The Secret Science of Magic

by Melissa Keil

  Inside, the theatre is a cacophony of sound. The year-ten music club is tuning up in the shallow orchestra pit, and my class is scattered in clusters around the room. Chairs are stacked against the walls, leaving space for seventeen year twelves in various states of faux emotional breakdown.

  I slump onto the brown carpet, pain immediately searing through my frontal lobe. I suspect the acoustics in this room could be more excruciating, but only if they’d been designed by North Korean torture specialists on one of their grouchy days.

  Ms Heller is up on the stage. Her ponytail swishes behind her, as animated as if her hair were starring in a performance all of its own. In front of her are Romy Hopwood and Trevor Pine, who are, apparently, still trying to nail the emotional resonance of a clown and a sad-yet-hopeful circus elephant.

  Romy stares into Trevor’s eyes. She reaches out to cup Trevor’s face in a way that, to me, looks like she’s about to give him a dental exam. Then Trevor stands, and unleashes a plaintive cry that reminds me of the sound Elsie’s Auntie Nirmala made that time she won fourth division in Tattslotto.

  Ms Heller beams. I can’t even pretend to be contemptuous, because really? I can barely muster the talent to mime a proper sneeze.

  I try to quell the low-grade nausea that I habitually experience in this class. I’m convinced that my pulse is visible in my throat.

  I have no idea why I hate this so much. I think it’s because there is no clear theory, no facts or data I have managed to glean that make anything here comprehensible. There are no constants, no fundamental truths. It’s not like I’m not trying – I’ve read every book Ms Heller has set, devoured hours of articles on performance techniques. I’ve even sat through multiple insipid episodes of Inside the Actors Studio, in which celebrities discuss their profession with an earnestness that should be reserved for the discovery of the Higgs particle, or the invention of toilet paper.

  ‘Yo, Stephen Hawking,’ a voice crows beside me. ‘Sup?’

  Damien Pagono throws himself on the floor and immediately occupies himself by digging at his teeth with a protractor. ‘Got ya, you little bastard!’ he crows. The pointy end of his protractor holds an unidentifiable glob the colour of brain matter. ‘Huh. When did I eat souvlaki?’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I mutter. ‘Your parents must be very proud.’

  He waggles an eyebrow. ‘Side of wasabi with that snark?’

  ‘Piss off,’ I mumble, shuffling away from him and his teeth fossicking.

  I sink lower, vaguely hoping that the laws of physics will rewrite themselves for the next forty minutes and render me invisible behind my backpack.

  Tucked inside my Drama folder is the slim Penguin classic of Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces that I’ve taken to keeping with me in case of emergency. I slip my hand inside, feeling the reassuring shape of the small orange paperback. I close my eyes, visualising the pages filled with Feynman’s basic, beautiful introduction to Physics that I first read when I was ten. I run the tips of my fingers over the edges of the waxy cover, drawing tiny crumbs of comfort from its well-worn pages, like an amulet against my current situation, like a cheap paper talisman –

  Oh. Shit.

  ‘Ms Reyhart!’ Ms Heller crows. I tear my hands out of my folder. ‘Nice of you to grace us with your presence.’

  She strides down the stage stairs, ponytail whipping behind her, one hand held out towards me, palm up. I have seen her make this gesture to appease nervous performers, and I think it’s supposed to be comforting, but all I can think is that it’s the exact same pose as the statue of Jesus that hangs above the stage. Any moment now I’m expecting Ms Heller’s head to spin around while expelling green vomit, which I think is something that Jesus did? Maybe I should start paying attention in Mass.

  A cold drop of sweat runs down my spine. ‘Yes, Miss,’ I mumble as I stand. Her face keeps moving, all shifting eyebrows and rapid blinks, always too many expressions for me to decode.

  ‘I’m going to assume you’re prepared to workshop your practice exam today?’ She smiles widely; I think it’s meant to be kind, but I can’t seem to interpret it as anything other than the smile of someone about to toss a puppy under a bus.

  Damien leans back on his hands, smirking. He’s the only one who ever bothers talking to me in Drama; I have no earthly idea why. He of the pallid face and ill-fitting uniform, of the public testicle-selfies, who pronounces ‘Macbeth’ with an ‘f ’ at the end – is actually a surprisingly good actor. He may be, as Elsie says, a ‘giant bag of dicks’, but he is acing this class.

  Ms Heller steps right into my space. I clock a hint of Lady Grey tea and the sweet perfume that follows her like a cloud, and I have to fight the urge to hold my breath. Someone in the orchestra pit hammers out a drum roll. It may be a coincidence – the music nerds rarely pay any attention to the drama geeks – but the sound just compounds the sensory overload. My stomach contracts.

  ‘So. How have we gone with the exercises we were set?’ she asks.

  I swallow. ‘Exercises. Right. Well, we tried them. But I’m not sure we really understood the point.’

  In fact, I spent several hours on Sunday immersed in a Sense Memory task, whereby I was instructed to sit, breathing deeply, while staring into a cup of coffee. According to the instructions Ms Heller had given me, this assignment was supposed to help develop ‘emotions as a reaction to familiar stimuli’. What I learned after contemplating Mum’s Blend 43 for half an hour is that coffee is damp and brown. I’m not sure how that’s applicable to my practice monologue from All’s Well That Ends Well. I’m writing it off as yet another unfathomable mystery of this hellish class.

  Ms Heller sighs. ‘The point, Miss Reyhart, is that we need to work on unlocking some of that fire I know you have hidden away!’ She closes her eyes, her fingers fluttering near her temple, and I brace myself to be struck by a motivational quote to the face. ‘The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.’ She taps me on the chest. ‘I know you have things to share. Don’t be shy!’

  I resist the urge to remind her that I am not shy. That’s always been the conclusion most people draw about me, the simplest and least demanding diagnosis, which I rarely bother to correct. ‘Shy’ is a label everyone can get on board with. I contemplate Ms Heller, her soft eyes and earnestness. I think about her nonsense quote. Anyone claiming that beautiful things can’t be seen has never encountered a perfect Pythagorean proof.

  I can’t stop my mouth from moving. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘I’m not being difficult, Ms Heller. Not on purpose, anyway. But why is this important? Why do you think it’s something I’m missing?’

  Damien snorts. I haven’t failed to notice that he’s the only person in class who seems interested in this conversation. ‘What are these human “emotions” of which you speak?’ he craws in a staccato robot voice, complete with jerky hand movements. He makes a couple of meeping sounds, then falls backwards onto the carpet, laughing.

  Ms Heller glares at him. She turns back to me, brows knitting. ‘Sophia, performance is not just about learning lines and memorising facts and such.’ She glances up at the stage, which has been taken over by Joseph Cheng, who’s rehearsing his solo. ‘Accessing your emotions, being able to express them clearly – making yourself understood – it’s such a fundamental part of getting along in the world.’ She hesitates. ‘Isn’t that something you’d like to improve on?’

  Huh. I wonder if anyone interrupted Richard Feynman’s quantum electrodynamics research to tell him he ought to spend time getting in touch with his feelings? Or if Turing’s invention of the computer was waylaid by a demand that he stop to evaluate his emotions? Despite all my questions about Perelman and his mental state, I seriously doubt his problem was not being demonstrative enough. And yet, the collective minds responsible for my life have apparently decided that nothing I do is meaningful unless I can smile while I am doing it.

  I move past my teacher and stomp
forward. If I had to name my current emotion, Ms Heller, I think I’m feeling a little pissed off.

  Heavy blue drapes conceal the windows and the outside world. Beyond them, in the middle distance, lie the stark grounds and outdoor amphitheatre, with its tiers of sunken seats and its mechanised central stage, out of order for years now. I guess the idea was a ‘theatre in the round’ or whatever, but it’s never worked properly, and after an unfortunate production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in which Sanjay Khan’s pharaoh wig got caught in the stage gears, the amphitheatre was quietly decommissioned and has since disappeared under a carpet of weeds.

  Dust, thick and dirty, floats before my eyes. I wonder, distantly, if there’s a way of calculating the odds I’ll slowly asphyxiate in this room while the music club practises an all-brass version of ‘Funky Town’ in the background. I can’t even tell if I’m experiencing a freak-out, since I can never breathe properly in here.

  I take a seat on the stage stairs while Joseph wraps up his scene.

  I drape my hands over my knees, then worry that I’m trying too hard to appear relaxed, so I cross my legs and clasp my hands lightly in my lap. Then I start to worry that my hands are in a ridiculously contrived position, but moving them again is going to make me look fidgety and agitated. I start to feel my focus tunnelling down into my hands, like every molecule of skin is lit with a glow that’s probably visible to everyone in the room –

  ‘Ms Reyhart!’ Ms Heller chirps. ‘You’re up.’

  I force my wobbly legs to stand. Joseph gives me what I think is a sympathetic smile. I clomp across the floorboards to the place under the spotlight that he has just vacated, my heart jackhammering in my throat like it has detached itself from my pericardium and is trying to beat right through my skin.

  I hunker down on my knees at the edge of the light and take a few deep, futile breaths. Then I open my mouth and let forth a torrent of words.

  ‘Then I confess here on my knee before high heaven and you that before you and next unto high heaven –’

  ‘Okay, relax your shoulders, Sophia,’ Ms Heller calls from somewhere to my left. ‘You’re supposed to be professing undying love, not taking a knee in the locker room at half-time.’

  I shake out my shoulders and try to relax my hands, but my extremities seem to have lost all feeling. ‘Um … my friends were poor but honest, so’s my love, be not offended for it hurts not him –’

  Ms Heller moves into my line of sight. She grimaces. ‘Okay … sure. How about we slow down a bit, and maybe try it a tad less … murdery?’

  There is a snigger in the auditorium, followed by a chorus of shushes. I think the laughter might have come from Michelle Pham, though I’m not sure what she’s finding so funny. I mean, this is the girl who cried when she couldn’t figure out binomial expansion in year-ten maths – far more justifiable grounds for eye-watering mirth, if I were prone to that sort of thing.

  Ms Heller clears her throat. ‘Come on, Sophia. You’re doing … great.’

  I close my eyes. I know the words I am supposed to say. It took me all of three minutes to memorise them. I am not shy. But I can’t do this. I can’t.

  I shuffle onto my feet again, imagining that the heat of the spotlight is causing my molecules and atoms to vibrate faster and faster, the space between them expanding –

  ‘That he is loved of me –’ I toss one hand skyward, having seen the gesture in a YouTube clip of this monologue, though I have no idea what it is supposed to signify. ‘I follow him not … not …’

  I can’t fail at something so simple. Something that Damien Pagono, who is now cleaning his shoes with his teeth-protractor, can excel at with apparently no effort. What does it say about me if I can’t take one tiny step outside my comfort zone without falling in a heap? What does it say about my potential if I’m incapable of mastering something new?

  I can’t breathe. The next line of this goddamned ridiculous monologue is stuck somewhere in my vocal cords. My feet feel like they have adhered to the stage, that one hand still pointing incomprehensibly to the sky. I’m so busy sinking into a tangle that I almost miss the officious-looking junior who has walked into the room. He strides up to the stage and thrusts something at Ms Heller. ‘From the office,’ the kid barks, before marching out again.

  Ms Heller frowns at the oversized red envelope in her hand. It’s shiny and fancy-looking – I’m close enough to see the small, elaborate writing on the front, ornate curlicues drawn with a thin black marker, like a wedding invite from a fairytale giant.

  ‘Maybe Finkler’s finally gonna ask you out,’ Damien says from the edge of the orchestra pit. ‘Check if he’s sent a photo of his dong.’

  Ms Heller shoots him a glare. Someone in the orchestra pit plays the first few bars of ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ on the viola, and a few people giggle.

  Ms Heller blushes. Whatever mysterious aura of authority that surrounds her wavers as she looks at the envelope. Her indecisiveness prompts all activity to come to a slow halt.

  She places her monologue book on the stage steps, then digs her car keys from her pocket, sliding the tip of one beneath the flap of the envelope.

  ‘What on earth,’ she mutters as she withdraws her hand. In it she holds a small, irregularly shaped piece of red paper, only slightly larger than her palm.

  I’m distantly aware that my feet have regained some feeling, and that I have drifted down the stairs. On closer inspection it’s not a single piece of paper at all; rather, it’s what looks like some kind of flat, elaborate origami, the edges razor straight and pressed into a complex series of folds and creases.

  A small white tag is attached to the bottom of one of the folds.

  I peer over Ms Heller’s forearm. The tag bears an inscription in minuscule writing, a pretty script that matches the lettering on the envelope. The writing reads, simply: here.

  Ms Heller’s fingers flutter over the instruction. I’ve seen her face adopt that same glazed expression before, usually when she’s quoting chunks of Chekhov. She holds the red shape delicately in her fingers. Then, almost impulsively, she gives the tag a swift, precise tug.

  The sharp-edged creases of the origami become softer before my eyes. Segments of crimson move and unfold in the direction of the tag. It’s too convoluted for my eyes to follow. However it has been created, the mechanism is impressive.

  The paper shape rearranges itself, pieces blossoming outwards and upwards as Ms Heller tugs at the tag, her other hand clinging tightly to the bottom. Between the thumb and forefinger of her stationary hand, red segments coil around on themselves, a slow-moving paper vine, forming seemingly of its own volition.

  Remaining in her fingers is the stem of a small, but perfectly shaped crimson paper rose.

  ‘Oh,’ Ms Heller breathes. She glances around, a dusky blush staining her cheeks.

  Someone whistles. Someone else awwws. Romy’s eyes well with unshed tears; a reaction that I find almost as perplexing as the paper rose itself, until I remember that I’ve seen her sob at a picture of an orphaned baby sloth on someone’s Instagram. Romy Hopwood is probably not the most reliable barometer of conventional human emotion.

  Ms Heller twirls the rose slowly in her hand. Several people yelp and point excitedly as they spot the thing that I have just seen. Another tiny white tag has unfolded partway along the stem.

  My nose twitches. The faintest hint of an almost-familiar smell tickles the edge of my senses.

  I give up all pretence of being surreptitious. I grab Ms Heller’s sleeve, pulling it, and the flower, towards me. The tiny script on the second tag, in urgent caps, reads: HOLD AWAY.

  ‘Ms Heller,’ I begin, ‘um, maybe, I think you should –’

  There is a sound – a faintly effervescent hiss. It’s followed by a soft fizz, and a barely audible pop, like the crack of kindling in a very tiny fireplace.

  For a moment the entire class, and the people in the orchestra pit, and even Damien Pagono, freeze.


  A dot of blue appears at the base of the rose bulb. It’s sparked by nothing I can see, like someone has touched the paper with the tip of an invisible match. The smudge of light seems to hang suspended, so faint that for a moment I can’t be sure it’s really there.

  Ms Heller recoils. She thrusts the rose away from her body, the stem still pinched between the tips of her fingers.

  The paper rose ignites. Fingers of fire creep leisurely, steadily upwards, enveloping the petals in a bright mini-inferno. The flame has the strangest glow, blue, almost green, clearly some kind of chemical fire.

  It’s mesmerising; a too-bright torch in the dim, dusty room. There are a few alarmed gasps alongside a smattering of applause, which turns to animated exclamations as the entire bulb of the flower is engulfed in cobalt flame. The colour of the fire seems to be changing now, emerald with a halo of purple. Curiously, it also seems much smokier than a fire of that size should be.

  The pretty flame dances in Ms Heller’s extended hand. And then two things happen at once.

  As quickly as it ignited, the fire extinguishes, leaving Ms Heller staring open-mouthed at the charred remains of a red paper stem. Tendrils of thick blue-grey smoke curl towards the ceiling, followed by a chorus of affected coughing from a few of the more melodramatic members of the class.

  Ms Heller looks up. I follow her eyes to the smoke alarm that sits snug between the lighting rigs.

  ‘Oh. Dear,’ Ms Heller says.

  She drops the rose remnant and crushes it under her foot, just as the piercing shriek of the fire alarm howls through the building.

  Amid the resulting panic – the fleeing music club members, Damien Pagono’s maniacal whoop! and Ms Heller’s desperate attempts to instil calm while enacting the emergency evacuation procedure – I find myself immobile. My eyes are glued on the crimson envelope, still balanced innocently at the edge of the stage, the tiny lavish script pinging something in an alcove of my memory that does the oddest thing to my stomach, like being airborne the instant before turbulence. I disregard the sensation impatiently as my brain clicks through the various scenarios that are likely to ensue.