Ridley turned to Carter and asked pointedly, “Do you have a skill?”
“I don’t know,” Carter said, blood rushing to his face. He thought of his parents disappearing. He thought of running away from Uncle Sly. “I guess you could say I make things vanish.”
“I could say that?” Ridley asked with a smirk.
“We should say that,” Theo finished, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Making things vanish is a fantastic skill for a magician,” Mr. Vernon interjected. “Using a similar technique in reverse is called production. I suspect you’re quite good at both. After all, many magical routines use a combination of those very ideas. A great magician learns to master not one but many of the various effects. For example, the classic cup and balls uses vanishes, productions, penetrations, transformations, and transportations.”
(Friends, this is very good information to know when learning about magic. I hope you are writing it all down.)
“How long have you been practicing magic?” Carter asked.
“Since I was about your age,” Mr. Vernon said. “Back then, I had a group of friends who would get together, just like these three do now.”
“When I grow up, I want to be known as the first female Houdini!” Leila said.
“I will take after Harry Kellar and levitate a princess,” Theo noted. “Or maybe even a queen… if I can find one.”
“No one is as great as John Nevil Maskelyne,” commented Ridley. “He was not only a stage magician but an inventor and a writer as well.”
The three began to argue. Clearly this was an argument they had had many times before, and there would be no winner. Carter and Mr. Vernon exchanged an amused glance.
“Opinions are like hearts,” Mr. Vernon said. “Everybody’s got one.”
“Not everybody,” Carter answered. “I know some people who seem pretty heartless.”
“Still full of doubt, I see.” Vernon squinted at him. “No matter. A healthy amount of skepticism is not a bad thing. Especially when trying to make new friends.”
“Friends?” Carter echoed.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” Vernon asked.
Carter set his jaw. “I’m here because you told me to come back at four o’clock.”
“Is that so? You were a little late.” Up went that pointy white eyebrow. “You probably didn’t notice, though, because you were so busy strolling down Main Street with this trio, who definitely do not want to be your new friends.”
Leila, Theo, and Ridley emerged from a huddle. They were all staring at Carter. “What is it?” he asked, his voice cracking. “What did I say?”
“My vote is yes,” said Theo. “He saved me.”
“My vote is no,” said Ridley. “He’s too green.”
“My vote is yes too.” Leila smiled. “And my reasons are my own. Carter, we’ve just voted and would like to invite you to our secret hideout. Are you in?”
Carter had to hold back from shouting YES; instead he smiled and then gave a little nod.
Leila put on an upper-crusty tone and said, “Father, if you wouldn’t mind turning away?”
“Of course.” Mr. Vernon grinned, adding with a dramatic whisper, “One of these days I will find that secret hideout, and then it’ll all be over for you rascally kids.”
Leila chuckled as she walked toward a bookshelf at the rear of the store and pulled on a thick volume entitled Secret Passages. The bookshelf made a clicking sound and then moved outward to reveal a doorway to a darkened, windowless room.
“This is where Dad hides the good stuff that’s not for sale,” Leila said, flicking a light switch on the wall. “But we adopted it as our secret HQ.”
Carter was so shocked, all words flew from his head.
Inside this new, secret room were antique reading chairs, lamps, more shelves adorned with pieces of knotted rope, elaborate heart-shaped locks with matching keys, and countless old photos of smiling people covering the walls. There was even a framed portrait of Houdini with his wrists shackled together. This was clearly Leila’s space. Next to a pile of leather trunks, a tiny woodstove warmed the room. Nearby, the wall was hung with a framed picture of Leila being hugged by her two dads.
When Uncle Sly did a trick, Carter thought, it was to gain something. But here, behind the secret door, there were no tricks. It was an invitation to be part of a group, a team, a crew. Whether that included new friends, Carter wasn’t yet sure. Instinctively, his hand trailed down to his satchel. He touched the wooden box and a warm, welcoming feeling of home flooded over him. Or at least it was what Carter imagined a home to feel like. He only had vague memories of that little red cottage with white trim where he’d once lived with his parents.
“Pretty awesome, huh?” Leila asked.
“It’s perfect,” Carter whispered.
Leila raced up to the apartment above the shop and fetched the linzer tarts from the kitchen. When she returned, she blew a kiss to Mr. Vernon, then closed the door to the secret room. She and the others began to pore over the books and discuss future plans.
Carter simply couldn’t believe it. This morning, he had woken up alone on a park bench. And now these strangers had invited him into their home and, further, into their secret place. It was amazing how a chance meeting and a few laughs could bring such different people together—it was almost like…
Carter didn’t have another word for it.
It was like magic.
NINE
After what seemed like an eternity and yet no time at all, Ridley looked at her watch and said, “We should go.”
The four had spent the last few hours in the secret room in Vernon’s Magic Shop, and it was the most fun he’d ever had. Theo showed Carter how he pulled the bow from his pocket (a wire mechanism that allowed the bow to fold in half). Leila showed Carter how she escaped from handcuffs (a key hidden under a square inch of fake skin on her wrist). And Ridley showed him a secret code she had been working on, using actual cards from a playing deck.
In exchange, Carter showed them some of his card and coin tricks. Ridley kept rolling her eyes until she looked in her pockets to find an entire deck of cards stuffed inside. Then she quieted down. The Other Mr. Vernon brought them a platter of tiny cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches with all the crusts cut off. Carter wanted to shove the last few into his bag, but he knew that would look strange. He began to worry about what he’d do when Leila kicked everyone out. There was no way he could sleep on the park bench again now that he knew how close it was to the magic shop. But where else could he go? If Uncle Sly were here, they would have already worked several shell games and made at least enough to get through a couple of days in a boardinghouse. That, however, was all in the past.
“Come on,” Theo said, waving for Carter to follow.
“Where?” Carter asked.
“To the carnival, silly,” Leila said. “We’ve been looking forward to it all week.”
“Oh,” Carter said, feeling his stomach drop at the thought of Bosso and his goons. “I think I’m going to pass.”
“Why?” Theo asked. “I thought everyone enjoyed the festivities of public revelry.”
“Yeah, umm… I went last night,” Carter said. “It wasn’t that great. I’m pretty sure the stuff in the sideshow is fake, and the games are all rigged.”
“We know that,” Ridley said. “That’s why we want to go—to figure out how everything works and beat them at their own game.”
“It’s always good for young magicians’ minds to learn all the mysteries around them,” Theo added. “That way we can better replicate them.”
“Come on,” Leila said, taking Carter’s arm in her own. “It’ll be fun!” Carter didn’t want to go, but he also wanted to keep hanging out with his new… friends. Reluctantly, he gave in.
What was the worst that could happen? (If you ever find yourself as a character in a story, refrain from asking yourself this question. Inevitably, you will find out the answer, and most likely yo
u will not like it.)
The sun had nearly set by the time they made it to the fairgrounds. As the four passed under the twinkling stringed lights at the carnival’s entrance, Carter was on edge. He withdrew the newsboy cap from his bag and put it on. He pulled it low over his eyes, hoping that none of Bosso’s gang would recognize him.
“Let’s get some ride tickets!” Leila said, grabbing Theo and pulling him over to the ticket booth. While the others waited in line, Carter found himself alone with Ridley by the twinkling gate. Theo and Leila seemed to accept Carter without question, but Ridley looked at him like he was a machine she was trying to figure out.
“So?” Ridley asked point-blank. “What’s your deal?”
“My deal?”
“Yeah, where are you from? Where do you live? Where do you go to school? Why are you here?” Ridley asked.
“It’s complicated,” Carter answered honestly.
“So tell me.”
Carter kicked some spilled popcorn on the ground. He wasn’t sure how to answer, but the silence was growing tense.
“I’ll be blunt,” Ridley said. “I want you to know that I don’t trust you. Not one… solid… inch. I voted for you not to see the secret room. Theo and Leila see the best in people. I don’t. Funny how we just spent hours together and I still don’t know a single thing about you. So I’ll ask one last time: Why are you here?”
“Here in Mineral Wells?” Carter asked, shaken by Ridley’s aggressive questioning. Quickly, he lied, “My parents and I are staying at the Royal Spruce Hotel.”
“You mean the Grand Oak Resort?”
“Of course that’s what I meant,” Carter answered, forcing himself to chuckle. Ridley’s fierce stare was throwing him off.
“What do you want from Leila and Theo?” Ridley asked. “What do you want from Mr. Vernon?”
“Nothing,” Carter said. “Nothing! I don’t want anything from anyone. I never have.”
“That’s not true,” Ridley said. “Everyone has something up their sleeve.”
Dozens of thoughts rolled around in Carter’s head. He wanted a home. He wanted a family. He wanted to have friends. But none of those things were realistic. At least not until he came to Mineral Wells. Right now Carter was just trying to hold on to the happiness he’d found since meeting Mr. Vernon the previous night. But how did he say all that to Ridley or Leila or Theo without sounding like a total wastrel? Wastrel is another word for vagabond, that horrible term. The three would vanish him faster than he knew how to vanish himself!
“I’m not a bad person,” he whispered.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Ridley’s stare was unbearable. “What do you want here?”
“To belong, okay?” Carter snapped. He felt tears in his eyes, but he wasn’t sure. Quickly, he wiped at them. “You don’t know what it’s like to be alone.”
Ridley flinched. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
The two stood in silence for a moment, then looked at Theo and Leila, who were laughing and smiling in the ticket line. “They have it easier than most,” Ridley said quietly. “That’s why they’re so fast to accept others. Me? Everyone treats me like I’m different. I’m not different. Not that different. I’m just me.” She softened. “I wasn’t trying to be a jerk to you or anything. I’m just protective of my friends.”
Ms. Zalewski came to mind. Carter said, “I understand. So am I.”
“I guess we have more in common than I thought,” Ridley admitted. “So you really want to be a magician?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it,” Carter answered. “What magic I did just seemed to cause others pain. But watching you all, it seems cool. And I am good with my hands.”
“Oh yeah? You wouldn’t know real magic if it ran over your toes.” With a grin, Ridley ran over Carter’s foot with her wheelchair.
“Ow!” he said. For a moment, he thought Ridley had broken their unspoken truce. Then he noticed the words REAL MAGIC had appeared on the top of his shoe, the letters composed of tiny pieces of masking tape. Carter laughed in amazement. “That’s really good! You’ll have to teach me that one.”
Ridley finally smiled. “We’ll see.”
Theo returned to the gate with Leila holding a stack of small blue paper tickets. She said, “First I want to ride the spinning swings, then we should do bumper cars, and then we have to ride Bosso’s Blender. I heard it’ll make you puke out of your ears.”
“And that’s fun how?” Theo asked.
“How is that not fun?” She laughed and then pulled out a pair of handcuffs from her pocket, slapping them quickly onto Theo’s and Ridley’s wrists before pulling them toward the swings.
“You go ahead,” Carter said. “I, uh… didn’t get any tickets.” He couldn’t afford to. But then he remembered: Someone had made coins appear in his pocket just that morning.
Would it be worth buying his own tickets instead of using the money for dinner? No, it was better to save the money for a real emergency.
“We purchased enough for all of us,” Theo said, awkwardly maneuvering his handcuffed arm to hand Carter some of his. “Leila, can you please remove these?” Leila smacked her palms against their wrists, and the cuffs released. “Thank you.”
“No, really. It’s fine,” Carter protested. He felt uncomfortable taking the tickets without giving something in return. “I’m not sure I even want—”
“You’re riding the rides with us,” Theo interrupted. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”
Carter worried that if he didn’t accept the offer, they’d think he was hiding something. And though he was hiding something—many things, in fact—he wasn’t ready to risk losing anyone over it.
As the swings lifted into the air, and the bumper cars crashed into one another, and the Blender spun them in nauseating circles, Carter forgot himself. The newsboy hat that he’d pulled low over his brow was working. This was the first time in a very long while that he’d allowed himself to feel somewhat safe.
Afterward, the gang walked along the aisle of game booths. They each took turns trying to figure out how the games were fixed—fixed in this case means set up to be advantageous to one person, and it wasn’t the person playing the game.
At the Milk Bottle Pyramid, Carter offered up the theory he’d told Mr. Vernon. Ridley added, “Probably. But they also could fill the bottoms with lead so they weigh, like, ten pounds each. And look—that heavy curtain behind them helps hold them up.”
At the Balloon Dart Throw, Theo said, “They underinflate the balloons, and the darts are too light to have any force behind them. So they bounce right off.”
At the Duck Pond Game, Leila noted, “Catching the rubber ducks with the pole and string and hook is easy, but ninety-nine percent of them have a lame prize marked on the bottom. No one wins the big prize here.”
Ridley appeared to be the sharpest of the bunch. As she rolled down the strip, she’d point and say, “That basketball hoop is too small for the ball to go through,” or, “The space between the stuffed cats is bigger than it looks, it’s just they’re so furry you’d never know,” or, “The plate curves so coins slide off except for the ones they glued on to look like winners.”
“Astounding,” Theo said.
“Carter, how would you like a pink flamingo?” Leila asked.
“To eat?” Carter joked. “Or as a pet?”
“Up to you!” she said, pointing to the flock of stuffed pink birds hanging from the ceiling of the Ring Toss booth.
Carter laughed, then said, “But we know it’s rigged.”
“Yeah, but beating a rigged game is more fun.” Ridley smirked. “Win once, all you get is a tiny parrot. Win twice, you get a sketchy-looking bear. But win all three throws and you walk away with a giant pink flamingo. It’s the biggest prize in the whole carnival. Everyone will notice how great we really are!”
Carter actually didn’t want to be noticed.
“If you look around, you’ll notice
no one has a flamingo,” Leila said. “No one wins the best prizes. But we’re going to be the first.”
Carter’s face flushed. His instinct told him to turn and run away. Instead he forced himself to ask, “Why are you guys being so nice to me?”
Theo scrunched up his face, confused. “Why would we not be nice to you?”
Ridley crossed her arms and scowled. “It’s so you can belong, dummy. We all know what it’s like to feel the opposite.”
Carter had to force a smile away to keep from looking like a fool.
Leila walked up to the booth runner and said, “Three tickets for three rings, please!” She handed one ring to Ridley, one to Theo, and kept one for herself.
“Ladies first,” Theo said.
Ridley rolled over. Her eyes sized up the distance, the green bottles, the weight of the ring in her hand, and so on.
“Come on, we don’t have all day,” the booth runner said. Ridley tossed the ring, and it landed on the first bottle. She stuck her tongue out at the man.
Leila stepped up next. She stretched her arms overhead and cracked her knuckles. Standing on one leg, the other extended behind her, she bent forward, leaning as far over the rail as possible. She gave a slight toss and the ring landed on the closest bottle.
“That’s cheating,” the booth runner hissed.
“No, it’s not,” Leila said, still stretched out over the rail. “It says no touching the rail. I’m not touching. I’m hovering above.”
“Step back!” the booth runner insisted.
“Hey, buddy!” Ridley waved from her wheelchair, her red brows furrowed. “During my turn I couldn’t even get close to the railing, so let’s just call it even, whaddya say?”
The booth runner took a step back with a huff.
Then it was Theo’s turn. He slid his violin bow out of his pants pocket. (This time, Carter saw the folding mechanism lock into place.) Theo waved the bow over the ring on the counter and it began to float. Carter held his breath. He still didn’t know how Theo made things levitate.
The ring danced into the air. The booth runner looked like he was going to faint. A second later, the ring landed gently on one of the bottles with a satisfying clink!