And to think that i saw it on Mulberry Street

Description

A boy named Marco, who is walking home from school, thinks of his father’s advice: Marco, keep your eyelids up And see what you can see. However, the only thing Marco has seen on his walk is a horse pulling a wagon on Mulberry Street. To make his story more interesting, Marco imagines a progressively more elaborate scene. He imagines the horse is first a zebra, then a reindeer, then an elephant, and finally, an elephant helped by two giraffes. The wagon changes to a chariot, then a sled, then a cart holding a brass band. Marco’s realization that Mulberry Street intersects with Bliss Street leads him to imagine a group of police escorts. The scene becomes a parade, as he then imagines a grandstand filled with the mayor and aldermen; an airplane dropping confetti; and, in the final incarnation of the scene, a Chinese man, a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat, and a man with a ten-foot beard. Now almost home, he snaps back to reality and rushes up the front steps, eager to tell his father his imagined story. However, when his father questions him about what he saw on his way home, his face turns red and he says, “Nothing … but a plain horse and wagon on Mulberry Street”.