by Lissa Evans
Stuart had no idea, but telling April things she didn’t already know was a new and pleasant sensation, so he paused to invent something.
‘The Arch of Mirrors,’ he said, not very imaginatively. ‘And the next one’ – he took a moment to consider the giant fan, studded with turquoise jewels – ‘is the Fan of Fantasticness, and this one,’ he said, returning to his starting point, ‘is the Cabinet of Blood.’
‘Urgh,’ said April.
Like Stuart, she tried pulling at one of the swords, though unlike him she could reach the top one. ‘How do you open it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Do you see, the base of the cupboard’s resting on a sort of disc. I wonder …’ She gave the sword hilt a sideways push, and the whole cabinet spun round in a blur of red and gold. As the reflections flickered across the room, Stuart noticed something very strange. While the other illusions glinted and flashed in the spinning light, the Well of Wishes seemed to have lost its lustre. No light bounced across its surface. It was as dull as if carved out of rubber.
‘You’re right about the well,’ he said to April.
She nodded slowly, staring in the same direction as him. ‘Very peculiar,’ she said. ‘Anyway, do you want to start the descriptions? I’ll take your dictation – I’m a very fast writer.’ She whipped her purple reporter’s notebook out of her pocket and stood poised.
Stuart felt under pressure. ‘I’d better start with the book, I suppose,’ he said, ‘seeing as I know how it works.’ He had climbed into it while hiding from the mayoress in the room under the bandstand.
He walked over to the giant, upright book. The words OPEN AT YOUR PERIL were written across the front in letters of silver and red. He turned the key and lifted the heavy front cover to reveal an empty interior.
April had followed him, still holding the notebook. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Fire away.’
Stuart cleared his throat. ‘When you open the front cover of this illusion, it just looks like a big, empty metal cupboard. But if you get inside it and close the front cover, then the back cover opens so that you can climb out the back without anyone seeing you. And then, if someone opens the front cover again, the back cover shuts automatically – so to the audience it just looks like an empty cupboard. And there’s a a sort of safety catch at the back which Tony Horten invented.’
He waited for April to stop scribbling. ‘Is that all right?’ he asked.
‘I’ll just sub it,’ she said. ‘That’s the phrase us journalists use for improving a story.’ She made some rapid notes, and what appeared to be a large number of crossings out.
‘OK.’ She read from her notebook. ‘A disappearing cabinet, in which the front and back covers cannot open simultaneously unless the Horten ready-release mechanism is operated.’ She looked up with a confident smile. ‘Next!’
‘Hang on,’ said Stuart, feeling a bit jangled. ‘There’s no hurry, is there? This is the first time I’ve had a chance to really look at everything.’
It was odd to think that no one (apart from himself) had used the trick in nearly fifty years. Great-Uncle Tony’s fingerprints were probably still on the inside.
He started to close the cover again, and as he did so, some marks on the floor of the cupboard caught his eye. He crouched down and frowned. Incised into the metal, in very small print, were the words:
AT YOUR PERIL
‘THAT’S ODD,’ SAID Stuart. ‘It says OPEN AT YOUR PERIL on the front of the book, but down here it just says AT YOUR PERIL.’
April came up and peered over his shoulder at the tiny writing. ‘Very odd,’ she agreed. ‘And why are the words in a box?’
She was right. A rectangle about the size of a pack of cards had been incised around the writing.
There was a pause while they both stared at it.
‘You know what?’ said April. ‘It looks just like a small version of the front cover. Apart from the missing word.’
Stuart nodded. ‘Apart from OPEN,’ he said softly. There was another pause, and then they spoke simultaneously.
‘I know—’
‘What if—’
‘—the answer!’
‘—it’s another door?’
They looked at each other, grinning.
‘The writing on the front cover’s an instruction,’ said Stuart. ‘Open AT YOUR PERIL!’
‘Except there’s no little key for the mini door,’ April pointed out. ‘And no handle.’
They squatted down beside the writing. April tried to prise open the tiny door with her fingernails, but it wouldn’t shift. ‘So how do we do it?’ she asked.
Stuart thought about the puzzles that Great-Uncle Tony had set in the past. He thought about the very first puzzle: a tin with a base that unscrewed anticlockwise instead of the more usual clockwise. ‘What if it’s the opposite of what we expect?’ he asked. ‘The front cover opens if you pull it. So maybe with this one—’
April was there before him. She placed her fingers on the right side of the little door, and gave a push. There was a grating sound, and it sprang upward, revealing a shallow space beneath.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
Stuart reached in and took out a small object wrapped in wrinkled brown paper. It was a six-spoked star made of dark, heavy metal, its surface slightly rippled as if it had melted and then cooled. It was shaped a bit like a miniature cartwheel, but minus the outer rim.
He turned it over on his palm. ‘I have no idea …’ he said slowly. ‘A Christmas decoration? Part of a toy?’
‘Hang on,’ said April. ‘Is there something else in there?’ She ran her fingers around inside the space and then shook her head. ‘No, I’m wrong. There’s just a short groove in the bottom.’
Stuart glanced at the crumpled paper that the star had been wrapped in, and with an exclamation began to smooth it out. ‘It’s a message!’ he said, peering at the faded capitals, and April jumped up so that she could read it over his shoulder.
Stuart turned the note over and April groaned. There was a wide circular mark on the paper, almost as if someone had spilled bleach on it. It blotted out the whole centre of the message:
On impulse, Stuart placed the metal star on the page. It was exactly the same size as the missing chunk of writing.
‘Strange,’ said April thoughtfully. ‘But you can still work out what some of the message says. The top bit’s about deciding if you really wish to keep the tricks, or whether you want to give them away to someone – but why would you want to give them away?’
‘Don’t know,’ replied Stuart, mystified. ‘And what does it mean, “Lead you to my W”? What word’s missing there?’
‘Winnings?’ suggested April. ‘Wand? Watch? Wardrobe?’
‘And the “old pal” bit. What’s that about?’
They looked at each other. ‘“Once you start using magic, it’s very hard to stop”,’ quoted April, her voice breathy. ‘It’s another puzzle, isn’t it? Another adventure?’
Stuart closed his hand over the star, and felt the six prongs dig into his skin. His heart was suddenly thumping; he felt both excited and slightly frightened, and he knew from April’s expression that she felt the same. The hunt for Great-Uncle Tony’s workshop had been a wild and exciting chase, sprinkled with danger and magic, and now another quest was beckoning. But for what? What was the prize this time?
He felt his hand tingle, and he knew that the object he was holding was so full of magic that over fifty years it had bleached the paper it was wrapped in; he could feel its power.
‘I think we should—’ he began, and then stopped as the door behind them opened.
‘Ah, I have located my offspring,’ said Stuart’s father, looking pleased. ‘I have just been warned by Mr Felton of the impending cessation of visitation hours.’
Stuart groaned in frustration. ‘It’s closing time,’ he translated, for April’s benefit.
‘He informs me that you may recommence your activities
in the morn, the portals being flung wide at nine precisely.’
‘So we’ll start again tomorrow, then,’ whispered Stuart. ‘See you here at nine on the dot?’
‘Quarter past nine. I’ve got to deliver the Beech Road Guardian midweek edition first. You won’t touch anything till I get here, will you?’
Stuart hesitated. He wanted to start searching for clues this second, and the thought of hanging around even for an extra quarter of an hour felt almost unbearable.
‘Please,’ said April.
Stuart nodded reluctantly. ‘OK.’
That evening, Stuart’s mother arrived home even later than usual. She was a research doctor in a hospital near Beeton, and most of her days were spent peering through a microscope. Most of her evenings, however, were spent worrying about Stuart (at least, that’s what it felt like to him). Unlike his father, she spoke in plain English, and mainly in questions.
‘So, do you feel that you’re starting to settle down in Beeton?’ she asked, sitting on the end of his bed.
Stuart closed his hand over Great-Uncle Tony’s message, which he’d been studying. ‘Sort of,’ he said. He and his parents had only moved to the town four weeks ago, at the beginning of the summer holidays, but it had been four weeks packed with incident, and in some ways he felt as if he’d been living there for years.
‘And you’ve made really good friends with the little girls next door?’
‘Sort of,’ said Stuart again. He was certainly friends with April, but the other two triplets were another matter.
‘And you’re not getting too bored?’
‘No,’ said Stuart, relieved to get an easy question. ‘I’m not getting bored at all.’
‘Because one of my colleagues is running a junior statistics course for keen young mathematicians next week. I could get you a place on it, if you like.’
‘No thank you,’ said Stuart quickly. ‘I’ve got tons to do. For a start, I’m curating an exhibition at the museum.’
‘Really?’ His mother looked astounded. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Didn’t Dad tell you? But he was there when they asked me. He was sitting right next to me.’
She shook her head, her expression worried.
‘Oh well.’ Stuart shrugged. ‘You know what Dad’s like. He was probably trying to think of a long word at the time, and didn’t notice.’
His mother smiled, but the worried look remained. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I’ve just been asked if I can go to a conference in Singapore. It’s very last minute – I’d be replacing a colleague who’s ill, and I’d be away for nearly ten days. And I’d have to fly out tomorrow afternoon.’
She looked at him anxiously. ‘Would that be all right?’
‘Of course it would.’
‘Can you and Dad manage?’
‘Of course we can. I mean, we’ll miss you, but—’
‘Will you eat proper healthy meals and not just pick at whatever’s in the fridge?’
‘Yes.’
‘And change your clothes sometimes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And go to bed at a reasonable time?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you go out during the day, will you stick with friends and leave notes for Dad so he knows where you are?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because if you only tell him things, he forgets. You have to write it down.’
‘I know.’
She bit her lip, undecided.
‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ said Stuart. ‘We’ll be absolutely fine.’
THE NEXT MORNING he got to the museum early and was walking in small, impatient circles outside the main entrance when the caretaker turned up at ten past nine, shortly followed by the curator.
‘Don’t forget your official identification,’ said Rod Felton, and Stuart pinned on his hideous MINI EXPERT badge and then made his way to the side room. Sunlight was streaming through the window.
‘Can you finish those descriptions by midday?’ asked Rod Felton, popping his head round the door. ‘Then we can print them up and laminate them, ready for the exhibition opening tomorrow.’
Stuart nodded, sure that April would remember a notebook and pen. He checked his watch and frowned. How could she be late when there was so much to do?
He waited another five minutes. Still no April.
He got the little six-spoked wheel out of his pocket and studied it intently from every angle, but there was nothing new to see.
He trudged along to Rod Felton’s office and borrowed some scrap paper and a pencil and – as an afterthought – a tape measure.
He wrote THE PHARAOH’S PYRAMID in large careful letters at the top of the page, and then underlined it. Twice. And then checked his watch yet again.
It was ten o’clock.
April was three-quarters of an hour late. She’d said, Don’t touch anything till I get there, but if he didn’t, then he wouldn’t be able to describe the tricks properly, and he’d miss Rod Felton’s deadline. And besides, they were his tricks, even if he couldn’t actually prove it to anyone. So of course he could touch them if he wanted to.
‘Right then,’ he said out loud, secretly feeling rather pleased. ‘I’ll just have to start on my own …’
He had to write ‘about’ because (as usual) he was too short to measure it properly.
He stood on tiptoe, gripped the nearest snake-shaped handle and pulled. The whole triangular side immediately swung down, cracking him on the head; it was hinged at the bottom, he realized, and was heavier than it looked. He lowered the side to the floor, and stood rubbing his skull for a moment, and then he stooped to get a clearer view of the inside of the pyramid.
It was jet black, so shiny that the varnish still looked wet, and the walls were painted with a scattering of red stars. Stuart took the metal star out of his pocket and held it against one of the painted ones. It was exactly the same size and shape.
He put the star back in his pocket and walked round the pyramid again. However hard he tugged at the handles on the other three sides, none of them would shift.
He lifted the first side up again, and it clicked neatly into position, the pyramid complete once more.
Then he tried one of the other handles again. This time it opened easily.
Grinning, Stuart added a line to his description.
He crouched down and stepped inside the pyramid. It was quite roomy – easily big enough for an adult to sit in. He could almost imagine the scene on stage, as Teeny-tiny Tony Horten introduced the trick: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my lovely assistant Lily will now climb into the Pharaoh’s Pyramid. As you can see, once the side is closed again, she will have no possible means of escape …’
And yet there had to be a way out: a concealed button, or a spring, or a handle, operated from the inside, so that the assistant could secretly get out. Stuart ran his fingertips over the walls and felt, near the top of each, a little loop of metal, just big enough to hook a finger into and coloured the same jet-black as the rest of the surface. He checked, and found that there was one on the open side as well.
He hooked his finger into the latter and heaved. The side began to swing shut.
Should I wait for April? he wondered.
No, he thought, pulling harder. I want to solve this myself.
After all, what was the worst that could happen? He could be stuck inside the pyramid until April or Rod Felton turned up. A bit embarrassing, but not actually disastrous.
Unless, of course, the pyramid was air-tight.
In which case he might start to suffocate and be found unconscious or possibly dead some hours later, so perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea after all – and maybe, on second thoughts, it would be better if he didn’t actually fully shut the—
There was a loud and definitive click, and Stuart found himself in utter darkness. Not the faintest chink of light was visible. He pushed at the walls but they didn’t budge. He pulled at the metal loops: nothing.
&n
bsp; ‘Brilliant,’ he muttered, trying not to panic.
And then he saw a glimmer of red light, a glimmer that strengthened and grew and multiplied – a constellation of glimmers all around him. The red stars were luminous!
Nine or ten twinkled from each wall; as he twisted round to look at them, a glimpse of red on the floor caught his eye. One single star shone from the centre of it.
Stuart reached out to touch it, and instead of a flat, painted surface, his fingers felt a series of grooves and, at the centre of them, a little flat button. Cautiously, he pressed it. There was a metallic squeal, like a hinge in need of oiling, and one of the sides shifted just a little, enough to let in a narrow triangle of light. He gave it a push and it opened completely.
So that’s how it worked, thought Stuart. Great-Uncle Tony’s assistant, Lily, would press the button and sneak out of the back, and when Great-Uncle Tony opened up the pyramid for the audience to see, it would be empty!
It occurred to him that he could play a trick on April to pay her back for being late – he could hide inside the pyramid, wait until she was in the room, and then creep out and surprise her. Confidently this time, he pulled the side shut. He waited for a while in the red-starred darkness before something began to nag at the back of his mind, something about the luminous star on the floor.
Once again he reached down to touch it, and with his fingertips explored the pattern of grooves. There were six of them, radiating out like the spokes of a rimless wheel. He felt a great surge of excitement. He delved into his pocket and took out the metal star – it would fit, he just knew it would.
Heart trotting, mouth dry, he slotted the star into place.
The effect was instantaneous.
All four sides of the pyramid fell open with a noise like a thunderclap, and Stuart screamed.
He was in the middle of a desert.
SLOWLY, VERY SLOWLY, Stuart stood up and looked around.
Instead of the side room of Beeton Museum, he saw a sweep of greyish sand peppered with rocks. A few low thorn trees were the only vegetation; not far away, a camel was grazing on one of them. The air was cold, damp and misty, the sky a dirty white. Overhead, a large dark bird was circling.