Hattie Big Sky (25 page)

My neighbor was a chatty woman whose hat would've been better suited to someone with a face less like a pumpkin. She pointed to Cecil's name on the program. “I saw him in Helena,” she confided. “He plays a magician that makes himself disappear.” Her eyes twinkled. “My nephew told me how it's done. It's called a Hamlet trap. They rig up this door in the stage floor. The actor steps on it just so and
poof!
Gone.” She sighed. “I come all this way to see him again.”

The burgundy velvet curtain began to rise, earning me a poke in the ribs from my neighbor. For a plump woman, she had sharp bones. “Show's starting,” she stage-whispered.

I nodded, edging myself a bit farther away from that pain-inflicting elbow as I settled in to enjoy the evening. The opening act was a comic duo from Great Falls. They performed a skit involving an accordion, a ridiculously large woman's hat, and a wheelbarrow. I laughed so hard, I thought I might slip right out of my chair and into the aisle.

Vera Clare was stunning in her role as a grieving mother in a short play called
Mama's Boys
. I wept as hard as I'd laughed earlier. For a small woman, she radiated great stage presence. All around me, audience members—even men!—were dabbing eyes with handkerchiefs. To think that Sylvia found traveling with such a troupe to be wearing! From my plush seat, the dramatic life seemed nothing but thrilling.

After the intermission, Cecil's time in the spotlight finally arrived. I had to admit, he did look dashing in that black top hat and red-satin-lined magician's cape. I found his delivery a trifle melodramatic, but my neighbor could not take her eyes from him up there in the footlights. She grabbed my arm as he moved center stage. “The line will be ‘Exemptum exactum,' ” she murmured. No sooner had she uttered the words than Cecil, too, pronounced them, though much more theatrically.

“Exemptum exactum!” His baritone voice rang out over the hall. Then, with a swoosh of his cape, he vanished. A woman behind me shrieked in surprise. My heart raced and I gripped the seat arms. Even though I'd been forewarned, Cecil's departure was exceedingly dramatic.

It wasn't until later that I would learn exactly
how
dramatic it had been.

Excerpt copyright © 2013 by Kirby Larson. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.