by Andrea Beaty
Clang! Clang!
“Hey!” I said.
I was mad and I wanted to stay mad.
Clang! Clang!
A tiny laugh bubbled up inside me.
Clang! Clang!
The laugh fought its way up through my gut and popped out my mouth. Cat smiled. I kicked the pole and “punched” her back.
Clang! Clang!
Cat grinned.
“Let’s go put on a magic show,” she said.
I gave the pole one last kick and followed her into the school.
Principal Adolphus was onstage welcoming people to the show when Cat and I sneaked backstage and got our gear out of the cabinet. It was off to the side of the stage, so nobody could see us, but we could peek out at the audience. It was hard to see beyond the first ten rows, but the auditorium seemed full. Except for three empty seats in the front. My face got hot. Mom hadn’t even tried to get there.
Just then the audience clapped as two first-grade girls with ponytails stepped onto the stage and walked up to the microphone, which was nine inches above their heads. Mrs. Thompson, the music teacher, rushed onstage and lowered the microphone, then walked to the piano. She gave them a big nod and began to play.
The girls stood like statues staring at the crowd, but when Mrs. Thompson played the piano introduction for the third time, they started to sing. They squeezed each other’s hands like they might drown if they let go. The girls sang so quietly, I could barely hear them—even with microphones—but it didn’t matter. When they finished, they hugged each other and jumped up and down and squealed while the crowd clapped and cheered. Finally, Mrs. Thompson shuffled them offstage. Cat smiled and clapped for them.
Seeing her enthusiasm reminded me that this show was important to her, too. Even if I had ruined things with Grandma Melvyn and even if Mom didn’t come, I owed it to Cat to do my best. It was time to put on a show and to give it my all, because there really wasn’t another option. I think we settled that way back in Chapter 1. Cat grabbed Grandma Melvyn’s red sequined hat, and I took my cape and wand, and we walked to the library.
The library was packed with dancers, singers, gymnasts, violinists, laundry ninjas, and Dancing Chicken Butts. Don’t ask. One by one, the acts were called backstage, where they waited for their turn to perform. We watched the show on a monitor in the library. Some of the acts were amazing, like the kid with the Chinese yo-yo. And the girl who solved a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. After a while I quit watching and ran through our act in my mind. I had to concentrate very hard to block out the feelings that kept creeping back up inside me. I tried visualizing my act in my mind. That’s a very important technique in magic. At least for me. Cat didn’t bother visualizing; she sat in the corner and read a book.
Finally, the library was empty except for us and the Dancing Chicken Butts. It was our turn to line up. Cat and I walked (and the Chicken Butts waddled) to the backstage door and lined up in the wings. As the Chicken Butts took the stage, I peeked at the audience from behind the black velvet drapes.
Two second-grade boys sat in the front row seats reserved for someone else. Someone who was supposed to be there taping the show. Someone who was not.
At last, the Dancing Chicken Butts took a bow and waddled offstage. One of the PTA volunteers rolled Grandma Melvyn’s cabinet center stage as whispers rose from the audience. Even after three hours of bad dancing, awful singing, laundry ninjas, and Dancing Chicken Butts, the auditorium was packed. Everyone had stayed to the bitter end waiting for our act. They were hoping either to see the greatest magic act ever or to tape the winning entry for America’s Stupidest Videos. One way or the other, they would get what they came for. I took a deep breath as Principal Adolphus stepped to the microphone.
“And finally,” he said, “it’s Robert Darko and Cat Mulligan!”
Whispers swelled in the auditorium as the crowd fidgeted and squirmed in their seats to get a better view of the stage. There was no polite applause like when the other acts came onstage. Just the familiar buzzing of bees. I was glad that Houdi wasn’t there. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and my heart pounded. I looked at Cat, who blew a feather out of her face and gave me a wimpy smile. I wanted to step onstage, but my feet would not move.
Principal Adolphus waved us onto the stage, shuffling nervously. His face turned red, and the vein in his neck bulged out even more than it had that day in his office.
“Robert Darko and Cat Mulligan!” he said even louder.
Instantly, the whispers stopped. Complete silence filled the auditorium. I swallowed hard. This was it. The chance I had waited for to show Hobson Elementary School and the world what I could do. I took another deep breath and grabbed Cat’s hand, and we stepped into the bright lights of the Hobson Elementary School auditorium.
Showtime!
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” I SAID, “WE ARE STANDING BESIDE THE LEGENDARY Chamber of Dimensions, made famous by the renowned magicians Martin and Melvyn. It is not only beautiful, but it is also full of—”
“Salamanders?” yelled a voice suspiciously like that of Nate Watkins, fifth-grade loser.
“MAGIC!” I yelled back. “It’s full of magic! The Chamber of Dimensions has the power to magically transport a person into another dimension! The next dimension!” I paused for effect, then I twirled the cabinet three times and said the magic word.
“Open, salamand—sesame! Open, sesame!”
I flourished my cape to distract the audience while Cat flipped the hidden wooden lever on the side of the cabinet. The panel popped open. The audience clapped politely.
Cat took my hand, and I spun her around while she smiled and waved. It was a pretty good dance move. She stepped into the box and waved again.
“Into the next dimension!” I said, and closed the panel.
I spun the cabinet around three times, waved my wand dramatically, and tossed a fistful of green glitter into the air, distracting the audience while I flipped the lever again.
Presto! The cabinet opened, and it was empty! The audience clapped more enthusiastically.
“Return to our dimension!”
I closed the door, spun the cabinet, and waved my wand again. I looked at the audience. Cat smiled at me from the front row.
I twirled the cabinet around one more time.
Wait … What?
Cat waved from a seat that had been empty a minute before. A seat that should not in any possible scenario contain the person who was supposed to be waiting for me to say some magic words and bring her back from the next dimension, which—for the record—is not the first row of the Hobson Elementary School auditorium.
“Uh …,” I said. “I …”
Cat pointed at the cabinet and mouthed the words open it.
“Uh …,” I said.
Cat pointed at the box again. I waved my right hand dramatically and secretly flipped the lever with my left hand.
The panel swung open, and out stepped Grandma Melvyn in the red feathered hat and a glittery sequined gown hanging loosely over her Niagara Falls sweatshirt. The long, sparkling gown flowed over her light-up jogging shoes into a glittery puddle of fabric. Grandma Melvyn took a gigantic bow, sparkling from her hat to her green glittery cane. The crowd cheered wildly.
When she stood up, Grandma Melvyn stood ten feet taller than I had ever seen her before, and she was smiling. Her smile filled the whole auditorium. It filled the whole world.
I was stunned. I stood there with my mouth wide open, looking like the biggest dork in the universe, but nobody noticed. Every single eye in the auditorium was on Grandma Melvyn. She waved elegantly, then twirled around and took another bow.
She poked me with her glittery green cane and whispered, “Watch and learn, Robbie Darko. Watch and learn.”
Grandma Melvyn pulled a bouquet of daisies from my pocket and tossed it to the audience. She twirled around and turned a handkerchief into a dove. She raised her hand and sent the dove soaring gracefully over the audienc
e. The crowd went wild. Grandma Melvyn took off her sequined hat and tossed it into the air. It vanished in a flash of light and a puff of smoke.
Bravo!
I stood on the stage with my mouth still open, watching Grandma Melvyn do her stuff. That’s when I learned what it meant to be a real magician. It had nothing to do with tricks or props. It had everything to do with love. Grandma Melvyn wasn’t up there to prove anything to anyone. She was there because she loved magic, and even though Grandma Melvyn didn’t like people very much, she loved the audience. And because of that, they loved her and believed everything she did. They were rooting for her. They wanted to believe. She made them feel that.
Grandma Melvyn twirled and swirled around the stage, gracefully performing trick after trick, pausing only long enough to strike a pose and acknowledge the audience’s love. She owned the stage, and she was amazing.
She was Grandma Melvyn.
AT LAST, GRANDMA MELVYN STEPPED TO THE MICROPHONE AND RAISED HER hand to hush the audience. Silence swept over the auditorium.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we will perform a trick so daring and dangerous no one has performed it in half a century! I know, because it was last performed by me!”
Cat stepped onstage carrying a long, narrow wooden box. Grandma Melvyn opened the box and pulled out two sword-length sewing needles threaded with long white satin ribbons. Cat closed the box and stepped back into the wings of the stage while Grandma Melvyn thrust the needles into the air like Joan of Arc on the battlefield. The piercing-sharp needles glinted in the stage lights, and the white coils of ribbon flashed through the air like striking snakes.
I heard a gasp from the audience.
“However, to perform this daring and dangerous act,” Grandma Melvyn said, “I need a volunteer.”
Grandma Melvyn pointed a needle at the audience and waved it back and forth as if the needle had the power to pick the perfect victim. It waved left, then right, then left again … slowly … slowly … then zoom! The needle swung around and pointed straight at Principal Adolphus.
That’s when everything slipped into slow motion just like in the movies. A word screamed in my mind but could not find my mouth in time to be heard by anyone else.
Nooooooooo—
I could tell by the look of terror in his eyes that Principal Adolphus was moving in slow motion, too. His brain was reliving the terrors of Talent Shows Past. Yet he was powerless against Grandma Melvyn’s tractor beam needle. It pulled him across the stage like a zombie. He stopped in front of the cabinet. Grandma Melvyn handed me the needles and swept the principal into the cabinet, slamming the panel shut behind him. “Welcome to the big time,” she whispered to me as Cat stepped out of the wings and struck a pose that directed the attention of everyone in the entire universe right at me.
Wait! What?
Grandma Melvyn smiled as I clutched the sewing needles and waited in the blinding glare of a million eyes without a single clue what to do next.
REMEMBER WHEN I TOLD YOU GRANDMA MELVYN TAUGHT ME HOW TO USE THE cabinet and showed me things it could do that I hadn’t figured out before? I remember that day, too. What I don’t remember is two swordlike needles with yards and yards of white satin ribbon. I think I would have remembered that, don’t you?
I stood there with a gigantic needle in each hand and the whole world watching while I tried to figure out what to do next. It might have been okay if time had remained in slow motion, but it didn’t. Time picked up speed until it zoomed by in a blur. And not just for me. It must have done that for Principal Adolphus, too. From inside the box, Principal Adolphus yelled and knocked on the wood like an angry woodpecker.
“Mrmbmmmrmvkm fmfmmrmmsmlrm!”
You don’t need to be fluent in Angry Principal to know what he was saying. Seconds ticked past as I stood there. My brain jumped from the needles to the box to the audience and back again. Then I looked at Grandma Melvyn. The look on her face said, “Be amazing.” And so I was. Because sometimes you just have to be. What else are you going to do? Be a flop?
I lifted the needles high into the air and crossed them above my head and then swished them around like an ancient sword master. I really didn’t know what to do with them, but I was going to fake it until I figured it out. The ribbons snapped through the air as I dramatically circled the box. I moved like I was casting a spell. Once around the box. Twice around the box. Three times around …
And then I knew what to do!
I pushed the needle into one of the oval holes at the side of the box. It slid into the box on one side, and the brilliant point jabbed out of a hole on the opposite side. In a heartbeat, Grandma Melvyn stepped around to the glinting point and gracefully pulled the needle from the box. The ribbon trailed behind it, transformed from brilliant white to blood red.
The audience cheered. Grandma Melvyn raised her needle and shot a glance at the second needle in my hand. I raised it high, and then, as if we had practiced a million times, we each jabbed our needles into the box and threaded the ribbons back and forth, back and forth through the holes, until the white tail ends of the ribbons dangled from my side of the box and the two silver needles dangled from twelve inches of red ribbon on her side. We only got tangled up two or three times, but not for long, so I don’t think the audience ever noticed. We twirled the box around three times, and I knocked on the front of the cabinet while Grandma Melvyn prepared to flip the wooden lever. The panel opened, and there it was …
The moment with no name. When anything is possible and everyone holds their breath and waits to see what comes next.
The funny thing is, I didn’t really know what was supposed to happen next. In a way, I was experiencing it with the audience. Only closer. We looked inside the box. It was filled with a web of blood-red ribbons. The principal was gone!
Grandma Melvyn grabbed my hand and raised it high into the air, and the crowd went wild. Then Grandma Melvyn stepped back and directed the attention to me. I stood there with the clapping audience, flashing cameras, beaming stage lights, and a smiling Grandma Melvyn, and I took the biggest bow of my life.
“Ta-daaaa!”
You probably think everything went perfectly after that and people were thrilled and Principal Adolphus proclaimed Hobson Elementary School an International Magic Sanctuary or something cool like that. And you know what? If this was a movie, that’s exactly what would have happened. The other thing that would have happened is that Grandma Melvyn’s dove would have dive-bombed Nate Watkins or dropped a load on his head, if you know what I mean. Insert major sound effect here! However, this is not a movie—yet—so none of those things happened. Here’s what did happen.
After I took the biggest bow of my life—and stood up again without catching anything on fire—I closed the panel, and Grandma Melvyn and I unlaced the box by threading the needles back through the holes. When the ribbons were loose, we twirled the box three times, knocked three times on the front—three is the magic number, in case you hadn’t noticed—and then I flipped the wooden lever, which broke off in my hand.
Oops.
Of course, we did exactly what magicians are supposed to do in that situation. We smiled. The audience didn’t know anything was wrong, and we weren’t about to show it. Grandma Melvyn and I smiled, dramatically waved our hands, and twirled the box some more.
Eventually, people started to suspect that something was wrong. The high-pitched screams from inside the box were probably their first clue. When the janitor walked onstage with a crowbar and a hatchet, the act was over.
“Don’t break the cabinet!” I yelled.
I felt a hand on my arm. It was Grandma Melvyn.
“Sometimes, Robbie,” she said, “you’ve got to let things go.”
Then she smiled and tucked her cool, wrinkled hand into the crook of my arm and led me from the stage of the Hobson Elementary Talent Show.
She never looked back.
GRANDMA MELVYN AND I STEPPED INTO THE CROWDE
D HALLWAY WHERE parents were trying to find their kids and get home. The kids just wanted to run up and down the hallways screaming. It was chaos. One of the singing girls with ponytails asked Grandma Melvyn for her autograph. Grandma Melvyn beamed as she signed the girl’s talent show program, then she pulled a coin out of the girl’s ear. The girl clapped and reached for the quarter, but just like that, it vanished.
“Do I look like a bank?” Grandma Melvyn said. “Go mooch money off your parents.”
The girl ran away.
Cat was waiting for us next to a talent show poster. She punched me in the arm, then gave Grandma
Melvyn the biggest hug I’ve ever seen, and you know what? Grandma Melvyn didn’t even complain about it.
“We did it!” Cat yelled.
“Not bad,” Grandma Melvyn said. “Not as good as Toronto in ’67. I knocked ’em dead in ’67.”
“Were you surprised, Robbie?” asked Cat. “You didn’t even know Grandma Melvyn and I were practicing when you weren’t around, did you? That’s where I was during the assembly yesterday!”
Mystery solved.
Grandma Melvyn looked down the hall as if she was trying to find someone.
“Where’s Trixie?” she said. “She was supposed to be here when we came offstage.”
“Which Trixie?” I asked.
“The one who spends all her time working so you can play magician,” said Grandma Melvyn. “Who do you think?”
I didn’t understand.
“Mom didn’t come,” I said.
“Shows what you know,” said Grandma Melvyn. “Get your nose out of your top hat and pay more attention.”
My cheeks burned, but Grandma Melvyn chuckled.
“Don’t work yourself into a wedgie,” she said. “You’re still young.”
Grandma Melvyn leaned on the green cane and started down the hallway. She stopped after a couple of steps and waved the cane at me. Flecks of glitter snowed onto the glossy white floor tiles.
“You’d better stick with magic,” she said. “You’ll never make it as a cane designer.”
