Read Online The Magic Touch by Jody Lynn Nye - Free Book Online Page A

boy’s intense face as he grabbed the receiver out of the cradle.
    “Hello?” Matthew said. All of his taut muscles went slack, and his shoulders drooped. “No, I’m sorry. Mom can’t come to the phone right now. I’ll take a message.” He felt around in the drawer of the telephone table and came up with a yellow crayon. He scribbled a message on the corner of a much-used paper blotter. “I got it. Good-bye.”
    “Hmmph!” Rose said brightly. “Just a false alarm. I told you it would take time.”
    Ray became more nervous as they waited. Fifteen minutes crept by. Twenty, Matthew’s clenched knuckles turned white and stayed that way. Rose broke the silence again.
    “Well, we can’t just stare at the wall. Do you play Crazy Eights, Matthew?”
    Matthew leaped up as if someone had lit a fire under his tail.
    “Yes, ma’am!” he shouted. After all, he was just an eight-year-old boy.
    “Don’t yell !Can you find us a deck of cards?” she asked.
    Matthew searched through the telephone table, then went through the drawers of a highboy and a wooden sideboard. He turned up a number of interesting oddments that he put in his pocket, but no cards.
    “I think I have a deck of cards in my room,” he said, with an apologetic glance. “I’ll get them.”
    He started out of the room, when the phone rang again. The boy windmilled in a circle and scrambled back to it.
    “Hello?” he shouted into the receiver. Ray tensed down in his seat on the couch. His fingers were crossed now. But this time the boy’s face lit up. “Hi, Dad!” Matthew said. “No, Mom’s not home.…”
    Ray and Rose waited. Ray clenched his fist on his knee. Rose took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it hard.
    “This is it,” she whispered.
    “… You are ?I mean”—Matthew lifted amazed eyes to the fairy godparents on the couch—“ how ?You said this afternoon … oh, they did? That’s terrific! Yeah, of course I want you to be there. Don’t be stupid.… I’m sorry. Yeah! Oh, wow, Dad!” He hung up the phone and turned a beaming face to Ray. “You did it! He’s coming home! His boss wants one of the other sales reps to handle the negotiations. He says Dad has to handle a more important client up here! He’s leaving for the airport in fifteen minutes! Wheeee-hooo!” Matthew danced around in a circle.
    Ray, relieved and delighted, couldn’t sit still a second longer. He joined the joyful war dance. He caught the boy up under the arms and threw him into the air. Matthew laughed, and pounded Ray on the shoulders.
    “He said he wanted to come. He felt really bad!” Matthew said, kicking loose from Ray’s grip to run over to Rose.
    “I’m—certain he did,” Rose said, giving the boy a hug. “Happy birthday, Matthew. Now we know it will be happy.”
    “Oh, thank you,” the boy said. He gave her a light hug, then went back to Ray. He stopped a pace away, looking up with a kind of awe on his face.
    “You’re really great,” he said. “You did perfect. I can’t believe this is the first time you ever made a wish come true!”
    Ray held out his hands helplessly. He couldn’t even tell the boy about the goodness and the way the magic gathered within him, and how now he shared the joy Matthew felt.
    “It was,” he said simply.
    “It all worked out so well,” Rose said. “But now, you know, we really have to go.”
    “Oh,” Matthew said, the sunshine in his eyes dimming a little. He gazed woefully at Ray. “You won’t forget me, will you?”
    “Nope,” Ray said, patting him on the shoulder. “You are my first fairy godchild, and you’ll always be important.” He drew an X on his chest with his wand. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
    Matthew grinned at him. “Come back sometime,” he said. “I want you to meet my folks. They’re really great, even if they are busy. I’m gonna have a birthday party!” he yelled. He was dancing around in a happy circle as Ray and Rose slipped away through the