Sir Pants and Sir Reddy Finally See a Mirror

Sir Pants and Sir Reddy stared into the mirror in the hidden closet in the magician's room. There they saw murky, shadowy versions of themselves. (It wasn't a very good, flat mirror, so they looked a little bit wavier than their normal selves.)

Sir Reddy waved and said hello. At the exact same moment, the murky, wavy version of himself waved and said hello. Sir Pants jumped up and down once. The Sir Pants in the mirror did the same thing at the same time.

"I see," said Sir Pants. "I think I understand now."

Nella the magician nodded encouragingly.

"The doubles of ourselves do what we do as soon as they see us doing it," said Sir Pants. "Can they come out of the closet?"

He backed up and pulled Sir Reddy back by his arm, to give the doubles space to come out. But as they backed away from the mirror, the strange doubles of Sir Reddy and Sir Pants disappeared.

"Where did they go?" asked Sir Reddy. His eyes were open wide. He was worried about what had happened to their doubles.

Nella closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she put a smile back on her face.

"Walk up to the mirror again," she suggested.

They did. Their doubles reappeared in the mirror!

Sir Reddy and Sir Pants stared. They tried backing away again. The doubles disappeared. They walked back up to the mirror. They reappeared. They tried this again and again, sometimes waving and shouting and jumping at their doubles, and sometimes not. Their doubles did all the same things they did.

Finally Nella said, "Stop! Arrgh. Let me help you."

She took up a red crayon that was hidden behind a tower of dried leaves and drew a red dot on both Sir Reddy's and Sir Pants's noses.

"Go look in the mirror again," she said.

They did. The mirror versions of Sir Reddy and Sir Pants also had red dots on their noses.

"How did that happen?" asked Sir Pants.

Sir Reddy, while looking in the mirror,  carefullly touched the red dot on his nose. The Mirror Sir Reddy did the same thing. Sir Reddy touched the dot five times in a row, quickly. So did the Mirror Sir Reddy. He touched the dot five times in a row, slowly. The Mirror Sir Reddy touched the dot five times slowly. Sir Reddy hit himself hard in the chest, as did the Mirror Sir Reddy, and yelled, "Ow!" The Mirror Sir Reddy did all of the same things at the same time.

"That is Sir Reddy!" shouted Sir Pants, who almost understood now.

"That is a reflection of Sir Reddy in the mirror," corrected the magician.

"So the mirror..." said Sir Pants, looking questioningly at Nella.

"...shows you a reflection of yourself when you are standing in front of it," Nella said.

"These guys are boring," announced Sir Reddy. "Can we go now?"

"Come back and see me some other time," said Nella. "Maybe I will find another tea cup when you come."

"Goodbye," said Sir Reddy and Sir Pants.

They left the magician's room at the top of the Castle Caraway tower.