John Kuhn

September 24^th, last year

         "What is that, Ally?" her dad asked, looking up while shaking a crease out of his newspaper.

         "It's my diary," the strawberry-headed six-year-old replied.

         Her dad looked puzzled. "Where did you get it?"

         "The white-haired lady gave it to me."

         "What white-haired lady?" The little girl didn't notice the faint lines of worry that crept across her father's forehead, worry about strange people giving his daughter strange gifts.

         "The white-haired lady that lives in our walls."

         "Oh," he sighed, and she didn't notice the expression of relief that shook the wrinkles out of her father's face.

         "You have some imagination," he said, running a clumsy hand through the tangle of red hair that dripped onto her shoulders.

         "Will you help me write in it?" she asked, a practiced earnestness in her words, one that often got her father to do what she wanted. He noticed a stubby pencil in her left hand.

         He put down his paper.

         "Sure, Sweetie."

         He took the pencil and the diary from his daughter and opened the latter. He wrote her name on the inside of the cover, and then turned to the first page. It was blank. He wondered where she'd really found the diary.

         At the top of the first page, he wrote, "Sept. 24^th."

         "What is today?" she asked, studying his work.

         He pointed to the date he'd written. "It's September the twenty-fourth," he told her, and she seized the pencil from his grip, flipped it upside down and erased the number.

         "What are you doing?" her father protested.

         "You're supposed to write tomorrow," she said.

         "What?"

         "Tomorrow. Tomorrow's number. You're supposed to write tomorrow's number."

         "You mean tomorrow's date?"

         "Yes." She blew the erasure debris away and thrust the pencil back into his hand. He attempted to explain to her how one keeps a diary. He explained that you should write today's date because what you record in a diary is what happened to you today.

         "No, no, silly," she interrupted. "This is a magic diary. The white-haired lady told me to write about tomorrow. To write what I want to happen tomorrow." She emphasized the word "tomorrow" as though her father was hard of hearing, or slow-witted, or both.

         "Oh," was all he could say.

         He thought for a moment about how often children make things far more fascinating than they were meant to be.

         "Okay," he said finally, and he wrote, "Sept. 25^th."

         "What do you want me to write?"

         "Write that I ate ice cream tomorrow."

         He wrote.

         "Now, read it to me," she instructed.

         "I will eat ice cream," he read.

         "No, silly. It needs to say, 'I ate ice cream.'"

         "But it hasn't happened yet."

         "Dad!" She rolled her green eyes as though she'd never before been this frustrated by another human being. "She said I had to write it like it already happened if I want it to come true." She stuck her arms out, palms upraised, and drew up her shoulders in a shrug of disbelief at her father's dimwittedness.

         He finally got it right. The final entry for September 25^th looked like this:

 

 

Sept. 25^th

         I ate ice cream. I came home from school early and

         played with my silly daddy. I got a new puppy.

 

 

September 25^th, last year

         Her father stared at her in disbelief as she got into the truck.

         "You're kidding me," he told her. Her cheeks were pink. "Are you faking?"

         "No, Daddy," she said. Her voice was thick, as though she wanted to cry. "You can ask the school nurse."

         They'd called him to come get her early that day because she'd thrown up in gym class. He supposed he had to believe the ladies in the office who had confirmed the gruesome details of his daughter's sickness. Still, there was the thing about the diary; he couldn't help but wonder if she'd made herself do it so she could fulfill the prophecy she'd made him write.

         As they drove along the wonderfully quiet blacktop that took them out of the town towards their home, he asked her a nagging question.

         "Well, did you have ice cream like you wished for?"

         "I think that's what made me sick," she replied.

         It came as only a small surprise to him when they arrived home to find a lost puppy sitting on their doorstep. Ally felt immediately better, and she and her dad played board games and petted the puppy all afternoon.

        

         After the sun sank behind the quiet woods in back of their house, she came to his spot on the sofa wearing her flannel pajamas, the kind that covered her all the way down to her toes, and she clutched the diary in her chubby pink hand.

         "Again?" he asked.

         "Yes," she smiled, offering him the stubby pencil.

         After she'd finished dictating and he'd finished writing, she asked him to read it to her.

        

Sept. 26^th

         I made a new friend. I got picked to be the

         leader. I didn't throw up.

 

 

September 26^th, last year

         "Well?" he asked as she clambered into the old white Ford.

         "What?" she asked.

         "Did you get your wishes?"

         "Oh, yes. Of course I did."

         "What were your wishes?"

         She used her fingers to enumerate them. "New friend. Picked to be the leader. No throwing up."

         "Well, I'm glad you didn't throw up," he said. "Who's your new friend?"

         "Sajan. He's from India. He lives on our street. I told him about my magic diary."

         He smiled at her innocence and wished some of it were his.

         "Give it here," he groaned later that night, putting down the paper and reaching for the pencil.

 

 

Sept. 27^th

         I watched Pinocchio. I ate pizza. I played with my

         new puppy. I got a new doll for me and a new

         collar for my puppy.

        

         He walked to the refrigerator after he'd tucked her into bed and checked the school lunch menu that hung behind a soccer ball magnet. "Mm-hmm," he said, noting that the next day's entrée was indeed pizza. He decided he would help her out with the first wish by renting Pinocchio. The rest he would leave to chance. Sooner or later, she'd have to learn the hard lesson about magic in the real world—that there's no such thing. 

 

September 27^th, last year

         "Did you have pizza?" he asked.

         "Yes. And now I'm going to play with my puppy. The white-haired lady was right, Daddy. All my wishes are coming true."

         "Look in that bag, there in the floorboard," he told her, proud that he could participate in her game. She looked.

         "Thanks, Dad!" she cried, and she pulled out the movie he'd rented.

         "You didn't have to do that, though," she said. "We watched it at school because it was too cold to go outside for recess."

         She came in crying shortly after they got home because Blondie had gotten out of the yard.

         "We have to find her, Dad!" she cried. "We have to find her!"

         He didn't much want to. Supper was on, and the football game would start in a half hour. But her eyes were red with crying.

         "Let's go," he said, and he bundled her up into the old pickup.

         They went door-to-door asking the neighbors if they'd seen the dog, and they struck gold at Mrs. Beauchamp's house five doors down.

         "Oh yes, Dearie," the old lady cooed, standing inside her front door and poking her head through the crack. "I have your little puppy."

         The girl and her dad scooted closer to the door to catch some of the warmth floating out as Mrs. Beauchamp ducked inside. She came back shortly and handed Blondie over. The dog licked at Ally's face and Ally giggled. The sound made her dad forget the cold and the football game he was missing.

         The new collar that Mrs. Beauchamp had put around Blondie's neck was aquamarine, with a shiny silver bone dangling in the front.

         "Oh, one more thing," she said, disappearing inside again. She came back with a porcelain doll. "For you, dearie," she said. "Her name is Ellie. Take good care of her."

         Ally's dad drove home in silence as she talked to the puppy and the doll.

 

         Ally tapped on the back of his paper with the wet eraser of her pencil.

         "Okay," he sighed. "Let's do it again."

 

 

Sept. 28^th

         I found a necklace on the sidewalk. I did five

         projects with my daddy. I helped make supper. A

         friend came over to visit.

 

 

September 28^th, last year

         The necklace glinting in the sunlight was the first thing he noticed about her when she climbed into the truck.

         "Where did you get that?" he asked.

         "Found it on the sidewalk," she answered.

         His response was a long Mister M sound.

         "Mmm."

         That night they made macaroni and cheese with sliced wieners mixed in. After the dishes were done, he sat with her at the table and cut and glued construction paper, plastic cups, and pipe cleaners until Ally declared that the five requisite projects had been completed.

         As the afternoon stretched on and became night and no friend came over to visit, her father wondered how she would take the wish not coming true. It had been a fun game, this magic diary, but it looked like it was about to come to an end. He tried to prepare her for the disappointment.

         "You know, not all wishes come true."

         "I know that," she said. "But the white-haired lady told me all the wishes in my diary will come true."

         "Well, if one of them doesn't, are you going to be sad?"

         She looked at him as if the question didn't make any sense. Before she could answer, the doorbell rang.

         Ally's dad opened the door to an Indian lady and her son.

         "Sajan!" Ally cried.

         "Ally, look," he replied as Ally's father ushered him and his mother into the house. Ally's puppy lay cradled in Sajan's arms.

         "I think he ran away," Sajan said, pointing to Ally's address. Her father had inscribed it the night before on the silver bone hanging from the dog's new collar.

         Sajan and his mom stayed long enough for the two children to play together with the puppy for a few minutes; when they left, the father and daughter trailed them through the door and thanked them for returning the puppy.

 

         "Write," she said. He took the pencil.

         He wrote the first two wishes, one about having good dreams, and one about eating orange gelatin at school. And then they had a fight. She asked him to write "I saw my mommy" in the diary, but he wouldn't.

         "No," he said, shaking his head.

         "Please, Daddy," she cried. "Please."

         "No, I won't write that."

         "Why not?"

         "Because I don't want to."

         "Daddy, please. It's my magic diary, not yours."

         "No."

         "Yes," she said, her voice quivering.

         "No, I won't write it." It wasn't that he believed in the magic diary. He just wasn't going to write something like that.

         "Yes, Daddy. Yes, yes, yes." Her voice trailed away and became tears.

         "No," he said despite her sobs, and he thrust the pencil and the book at her. She ran to her room and slammed the door.

 

 

September 29^th, last year

         That morning he went into her room to wake her, but she didn't stir right away. The diary lay open beside her. He read it to himself.

 

 

Sept. 29^th

         I had good dreams. They served orange Jell-O at

         school.

         Then, below that, in Ally's handwriting:

         I saw my Mommy.

        

         "Wake up!" he screamed, but she didn't stir.

        

         The day passed slowly. When the sun finally went down, he took the stubby pencil in his hand and wrote.

 

 

Sept. 30^th

         I went to be with them.

        

         And he lay down beside the strawberry-headed girl and slept as peacefully as he ever had.

 

 

Copyright 2007, John Kuhn

John Kuhn is a writer and educator from Texas. His works of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in a number of magazines and e-zines in the US and the UK. He won first place in the 2006 Dragons, Knights, & Angels Magazine poetry contest with his poem "Statuary."

John lives with his family in a town famous for its "Crazy Water." And that explains a lot...

John's blog can be found at < johnkuhn.blogspot.com >.

 

    

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For more information visit www.dkamagazine.com. This work appears as part of Issue 46, July 2007.

                                                     

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