You are eleven years old and have finally decided you can
fly. You've been through all the issues of the Marvel Family
comics for the last three years, and you know the key word
that will give you wings. You can fly if you pretend your
white satin bed-jacket is a cape. Now for you Shazam of the
Creative Word, the Logos, the formula of flight. You know
you can fly, the way They do, straight out like a bullet
with your arms stretched forward and your cape fluttering in
the wind.

There is no doubt in your mind.

Something else delays you.

You've tied the white satin bed-jacket around your neck
tightly so that the wild sleepy folds fall down properly
from the shoulders. You imagine what the wind will do to it;
you know what it means.

You have many words to utter before you reach Shazam. You
utter them slowly, half-hoping you will not reach the end of
them. half-hoping that the world will not wring from you the
Final Formula, for everything would stop then. You don't
really want to pronounce the Unpronounceable.

You stand poised over the steep ravine that leads down to
the river. You know it will work because it works for the
Marvel Family. You think about the other kids who read the
same comics but who don't know what they are all about. They
don't know, otherwise they'd be here with you above the
ravine with their bed-jackets tied around their necks,
wouldn't they, wouldn't they? Maybe they do it alone in
their rooms, maybe they pose alone in front of their
mirrors, but none of them are here where you are now.

In a way you really do want to have the Great Word wrung
out of you, but until now you've witheld it, having sworn
never to pronounce it except in a moment of extremity. After
all, you don't wish to destroy the world . . .

It's a long way to the bottom of the ravine. There are no
witnesses. You wanted it that way, didn't you?

Maybe God will punish you for your insolence. Icarus
tried it once; Prometheus still lies chained to a rock with
an eagle picking at his liver for a crime less than this.
But the Marvel Family has no quarrel with God, and besides
they do Good Works and have a fine sense of humour; God
never punished them because they were Super.

Neither does Wonder Woman; she's a pagan and swears by
obscure Greek deities. Anyway, you don't like her much
because her costume is so American; Mary Marvel's costume is
a hundred times better, although in the last issue her skirt
was lengthened to below the knees and you were so mad you
were going to write in to the editor about it.

You're still murmuring the introductory words; you
realize you're coming to the end and in a minute you're
going to have to say Shazam and take off into thin air above
the ravine.

You know you can do it.

Something else delays you.

Well, the Marvel Family is so trite, for one thing. They
just fly around and the never discuss anything. Are they
aware of INFINITY for instance? Are they?

Do they know the Word is Ineffable, for instance?

Can any one of them even spell Ineffable?

You are trembling now and you say to yourself: Now I
begin to suspect that my soul is greater than the soul of
Mary Marvel. I've always known, deep down, that the Marvel
Family are not very intelligent even though they fly and
lightning shoots down and claims them.

Are they really interested in their marvels? Or do they
just fly around, poor fools, casually tossing off the Word?

Can the even SPELL the Word?

Holey Moley, all they can do is DO IT, for heaven's sake!
But you, you can THINK about it, you know what it means!

You pity their lemon-yellow lightning bolts and their
plastic boots. If Mary Marvel's skirt hadn't been
lenghtened, you might never have come to this moment of
truth. You walk away in your white satin bed-jacket, sadder
but wiser. It starts to rain and your miraculous cape drips
all down your back.

Something has come to pass, you think, something more
important than a mere flight over the ravine.