A Strange Day in July

There is no such thing as magic, I had assured myself through the age of eight. It’s just not possible for such a thing to exist. But I knew that my beliefs weren’t true. There were too many strange happenings in the small town in North Carolina that I grew up in. Musical instruments would pick themselves up and start playing. Then when you entered the room, they would stop. Characters would jump out of their books while you were reading them. The list goes on. But I never actually let go of the notion that magic didn’t exist until my ninth birthday.

My birthday is on July 18th, the hottest time of year. There was always at least ninety-percent humidity, because there was a river running straight through the town. This makes it feel even hotter than the hundred degrees than it already was. It was always hot enough to bake my birthday cake on the sidewalk, which was a family tradition. This probably wouldn’t have been possible anywhere else, but there was magic hovering over our town so almost anything was possible.

For my birthday that year, I got a white party dress with a blue satin ribbon that tied in the back with matching patent-leather shoes. While my brother, Charlie, and I were waiting for the cake to bake, we went down to the river, which was pretty much in our backyard. Of course, I was wearing my new dress and shoes. Charlie could make stones skip across the water. I couldn’t.

“I bet I can skip a stone all the way across the river,” Charlie bragged. I stared at him in awe. I had never met anyone who could skip a stone all the way across the river!

“You can’t!” I argued.

“Fine,” he said, determined to prove me wrong. He picked up a stone and threw it. It didn’t skip. But the second stone Charlie picked skipped six times, but that wasn’t enough to get all the way across the river. Charlie took a lot of time choosing the next stone. He picked up several stones and inspected them with squinted eyes then threw them aside. When he finally, at long last, chose a stone, he stood up. I could see the pure determination in his eyes, and sense it in his breath. He took big deep bear breaths, obviously contemplating how much force and what angle would make the stone go as far as possible. He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back. It had gone all the way across the river, despite the vastness of the body of water, but it had come back and stopped in mid-air right at the middle of the river. I stared at it in shock. Some sort of magic had actually caused the stone to come back! I didn’t know what to think of the sorcery that had to be involved with this.

Finally, I went running into the river as fast as I could, screaming, “It ain’t real! It ain’t real!” I wanted to find the rock that Charlie had skipped and have him skip it again. I just couldn’t stand the fact that magic obviously was real. My dress weighed me down, as the water got deeper. Soon it was so deep, that I couldn’t stand. I kicked off my shoes- my precious patent-leather Mary Jane shoes- hoping that I could tread water a lot more easily without them on.

Finally, Charlie swam out to get me. He grabbed me by the armpits and swam both of us back to shore. “We need a good cover story about why you fell into the river. No one can find out about the rock skipping back,” Charlie explained. He must’ve sensed the magic, also!

“W-why not?” I asked, shivering, despite the hundred-degree heat.

“Faith, don’t you see that there’s already been a lot of magic here?” Charlie asked. I nodded. “If anyone asks… We went down to the dock… and… we were rough playing… and… I pushed you in.”

“Wouldn’t that get you in trouble?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie answered, “but that’s what big brothers are for. Now let’s go home.” We now had a new bond- protecting the magic.

We walked back to the house in silence. A whole new world had been opened to me, and it was waiting to be explored. A new world that shouldn’t have been real, but it was. The ‘magical happenings’ kept on occurring, each one stranger than the last. My friends all stopped believing in magic, but I never did, which is why my classmates always deemed me as immature and childish. But you never know what exists until you have proof.

A/N- This was inspired by the Harris Burrdick picture 'Strange Day in July.' If you haven't looked at the Harris Burrdick pictures yet, I suggest you do. They're really great for people with writers block. Oh, and yes I know this should be in the children's section, but I really want reviews and nothing in there gets reviews.