EllRay Jakes Is Magic (5 page)

But I’ll leave that problem to my mom.

“I know what,” Mom says, sounding both desperate and inspired. “I’ll make a special indoors picnic, and you can show us your sparkly lunch box then. And I promise we’ll all be amazed. How does that sound?”

The “sparkly lunch box” Alfie is talking about has all those fake jewels on it. First, my dad spray-painted an old lunch box gold for Alfie. Since then, Mom has been helping her glue stuff onto it: pieces of the broken-down jewelry we’ve found at yard sales, sequins, and fake diamonds and rubies from the craft store. Mom has to use special grown-up glue for most of the stuff, but Alfie gets to paste down the sequins all by herself.

She usually ends up with one or two of them stuck to her, somewhere.

“Oka-a-y,” Alfie says, sounding sorry to give up her gripe so soon. And Mom goes into the kitchen to make our pretend picnic.

I move my magic set supplies around on the rug as if that might make them look different, better. But here’s what was in the taped-shut box:

“How’s it going over there, EllRay?” my dad asks, glancing over the top of his newspaper.

“Terrible,” I admit. “You can’t tell by looking at any of this stuff what you’re supposed to do with it. Anyway, I don’t think there’s enough here to do even a
bad
trick for the talent show tryout, not that magicians call them ‘tricks.’ You’re supposed to call
them ‘effects’ or ‘illusions,’ the box says. But I’m doomed without that DVD.”

“What talent show?” Alfie asks, looking up from her dolls.

“They’re making us have one at our school assembly next week,” I tell her. “All the grades have to try out, but I’m pretty sure it’ll just be the big kids who get chosen.”

“Can I be in it?” Alfie asks.

“No, Alfie,” Dad says, answering for me. “You don’t go to Oak Glen Primary School yet, remember? That pleasure still awaits you.”

Dad talks fancy like that, sometimes.

“I saw a talent show on
Pink Princess Fairies
once,” Alfie says, not giving up. “And the baby dragon danced in it and won. I can dance as good as that.”

Alfie
thinks
she can dance.

“You dance as good as a dragon?” I ask, teasing.

“As
well
as a dragon,” Dad corrects me, not even hearing how goofy that sentence sounds.

“Okay, Alfie can dance as well as a dragon,” I say. “But
no
, Alfie. You cannot try out for our talent show. I’m sure there will be another one when you
go to Oak Glen. But maybe you should start practicing now.”

“Maybe you should be quiet,
EllWay
,” Alfie tells me.

She does not like being teased.

“That’s enough,” Dad says in his quiet, but
I-MEAN-IT
voice.

“He started it,” Alfie mumbles as the rain starts to come down so hard outside that you can hear it pattering on the roof upstairs.

“Enough,” Dad says again, a little louder this time. “And EllRay, I don’t think you’re doomed at all, DVD or no DVD. You’ve got a much better resource than that handy. A great resource.”

“What resource?” I ask.

“The Internet, son,” Dad says. “Specifically, YouTube. I’m always looking up how to fix things on YouTube. People like nothing better than to teach other people how to do things, so they’re always putting up posts. How do you think I fixed the toilet last weekend?”

I don’t even want to
imagine.
I never knew it was broken!

“But magicians wouldn’t explain any of their
illusions on YouTube,” I say, afraid to get my hopes up. “Isn’t there some rule about magicians never giving away their secrets?”

“They’re not going to show you something stupendous, like how to make a motorcycle disappear,” Dad says. “But I’m sure you’ll be able to find some simple tricks—excuse me,
illusions
—that will be good enough to get you through the tryouts. And maybe even into the talent show.”

Ohhh, no. What I’m looking for is something a little less good than that, I tell myself, hiding my losing smile.

“Let’s go into my office and take a look on the big computer before our picnic is ready. That way, we can study the details of the illusions you like best,” Dad says, his eyes lighting up. He loves a project.

And it’s “we” now, I notice.

Well, that’s fine with me, I tell myself as we head for Dad’s home office, Alfie trailing close behind us.

Let him do the work!

6

We go back to my dad’s computer after our picnic lunch in the family room, where Alfie stunned us with her jewel-covered lunch box—which is now so heavy she can hardly lift it. Dad has found some cool posts that show a guy demonstrating simple illusions.

“We’re narrowing it down,” he says.

“Why don’t we just get in the car and go to Target or someplace and buy a better magic kit?” I ask.

“First, it’s pouring out,” Dad says, nodding toward the rain-spattered window, “and second, you don’t see this magician using a store-bought magic kit, do you?” he asks, pointing at the computer screen. “He’s using everyday objects we already have around the house.”

“But I can’t learn a bunch of magic before tomorrow morning,” I say, trying not to sound too
whiny. Because I don’t want the lecture on
that.

“You don’t have to learn ‘a bunch of magic,’ as you put it,” Dad says. “Just enough for the tryouts. Maybe two tricks, EllRay.
Illusions
, I mean. It’s mostly a matter of practice, this man says.”

“So I’m supposed to stay up all night practicing?” I ask. “And—which two tricks? They all look pretty hard to me! Even after he explains them.”

“That’s what makes them good,” Dad says. “They’re easy, with practice, but they
look
difficult. And I think I know just the ones you should try.”

“Which ones?” I ask.

“The illusions he calls ‘Making Money’ and ‘Cut String Made Whole,’” Dad says, checking his notes. “We can start on those right now, and you can practice like crazy. Then you can try them out on Alfie and Mom and me after dinner.”

“I think it’s too late for ‘Making Money,’ Dad,” I say, thinking of the dollar bills I handed over to the teenager at the yard sale—for a magic set I can’t even use.

He’s probably laughing his head off right now, or rolling around on my dollar bills.

“It’s not,” Dad tells me. “Let’s watch that one
again, and then the cut string one. I’ll get your supplies ready after that, and you can start practicing.”

I only want to practice enough to try out and
not get in
the talent show, but of course I don’t explain this to Dad. It would definitely sound like “having a bad attitude,” which is something that is frowned upon around here.

So I sit and stare at the computer screen, hoping I don’t fall asleep.

“And now, ladies and—and little lady,” Dad says at the dining table, after the dinner dishes have been cleared, “I present EllRay the Amazing!”

“Huh. The amazing what?” Alfie says to Mom.

She’s jealous, and I haven’t even done anything yet!

Mom, Dad, and Alfie are sitting at one end of the table, and I am standing opposite them. I have one of my dad’s goofy old hats on my head to make me look more magical, since I don’t have that top hat. My heart is actually
POUNDING
, and this is just my family. Imagine me doing these two tricks
in front of my class—or the Oak Glen Primary School Talent Show Tryout Committee!

I’d probably collapse.

“EllRay the amazing
magician
, Alfie,” Dad tells her in his best settle-down voice. “Now, prepare to be astonished, one and all. Announce your first illusion, son.”

I can tell Alfie really wants to ask Mom what “illusion” means, so I answer my little sister’s question before she can ask it. “‘Illusion’ is another word for a magic trick,” I begin in a boomy voice that sounds only a little like mine. “And tonight, I will perform two illusions just for you.”

Talking is an important part of doing magic, I learned from the guy on YouTube. That and waving your hands around a lot—if you can do it without messing up your illusion.

First, though, I fiddle my fingers under the table, preparing illusion number one, “Making Money.” The preparation is the hardest part of this trick, I have learned.

There, ready.

“I show you this ordinary dime. Or is it so ordinary?” I say to Mom, Dad, and Alfie. I hold the
dime directly facing them, between my thumb and middle finger, so that’s the only thing they can see. But
behind
the dime are two quarters, held standing up and sideways by the same two fingers. The dime hides them, kind of forming the top part of the letter T.

“So what? I have a dime,” Alfie mutters.

“But
ABRACADABRA
,” I say, passing my other hand in front of the dime—just long enough to push the dime behind one of the quarters with my thumb. I pinch the quarter with the dime behind it together, hold the coins up, and hold up the other quarter with my other hand. “Ta-da!” I say, displaying the two quarters.

They can’t see the dime at all.

At the other end of the table, Dad is grinning. He gives me a secret thumbs-up. All that practicing paid off! At first, I kept dropping the quarters. My fingers are pretty small.

Mom looks surprised, and then she starts clapping.

But Alfie looks truly astounded. She jumps up and charges over to me the way Dad said she would—which gives me just enough time to hide
the dime in the palm of my hand. “Let me see those,” Alfie says, and she takes the quarters from me and turns them over and over on the table, as if that will somehow reveal how I did it.