Frankie Sparks and the Talent Show Trick

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  “I have to be,” Frankie said. “I’m a magician.”

  “For real?” Violet asked. Before Frankie could answer, Violet poked the kindergartner next to her. “Andre, my learning buddy is a magician!”

  Andre was working with Ravi, who rolled a pair of dice and got double sixes. Andre didn’t even notice. “A real magician?”

  “Sure,” Frankie said with a shrug, trying to act like it was no big deal. But really, being a magician was a very big deal!

  “You are so lucky!” Andre said. He turned back to Ravi. “Are you a real magician too?”

  “I’m a comedian.”

  Andre looked at him blankly.

  “I tell jokes.” Ravi pointed at the dice. “Come on, let’s play.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said. “We should play this card game.” She dealt ten cards to herself and ten to Violet just like Violet told her to.

  “Wait!” Violet said. She jumped up and got something that looked like two halves of a paper plate held together with clothespins. Frankie couldn’t help but be intrigued. She leaned a little closer and saw that someone had drawn fingers on the plates so that they looked like hands. “It’s to hold my cards,” Violet explained. “Ten is too many to hold at once, so Ms. Barton made these for us. Anyway, are you going to be in the talent show?”

  Frankie took a deep breath. She was supposed to be in the talent show. She was supposed to be a star. But without Maya, how could she do it?

  Frankie wished she really had magic powers. She would cast a spell to make Maya appear.

  “Abracadabra alakazam,” Frankie whispered. “Make my friend Maya appear.”

  The door opened. Frankie looked up.

  “Maya!” she cried. She jumped up, ran to Maya, and wrapped her arms around her best friend.

  Maya smiled back at her. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I forgot to tell you I had a dentist appointment this morning.”

  When Frankie sat back down next to Violet, both Violet and Andre were gaping at her.

  “You really are a magician,” Violet whispered.

  “Yep,” Frankie said. “And now that my trusty assistant is here, nothing can go wrong!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Choke!

  FRANKIE’S STOMACH FLIP-FLOPPED OVER and over. She felt like she was riding on the world’s most super-duper roller coaster, but her feet were on the floor backstage at school. She had her black magician hat on and her cape. She had her magic bag full of tricks and props. And waiting onstage was her magic cabinet. It was time for the talent show tryouts, and she and Maya were next.

  Onstage, Lila finished up her tap dance. Her black shoes shone like the dark coffee Frankie’s mom liked to drink. Normally that would have made Frankie’s stomach tight with envy—she loved shiny, new shoes—but right now she didn’t care. Nothing could ruin this moment for her.

  Maya chewed on her fingernails at the edge of the stage. Frankie peeked out to see the rest of the kids sitting on the floor. “There’s twenty-seven kids out there,” Frankie said. “I counted them all.”

  Maya gulped.

  Lila bowed, and the kids sitting on the gym floor waiting to audition clapped. Frankie clapped too. Maya, though, stood still.

  “Frankie! Maya!” Ms. Frost called from the other side of the stage. Ms. Frost was the first-grade teacher who ran the talent show every year. “You’re up!”

  Frankie grabbed Maya’s hand and pulled her onto the stage. The lights were on in the gym, and there were no spotlights, but that was okay by Frankie. She was up on the stage, and people were watching her. What’s more, they were about to be amazed!

  “Ladies and gentleman,” Frankie called out. “Boys and girls! I am the Great Francesca!” Normally Frankie did not like to be called by her full name, but she thought it sounded more magician-like than “Frankie.” “And this is my amazing assistant, Maya the Magnificent!”

  Maya didn’t move. She stood with her eyes wide, staring out at the crowd.

  Frankie turned and looked over her shoulder at Maya. Maya’s mouth opened and closed. It looked like she was saying words, but not a sound came out.

  “That’s a cool trick, Frankie!” Luke called from the audience. “You made Maya’s voice disappear!”

  Maya snapped her mouth shut.

  “Are you okay?” Frankie asked.

  “I’m fine,” Maya whispered. “Just start.”

  “For my first trick,” Frankie said. “I will make a flower grow out of this plain vase.” She pulled a red plastic vase out of her magic bag. “Maya, can you please show the audience that this is a regular, empty vase?”

  She handed the vase to Maya. Maya’s fingers closed around the vase, but when she held it up, her hand shook so much that the vase slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the floor. A quiet gasp came from the audience.

  Maya scooped it up and held it in front of her. She tilted it toward the audience. “As you can see, this is an empty vessel,” she croaked. It sounded like the words were being pulled out of her and scraped across the pavement. And the vase shook like someone driving along that bumpy road.

  “Hold it still,” Frankie whispered as she extended her own hand, which hid a flower on a spring. In order to make the trick work, she had to have her hand right over the top of the vase, but the way the vase was bouncing around, it was impossible. “Maya!”

  “I’m trying,” Maya said.

  Frankie took a deep breath. “Abracadabra, reveal my power—into this vase, put a flower!” She let the flower expand in her hand. The spring was supposed to shoot the stem into the glass, but Maya’s jittery hand jerked the vase out of the way, and instead the flower fell to the floor. “Whoops!” Frankie exclaimed.

  Ms. Frost clapped, though, and so did the rest of the audience. Frankie was pretty sure they were just being nice. She knew she should be grateful, but the pity tasted bitter and sour at the same time. She bent over and snatched the flower from the floor. Normally she pulled it out of the vase and tucked it behind Maya’s ear, but this time she just tossed it aside.

  “For our next trick,” Frankie said, “my assistant will begin by putting this silk cloth on the cabinet.”

  Maya took the cloth from Frankie. She held it tightly in her hands. She lifted it high so that it would fall gently onto the box. But when she let go, it fell with a flop. Maya tried to spread it out, but her hands acted as though she were a robot with a glitch in its code. She pushed and pulled and twisted until the cloth was practically a knot.

  “You know what,” Frankie said to the audience. “We’re just going to skip that trick.” She whispered to Maya, “Let’s do the card trick. Ask for a volunteer from the audience.”

  “We would have—I mean, for the next trick we can . . . we need a volunteer. From the audience. An audience volunteer.”

  Half the group shot their hands up, and then Maya called on Luke, of all people. Sure, the trick had gone well at home with Matt. But this was their tryout, and they were already having trouble. Maya should’ve chosen someone friendly, like Ravi. Frankie almost called out “Just kidding!” but Luke was already racing up onto the stage. Frankie took the deck of cards out of her bag and placed them on the cabinet. This was Maya’s cue, but she didn’t say anything.

  Frankie cleared her throat.

  Maya still didn’t say anything.

  “Maya,” Frankie said. “Please have Luke shuffle and choose a card.”

  “Why do I have to shuffle?” Luke asked. “You didn’t say I had to shuffle.”

  “Can you shuffle?” Frankie asked.

  “Sure I can,” Luke said, but his cheeks were pink.

  “You have to shuffle,” Frankie said with a sigh. None of this was going the way she had planned, and now Maya had gone and picked Luke, the one person most likely to make things even worse. “So you know I’m not cheating.”

  “But if you know I’m going to shuffle, isn’t that still cheating?” he asked.

  “How could I possibly know how
you are going to shuffle?” She glared at him as she reached for her blindfold.

  Maya picked up the deck of cards.

  “Luke, will you please shuffle and . . .”

  Maya’s voice petered out as the cards dropped from her hands and drifted down like leaves in fall, all across the stage.

  “Maya!” Frankie exclaimed. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Fifty-two pickup!” Luke cried. “I love this game.”

  Without a word, Maya ran offstage, leaving Frankie there surrounded by cards. Luke scrambled around, trying to pick them all up.

  “Um,” Frankie said. “We seem to be having some—I mean—”

  “Can you do it without Maya?” Ms. Frost called from the side of the stage.

  Without Maya? How could Ms. Frost even ask such a question? Frankie shook her head hard.

  “Well, then, I’m afraid you’re going to have to clear the stage.”

  Frankie’s heart fell, just like the cards.

  CHAPTER 5

  Hiding

  IT TOOK FRANKIE ALMOST TEN minutes to find Maya. She was in the library, back in the story corner, under one of the beanbags. The only reason Frankie was able to find her was because of the noise she was making, somewhere between a choking sound and a wail. Maya’s eyes and nose were red and wet. Frankie grabbed the box of tissues off the desk and sat down next to Maya.

  “I’m sorry,” Maya whispered.

  “I’m sorry too,” Frankie said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “What happened?” Frankie asked.

  Maya shrugged.

  “The first trick went a little rough,” Frankie said, “but I think everyone was still excited about seeing some magic. People were clapping—”

  “That’s the problem,” Maya sighed.

  “People clapping?”

  “People,” Maya answered.

  She took a tissue and blew hard into it. She made a honking noise that normally would have made both girls burst into laughter, but this time neither of them was smiling.

  “All those people,” Maya said. “Looking at me.”

  “That’s what an audience does, Maya,” Frankie said. “It’s not like they can look away.” Frankie was working hard to try to understand what Maya was saying. For Frankie, there was nothing better than standing up onstage with an audience watching her. “I mean, when we decided to do the talent show, you had to know there was going to be an audience.”

  “I didn’t decide to do the talent show.”

  “But—” Frankie began.

  Maya shook her head. “It was your idea. I knew I’d be too scared.”

  Frankie bit her lip. Maya was right. Frankie had assumed they’d both wanted to do the talent show because they’d had so much fun performing for their parents. But they had never actually talked about it. Sometimes Frankie got so excited about things, she didn’t slow down to think about what she was doing. “You’re right,” Frankie said. “I should have asked you first. I’m sorry for that, too.”

  Maya sniffled.

  “You like doing magic, though, right?” Frankie asked.

  “Sure,” Maya said. “It’s fun to do it for our parents. But other people are . . . different, I guess. It makes me feel all sick inside to see them watching me.”

  “Did you imagine them in their underwear?” Frankie asked.

  Maya wrinkled her nose. “What?”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re scared: imagine people in their underwear,” Frankie explained.

  Maya wiggled out from under the beanbag. “That’s really not something I want to do.” Maya wiped tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “I think it’s supposed to make you feel more relaxed,” Frankie said. “Like, sure, you’re onstage, but they’re in their underwear. But I guess that just feels weird.” Frankie thought a little more. “Maybe we should meditate before the show, like how Ms. Pence taught us?” Ms. Pence was the school guidance counselor. Earlier that year she’d taught the third graders to meditate. Frankie wasn’t very good at it—she had a hard time making her thoughts slow down. Maya, though, had liked it a lot.

  “Maybe,” Maya said. She looked down at her lap. “I thought I would be able to do the show. I really did. All last night I told myself it wouldn’t be so bad. I said, ‘It’ll be just like in our living room.’ But then this morning I felt sick. I’ve felt sick all day, actually. And then I got up onstage and—”

  “You weren’t going to barf, were you?”

  “I felt like it,” Maya admitted. “But it was more like being frozen. I heard you talking. I heard my cue. But when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.” She put her head in her hands. “You should probably find someone else to be your assistant.”

  “No,” Frankie said.

  “I bet Ravi would do it,” Maya told her.

  “No way,” Frankie said. “You are my one and only assistant.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Frankie. This assistant has a serious case of stage fright.”

  Frankie stood up and put her hands on her hips. “You have a problem, Maya, and there has never been a problem that I can’t solve. I am the Great Francesca.”

  “I don’t think you know enough magic yet to fix this,” Maya said.

  “Fine,” Frankie said. “But I have other talents.”

  “Ventriloquism?” Maya asked.

  Frankie grinned. That would be hilarious, but there was no way she could learn how to make her voice come out of Maya’s mouth in time for the talent show. “No,” she said. “Invention. I am going to invent a solution to your problem! I am the world’s greatest third-grade inventor, after all.”

  “If you say so,” Maya said. She didn’t look convinced. Her cheeks were blotchy and there were still tears in her eyes.

  “I do! If you want to be in this show, then I will make it happen. I will beg Ms. Frost to let us be in the show, and I will invent a way for you to not be afraid.”

  Maya didn’t say anything at first. She only chewed on her lower lip.

  “You do want to be in the talent show with me, right?” Frankie asked.

  Maya nodded. “Yes,” she said. “More than anything.”

  “Then I will make it work!” Frankie declared. “I promise.”

  A promise is a serious thing, and Frankie didn’t take it lightly. She knew she was going to have to come up with her best invention yet. She knew what she had to do first—find an expert. She needed to go see Mr. Winklesmith.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Jitterbugs

  FRANKIE PULLED OPEN THE DOOR of Wink’s Magic and Games Emporium. It was her favorite place in the whole wide world. It smelled like circus popcorn and sawdust, and shone with a golden light.

  While her mom stopped to browse through the new books, Frankie beelined for the back. She walked past the jigsaw puzzles in the spinning racks at the front of the store, past the stacks of coloring books, past the stuffed animals. She even went past the building and science kits that always caught her eye. She stopped at the back counter, where Mr. Winklesmith kept the magic supplies.

  Frankie knew that when you had a problem to solve, it was best to go to an expert, and no one knew more about magic than Mr. Winklesmith. He worked as a professional magician, performing at kids’ birthday parties and town festivals. When he was younger, he had traveled across the country, performing.

  No one was at the counter, so Frankie called out, “Mr. Winklesmith?”

  He emerged from the back room through a curtain made of shiny plastic beads.

  “Mademoiselle Sparks,” he said. The stick of a lollipop stuck out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I am in dire need of assistance,” she said.

  “Dire?” he asked.

  “Serious,” she said. “Major.”

  “I see,” he replied, stroking his white goatee. “Dire problems call for Gobstoppers.” He reached behind her ear and then
held his fist in front of her nose. He opened one finger at a time to reveal a bright yellow Gobstopper.

  Frankie took it from him, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. It took up most of her cheek. “It’s my assistant,” she said. The words came out like underwater bubble-talk: Ibs my abbibtan. “She has a serious case of stage fright.”

  Mr. Winklesmith nodded. “I see,” he said again. He scratched at his wrist, then began pulling scarf after scarf from his sleeve. Frankie knew that he did simple tricks like this to help him think, so she kept talking. She explained how Maya had gotten so nervous that she had dropped their props and scattered the cards all over the stage.

  “That is a tough problem,” he said. “Your friend Maya has the jitterbugs.”

  “The jitterbugs?”

  “A case of the nerves. Finger feathers. It’s happened to the best of us.”

  “Not to me,” Frankie said.

  “Never?”

  Frankie frowned. She supposed her hands did shake a little when she needed to read in front of the class.

  “I told her she should imagine everyone in their underwear,” Frankie said.

  “That just makes the performer look more confident. It doesn’t stop the pitter-patter.”

  “What does?”

  “Nothing,” Mr. Winklesmith said.

  “What? You mean it’s hopeless?”

  “Did I say it was hopeless?” he asked. “Do you know why people’s hands shake when they’re nervous?”

  Frankie shook her head.

  Mr. Winklesmith took his lollipop out of his mouth and placed it in a special dish on the counter, so Frankie knew he was about to get serious. “It’s like this,” he said. “Imagine your brain is like the captain of your body.”

  “The brain is the captain of the body.”

  Mr. Winklesmith raised an eyebrow at her, and Frankie knew she should zip it. “Hold out your hand,” he told her. “And hold it still. Do not let it move at all.”

  Frankie held her hand above the counter. It was still and as flat as a plate. After a minute or so it gave a slight twitch. “Whoa!” she said. “How’d you do that? How’d you make my hand twitch?”