Chapter 5

The hat was caught in the crotch of a spruce about fifteen feet from the ground. Freddy and Presto peered up at it.

“It looks like the one, all right,” said the rabbit. “How we going to get it?”

Freddy had on his magician’s coat. He couldn’t bear to be parted from it, so he wore it all the time, no matter how hot the weather was. He took out a rather grimy handkerchief and mopped his face all over. “We can shy sticks at it and knock it down,” he said.

“And bust a hole in it,” said Presto.

“Maybe we can get some help,” Freddy said. He looked around. “There’s a squirrel family lives around this section—Nibble, Dibble, Gribble—some such name. I can holler for them. Only the old man, he’s kind of touchy, and if I call him by the wrong name, he might get mad. You know how people are.… Now what is that name?”

“Just call ‘Ibble!” said Presto. “He won’t notice you haven’t put anything on the front of it.”

So Freddy shouted: “Hey, Mr. Ibble!” several times, and at last an aged squirrel poked his head out of a hole in a hollow limb of a big beech tree and said crossly: “What do you want?”

“We’d like your help, if you’d be so kind,” said Freddy politely, “in getting that hat.”

“I daresay you would,” said the squirrel. “Well, you won’t get it!” And his head disappeared.

Freddy and Presto looked at each other. “H’m,” said the pig after a moment. “Well, this is kind of a mean trick, but …” He felt in the pocket of his coat. “Hey,” he called, “will you help us if I give you a nice fresh hen’s egg?”

The squirrel popped out of the hole and started down the tree. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” he demanded testily. “Where’s your egg?”

Freddy took it from his pocket and put it on the ground. “It’s yours when you hand us that hat.”

So the squirrel ran up the spruce and brought down the hat. But when he put out a paw to get hold of the egg it bounced away from him like a pingpong ball. For it was an egg that Freddy had pierced and blown for use in his magic work, and was of course nothing but an empty shell.

… it bounced away from him like a ping pong ball.

The squirrel was good and mad and I guess he had a right to be. He stamped and scolded and refused to listen to Freddy’s promise to bring him two good eggs the following morning. “If that isn’t a low-down pig trick, I never saw one!” he stormed. “Get out! Get out of my woods, you big hunk of fat pork! You—you—!” He sputtered and danced and screamed, and Freddy picked up the hat and, followed by Presto, started for home as fast as he could go.

“Well,” he said, when they reached the pig pen, “you can get your job back now, Presto. But before you take the hat, I wish you’d show me the disappearing trick.”

So Presto stood the hat on its crown on the floor. “Don’t touch it,” he said. “But look into it—look it all over. Just a hat, isn’t it?”

Freddy examined it and peered inside it. It was lined with crinkled black silk, but it was plain there was nothing there but the lining.

Then Presto jumped into it.

“Cover the hat over with your handkerchief,” he said. “And then say the magic words—‘Presto-change-o!’ And then take the handkerchief off.”

So Freddy did. But when he looked in there was nothing there. Presto had vanished.

“My goodness!” said Freddy. “That’s some trick! Presto! Presto, are you there?”

“Sure, I’m there,” was the reply. “But I’m invisible.”

Freddy was puzzled. He walked slowly around the hat, then he dodged quickly back around the other way, in case Presto was hiding behind it. Then he leaned over and peered in, and there was the crinkled black lining, but no rabbit. “Are you—you still there, Presto?” he said hesitatingly.

“Look, Freddy,” said Presto’s voice, and it certainly sounded as if it was within an inch of the pig’s nose—“Look, it’s like I told you: this is the one trick I can’t teach you, because it’s real magic and not just tricks. I really make myself invisible, and if you stuck your nose out a little farther you could feel me, even though you can’t see me. No, no; don’t do it! If anybody touches me when I’m invisible it makes them invisible too, only they’d have to stay that way the rest of their lives, because they wouldn’t know how to get visible again, and I can’t teach that.”

“You mean,” said Freddy, “that you’re transparent, like glass?”

“That’s it.”

“Golly!” Freddy exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be a swell thing in the detective business! Honestly, couldn’t you teach me how, Presto?”

“Not possibly. I couldn’t teach you how to disappear any more than I could teach you how to have white fur. Disappearing is hereditary; it runs in families, like big ears, or warts.”

“Do warts run in families?” Freddy asked.

“I don’t know,” said Presto. “But you know what I mean—like six-toed cats. Well, how about putting your handkerchief over the hat again so I can appear?”

So Freddy did, and said: “Presto-change-o!” and took off the handkerchief and there sat the rabbit in the hat. “Well,” he said, “now I suppose you can take the hat to your boss and get your job back.”

“Oh, no hurry about that,” Presto said. “I like it here; nice to get a little quiet country life after rushing around with a circus.”

“That’s all right,” said Freddy. “I’d like to keep on with the magic lessons for a while. But you’ll want a safe place to keep the hat. How about the vaults of our bank? I’m the president of the FIRST ANIMAL BANK, you know. Take it down there now if you like.”

So they went down to the bank, which was in a shed beside the road, just below the gate.