by Diana Lopez
Loop cheered, and Rubén raised his fist. Loop almost gave him a fist bump, but he changed his mind at the last minute and offered a handshake instead. “Thank you,” he said, all formal.
Rubén looked disappointed, but he shook Loop’s hand anyway and kept an upbeat voice. “You’re welcome,” he said.
Loop went to his room to grab his wallet. As he was leaving the house, he heard his mom complain to Rubén. “If you keep spoiling him, he’ll never respect you.”
Loop shook his head. It’s not about respect, he thought. It’s about trust.
He didn’t want to dwell on his family’s Big Lie, so he focused on reviewing the magic routine he’d been planning for the convention. Fifteen minutes later, he reached Conjuring Cats, but he didn’t go into the Vault right away because he wanted to buy some supplies.
“I need latex skin, a rubber knife, and some fake blood,” he announced as soon as he saw Mrs. Garza.
“You know where they are,” she said.
He went to the aisle where they kept costume supplies and quickly grabbed the latex skin and fake blood, but he couldn’t decide what kind of weapon to buy. He thought he wanted a knife, but then he saw axes and swords. They would totally improve the “awesome” level of his routine. He picked up a sword and then an ax and pretended to stab and hack. They didn’t weigh anything because they were made of plastic. “Nah,” he decided. Swords and axes were for lopping off heads, amputating arms, and slicing people in half. He had no intention of doing major bodily harm in his routine. “Just minor bodily harm.” He chuckled to himself. Yup, he needed to stick to his original plan, so he turned his attention to the knives, settling on one called the Terror Blade. It had a picture of a man with wild hair, lunatic eyes, and a muzzle. “This is perfect!” Loop said.
As he paid for his items, he chatted with Mrs. Garza, asking about Mr. Garza’s gig and complaining about staying home all week. Then he headed to the Vault, expecting it to be empty, but as soon as he pushed back the purple velvet curtain, he saw Dominic. When he remembered how Dominic had ruined his chop cup, he got insanely mad, just like the psycho on the Terror Blade package.
Loop’s teeth were clenched, but he still managed to snarl, “You!”
ditch—
when a magician gets rid of an object that is no longer needed for his routine
Z WAS HEADED TO Conjuring Cats, too, and as soon as he entered, he spotted Loop going through the purple velvet curtain. He rushed into the Vault, barely saying hello to Mrs. Garza as he ran by the counter.
“You!” he yelled as he swooshed through the curtain.
Then Dominic yelled at him. “You!”
For a few seconds, they all glared at one another. If they had been superheroes, their eyes would be Tasers and they’d be on the ground shaking from spasms. That’s how angrily they stared. Then all of them yelled at once.
Z shouted at Loop. “You cut up my Svengali deck. Now it’s useless!”
Loop shouted at Dominic. “My chop cup doesn’t work anymore, so you owe me twenty-two dollars and fifty cents!”
And Dominic shouted at Z. “Because of you, my quarter shell is all messed up!”
Then they got personal. Loop called Dominic a know-it-all, Dominic called Z a crybaby, and Z called Loop a freak. Then Z brought up the time his bike got covered in bird poop because his friends put it under a tree where hundreds of grackles roosted, and Loop mentioned the time he chipped his tooth because he fell when they all raced with their shoes tied together. Dominic complained about the time they destroyed his favorite Transformers action figure by lassoing it with strings of Black Cat firecrackers and lighting them up to see if Optimus Prime was really the strongest and bravest of all the Autobots. Then they threw out nicknames they hadn’t used since forever—calling Z Buster because he fell off a trampoline and busted his lip, Dominic Mr. Toot because he accidentally farted in class, and Loop Chango for no reason at all, except that he hated to be called “monkey.” And when they ran out of old nicknames, they invented new ones right on the spot! Like Fungus Foot, Toilet Clogger, Slobber Boy, and Stink Bomb! Z didn’t like arguing, but no way was he going to back down. His friends wouldn’t back down, either, so this fight had definitely turned into the biggest, wildest, loudest, meanest, “everything-est” of all the fights they’d had since kindergarten.
Z seriously wanted to ditch his friends! He had absolutely no idea why Dominic kept blaming him for a messed-up quarter shell, because Z had never touched it. As far as he was concerned, his friends were lying. What he couldn’t figure out was why they thought he was lying, too.
So he and his friends kept arguing, shouting that so-and-so was guilty because of this-and-that. No one would admit anything. No one would apologize.
They might have argued till midnight, but a shrill whistle startled them. Z and his friends turned toward the sound and saw Mrs. Garza at the door. “Settle down! All this noise is bad for business!”
“But—” Loop tried.
She held out her hand like a cop stopping traffic. “I don’t want to hear it.” She took a deep breath. Then she said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you boys, but whatever it is, you better make peace now or get out of this store.” She shook her finger at them and then abruptly left.
Z felt bad. Mrs. Garza had been so nice to him, and if it weren’t for her, he never would have auditioned to get access to the Vault. The last thing he wanted was to make her angry, but he couldn’t let his friends get away with ruining his cards and accusing him of something he didn’t do.
For a moment, the boys were quiet. Finally, Dominic went to a table and sat down. Z joined him, then Loop did as well.
“Look,” Dominic said in a calmer voice. “It’s okay if the quarter shell is messed up. I wasn’t going to use it for my routine anyway.”
“For the last time,” Z said, all exasperated, “I didn’t mess up your quarter shell! I never touched it. You just have to believe me.”
“If you want Dominic to believe you,” Loop said, “then you’ll have to believe me about the Svengali deck. How could I mess it up when I didn’t even have it?”
Z knew this was an outright lie. “Okay, then,” he said, challenging him, “explain why it was in your locker.”
Loop shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know how it got there. I don’t even use that locker.”
Z remembered opening Loop’s locker and seeing that it was practically empty.
“Besides,” Loop said, “why were you looking in my locker?”
“Because,” Z answered, “Ariel told me to.”
Loop thought a moment. Then he looked at Dominic. “Ariel told me you were using my chop cup for strange experiments before you went to Corpus.”
“And it was Ariel,” Dominic added, “who said Z was practicing with the quarter shell, which seemed really weird because”—he glanced at Z—“you only like card tricks.”
They sat quietly for a while, but it didn’t take them long to reach the same conclusion.
All at once, they shouted, “Ariel!”
misdirection—
turning the audience’s attention away from secret moves
IT HAD TO BE ARIEL, Dominic realized. She was the common denominator in all their stories. But why would she do this in the first place?
“I watch crime shows,” Loop said. “Law and Order, CSI, anything with Sherlock Holmes, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that—”
“You’re innocent until proven guilty?” Z guessed.
“No, it’s that—”
Dominic knew the answer. “You need to demonstrate three things in a court of law: means, motive, and opportunity.”
“Let me finish!” Loop took a deep breath before continuing. “The thing I’ve learned is that people who don’t look like they have a mean streak are sometimes the worst criminals—like the guy next door or the cute girl.”
Dominic nodded. True, Ariel was the common denominator and she was a cute girl
who didn’t seem like she could be so mean, but he wanted to investigate before giving her the guilty verdict. “Let’s work this out,” he suggested. “One”—he held up a finger—“Ariel has the means to mess up our stuff because she knows all about magic. Two”—he held up a second finger—“she’s definitely had the opportunity because she’s here all the time. And three…” He held up a third finger, but he couldn’t find a reason for his third point. “Well… um… I’m not sure about Ariel’s motive.”
“That’s right,” Z said. “Why would she ruin our stuff and then frame us? It doesn’t make any sense.”
The boys were stumped. Then Loop said, “I know one way to find out.” He pointed to Ariel’s locker, the one with the giant gold star.
As much as Dominic wanted to learn the truth, he also wanted to respect Ariel’s property. “We shouldn’t touch her things,” he said.
“Why not?” Loop asked. “She touched ours.”
“Yeah,” Z said. He was already heading to the locker. “We wouldn’t think of doing this if she hadn’t messed with us first. Besides, she told me to peek in Loop’s locker, so she can’t really blame us if we look in hers.” He opened the door and took out Ariel’s notebook. “I bet we’ll find lots of answers in here,” he said.
He brought it to the table and was about to open it when Dominic stopped him. After all, what if Ariel had her most secret, deepest desires in there? “This is supposed to be private,” he said, putting his hand on top of the notebook before Z could open it. “Like a diary.”
“Even better,” Loop replied. “I’ve been curious about this notebook all summer. Remember what I said about the cute girl being the bad guy? I bet she has sinister plans for all kinds of stuff—like formulas for crazy poisons that make your fingernails fall off or designs for a machine that can suck up the oxygen in a twenty-mile radius, making all the people, even innocent little children, gag and claw at their throats as they suffocate to death.”
Dominic couldn’t help chuckling at his friend’s wild imagination. “But seriously,” he said. “She probably has love notes in there or stories about being a princess. Isn’t that what girls think about? It’s what my sister thinks about.”
“No way,” Z said. “I have lots of sisters. Sure, they talk about boys sometimes, but they’re more interested in who’s fat and who’s skinny, or who’s rich and who’s poor. They watch TV all the time, and it isn’t Disney stuff. They like talk shows, which are really yelling shows with husbands and wives screaming at each other for cheating or being lazy or spending all the money. My sisters like court TV, too. And the whole time they’re watching, they’re talking about how dumb people are. That poem about girls being sugar and spice and everything nice is a bunch of baloney.”
“You said it,” Loop agreed. “Girls are mean.”
Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, thinking about his mom, his little sister, and Mrs. Garza. “Some girls are nice and smart.”
Z brushed aside Dominic’s hand and started to open the notebook. “Trust me,” he said, “this isn’t private because Ariel told me she’s writing her memoir, which is a book about your life.”
Dominic rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was for Z to give him definitions. “I know what a memoir is.”
“So do I,” Loop said. “You guys would be surprised by all the stuff I know.”
“So think about it,” Z continued. “People write memoirs because they want other people to read them. We’re actually doing Ariel a favor by taking a peek.”
Dominic thought a moment. Maybe Z had a point. If Ariel intended for no one to see her notebook, then why would she keep it in a locker without locking it up? Besides, how else could they discover the truth?
“Well,” he said, “when you put it that way.”
He and Loop gathered around as Z flipped to the first page. It had a bunch of doodles. In fact, Ariel doodled a lot. She loved lists, too. One was called “Stupid Love Stories” and she wrote, “Romeo and Juliet because they both die. Titanic because Leonardo DiCaprio sinks into the freezing ocean and dies. Ghost because ghosts can’t hold your hand or kiss you or even call you on the phone because they’re incorporeal, which basically means dead. And another stupid love story? The Fault in Our Stars—do I even have to explain?” Another list was called “Useless Talents” with things like singing the alphabet backward, reciting poetry in Klingon, and “getting the title of a random SpongeBob SquarePants episode, like ‘Squidville,’ and then offering a scene-by-scene summary. Seriously, I know a guy who does this, and to make matters worse, he’s proud.” Dominic actually thought this was a very useful talent, since it meant the guy had a great memory, great enough to store every SpongeBob SquarePants episode ever made.
Ariel also had outlines for magic routines and pages filled with magic-related brainstorms. Those pages were quite interesting, but lots of stuff was boring, especially when she wrote about her daily activities. Dominic was glad to learn that every morning began with Ariel brushing her teeth, but did she have to record it all the time?
He was ready to declare Ariel innocent, but then they found the following entry:
MY DAD
• AKA Joe Garza; CEO of Conjuring Cats, specializing in retail services for magicians, illusionists, escape artists, psychics, clowns, and hobbyists.
• Former president of the TAOM and a member of the Order of Willard.
• Award-winning performer who is best known by a sombrero instead of a top hat and by the stage name Señor Surprise.
• Upstanding citizen with a college degree, an excellent credit score, and no cavities or enemies.
• A victim of devious manipulations by three strangers!
POSSIBLE CAUSES OF MY FATHER’S RECENT GULLIBILITY
• My father is experiencing a midlife crisis whereby his unfulfilled dreams have left him disappointed, delusional, and depressed.
• My father has become extremely sensitive and vulnerable after I tried to make my own flash paper using a paint solvent and crystals from inside a road flare. Apparently, tree houses are poor substitutes for science labs. I accidentally caused a fire, burning down the tree house and then the tree, and even though my father was glad that I narrowly escaped death, he was devastated to learn that certain books and props from his “secret” collection did not escape.
• My father is the victim of body snatching, and his likeness is now possessed by an alien.
• Whatever the cause, he is not the same after the arrival of these three devious strangers.
Dominic couldn’t believe it. How could Ariel blame them for her father’s behavior? Besides, as far as he was concerned, Mr. Garza was a nice guy. So even if he had changed, he’d changed into something good.
“So that’s why she kept ignoring us,” Loop said. “She thinks we’re devious.”
Z nodded and then said, “Maybe, but why would she mess up our stuff? We need to keep reading.”
Dominic agreed, and the boys flipped through a few more pages. Ariel had pics of Diamonds and Spades with thought bubbles that said things like, “That’s TUNA-licious,” “Purrhaps,” and “¿Cómo se dice ‘meow’ en Español?” She also liked to copy her name over and over again—Ariel, Miranda Ariel, Ariel Garza, Miranda Garza, Miranda Ariel Garza, M.A.G., and Miranda G. She used different fonts, too, and different colored pencils. Sometimes, she turned the letters into pictures, like adding a chimney to the “A” or a top hat to the “L.”
Finally, the boys found an entry with more clues:
SUBJECTS OF OBSERVATION: 3 AMATEUR MAGICIANS (AKA NOOBS)
• Always competing.
• Evidence of deep jealousies.
• Confusion over ownership of property.
• Lacking in communication skills.
• Susceptible to suggestion, which has made possible the successful execution of my plan.
“There it is!” Dominic exclaimed. “Proof!”
“Proof of what?” Ariel asked
as she entered the Vault. Then she spotted the boys with her notebook.
torn and restored—
when a magician cuts up something like paper or string and then makes it whole again
LOOP KNEW THAT ARIEL was the human version of a computer virus, planting glitches in the perfectly good program of his friendship with Dominic and Z. Always the cute girl, he repeated to himself. He shaped his hand into a gun, pointed at her, and pretended to shoot. “Pow! You are so busted.”
Ariel marched straight to the table and grabbed her notebook. “This is private!”
“No, it isn’t,” Z said. “You told me you were writing your memoir.”
She was stumped, but only for a moment. “This is the rough draft. You aren’t supposed to read the rough draft. You’re supposed to wait till it’s on the bestseller list. And then you’re supposed to buy a copy and stand in a really long line for my autograph—if you can get to New York or Los Angeles, because no way am I doing a book signing here. I need a city with millions of people. By the time my memoir is finished, I’ll be famous, and I probably won’t even remember you guys. This”—she waved her notebook—“is nothing close to the final story. I haven’t even picked my pen name. You are not supposed to read someone’s memoir until after she has figured out her pen name!” As an afterthought, she added, “And a logo. Every artist needs a logo.”
“Blah, blah, blah!” Loop said. “All this talk about being famous is just another form of misdirection. Quit trying to avoid the real topic.”
“That’s right,” Dominic said, “and the real topic is not your memoir.”
She crossed her arms, hugging her notebook against her chest. “What is it, then?”
“Are you serious?” Loop was flabbergasted. “You lied and framed us! You told me Dominic did weird experiments on my chop cup, and you told Z that I took the Svengali deck.”
