‘So why didn’t he use it then?’
Herb chewed thoughtfully. ‘I think Jason might have broken his heart a little bit,’ he said. ‘Armand didn’t want to admit that he had been fooled.’
Mr Pham came back with steaming plates of squid and fried chicken. ‘Have you told her yet?’ he asked Herb.
‘Not yet,’ said Herb, with a sly glance at Sage.
‘Told me what?’
‘Get on with it,’ said Mr Pham, heading back to the kitchen.
Herb leaned forward, his face shining with excitement. ‘I know this guy who owns a nightclub in the city,’ he said. ‘He’s offered me a job, doing my own magic show. Cabaret-style. It’d only be close-up stuff, cards and coins. Nothing too flashy. But it’d be my own show.’
‘That’s awesome!’ said Sage. ‘I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and I can come and see you!’
Herb chuckled. ‘I’m sure we can sneak you in before then,’ he said. ‘As long as you promise to behave.’
‘Oh, I promise.’
‘I think it’ll be really good for me,’ said Herb. ‘I think it’s time I flew solo for a while.’
Sage felt something twist in her stomach. He was only talking about magic, right?
Herb noticed her sudden frown, and laughed, leaning in to kiss her quickly. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he grinned at her. ‘Definitely not that. On the relationship front, I definitely wish to fly tandem for the foreseeable future.’
He squeezed Sage’s hand and ducked his head slightly to meet her eyes. ‘Okay?’
She smiled. ‘Okay.’
‘No, I just meant that I might enjoy working on a solo routine,’ Herb went on. ‘Like Derren Brown or someone.
No assistant.’
Sage nodded.
Herb ducked his head again. ‘Unless you wanted to—’
‘No,’ said Sage firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘I didn’t think so.’
‘So is this the surprise?’ she asked. ‘Your most excellent news?’
‘Nope,’ said Herb with a grin. ‘The surprise is yet to come.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to be backstage in twenty minutes. You’re good at maths. If we finish off all this food, how many kisses can we fit in before the curtain rises?’
Sage laughed. ‘Mr Pham?’ she called. ‘Can we grab the bill?’
‘I’d like to invite a friend of mine onto the stage,’ said Armand. ‘He’s a very promising young talent, and I think you’ll like what he has to show you.’
Armand left the stage as the curtains swung shut. Sage held her breath.
The curtains reopened to reveal a blackboard, sitting on the left side of the stage, near the wings. In the centre of the stage there was a pot containing a small shrub, completely bare of flowers or foliage. Herb emerged from the wings, walked up to it, and considered it for a moment. Sage felt a grin spread across her face. Herb hadn’t said that he was working on a new effect, but she’d known he had to be. Herb couldn’t stop.
‘There are lots of different kinds of magic,’ he said to the audience. ‘People often ask me, being a magician, whether I can still enjoy watching other people do magic. The answer is yes. Understanding how things work doesn’t make them any less extraordinary. Physicists who can grasp the ways in which the universe is put together still find themselves moved to tears when they look at the stars. Psychologists still feel that sense of wonder and endless possibility when they fall in love. And botanists are still filled with joy when what looks like a dead twig suddenly sprouts with life.’
He waved a hand over the bare shrub, and Sage heard gasps as green shoots appeared at the tips of each branch. These shoots curled outwards as the shrub started to grow, branching out and pushing up until it was all green, and taller than Herb.
‘Life,’ he said, walking around the shrub, which was now a small tree, ‘life and love are the most extraordinary feats of magic. I’d like someone to join me up here. Raise your hand if you’re in love.’
Sage felt her cheeks grow hot. She started to raise her hand, slowly.
Herb looked out over the audience and pointed at a young woman with curly red hair. ‘You, madam. Could you please come up here?’
The woman made her way up onto the stage as the tree continued to spread and grow. Bunches of leaves clustered together in little explosions of green.
‘Please,’ said Herb, handing the woman a clipboard and pen. ‘Write down the name of the person you love, then fold up the paper and put it in your pocket.’
The woman did as instructed, and Georgia appeared to whisk the clipboard away once she’d finished.
‘Now,’ said Herb, positioning the woman in front of the tree and motioning for her to close her eyes. ‘I want you to think about the person you love. Picture their face in your mind. Think about the two of you together, walking in a forest. You’re surrounded by rustling leaves. Autumn leaves. I think autumn is the most romantic season, don’t you?’
The woman nodded. Herb waved a hand, and the lights in the theatre switched to a golden orange, bathing the stage in warm light. The tree stopped growing.
‘Open your eyes,’ said Herb.
The woman looked around. Then, one leaf on the tree trembled and fell. Another tumbled after it. A fan was switched on somewhere backstage, and the leaves all started to fall, tumbling and swirling in the air. It looked beautiful.
‘They say that you get one happy day for each autumn leaf you catch,’ said Herb to the woman. ‘I want you to catch one. Just one.’
The leaves danced and spun around them. After a few attempts, the woman caught hold of a leaf.
‘Hold it in your hand,’ said Herb. ‘This is your lucky day. Look at the leaf you’ve caught. There’s something written on it.’
The woman looked at the leaf, and suddenly went bright red.
‘Can you tell us what it says?’ said Herb.
The woman stared up at him, astonished. ‘It – it says … Julia.’
Herb smiled. ‘And is Julia the name of the person you love?’
The woman nodded, her cheeks flaming red.
The audience burst into applause. Herb turned back to the tree, which had shrunk back to a shrub, surrounded by fallen leaves. There were four flowers sprouting from the tree – a red one, a yellow one, a white one and a pink one. Herb plucked the flowers, and offered them to the woman.
‘Choose one,’ he said.
The woman bit her lip and selected the pink flower. Herb leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Give it to Julia,’ he said, and then stepped back. ‘Another round of applause, for our wonderful volunteer!’
The audience cheered, and the woman took the pink rose back to her seat.
‘Wait!’ called Herb. The woman stopped and turned around. ‘I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I was so rude. I didn’t ask you your name.’
‘It’s Alice,’ called the woman.
‘Lovely to meet you, Alice,’ said Herb. He swung the blackboard over to reveal the other side. Written in white chalk were the words Alice will give Julia the pink flower.
Sage felt a smile spread over her face as Herb took his bow, and a glowing, happy warmth spread inside her.
‘Don’t worry, fair maiden!’ cried the wizard, leaping up onto the bed and striking a pose. ‘I shall rescue you from that evil monster!’
Sage was tied to the foot of her bed, a pair of what she sincerely hoped were clean socks in her mouth.
‘Do not try and fight me, Monster!’ said the wizard. ‘Your axe may be large, but I am stronger than you! And cleverer!’
He pulled out his magic wand, and pointed it at the wardrobe monster with great enthusiasm. ‘Expelliarmus!’
‘Hurrah!’ mumbled Sage through the socks. ‘The monster is dead!’
The wizard gave her a pitying look. ‘Expelliarmus doesn’t kill the monster,’ he explained laboriously. ‘It only disarms him.’
After another few minutes of bed-jumping and spell-casting, the wardrobe
monster was declared defeated, and Sage was untied.
‘Oh, kind sir!’ she said, her mouth feeling unpleasantly fluffy. ‘How can I ever thank you for your brave deed?’
‘And now I claim my reward!’ The wizard eyed her hopefully. ‘Ice-cream!’
‘Nice try,’ said Sage. ‘But it’s way too early for ice-cream.’
‘Magicians eat ice-cream for breakfast all the time.’
‘Do they really?’ Sage stood up and tried to brush an invisible crease from her skirt. ‘Well, maybe you should learn a spell to turn Vegemite toast into ice-cream.’
Zacky scowled at her. ‘I’m thinking maybe I won’t be a magician when I grow up,’ he said, with an aloof toss of his head.
‘Oh?’
He nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll be a ghost hunter instead.’
Sage groaned inwardly.
‘Or an astronaut.’ Zacky started to jump on the bed again. ‘Or maybe a fisherman. Because I like boats. Do you like boats, Sage?’
Sage laughed. ‘Yes, Zacky. I like boats.’
‘But I don’t like fish. Do you think I can still be a fisherman if I don’t like fish?’
‘Sage?’ It was Mum, standing in the door to Sage’s room. ‘Are you ready?’
Zacky leapt off the bed and galloped to his room. Sage swallowed, and glanced at the calendar on her wall. The red circle was still there, around today’s date. Her friends were still there too, frozen in the click of the camera. They were having a good time. Maybe there’d be new friends at this school. New photo opportunities.
She tried to remember why she’d been so frightened of the red circle.
‘Darling?’ Mum took a step into Sage’s room. ‘Are you ready?’
Sage pulled her new blazer from the back of her desk chair, and shrugged it on.
‘Yep,’ she said. ‘I’m ready.’
Author’s note
Most of the magic tricks in this book are real – and all of them are possible. If you’d like to see them in action, there are heaps of great videos online. Check out Penn and Teller’s cups-and-balls, and Derren Brown’s Enigma show. If you look hard enough, you can also find out the secrets to these effects, but make sure you really want to know. Once revealed, a magic trick is never quite the same.
Although Yoshi Lear isn’t a real person, the photos he shows Sage are genuine ones. You can see them here: liliwilkinson.com.au/zigzag-photos
Acknowledgements
Thanks first of all to the wonderful Onions – especially Jodie and Hilary, for continuing to be the best publishers and editors a girl could wish for. People always ask whether I resent the editing process – there isn’t a NO emphatic enough. An unedited book is like a bunch of raw ingredients before they’ve been cooked.
Thanks also to my agent Kate Schafer-Testerman, who tirelessly pitches my books and deciphers my contracts.
Thanks as usual to the made-of-awesome Sarah Dollard, whose screenwritery brilliance knows no bounds, and who always finds time to help me nut out thorny plot dilemmas.
Thanks to my mum, who always reads my books before they’re published, and my dad, who always reads them afterwards.
And thanks to my wonderful husband Michael, who is ever generous with listening, advice and hugs.
About the author
Lili Wilkinson was first published at age twelve in Voiceworks magazine. After studying Creative Arts at Melbourne University and teaching English in Japan, Lili worked on insideadog.com.au (a books website for teen readers), the Inky Awards and the Inkys Creative Reading Prize at the Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria. She is completing a PhD in Creative Writing and spends most of her time reading and writing books for teenagers. She has written eight books that are published in eight countries.
‘Wry, sly, funny, smart, and very entertaining.’
JACLYN MORIARTY
‘Lili Wilkinson is like a coolgeekgirl Agatha Christie.’
SIMMONE HOWELL
‘Chock-full of sass.’
LEANNE HALL
‘Penny Drummond is smart and funny, vulnerable and fierce.’
MELINA MARCHETTA
‘Pink is laugh-out-loud and cringe-in-corners funny.’
SIMMONE HOWELL
‘I laughed, I cried and I occasionally burst into song.’
JUSTINE LARBALESTIER
‘Fun, razor-sharp and moving, Pink – like love – is a many-splendoured thing.’
JOHN GREEN
Zigzag Effect Page 24
