Stranger Things Have Happened

by Jeff Strand

  “Well, if you’re committed, I’m more than happy to help you out. If you need me.”

  “Thanks,” said Marcus. “I will. I definitely, definitely will.”

  6

  Marcus sat in the back row of biology class while his teacher, Mr. Fuller, talked about the parts of a cow.

  Normally, Marcus was an extremely attentive student. Any other day he’d be paying attention to the lecture with laser focus, writing down the names of cow parts as fast as Mr. Fuller could point to them on the full-color diagram. Today, however, his thoughts were occupied with other matters.

  A trick. He needed an amazing magic trick.

  Card tricks were his favorite, but the scale was too small for those. He could do a trick that involved giant-sized cards where he had to use a forklift to move them around, except Penn & Teller had already invented and executed that trick. Using even bigger cards and even bigger forklifts would be cool, but probably not in the spirit of this endeavor.

  So for now, card tricks were out.

  Mind-reading acts were also difficult to pull off on a large scale. And it wasn’t an area of magic that Marcus had practiced much. He knew a trick where somebody had to think of a number, and then he could correctly guess what number they were thinking of (which was always eight), but it involved a series of instructions. He would tell the person, “Now divide it by two. Now add three to it,” and so on, and the only possible result was the number eight. Having an entire audience simultaneously think of the number eight did not exactly fit the definition of a bewildering illusion.

  Also, if people did the arithmetic wrong in their head, it messed up the trick, which made it look like Marcus had messed up the trick. Marcus didn’t want to stand in front of a large audience and accuse them of doing the math wrong.

  Maybe he could come up with an astonishing variation on one of the classics. How could he levitate somebody in a brand-new way? How could he improve upon the Chinese linking rings? How could he saw a woman in half even better than experienced magicians had done it before?

  Would that mean cutting a woman into smaller pieces or sawing in half a whole row of women? Hmm, Marcus thought. Maybe six women…in boxes placed side by side. He’d just go down the line and saw, saw, saw until all six of them had been halved. Then the boxes would pop open, and all of the women would sit up, completely unharmed. It would be an impressive illusion and also give him the opportunity to work with six hot assistants.

  Nah. It was essentially a trick people had seen a million times before. Multiplying the halved women wasn’t innovative enough.

  “I’m sure you’ve all heard that a cow has four stomachs,” said Mr. Fuller. “That’s not entirely accurate. But a cow does have four digestive departments.”

  What if Marcus sawed one woman in half, but when he opened the two parts of the box the two halves popped up and did a little dance? Her top half would float in the air while her bottom half danced around the stage.

  This trick would require Marcus to hire somebody to make a full-body cast of Kimberly—that is, if she was willing to be his assistant on stage and let him saw her in half. It would have to be realistic enough that when her torso danced, the audience wouldn’t say, “Hey, that ain’t the real lady!” (Although if she wore a veil, that could help hide imperfections in the fake Kimberly’s face.)

  Marcus figured he’d have to hang the torso on wires, and he’d need somebody hiding up in the rafters and manipulating the wires to maneuver it through the air. The legs could also be on wires or perhaps on rods that matched the color of the stage, somebody behind the curtain could control them like a puppet.

  This was starting to sound very complicated. Marcus wasn’t sure this was a “can be completed in just under two months while going to school and mowing lawns” illusion. There would need to be an elaborate set of wires controlled skillfully enough that Kimberly looked like she was floating instead of just flopping around in midair. When his school put on a performance of Peter Pan, they had the kid playing Peter fly all over the stage in a harness, but the audience was willing to suspend their disbelief to watch a stage play. For a magic trick, the illusion had to be flawless.

  Perhaps more importantly, there was no “How’d he do that?” element to the trick. People might be impressed by the technical skill with which it was performed, but they’d still know he’d used wires, rods, and a fake Kimberly.

  Mr. Fuller continued on, “The largest chamber in the cow’s stomach is called the rumen. It holds food that’s been partially digested. How much food? How about up to fifty gallons’ worth? You’ve all heard of a cow chewing its cud, of course, and that cud comes from the rumen.”

  The cud inspired Marcus. Was there another variation he could do on that trick? Maybe one where he pumped fifty gallons of fake blood out of the box as he sawed someone in half. The fake blood would wash over the stage and cascade out into the audience. Nobody would be fooled by the illusion, but it would be really difficult for Bernard to clean up.

  Nope.

  Chainsaws! Could Marcus learn to juggle chainsaws in two months? Maybe he could do a trick in which he juggled the chainsaws and then tossed them onto the box, and then they would saw his assistant in half. Or thirds. Or quarters.

  He could juggle oranges reasonably well, but he’d never tried to juggle anything that might dismember him.

  If he juggled chainsaws with fake blades and then figured out how to toss them so they landed exactly in the right spot (attached to wires maybe?) and then the chainsaws cut through the box (but not for real) without him even holding them, it would be a pretty big twist on a classic illusion. He’d be impressed.

  Something to keep in mind. Marcus made a note in the margin of his notebook.

  “Now the reticulum by contrast can only hold about five gallons of liquid. You’ll find lots of cud in there, but it’s also where you’ll find things the cow shouldn’t have eaten like, for example, a rock. If a cow eats a rock and later you slice that cow in half, the rock will most likely be sitting right there in the good ol’ reticulum.”

  What about a vanishing act? Marcus loved vanishing acts. He could make coins, cards, marbles, tiny porcelain frogs, and other small objects disappear with no problem, but he’d never made something disappear that would impress the people in the cheap seats.

  One of the most famous magic tricks of all time was when Harry Houdini made an elephant disappear in 1918. Several other magicians had done variations on the trick since then. What could Marcus make vanish that would have the same impact?

  A cow?

  No. It would be fun to say that he got his inspiration from biology class, but a cow wouldn’t be as impressive as an elephant. And he’d basically just be doing the same trick as Houdini.

  A giraffe?

  That would be interesting. Could you borrow a giraffe from a zoo? Probably not, but it would certainly be cool to have a giraffe on loan. And yet again, it wasn’t a shocking new twist on the theme, just a different animal.

  A hundred cats?

  He’d get a lot of YouTube hits from that video, for sure. But he didn’t want to be responsible for the potential disaster that might arise from having a hundred cats go berserk on the stage. It stopped being cute when members of the audience ran shrieking in agony from the claw marks across their faces.

  He’d keep the cat idea in mind though. He wrote, “Berserk cats,” in his notebook.

  A shark?

  Sharks were awesome. Marcus would love to see a magician make a shark disappear. Who wouldn’t? Everybody would pay to see that. There wasn’t a human being alive on this planet who wouldn’t want to see a shark vanish live onstage.

  “Wanna see a magician?” “Eh, I dunno. Magicians are kinda lame. What does this one do?” “He makes a shark disappear.” “Whaaaaaat? Take my money! Take my money, you fool!”

  This could be great.
His heart began to race with excitement. There were only two problems:

  1. Marcus had no idea how to acquire a shark.

  2. Marcus had no idea how to make one disappear.

  If he was being honest with himself, these were fairly significant roadblocks. But if he successfully pulled it off, his grandpa would have more honor than he could handle. He’d have honor flowing through him like cud through a cow’s intestines.

  Hmmm. That was a weird and gross concept. Why would that have popped into his mind?

  “Marcus?”

  Marcus looked up at Mr. Fuller. “Huh?”

  “Which chamber sends digested food through the intestines?”

  This was not information that Marcus immediately had at the forefront of his mind. He quickly glanced at the diagram Mr. Fuller had been using to guide the class on their tour of the wonderful world of cow innards.

  “Omasum?” Marcus could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, but he didn’t want to wipe it away and reveal to the other students just how nervous he was.

  “No. That chamber is used as a filter.”

  “Oh, of course. My mistake. Abomasum.”

  “Correct.” Mr. Fuller paused as if he were about to tell Marcus to pay closer attention, but he didn’t, robbing Marcus of the opportunity to play the I just had a death in the family, you monster! card.

  Mr. Fuller resumed the lecture, and Marcus resumed daydreaming about making sharks disappear.

  What if he used a real tank with real water, but the shark itself could be computer-generated somehow? Or he could use video footage of a real shark. The only challenge would be the fact that successfully fooling an audience into thinking a real shark had just disappeared would require state-of-the-art technology unlike anything that currently existed. If he could get a hold of several million dollars in development funds and if Bernard could extend his deadline by a few years, Marcus would be all set.

  What about a mechanical shark?

  Nah. A mechanical shark that could believably pass for a real one would land him back in “several million dollars in development funds” territory. Or maybe just a few hundred thousand. Marcus actually had no idea how much it would cost to create a cutting-edge mechanical shark, but it was more than his lawn-mowing proceeds could provide. And he’d still have to figure out how to make it disappear.

  What about a guy in a shark suit? It seemed like the stupidest idea ever, but was it really?

  Marcus thought about it for a moment.

  Yes, it was the stupidest idea ever.

  The only way he could successfully convey the illusion was to actually have a real, live shark on the stage. Which should mean, if Marcus wasn’t completely insane, he’d have to abandon the idea altogether.

  For the time being, however, Marcus wasn’t willing to rule out his insanity.

  He didn’t know how he’d get a shark or how much it would cost or if it was even legal or how he’d make sure that nobody got eaten by it, but for now he wouldn’t worry about the details. It wasn’t as if he was going to use a great white. Surely, he could figure out how to get a hammerhead or something.

  Step one? He’d need a huge tank—not merely a huge tank but a huge gimmicked tank. This was just supposed to be a five-minute magic trick before a play, so it was entirely possible that Bernard would object to a tank big enough to accommodate a shark being constructed on his stage, especially since it wouldn’t exactly be easy to remove. Whatever. Too bad for Bernard. He should’ve thought of that before agreeing to the bet.

  There were two ways Marcus could create this illusion. In the first method, he would show the audience that it was, in fact, a real shark by throwing some fish into the tank. The shark would devour the fish, and the people sitting in the front row would suddenly become very nervous. Dramatic music would play, perhaps the Jaws theme, and he’d get the crowd to chant something like, “Shark! Shark! Shark!” as he threw a curtain over the tank. A trapdoor under the tank would open, leading to a hidden compartment in the tank, and the shark, lured by meat, would swim down there, “disappearing” just as Marcus pulled off the curtain for his dramatic reveal.

  Or in the second method, he could just use mirrors.

  Mirrors were probably a better idea than trapdoors and hidden compartments. He’d have to design the tank so that the people sitting on the sides of the audience wouldn’t say, “Hey, that shark clearly just swam behind a mirror!” but it could be done.

  This wasn’t an illusion that would befuddle experts for decades or even hours to come, but it was a shark disappearing live on stage.

  Marcus started to think that making a hundred cats disappear would be a lot easier.

  Maybe this was a completely ridiculous idea. Maybe there was no way he could possibly accomplish it. Maybe by next period he’d laugh at how foolish he’d been. But right there right then, as he listened to Mr. Fuller talk about cow stomachs, Marcus Millian III, in honor of his great-grandfather, decided to make a shark vanish!

  7

  As he sat alone in the lunchroom and ate a bologna sandwich like he did every day, Marcus sketched out what his shark tank would look like. Based on some quick, probably wildly inaccurate Internet research on his cell phone, a tank for a hammerhead shark would need to be twenty feet long and six feet wide at the bare minimum, but probably more like twelve feet wide since the shark would need to swim into a hidden section.

  That was one big honking tank.

  If he were going to keep the shark as a pet (an idea that was unspeakably awesome but not feasible), he’d need a filter and a bunch of other equipment to make it a proper aquarium. Since this was going to be a quick magic trick, in theory all he needed was the glass tank and the mirror.

  He wondered if people were allowed to rent hammerhead sharks to minors? His parents would probably have to sign off on it. He assumed they would raise an eyebrow or two over the whole idea. He hadn’t really told them about Grandpa Zachary’s bet. He figured it could wait until later in the grieving process. Their response would probably be a long, confused stare followed by them massaging their temples as if a very strong headache was coming on. And he was sure all that would be followed by a warning. They’d remind him that he was supposed to be saving for college and tell him that he would not be paying for this ludicrous magic trick out of that fund.

  Marcus desperately wanted to talk to somebody about the shark trick idea. This was an instance when it would be nice to have more than one friend. Sadly, Kimberly was on a different lunch schedule, so he never had anybody to eat with. This might have been a blessing. She was far from friendless, so while he liked to think that she’d dine with him every day at noon, he might have just sat at his own table, gazing at Kimberly and her female friends from afar.

  (But not in a creepy way. Just glancing at them occasionally, not staring or anything. Marcus Millian III was no stalker.)

  On the other side of the lunchroom, some kids laughed, which caught Marcus’s attention. It was an unpleasant kind of laugh. Not a jolly “Ha-ha-ha, I’ve just watched a classic silent comedy film that featured a hilarious sight gag!” but a mean-spirited “Ha-ha-ha, that guy fell with his lunch tray, and his food spilled all over. And he’s probably too poor to buy another lunch, so he’s going to go hungry today. And oh, he broke his leg. Look at the bone sticking out. Ha-ha-ha!”

  Marcus hadn’t heard a crash or the applause that always followed an act of klutziness, so nobody had dropped a tray. Instead a group of three kids were flicking bits of food at another kid who sat by himself at the next table. The food-flickers were seniors, and so they should have been above this sophomoric behavior. One couldn’t except a lowly freshman like Marcus to have matured beyond “Woo! Look at me! I’m a-flingin’ my spaghetti!” (Marcus never threw spaghetti at school or home, and if he did, he would not narrate his action in that manner.)

  Aside from knowi
ng that they were seniors, Marcus only knew one of the kids personally. His name was Ken, and he was a jerk. This didn’t mean the other two kids were jerks. (Marcus preferred to bestow jerk status on a case-by-case basis and not use it as a broad generalization based on somebody’s acquaintances.) But based on the ongoing evidence a few tables away, they were all indeed jerks.

  The guys were flicking bits of food, which appeared to be grapes but may have been meat loaf, at Peter Chumkin. He was a freshman who’d moved from…Las Vegas? Louisville? Nome? Marcus couldn’t remember. All he knew was that Peter was the new kid and that he apparently wasn’t a very good student.

  Peter was not somebody Marcus would flick food at. He was a giant. Not in an athletic “bulging muscles” sort of way, but there was a height and bulk to him that Marcus personally would not want to taunt. Peter was bigger than all three of those seniors. No way would they act that way if they didn’t have the numbers advantage.

  As food stuck to his hair, a brown mop that was unevenly cut in the front and covered part of his eyes, Peter went with the classic and completely ineffective technique of ignoring his tormentors. He didn’t react. He was definitely aware that bits of food were hitting his body, but he simply sat there, looking kind of sad that it was happening.

  Marcus wanted to grab Ken and his buddies by the tongues, drag them into the food preparation area, and dunk them into a vat of coleslaw. But it wouldn’t be fair to the students in the later lunch period who’d have to eat the coleslaw. And of course, he’d get beaten up.

  The trio of jerks continued their snickering and flicking. Marcus didn’t expect Peter to resort to violence by bonking their heads together, but why not at least give them a stern glare? Let them know he was unhappy with their entertainment choices.

  It wasn’t Marcus’s job to defend a big, strong guy against bullies, getting himself flattened into a hamburger patty in the process, so he returned to his sketch.