Tippy Toler and the Fully Baked Magic Show

by Julia & Marty Kramer

  So we added some ingredients to sweeten it up. Looking back now, we probably should have tasted it right then. But with all the great stuff we put in, we figured it had to taste good. So, we started making a sign.

  My mother, Buddy Boy, Missy Lane, and I dragged a table, chairs, the sign, and the lemonade out of the house. I made my mother promise not to make any of our business decisions. “You are in charge of safety,” I told her. “That’s it.”

  We needed a safety lady, too, because we set up our lemonade stand on the sidewalk of a super-busy street. Cars were whizzing by. Some got all honkity at us, but nobody stopped. My mother said, “As safety officer, I’d like to point out that maybe no one’s pulling over because there’s no safe spot to pull over and stop on this road.”

  “Good point from the Safety Lady, don’t you think?” I asked Missy Lane. She nodded.

  We moved the lemonade stand back to my street. There wasn’t as much traffic, but what do you know? … the first car to pass by pulled over. A smiley man got out and ordered a glass of lemonade. We poured him a cup of our special mix, and … well, he didn’t exactly make yum noises. In fact, he twisted up his lips and bugged out his eyes like he’d just swallowed a caterpillar.

  “Are you OK?” Missy Lane asked.

  “Fine, fine,” the man said in the middle of a coughing fit. He paid and left quickly.

  “Maybe we should’ve tasted it when we put the extra ingredients in,” Missy Lane said.

  “Go ahead,” I said, nodding at her.

  “Go ahead yourself,” she said.

  “Hey, Buddy Boy, you want to take a little sip?” I smiled at him, but he frowned and stuck out his tongue.

  I looked at my mother. “You know, this really is about safety,” I said. I poured some into a cup, and a green chunky thing plopped from the pitcher into her drink.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “Ingredients,” I answered.

  “What ingredients?”

  I was kinda scared to tell her. Oh, I’m sure you want to know, too. Well, you can find out with this word scramble. These letters are mixed up. If you get them back in the right order, you’ll know what we put in the lemonade.

  DANCY

  YELLJ

  MUMGY REABS

  If you want to use a paper and pencil, I can wait. When you’re ready for the answer, read on!

  Answers:

  DANCY = CANDY

  YELLJ = JELLY

  MUMGY REABS = GUMMY BEARS

  Yes, that’s right. We put apple jelly and little green-and-white candies and gummy bears in our lemonade recipe. I told my mom.

  “Hmmm … ” she said. My mother switched her mouth sideways. “Alright.” She took a sip—very brave, don’t you think?—and her eyes widened.

  “Well?” Missy Lane asked.

  My mother thought for a moment, then said, “It’s, uhm, interesting.”

  “Interesting?” I said. “This isn’t a book. It’s not a painting. It’s a drink. What does interesting mean for a drink?”

  She said she would try to put it into language I would understand. “It’s ... kinda good with some icky thrown in,” she said.

  I knew what that meant, alright. I took my own little sip and spit it out immediately. “There’s nothing kind of good about it!” I hollered, “It’s yucky-trocious! Here, Missy Lane, you try it.”

  “No thank you!” she said firmly.

  And that’s how our charity lemonade stand went out of business for good.

  CHAPTER 7

  Half-baked lemonade

  “How’d the big lemonade fundraiser go?” my father asked when we returned home. “Did you make a lot of money for the animal shelter?”

  I opened my hand and showed him two quarters.

  “Better than nothing,” he said weakly. “What happened?”

  I told him how the cars wouldn’t stop on the busy street and how we forgot to sample our recipe and how our lemonade tasted worse than accidentally gulping a mouthful of the ocean.

  “The whole thing sounds half-baked,” he said.

  Half-baked? I suddenly knew why the lemonade tasted so awful. “We didn’t bake it at all! Who knew you were supposed to? Nobody tells me anything!”

  “No, Tippy. Half-baked means something that wasn’t well-planned.”

  “Oh.”

  My dad said our sign should have had bigger letters so people could read it … and we should have said we were raising money for the animal shelter … and we should have looked for a good recipe … like this one:

  Made-In-The-Shade Lemonade

  You’re going to love this lemonade. Make sure you get an adult to supervise. You have to use the microwave, and you know it can make stuff really hot.

  What you’ll need:

  1 ¾ cups sugar

  7 cups water

  1 cup ice

  1 ½ cups lemon juice

  What to do:

  Put sugar in a large microwave-safe measuring cup. Add 1 cup water. Stir. Put in microwave for about one minute.

  Add ice cubes, a few at a time, until mixture cools.

  Combine in pitcher with lemon juice and remaining water and stir.

  If you want, you could add one gummy bear … but I wouldn’t overdo it!

  I told my dad he was right. “The lemonade stand was half-baked.”

  He asked if I’d like his help planning a really good lemonade stand.

  “I don’t ever want to see another lemon ever again,” I told him. “I have to figure out some other way to make money for those dogs and cats.”

  “There’s all kinds of ways to raise money,” my dad said. “You can have a garage sale or a bake sale ... you can wash cars or put on a play or a concert or magic show … you can do chores or recycle cans or—”

  “Wait a minute. What was that?”

  “Recycle cans?”

  “No, the magic show. Do you know a magic trick for making money appear?”

  “No, Tippy. You put on a magic show, invite a bunch of people, and charge admission. You could sell food and drinks there, too.”

  “CALL THE NEWSPAPERS!” I shouted. “Get ready for Tippy Toler’s fantabulous magic show!”

  My dad chuckled. “If you want help, I can give you some ideas about how to make it a success.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll figure this out. And believe me ... this magic show won’t be half-baked.”

  Chapter 8

  Abracadabra … ish

  “Do you know any tricks, Tippy Toes?” asked Missy Lane.

  “No. Do you?”

  She got all serious and said, “I know how to make a whole bag of cheese puffs disappear.”

  “Really?” I slid my bag of cheese puffs in front of her. “I didn’t know you could do magic.”

  She grinned and opened the bag. I was sooo excited. Missy Lane grabbed a fistful of cheese puffs and stuffed them in her mouth.

  “Are you going to eat them all and then make them magically re-appear?” I asked. A smile stretched all the way across her face. I’d seen that look before. And that’s when I realized what the real trick was.

  “Hey!” I said. “You just want to eat all my cheese puffs!” She grabbed another handful and giggled.

  “Oh, yeah?” I grabbed her pudding container out of her lunch box. “Fair’s fair,” I said.

  So we had some details to figure out. But we both still LOVED the idea of a magic show. So did Meghan and Penny and Katie and Kacie. So my five and a half best friends and I decided we would put on the best magic show ever.

  CHAPTER 9

  Not all tricks are magic

  You may be wondering how I have five and a half best friends. Well, Missy Lane is more than just any old best friend. She’s worth at least a best friend and a half.

  So my five and a half best friends and I launched phase one of our plan. I’m sure you’re wondering what phase one is. You’re in luck, ’cause I’m going to tell you right now. Phase one was to learn s
ome magic tricks. We agreed we all would try out some tricks at home and tell each other about them the next day at school.

  I attempted my first magic trick that afternoon. “Hey, Buddy Boy!” I called out. “I made you a snack in the kitchen!”

  He ran in. When he saw the sliced apples and peanut butter on our little kids’ table, his eyes widened and he said, “Yumma lumma!”

  “Have a seat,” I instructed, and I held out his chair for him. Right as he was starting to sit, I jerked the chair away.

  Don’t you know that my trick worked perfectly! He plopped right down on the floor. “Ta da!” I said. I laughed so hard. I thought my little brother was laughing, too. But then I saw tears rolling down his pudgy cheeks. “Waaaaaah!” he wailed.

  I know what usually happens when he starts crying like an ambulance. I get in trouble.

  My mom arrived right on schedule, looked at the scene, and turned her attention back to me.

  “Tipitina Louise?” she said. She hadn’t even heard my explanation yet. I had to talk fast.

  “He was trying to sit down and instead of sitting on the chair, he fell right on his little behiney,” I said. It was true.

  “Is that the whole story?” my mother asked, crossing her arms.

  Buddy Boy started talking and crying at the same time. He sounded like an owl trying to hoot underwater. I figured that was good for me—no way my mother could know what he was saying. But my mom is kind of a genius about that stuff. If there was a language called Hooty-squish, she’d have no problem understanding it.

  “You pulled the chair out from under him?!”

  “It was a magic trick,” I explained.

  That’s when I learned some important things about magic tricks. For starters, no one’s supposed to get hurt. And there’s a difference between a magic trick and a brother-sister kind of trick. Brother-sister tricks get you a timeout, and then you have to apologize a bunch.

  CHAPTER 10

  Check it out!

  The next day at school, my friends and I swapped stories about our magic tricks … only Missy Lane and Meghan had no magic-trick ideas at all. Katie and Kacie tried one at their house, but they got a timeout and a lecture, too. It turns out that scaring your mother when she gets out of the shower is not a magic trick, either.

  But Penny said she had a brilliant idea. And she was right! “They have books in the library that tell you how to do magic tricks,” she said. “We can each check one out today at library time.”

  And that’s what we did. Mrs. Dooley, the librarian, noticed. “Seems to be a lot of interest in magic today,” she said. I told her why. “Hmmmm … I know a great magician who happens to work right here at school,” she told us.

  “Really? We have a school magician? Do you think he would help us?” Penny asked.

  “Could he teach us some cool tricks?” Missy Lane chimed in.

  “I’ll ask,” Mrs. Dooley said.

  We all agreed that the mystery magician was probably Coach K. He seemed like the kind of guy who could make stuff disappear. We couldn’t wait to find out if he would agree to help us.

  CHAPTER 11

  What did we do?

  As we were getting ready for recess, Ms. Sharpe, our teacher, gave us a most unwelcome shock. “I need to see Meghan, Penny, Katie and Kacie, Missy, and Tippy, please. The rest of you can go to the playground.”

  Ms. Sharpe told us we had to go to Mrs. Cruz’s office. The principal! I am certainly not the kind of girl who gets sent to the principal’s office! That place can only mean one thing … trouble.

  While we waited outside of Mrs. Cruz’s office, I twisted my fingers through my hair. Penny bit her nails. Katie was tapping her feet. Kacie would look one way, then the other, then back again. Meghan and Missy Lane were both staring at Mrs. Cruz’s door.

  It finally swung open and Mrs. Cruz asked us to come in and sit around the table in her office. “Do you girls know why I called you in here?” she asked. We all looked at each other.

  Meghan broke the silence. “It’s ’cause we forgot to say thank you to the ladies who work in the lunch line, isn’t it?”

  “I always tell them thanks,” Missy Lane said.

  Mrs. Cruz laughed. “Before any other confessions, why don’t we have a little snack?” She put a plate of bananas in the middle of the table. Wow, I thought, No one ever offers me snacks when I get in trouble at home. Maybe the principal’s office isn’t so bad.

  “I heard you girls all checked out magic books from the library today.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Another rule I’d never heard of.

  I blurted, “If we’re not allowed to check out magic books, they shouldn’t have them in the library!”

  “Oh, it’s not that,” said Mrs. Cruz.

  “Mrs. Dooley didn’t tell us we couldn’t all check out the same kind of book,” Penny said.

  “No, you don’t understand … everyone just grab a banana,” she said.

  We did. After all, when the principal tells you to grab a banana, you grab a banana.

  “Now look at them. Anybody see anything strange about these bananas?”

  We all shook our heads. This was the weirdest punishment I’d ever heard of.

  “Good,” said Mrs. Cruz. Then she waived her hands around the bananas and chanted, “Magical nephews, magical nieces … slice these bananas into three pieces.”

  We all looked at one another again, not sure what to do.

  “Well? Peel your bananas and have a look,” said Mrs. Cruz.

  You’ll never guess what we saw. Each banana was sliced into three pieces, just like Mrs. Cruz had said in her spell.

  “You can eat them if you like,” she said.

  “How did you … ?” I started.

  “Oh, magic, of course. Mrs. Dooley said you might like me to teach you a few tricks for a magic show fundraiser for the animal shelter. I think that’s an excellent idea.” And then she waved her hand. Suddenly and out of nowhere she was holding a bouquet of flowers.

  We were speechless. Finally, Katie piped up, “YOU’RE the magician?”

  “The principal’s a magician … ” Kacie echoed.

  CHAPTER 12

  You can do the banana trick

  Mrs. Cruz agreed to teach us some magic. Our first lesson was the banana trick. You can do it, too. If you want to slice a banana without peeling it, here’s how.

  Actually, there are two ways to prepare this trick. One way is easy, but the banana slices aren’t as exact. The other way’s a bit harder. I’ll tell you the easy way. All you need is a banana and a needle. You should ask a grownup to help, because needles are really sharp. And remember, nobody gets hurt in a good magic trick.

  It’s best to use a banana that already has a few brown spots on it. That way, it won’t be easy for someone to see where you poked the needle in.

  Find the thinnest needle you can that is at least as long as the width of the banana. Then ask your grownup helper to sterilize the needle in boiling water, so it doesn’t have any yick-o germs on it. Stick the needle into the banana and push it toward the other side, but don’t poke it out the other side. Then move the needle all the way to one side and back to the other side. That’s how you make a slice. Think of the needle as a knife.

  Pull out the needle and repeat this step two or three times in other spots. The slices might not be totally smooth, but you will have slices. Be safe and have fun!

  And don’t forget the best part. Offer the banana to an unsuspecting friend, brother, sister, or parent and watch them stare in amazement when they peel the banana!

  If you want to make smoother slices, you’re going to have to use the other method. It’s pretty tricky … you can probably find the instructions online somewhere. Basically, you sew thread around the inside of the banana peel and use the thread to slice the fruit.

  Good luck! I’m going to stick to the easy method.

  CHAPTER 13

  I see … I saw

  Mrs. Cru
z told us we should pick a real showstopper for our performance.

  “Why do we want to stop the show?” Meghan asked.

  “A showstopper is a trick that wows the audience,” Mrs. Cruz explained. “Like sawing someone in half.”

  “Ohhhhh …” we all answered.

  And then … Katie volunteered me. If you ask me, it’s kind of finky to volunteer someone else. But that’s just what she did. “I think Tippy should get sawed in half.”

  Before I could tell her to keep her volunteering to herself, everyone else agreed.

  Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the kind of girl who likes the idea of getting sawed in half … even if it is a magic trick. But I didn’t want to tell the other girls. So I said, “I don’t want to take all the fun away from you, Katie. You can be the one to get sawed in half.”

  “I’ll let Penny do it,” Katie said.

  Everyone was being polite all over the place, saying they would let someone else be the star of the trick. Finally, I’d had enough.

  “OK, I’LL DO IT! But if anyone really saws me in half, both sides of me will chase you down and make you pay!”

  “No one actually gets sawed in half,” said Mrs. Cruz. “It’s a trick.”

  “Can we really do it?” I asked. “You know, safely?”

  “I will be on stage … it will be totally safe.”

  “The audience will totally FREAK OUT!” said Meghan.

  “Totally,” said Missy Lane.

  If I don’t totally freak out first, I thought.

  CHAPTER 14

  Will it help if I stand on my head?

  Can you read this?

  Neither could we. Mrs. Cruz showed it to us during one of our magic-show planning sessions after school.

  “Is it a magic spell?” Penny asked.

  “No,” answered Mrs. Cruz.

  I went for the direct approach. “What does it say?”