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Authors: Jon Scieszka

Knights of the Kitchen Table (5 page)

BOOK: Knights of the Kitchen Table
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“Oh, magic book, shmagic book,” said Fred. “I barely touched your stupid book. And don’t tell me we got here by magic. That only happens in dorky books.”
Sam looked around again. The stableboys looked around with him. “But if we did get here by magic... wouldn’t we get back home the same way?”
“Exactly,” I said. “So all we have to do is find someone who knows magic.”
We looked at the guys sitting around us. None looked particularly magical.
“Ah, forget that magic jazz,” said Fred. “King Arthur said he’d make us Knights of the Round Table tonight. Let’s do something useful while the sun is still up. Joe—you pitch. I’ll hit. And tomorrow we’ll explain how TV works.”
Sam rolled his eyes.
I walked out to the mound. Birds tweeted. The sun shone warmly. It was nice in Camelot, but Fred was right. We had to get out of the Middle Ages before we went 20th-century crazy.
Sam crouched behind the plate. “Hum it, Joe.”
I wound up and fired my best fastball down the middle. Fred swung his oak bat and crushed it. The leather ball cleared the wall, still rising.
“Going, going ...”
And then it disappeared through one of the tinv windows in the dark tower. We heard the crash of breaking glass. Three quick explosions rocked the tower. Red, blue, and yellow flames spit out the tower windows. The flames circled the tower, formed a cloud, and rained purple snakes, , white stars, red dragons, and a hundred different weird and glowing shapes that dissolved as they hit the ground.
“Magic,” gasped Sam.
“Who dares disturb my work?” boomed a voice that filled the air.
“Merlin,” gasped the stableboys. And they were gone.
“Omnia uber sub ubi,”
boomed the voice again. “Show yourselves, demons of destruction, and feel the wrath of Merlin.”
The freaky cloud began to disappear.
Fred, Sam, and I looked at each other. We knew instantly what we had to do.
We ran.
NINE
Fred, Sam, and I knelt before King Arthur in the Great Hall. He couldn’t get us home. So he figured the least he could do was make us Knights of the Round Table.
King Arthur tapped each of us on the shoulders with the flat of his sword, Excalibur. Queen Guenevere and the knights looked on.
“I hereby dub thee Knights of the Round Table. Rise, Sir Fred the Awesome. Rise, Sir Sam the Unusual. Rise, Sir Joe the Magnificent.”
The assembled knights raised their swords and cheered.
“Bring our newest knights their armor.”
Three squires staggered forward, loaded with swords, shields, and a coat of mail for each of us.
Fred’s eyes lit up. “Armor! Swords! This Middle Ages stuff might be okay after all.”
Then Merlin appeared. He was wearing his robe, whispering in King Arthur’s ear, and holding our leather baseball.
“We’re sunk now,” said Sam.
“He’s history,” said Fred. “If he even comes near us I’ll run him through with my new sword.”
“Don’t say anything,” I said. “Pretend you never heard of baseball.”
King Arthur nodded. Merlin shuffled up and looked us over with those piercing green eyes once more.
“Ere since you enchanters arrived,” he said, “I couldn’t but think you were of a time or place I had not seen before.”
“Nope. We never heard of baseball before, either,” said Fred.
Sam groaned. “You dimwit. Why don’t you just throw us in the dungeon yourself?”
“Shut up for a minute, you guys. Let Mr. Merlin talk. He was... or is one of the greatest magicians who ever lived.”
Merlin bowed his thanks to me and continued.
“When this leathern sphere magically appeared to me this afternoon, I remembered. This sphere appears in a very old and very strange book. Even I know not whence this book came. Perhaps you know something of its secret.”
And with that, Merlin produced from his robe a thin blue book; a book such a dark, dark blue that it looked black, like the sky at night. It had gold stars and moons along the back edge, and twisting silver designs on the front and back that looked like writing from a long time ago.
Before any of us could say a word, Merlin opened the book to a picture of three guys sitting around a kitchen table, looking at a baseball.
A familiar pale green mist began to swirl around the feet of Merlin, King Arthur, and Queen Guenevere.
Everyone
oohed
and
ahhed,
thinking it was another magic trick.
Merlin smiled.
The mist rose, covering all.
TEN
“... and Joseph Arthur, you can just march right outside with that smoke bomb and smoke yourself silly with these stupid magic tricks because I have had enough. Do you hear me?”
The mist slowly melted.
We were sitting back at the kitchen table as if we had never left.
Mom scooped up an armful of wrapping paper and stormed out of the room muttering, “Joe the Magnificent, my foot. Hmmph. Joe the Brainless is more like it. Joe the Totally Irresponsible. A fog machine disguised as a book. Why, there ought to be a law. What kind of gift is that to give to a young boy?...”
Neither Fred nor Sam nor I moved a muscle.
No one made a sound until I said, “Merlin?”
“Black Knight,” answered Fred.
“Bleob and Smaug,” said Sam.
The three of us looked at each other. We looked at the book in my hand, the baseball on the table, then back at each other.
Fred shook his head. “No way. That stuff couldn’t be for real.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Sam, wiping the last of the mist off his glasses.
I wasn’t so sure myself.
Then I put my hand in my pocket. I felt something and pulled it out. It was a card, a card from an old deck with all sorts of crazy pictures in it.
I held it up.
“Queen Guenevere’s Magician card,” said Sam.
“Joe, promise us you’re not going to wish for anything again,” said Fred.
I looked carefully at the twisted silver designs and the pattern of the gold stars and moons on the night blue book. For a split second it seemed like I could read what they said.
“I won‘t,” I promised. “Well, at least not until I’ve read
The Book.”
BOOK: Knights of the Kitchen Table
13.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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