by Andrea Beaty
“Some things never change,” she said.
GRANDMA MELVYN DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE MAGIC LESSONS THE NEXT DAY OR the day after that. She said her head hurt, and she even sat in the recliner with a cloth over her eyes, but I think she was just upset that I wanted Cat to be in the act. I don’t know why that bothered her, since she hadn’t even met Cat. I decided to fix that and brought Cat home with me after school. Grandma Melvyn was watching Wheel of Fortune when we came into the family room. She looked at Cat’s outfit: a T-shirt, a striped skirt, mismatched socks, and hiking boots.
“Hmmmph,” Grandma Melvyn grunted.
Cat pulled a peanut butter and jelly taco out of her satchel and offered it to Grandma Melvyn.
“Want some?” she asked.
“You trying to poison me, Trixie?”
Cat laughed.
“Hmmmph,” said Grandma Melvyn again and gave Cat the Wicked Wobble Eye.
Cat scrunched up her face and gave Grandma Melvyn her best impersonation of the Wicked Wobble Eye, though it was more of a Twinkly Blinky Eye. (Cat isn’t good at wicked.)
“Hmmmph,” Grandma Melvyn grunted again.
Cat laughed again. In case you hadn’t noticed, she laughs a lot. That’s one of the things I like about her. That and the way she doesn’t let people bug her. And she doesn’t judge people all the time. Cat figures that if someone is always cranky like Grandma Melvyn, it’s just who they are. It doesn’t mean they are a bad person.
Grandma Melvyn turned to the television and cranked up the volume. A skinny man with a bad haircut gave the giant wheel a spin and stared at the clue. It looked like this:
The man bit his lip nervously and shuffled his weight from one foot to the other like the future of the planet rested on it. He picked his letter.
“L?” he asked nervously.
“WHAT?” yelled Cat as she threw her taco at the television. “Lizard of Oz?!?!? Are you a moron?”
Grandma Melvyn looked at Cat with admiration. Yep, you heard me. Admiration.
“She’ll do,” Grandma Melvyn said.
And that was that. We resumed magic lessons the next day.
Grandma Melvyn taught me and Cat how to use the cabinet. I can’t give away the illusion, but I can tell you that I was all wrong about how it worked. I can also tell you that the trick required two people and a hidden wooden lever. Remember that. It’s important later.
I was wrong about something else, too. I thought Grandma Melvyn was a complainer, but she wasn’t. Well, she was, but only about stupid things like the lawn, the house, food, television, fashion, vowels, and—well—the whole universe. Okay, Grandma Melvyn was a complainer, but she didn’t complain about one thing: her knee.
Even though she didn’t talk about her knee, I could tell that something was wrong. She had stopped moving around like when she first got to our house. She was always waiting in the lawn chair when Cat and I got home, and she stayed there the whole afternoon. Sometimes, her knee hurt so much it gave her a headache and she sat in the recliner with a cloth over her eyes. Sometimes she drifted off to sleep mid-sentence. I think that was her body’s way of dealing with the pain. It’s not a big deal for most people to fall asleep in a chair, but it is a big deal when the person is Grandma Melvyn and Wheel of Fortune is on television.
AFTER THE TACO-TOSSING INCIDENT, GRANDMA MELVYN WAS NICE TO CAT– by Grandma Melvyn standards. At least she didn’t call her Trixie. She didn’t call her Cat either. She just didn’t call her anything. Coming from Grandma Melvyn, that was probably a compliment.
When we finished practice each day, Cat hung out with Grandma Melvyn and yelled at the Trixies on Wheel of Fortune. Grandma Melvyn didn’t say much, but once, I caught her smiling while Cat laughed. It’s easy to smile around Cat. Her laugh fills the whole room and makes you laugh from the inside all the way to the outside, even when you don’t feel like it.
I think the woman in the black-and-white photographs at Grandma Melvyn’s house was like that. Her smile had power. I bet those Mount Rushmore presidents had a hard time keeping a straight face when she was around. And they were made of rock! The handsome man in the pictures didn’t stand a chance.
I looked at Grandma Melvyn as she smiled at Cat, and I saw a peek of that woman. Grandma Melvyn kept her locked away, deep inside, but she was in there. Why did Grandma Melvyn keep her a prisoner in a cage of frowns and insults?
Was that the price of magic?
I KNOW THAT I’VE TOLD YOU THAT BEING PREPARED IS THE MOST IMPORTANT part of magic. And that expecting the unexpected is the most important part of magic. And that—well, you get the idea.
You know what else is the most important part of magic? Timing. As a magician, if your timing stinks, so do you. After Cat and I worked out the steps of the act, we had to practice, practice, practice to perfect the timing.
I think I need to tell you a little more about the act. Here’s the summary:
I introduce Cat. She climbs into the cabinet. I close the panel, twirl the box three times, say some very magical words, perform some sleight of hand with my wand, and then presto chango … I open the panel and Cat is gone! I close the panel again, twirl the cabinet three times. Tap the mahogany with my wand and—alakazam! I open the panel again and Cat steps out. We grab hands, raise them high, and take an enormous bow to thunderous applause. Ta-daaaa!
That’s how it’s supposed to go. And you’ll be thrilled to know that is exactly how it went in practice. You’ll also be impressed to know that I stood up after my bow without knocking anything over or catching anything on fire. The act was scream free. Faint free. And fire department free. Perfect.
I was thrilled. Grandma Melvyn was not.
“Anybody can do that,” she said. “You need pizzazz.”
She pointed to a large, flat box tied with a deep red ribbon. I started to open it.
“Not for you!” Grandma Melvyn snapped. “For her!”
Cat untied the ribbon and retied it around her wrist like a bracelet.
“It’s beautiful!” she said.
“You’re as hopeless as he is,” said Grandma Melvyn.
Cat opened the box and pulled out a red sequined hat with a tuft of red feathers.
“Now you’re ready,” said Grandma Melvyn.
Remember how I behaved when Grandma Melvyn agreed to let me use the cabinet? I just smiled like an idiot and said, “Thank you.” Not Cat. She skipped right over to Grandma Melvyn and gave her a hug. Grandma Melvyn squirmed and tried to poke Cat with her cane, but she missed. And you know what? I think she missed on purpose.
Grandma Melvyn always has perfect aim.
WE PRACTICED EVERY SPARE MINUTE WE HAD. THE CLOSER THE SHOW GOT, THE more excited I got. And I wasn’t the only one. Cat and Grandma Melvyn were as excited as I was. There were a couple of times when I had to stay late at school for tutoring, but when I got home, Cat was already there with Grandma Melvyn.
Practice always makes magic acts better. But you can’t practice forever. Eventually you run out of time. And that’s what happened to us. Here was the timeline for the talent show:
Wednesday morning—bring all props to school for inspection. Principal Adolphus was very nervous about that. Surprise.
Friday after school: Talent Show Practice. Everyone must attend. No exceptions. Period. This year, Principal Adolphus was playing it safe. He ordered the talent show run-through when he heard from every student in school—and half the city—that I had a new magic act. He said he needed to check out all the acts for safety and discipline purposes. I have a feeling that meant to check out my act for flying salamander purposes. That salamander had left a mark on Principal Adolphus. And not just the one on his forehead.
Saturday at five o’clock: All acts report to the auditorium.
Saturday at seven o’clock: Lights! Camera! Magic!
On Wednesday morning, Cat came by my house before school. We stashed my cape and wand and the red sequined hat inside the magician’s cabinet, then covere
d the whole thing with a giant flowered sheet and rolled it to school. About two hundred kids ran by and half the buses drove past as we rolled the cabinet down the sidewalk, trying to dodge the deep cracks in the concrete. I can tell you one thing. You never notice how deep sidewalk cracks are until you try to roll an enormous sheet-covered magic cabinet over them. Everyone who passed by stared at us, and I could tell they were dying to know what was beneath that flowered sheet. Nate Watkins rode by on his bike, twisting his neck around like a turtle just to stare as he passed.
“Hey, Dorko,” he yelled. “What’s in the coffin? Your brains?”
Okay. That didn’t even make sense, but I didn’t care. I just ignored him. There was no way Nate “the Loser” Watkins was going to ruin my day. And besides, Nate got what was coming to him. He twisted around so much that he rode his bike right off the sidewalk and almost fell over. And you know what? I didn’t even laugh. Much.
At school, Mr. Pierce, the janitor, opened the backstage door, and we hid the cabinet in the wings of the stage where no kids would bother it.
After we stashed the cabinet backstage, we went to class. Everybody was talking about us when we came in. The classroom sounded like a beehive again. Buzzy. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Cat grinned at me, but I kept a straight face. I tried to look cool, even though on the inside I was turning cartwheels. You can’t buy press like that.
School was even more booooooorrrrrriiiiinnnngggg than usual. It took about twelve weeks for the day to end. Just before the final bell, Mrs. M passed out the tickets we had ordered for the talent show. I had requested seats near the front so Mom and Grandma Melvyn could have the best seats in the house. Dad was going to be in Shanghai, so he would miss it, but Mom would tape it so he could see it later. Mom cleared her calendar and everything. It was going to be awesome. In my mind, I added The Great Hobson Talent Show to our list of movies to watch on our next Movie Night. And we already have the candy!
I don’t think Mrs. M was as excited about the talent show as I was. She handed me the ticket envelope with her patented I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-frightening-magical-extravaganza-you-have-dreamed-up-now look. (Mrs. M has very talented facial muscles.)
I opened the envelope. Front-row seats. This day could not get any better. I stuffed the tickets into my pocket, went straight home, and knocked on Grandma Melvyn’s bedroom door.
You probably noticed that I didn’t say “my bedroom” in that last sentence. The truth is that during the last couple of weeks, I had gotten used to Grandma Melvyn being around. And not just because of the magic lessons. But don’t get me wrong. I still wanted my room back.
I guess that maybe I liked Grandma Melvyn. Just a little. She wore her goofy jogging shoes with flashing lights in the heels and her sparkly sweatshirts from places like Niagara Falls and Atlantic City and Las Vegas. She stuck out, but she didn’t apologize for it. In a way, Grandma Melvyn was like a dandelion in our perfect yard of zoysia grass.
There was one more thing about Grandma Melvyn. She had secrets. Things she wouldn’t tell. When I asked her how she knew so much about magic, she asked me how I knew so much about minding my own business. The subject was off-limits, so I didn’t push it. I figured she’d tell me when or if she was ready. Until then, I had tickets to share and a show to perform.
I opened the door to Grandma Melvyn’s room.
And that’s when everything went wrong.
I PEEKED INSIDE.
“Grandma Melvyn?”
The room was empty. I was about to leave when I saw a black-and-white photo in a curlicue frame on the dresser. It was the missing photo from Grandma Melvyn’s house. In the photo, two elegant wooden boxes stood in front of a black velvet curtain on a brightly lit stage. The face of a blond woman with dark lipstick and a toothy grin stuck out the end of one box, while her high-heeled shoes stuck out the end of the other box two yards away. She was sawed in half!
The handsome man and the round-freckled woman stood between the boxes holding hands. With her other hand, the woman held up a small saw. They were dressed up like movie stars and staring at each other like they were about to kiss or something. Blech.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was looking at a picture of Grandma Melvyn and a real-life magician onstage! I was about to put it back on the dresser when a yellowed newspaper clipping fluttered to the floor. I picked it up as Grandma Melvyn stepped into the doorway behind me.
“What are you doing?”
I panicked and crammed the paper into my pocket with one hand and tried to put the picture back on the dresser with the other. It flew out of my hand and smashed against the corner of the dresser, then dropped to the floor in a shower of tiny glass triangles.
Grandma Melvyn and I both grabbed the broken frame, but as we stood up, the curlicue frame broke apart and the photograph ripped with a sickening sound. I let go and Grandma Melvyn looked at the destroyed picture in her hands.
“Get out,” she said quietly.
“I … ”
“Go away,” she said in a whisper so soft I could barely hear it.
“I … ”
“Go away … Trixie.”
HER WHISPER RANG IN MY EARS AS I RAN TO APE BOY’S ROOM AND TOOK Houdi from his cage. I climbed into the Hideout and sat there scratching Houdi behind the ears. My heart banged so loud I thought it would bust, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out that one whispered word …
Trixie.
Grandma Melvyn was right. I was a Trixie. I had destroyed the only photo she had cared enough about to bring from her house. The only photo with Grandma Melvyn and the handsome man. Together.
I pulled the newspaper clipping from my pocket and uncrumpled the fragile yellowed paper. The clipping was worn out from a thousand readings.
Surviving Magician Cancels Tour
The upcoming tour of internationally renowned magicians Martin and Melvyn was officially canceled today. The announcement was made one week after Giovanni Martin died in a one-car accident near Pecatonica, New York. The accident also claimed the life of his new bride, Trixie Monaghan. The couple had eloped on New Year’s Eve and were married only three hours before the accident.
Strong winds and dangerous currents have hampered recovery efforts in the icy waters of Pecatonica Bay. The couple’s bodies remain in their car, which skidded from the Bay Bridge early New Year’s morning.
Trixie Monaghan of Port Washington had recently joined the long-running Martin and Melvyn magic act as an assistant and was set to tour with them this spring.
Angelica Melvyn was unavailable for comment.
I couldn’t believe it. Grandma Melvyn was a magician, too. How could the handsome man run off and marry Trixie when he looked at Grandma Melvyn like he did in that picture? I didn’t get it. Who would want to marry a Trixie instead of a real magician?
I bet Grandma Melvyn wondered that, too. How many times had she read that article trying to figure it out? Trying to find a clue that she could never find because it was lost in the icy water of Pecatonica Bay.
Maybe that was the price of magic.
SOMETIMES WHEN YOU HURT SOMEONE, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THEM ALONE until they’re ready to hear that you’re sorry. Sometimes that’s exactly the wrong thing to do, and you have to tell them right away, and if you don’t, you just make it worse. And sometimes no matter what you do, the person never ever, ever wants to hear from you again, and nothing you try will help. Those are the times when you should just give up and join the French Foreign Legion. That’s what they used to do in the old movies. If you’ve ever seen one, you’ll know what I mean. Those movies always end with the guy crawling across the Sahara until he collapses and dies one sand dune from the fort. If you’ve seen those movies, you might have noticed that those French Foreign Legion guys always have canteens with them. They don’t die of thirst. It’s the guilt that kills them.
This was a French Foreign Legion situation, but I still had to try to tell Grandma Melvyn that I was sorry. And I really was sorry. I
sat in the Hideout for three hours thinking of how to tell her, but my words were pathetic. And I know what you’re thinking. Those were the easiest words in the world. Just say them already.
I. Am. Sorry.
How hard could that be? Impossible. That’s how hard.
Those should be the easiest words in the English language, but I couldn’t shake the image of Martin and Melvyn holding hands onstage, looking at each other like no one else in the whole world existed. I thought about the icy bridge and the skidding car. The screech of metal and terrified screams as the car plunged into freezing water with a horrible splash. Then silence.
Where was Grandma Melvyn when the call came that shattered her world? The call that left the beautiful woman with the perfectly round freckle waiting … waiting … waiting? Was she still waiting?
I am sorry should be the easiest thing in the world to say, but sometimes I am sorry just doesn’t cut it.
The problem is that sometimes it’s all you’ve got.
I WENT DOWN TO DINNER WITH A KNOT IN MY STOMACH, BUT GRANDMA Melvyn wasn’t there. She had told Mom that her Trixiphobia was flaring up and stayed in her room the rest of the night. I wrote a pathetic note telling her how sorry I was. I put it into an envelope with her ticket for the magic show and slid it under her door. Half a second later, the unopened envelope slid back into the hall. Grandma Melvyn wasn’t ready to hear from me. Time to get a canteen.
The next morning, I went to the kitchen hoping that Grandma Melvyn would be there with her cane so she could trip me with it. She wasn’t. Mom was there, stuffing peanut butter sandwiches into lunch boxes for me and Ape Boy. She was in a major rush.
“Is Grandma Melvyn okay?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Mom asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “While I think of it, I need you to make sure Grandma Melvyn takes her meds after school. I’ve got a meeting, so I won’t be home. Can you do that?”
