For my favorite Garrisons:
Paige, Cliff, Jess, and Andy
—A. M. R.
For Allie, Mitch, Sarah, and Dani
— C. K.
Chapter One The Dragon’s Secret
“Okay, my turn to start,” my best friend Isabel said. She shimmied on the big rock where we were sitting out on the playground, waiting for the first bell to ring. Our other best friend, Sadie, wasn’t there yet. Her bus was late.
“Once upon a time, there was a tiny dragon with a huge secret,” Isabel said. She lifted her eyebrows in my direction.
I grinned. That was a great start to a story. Now it was my turn to add a sentence—that was the game we were playing.
I thought for a second. “The dragon’s secret was so embarrassing, she hadn’t even told it to her best friend the unicorn, or her other best friend, the magic puppy,” I said. I almost always put a dog in our stories. Sometimes I even put in my dog, Banana, but not this time. Banana isn’t a magic puppy. She’s a funny little wiener dog, all long and skinny in the middle, like a banana.
Isabel added the next sentence. “The secret was, the dragon didn’t know how to fly.”
“Ooh.” I liked that. My brain lit up like a sparkler, full of ideas for what could come next. “The dragon hid her secret by pretending the reason she never flew was to stay on the ground with her friend, because the puppy couldn’t fly either,” I said.
If I could fly but my friends couldn’t, I would walk with them when we were together. “Magic puppies aren’t supposed to fly, but dragons and unicorns all know how,” I said.
Isabel nodded. “The dragon was afraid that if anyone learned her secret, they would make fun of her and not want to be her friend anymore,” she said.
“And she was afraid to practice on her own or take flying lessons at school, because someone might see her trying and failing,” I added.
“Also, she was afraid of heights,” Isabel said.
I leaned forward and wiggled my eyebrows. “But one day,” I said in my most dramatic voice, “the unicorn discovered her secret.”
Our teacher, Ms. Burland, says that stories should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This felt like the start to the middle: the part where things change.
“The dragon and the unicorn were walking to the puppy’s house, when the unicorn said they should fly over the mountain to get there faster,” Isabel said.
“Hmm.” I thought about how the dragon might respond. Would she make up an excuse? Or create a distraction? I thought she would want to be honest with her friend, but might also feel scared of telling the truth.
“The dragon said no, and when the unicorn asked her why, she started to cry,” I said. I waited to hear what Isabel would add next. I had no idea where the story was going. That was part of the fun!
“The unicorn listened carefully while the dragon told him her secret, and he didn’t laugh at all,” Isabel said. I smiled. Isabel was a good listener too. Almost as good as Banana.
“And then the unicorn told the dragon a secret of his own,” I said.
One of the best things about being best friends was sharing—and keeping—each other’s secrets. I could always trust Isabel and Sadie with mine. I didn’t know what the unicorn’s secret would be, but I had a feeling Isabel would come up with something good. I waited.
Before Isabel could continue the story, we saw Sadie running toward us, straight off the school bus. Her backpack bounced with each step.
“You’ll never guess what happened on the bus,” she said the second she reached us. She was out of breath from running fast, so the words came out in quick bursts. Her cheeks were pink with excitement.
“You saw a dragon?” Isabel guessed.
“Or a magic puppy?” I said.
Sadie shook her head, still breathing hard.
“I know! The bus driver turned into an ogre,” I said.
Sadie dropped her backpack on the ground next to Isabel’s and mine. “No! But the driver did yell at me, and it was all Justin’s fault. He was doing a trick,” she said.
“Oh,” Isabel said. “Well, that sounds like Justin.”
I nodded in agreement. It did sound like Justin. He was always making jokes and playing tricks. He could be funny sometimes, but when he was showing off he could also be annoying.
Sadie usually laughed at his jokes and shrugged off his tricks. It was strange for her to be worked up about him. “Was the trick mean?” I asked.
“No,” Sadie said. She leaned closer. “It was magic.”
Chapter Two Real Magic
Isabel’s eyes went wide at the word “magic,” but I narrowed mine. I was always suspicious when it came to Justin. “What was the trick?” I asked.
“It was a card trick,” Sadie said. “Someone chose a random card from a full deck and Justin guessed what it was. But it was way more complicated than that sounds. No one can figure out how he did it. Not even the fifth graders.”
“Hmm,” I said. I wondered if I could figure it out. I’m pretty good at riddles and puzzles.
“Do you think it was really magic?” Isabel asked.
Sadie shook her head. “No way. If anyone in our class is secretly magical, it wouldn’t be Justin.”
I snorted. That was true. If Justin were magical, everyone would know. He would definitely brag about it. A lot.
“Ooh, that’s a fun game. Who in our class do we think would be magical?” Isabel said.
Sadie tilted her head to one side like Banana does when she’s thinking. Her face lit up as she thought of an answer. I kind of hoped she would say me, even though I knew I wasn’t magical, but instead she said, “Ms. Burland! She would have magic shoes.”
I grinned. “Yeah!” Our teacher always wears fun, colorful shoes. She has the most interesting footwear of anyone I know. The best pair has a kitten face on the toe of one foot, and a puppy face on the other. Those always make me smile.
“She probably knows some magic words, too,” I said.
Ms. Burland writes a new word and its definition on the whiteboard every morning—not for a test or anything, just for fun. The word of the day is one of my favorite things about being in her class. Yesterday’s word was “optimist.” Optimist: someone who is hopeful and expects good outcomes. It reminded me of Banana. She’s always hopeful that I’ll drop her some cheese at the dinner table, even though I’m not supposed to.
The bell rang, telling us it was time to line up to go inside. Isabel and I slid off the rock and we all grabbed our backpacks. “So how do you think Justin did it? Was it just a lucky guess?” Isabel asked as we walked toward the school doors.
Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t really see it. He was sitting a few rows behind me, and when I turned around to watch, the bus driver yelled for everyone to face forward.” She wrinkled her nose. Sadie doesn’t like being told what to do, even by the grown-ups in charge.
“The fifth graders kept asking but he wouldn’t tell them how the trick was done. He said he guarantees no one else can do it. So I said he has to show us the trick at recess. I bet we can figure it out.” Sadie looked excited. She always loves a challenge.
I felt excited too. “We are a good team,” I said as we entered the school. It would be fun figuring out Justin’s secret together.
Sadie hooked her arms through mine and Isabel’s and we skipped all the way to class.
Chapter Three You’ll Never Guess
When we got to our classroom, I put my jacket and lunch bag into my cubby and went to my seat. I immediately saw Justin, who was already sitting at his desk behind mine. He noticed me looking at him, and grinned. My Nana would
say he looked like the cat that had caught the canary—very pleased with himself.
“Hi, Anna,” he said. He pulled a deck of cards from his lap and made a big show out of shuffling them on his desktop.
“Hi, Justin,” I replied. I dropped into my seat in front of his and took out my pencils and notebook. I lined up the pencils at the top of my desk—first my regular pencil, then my lucky blue pencil, then my extra-special supersparkly rainbow pencil—and refused to look behind me. If Justin wanted attention, he wasn’t going to get it from me. I would not be the canary.
But Isabel, who sat at the desk to my right, turned around to see what Justin was doing. “Are those the magic cards?” she asked in a hushed voice, like the magic was sleeping and she didn’t want to wake it up.
“Nope,” Justin said. “They’re just regular cards. It’s the trick I do that’s magic.” I heard the sound of more shuffling, but kept my back to him.
“Sadie said you’re going to show us at recess,” Isabel said.
“I might. If you’re lucky,” Justin said. I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see them. Justin could be so smug sometimes. I wished Isabel wouldn’t encourage him.
“Even if I show you, you’ll never guess how it’s done,” he added.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I twisted in my seat. “We’ll see about that,” I said.
Justin looked delighted. I should have known better than to take the bait. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and opened his mouth to make some smart comeback, but before he could say anything, Ms. Burland clapped twice to start the day. I turned back around to face the front of the room, and swore I would ignore him for the rest of the morning.
I glanced up at the whiteboard and saw the word of the day: “resolve.” Resolve: to decide firmly on a course of action, it said. I resolved to ignore Justin so he wouldn’t know how much I wanted to see his trick. I was betting that the best way to get him to show us how it was done was to act like we didn’t care about it.
Luckily I had a lot else to think about besides Justin. In science we were learning about the three forms of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. But we didn’t just talk about them. We did experiments.
First, we melted an ice cube to watch it turn from solid to liquid. Then we heated water until it boiled and became steam—a liquid turning to gas. Next, we did the whole thing in reverse.
We checked the water we’d put in the freezer at the beginning of class, and saw it was turning into ice. We placed a clear plastic cup over a mug of hot water, and observed how the steam trapped by the cup turned into drops of water.
Ms. Burland taught us the words “condensation” and “evaporation” to describe gases becoming liquids and liquids becoming gases. We talked about how water evaporates into vapor that forms clouds, and clouds condense into raindrops or snowflakes. I liked how when I said the words out loud, they kind of felt like what they meant. The word “condensation” plopped like droplets on my tongue, and the word “evaporation” flew off my lips like word vapor.
I nudged my friends and pointed at Ms. Burland’s feet. Her boots were covered in clouds and raindrops, with a rainbow on each heel. “Magic shoes,” I whispered.
Isabel smiled. “Science does seem like magic sometimes,” she said.
“But even cooler,” Sadie said. Isabel and I agreed.
I didn’t look at Justin during the science experiments, or pay him any attention during geography, either. But by the time we went outside for recess, my curiosity was so hot, I thought it might boil over. It was finally time to see the trick!
Sadie, Isabel, and I ran to the merry-go-round. Its flat surface would be good for spreading out playing cards. “Justin! Over here!” Sadie called.
Justin walked up to us and swept one arm through the air dramatically. “Behold!” he said. “Prepare to be shocked and amazed!”
Chapter Four Pick a Card, Any Card
Isabel clapped. The magic show had begun! I was so excited and curious, I forgot to be annoyed at Justin.
Justin pulled the cards from his pocket and placed them on the merry-go-round in front of us. “Behold,” he said again. “A normal deck of cards.” We stared at it. It did look normal.
“I will ask the three of you to select one card from the deck,” Justin explained in his showman voice. “You will look at that card and memorize it. But don’t show or tell me what it is! You will place the card back in the deck, wherever you choose, while I’m not looking. Once the card is hidden, I will use my magic to find it.”
I couldn’t help it: I already felt impressed. Sadie widened her eyes at me with a look that said, See?
Justin motioned toward the cards. “Before you choose your card, do you want to cut the deck?” he offered.
“Yes,” Sadie said immediately. She divided the deck in half and placed the bottom stack of cards on top.
“What’s that for?” Isabel asked.
“It’s to prove I don’t have the cards in any special order,” Justin explained.
“Oh.” Isabel nodded.
“I want to shuffle them,” I said. Even though Sadie had cut the deck, it seemed possible Justin still knew how the cards were arranged. If he refused to let me shuffle, we would know that was the secret.
I was certain Justin would say no, but he shrugged. “Sure,” he said.
I picked up the cards and shuffled them really well, like my neighbor Mrs. Shirley had taught me. Mrs. Shirley is very good at card games. Banana and I love visiting her and playing with her and her kitten, Surely Cat. But even though Mrs. Shirley had taught me lots of card games, she’d never shown me anything like this.
The whole time I shuffled, I looked Justin in the eye. I was watching to see if he was worried the shuffling might ruin the trick. He didn’t flinch.
I put the cards down.
“Okay?” he said. We nodded.
“All right. I’m going to close my eyes now,” Justin said. “Pick a card, memorize it, and place it back in the deck.” He closed his eyes. “Tell me when I can open them.”
Isabel reached for the cards, but Sadie stopped her. “Will you turn around, please?” she asked Justin.
Justin grinned with his eyes still closed. “As you wish,” he said. He turned his back to us.
I widened my eyes at Sadie and she widened hers back. Justin hadn’t arranged the cards and he wasn’t peeking. How could he know what card we chose?
Sadie motioned for Isabel to go ahead and take a card. Isabel slid one out from the middle of the deck, turned it over, and showed us what it was: the three of diamonds. We smiled. Good things came in threes—like Sadie, Isabel, and me.
Isabel handed the card to Sadie, who put it back in the deck, near the spot where Isabel had taken it out. I neatened the deck so no one could see which part had been messed with. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I picked up the cards, shuffled them quickly and quietly, and put them back down. Justin would never know. Maybe the one who would be tricked by this card trick was him.
Sadie gave me a thumbs-up. I gave her one back, and so did Isabel. “Okay,” Sadie said to Justin. “You can look now.”
Justin turned and opened his eyes. My insides fluttered with excitement, like how Banana’s eyelids sometimes dance around when she is dreaming an extra-good dream.
“Do you want to shuffle again?” Justin asked, and the fluttering stopped.
My friends and I glanced at one another. “Nah,” Sadie said, speaking for all of us. I’d already shuffled, but Justin didn’t know that. The three of diamonds was really mixed in. It would take some real magic or luck for him to find it.
“Okay,” Justin said. He waved his hands over the deck of cards and muttered a bunch of words that were hard to hear but sounded like nonsense. “Arfer darfer murfer moogs,” I heard when I leaned closer. The words were silly but his face looked very serious.
Isabel giggled. Sadie shot her a stern look and said, “Shh!”
Justin didn’t let them distract him.
He kept mumbling the silly words and stayed focused on the cards. He picked up the deck and put the cards down one by one, still facedown, in a pattern I couldn’t figure out the logic to. It looked almost like a spaceship. When he got to the last card, he paused for a long moment, said one last magic word, then flipped the card over, faceup. “Is this your card?” he said.
We all looked. Isabel gasped.
“Yes,” Sadie said. “But… how did you do that?”
Chapter Five Price to Pay
“Magic!” Justin said. But from his grin, I could tell he was teasing.
I stared at the three of diamonds. I felt dizzy, like the merry-go-round was spinning beneath us, when really it was completely still. How had Justin done that? It seemed impossible. Even though I’d shuffled the cards well, I was certain our card hadn’t been at the bottom of the deck. It couldn’t have been! But there it was, the three of diamonds, the last card Justin had flipped over. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Wow,” I said. I looked at my friends. They were as shocked and impressed as I was. Isabel’s mouth hung open, and Sadie was leaning so far forward, it seemed she might tip over.
Sadie straightened. “Do it again!” she said. I could tell she was determined to figure it out.
“Yeah,” Isabel cheered.
Justin gathered his cards and knocked them twice against the top of the merry-go-round. “Sure,” he said. “If you pay me.”
My mouth dropped open too. “What?” I said. That was ridiculous.
“Twelve dollars,” Justin said.
“No way,” I said. Isabel shook her head, but Sadie seemed to be thinking about it.
“Twelve dollars each,” Justin added. Isabel looked as stunned as Banana had the first time she heard Mom get the hiccups. (Mom’s hiccups were super loud and surprising.)
Anna, Banana, and the Magic Show Mix-Up Page 1