinkling her nose at the strong turnip-smell, but finding nothing. She shaded her eyes and looked out towards the edge of the field but then, as she turned back to ask the young wizard to help, she got a big surprise, because the haystack had disappeared, and in its place, sitting on top of a turnip, was the wizard's black pointy hat.

'Oh, there it is,' said the wizard, as though disappearing haystacks and reappearing hats were an everyday occurrence. He picked it up and put it back on his head. 'That's better.'

'I think that's a very special hat,' observed Lilybeth, realising that, somehow, the hat had turned into a haystack and then back into a hat again.

'I agree,' said the wizard, 'but special or not, it looks like we'll have to walk all the way back to my cottage. But that should at least give us an appetite for lunch.'

'Does that mean that I'm invited?' Lilybeth asked.

'Of course,' answered the wizard. 'And you can have whatever you wish. Just so long as it's not blackbirds baked in a pie.'

'Or turnips,' said Lilybeth with a giggle.
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Related story: The Black Pointy Hat