The Secret Science of Magic

by Melissa Keil

  The fire alarm is deafening. Yet I hear it as though I’m underwater, as if from a great distance away. An inexplicable flare of adrenaline is pumping through my bloodstream. I feel kind of intoxicated with it.

  I take the three steps to the stage and grab the calligraphic envelope, folding it in half and securing it hastily inside my Feynman book. Using a handful of tissues, I gather what is left of the paper rose and squash it inside my blazer pocket. And then I follow Ms Heller and the rest of the class out into the freedom of the damp morning sunshine.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The magnetic moments of elementary particles

  Suffice to say, word of the incident spreads like magical wildfire. By recess, half of St Augustine’s is gathered on the East Lawn, drawn like hounds to the scent of a spectacle. Elsie makes a beeline for me; apparently, by the time word reached her side of campus, the story was that the Visual and Performing Arts Centre had been overrun by zombie terrorists wielding flamethrowers and exploding vials of smallpox or something.

  I hover at the back of the crowd, the faltering gears of my brain spinning. I have no idea what I should be thinking, but I can now confirm one previously untested hypothesis – that triggering a smoke alarm on campus automatically alerts the fire department. There’s a fair bit of ogling at the three trucks’ worth of firemen milling aimlessly on the lawns; I think most people are just disappointed that the building hasn’t been burnt to the ground. The hysteria is not helped by the fact that the story is in the hands of the year-twelve Drama class, the vast majority of whom are, well, dramatic.

  Questions are asked, hands are wrung and an assembly is hastily convened. We are instructed to ‘grow up’, and urged to ‘encourage the responsible party to take ownership of their actions’. We are harangued to ‘not take this critical year lightly’, and solemnly reminded to ‘start acting like the adults we are soon to become’. No-one, apart from the three girls in the Socialist Club, seems to question why the sprinklers in the building weren’t working. But later that afternoon the East Lawn is out of bounds, and a Jim’s Plumbing van is parked behind the pine trees.

  The whole episode is fodder for too many conversations, until someone posts a video on YouTube of Mr Grayson, drunk in a 7-Eleven on Saturday night, and the burning rose is all but forgotten.

  I am disturbed by two things. One – what momentary insanity possessed me to cover up evidence of what our principal described as an ‘irresponsible, foolish act’. I disposed of the red envelope in the bins behind the science labs as the first of the fire trucks roared onto campus, feeling like a bad guy from one of Dad’s James Bond movies, yet unable to alter my course of action. And two – why I haven’t said anything to Elsie about my new, somewhat tenuous suspicions.

  I had every intention of talking to her. I’d resolved to spill everything I’d hypothesised, these odd and mysterious developments, and let my best friend, as always, make sense of the nonsensical.

  But then the second strange event of the day occurred and all my resolutions flew out the window.

  It’s lunchtime, and I’m heading towards our spot on the steps of the old library when out of the corner of my eye I spot Elsie. She has her phone in hand, so I assume she’s killing time with her head in a science article, or the WTF pages on BuzzFeed. But then I realise that Elsie actually appears to be engaged in a conversation, including eye contact and everything, with some other human beings, none of whom are me. Nina Pierce is leaning against a locker, Marcus Hunn hovering inanely. This tableau makes no sense. Nina and her group were kind of friends with us way back in year seven, these weird extra wheels who emerged briefly on our periphery and then disappeared as quickly as they had come. They never had much to do with me, though they seemed to like Elsie well enough. I don’t know why, but one day they just stopped hanging around. As far as I was aware, Elsie hadn’t spoken to them in years.

  Nina sees me first. Her brows scrunch. Elsie turns around, lips twitching, before her face quickly settles.

  ‘Hey, Rey!’ she chirps. Something is going on with her voice. It’s higher than normal, and just a little too fast.

  ‘Elsie. I didn’t know you guys were friends again,’ I say, nodding towards Nina and Marcus.

  I’ve never understood why simple, factual observations can make people turn all twitchy. But Nina rolls her eyes, and Marcus mutters something I can’t decipher in a sardonic tone that I remember well. He hasn’t changed much since I last paid attention; hands still buried in the sleeves of an oversized jumper, darting eyes. As bland and unremarkable as a skinny floor lamp with the bulb half dimmed.

  Elsie gives me a sharp look, all tight jaw and laser eyes, and I know I’ll be getting a talking-to as soon as we’re alone. She turns her back on me and mumbles something to the others. Nina tugs at Marcus’s sleeve, and after a moment of hesitation he follows her, melting into the crowds down the corridor.

  Elsie rounds on me with her hands on her hips. ‘Sophia, there’s nothing to talk about. Just leave it, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I answer. I reshuffle the questions in my head. I also downgrade my alert level, since a lecture doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. I dig through my backpack for the extra apple I threw in this morning and hold it out to Elsie. ‘Did you finish your Bio homework? I’m worried Mr Grayson is going to keep padding out his phenotype variations unit with more stuff on animal husbandry. I mean, how many YouTube videos on horse semen can there be?’

  Elsie shakes her head and makes this sound that could be a huff, or a laugh, or a sigh. Then she takes the apple and motions down the corridor.

  ‘So any clues on this pyro?’ she asks as we walk. ‘Everyone’s buzzing, trying to work out who he could be.’

  I glance over her shoulder, but the goings-on in the corridor are typical and uninteresting. ‘Why do you assume it’s a he?’

  She takes a bite of apple. ‘Good point. Could be a she. But with the fire thing, I’m leaning towards a dude. And the rose thing is totally a dude move.’

  ‘What “rose thing”?’

  Elsie laughs, spraying a few chunks of apple. ‘Rey, what is the point of supplying you with hours of romantic dramedies if you fail to absorb even the most basic elements? Have you learned nothing from my movie collection?’

  I snort. ‘I’ve learned that the only redeeming feature of any movie featuring Keanu Reeves and time travel is the dog.’

  We walk through the double doors and head outside. This part of the school, with its covered walkways and maple-lined paths, is like a sonic funnel that amplifies the sound from the surrounding quads. It’s like being shouted at from all directions at once, and it always makes my brain feel squeezed. Not for the first time, I wish that industrial earmuffs were part of our school uniform.

  ‘It’s a grand gesture, Sophia,’ Elsie continues, picking up her pace. ‘And it’s clearly designed to impress someone. It’s ro-man-tic,’ she says, enunciating the word with an exaggerated eye roll.

  I come to a dead stop. Elsie continues walking. ‘D’you think Jeremy Forrest finally decided to put the moves on Romy? Or maybe Oliver Osborn is ready to admit his undying love for Joseph Cheng? They have been dancing around each other for months –’

  Elsie turns around, finally realising that I am not following. I make my legs move, even as my brain stutters and stalls.

  ‘How do you know so much about these people?’ I ask, to buy myself processing time.

  People push past, jostling in and out of the building. For a moment, Elsie seems lost in thought. ‘Lots of stuff plays out here,’ she says, looking around us. ‘So many people who’ve hung out in the same place for years and still manage to stumble across someone they didn’t think could be … significant.’ She shrugs. ‘I know we’ve never been in the middle of any of it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention.’ She tosses the half-eaten apple in the bin and tightens her ponytail. ‘Anyway. We were talking about our mysterious Romeo. Any ideas who he could be?’

  I’m
not sure what happens to my words on their journey from my brain to my mouth. It’s the strangest compulsion; like the exhilaration of puzzling out half a differential equation, coupled with the almost superstitious fear that the answer might vanish if I voice it before I’m ready.

  ‘No. I have no idea.’

  Elsie shrugs. ‘It’ll probably just turn out to be some wang trying to bunk on a test.’ She wraps her scarf tightly around her neck and leads us away from the crowds.

  I feel guilty, and confused, and all kinds of wrong for hedging with Elsie.

  And, for some unfathomable reason, a little bit energised, too.

  Admittedly, I’m operating at half capacity in the afternoon. My brain, freed from the shackles of Drama-class anxiety, can’t seem to stop puzzling through increasingly more baffling and unlikely scenarios. But the morning’s brief reprieve is neutralised in the afternoon, when I’m forced to attend my after-hours session with the school counsellor.

  Through some combination of my nondescript personality and, I think, sheer blind luck, I have suffered only fleeting encounters with Ms Shellburn for most of my high-school existence. To be honest – up until very recently, anyway – I’ve managed to handle my issues fairly successfully all on my own.

  Today, we are working on strategies for coping with ‘anticipatory anxiety’. Ms Shellburn is nice and everything, but I find these conversations irritating to no end. I don’t know why my ‘catastrophic predictions about future events’ are presumed to be merely the product of some neat syndrome, a collection of diagnostic criteria, and not, say, a logical response to the statistical likelihood of future events sucking whopping great hyena balls. My breath always seems too shallow in her office, and I feel claustrophobic, like my skin is contracting with every minute I’m trapped there. Also, I might not be the most receptive person, but I fail to see how role-playing with puppets is supposed to help me.

  I’m unbelievably tired when I’m finally set free. My body feels drained, too, which is mystifying, considering I have spent the last hour silently cocooned in an armchair. But everything is achy, like someone has taken to my body and brain with a mallet.

  The grounds are wet, the black clouds ready to burst. But for a moment the rain has stopped, and St Augustine’s is as quiet and gloomy as a graveyard.

  I’m scouring through my bag for my bus pass, wondering if ennui is a good enough excuse for a sick day tomorrow, when I see Joshua Bailey sitting near the school gates.

  He’s perched on the wooden bench at the edge of the carpark. A wide wedge of grass and a tall iron fence borders the school, sequestering us from the world, like we’re uniformed exhibits in the world’s dullest zoo. A couple of cars are still in the carpark, but the school buses have long since left.

  Joshua looks like he is attempting to take half his locker home. He’s wrestling a bunch of books, trying to shove them into his overflowing bag. He has a tweed cap on, the same hat he was wearing when I saw him on the weekend. I wonder if it’s a small act of rebellion against our draconian uniform policy. I wonder if the hat has some significance, if it’s one of his lucky talismans. Perhaps he suffers from an unusually cold head? I fear that I may be distracting myself from asking the right questions.

  He looks up, but if he’s surprised to see me I can’t detect it on his face. He stops fiddling with his books, and the mess settles into his bag like it was waiting for a signal.

  ‘Hello,’ I say as I come to a stop in front of him.

  ‘Hello, Sophia,’ he answers. ‘You’re here late.’

  ‘Yes, well. So are you.’

  He scuffs his feet on the bitumen. ‘History study group. The irony is that Revolutions is, like, the one subject I’m coasting in, but Mr Kilby had a bit of a tantrum after he got the results of everyone else’s practice exams and now – after some tears on his part, I reckon – bammo, compulsory once-a-week study session.’

  ‘Oh. Okay then. I usually have a … thing on Mondays too. I haven’t seen you here before, though?’

  He smiles. It’s just a smile – the contraction and expansion of facial muscles that can be rearranged in thousands of different combinations, transmitting mixed signals and information, most of which pass me by – and yet it’s the oddest thing. I am almost certain that his smile is a little wistful.

  ‘Yeah. I know,’ he says.

  I consider his face for a moment. But then I realise that I am staring at him, unblinking, in a way that Elsie has gently told me people find weird and creepy.

  My eyes drift down the wet road. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to miss the bus. Toby and his study partner have a revision session planned, so our place will be in full Arctic-mode, complete with soft-rock radio and the occasional maths problem that a leery Viljami will bark at me, apparently in an attempt to catch me in a mistake.

  I gesture at the space beside him. ‘Can I sit?’

  He leaps up quickly. ‘Of course. Ah, just wait one sec.’

  He fishes through his bag and emerges with a crumpled piece of black fabric. He folds it in half and places it on the wet bench.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say as I sit, somewhat primly. The material is soft velvet, thick and plush. ‘Do you carry this around in case of emergencies?’

  He perches on the very edge of the seat. ‘Well, you never know when your expertise might be called upon,’ he says, enigmatically.

  I clasp my hands in my lap. He is sitting several handspans from me, a relatively safe distance away. He unsticks a wet maple leaf from the side of the bench and twirls it in his long fingers. In the brief time I have been aware of this boy, I don’t think his hands have stopped moving.

  ‘So today was an odd day,’ I say experimentally, not prepared to give voice to any of my formless theories just yet. ‘Admittedly, there have been times when I’ve hoped for a fissure to open up beneath the Arts building and suck us all into oblivion, but this morning was … unique?’

  ‘I heard,’ he says evenly. He holds out his hand, and a sprinkling of red maple pieces flutter to the ground. ‘Sounds eventful.’

  ‘Eventful. Sure, that’s one way of putting it.’ I fix my eyes on him, but he seems to be intently scouring the ground. He reaches down for another leaf but freezes midway when I drop my bag with an annoyed thud. ‘Another way would be to say that someone constructed an elaborate prank. A pointless elaborate prank, because if it was aimed at anyone in particular, the recipient has no way of knowing that she or he was the target.’

  His eyes flicker to mine. ‘It didn’t sound like a prank. It sounded like someone went to some effort, although, now that they think about it, maybe they’re worried their motives could be considered … questionable?’ His eyes remain on me, more direct than flighty. His cheeks are pink, though that could just be a result of the chill evening air. ‘And if the recipient chooses to remain in the dark, well, does that make it any less clever?’

  I stare openly back. I don’t know what comes over me, but I feel suddenly reckless, bolder than I have all day. ‘I’ll admit, it was technically adept. But fire isn’t miraculous alchemy. Our Palaeolithic ancestors managed to figure it out, and those guys found the wheel confusing.’ I shrug. ‘There are plenty of people who could have pulled that off.’

  ‘Oh really?’ he says. He turns, facing me straight on. One eyebrow is raised, his mouth turned up at the corner. I believe the descriptor for his expression is incredulous. ‘Explain it then, if it’s so simple?’

  I rarely have the occasion to feel smug, you know, on account of the whole freak-brain thing. But Joshua’s expression makes the cogs in the corner of my head start to whirr. I narrow my eyes.

  ‘Potassium permanganate and glycerine can induce spontaneous combustion, or maybe sodium chlorate and sulfuric acid with a sugar starter, although that probably would have burnt a hole in Ms Heller’s fingers. Obviously it used some sort of incendiary chemical or compound that reacts with oxygen and possibly friction, or home-made flash paper of some kind –’


  He is grinning widely at me, his dark eyes sparkling even in the fading light.

  ‘You know that pyromania is considered an impulse control disorder?’ I blurt.

  He leans back. ‘Wouldn’t know. Fire doesn’t really do it for me,’ he says lightly. ‘It’s kinda show-offy. Even if you could, say, stand in the middle of a tornado of fire and, you know, the gallon of hairspray on your head didn’t melt your face off.’

  I frown at him. ‘That’s very specific?’

  He chuckles. ‘It’s a David Copperfield thing. You know, the Vegas guy? Too much make-up, permanent git-face.’ Joshua folds his arms on his bag and rests his chin on his hands. ‘But maybe the thing itself isn’t what’s important,’ he says, that small glitch in his voice making an appearance again. ‘Maybe the how isn’t the point.’

  I find myself staring at his perpetual-motion hands, which are now tapping a rhythm against his school bag. I test, and discard, a few questions before settling on the most pertinent problem.

  ‘So, all right, theoretically then, why would someone do that?’

  Joshua shoots me a brief side-eye, and suddenly I’m not at all sure if I want him to answer.

  I stand up quickly. ‘Um, I should go. Home, I mean. I should go home now.’

  He stands as well, and digs his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Okay. Sure. It’s late.’

  ‘Yes. Late. I’ll see you,’ I say with a half wave as I head towards the main gate.

  ‘Sophia?’ he calls out.

  I turn around again, compelled somehow by the odd urgency in his voice. He’s still standing, fidgeting with the brim of his cap. He pushes it up slightly so that his eyes are exposed.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The how is easy,’ he says in a rush. ‘The how is just a Google search, a bit of library research or whatever. It’s not the most important thing. The why … the why is much more interesting. It’s the question, isn’t it?’ He smiles and gives me a brief, shy wave.