by Jeff Strand
“What did your parents say?”
“It’s possible that they don’t know yet.”
“Possible?”
“Probable.”
“Probable?”
“I mean, I haven’t told them, but they could be spying on me. If they’ve got me under twenty-four-hour surveillance, I’d assume they’ve heard about it.”
Kimberly sighed. “Do I have to be the voice of reason?”
“It’s too late for reason.” Marcus opened up his backpack, took out the poster, and handed it to her. “I’m committed.”
“Ooooo-kay,” said Kimberly. “So it looks like you’re making a shark vanish.”
“Yep.”
“Then let’s work this out.”
14
“Are you going to rent a tank or build one?” Kimberly asked.
“Probably build one,” said Marcus, pulling another chair over to his desk and sitting down next to her. “Or buy one and do some major customizing. Do you know Peter Chumkin?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’d know him if you saw him. New kid. Started about a month ago. Gigantic.”
“Stares at the floor all the time?”
“Yeah.”
Kimberly nodded. “I see him in the hallway. Does he own a shark tank?”
“No, but he says he can help me make one.”
“He’s kind of weird, don’t you think? Don’t get me wrong. That’s not a bad thing. But can he really help you build a shark tank?”
“He’s not the most normal person I’ve ever met,” Marcus admitted. “And I haven’t seen anything he’s built. But I can’t do this all by myself, and letting him help can’t hurt. I mean, it can hurt if the tank shatters and I get hit with broken glass. Or if one side of the tank comes loose while I’m crouched down next to it. Actually, there are lots of ways you can get hurt when you’re dealing with large pieces of glass…and a shark. So yes, letting him help can hurt.”
“Glad we sorted that out.”
“I don’t completely know Peter’s role yet. All I know is that he was grateful when I saved him from the three bullies, and he offered to help.”
“Hold up,” said Kimberly. “I feel like I missed a story somewhere.”
“It’s not important.”
“Yes, it is. You emphasized the word three.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Just a little.”
“It wasn’t on purpose.”
“I’m sure it was subconscious. But you can’t just throw out a comment about saving somebody from three big, bad bullies and then not fill me in on the rest of the details. Who were they?”
“Do you know Ken?”
“The senior? That jerk?”
“That’s the one. It was him and two of his friends. They were picking on Peter, and—”
“Peter could squish them like blueberries!” Kimberly interjected.
“I know. But he didn’t. So I told them to stop and—”
“How did you say it?”
“I just asked them to knock it off.”
“Right, but were you polite? Did you shout it? Did you go all action hero on them? I need details here.”
“I know you won’t believe me, but I said it in a loud, stern voice.”
“Let me hear it.”
“Hey!” Marcus said in a slightly louder and sterner voice than he’d actually used, but it wasn’t too much of an exaggeration of the truth. “Knock it off!”
“Wow.” Kimberly looked impressed.
“I got caught up in the moment. If I’d taken the time to consider what I was doing, I probably wouldn’t have told them to knock it off.”
“And so they scattered at the power of your words?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to reason with them.”
“With Ken? No way did that work.”
“No. Basically, Ken held up his fist—”
“What was Peter doing while this was happening?”
“You’re making it difficult to tell the story.”
“You’re leaving out crucial details.”
“He was on the ground.”
“Sitting? On his back? Unconscious? I don’t hear a lot of stories about bullies being defeated, so I don’t want you to rush through your moment of glory. Brag about it.”
“It’s not really that big of a deal,” said Marcus.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Marcus backtracked to the beginning of the story in the cafeteria, where he’d first noticed bullies throwing pieces of meat loaf at Peter. As he told his tale of bravery and heroism, he wondered if Kimberly would be impressed by the part where he gut-punched Ken when he wasn’t expecting it or if she’d think it was a low-down, dirty trick. Maybe he should recalibrate the story. Just a bit.
“So Ken was staring at the card. I had his complete undivided attention. Then I said, ‘Is this your card?’ and punched him in the face.”
“You really did that?”
“Yep.”
“You’re not making it up?”
“If I were making it up, I would have said that I said something more clever. ‘Is this your card?’ doesn’t actually make much sense. I wish I’d said something different.”
“Wow.”
“It was a crazy day.”
“You saved Peter. Well done.”
“Don’t use the word saved around him though. He’s sensitive about that.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. I guess he doesn’t like the idea of being rescued by somebody with twigs for arms.”
“That’s reasonable. You can’t expect him to start referring to you as ‘My hero!’”
“Nope.”
“Back to the shark tank. Have you figured out what you need?”
Marcus opened up his notebook and showed her his most recent sketch. “The mirror reflects the bottom of the tank, and the audience thinks they’re seeing the whole thing. My original thought was that we’d have a detailed backdrop on the stage and that a rectangular piece of it would be duplicated on the bottom of the tank. That way, people would think they were looking right through the tank at the full backdrop. But it would have to be an absolutely perfect match, and we’d have people watching from too many different angles for it to work. So I ditched that idea. It’s just going to be a neutral background. Maybe light blue or something.”
“Can’t go wrong with light blue.”
“I hate the idea that we can’t have clear sides to the tank, but if we do, people will see the mirror. I don’t think there’s any way around it. It could explain why the world doesn’t see a lot of tricks involving fish disappearing from aquariums.”
“We’ll make a goofy cartoon drawing of a shark and put one on each side,” said Kimberly. “The audience will think it’s funny and part of the entertainment, not realizing that we’re hiding something.”
“That works.”
“How do you get the shark to go on the other side of the mirror?”
“Feed it.”
“And who will be doing that?”
Marcus did not immediately answer.
“Uh-uh,” said Kimberly. “Feeding a shark falls outside of the scope of our friendship. If you want a one-armed girlfriend, be my guest, but it won’t be me.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“What did you say?”
“I said that if you wanted a one-armed friend, you should be my guest, but that it wouldn’t be me.”
“Oh, I misheard part of it.”
“You should listen more carefully.”
“In the future, I will.”
“Good.”
Marcus wondered if he should just come right out and say, You know exactly what you said. And you know you meant it. Let’s stop pretending and accept the way we feel about each other.
No, he should definitely not just come right out and say that.
Based on Kimberly’s look of discomfort, his best move was to proceed as if she hadn’t made any accidental compound words in recent sentences.
“You wouldn’t actually put your hands into the tank,” Marcus clarified.
“Nope.”
“You’d drop in the food from a safe distance above the water.”
“Nope.”
“I can find somebody else to do the feeding part,” said Marcus.
“Maybe Peter will do it. He owes you. How exactly do you get food into a shark tank that an entire audience is staring at?”
“Well, that’s another one of the thousands of challenges. They won’t actually be able to see through the tank, they will just think they are. So somebody could hide behind it, and they would never know.”
“But we’d see their hand when they drop in the shark chow.”
“The water wouldn’t go all the way to the top,” Marcus explained, pointing to the sketch. He had a wavy line to represent the water. “There’ll be a hole in the back of the tank just above the waterline where somebody can drop the food.”
“Gotcha. How do you know for sure that the shark will go for the food?”
“That’s what sharks do, right? I read somewhere that they can smell blood in the water from miles away. If we throw bloody meat into a tank and the shark leaves it alone, then we’ve been lied to about sharks all these years.”
“Won’t the audience see the blood in the water?”
“The food will be in the water on the other side of the mirror. The worst that can happen is that it gets a little cloudy.”
“The worst that can happen is that the shark breaks through the mirror in its thirst for blood,” Kimberly pointed out.
“Oh, it could be a lot worse than that,” said Marcus. “Safety precautions will come after I figure out all the logistics of the illusion.”
“Next logistical question: How does the shark get to the other side of the mirror? If you leave a gap for it to swim around, people will see it. And if I’m envisioning this right, which I may not be, when the shark swims to the other side of the mirror, it will just kind of—how can I describe this?—wipe away? Like in a movie when they wipe from one scene to the next. Do you know what I’m saying?”
Marcus nodded. “You’re right. The mirror has to go all the way across the tank, or it’s totally obvious how we did the trick. But it’s got a—”
“Wait. I see it,” said Kimberly, tapping the sketch. “There’s a hinge in the mirror. I thought that said bingo.”
“What would bingo mean in a shark tank?”
“No idea. I was waiting for you to explain it. Maybe you were planning to distract the audience with a game of bingo while you moved the shark from one side of the mirror to the other.”
“Nope, it’s a hinge. Whoever feeds the shark will tug a wire that drops the hinge. Once the shark is where it needs to be, they’ll tug the wire again to pull the hinge back up. The wire will be looped around a small hook, but I haven’t figured out how to hide that yet.”
“This doesn’t sound easy,” said Kimberly.
“No, it’s pretty much going to be the opposite.”
“You could do a card trick,” she suggested.
“Not an option. And I don’t want this to be easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. I’m not gonna lie. I wouldn’t mind if it were a little easier, but I don’t want it to be easy.”
“If the trick doesn’t go as planned, at least you’ll know you did your best.”
“Right,” said Marcus. “Although I’d really like it to go as planned.”
“Of course. But if it doesn’t, you can say that you put in a lot of effort and didn’t take the easy route. That’s something Grandpa Zachary would be proud of even if the shark doesn’t disappear.”
“Yes, I agree. However, I’d very much like for the shark to disappear.”
“I’m sure it will. All I’m doing is saying that if it doesn’t, you shouldn’t feel bad. What you’re trying to do is incredible. It’s the first of a long line of amazing performances you’re going to give as a professional magician. So even though you should work hard to make your stage debut the best it can be, don’t fall into despair if it doesn’t turn out perfectly. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And I appreciate it,” said Marcus. “That being said—”
“The shark trick might not work,” said Kimberly. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure it’s a success, and I’m confident that it will be. But if it’s not awesome and amazing, I want us to be able to refer back to this conversation when I said that it would still be okay, so you don’t think I’m just making it up later.”
“As long as we try our hardest.” Something to engrave on my tombstone, Marcus thought.
“I knew you’d see it my way,” said Kimberly.
And then she kissed him.
15
For a moment Marcus and Kimberly sat there, noses touching, staring at each other. Then Kimberly pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No apology has ever been less necessary,” said Marcus, surprised that he was able to speak any words at all, much less a word with four syllables.
“I don’t know what came over me.”
Marcus hoped it was his intense animal magnetism, but then he said, “It’s fine. Actually, it was great.”
“No, it’s not,” said Kimberly, pushing back the chair and standing up. “I messed up.”
“Why? Do you have a boyfriend you didn’t tell me about?” he asked, hoping he was kidding.
“Of course not.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, I don’t see you that way. Okay, ninety-eight. There’s nothing wrong with you, nothing at all. It’s just not how I feel. If I did, we’d have gotten together two years ago.”
“That makes sense,” said Marcus slowly. He felt weirdly ashamed, even though he’d done nothing wrong—that is, except not being the kind of person to whom Kimberly was attracted.
This was terrible, disappointing, and embarrassing. However, in the grand scheme of things, Grandpa Zachary had died, and Sinister Seamus had threatened to kill him, so it was only the third worst thing to happen to Marcus this month. (The encounter with the bullies was better than this.)
It’s not so bad, said one part of Marcus’s brain. She thinks of kissing you 2 percent of the time! And look at the bright side. At least you got to kiss her.
Shut up, said all of the other parts of his brain.
“Can we just pretend that didn’t happen?” asked Kimberly. “Make it disappear like a shark?”
“I guess we—”
“No, no, no, you don’t kiss somebody and then tell them to get amnesia. We’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen. We just won’t dwell on it. Sound okay?”
“Sure.”
“You can mention that it happened. In that moment you were irresistible. Does that sound like I’m leading you on? I’m not trying to. I really don’t know what to do here. Help me out, Marcus.”
“We’ll joke about it once a week.”
“Yes, that’s a plan. That’s a fine plan. Excellent one. That’s how we’ll deal with this. I should go home now.”
“Don’t go,” said Marcus. “We won’t start the jokes until next week. I still need to talk through the shark trick.”
“I think we’ve pretty
much covered it, don’t you agree?”
“How are we going to hide the shark going through the hole in the mirror?”
“You were going to throw a curtain over the tank. At least that’s what it shows in the drawing.”
“I just think it’s something we should discuss out loud. Is it too much of a cheat to use a curtain? Penn & Teller wouldn’t do a trick with a curtain.”
“How else would you do it?”
“I don’t know. More mirrors?”
“I’m not a reflection expert, but that feels like too many mirrors.”
“You’re right. It’s an abundance of mirrors.”
“A plethora of mirrors.”
“A ton of mirrors.”
“A bunch of mirrors.”
Marcus had to think for a moment. “A lot of mirrors.”
Kimberly frowned. “See, even our repartee is forced now. I messed everything up between us.”
“You didn’t mess anything up,” Marcus insisted. “I can totally ignore it. I’ll act like I got hit in the head with a brick.”
“Before I kissed you, we would have stopped at ‘a ton of mirrors.’ We would have naturally sensed when to quit. Now we fumble onward. I knocked our instincts out of whack.”
“We’ll get it back in whack.” Marcus redirected the conversation. “So you’re right. I’m not a fan of curtains in magic tricks, but there’s probably no way around it. I mean, we could shut off all the lights for a few seconds, but that’s kind of the same concept. Plus, if somebody takes a cell phone picture during those few seconds, we’ll look stupid.”
“There’s no shame in a curtain.”
“None.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“See, we should have been able to riff on that,” said Kimberly.
“No, I think you’re being overly sensitive. If this conversation happened five minutes ago, you wouldn’t be worried that we weren’t riffing on the curtain comment. We’d just let it go and move on. Now you’re analyzing everything we say.”
“You’re right. I’ve created the condition where I feel as if I need to compare the way we’re talking now to the way we were talking before.”
“Let’s just talk and not worry about it,” said Marcus.
