The Magic Misfits

by Neil Patrick Harris

  “I just found it in the hallway,” Carter lied. “Here it is.”

  Ms. Zalewski was so relieved, tears formed at the edges of her eyes. “Let me get you some milk and cookies.”

  “I can’t,” Carter said, choking back a surge of emotion. “I’m kind of in a rush.”

  “A rush to where?” asked Ms. Zalewski. “It’s still dark out.”

  Carter ignored the question. “Take care of yourself—and watch my uncle. He has sticky fingers.” He made a bouquet of paper flowers appear out of his sleeve and handed it to the kind old woman, who only stared at him in shock.

  Then Carter pulled off his first solo vanishing act:

  He ran away.

  And that, my friend, is how Carter ended up in a train yard running away from a terrible man and toward a new—and hopefully better—life.

  THREE

  Many hours after hopping onto the multicolored train, Carter woke to find that it had already stopped. Panicked, he gathered his belongings. Experience told him that a conductor or a cop would eventually go from train car to train car looking for extra passengers. It was best if he wasn’t caught. He didn’t want to end up in a foster home, or worse—reunited with Uncle Sly.

  He cracked open the metal door to see where fate had taken him. Outside, a lush green forest stretched like a fuzzy rug all the way to a mountain range in the not-far distance. The sun had just fallen behind the horizon, turning the few wispy clouds overhead a lovely fuchsia as the dome of blue sky darkened into evening. He’d been asleep for a long time.

  A sign standing along a nearby road said: WELCOME TO MINERAL WELLS.

  Carter climbed back up the ladder to get a better view of the town. From the top of the train car, he could see a quiet community blanketed with twinkling lights that were spread out to the north and east of the tracks. Far beyond the grid of streets, a sprawling set of buildings sat on a hill overlooking the town, a glow coming from within the windows as if they were illuminated by the light of a billion fireflies. Closer to the train yard, across the wide gravel lot and just west of the twinkling town, was an enormous fairground where the bright lights of a traveling circus were just beginning to blink on. Colorful sounds came in waves—even from here, Carter could hear laughter and music and shrieks of excitement.

  He was about to hop down when a small red car pulled into the gravel lot. Carter ducked, flattening his body against the roof of the train. It would be bad if anyone reported seeing him.

  For a moment, Carter thought he was imagining things. People dressed as clowns began to hop out of the tiny red car, one after another, until a dozen different-shaped men and women were huddled in a tight group of polka dots and stripes, staring toward a lone black train car parked on its own track. Instead of a smile, each of the clowns wore a painted frown on his or her face. Each had a bag in hand.

  Carter shuddered. He was not a fan of clowns. Whenever he’d seen them in advertisements or books, their fake expressions made him think of his uncle.

  The clowns made their way to a lone train car with a giant man’s face painted on its side. Big and round, as if it might just pop off the wall and roll around like a runaway boulder. The face held a creepy smile; either that or it was smirking a dastardly grin. Over his head were five letters spelling BOSSO.

  The first frown clown unlocked the door of the train car. The rest began to load the bags inside the metal car. From this angle, Carter couldn’t see inside. He wasn’t sure what they were carrying, but he had a feeling it wasn’t something good. He knew the body language of someone who felt guilty. Their shoulders were hunched and they moved jerkily, as if they were about to jump out of their skin.

  “There’s no more room!” one of the clowns whined. “What do we do now?”

  “Up to the boss man,” another clown said. “He’ll probably wanna move most of the goods over to the Grand Oak Resort. Let’s bolt before the coppers show.”

  Carter wondered if the gloriously lit buildings on that far hill were the resort they were talking about. The compound certainly looked grand.

  Before he knew it, all of the frown clowns had squeezed back into their impossibly small car and driven away. Carter didn’t know what that was about. And honestly? He didn’t care. One thing he’d learned growing up on the street was to mind his own business.

  What he did care about was the police showing up. So Carter climbed down from the roof and made his way across the gravel parking lot toward the manic carnival lights, where he knew he could blend into the crowds.

  Whenever Uncle Sly had dragged Carter to a new town, they’d always followed a strict series of rules. First, scope the surroundings. Second, find food. Third, a bed. Finally, Uncle Sly would seek out some victims so that he could get to work as soon as possible.

  As a violent rumble shook his stomach, these rules flew out of Carter’s mind. Ms. Zalewski’s grilled cheese and radish sandwich was the last food he’d eaten, and painful hunger pangs were making him suddenly dizzy. The breeze carried scents of fried dough and pit barbecue and boiled sweets across the gravel lot, motivating Carter to move faster.

  When he bent down to check how much of his emergency money was left in his shoe, he gasped in horror. The stash was gone! Memories of yesterday flickered through his brain like film images in a clunky old projector. Had Uncle Sly anticipated that Carter might run away and stolen his stash in advance? Or maybe Carter had been so upset about Ms. Zalewski’s diamond, he’d forgotten to remove his money from his pillowcase and shove it back into his shoe as he had done every morning since he could remember? Whatever happened, it didn’t matter now. He was broke.

  As Carter approached the source of laughter and music and jovial shrieking, his senses were quickly overwhelmed, which was a good thing. It gave him something to concentrate on other than his empty stomach and his swimmy vision.

  Bright lights spun around the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round. Stage lights lit the red-and-white tents. Young couples lined up for cotton candy and shows, while children called to their parents for more tickets. Games cried out: rat-a-bang-clang and ding-ding-dang!

  “We have ourselves a winner!” someone shouted with glee. Dozens of other voices said, “Better luck next time!”

  Carter strolled beneath a giant sign that read:

  Bosso! That was the name from the metal car in the train yard. The puzzle pieces were starting to fit. The clowns in the tiny car were probably dropping off stuff from the carnival. Costumes. Wigs. Juggling pins. Jars filled with leftover ketchup. But why keep that train car so far from the rest of the carnival?

  It didn’t matter. Carter knew the best way to make it to tomorrow was to keep walking.

  The smell of fried grease grew stronger, and the ground became sticky wherever he stepped. Carter’s stomach roared. The salty and sweet aromas mixing in the air made his mouth water. Something that Uncle Sly said zipped back into his brain: Just wait until your belly rumbles and you’re so hungry you can’t see. You’ll be stealing more than necklaces in no time. What if Uncle Sly had been right?

  With no money, nothing to eat, and a growing sense of desperation, Carter wondered how he’d keep himself from breaking his code that very evening. He could have easily used his talents to acquire some carnival tickets, but he didn’t steal, which included tricking people into giving him something for nothing. However, if he fainted, someone might call the cops.

  “Welcome, one and all, to the greatest show this side of the Appalachian Trail!” a sideshow barker echoed through a cone from the top of his podium. The thin man looked like a stick figure, yet his voice boomed like he was a giant.

  “Play games, win prizes! Eat food ’til you’re sick. Hear the hysterics within Cuckoo’s Fun House! Get lost in the Mind-Bending Maze of Mirrors. Shudder in the shadow of Bosso’s Blender, the most thrilling thrill ride since the last time you threw up! And make sure you stick around at the end of the night for Bosso’s Grand Finale Show!”

  Strings of lights glimme
red overhead. People streamed by Carter, burbling with shouts and laughter. A burly carnival worker in suspenders swung a sledgehammer down on the base of a machine that said TEST YOUR STRENGTH, and a bullet-like capsule shot up and rang the bell.

  “Step right up!” The burly man pointed the sledgehammer at Carter. “Are you a man or a mouse?”

  “Neither,” said Carter. “Sorry, I don’t have any money.” He was too embarrassed to tell the burly man how hungry he was. “But maybe I could help you, and you could buy me a corn dog or something?”

  The burly man looked annoyed. He nodded at another man in a stiff-looking dark blue security uniform. As the guard came closer, Carter noticed that his face was painted like one of the frown clowns from the tiny car in the train yard. He was even freakier looking than an ordinary clown.

  Yikes, Carter thought. Time to vanish again!

  “See the Sickest Sideshowers on Earth!” a woman in an ill-fitting jacket and a bowler hat cried from nearby. “Wonder at the Walrus, a brute who lifts weights with his mustache! Watch the Spider-Lady weave her weirdo web! Feed nails to the Tattooed Baby! Torment yourself by talking to the Two-Headed Woman!”

  There didn’t appear to be any admission fee to this tent, so Carter ducked inside. He followed a group of spectators through a dimly lit gallery lined with glass boxes: a half chicken, half pig; the world’s longest fingernail; a Venus flytrap whose bulb was the size of a cracked watermelon. Last was a glass coffin containing the skeleton of a mermaid.

  As others oohed and aahed, Carter rolled his eyes. All these things were fake. He could see the seam where the chicken and the pig had been joined together, as well as the wood grain in the fingernail and dried paint on the Venus flytrap. One of the mermaid bones even had a price tag still on it.

  A large velvet curtain gave way to another room, this one separated into a series of small stages, one after the other. Carter looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t see the security clown following him anymore. Maybe he was safe now?

  He began to lose himself in the strange surroundings.

  The first stage featured a plump toddler in a diaper whose skin was covered in tattoos. He sat in the middle of an enormous wooden playpen, giggling, drooling, and banging some blocks together.

  “When is he going to eat some nails?” a spectator near Carter complained. The Tattooed Baby glared at the man, spit at the ground, then went back to banging blocks harder than before.

  “Someone needs a diaper change,” Carter whispered to himself.

  The next stage was completely black except for a giant silvery web strung from the front to the backdrop. On the web lounged a woman with a small, pale face and impossibly thin limbs, clad all in black. Carter did a double take when he realized she had two extra sets of arms extending from her sides. With a bored look, the Spider-Lady was painting her nails in fire-engine red polish, holding the bottle in her toes and the teeny brush in one of her mid-hands.

  Thinking of some of his own tricks, Carter looked more closely. The extra arms were covered in the sleeves of her black sequined dress, but the hands were bare. The fingers didn’t move. It’s fake, Carter thought. They’re all fake. Since there wasn’t an admission fee, technically they weren’t breaking Carter’s Code; still, it didn’t seem fair to the audience. It seemed like something Uncle Sly would be a part of.

  The next stage held an enormous glass aquarium, several feet wide, several feet long, and taller than the tallest man Carter had ever seen. He thought it was strange that there was no water in it. The glass was filthy and could barely be seen through. As people pushed their faces against it, they screamed or gasped. One woman nearly fainted. When it was Carter’s turn, he saw why. Inside sat the Two-Headed Woman calmly reading a book. The distorted view made her even more ghastly.

  Carter spit on his sleeve to wipe away an inch of dirt so he could see better. Of course the glass is so dirty, Carter thought. The sideshow needs the audience’s view to be blurred. Inside, he saw one neck naturally joined, while the other wobbled awkwardly. The first face moved and blinked, while the other stared blankly. It was a mannequin head attached to a real person. More tricks, Carter thought. Part of him was relieved, the other part disappointed.

  A third part gurgled again with hunger.

  Carter blushed and then glanced around to see if any of the other spectators had heard him. There was still no sign of security, so he proceeded to the fourth and final display. This stage buckled under the weight of the heavy objects upon it—a diesel engine, an anvil, a refrigerator, and an upright piano. Center stage, a hairy-chested hulk of a man flexed his muscles. His ropy handlebar mustache hung down past his chest. This was the Walrus. He squatted in front of an iron bar with what looked like cannonballs on either end, each labeled 500 LBS. The tips of his mustache were tied to the giant weight.

  With a roar as fierce as a lion’s, the man struggled to stand, the barbell swinging at his waist. The downward pull on his mustache disfigured his face into a ghoulish grimace. His nostrils flared. Carter couldn’t help but laugh. When the man brought the barbell to the ground, Carter saw that the man was staring at him with dark, piercing eyes.

  Carter headed out of the tent, returning to the night air. He noticed others walking about mystified or horrified or astounded by what they’d seen. He managed to smirk to himself. People shouldn’t believe everything they see. It’s one of the first rules of magic.

  Carter knew that.

  Do you? A quick lesson: While showing you one thing (perhaps with a right hand), a magician will often be doing another thing that you don’t notice (probably with his left). This is called misdirection. It was one of the first things Carter had learned from Uncle Sly.

  B. B. Bosso’s two-bit sideshow only reaffirmed Carter’s belief that there was no such thing as real magic.

  Yet at this precise moment, something truly magical happened to Carter that he couldn’t explain. Something that would change his life forever.

  He met Mr. Dante Vernon.

  FOUR

  Have you ever been so captivated by a sight that you have literally been unable to turn away? Maybe it was a sunset that filled the sky with spatters of color just as the moon rose over the horizon. Or maybe a rare animal somewhere out in the wild fearlessly approached you to make sure you were friendly. Or maybe it was a musician who was able to play five different instruments all at once. For Carter, seeing Mr. Vernon in the midst of the crowded carnival was just that spectacular.

  The man wore a black-and-white suit, with his sleeves rolled up at the elbows. A cape hung from his shoulders, black on the outside and shiny red on the inside. His head was crowned with a top hat, floating on a cloud of white curls, which contrasted against his pitch-black mustache.

  Yet it wasn’t merely the outfit that caught Carter’s eye. It was what the stranger was doing with a coin.

  The quarter rolled across his knuckles, back and forth. But each time it got to the edge of his hand, it vanished, reappearing at the other side instantaneously.

  The wheels and cogs in Carter’s mind spun, trying to figure out how the old man did the trick. But he couldn’t. For a moment, he wondered if his eyes were fooling him. Had his empty stomach made him so weak?

  “How’d you do that?” Carter finally asked.

  “Magic, of course,” the old man said.

  Carter shook his head. “There’s no such thing.” He knew that he sounded confident, but inside, for the first time ever, he quaked with doubt. There was something special about this man. Carter couldn’t turn away.

  “I disagree,” the man said. “Magic is all around us. We just have to pay attention.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Carter scoffed. “If you’re referring to the carnival, I can guarantee you it’s all fake. Just like the sideshow. Just like the games.” He knew he should leave—find some food, find a bed. But something in his gut kept his feet planted to the ground. It was a similar feeling to watching Uncle Sly disappear as the train pulled awa
y—like this meeting was meant to be.

  Have you ever felt like that? It’s as close to a magical feeling as some of us will ever get.

  The man’s eyebrows rose. “How intriguing. Do tell.”

  “See that game over there? With the metal milk bottles and the baseball?” Carter pointed. “My theory is that it’s a con. Secret wires must hold the bottles in place, so even if you get a direct hit, they don’t fall down.”

  “I saw someone win just a moment ago,” the man noted.

  “They have to do that every once in a while,” Carter explained. “If no one ever won, people would catch on. But if they let someone win every half hour or so, no one picks up on the fact that everyone else loses.”

  “Aren’t you observant?” the man said, impressed. “I take it you’re not enjoying the carnival?”

  “I didn’t really come here to enjoy things,” Carter said. He’d come here to vanish. “But then I saw your coin trick.” He looked more closely at the man’s fingers. “Are there two coins?”

  “There are, actually. Color me impressed.” The man with curly white hair extended his hand. “My name is Mr. Vernon.”

  When Carter shook it, the hand came loose and fell to the ground. Carter jumped back. It took him a full two seconds to realize the hand was made of lifelike plastic. Unable to stop himself, an uncontrollable laugh escaped. The laugh surprised Carter. He quickly corrected himself. “You got me. So what are you selling?”

  “Selling?” Mr. Vernon asked, confused.

  “No one does magic just for fun. Either you’re here to swindle people or you’re trying to sell something.”

  “I assure you, I’m here to do neither. But that is a rather sad view of the world for someone your age,” Mr. Vernon said. “Might I ask, what happened to your youthful naïveté, Mister…”