‘I must say everyone’s really excited about having all you youngsters up here this year,’ Steve continued as Alex tumbled on to the minibus, hurtling forward under the weight of his bag.
‘Really?’ said Zack, not buying it – Steve could be about as convincing as a bad ventriloquist pointing at his own moving lips when it came to hiding the truth.
‘OK, well, maybe excited is a little strong … but Jane and I are pleased at least!’ he confessed.
Zack gave him a loud high five. Sure, Steve and Jane were perhaps some of the worst performers the Magic Circle had ever produced, but – oh my – they were a wonderful couple and didn’t have an unkind bone between them.
‘Room for a little’un?’ Jonny called in a mock Cockney accent as he finally stepped up, stooping low and twisting his body like a crumpled Fagin. Jonny’s body wasn’t really built for minibuses. Frankly, nothing with the prefix ‘mini’ really worked for him.
‘So … how’s, erm, your … Ernest?’ asked Steve a bit more soberly, tugging Jonny’s arm lightly as he passed.
The effect on Jonny was immediate. It knocked him back like it would if a little kid went up to a famous magician and said they’d seen the rabbits hiding in the hat right from the start of the act. He had known the question would come up eventually – he’d even thought about what he might say in response – but this didn’t make it any easier now the moment had come.
‘Erm … He’s … he’s doing fine … I think,’ Jonny managed to utter, feeling his cheeks begin to glow like hot embers and his throat go dry. ‘We’re not really in touch any more.’
It was true. Jonny hadn’t seen his grandfather since the day he, a respected elder member of the Magic Circle, had been arrested alongside the devilish child-impersonating Henry – or whatever his real name was – for his part in the Crown Jewels plot. True, Ernest Haigh wasn’t a criminal in the strictest sense and he’d never meant for anyone to get hurt, but – despite his protestations six months ago – he had still manipulated the Young Magicians for his own gain. And, as his only grandson, Jonny had felt particularly betrayed.
Jonny took his seat next to the others at the back of the cramped minibus, hoping they hadn’t heard. Hoping the moment would pass and that soon they’d be on their way.
‘Everything all right, mate?’ Sophie asked, instantly spotting that Jonny wasn’t his usual cheery self.
Jonny half opened his mouth to answer, not quite knowing what to say. It had all just happened so quickly, he thought, with a touch of renewed bitterness. One moment he’d had a grandfather revered by the entire magic world, someone whose name implied a certain prowess, a kindly sort recognized as having amazing foresight about the future of magic and who had always been at the cutting edge of new technique; the next, he was the grandson of some devious puppeteer, whose magical abilities and past achievements were now overshadowed by his talent for masterminding and orchestrating a cunning plot to steal the Crown Jewels – a fall from grace of dramatic proportions.
‘Ernest?’ offered Sophie quietly. She didn’t need her mentalist skills to read Jonny’s tumbling thoughts perfectly.
The tall boy slowly nodded. What was the good of clamming up about it all now? he wondered. I mean, if anyone’s going to understand, he thought, it’s bound to be these three. After all, they’d been with Jonny at the time of the shocking revelation, and even shared that odd combination of anger, upset and betrayal.
‘You … you can talk about it if you want,’ said Alex. ‘I … I find that helps sometimes,’ he added kindly. Jonny looked at Alex, and then to Sophie and Zack, desperately trying not to cry, pulling a face caught somewhere between looking startled and swallowing a burp.
‘You’re not him, remember? Despite what happened, no one is going to judge you for what he did,’ said Zack, who had known Ernest the best, after Jonny. He was determined that his friend would enjoy the convention, despite the skeletons it might dredge up. And, after all, Zack knew more than anyone what it felt like to be an outsider in the magic world. A false accusation about pickpocketing had followed him around like a cloud of bluebottles on the trail of a particularly tasty bit of horse dung secretly hidden in someone’s back pocket.
‘You’re right,’ reasoned Jonny, pushing back into his seat with his long legs. ‘It’s just going to feel a bit … different, that’s all. Plus …’ His voice trailed off like he was suddenly ashamed. ‘Is it bad that part of me enjoyed the attention I got for being the grandson of a living legend?’
‘You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have feelings like that,’ said Sophie with a reassuring rub of his arm. ‘And – you know,’ she continued, a mischievous glint in her eye, ‘perhaps it’s good for you to have been brought down a peg or two!’
Jonny threw his head back, laughing. ‘Yeah, maybe that’s a fair point!’
‘And I’m sure we’ll find plenty of stuff to take your mind off it once we get to the convention,’ Alex added.
Jonny smiled. Yes, he thought, perhaps everything will be OK after all.
The four relaxed back into the tattered seats, trying to avoid the odd spiky spring that had begun to poke through the dark-green upholstery as they watched Cynthia escorting the remaining junior members through the car park towards the bus.
‘Come on now, we can’t be late!’ Cynthia fumbled about her midriff for her glasses, before realizing they were still teetering on the bridge of her nose. She looked at her watch. ‘Good golly, Steve’s going to have to step on it!’
Zack grinned at the others, relishing the prospect of Steve trying to get the rusting minibus to move any faster than a tired limpet.
But Jonny was now gazing out of the window and his grin had become fixed.
‘Oh,’ he said in a flat tone. ‘Joy.’
A wedge-shaped formation of boys was approaching, like a flock of efficient birds, or the RAF, looking as if they were on a business trip in their fitted suits, immaculately gelled hair, mirror shades on spotless faces, and far too many teeth between them. It was obvious which of them was the leader from the fact that he was the one at the head of the wedge, dragging his silver wheelie case behind him like someone else should be doing it for him.
Hugo.
‘Urgh, this bus is disgusting!’ His voice whined like faulty windscreen wipers, though not as much fun to listen to. ‘Can’t we all just get taxis?’
‘Society funds won’t stretch that far, I’m afraid,’ Cynthia said pointedly. He stopped and stared at her.
‘But the Queen gave us money!’ he squeaked.
‘And it’s all been prioritized. It’s amazing we even managed to find funds to keep this little thing on the road!’ sang Cynthia.
She bashed the side of the bus fondly, causing it to bong like Big Ben announcing its decommissioning. Something rattled beneath Sophie’s seat as the reverberation travelled back to where the four friends were sitting.
‘And lovely to see you too, Mayhew, Charlie, Salisbury, Jackson …’ Cynthia ticked the rest of Hugo’s brigade of friends off as they reluctantly climbed aboard the minibus as if it were infected by the plague, hardly daring to touch the sides, all with the same uppity air of entitlement and all with their faces agog at the so-called transportation device before their eyes.
‘Well, I’m texting Mummy!’
‘Is that the latest iPhone?’
‘What’s that awful smell?’
‘Where even are we – does this still count as England?’
Et cetera!
‘They should be happy just to be here,’ Jonny scoffed under his breath. He lifted up his chin in the manner of Hugo and his brigade of friends.
Hugo’s eyes had settled on the four of them at the back.
‘Oh look. The Young Magicians,’ he said flatly.
The four friends innocently met the five identical sneers.
‘We didn’t see you on the train,’ Sophie said pleasantly.
‘You weren’t in First Class,’ Hugo said as thoug
h he were explaining something very basic to the school idiot. ‘Anyway, you can be the first to know: you lot aren’t the only ones who can give yourselves a name. We’re an official group now too. Guess what we’re called!’
‘The Right Honourable Squad of Hugo Lookalikes?’ Jonny asked. Hugo’s face twisted scornfully.
‘Class Act!’ Hugo spoke proudly as if he were naming his first baby. The other boys smirked as Hugo tapped his head. ‘Remember that name when you’re scraping a living in the end-of-the-pier show.’ He turned away as the Hugolikes made a great show of dusting off their seats before sitting down.
‘No, that one’s got rat droppings on it.’
‘Can someone turn the air conditioning on?’ (Yeah, good luck finding that button, Steve!)
‘This is ridiculous – I’m texting Mummy again.’
‘Is that the new iPhone?’
Et cetera!
‘Do you think we’ve just been put in our place?’ Zack asked, loud enough to be heard at the front of the bus.
‘Come on, let’s be having you,’ Cynthia chirped, checking that she hadn’t missed anyone. ‘Max, do hurry up. We’re going to be late!’
Zack, Sophie, Jonny and Alex eagerly pressed their faces against the window like they were tourists on safari, hoping to be the first to clap eyes on the rare breed that was Max.
‘Max!’ shouted Zack, spotting him coming out of the station exit and banging on the window loudly, doing nothing for the centuries-old glass.
The boy looked up and grinned. Max was one of the Young Magicians’ favourites. He loved magic as much as he loved food, always gave every trick a good go, and was never one to judge. In fact, throughout the whole of last year’s debacle, not once did Max cast any doubt on the four, despite the fact that it would have been easy – maybe even beneficial – for him to do so, just like everyone else had. No, Max was certainly one of the good guys. He had a kind of infectious innocence about him that just soaked into anyone he was with. And he had just popped into the station shop for a couple of quick (large) snacks, judging by the size of the plastic bags he was now carrying.
‘Wow, someone’s … grown,’ said Alex, who it seemed had now been reduced to a third of Max’s size in practically every direction. It was true that Max was certainly growing up – and out – fast, but the four were pleased to see he was still as baby-faced as ever as he bounded over.
‘That’s right, straight on to the bus, Max,’ said Cynthia, a tad flustered, as Max hoisted himself up. The minibus heaved dangerously towards him like a lumbering hippo as he clambered in through the side door.
‘Aha, lovely to see you again … blaamrnsr …’ Steve made a strange wobbly noise, half covering his mouth, hoping to hide the fact that he’d blatantly forgotten Max’s name. Zack, Sophie, Jonny and Alex grinned.
‘How have you been, mate?’ asked Zack, clapping Max on the back and helping him with some of his bags. (I mean, how much stuff had he bought?!)
‘Amazing – look at this!’ Max dumped the rest of his bags in the aisle and grabbed a small, slightly crumpled red hanky from his jeans pocket. He proceeded to push it into his bulging fist. ‘Now watch …’ he said as he slowly and melodramatically unfurled his fingers to reveal that the hanky had completely vanished. He beamed at the others like a baby elephant.
‘That’s wicked, mate!’ said Sophie as the others applauded encouragingly.
(It’s fair to say that our friendly four were perhaps being rather kind here. Not that Max’s sleight of hand hadn’t improved; it was just that the hollowed-out fake thumb (or ‘thumb tip’ as mentioned earlier) that made this trick possible was so obviously stuck on to the end of Max’s real thumb – with the hanky squashed inside – that the whole thing stood out, quite literally, like a sore thumb! Oh well, A* for effort! Maybe that’s one for Jonny to have a look at fixing too?)
‘By the way, can I get your autographs later?’ said Max suddenly. ‘Everyone at school has been asking for them.’
‘Oh, erm … sure, if you’d like!’ said Jonny, already excited by the idea of dressing up his somewhat plain signature into a fancy, swirling autograph.
‘Great! Right, well, I’d better sit at the front in case I get sick,’ Max said breathlessly, grabbing one of his plastic bags and sitting down in the seat behind Steve. The air whooshed out of the seat like a drawn-out sneeze.
‘I do love that kid!’ said Jonny quietly, turning to the others, his earlier worries forgotten.
‘Ah, there she is – finally!’ said Cynthia, spotting Deanna and her mum running after the bus, having been held up searching for Deanna’s strawberry-coloured and possibly strawberry-flavoured inhaler, which – if truth be told – she didn’t really need any more, but she had kicked up such a fuss when the doctor had tried to take it from her that the lady eventually caved and insisted Deanna just keep it and use it as infrequently as humanly possible.
‘Please can I sit next to Sophie, please can I sit next to Sophie, please can I sit next to Sophie?’ Deanna was droning.
‘I’m sure if you ask her nicely,’ Deanna’s mum panted, trying to keep up. As she was dressed in exactly the same outfit as her daughter, from certain angles you’d think it was just one person running towards the bus but with two heads, four arms and four legs.
‘Oh!’ said Deanna loudly, grinding to a halt as she clambered aboard the bus, spotting Sophie already squeezed between Alex and Jonny. She took a deep breath as before, trying to suppress her inner rage, which presently was something just shy of a giant supernova explosion. ‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll just sit here with …’ She scanned the rest of the minibus aggressively before turning to face Max, who already looked, inexplicably, somewhat travel sick. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Max.’
‘Right, I’m Deanna, but I’m going to listen to my music now so please don’t talk to me for the rest of the journey.’ Deanna whacked on a pair of garish headphones, which had big diamond Ds blasted into each side, in case anyone should forget who these wannabe earmuffs might belong to, and cranked up the volume to max.
Max turned pleadingly towards the four at the back, patently terrified. Was this really what she was going to be like all weekend? Fingers crossed!
‘Well, finally, that’s everyone!’ Cynthia declared, stepping up on to the bus. ‘Are you coming along as well, dear?’ she added, turning to Deanna’s mother, who was waving at her daughter like a possessed seal, but getting nothing back.
‘Oh, good grief, no, I’ll be glad of the break!’ she answered bluntly – well aware her daughter now couldn’t hear a word. ‘Have a great trip!’ She ran back towards the station, victorious, leaping in the air like she’d just negotiated a business deal that had worked out massively in her favour.
‘Well then,’ Cynthia said to Steve, ‘shall we see what she’s made of?’ She patted the dashboard of the minibus, causing a corner to ping off, and hastily squeezed into the little space left by Max and Deanna on the passenger seat – fastidiously doing up her belt, almost like she knew something about Steve’s driving that the others didn’t.
Steve reached down below the steering wheel and turned the ignition. The bus lurched forward alarmingly, interrupting a nearby seagull in the middle of its tasty midday treat of dropped chips mixed with old dog poo and making it screech out its disapproval.
‘Whoops!’ Steve caught everyone’s eyes in his rear-view mirror. ‘Which bright spark left this in gear, eh?!’ He tried the ignition again, almost snapping the gearstick in the process. The engine belched and roared to life, leaving a carbon footprint the size of a brontosaurus in size thirteen wellies as a thick gush of black smoke belched out of the exhaust.
‘Right, hold on!’ shouted Steve over the noise of the engine as he slowly lowered the handbrake. ‘The pedals are a little sensitive!’
The minibus shot out from its spot in the station car park like a sprung coil, forcing them all back into their seats as if they wer
e on their way to the moon (whether they liked it or not).
‘Mind out!’ Cynthia shouted, clapping her hands over her eyes as Steve narrowly missed colliding with nearly every other car in the car park. This was like a giant, hair-raising game of pinball.
‘Scream if you want to go faster!’ Steve shouted joyfully. He was spending more time checking out everyone’s reactions to his ‘jokes’ in the rear-view mirror than keeping an eye on the road.
‘Left-hand lane!’ Cynthia screamed as they screeched on to the main road away from the station at full pelt.
Zack, Jonny, Sophie and Alex jostled into each other like peas in a very turbulent pod.
‘Red light!’ screamed Cynthia.
‘Other way!’
‘Slow down!’
‘Police!’
And so it went on until Steve finally got into his groove as they shot up the A583.
Sophie stared through the window as the view outside became increasingly bleaker, the grey of the town being replaced slowly by the patchy green and brown of moorland and peat bogs. She loved this kind of landscape. It wasn’t massively dissimilar to the landscape of her hometown in the Lake District, but there was something about being so close to the sea and the clifftops here that made it feel even more otherworldly.
In the seat next to her, exactly the same scene was slowly blowing Alex’s mind. His parents hardly ever travelled, so neither did he. For the first time in his life he could see for miles without a single building getting in the way. Just moor and sea.
‘Wow …’ he breathed.
‘Whoa, what is that?’ said Jonny, leaning heavily across the others to get a better view. Zack rubbed the grime from the crusted window and peered out, his eyes widening.
‘Jeez, what in –?!’
It was a fairground. A funfair to be precise – Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun – though ‘fun’ wasn’t the first word that sprang to mind. It clearly hadn’t been open for a number of years judging by the dilapidated sign and the chained, rusting, wrought-iron gates that now closed off the entrance. The faded lettering and artwork looked more like the etched storyboards of a nightmare than a place people would enter voluntarily. And certainly not in the pursuit of ‘fun’.
The Young Magicians and the 24-Hour Telepathy Plot Page 3
