The Magic Paint
Growing up, my cousins and I heard Grandfather tell us about his escapades when he was our age. His favorite story was what he called his "magic paint" story, which I have printed below in his own words (more or less). At the end of his life, he told me he wanted me to take his "magic paint" idea and put it in print. This is the best I can do right now. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do...
When I was a little boy, my best friend, Bret, and I were building a shed for a clubhouse. My dad said that we could use the leftover paint in the basement to paint it. Naturally, being leftover, there wasn't enough of any color to paint the entire shed. So we brought all the buckets up--there were about seven or eight--and decided to get a big bucket and mix all the paints together. Bret finished hammering the shingles onto the roof, while I stirred the paints together. The resulting color was a reddish brown, like rust. I laid the stick that I had used to stir the paint down on the grass and went inside to wash my hands. I heard Bret yelling outside, so I hurried back, thinking he'd fallen off the roof and hurt himself.
He wasn't hurt, but he was scared. He pointed with a quivering hand to the stick that I'd stirred with. It was hovering about three feet in the air! The paint had somehow altered it so it could fly by itself. Now you know how the minds of boys work. We painted the shed as fast as we could, and tied it down to the ground so it wouldn't fly away. We left it overnight to make sure the paint dried. Maybe the shed only flew when it was wet. We didn't know.
The next day, Bret and I ran outside to see our shed. It was straining against the ropes, hovering 6 inches off the ground. We eagerly clambered inside, and threw the ropes off. WHOOOSH! The shed shot up into the air like a balloon. We were so shocked we nearly fell out the door.
Gradually, by trial and error, we learned how to steer our strange craft. The shed had three windows, one on each side, and a door (naturally) on the fourth. If we opened the north window, we went south. If we opened the east window, we went west. If we closed all the windows and the door, we ascended. If we opened all the windows and the door, we descended. When we touched earth again, we swore a pact (the common boyhood kind--we spit on our hands and shook) never to go out in the shed with out the other.
The adventures we had that summer! We traveled all over the world and saw many things. Then, one hot summer's night, the unthinkable happened. Bret, unknown to me, stole the shed! He snuck into my yard, where the shed was kept, threw off the ropes, and closed the door. Then, a rather odd thing happened. The shed shot up into the night sky, and was never seen again. Neither was Bret. They both simply disappeared.
I kept the paint, naturally, but it's long since been used up. What else did I use it for? Well, that's a story for another time.
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