The Secret Science of Magic

by Melissa Keil

  ‘Elsie, I’m sorry,’ I say in a rush. ‘I never meant to lie to you. I know I’m useless, and I still don’t even really understand what happened, but I know I did all the wrong things. I hurt your feelings. I’m so, so sorry. For that, and for everything. I’m a terrible friend. Worse than that chemist who injected his assistant with gonorrhoea.’

  Elsie’s eyes are fixed somewhere in the maple trees above us. She snaps them back to me with a huff.

  ‘I just don’t understand why it had to be such a secret!’ she blurts. ‘I tell you everything, Sophia. I thought that you trusted me the same, but clearly you don’t.’ Her whole face collapses, and my insides twist in response. She is not yelling. But two fat tears roll silently down her cheeks, and somehow they are worse than anything.

  ‘I never thought you saw me as just another moron you had to tolerate. I know I could never keep up with you. But I still wasn’t ready to be left behind.’

  ‘Elsie, but, you know that’s not true! I trust you more than anyone.’

  She tugs her hair distractedly out of its topknot, waves cascading down her back. It looks a little lanker than usual, like her complex hair-care routine has fallen by the wayside. It’s that, more than anything, that makes me feel like complete and total mouse balls.

  I try to order my thoughts, but I’m terrified I won’t ever be able to articulate them, that I will stand here struggling uselessly to make myself understood while my best friend walks away. So I just open my mouth and let words pour out. ‘Elsie, I didn’t tell you everything because you know me better than anyone. You know the me that everyone thinks is defective, and I know you see all of that too, but you’ve never tried to fix me. You know the me that maybe I don’t always want to be. Sometimes, Elsie, I really, really want to be able to leave that person aside. But I never can when you’re around, because you never let me forget who I am. And sometimes I love you for that. And sometimes, I really don’t.’

  Elsie sits down on the nearest bench. The maple-strewn courtyard is quiet now, only a couple of stragglers still skipping out of the building. A few people glance at us; Elsie in her too-short uniform, angrily swiping at her tears, and me, looking, I’m fairly certain, like some expressionless brown garden ornament. I ignore them all.

  She crosses her arms. ‘I don’t understand. You are all sorts of incredible. You know that? I’ve never been jealous, not exactly, but d’you know how badly I wish I could do even a bit of what you can?’

  I sit down beside her with a sigh. I still feel shaky, and so bone-tired, like the last half hour has drained whatever reserves of energy my body has been using to function. ‘Elsie, you know, I have these moments when I’m sort of … proud of myself. There are so many things I want to do. But then I think, like – why? What’s there to be proud of, if other people only see the faulty bits? What if all I am is the problems that need fixing? You know, Perelman’s mentor said that if this was still the Soviet era he would’ve been forced into a psych hospital by now –’

  ‘Argh, this guy again? Sophia, seriously, when did you get so fixated on a morose personality with a beard? Maybe you should check if Mr Grayson has a nephew?’ She sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘That Russian guy – who’s to say that things aren’t going to plan for him? Okay, so maybe no-one else gets his plan, but why do they need to? What difference does it make? Why would you want to not be you?’

  I hug my knees to my chest. ‘I don’t. Not all the time, anyway. I just wish I wasn’t such a giant freak with all the rest of it, too.’

  Elsie pivots on the bench, turning around to face me. ‘Sophia. I don’t think you need fixing,’ she says, her voice adopting that measured, low-octave doctor tone that I’m starting to suspect she’s been practising. ‘But I do think you need help. You need to talk to someone, and I mean, properly talk. You need to be honest with your folks, and with your counsellor … you don’t have to pretend to be okay, Rey.’

  I clutch my knees even tighter, the sharp points of my patellas digging into my forearm. ‘Elsie, I think … I know.’ The words, inexplicably, seem to lift something heavy and burdensome from my chest. ‘I know I’m not okay. And I know all of my stuff has stopped you doing normal things, too. I never meant to hold you back –’

  Elsie brushes a stray strand of my hair behind my shoulder. ‘That was a shitty thing to say to you. I’ve never regretted pulling you out of that corner in music, not for one second. And if you and I have maybe been a bit … well, isolated, it’s not really fair to blame you.’ She snorts. ‘Believe me, I’ve done a bang-up job of keeping people away all on my own.’

  I sigh. ‘Christ, Elsie. We really are hopeless, aren’t we?’

  She grins. ‘Yeah. But maybe social competence is overrated.’ Her cheeks flush, a peculiar deep crimson. She tugs uneasily at her hair. ‘Trust me, snogging Marcus Hunn did nothing to improve my social skills, though I think at least fifty per cent of the responsibility for that is on him,’ she says in a tumble of words. ‘I mean, dude, be less insipid, you know? I might as well have been practising with a cantaloupe.’

  ‘Elsie!’ I hiss, dropping my feet to the cobblestones with a thud. ‘Marcus? When did this happen? And why –’

  She waves a dismissive hand. ‘It was nothing. Momentary insanity. Well, y’know, three moments of insanity. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She gives me a sheepish grin. ‘Maybe I just didn’t want you to overtake me in everything. But I realised … well.’ She shrugs. ‘We’ve done okay together. Haven’t we?’

  I smile. ‘Yes. We probably won’t leave here with dozens of signatures in our yearbooks. But I’ve just … always been glad that you picked me to be your friend.’

  Elsie is silent, a quiet smile on her face. She knocks her knee into mine. ‘So. Do you wanna come over tonight? We can watch the SyFy channel and make fun of technical inaccuracies. You can throw Pringles at the screen every time someone explains the physics of a wormhole wrong.’

  ‘Not sure I’m in the mood for bad science, Els.’

  Elsie looks at me hesitantly. ‘Well then, do you maybe wanna tell me about this boy? Cos something tells me he’s sort of been significant?’

  I sigh. ‘I’m not even sure where to begin. And it’s not something I want to talk about while –’ I gesture at the doorway, where two year eights are sucking each other’s faces like the Hodge Conjecture proof might be hidden in one of their tonsils. I glance at my best friend. ‘Can I just come over and hang out? I promise I’ll tell you everything. And maybe … you can fill me in on what’s been happening with you? With America and, you know. All that stuff.’

  Elsie throws an arm around my shoulder, then lets go of me just as quickly. Then she launches into an account of the latest episode of The Bachelor, and it all feels so familiar that, if I were a crier, I think I might have bawled.

  I am confident of many things.

  I am confident that I can solve cube roots as quickly as a calculator, and comprehend complex number theory without breaking a sweat.

  I am confident that I will someday attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis, even though there’s a strong chance I’ll end up nothing more than a footnote in an obscure journal, or a sarcastic meme on a Maths faculty’s Christmas party PowerPoint.

  I am not confident that I will master much more than the maths. But for now, with Elsie nattering beside me and my heart beating at normal human speed, maybe that is enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder.

  – DAVID COPPERFIELD

  I’ve never been a massive fan of escapologists. Weird, I know, cos they’re kind of a huge deal among my people. But I dunno – like so much big stage magic, it’s all just a bit show-offy for me. There aren’t many escape tricks you can do alone, not without a team behind you. And really, being able to get out of a situation where you’re dangling in a straitjacket over a tank of sharks while someone shoots at you with a flamethrower – is that even magic? Or
just pants-crapping panic?

  But while I have no interest in busting out of an underwater tomb, I think maybe I’m starting to see the appeal. It’s not the flash and bang, or even the possibility of drowning. It’s the promise – the ticking clock, the terror of being trapped, and the exhilaration of working free.

  Yeah. Kick-arse metaphors aside, life is actually not the steaming pile of horse manure I expected it to be. I hang out with my friends. I pick up a bunch of extra shifts at Houdini’s Appendix after Amy dislocates a shoulder at roller derby training, which, suffice to say, does not improve her mood. Jasper takes to dropping by the shop and bringing her USBs of music and bags of Skittles, which does morph her frown from exasperated to mildly annoyed. It’s mesmerising, observing the two of them, like watching an iceberg trying to charm the Titanic. Sometimes I still wanna mash their thick heads together. But my interfering days are over.

  I force myself to engage with exam prep, though that does involve a whole lot of staring and a tonne of naps. I’m pretty behind, no surprises there. And I still have bugger-all interest in the finer points of civil law, or the details of molecular genetics, no matter how many YouTube videos Mr Grayson subjects us to. But, you know – I’m present and accounted for, which is more than I’ve been able to claim in a while. I spend time with my sister, building a mini Eureka Stockade in our yard and fashioning costumes from Dad’s old fishing coveralls. It’s the only way I can get her to feign interest in her History homework. And, okay, maybe I spend a little too much time with my cat. But I’m good. It’s not like I’m wasting away in a puddle of my own tears and my vaporised heart. I see Sophia at school, and I’m fine. I’m awesome.

  Okay, maybe awesome is a tiny overstatement.

  But I manage to pass the weeks in Bio without my eyes drifting to the back of her head – notwithstanding the time Damien shoved a pencil in my ear and hissed, ‘Dude, for god’s sake, grow some gonads and talk to her!’

  I dunno about the state of my gonads. All I know is, Sophia seems fine, too. Solid, like some of her tumbling pieces are finally catching up with her amazing brain. I don’t know why I ever thought she needed someone like me. Not even when Tom Shaefer, the ham-fisted git, cornered her in the hallway, and I found my feet moving of their own accord, possessed by this desperate need to – well, maybe give him a stern talking-to or something. But she didn’t even need me then. Elsie will always have her back, no matter what.

  I don’t have the energy for magic anymore. It’s stupid, and childish, something I should’ve let go of a long time ago. I still get a buzz out of helping the kids at the shop – teaching them simple shuffles and reveals, seeing their little faces light up when they master something new. Occasionally my hands feel edgy, and lost without a deck in them. Amy, in her usual graceless way, tries to talk me around by yelling at me till I take to wearing headphones at work. She even shows me this awesome variation on an Invisible Flight trick that I’ve been trying to get her to teach me for ages. But none of that matters. I need to move on. I’m never going to be anything other than average with it anyway. It’s about time I grew the hell up.

  The weeks wind down. Nights fall later and later, and the chill in the air that felt like it would last forever slowly disappears. Details of our graduation ceremony are revealed – a liturgy in the chapel, followed by an assembly in the sports hall, both of which I have as much intention of attending as I do of joining Damien in his planned using-weed-killer-to-burn-a-giant-penis-on-the-soccer-oval muck-up day caper.

  Exam time finally lands on my doorstep. History is a breeze. Maths is like being slowly wedgied with a cactus. But all in all, I think I’m doing okay.

  By Friday afternoon after the Bio exam, I’m knackered. I’ve ditched pizza with Damien and am instead lying on my bed, staring up at my shelves. I’m trying to decide whether I have the will to study, or if I should tackle Game of Thrones from the first book again instead, when Gillian bangs open my door and barges in without knocking.

  ‘Whatcha doing, J-bag?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing, Gilly-bean? I’m chilling.’

  She drops onto my fading star rug, tugging off her school tie. ‘Uh-huh. Moping, more like it.’

  I piff a ball of socks at her. ‘Hey, not fair. I haven’t moped in ages. No mopage here. Totally beyond that.’

  Gillian snorts. ‘You may have convinced yourself of that, big brother. You may even have convinced Dad – I haven’t seen him look this chuffed with you since you mastered a left-handed spring shuffle. Who knew you could make him so smiley just by cracking open a couple of uni course guides at the kitchen table?’

  I can’t help but chuckle. Dad’s been looking at me with that nostalgia-glow thing he gets periodically; it’s typically followed by montagey reminiscences about the day I was born. I’ve been trying my best to dodge these moments, but as the year winds down, they feel a bit inescapable. It’s pretty disturbing how immune my father is to my best efforts at misdirection. Though, I dunno. I guess there could be worse things to deal with than the shine of his spotlight.

  ‘Yeah, you may have convinced everyone else that you’re a-okay,’ Gillian says, tracing a random pattern in the stars on my rug. ‘But you’ve been pulling off a pretty impressive melty-Olaf impression these last few weeks. Trying to smile while your arms and face slowly fall off.’

  I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. ‘Oh, for a day with no Frozen analogies.’ I sit up. ‘Okay, maybe I’ve been a bit … blue. But really, Gilly, I’m fine. Or, I will be.’

  She pulls herself up on my desk, short legs swinging. ‘Well, I know that. But the question remains – have you really given up on the girl?’

  ‘Gillian. That’s not … she made it clear she doesn’t have room for me. I have to be okay with that. What choice do I have?’

  Gillian shrugs. ‘Maybe no choice. But, you know, I reckon there’s some unfinished business there, Joshie. You gotta deal with that stuff. Say what you mean, and then you can move on. Don’t let things fester. It’s not healthy.’

  I laugh. ‘TED talks?’

  ‘Nah,’ she says sheepishly. ‘Might have been something Mum said.’

  My eyes drift to my dark ceiling. I think about all the things I wish I could have said to Sophia. All the things I wanted to tell her but didn’t, because they somehow seemed too bare, too small and ordinary.

  ‘Gilly. I think I already talk way too much.’

  She punches me in the arm. ‘Joshua, you are awesome. Why are you being such an arsecrack about this?’

  I burst out laughing. The crappy thing is, even though I’ve got no hope left of anything happening between Sophia and me, I hate how unfinished everything feels. I miss talking to her, even though I know that words were never enough. I can talk a good game, but my patter is mostly meaningless. And Sophia doesn’t trust words. It’s proof that she’s looking for, always facts and evidence. Maybe I went about it all wrong. But if I had my time again, all I’d want to say to her is that I think she’s extraordinary. I may have bugger-all faith in myself, but I have faith in her.

  Bammo.

  ‘I see her. That’s what I’d want to tell her,’ I say slowly. ‘I won’t pretend that I see all of her, but … I think I see what she’s afraid of. And I know I can’t make it better – well, I know that now,’ I say in answer to Gillian’s sharp stare.

  Gilly’s face relaxes. It’s not even her usual cynical face. It fills me with the weirdest sense of hope.

  Gilly leaps down from my desk and drops a quick kiss on my cheek. ‘I hope you get the chance, Josh.’

  I lie down again as the door snicks shut behind her. Narda walks around my head in a semicircle, her purrs a soothing rumble.

  Proof.

  Proof that I understand. Sophia never really needed my help, at least, not in the way I thought she did. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t – don’t – want to try. But mostly, if I had my chance again, I’d want to tell her that I know it was never fair of me to
hide in her shadows, relying on her amazingness, so I could keep being safe and small.

  I sit up, dislodging the protesting cat. What I need is hidden behind a Philip Pullman box set, way up on my highest shelf. I drag the stepladder out from under my bed and scramble up, tunnelling through the junk. My hands grab for an overflowing folder of diagrams and carefully sourced printouts.

  I fall into my chair, pushing aside the pieces of a Comtoise clock that a dozen YouTube videos have not helped me fix. I flick madly through the folder till I find what I need – a schematic, formulated with Amy on the back of a Houdini’s Appendix invoice one particularly slow Sunday and discarded soon after in irritation and resentment. With a notebook and pen in hand I open Google street view on my laptop, searching for Earth, Australia, Melbourne. I scribble a hasty version of the schematic on a blank double page, crossing out the bits that look unworkable and adding in my own switches and modifications. Crazy, jittery exhilaration builds in my gut as the impossible takes shape before my eyes.

  I stare at my sketches. I stare at the map. Crap on a stick, I think I can do this.

  I reach for my phone.

  ‘Blerg. Tell me this isn’t another cry for help,’ says a sleepy voice. ‘Cos if you’re drowning in sad ballads again, I might have to send Adrian over to stage that intervention he’s been gunning for. It’ll involve chocolate, and probably a Klingon war song.’

  ‘Sam, are you sleeping? It’s four o’clock in the afternoon – what are you, a toddler? Wake up, man! I need your help.’

  A giant yawn rumbles through the phone. ‘Dude, I was napping. What do you need?’

  ‘Lights,’ I answer.

  ‘Lights?’

  ‘Lights, Sam – I need lights. This isn’t a complicated request. You have access to that sort of stuff, right? I need lights. Big ones, and lots of them. Jasper and those guys, they can get those, yeah?’

  There is silence on the other end of the phone.