The Magic Trap

by Jacqueline Davies

  That’s when the phone rang, so loud it made Jessie jump half an inch. Her mother hurried to answer it, as if she wanted to stop the horrible noise as quickly as possible. Jessie’s head hurt, and her stomach felt achy, like it was pumped full of air and pressing out in all directions. She wondered if she felt this way because she was so glad her dad was home.

  “Sometimes I forget what an American phone sounds like,” said her dad, leaning in toward Jessie. He flashed his special smile at her, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

  Jessie wished with all her heart she could say, Me, too! She wanted to be just like her dad. A prizewinning reporter. Brave. Fearless. A hero. Though she didn’t really want to go to war. Too loud. Too messy. Too scary.

  She looked closely at her dad. Taking inventory. That’s what she called it. Looking to see what had changed since the last time she’d seen him. Everyone always said he was handsome, but Jessie didn’t really know what that meant. Her whole life, she’d been hearing how handsome her dad was. One time she overheard her grandma saying to her mom, Jake’s biggest problem is that he’s too handsome for his own good. That confused Jessie. How could being handsome be a problem?

  To Jessie, his face looked mostly the same: gray-blue eyes, straight nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw. He had thick dark hair that seemed just a little bit longer than the last time. There were also a few wisps of gray above his ears. That was new. Was her dad getting old? She knew he ran five miles a day, and old people didn’t do that. Jessie looked at her father’s hands, which were resting on the edge of the kitchen table. He had long fingers and strong hands. No ring. Jessie always looked for that when he came home.

  “Hey!” said her mother into the phone. “Is something wrong? I was beginning to worry when I didn’t hear from you.” She walked into the dining room, which was now Grandma’s bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Grandma was visiting her old neighbors, the Uptons, back in upstate New York. Jessie’s mom had driven her there the day before. She was going to spend the week with her friends while Mom was away. It would have been too hard for Peggy to take care of Evan and Jessie and Grandma. Grandma had a way of forgetting things—like what year it was, or why she was living with the Treskis now, or even the names of her own grandkids. The Uptons, though, were used to Grandma and her forgetful ways. They were her oldest friends. She would be safe with them.

  But now Jessie wondered if the phone call was from Grandma. Maybe there was a problem. Maybe she needed them. Maybe something had gone wrong. She tapped her foot against the rung of the chair to try to make the feeling in her stomach go away.

  “Hey, Evan,” said her dad. “Come over here.”

  Evan stuffed the quarter in his pocket, then slowly pushed away from the door frame he was leaning on and walked over to the kitchen table. His dad got up and stood beside him, pulling Evan in close and resting his hand flat on the top of Evan’s head. “How much have you grown this year?”

  Evan shrugged.

  “Three inches and one-quarter!” said Jessie, jumping up and dancing around the two of them. “That’s what Dr. Becker said at his last checkup. She said he was going to be as tall as you. Maybe taller!”

  “Taller than me?” Their dad stretched up to his full height, straightening his back and puffing out his chest. “We’ll see about that! I’m still growing, you know!”

  “Are not! Are not!” shrieked Jessie, laughing and jumping higher in the air. She felt as if she had an electric current running right through her body. Her dad was so much fun!

  “Jessie! Settle down!” said Evan, sounding just like their mom.

  Jessie whirled around so she was facing her brother. “You’re not the boss of me, Evan Treski.”

  “Fine,” said Evan. “Let your head explode. See if I care.” He headed for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” asked their dad.

  “I’ve got things to do,” said Evan.

  “Like what?” Mr. Treski flashed his special smile.

  “His magic act!” shouted Jessie, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. “He’s going to put on a show, so he’s practicing all the time.”

  “Magic?” said their dad, smiling even wider. “I used to know a few tricks. Well, one at least. I wonder if I remember it.” He rubbed his hand along his cheek and scratched his chin. Jessie noticed that he had some whiskers growing on his face. She hoped he wasn’t going to grow a beard. Jessie hated it when her dad had a beard. He didn’t look like himself. “Will you show me a trick?”

  Evan hesitated. Jessie couldn’t understand why. Evan loved performing his tricks. And he was good! Why wouldn’t he want to show their dad?

  “Yes! He’ll show you!” shouted Jessie. “Show him the one where you make the balls disappear under the cups. That’s the best! Or the one with the water in the hat.”

  A minute later, Evan returned to the kitchen with three red plastic cups, which he set up on the kitchen table. Then he began the show.

  No matter how many times she watched Evan do this trick, Jessie couldn’t figure out how he made the balls appear and disappear under the cups. He would lift one cup: there’d be a ball underneath. Then he’d move the cups around on the table and lift the same cup—but there’d be nothing underneath. Then the ball would appear under another cup! And he did it all so fast. It was incredible. Evan had a book that showed the trick, but even so, Jessie couldn’t follow it with her eyes.

  “That was stupendous!” said their dad when Evan made three balls appear at the end of the trick. “You’re really good!”

  Evan smiled. It was the first time Jessie had seen him smile since their dad arrived.

  “Can I try one?” asked their dad. “I don’t know if I even remember . . .” He picked up the three balls and started juggling them. Jessie had never seen her dad juggle! “I’m just warming up,” he said. “I’m rusty.” He caught each ball, tossed it into the air, and caught it again in an endless loop that seemed to go faster and faster. All of a sudden there were only two balls! Where did the other ball go? It was as if it was there one minute and gone the next. Jessie kept her eyes fixed on the remaining two balls, which her dad was juggling even faster than before. Suddenly there was just one ball. Her dad was tossing it into the air and catching it in a looping circle.

  “How did you do that?” shouted Jessie. Even Evan was paying close attention.

  “Do what?” asked her dad.

  “Make the balls disappear!”

  “Did I make the balls disappear?” asked her dad. “Are you sure?” And just like that, there were two balls in the air again.

  “Hey!” shouted Jessie. “There are . . .” But before she could finish her sentence, there were three balls dancing in the air again.

  “One, two, three,” their dad counted as he caught each ball, one at a time.

  “Wow!” said Evan. “That was a really good trick.”

  Mr. Treski laughed and handed the balls back to Evan. “I haven’t done that since college. I’m surprised I didn’t drop all three of them.”

  “Can you teach me how to do that?”

  “How good’s your juggling?” asked their dad.

  “Not . . . great,” admitted Evan.

  “Practice,” said their dad. “A lot. Then I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Jessie wondered if this meant her dad was going to stay for a while. Usually he visited for just one or two days. He always had someplace important he had to be. Even when he said he could stay longer, something always came up that called him away. But here he was making a promise. Maybe this time would be different.

  Jessie’s mom walked into the kitchen and placed the phone back in its base.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Evan.

  Jessie looked at their mom. Her face looked like a weird mixture of too many emotions.

  “Well!” their mom said, half laughing but also looking as if she might cry. “We don’t have to worry about me not being able to close my suitcase—
because I’m not going to San Francisco!”

  Chapter 4

  Switch

  switch (v) to secretly exchange one object for another; (n) a sudden change in plans

  “What do you mean?” asked Evan. His mother had been preparing for this trip for weeks. She’d done all the laundry in the house, put fresh sheets on the beds, and scrubbed the bathroom clean.

  “That was Peggy on the phone,” said their mom. “She’s fine. She’ll be fine. But she got in a small accident this morning, and, well, she’s in the hospital with a broken arm.”

  “What bone did she break?” asked Jessie.

  Evan glared at his sister. “She already said, Jessie. Her arm.” His brain was ticking through the possibilities of who could stay with them: Grandma, no. Pria, their high school babysitter, no. Mrs. Blom, a neighbor who lived one street over, no.

  “But which bone?” insisted Jessie. “There are three bones in the arm: the humerus, the radius, and the ulna.” She tapped each part of her arm as she recited the three bones.

  “I don’t know,” said their mother, shaking her head as if she still couldn’t believe what she was saying. “All I know is that it’s a bad break. They’re pretty sure she’s going to need surgery. And that means . . . I’m not going anywhere.” She plopped down onto the seat of a kitchen chair. The chair groaned loudly, as if it might collapse in despair. “Goodbye San Francisco! Goodbye mini-vacation! Goodbye!” Mrs. Treski started to laugh, but Evan thought she looked as if she could cry at any moment. Each cheek had a bright red spot at its highest point.

  “You seem relieved,” said their dad, draining his coffee cup and then getting up for more. As if he lives here! thought Evan. As if it’s his house! Although, in truth, it had been, once.

  “Well, I’m not sorry to miss the airport and the flight, that’s for sure,” said their mother. “But I was looking forward to seeing Joanna. And San Francisco. And then, too, there’s the money . . .” Mrs. Treski was a freelancer. That meant she got paid only when she worked. There was no such thing as a steady paycheck in their house. If she didn’t go on this trip, her client wouldn’t give her any money. And that meant trouble when it was time to pay the bills.

  “Oh, well,” said their dad. “Freelance assignments come and go. You’ll get something else, right?”

  Evan wanted to shout, It’s not that easy! What did his dad know about how hard his mom worked? Sometimes he sent money, but sometimes he didn’t. His mom could never count on it. She tried not to let it show, but Evan had overheard enough phone conversations and seen the worry on her face to know that paying the bills each month was hard. Grownups thought kids didn’t notice this stuff, but Evan did. And it stirred up in him that old fear that had set in after the divorce and never quite went away: that they would have to sell the house and move someplace else. Sure, it was a junky old house, with just about everything broken, but Evan didn’t want to leave.

  “Mom,” he said. “You can still go. Jessie and I can sleep over at someone’s house. Maybe Adam’s or Jack’s.”

  “I am not sleeping at someone’s house!” said Jessie. “I can’t sleep—” She looked at her mother, and Evan could see the panic in her eyes. Jessie had never slept at anyone’s house except their own and Grandma’s.

  “Then someone can come here. There’s got to be someone . . .”

  “Evan, it’s too late. My flight leaves in two hours. I can’t just call someone up at the last minute and ask them to baby-sit for seven days. These things need to be planned in advance. I called Peggy about this trip two months ago.”

  Evan couldn’t accept this. There had to be a way to fix it. “Mom, you have to go . . .”

  She smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. He could see that she knew what he meant. It had always been like this. He and his mom. They just understood things about each other. “It’s charming the way you can’t wait to get rid of me, but—”

  “Dad can stay with us,” said Jessie loudly.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. Evan looked at his father, then back at his mom.

  “Oh, Jessie,” said their mom, shaking her head.

  “No!” said Evan. It came out louder than he intended. His father cocked his head and looked right at him, as if he’d been poked in the side with a very sharp stick.

  “Your dad . . .” began Mrs. Treski, looking for words.

  “Well, actually, Susan,” said their father stiffly, “I could. After all, I am their dad.”

  Evan looked desperately at his mother, but she was staring at his father.

  “Yay! Hooray! Hip hip hurray!” shouted Jessie, jumping awkwardly into the air and landing heavily on her feet. “This is great! This is the best!” She jumped up again and nearly crashed into the table when she came down.

  “Jessie, stop,” said their mother. “Dad can’t stay with you while I’m gone.” She turned to her ex-husband. “It’s a whole week, Jake. You can’t stay a whole week with the kids.”

  “Sure, I can,” he said. “It’s nothing. Seven days.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, as if he were on the beach, watching a sunset.

  “You never stay for seven days,” Evan said harshly. “You never even stay for two.”

  “Well, this time”—he looked at Evan—“I’m needed.”

  “We don’t need you,” said Evan, the words sliding from his brain onto his tongue before he even realized he was saying them out loud.

  “Evan,” said his mother in her warning voice. “It’s not a question of—Look, Jake. You must have somewhere else you need to go. You’ve always got . . . commitments. Your next assignment?”

  “I’m between assignments,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “The thing is . . .” Mrs. Treski looked down into the palms of her hands, as if she had the answer to a test question written there. “You can’t . . . I mean, you couldn’t just . . .” She looked out the sliding glass door to the falling-down porch and the overgrown yard beyond, then back at their dad. “If you say you’re going to stay, you have to actually stay. You can’t change your mind and leave. It’s not like . . . They’re kids. You have to stay.”

  “I know that.” He seemed annoyed. Evan could remember the sound of their voices like this. His mother struggling to make her point. His father getting angry. He remembered these arguments. “But it’s not like they’re babies, Susan. You know, you always treat them like they have no common sense. Like they can’t take care of themselves. In other parts of the world, they’d be old enough to herd goats or take care of a baby or run a household. American kids . . .” He shook his head, because they hadn’t seen the things he had seen in other places. Evan could vaguely feel his father’s disappointment in all of them. “You need to be tough in this world.”

  “I’m tough!” shouted Jessie. “Evan, too! Right, Evan?”

  “Be quiet, Jess. You don’t even know what they’re talking about.”

  “I do! I do! Daddy’s home. And he’s going to stay with us. He said so!”

  “The tribe has spoken!” said their dad, smiling and standing up. “Hey, come on, Su-su. We all know Jessie’s the smartest one in the family, and she thinks it’s a good idea.”

  Evan felt as if he’d gotten a swift kick in the head. It was always like this when his father came. Jessie spinning out of control, his mother sounding unsure of herself, nothing working out the way it was supposed to.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Jake. Do you have to . . . ?” She waved in the general direction of Evan and Jessie, and Evan relaxed, thinking, Of course she knows that she can’t leave us with Dad. Everybody knows that.

  But in the end, she did. Dad repacked her suitcase so it would close, and she got into a taxi and drove away.

  Chapter 5

  Exaggeration

  exaggeration (n) a technique in which a magician makes a showy, flashy gesture (also called a flourish) in order to misdirect the audience so they won’t n
otice what the magician is really doing

  “So what do you guys do for fun around here?” asked Mr. Treski, clapping his hands and rubbing them together as if he were getting ready to cook up a really great meal.

  “Lots of stuff!” said Jessie.

  “I’m going to my room,” said Evan, heading for the stairs.

  “What do you mean? I just got here. And now that Mom’s gone . . .” He raised and lowered his eyebrows several times as if he were planning to do something Mom would not approve of. Something fun. Something exciting. Jessie felt her stomach flip then flop.

  “What? Now that Mom’s gone . . . you can leave?” asked Evan.

  “Man, Evan,” said their dad, shaking his head and smiling. “Give it a rest, would’ya?”

  “I’m going to my room,” Evan said again, and this time their dad didn’t try to stop him.

  “What’s he so mad about?” muttered Mr. Treski as he walked across the kitchen and retrieved his backpack.

  “Is he mad?” asked Jessie.

  “Yeah, I would say so.”

  “But he didn’t yell,” said Jessie matter-of-factly.

  “No . . .”

  “And he didn’t call names or say he was mad.”

  “That’s true, but . . .”

  “And his face was like this,” said Jessie, making her face go completely blank, as if it were sand on a calm beach and a gentle wave had just smoothed it flat.

  “Yeah, but Jessie, he was mad. Couldn’t you tell?” Her father looked at her long and hard.

  Jessie started to get that feeling of wanting to go up to her bedroom, close the door, and read ­Charlotte’s Web.

  Her dad pulled his phone from the side pocket of his backpack.

  “That’s a nice phone,” said Jessie. It had a big color touchscreen, big enough that you could watch movies on it. Jessie’s mom’s phone didn’t even have a screen. It was the kind that came free when you signed up for cell service, and it was at least five years old.