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“Cool,” Marvin said as he walked over to it.
Marvin looked up. There was a round hole in the ceiling, and he could see another hole in the ceiling above that, and the one above that, too. The pole went all the way up to the fourth floor.
“Are you allowed to slide down it?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Casey. “I do my homework at the very top. It’s the library. Then, when my dad calls me to dinner, I slide down the pole.”
“That is so cool,” said Marvin.
“Here’s the phone,” said Casey’s father, handing it to him.
Marvin set his book down on a table and took the phone. He called home. His mother seemed quite surprised when he told her he was at Casey Happleton’s house.
“Can you give me their phone number?” she asked.
“No one knows it,” said Marvin.
“What do you mean, no one knows it?”
Marvin put his hand next to his mouth and whispered into the phone. He didn’t want to embarrass Casey and her father. “They don’t know their own phone number.”
“How could they not know their phone number?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me speak to Casey’s mother.”
“Well, she might know it,” said Marvin. “But she’s not here. You can talk to her dad.”
He handed the phone to Mr. Happleton. “My mom wants to talk to you.”
To Marvin’s surprise, he heard Mr. Happleton recite a phone number.
Marvin turned to Casey. “I thought your dad just said he didn’t know your phone number.”
“Are you crazy?” asked Casey. “Of course he knows our phone number!”
“Well, you don’t,” said Marvin.
“I do, too,” said Casey. “I’ve known it since preschool.”
Casey’s father hung up the phone. He told Marvin his mother would come pick him up around five o’clock.
Marvin put up his hands. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you both just tell me you didn’t know your phone number?”
They looked at him strangely.
Marvin wondered if he was going crazy. “You asked me if I knew my phone number. I said I did, and then you both said you didn’t.”
“That’s right,” said Casey’s father. “Why would I know your phone number? I just met you.”
Marvin’s book lay on the table. It was called A Thousand Cats.
3
The Magic Crystal
“Do you want to know a secret?” asked Casey.
