‘Mrs Dorbel?’ Trixie said quietly.
‘WHAT?’ Mrs Dorbel snapped, spinning around. ‘What pearl of wisdom do you have to share this time? What nugget of knowledge? What is it?’
‘Your bin is on fire.’
She was right. There were no flames but smoke was billowing from the wastepaper basket next to the desk. Mrs Dorbel let out an almighty shriek and kicked the bin. It flew against the wall, bounced back and tipped over towards her, smoke pouring out into her face. She coughed and spluttered as she swallowed a mouthful of the thick smog.
Jessica Yu screamed one of those big fake screams that attention seekers do when something a tiny bit scary happens. She tried to scramble up onto her seat like the smoke was a mouse but she lost her balance, tumbling sideways towards Gary. Gary, who is pretty quick on his feet, leapt up, tipping his desk over and sending pens and paper flying. Instead of dropping to the ground, the papers flipped and turned through the air as if they were not sure where to land. The loud crash of the desk falling over was enough to break the rest of the class out of their stunned silence and soon everyone was on their feet, pushing and shoving each other either closer to the smoky chaos for a better view or further away from the danger.
Mitch Davies didn’t do either. Instead he leapt onto his seat and let out the kind of huge cheer usually reserved for football matches. I, on the other hand, did nothing. My hands were shaking so hard that I was making my desk shake too. Although, I could have sworn it was my desk making my hands shake.
Mrs Dorbel leapt over the smoky bin in a pretty agile display for an old woman and bolted for the door. She flung it open and, for a second, looked as if she might be about to run off and abandon us. Instead, she leaned out the door and shouted what was probably meant to sound like ‘fire’ but, in her panic, sounded instead like:
‘FREMDSCHAMEN!’
Then she threw herself at the fire alarm in the hallway and we all cheered and screamed as the sound spread throughout the school.
Not this one.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Things I didn’t see coming
‘What are you doing here?’ I hissed at Trixie in the playground.
The entire school had been evacuated because of the fire alarm. Hundreds of students were hanging around on the football field, their teachers trying to get them into order. Mrs Dorbel was talking to the firefighters over by the road. She was waving her arms in the air and pointing towards our classroom, where smoke could still be seen pouring from the window. Her eyes flicked suspiciously across the mass of kids.
For the second time in as many days, the fire brigade had been called. First the public library, now the school.
‘I’m going to school! Do you like my uniform?’ Trixie said, giving a twirl. ‘I think I look kind of stupid. Brown and yellow are the worst colours. I can’t believe we have to wear this every day.’
‘You do not go to my school!’ I insisted.
‘Well, I have a uniform that says I do,’ she said, smiling. ‘I got it from lost property. Why would there be a school uniform in lost property? Is there some kid running around in the nude because they lost their uniform?’
‘I don’t know!’ I snapped. ‘Why are you here?’
Trixie sighed and rolled her eyes as if she was annoyed I wasn’t going along with her game.
‘I’m here to make sure you hang on to this,’ she said, handing me back my copy of the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic. It was the one Mrs Dorbel had just locked in her desk. I could tell by the corners that I had folded over and the piece of gum that I’d stuck to the spine. That really would have annoyed Mum.
‘You stole it?’ I asked. ‘Again?’
‘I retrieved it,’ she corrected. ‘And a thank you wouldn’t go astray.’
‘Thank you . . .?’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said brightly.
‘For what?’
‘For getting you the book back.’
‘I didn’t ask you to do that.’
‘AND for getting you out of class.’
‘Getting me out of class?’
Then it hit me.
‘You,’ I exclaimed. ‘You started the fire in the rubbish bin.’
‘Shhhh!’ she hissed, looking around. ‘They were just a couple of smoke bombs. They were perfectly safe. I make them myself. You’ll never guess what the secret ingredient is.’
‘I don’t care—’
‘Ping-pong balls,’ she whispered, like it was a national secret. ‘Of course, you’ve got to use the right sort of ping-pong ball. The cheap plastic ones produce this really nasty gas.’
‘Why would you do that?’ I said. ‘You could have got in big trouble.’
‘I had to create a diversion so I could get that book back before Mrs Dorbel destroyed it. Hey, have you learned how to steal a watch yet?’
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you snuck into my school, put your name on the seating chart and set off smoke bombs just so you could make sure that I had a copy of a book?’
I was yelling now and more heads were turning. Gary wandered over.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked, looking at Trixie. ‘Is she the new girl?’
‘I’m Trixie,’ she said, holding out her hand for Gary to shake. ‘I’m a magician!’
Gary looked at Trixie’s hand.
‘Really? Did you teach Nick that card trick?’ he asked enthusiastically.
Trixie looked at me, surprised and a little pleased. She opened her mouth to speak.
‘She’s an exchange student,’ I blurted out, pushing her away from Gary. ‘From France.’
‘Et depuis le futur également,’ Trixie called out as I dragged her over to where the kindergarten kids were being organised into rows by their teachers. A few of them were crying from over-excitement or fear. Or just because they were little and, when you’re little, sometimes you just have to cry. Somewhere above me I could hear a plane in the sky. Its engine kept getting louder and softer, as if it was circling above us. Surely they hadn’t called in a plane just because of one little pretend fire?
‘What is going on?’ I said. ‘Who are you?’
The smile faded a little from Trixie’s face. ‘I can’t get into that here, but it’s super important that you read that book. Read it, learn the tricks, practise them. That’s all I can say.’
‘I don’t get it. What is so important about this book?’
‘It’s not the book that’s important,’ she explained, looking over her shoulder. ‘It’s you.’
And suddenly I got it.
She was nuts.
Because no one would ever call me important. I was just a kid whose mum was a librarian and whose dad was a geologist. I only knew how to do three tricks. I couldn’t even steal a watch and I had practised for at least twenty minutes.
‘Why don’t you just hang on to this,’ I said, pushing the book back into her hands. ‘I have to go . . . away.’
I turned and walked away. A few of the kids were nudging each other and pointing to the plane that was flying overhead.
‘Do you wanna see something cool?’ she said behind me.
I stopped and turned back. I was going to regret this.
‘What?’ I snapped.
‘Name a number,’ she said with a smile. ‘Any number.’
Now, here’s the thing about getting someone to think of a random number. People are kind of predictable.
If you ask someone to think of a number between one and four, the chances are they’ll say three. If you ask them to name a capital city in Europe, they’ll probably say London. Name a flower? Odds are they’ll pick a rose.
In fact, try this. Draw a triangle inside a circle on a piece of paper like this but don’t let anyone see it.
Now go up to a friend and say, ‘Ca
n you draw a basic shape for me? Like a square?’ Chances are, they’ll draw a triangle or a circle. They won’t draw a square because you just said square.
If they draw a circle say, ‘Now draw another shape inside the first one.’
If they draw a triangle say, ‘Now draw another shape around the first one.’
Most of the time, you’ll end up with a shape just like the one above. If you do, show them what you drew and watch their brains explode.
If they ignore you and draw something completely different and wild just look at the shapes and say, ‘Ah yes, a hexagon inside a hyperboloid, interesting. I have just the trick for someone who thinks like you,’ and then just do another trick. They had no idea what you were planning anyway.
But Trixie had just asked me to name any number. And I wasn’t feeling particularly generous.
‘Fine,’ I said, pulling a number out of thin air. ‘Sixteen million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, four hundred and six!’
The sound of the aircraft that had been circling us for the past five minutes was getting louder. Trixie smiled and pointed at it. I looked up and spotted the small red plane straight away. Behind it was a long banner fluttering in the wind. I squinted to read it. It was an eight-digit number.
Sixteen million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, four hundred and six.
‘I hope you’re impressed,’ Trixie said as my jaw hung open. ‘Because that cost us a lot of money.’
‘How the heck—?’ I started.10 ‘The same way I knew you were going to be at the magic club last night,’ she said, ‘and the same way I knew to be in your class today. And that Mrs Dorbel was going to confiscate the book.’
She handed me the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic.
‘I can predict the future.’
The plane was flying away now, the banner still flapping behind it. If there was another way she had done the trick I had just seen, I had no idea what it was. It was impossible.
‘You’re really magic?’ I said quietly, and Trixie burst out laughing.
‘What? No!’ she cackled. ‘You birdbrain.’
‘Didn’t your parents teach you not to call people birdbrain?’
She opened her mouth to say something then changed her mind. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said instead. ‘If you take that book and promise to learn everything you can, I’ll tell you how I can predict the future. Deal?’
I looked down at her outstretched hand. The fresh air must have been good for me because I was feeling much better. I looked around the field at the rabble of kids and teachers, the fire engines and the smoky school. Did I really want this kind of trouble? How desperately did I want to be a magician?
‘Deal,’ I said.
And we shook on it.
10Actually, I didn’t say that at all. What I said was a very loud, very rude word.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Marshmallows and montages
If this was a movie instead of a book, now would be the time for the big montage. A montage is how movie directors show the hero mastering a new skill in as short a time as possible.
You show a bunch of different shots of the team practising or the band rehearsing or the ninja in training while also playing a really upbeat song. By the end of the two minutes, the football team is ready for the big game, the band is prepared for the final concert and the ninja can crack a dozen concrete blocks with his forehead.
And you believe it, all because of the power of a montage.
Movies do this because, in the real world, learning a new skill is hard. It takes months, sometimes years, to master some skills. No one wants to watch that. And no one wants to hear about all the time and energy and effort I put into learning how to become a magician. In real life, I practised for weeks and weeks. And I gave up heaps of times too. Because, like my dad said, I was very good at quitting.
So let’s just do a montage.
The first thing you have to imagine is that the really upbeat song I mentioned above is playing. The words to the song need to be upbeat too, something like this:
Then, picture me practising and not being very good. I’m dropping coins and spraying cards in the air. My homemade Appearing Cat Box falls apart the first time I try to use it. I try to steal a watch off my own wrist just like Trixie had done. Maybe you can see me getting frustrated and throwing the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic in the bin.
Now picture me getting a little better. My hands are still shaky and I’m still dropping the props everywhere but I look more determined. Maybe I’m gluing my Appearing Cat Box back together and fishing the book out of the bin.
And finally, you have to imagine me suddenly being able to do all the tricks really well. I’m rolling a coin across my knuckles with one hand. I’m plucking those playing cards out of thin air. I’m producing Midnight, our family cat, out of the perfectly constructed box.
And then the montage ends and the music fades out, just as the guitar solo kicks in . . .
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Dad said, standing at my bedroom door.
‘Um . . . a searing guitar solo,’ I replied, putting down my air guitar. ‘It’s for the end of my montage.’
Dad wasn’t sure how to respond to that so instead he held up a copy of our school newsletter.
‘Have you seen this?’
No kid has ever actually read a school newsletter. Why would a kid care about school term dates and parent–teacher interviews and head lice outbreaks? They’re so boring I’m surprised even the parents read them.
‘Says you’re having a fete next weekend,’ Dad continued. ‘Bake sale, white elephant stall, dunk the principal, all that stuff. Anyway, it says there’s going to be a magician there.’
‘A magician?’
The idea of seeing a magician performing live was exciting. I’d met Mr E and he’d been a bit underwhelming. So had the old men of the Brotherhood of United Magicians. Trixie was the only half-decent magician I’d ever seen performing live and I was still pretty sure she was nuts. I hadn’t seen her since we’d struck our deal on the school oval and that had been weeks ago. Trixie hadn’t returned to school but neither had that weird feeling in my stomach so I was calling it a draw.
‘That’s what it says here,’ Dad said, looking at the newsletter. ‘We should go. Maybe you can show him one of your tricks?’
‘Do you wanna see a trick now?’ I said, and Dad flinched. I’d been asking him and Mum to watch tricks almost nonstop since I’d started reading the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic. Every couple of days there’d be a new routine or idea I’d want to show them. Because you have to perform for someone. If you do a magic trick and nobody is watching, is it really amazing? The trouble is, I wasn’t very good, so watching me learn a new trick was like eating a piece of chicken that isn’t quite cooked. It was messy, half-baked and made you feel a little sick.
‘All right . . .’ Dad said uncertainly. ‘Are you going to try and steal my watch again? Because I only just got it repaired from the last time you tried.’
‘I AM HOLDING IN MY HAND THE JEWEL OF MERIDIAN!’ I said in my best magician’s voice. (It wasn’t my fault his watch band was so cheap.)
‘That’s a marshmallow.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I haven’t got a proper jewel yet.’
I took a deep breath and kept going.
‘AND IN MY OTHER HAND I HOLD THE SCEPTRE OF APHRODITE.’
‘That’s a pencil.’
If Dad kept on interrupting me, I was never going to finish this trick. ‘Can you please let me finish?’
‘Sorry, go on, you’re going great,’ Dad said.
‘WATCH AS I STRIKE THE JEWEL WITH THE SCEPTRE ONCE . . . TWICE . . . THRICE!’
I tapped the marshmallow three times, then stopped and looked at Dad.
‘Wait,’ he said, looking at my
hands. ‘Where did the pencil go?’
‘The Sceptre of Aphrodite,’ I corrected him, tossing the marshmallow into my mouth.
‘The Sceptre of whatever . . . where did it go?’
‘It’s a secret.’ I smiled and then walked out of the room sideways.
To understand why I was walking out of the room sideways, you have to understand the trick.
So, imagine Dad was standing on my left. I was holding the marshmallow (or jewel or coin or rock or whatever) on my left palm. Now imagine I’m holding the pencil in my right hand like a magic wand. You’ve got to use the right-size pencil as well. If it’s too big or too small, it won’t stay behind your ear.
I brought the pencil up towards my ear and said ‘Once’ and then tapped the marshmallow. I brought the pencil up again and said ‘Twice’, tapping a second time. Now, the third time I brought the pencil up, I put it behind my left ear.
Because my dad was watching the marshmallow, he didn’t notice me hiding the pencil. When I said ‘Thrice’, I brought my empty hand down on top of the marshmallow. And the pencil is gone! You have to put the pencil behind your ear before saying ‘Thrice’. A lot of people make the mistake of doing the sneaky move when they say thrice rather than before. Do that and everyone is going to see you put the pencil behind your ear.
Now, because Dad was standing on my left and the pencil was behind my right ear, he couldn’t see it. But it also meant I couldn’t move my head or he’d notice the pencil.
So I walked out of the room sideways.
‘Oh, Nick,’ Dad called after me, ‘I was in town today and I saw a shop that looks like it might sell magic tricks and that type of thing. I was thinking you might like to check it out on the weekend.’
‘That sounds great,’ I said, still trying to leave. That pencil could fall at any moment.
‘And Nick,’ Dad said again.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ve really stuck with this magic thing. I’m really proud of you for not quitting.’
Tricky Nick Page 6
