Half Magic

The next morning, Jane sleeps late. Leaving Katharine to scrub the breakfast pans, Martha wanders into Jane’s room and tries, unsuccessfully, to wake her. The cat, Carrie Chapman, follows her. While leaning against Jane’s closet and petting Carrie, Martha feels lonely and sad. As a result, she wishes that the cat could talk. Carrie begins speaking nonsense, which terrifies Martha.

Meanwhile, Mark enters looking for his roller skates. Martha grabs Mark and tells him that she is magical because she made the cat speak. Mark brushes this off and goes to find his skates in Jane’s shoe bag. Carries speaks gibberish, and even though Mark is startled, he claims that she is just having a fit. In fact, when Martha compares this situation to yesterday’s events, Mark says that it is all just a coincidence and that they are “just a lot of crazy girls” (32). He leaves Martha to go skating.

Martha asks the cat another question. When she responds in gibberish, Martha runs to find Katharine. The older girl hugs Martha when she listens to the cat’s discourse, and they inch toward Jane’s room.