The Mysterious Magic Hat
When Mickey and I heard that we were going to use the Magic Hat, Mickey got really excited. It was his turn to put on the ceremonial robe and bring out the hat.
“So, you do have the Magic Hat?” the girl Derfentwinkle asked while frowning.
“You know about that? What did Bluebottom tell you about it?”
“Nothing. But I read it in a letter he was writing. It’s a rare magic item that used to belong to Dezmodotto the Scroll and Sword Wizard. He believed you got hold of it when Dezmodotto died.”
“When Bluebottom killed him, you mean.”
“I didn’t know that part, but yes.”
“Everything that Derfie just said is true. Master Eli, however…” began Kack.
“Shut up, Kackenfurchtbar!” ordered Master Eli.
Meanwhile, Mickey had run to the vault-closet, used the key, and came back wearing the red apprentice robe and carrying the red, conical Magic Hat.
“I did it, Master! I brought the hat, and it didn’t turn me into a pigeon, and it didn’t suck out all my brainpower and make me stupid.”
“You mean it didn’t make you more stupid,” said Master Eli with a chuckle.
“Yes… um, I guess so.” Mickey put the hat on the floor between Master Eli and Derfentwinkle.
The hat itself was impressive. It was tall and stiff and red… covered with golden-yellow sigils and symbols.
Master Eli picked it up and immediately pulled another hat out of it. Another exact copy of the original hat.
“Here, Derf. Put this on your pointy head.”
“What is it going to do? Sort me into the proper house in the castle?”
“Ha! No! It’s good that you know about Slow Ones’ children’s literature, especially all the way from England. But this hat will judge whether you are evil or not. It may empty all the magic out of your head. Or it may turn you into a pigeon. I am interested to see.”
He put one of the two copies of the hat on Derfentwinkle’s head. Then he put the other on Mickey’s head.
“Why on my head?” Mickey squeaked.
“Because there may be secrets and spells that can alter the brain, and I don’t want them transferred into my head.”
Mickey looked at Derfentwinkle with horrified eyes.
“I know it is your turn to be the apprentice for this,” I told Mickey. “But if you are afraid, I will take the hat… if you need me to.”
“No, quiet boy. There won’t be anything that the mouse-boy won’t like. He’ll be okay.” She looked at me with what I hoped was a trustworthy look.
The hat on Derfentwinkle’s head began to hum… sort of. And at the same time Mickey’s eyes began to cross.
“MMMM! There it is! The sex magics!” crowed Mickey as his rat tail began to stiffen and twirl in small circles behind him.
Derfentwinkle appeared to be in pain. She dropped the plastic bottle containing the bottle imp, and held her stomach with both arms as if that’s where it hurt the most. I was concerned for her. Especially when her eyes dilated and she seemed to be staring through all of us with black orbs for eyes.
Then, mercifully, it all came to a stop.
“Aw, no! Where did the sex magics go? They were right here in my head. I knew how to do wonderful things.”
“Mickey, the hat absorbed all the evil spells. And then it recorded all the good ones. Just like it was meant to do,” said Master Eli.
“Oh, but I wanted to…”
“What? What did you want to do?”
“Um… I don’t know. The Magic Hat took it all out of my head again.”
“Just like it was meant to do. You were too young for any of that nonsense anyway.”
“Um, I am not feeling well,” said Derfentwinkle. “Can I lie down and sleep a little?”
She began to topple over, and I caught her up in both arms. She was really rather light to carry for a girl who was actually slightly taller than me.
“Well, the poor girl has just been through a wringer,” Master Eli said.
“Do I lay her down in the Harpy cage?” I asked, looking sadly at her unconscious face.”
“No, Bob. Take her to your bed… um, on second thought, take her to my bed. Let her sleep on the soft mattress there. But stay next to her. If she tries to escape or do something evil, you will need to kill her. But don’t get blood on my nice blankets.”
“How will she do evil in this state?” I asked.
“Oh, she won’t. Most likely you will just need to guard her and make her comfortable. If she has the wizard-skill I think she does, then she is going to be a very valuable property. So, be kind and take good care of her.
“Why does Bob get to do that good stuff, and not me?” complained Mickey.
“Because, although he’s not very bright. He’s smarter than you are, Mickey.” The stinky little wererat grumbled darkly as I carried the limp girl up the stair to the upper tower and gently placed her on master’s nice, soft bed.
Catch a Falling Star 
Fascination
I am falling apart. My health is poor and continuing to fail. My memory is suffering from an inability to remember the names of things. I find myself in the kitchen having gone in for a specific purpose, and not being able to remember what that purpose was. That is not to say I am not coping. I have quite a lot of adaptability and significant problem-solving skills. But that will eventually become a losing battle. Especially if I get the virus… any virus. So, what am I going to talk about with a dissolving brain and an hourglass of lifeforce swiftly running out? Fascination. I am fascinated by the details of the process. Like Mr. Spock, I find practically everything, “Fascinating!”
Birds and butterflies
My childhood fascinations turned into obsession first around natural things. When my mother would go to Vey Osier’s Beauty Salon, Vey had this fascinating parrot that was probably a hundred years old and knew how to swear really, really foully. I remember that being the only reason I was willing to go there and wait for Mom to get her hair fussed up (What my Grandpa Aldrich, her father, used to call it.)
I remember waiting for hours to hear that bird say the magic F-word or the horrible S-word. Or even the zillion other bad words I didn’t know anything about when I was seven. And, of course, I never did. The bird was mute the whole time during who-knows-how-many visits. But I did get to look endlessly at that green parrot’s amazing nutcracker bill that Vey always assured us would snap our fingers off like biting a salted pretzel if we got them anywhere close to the bill.
And when I was nine I was given as a present a plastic model kit of a Golden-Crowned Kinglet (the bird in that first picture). My relatives knew I was a burgeoning artist since my teachers constantly complained about all the skeletons, crocodiles, and monsters I drew in the margins of my school workbooks. So, I had a plastic bird to paint with all the necessary paints, but no idea what the bird looked like. We had to go all the way to Mason City to Grandma Beyer’s house because we called up there and checked, and, sure enough, there was a colored picture in the K volume of her Collier’s Encyclopedia. I painted it so accurately, the danged thing looked almost alive.
And if you have ever seen any of my butterfly posts, you know I became a butterfly hunter before ever entering junior high school, where Miss Rubelmacher, the rabid seventh-grade science teacher, made that obsession a hundred times worse. (She didn’t actually have rabies, just a reputation of requiring excessively hard-to-find life-science specimens like a nasturtium that bloomed in October in Iowa, or a Mourning Cloak butterfly.
I was able to find for her numerous Red-Spotted Purples like the one in the picture. I got them off the grill of Dad’s Ford, as well as in Grandpa Aldrich’s grove. And I eventually caught a pair of Mourning Cloaks as well on Grandpa Aldrich’s apple trees, though not until summer after seventh grade was over for me. I could tell you about my quest to catch a Tiger Swallowtail, too. But that’s an entirely different essay, written for an entirely different thematic reason.
Needless to say, my bird fascination led me to become an amateur bird-watcher with a great deal of useless naturalist information crammed into my juvenile bird-brain about birds. Especially Cardinals. And my fascination with butterflies opened my eyes to a previously invisible world of fascinating and ornately-decorated bugs. (Of course, I should’ve said “insects” instead of “bugs” since I absolutely did learn the difference.) And I still to this day know what a Hairstreak Butterfly looks like, what a Luna Moth is (Think Lunesta Commercials,) and how you have to look at the underside of the lower wings to correctly identify a Moonglow Fritillary Butterfly.
During my lifetime, my fascinations have become legion. I became obsessed with the comic books done by artist Wally Wood, especially Daredevil. I became obsessed with Disney movies, especially the animated ones like The Rescuers, The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. I rode the bucking bronco of a fascination with the Roswell Crash (and the actual alien space ships I am almost certain the U.S. Army recovered there.) And so many other things that it would make this essay too long, and would probably bore you into a death-like coma. So, here’s what I have learned by being fascinated with my own fascinations;
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