Nick unlocked the front door of the house.

Marjorie went inside with the starling on the spoon. “Give me the key, Nick.”

A moment later she felt the key in her hand, and she could see her brother. Marjorie hung the key around her neck.

“Now that you are invisible,” Nick told her, “the bird seems to be riding on a flying spoon.”

“Oh!” the starling said. “I wish I could see that.”

Marjorie walked over to the big round mirror in the hall.

The bird stretched its wings, cocked its head, and stared into the mirror. “I’m not such a bad-looking bird after all.”

“Don’t you know what you look like?” Nick asked.

“I’ve tried to see myself in the lake,” the starling told him. “But it’s full of beer cans and waterweed.”

Marjorie looked into the mirror. She couldn’t see herself at all, but the black starling and the wooden spoon seemed to be floating in mid-air. The bird looked like a witch on a broom.

Marjorie remembered that her mother didn’t want birds in the house. “Nick, how about taking our guest into the yard? We could have a picnic on the table there.”

Nick tried to lift the starling off the spoon.

“Don’t bother,” the starling said. “I don’t mind staying on the spoon. Just set me on the picnic table.”

“I have to put Mother’s clothesline away.” Marjorie took the spoon and Nick picked up the starling and went outside.

Marjorie went down to the laundry room. She unwound the clothesline and put it away. Then she ran upstairs and hid the spoon in her dresser drawer. She took the key off her neck and set it on the little glass tray on her dresser. As soon as Marjorie let go of it, the key disappeared.

Down in the kitchen, Marjorie looked in the refrigerator. She found a bowl of red Jell-O and a plate with a hunk of meat loaf on it. Marjorie put them on a big tray with a container of milk, three peaches, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. She added paper cups and napkins.

Marjorie opened the kitchen drawer and took out silverware for the picnic. She caught sight of the very small spoon her mother used to eat soft-boiled eggs. Marjorie put it on the tray too.

She went to get a plastic tablecloth from the buffet in the dining room. Then she carried the heavy tray out into the backyard.