by Diana Lopez
Rubén stood there awhile, looking around the room like he’d never seen it before. Finally, he said, “So anything interesting happen today?”
Lots of interesting stuff happened, but no way was Loop telling Rubén. If that man could keep secrets about important stuff like I’m not your real father, then Loop could keep secrets about important stuff, too. So he said, “Just a normal day.”
“How about watching the game later?”
If their favorite team, the San Antonio Spurs, won tonight, they’d be in the finals. Loop said, “Maybe,” but he intentionally made the “maybe” sound like a “no.” He lifted the book. “Gotta read. Mom’s orders.”
“Okay,” Rubén said. He started to head out, but before leaving, he said, “Let me know if there’s anything you need.”
Loop remembered the magic contest. “Actually, I do need something.”
Rubén seemed happy to hear this. Loop had to take advantage, so he showed him the form from Mr. Garza and explained all about the contest, how he’d be really, really happy, and how he was bound to learn the value of hard work if he was going to get good enough to perform in front of a bunch of people. And besides, his friends were entering, too, and they needed him for their team.
“We’ll have to stay in Houston for a few days,” Loop explained.
Rubén said, “I like going to Houston.”
“So I can enter?”
“Of course. I’m going to check out the website and talk to Mr. Garza first, but I think it’s a great idea.”
Rubén was smiling, and Loop was smiling back. For a moment, he forgot the past few months. He almost hugged Rubén, but then he remembered. Rubén was not his dad, and no way was Loop hugging someone who wasn’t blood. Besides, he was still mad. You weren’t supposed to be nice to someone if you were mad, because then they’d think it was okay to hurt you. You had to be careful. You had to resist them. Or else they’d turn around and hurt you again.
Before it got too awkward, Loop picked up the book. “Better get back to reading,” he said.
Rubén nodded. Then he left, gently closing the door behind him. Soon, Loop could hear Rubén and his mom talking, but with his door closed, he didn’t know what they were saying.
He got back to the book. His eyes went over the words, but who knew what was happening. Something about a ship and the Arctic. Who cared? He was too busy imagining the contest and the moment when they announced that he and his friends had won. It had to be them. He’d already had a year of bad news, so something had to go right.
Something had to go right. But not today, because now his mom and Rubén were fighting, and their voices were loud enough for Loop to understand.
She said, “I can’t believe you gave him permission for that contest without talking to me first.”
And Rubén said, “What’s the problem? It’s going to be fun.”
She said, “But you’re spoiling him.”
And he said, “No, I’m not.”
And then she said, “You buy him everything he asks for. Ever since he found out, you’ve been trying to buy his love.”
Loop hated how they talked behind his back. Even his cousins, aunts, and uncles did this. And they all laughed at him. Of course they did, he thought, because I was a fool who couldn’t see the truth when it was staring me in the face. He hated this whole situation, the way his mom had done this sneaky transposition of fathers as easily as a magician trades cards in a trick. Loop didn’t even know his real dad’s name. His mom wouldn’t tell him. She just said, “I was stupid. I made a mistake.”
So, yeah, maybe Rubén was spoiling him, but Loop deserved to be spoiled after being humiliated in front of his whole family. Didn’t people go to court to sue for emotional distress? Well, Loop was more distressed than the stray, flea-bitten dogs yapping at the pound. Who could blame him for wanting to make his mom and Rubén pay?
The Vernon Touch—
performing sleights in a way that looks natural
THE FOLLOWING WEEK, LOOP and his friends returned to Conjuring Cats. They gave quick hellos to Mrs. Garza and Ariel and then headed straight to the Vault. Once again, Mr. Garza was wearing his baseball cap and tapping on his keyboard.
“Just a minute,” he said. “I have to reply to these e-mails.”
So the boys sat at a table to wait.
“My brother was sleepwalking again,” Z said. “I woke up, and there he was, sitting at the foot of the bed.”
“Was he staring at you?” Loop asked.
“No. His back was to me. He was staring at the closet door. Creeps me out just thinking about it. I turned on the lights, shook him, even got my other brother to clap in his face. When he finally woke up, he couldn’t remember how he got there.”
“So it’s like he’s possessed,” Loop concluded. “Like in those paranormal movies.”
“Don’t say that. You’re creeping me out again.”
“Possessed. Possessed. Possessed!” Loop repeated, using his horror-film voice.
Z covered his ears. “Can’t hear you!”
“Sleepwalking is a lot more common in kids than in adults,” Dominic said. “I was reading about it.”
Loop wanted to yawn. Every time an interesting subject came up, Dominic had to spoil it with facts.
“Why were you reading about sleepwalking?” Loop asked. “Was this for school?”
“No.”
“You mean you were reading for fun? Because if you like reading for fun, I can give you my copy of Frankenstein and you can break it down chapter by chapter so I can draw some pictures.”
“I just like reading sometimes,” Dominic said. “It’s not exactly fun. More like… interesting. And I wasn’t reading about sleepwalking. I was reading about murders and people who don’t have to go to jail ‘by reason of insanity’ because it turns out that you don’t know what you’re doing when you’re asleep, so you can’t control yourself. Then I got curious about sleepwalking and Googled it.”
Z’s eyes widened. “So now you’re saying my brother can kill me in my sleep and not even go to jail for it?”
“It’s very rare,” Dominic explained. “Most sleepwalkers don’t actually walk anywhere. They just sit up in bed.”
Loop had a better sleepwalking story. “My cousin,” he said, “was sleepwalking one time. He had to pee, but instead of going to the bathroom, he went to his parents’ room. They had this big square fan, but he thought it was the toilet. His pee flew everywhere and everyone got wet!”
“That’s gross!” Z said, but he was laughing. The other two joined in, and their stomach muscles got sore from laughing so hard.
Just then, Mr. Garza cleared his throat. He stood right beside them. He definitely had stealth abilities.
“Do you want to be clowns or magicians?” he asked, straightening his T-shirt. Today his shirt had a picture of a German shepherd with the words ASSASSIN’S BREED written underneath. Loop nodded approvingly since this was obviously a reference to one of his favorite video games.
Mr. Garza was still waiting for their answer. “Well?”
The boys mumbled that they wanted to be magicians.
“Then read this.”
He gave them a bunch of handouts stapled together. The top page said CHAPTER TWO: THE VERNON TOUCH.
Dominic grabbed a pencil and a highlighter from the backpack he carried around. He even brought out Post-its. What a nerd! Loop thought. Why on earth would you bring school supplies to a magic shop?
When Loop got the packet, he counted. “Thirteen pages!” he cried. “Thirteen pages and all single-spaced! You expect us to read this? I thought we were going to learn magic.”
“No way!” Z said, quickly dropping the packet on the table, shaking his hands as if the pages had burned them. “Who gets homework when they’re not even in school?”
Dominic had already highlighted a line. “Come on, guys. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
Mr. Garza didn’t say anything. He just went back to his computer. So th
e boys started reading. At one point, Z said, “There’s a lot of big words in here.” At another point, Loop said, “Cool! A one-handed magician!” A little later, Z came back with “Finally! Some pictures.” And five minutes after that, Loop set down the packet and lowered his head to sleep, but Dominic shook him and Z clapped his hands. “Okay, okay,” Loop said, lifting the packet again. They kept reading, with Z mumbling under his breath, Loop yawning, and Dominic taking notes.
Finally, all three announced that they had finished, so Mr. Garza left his computer and sat with them. “If you could pick three words or phrases to explain this chapter, what would they be?”
Loop answered first, counting off each word with his fingers. “Cure. For. Insomnia.”
Sarcastic comments like this had gotten him in trouble at school, and Mr. Garza was not about to put up with Loop’s nonsense, either. He lifted his glasses and stared at him. Then he said, “You want to try that again?”
So Loop did. This time he gave a real response. “Okay, so it’s about one guy who does magic with his head, since he only has one hand. Then there’s a guy who has two hands but he’s all fidgety, so he does fidgety magic. And another guy does a French drop. At first, I thought a French drop was candy, like lemon drop or gumdrop, and probably because I’m really hungry right now. But it’s not candy. It’s a way of making a little ball or coin disappear. And the guy who does it has two hands. The handouts don’t say that, but you can tell from the pictures.”
Mr. Garza thought for a moment. “You’re right about the French drop, and I can tell you read the chapter, at least the first half. But”—he paused—“I was hoping for three words or phrases that capture the main points.”
That’s when Z jumped in. “Slydini, Malini, and Cardini!”
Loop cracked up and gave his friend a fist bump.
Mr. Garza turned to him. “Those are names, young man. I’m looking for something you learned about magic.”
“But I did learn something,” Z argued. “If you want to be a magician, your name has to end with -ini. So maybe my magic name can be Zalini.”
“Or Zucchini,” Loop suggested. He and Z laughed even harder.
Mr. Garza knocked on the table to get their attention. “Let’s focus on the real lessons in this chapter. He nodded toward Dominic. “What phrases would you pick?”
Dominic flipped through the packet. Loop couldn’t believe what he saw. Not only had Dominic used a highlighter, but he also had written notes in the margins!
“I’d pick ‘use your head,’ ‘be natural,’ and ‘practice, practice, practice,’” Dominic said.
“Excellent!” Mr. Garza replied.
Loop was tempted to write “know-it-all” on a Post-it and stick it on Dominic’s forehead, but then he remembered his probation. The last thing he needed was to get kicked out of Conjuring Cats for silly antics, so he kept his comments to himself.
mentor—
someone with experience who teaches and offers advice to people interested in learning the craft
DOMINIC WAS EMBARRASSED AGAIN. Why did his friends turn everything into a joke? Couldn’t they be serious for once? Mr. Garza was sharing some very important information, but Loop and Z were only half listening. I guess it’s up to me to pay attention and explain things later, Dominic thought with a sigh.
Mr. Garza went on to discuss how magic isn’t just gimmicks and tricks but a real art that requires a lot of thinking. First, you have to figure out which sleights to use and then how to perform them, keeping in mind that everyone has limitations. The magician with one hand was a good example. He couldn’t do sleights like everyone else. He had to change them to fit his body. That’s why the chapter mentioned a fidgety magician, too. Being fidgety was normal for him, so he worked it into his routine. Mr. Garza said that when you learned a sleight, you made it fit you, not the other way around. This was what the famous magician Dai Vernon, also known as the Professor, meant when he said, “Be natural.”
After explaining this, Mr. Garza got quiet for a few moments. Then he asked each of the boys a lot of questions: What do you think about when you daydream? What interests you? Are you shy or daring or a snob? But also, what size are your hands? Are they relaxed or stiff? When you stand, do you move around a lot or mostly stay still?
Loop and Z managed to answer the questions without being silly, so Dominic relaxed a bit.
Then Mr. Garza went to a shelf and grabbed a handful of DVDs. He didn’t play them or even open them. He showed Dominic and his friends the covers and talked about the magicians who were featured—how Max Maven has a deep, hypnotic voice that goes well with his mind-reading tricks and how Jay Sankey is a prankster who loves to perform tricks that make people laugh. And even though Mr. Garza was acting like a schoolteacher and the Vault had suddenly become a classroom, Dominic didn’t mind, because this kind of learning was fun.
“So now for your homework,” Mr. Garza said, and no one complained. “First, think about your interests. Second, observe yourself to see how you move. Third, learn the French drop.”
“Like on the handout?” Loop asked.
“Exactly.”
Everyone flipped to the page that demonstrated the French drop. They studied the pictures while Mr. Garza grabbed four small balls from a bin. Before returning to the table, he took off his baseball cap and grabbed a large red sombrero that hung on the wall. It was very fancy, with gold trim on the edges and golden starbursts stitched into the brim.
“When I wear this hat,” he said, “I am no longer Mr. Garza. I am Señor Surprise, magician and former president of the Texas Association of Magicians, and a member of the Royal Order of Willard, which grants me the privilege of free breakfast during the convention. I am, in short, an award-winning performer in the United States… and beyond.” Here he paused, and even though he was looking at the ceiling, Dominic could tell he was really looking at the entire sky.
He gave each of the boys a little red ball and kept one for himself. “Observe carefully,” he said. He held the ball between his thumb and forefinger and made a big deal of showing it to the boys. He brought the ball to his nose and sniffed it, his mustache twitching like rabbit whiskers. He put it in his mouth. Dominic could see the bulge on Señor Surprise’s cheek as he moved the ball around. Then he swallowed it, choking a bit because it was so large. When he finally got it down, he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue to prove that the ball had disappeared. Then his mustache started to twitch again, this time in a way that pointed at Señor Surprise’s left ear. That’s when Dominic understood his name, because Señor Surprise got a very surprised expression on his face. He started shaking his head like people do when water gets in their ears. Then he tugged at his earlobe, and guess what rolled out—the little red ball! The boys couldn’t help but clap. They were impressed.
“Now for the French drop,” Señor Surprise said.
“You mean that wasn’t the French drop?” Z asked.
“No, that was me being silly.” The boys laughed. With his Meathead baseball cap, Mr. Garza was all business, but with his sombrero, he was all fun.
He showed them the French drop. His technique looked exactly like the pictures in the handout. He held the ball in one hand and grabbed it with the other. Then the ball disappeared. Of course, it didn’t really disappear. The sleight was supposed to let you hide the ball in your hands so that you could pretend it was gone.
It looked easy, but when the boys tried, they all messed up. Z dropped the ball every time, and he had to chase it as it rolled across the floor. Loop’s hands were too stiff, so even though he could do the move, he had trouble hiding the ball. Dominic was the only one who could perform the sleight, but it took him a whole minute instead of a few seconds because he thought about every single part of the move.
Mr. Garza nodded thoughtfully. Then he took off his sombrero and put his baseball cap back on. “Let me show you how,” he said. He worked with them, one by one, demonstrating the sleight and positi
oning their hands. Dominic understood what to do, but it was tough. When Mr. Garza did the French drop, it looked like magic. When Dominic did it, you could tell he was trying to hide something because he moved so slowly.
“You’re not being natural,” Mr. Garza said to the boys. “Remember, you have to be natural.” He gave them more pointers, and then he said, “Now it’s just a matter of practice. You must keep doing this until it’s perfect and you can do it without thinking.”
“But that’s impossible,” Z cried. “I have to think. I’m thinking really hard right now.”
“It is possible,” Dominic said. “Remember when we were learning how to ride our bikes? How hard it was, but how easy it is now?”
“That’s right,” Loop said. “I never think when I ride my bike. I just do it.”
“I guess,” Z agreed. “Like when I couldn’t tie my shoelaces.”
“Or write your name,” Dominic added.
“Or escape from the Temple of No Return on the Monument Maze video game,” Z said.
Dominic’s shoulders dropped. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape the Temple of No Return, and it really bugged him that he hadn’t solved the puzzles. It didn’t seem possible for Z to figure them out first, not when Dominic was the smart one. That’s why he felt certain that Z had help from one of his older brothers, which was the same thing as cheating as far as Dominic was concerned.
“It’s supereasy to escape, so maybe it’ll be supereasy to do the French drop after a while,” Z said.
Dominic and Loop just rolled their eyes. It was rude for Z to rub his Monument Maze success in their faces.
Mr. Garza had more work to do, so he returned to his computer, but the boys kept practicing, trying to help one another. Dominic told his friends that it was easier if they started with their palms facing up. Loop told them that closing the gaps between their fingers helped hide the ball, and Z mentioned that it’s more natural to look at the empty hand, and not at the hand that’s secretly hiding the ball.
