Tricky Nick

by Nicholas J. Johnson

  Today, things are much better, and there are heaps of great women magicians in the world. There’s still room for more, but things are improving. All of this is a very long way of saying that, when I was a kid, it was very unusual for girls to want to be magicians, and it was also very rare that other magicians would let them.

  ‘Is this the magic club?’ the girl said, smiling shyly at the old magicians. She was dressed in a sparkly tutu with a striped top and denim vest covered in badges and enamel pins. On her feet were a pair of mismatched basketball shoes, one blue and one red.

  ‘Are you looking for someone?’ Cosmo said, answering her question in the most annoying way you can possibly answer a question: with another question.

  ‘Because the Girl Guides don’t meet here anymore,’ Magic Ian added.

  ‘They have moved into the new hall near the library,’ Horatio chimed in.

  The girl looked down at the magic wand in her hand. ‘I’m a magician,’ she said, confused. ‘Isn’t this the magic club? The Brotherhood of United Magicians?’

  Mr E stood up and walked over to her.

  ‘I’m afraid the brotherhood is a private club for members only,’ he said, stressing the word brother. It was clear what he was getting at. No Girls Allowed. ‘You really can’t be here. Where are your parents?’

  ‘What about him?’ the girl said, pointing to me, the smile still on her face. ‘He’s not a magician yet. He only knows one trick.’

  I didn’t think that was very fair, even if it was true. Also how did she know I only knew one trick?

  ‘Actually,’ Magic Ian said, ‘Tricky Nick here is a very talented young conjurer who we are considering for membership.’

  ‘Oh, good!’ the girl said. ‘Then you can consider me too! I brought my stuff.’

  She lifted her silver case in the air and shook it at the magicians. The faces of the assembled BUM members were turning red, both from embarrassment and anger.

  ‘Be that as it may, you really cannot be here. I’m so very sorry,’ Mr E apologised in a way that suggested he wasn’t really sorry at all. In fact, Mr E looked more annoyed than any of them.

  But the girl had already put her case down on the ground and taken out a black cloth. She held the cloth in front of her like a bullfighter.

  ‘Watch,’ the girl insisted. ‘I’ve been practising forever.’

  The girl looked behind the black cloth, blew gently and then whispered something under her breath that sounded like ‘Noo Noo Poo’.

  Suddenly, a silver ball the size of a rockmelon appeared from behind the cloth, floating in the air. It bobbed up and down gently as if it were floating on water. Before anyone could move, the ball dropped back behind the cloth. Then it flew high in the air, pulling the black fabric with it. It would have hit the ceiling if the girl hadn’t been holding on to the corners of the cloth. She pulled the ball back down.

  Then, the ball seemed to fly around the room, dragging the girl behind it like a dog pulling its owner on the lead. She bumped into tables and chairs and the large bookcase of magic books that sat in the open cage against the wall. The shelves wobbled and I was afraid the whole thing would tip over. Finally, she seemed to get it under control. She wasn’t just doing a magic trick, she was bringing the ball to life. She was telling a story about her and this ball without saying a word. I’d never thought that magic could be more than just tricking people.

  The girl peeked behind the cloth, but suddenly the ball was gone. While she was still looking at the cloth, the ball popped over her shoulder. She turned and spotted the ball and gave it a dirty look. It rolled slowly across her neck, behind her head, down her other arm and back behind the black cloth.

  Seconds later, she dropped the cloth to the ground and the ball was gone.

  My mind was blown. I burst into applause. But I was the only one. The old magicians just sat there with their arms crossed, glaring.

  ‘You are very rude, young lady,’ Magic Ian said finally. ‘And I think you should leave right now. You nearly tipped over our bookcase.’

  The girl turned and looked at the still wobbling bookcase behind her then back at the assembled magicians. Her face turned pink.

  ‘Barging in here like that—’ blustered Horatio.

  ‘—as if you had any right to be here—’ scolded Magic Ian.

  ‘—with absolutely no respect for our traditions,’ sneered Aces O’Connor.

  The girl looked first at the magicians, then at me before picking up her case. She looked hurt and a little disappointed with their reaction, but then she seemed to shake it off. She gathered her props together and walked towards the exit. At the door, she turned to the assembled magicians, took a deep breath and gave them a friendly wave.

  ‘Well, thanks for having me,’ she said. Then she turned and left the building.

  ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ Mr E said to me after the girl had gone. ‘As you can imagine, the Brotherhood of United Magicians is an exclusive organisation.’

  ‘There are certain protocols that must be met,’ Cosmo agreed.

  The others all nodded and made agreeing noises like they were clearing their throats.

  ‘Now,’ Horatio said, ‘with that unpleasantness behind us, shall we look at the minutes from the last meeting?’

  ‘Minutes?’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Aces O’Connor. ‘We must keep minutes. And as the secretary—’

  ‘I believe you will find that I am secretary,’ Magic Ian said.

  ‘No, you’re the sergeant-at-arms,’ said Horatio. ‘You were elected at the annual general meeting.’

  ‘But I resigned at the extraordinary general meeting last month,’ Magic Ian said.

  ‘The motion never carried!’ shouted Horatio. ‘We’ve been over this!’

  ‘Where are the minutes of that meeting?’ Mr E suggested helpfully.

  ‘Well,’ said Aces O’Connor, ‘as the secretary—’

  ‘YOU ARE NOT THE SECRETARY!’ bellowed Magic Ian, and the meeting fell apart.

  When I snuck out the door, they were still yelling.

  No one noticed me leave.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Please welcome to the stage . . . Trixie

  It was dark outside. The only light came from a floodlight attached to the hall roof. The Brotherhood of United Magicians had been an epic disappointment. The only exciting part had been that girl and her floating ball, but none of the old men had had any interest in her or her tricks. Dad was right. I was going to quit.

  That horrible feeling in my stomach had returned too, worse than ever. I felt dizzy and gross and I just wanted to go home. I tried to breathe, letting out big clouds of steam into the cold night air. Then I felt something in my hand. I opened it and realised I was still holding Cosmo’s big, thick silver coin. It lay there on my open palm, glinting in the dim light overhead. I tried to focus on the coin, hoping that the feeling would pass, but it only seemed to be getting worse. I was trying to remember where I’d left my bike when it happened.

  The coin moved.

  I swear my hand was perfectly still and there was barely a breeze, but this heavy coin moved all by itself. It didn’t slide across my palm, either. One edge of the coin lifted off my hand like it was trying to flip itself over. I held my breath and watched the coin as it quivered, struggling against its own weight.

  ‘TRICKY NICK!’

  The voice came from the shadows of the car park and I stumbled backwards, dropping the coin and shouting what sounded like, ‘SPIELVERDERBER!’

  The girl in the sparkly tutu leapt back and held up her hands.

  ‘Wow. You’re jumpy.’ She laughed when she’d got over the shock of me shouting in her face. ‘It’s just me.’

  I didn’t say anything. One, I wanted to catch my breath and two, I wasn’t sure if I did speak it would make much m
ore sense than ‘Spielverderber’. Instead, I just stared at her.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m sorry, this coin just . . . moved,’ I stuttered.

  ‘What coin?’

  I looked at my empty hand and then down at the concrete steps. It must have rolled into the thick grass. I’d get it later.

  She stuck out a hand for me to shake.

  ‘My name is Trixie and most people call me . . . Trixie. ’Cos that’s my name. My mum and dad used to call me Bumblebee and I’ve had a few teachers call me Beatrix which is technically my real name and . . . hey, are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah . . . sorry . . . you startled me,’ I stammered, still catching my breath. I was also trying to figure out if I had pooped myself. I had not. Phew. I shook her outstretched hand. She grabbed both my hands at once and pumped them up and down hard, holding on way too long.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just didn’t want the Brotherhood to see me. I don’t think they like girls very much.’

  ‘Maybe they just need the chance to get to know you?’ I said.

  ‘If they got to know me then they really wouldn’t like me.’ Trixie laughed. ‘What did you think of the club?’

  ‘It was fine,’ I said.

  ‘I hate the word “fine”,’ Trixie said, screwing up her nose. ‘The word “fine” is supposed to mean “good” but it really means “terrible but I don’t want to say so”.’

  She had a point. It is kind of a useless word.

  Do you like my new haircut?

  It looks fine.

  What did you think of my three-hour poetry recital?

  It was fine.

  How was that fruit salad with yoghurt we had for dessert?

  Fine.

  I tried to tell her the truth. ‘They just didn’t seem to be that interested in doing magic,’ I explained. ‘And they all seemed kind of . . .’

  ‘Up themselves?’ Trixie finished. I was starting to rethink this whole magician thing but Trixie waved away my concerns like blowflies.

  ‘They’re not magicians,’ she said. ‘Not really. They’re just old men with too much spare time on their hands. You don’t need them.’

  She glanced towards the door of the scout hall and then picked up her magic case from the ground. She opened it and took out a paperback book. She pushed the book into my hands.

  ‘This is for you,’ she said.

  I looked down to see the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic, the same book that Mr E had accidentally set fire to back in the library.

  ‘There are only two copies of that book in the whole city,’ she said. ‘Well, one now after what Mr E did to the other copy.’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked.

  ‘Remember that bookcase I bumped into in the hall?’ Trixie smiled. ‘The one filled with magic books?’

  The bookcase had been sitting against the wall in a large cage with its doors wide open. Trixie had almost knocked it over when she’d bumped up against it during her trick. The books could have tumbled down on top of her. They really should keep it locked if they wanted to keep those books safe. Besides, magic books are valuable, someone might come in and—

  ‘You stole it! You can’t steal things!’

  Trixie looked a little upset at the suggestion that she was a thief. She pulled the book out of my hands and looked at the cover.

  ‘I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it. You can put it back when you’re finished with it.’

  ‘But how could you just take it?’ I said.

  ‘Misdirection.’ Trixie grinned. ‘They were so busy watching the ball they didn’t notice anything else going on. The large action covers the small—’

  ‘I don’t mean how did you do it, I mean, how could you just take it?’ I interrupted. ‘That’s against the law!’

  Part of me was shocked that she would take something that didn’t belong to her but another part was also kind of impressed. That bump into the bookcase had seemed so accidental and clumsy that I’d flinched and looked away the moment she’d done it. I hadn’t thought for one minute it had been intentional, let alone that she’d done it on purpose so that she could pinch a book.

  ‘It’s the Brotherhood of United Magicians’ library,’ Trixie said. ‘And you can borrow books from libraries. Besides, the only reason I borrowed it from them was because Mr E set fire to the only other copy at the public library. So if anyone is to blame, it’s him.’

  ‘That was an accident,’ I protested. ‘I mean, he was careless, but that is totally different from what you did.’

  ‘Maybe it was an accident,’ Trixie shot back, ‘or maybe he didn’t want you to read that book.’

  She wasn’t making a lot of sense but I was too tired and confused to ask her more. Besides, she still looked a little hurt that I had accused her of theft.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ I said, changing the subject. ‘And why is it so important to you that I have this book? And why would it be so important to Mr E that I don’t?’

  I couldn’t understand what was going on. Was Trixie really suggesting that Mr E had nearly burned down our local library just to stop me from reading a magic book? And now she, a complete stranger, was going out of her way to steal a copy of the very same book so that I could read it.

  ‘I’m not really sure I want to be a magician anymore,’ I said, not opening the book.

  The young girl rolled her eyes. ‘Wow, you really give up easily. No one becomes a magician overnight. You’ve got to commit to it. But trust me, it’ll be worth it. Look at page seventy-two.’

  Against my better judgement, I flipped open the book to the page.

  Trixie coughed and I looked up. She was holding a watch in her hands. My watch! I looked down at my wrist and saw that it was missing. I wasn’t even angry, I was gobsmacked. ‘You have to teach me how to do that.’

  She pointed back at the book. ‘Page seventy-two.’

  I looked back at the book and quickly scanned the instructions. It seemed straightforward enough. If you grab someone’s left wrist with your right hand, your thumb rests on the buckle of their watch. Then, you use your thumb to slide the band out, let the pin fall out and the watch comes loose. The whole thing takes a few seconds and is done one-handed. Trixie must have stolen my watch when she shook my hand.

  ‘Let me try,’ I said, going to grab Trixie by the wrist. She pulled her hand away and put her chunky watch behind her back out of my grasp.

  ‘You need to practise that one,’ she said quickly. ‘But let me teach you an easy trick you can do straight away.’

  Trixie reached behind her head to take out the black hair band that was holding her hair back in a ponytail. She shook her hair out and let out a sigh of relief, scratching the back of her head with her fingers.

  ‘That’s better. Now watch this.’

  She took the hair band and put it around the first two fingers of her right hand, her index and middle fingers. She pulled it right down to the bottom of her fingers then closed her hand into a tight fist.

  ‘Watch the band,’ she said, then clicked the fingers of her other hand.

  The band vanished from her first two fingers then suddenly reappeared around the other two.

  She opened her hand and turned it back and forth, showing that it really had jumped from two fingers to the other two.

  ‘How did you—?’

  ‘It’s all in the book,’ she said, reaching out and tapping the book in my hands.

  ‘Can’t you just tell me?’

  The girl let out the kind of sigh my mum does when I’m asking her to do something I could easily do myself.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘Put the band on your two fingers and pull it down.’

  She slipped the hair band onto my fingers and pulled it down like this:

 
‘Now, close your fingers into a fist, tucking your fingertips into the band.’

  I tried a few times but the band kept slipping off my fingers. Eventually, they were tucked in.

  ‘Perfect,’ she said, just as the hairband slipped off my fingers again. I swore and threw the band down. She picked it up and handed it back to me.

  ‘You have to be patient,’ she said quietly. ‘No one gets it the first time.’

  I struggled with the band a few more times, eventually getting it to the right spot.

  From the front, it looked like this:

  But from the back, like this:

  ‘Don’t let anyone see the back,’ Trixie said. ‘You’ve got to keep it hidden.’

  ‘But how do you get it to jump?’

  ‘Open and close your fist as fast as you can.’

  I opened my hand and the band leapt onto my other two fingers.

  ‘Keep practising until the set-up part is super smooth,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget to click the fingers of your other hand. The click distracts the audience from you opening and closing your hand.’

  ‘That is so cool,’ I said, fiddling with the band in my hands. ‘But I still don’t understand why it’s so important to you that I learn this stuff.’

  ‘Just go home and read the book,’ she said, handing me back the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic. ‘Trust me. It’ll all make sense eventually.’

  And then she was gone.

  I don’t mean she walked off or stepped back into the shadows.

  I mean, she vanished.

  One second I was looking at the book in my hands and the next, the girl with mismatched shoes was gone. I looked behind me and behind the trees that lined the car park, but she was nowhere to be seen. I thought I’d heard a popping sound as she went but I couldn’t be sure.

  I looked down at the book. It didn’t seem particularly special. That said, in my experience, the things in life that are particularly special rarely look particularly special. You have to look closely if you want the real secrets.