by Michael Dahl
“Ha! And I thought they were for candy and he had a sweet tooth,” said Ty. “So how did you figure out the penny thing?”
“I’d seen those plastic tubes before, but couldn’t remember where,” said Charlie. “Then when Brack said ‘A penny for your thoughts’ it all came together.”
“Huh. Pretty smart, Hitch,” said Ty.
Brack doesn’t miss much, thought Charlie. It’s almost like he knows everything that’s going on in the hotel. But now we need to go —
“I think we need to go back to the fourteenth floor,” said Ty.
“You read my mind,” said Charlie.
Tyler and Charlie knocked on Dotty Drake’s apartment door. They heard noises behind the door and then a voice. “It’s very late. Who is it?”
“It’s me again,” said Ty. “Tyler Yu. Sorry to bother you, but it’s very important.”
The door opened slowly. Dotty Drake stood there, wrapped in her red robe.
“I was asleep,” she said, yawning, patting her pile of hair.
Charlie noticed that the woman’s cheeks were still pink. “Are you wearing makeup, Miss Drake?” he asked.
Miss Drake’s eyes grew wide. “What on earth are you —”
“You said you were asleep, but you’re wearing makeup,” Charlie said. “Just like you were when we first saw you.”
“Artists always wear makeup,” she sputtered.
“When they sleep?” said Charlie. “I think you were wearing makeup because you were expecting company. And I don’t think you were sleeping just now, either.”
“Tyler, your friend is an insulting little boor,” said Miss Drake.
“And I think you know what happened to Mr. Madagascar,” said Charlie.
“I am going back to bed!” said Miss Drake. She tried to shut the door, but Charlie stopped her.
“The police are coming,” said Charlie. “The Yus are calling them. Don’t you want to hear what I have to say before they get here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miss Drake said.
“Just come over to the window,” said Charlie.
The three of them walked down the hall to the window where Mr. Madagascar had jumped out.
Charlie raised his eyebrow at Ty.
“Yeah, I see it now,” said Ty. “The drapes are red. They match the color of Miss Drake’s bathrobe.”
“So?” Miss Drake said.
“That’s right,” said Charlie. “When you and I came over to the window and saw that Mr. M. had vanished, I saw that your gown matched the drapes. Red. In fact, if you look, all the drapes in the hall windows are red. But when Mr. Madagascar jumped out the window, they were purple.”
“You must be mistaken,” said Miss Drake.
“No, I saw it too,” said Ty.
“So then I wondered how red drapes could turn purple,” said Charlie. He walked back down the hall toward the intersection where Ty had been hit.
Then Charlie turned to his left and walked down that side hall. He stopped at the end, next to its window.
“Look at these,” said Charlie. Ty ran up to him. Miss Drake slowly followed.
“Purple!” said Ty. “But how?”
The boys leaned out the window. To the right, they saw the blue neon sign of the rabbit and the magician’s hat. “Blue and red make purple,” said Charlie.
“And look down there,” said Ty. A few feet below the window was a wide ledge that ran along that side of the hotel. “If someone jumped out this window, they’d land on that ledge.”
“But we all thought he jumped out the other window,” said Charlie. “Where there was a straight drop to the street.”
“It was an amazing magic trick,” said Dotty.
“Yes, it was,” said Charlie. “But not a trick of levitation, or floating. It was a trick with mirrors.”
“Just like Brack’s trick in the elevator,” said Ty, nodding.
“Brack said the hotel’s walls were full of magic,” said Charlie. “And I believe it. If a magician built this place, why wouldn’t he put in all kinds of tricks and illusions, for the fun of the guests? Over all the years, I’m sure many of them were forgotten. But Mr. M. is a magician himself. He’d know what to look for.”
Charlie led them back to the intersection of the two hallways. He carefully examined one of the corners. “Look!” he said triumphantly. “This pulls out!”
Ty gripped a small handle hidden in the wooden molding of the corner’s edge. Out came a panel as tall as the wall itself. Smoothly, it glided over to the opposite corner, forming an angle in the hallway. The secret panel was a single, huge mirror.
“Another magic trick,” said Ty.
From where the two boys had stood at Miss Drake’s apartment, it looked as if they were staring straight down the hall. But instead, the mirror was reflecting the side hall, the real hallway that Mr. Madagascar had run down. He had thrown himself out the side window and safely landed on the ledge. But the mirror had tricked his small audience into believing he had jumped out the other window and disappeared.
“It’s still a good trick,” said Dotty Drake, sadly.
“A magnificent trick!” boomed a voice behind them.
Mr. Madagascar stepped out from Miss Drake’s apartment.
Mr. Madagascar walked up to Ty and Charlie. “A man jumps out a window and disappears fourteen floors above the ground. Good one, huh?” said the magician.
“Uh, yeah,” Charlie said.
“This was supposed to be the beginning of my comeback,” Mr. Madagascar said. “I wanted to perform one last show, one astounding trick that would go down in the history books.”
“So you planned all of this?” asked Ty.
“Of course I did,” said Mr. Madagascar. “I waited for you to come up to my apartment, and I wanted you to follow me. I had everything all set up. And the lovely Miss Drake here helped by providing some misdirection.” He winked at Dotty, who blushed.
Misdirection like Brack performed earlier, thought Charlie. When he pointed toward the lobby and said, “Now you see him, now you don’t.” He made us turn around so he could close the two fake mirror walls in the elevator.
“Your scream was the misdirection,” said Ty.
“I always had a good voice for that,” Miss Drake said proudly, putting her hand to her throat. “And while I screamed and fainted, the mirror wall slid back into the corner. It’s on a timer.”
Ty laughed. “So the guy who knocked me down was me!” he said. “My own reflection.” He flexed his muscles and added, “I knew he looked tough.”
A low hum rumbled in the hall. The mirror glided back into the corner and snapped into place. And outside the building, a siren wailed.
“I didn’t break any law,” said Mr. Madagascar.
“But the police will want to know what —,” began Ty.
“Do they have to know tonight?” asked the magician. “Give me twenty-four hours. Give me time to have the headlines proclaim my trick to the world. Then I will reappear, and make a statement to the press.”
“And you’ll have the best publicity in the world,” said Charlie, smiling.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Madagascar. “Publicity. And then I can plan my final performance and end with the window trick.”
The magician and the former assistant looked at the boys. “My fate — our fate — is in your hands,” said Mr. Madagascar.
Ty glanced over at Charlie, and then back at the magician.
“As long as I get this month’s rent,” Ty said.
“Deal!” exclaimed Mr. Madagascar. “Now come to my room and I will give you your cash.”
Ty pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah,” he said. “Slamhammer!”
Mr. Madagascar looked confused, but he put his fist in the air too. “Indeed, Slamhammer!” he said.
The next morning proved Mr. Madagascar and Miss Drake right.
Newspapers, TV stations, and online channels were full of the mysterious disappearance
of the magician from the Abracadabra Hotel’s fourteenth floor.
Everyone was talking about it, trying to solve the puzzle. There was even a new website — How Did He Do It? — where people posted their own solutions to the mystery.
True to his word, Mr. Madagascar reappeared at the hotel later that day. He gave a press conference that afternoon, and explained that he would soon perform the trick before the eyes of the public, in one last final show of magic.
Of course, everyone at Blackstone Middle School was talking about it. But they were more interested in an even more amazing event.
That morning, when Tyler Yu and Charlie Hitchcock returned to school, it was Tyler who was covered with bruises and cuts. Charlie, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine.
“Unbelievable,” said Charlie’s best friend, Andrew, as they sat down to lunch. Everyone in the cafeteria was staring at Charlie. “You are the only person to beat up Tyler Yu!”
Charlie looked up from his lunch. “Who said I beat him up?”
“But just look at him,” said Andrew. “You obviously won the fight.”
“Don’t always trust what you can see,” said Charlie.
* * *
That day, two secret notes changed hands.
In the break between English and American History, Charlie and Ty each shoved a note in the other’s hand.
No one saw.
Ty read his note in his seat at the back of the classroom.
At his own desk, Charlie unfolded his note.
A few days later, Charlie and Ty stood once more in the vast, shadowy lobby of the Abracadabra Hotel.
Outside the building, an October thunderstorm crashed and boomed. Lighting flashed, lighting up the giant painting that hung on the lobby wall. The lightning reflected off Abracadabra’s dark shiny eyes.
Zombie eyes, thought Charlie.
Tyler glanced over and asked, “You’re not spooked, are you, Hitch?”
Charlie put his hands in his pockets. “Oh, no,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m standing in an empty lobby in a creepy hotel in the middle of a thunderstorm, and you just told me that there’s a ghost floating around here. Why should I be spooked?”
He turned and looked out the hotel’s glass doors. Sheets of rain fell on the street and sidewalk. “I’m going to get soaked when I go home,” he said.
“When did you tell your parents you’d be home?” asked Tyler.
“Uh, I didn’t say,” Charlie said.
“Good,” said Tyler. “Then come on. I’ll show you the room where the ghost struck first.”
“But why do you think it’s a ghost?” asked Charlie. “I mean, did someone see a spirit or something?”
“It’s because of the voice,” said Tyler.
“Voice?” Charlie repeated. Without meaning to, he shivered. He hoped Tyler didn’t notice.
“And because of stuff disappearing,” said Ty. “And because of what Mr. Thursday said.”
Why did I let myself get dragged into another mystery with Ty? wondered Charlie.
Because it was another puzzle?
Because he was afraid Tyler would pound him into the dirt if he didn’t help him?
Or some other reason?
“My mom doesn’t believe in ghosts,” said Ty. “She thinks I’m making up excuses for not wanting to go to the ninth floor. And if I don’t find the missing stuff, it comes out of my pay.”
Charlie knew what no pay would mean.
If Tyler didn’t get paid, he couldn’t buy the Tezuki Slamhammer 750, Edition 6, in cherry-pop lightning red.
But making you pay for things that had disappeared, when it wasn’t your fault — that didn’t seem fair to Charlie.
“What does your dad think about the ghost?” Charlie asked.
“He doesn’t go up to the ninth floor either,” said Ty. “Especially since he heard the voice.”
Thunder crashed, and Charlie jumped. Tyler noticed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even grin. Instead, he simply said, “Come on, Hitch.”
The taller, dark-haired boy led the way across the lobby, past tall marble columns and tall potted palm trees. A row of elevators lined the back wall. Their shiny metal doors shone like gold. Charlie pressed the button to call one.
“Dang!” said Ty. “Wait here. I have to grab the passkey.” He spun around and sprinted toward the lobby desk.
“Hey, take my backpack and put it behind the counter,” said Charlie.
“I’m not your assistant,” said Tyler. As he rushed away, his shoes made wet prints in the thick, blood-red carpet.
“Master Yu is always in a hurry,” said Brack, his elevator doors sliding open.
“He knows I can’t stay that long,” said Charlie.
“Are you helping him solve another mystery?” asked Brack.
Charlie swung his backpack onto one shoulder. “I guess so,” he said.
“What draws you to the mysteries here at the Abracadabra?” Brack asked.
Charlie shrugged. “I like puzzles,” he said. “Well, actually, I hate puzzles. They bug me until I figure out the answer.”
Brack nodded thoughtfully. “Then prepare to be bugged,” he said. “Our hotel is full of puzzles. It was designed that way. Riddles and mysteries are built in the walls.”
No kidding, Charlie thought.
Just then, Tyler appeared back at the elevator, breathing hard. “Got it,” he said, holding up the key. “Ninth floor, Brack.”
Thunder shook the building.
“Hey, Mr. Brack,” said Charlie. “You don’t believe in ghosts, right?”
“Believe in them?” replied Brack. “Of course I do. Why, I’ve seen them.” He pushed a button, the golden doors shut, and the elevator car shot upward.
The boys were stunned. “You saw a ghost?” said Tyler.
Brack nodded. The elevator car hummed and shuddered as it rose toward the ninth floor.
“Where did you see it?” asked Charlie.
“In the elevator,” answered Brack. He pointed a finger toward the shining gold doors. “I had just dropped off a customer on twelve, and was coming back down to the lobby. And then I saw Abracadabra the magician standing right there, staring at me.”
The magician from the painting, thought Charlie.
“Did he say anything?” asked Charlie in whisper.
“Not a syllable,” said Brack sadly. “And when I reached the lobby, he disappeared.”
“Wow,” said Tyler.
“But I’ve seen him many times since,” added Brack.
“On the ninth floor?” asked Ty.
“On many floors,” said the elevator operator.
The elevator stopped. Charlie watched his and Ty’s reflections, with their mouths hanging open, disappear as the doors slid open. A dark hallway lay beyond.
“You don’t have to leave right away, Brack,” said Ty. “We won’t be long.”
“I’ll wait as long as I can, Master Yu,” said the older man. “But if I hear someone else ring the bell, I’ll have to go.”
Tyler nodded. He and Charlie started down the hallway, leaving the elevator operator behind. “It’s Mr. Thursday’s room,” said Ty. “Just around the corner, 909.”
At the first door around the corner, Tyler shoved the passkey into the lock.
“Don’t you knock first?” asked Charlie.
“Relax,” said Tyler. “We moved him to a different room after the ghost thing happened. It was easy since he didn’t have any luggage. The airline lost it or something.”
“Oh,” said Charlie.
After stepping inside, Tyler flipped on a light. “The bathroom’s over here,” he said.
The bathroom was as big as Charlie’s bedroom. Marble counters, fancy mirrors, a shaggy white rug, and a huge bathtub fit inside with plenty of room left over. “Notice anything missing?” asked Tyler, crossing his arms.
“Yes,” said Charlie. He stared at the bare curtain rod that hung across the tub. “The shower curtain.”
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“Score,” said Tyler. “The same night Mr. Thursday checked in, he heard a noise in the middle of the night. He said that at first he thought it was a fire. Then as he listened some more, he said it sounded like someone crumpling up paper. And it was coming from the bathroom.”
Creepy, thought Charlie.
“Creepy, huh?” said Tyler. “And when he got up to look, he switched on the light, but no one was there. And the shower curtain was gone.”
“The room door was locked?” asked Charlie.
Tyler nodded. “From the inside.”
“Had he seen the curtain before he went to bed?” asked Charlie.
“Yes,” said Ty. “He said he took a shower when he first got in. Then he went and had dinner.”
“Ah, and that’s when the curtain was stolen!” said Charlie.
“Uh, no,” said Tyler. “He said that when he got back to the room, he brushed his teeth before he went to bed. The curtain was still there when he was brushing his teeth.”
“Why would someone want a shower curtain?” said Charlie.
“Especially a ghost,” added Tyler. “They don’t need to take showers.”
“He didn’t take a shower,” said Charlie, “he took a shower curtain. And I still don’t see why you think it’s a ghost.”
“Who else could get into a locked room?” Tyler asked, throwing up his hands. “Who else could remove a solid shower curtain without opening the door?”
“Hmm. Maybe Mr. Thursday did it himself and he’s lying,” said Charlie.
“I thought of that,” said Tyler. “I’m not stupid. I searched the room. It wasn’t here.”
Maybe he threw it out the window, Charlie thought. But why would anyone do that?
“And he couldn’t have thrown it out the window, because the room windows don’t open,” said Tyler.
Charlie stared at him. “How did you know I was thinking about that?” he asked.
“I saw you glance at the window with a funny look on your mug,” said Tyler. “And the first time I came in here, that’s what I thought too.” A smirk spread across his face. “I’m not so dumb after all, am I?”
