Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  ‘Weird,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Well,’ Aubrey Thundermallow went on, ‘we didn’t know the half of it at the time. We unpacked the other boxes and happily sold the rest of the items. It was only a few months later that we started hearing from customers whose exploding cigars that they had given to their friends hadn’t exploded at all, but had started trying to scuttle up their friends’ nostrils in a twitching manner. Most strange, and uncomfortable for their friends. We had to give a lot of refunds. Hmm-yesindeed.’

  Clement smirked.

  Mr Thundermallow clapped his hands once and rubbed his palms together. ‘But enough chatter of errant whimsicalities! What can I do for you today, Phyllis?’

  ‘Well,’ she answered, ‘I’m after something special . . .’

  ‘Special?’ repeated Mr Thundermallow, leaning closer.

  Phyllis nodded. Then she looked across at Clem and back to Mr Thundermallow. He immediately understood, so he gave a quick wink and called out, ‘Miss Hipwinkle? Would you kindly attend to this customer please?’

  A short silence followed. Clement glanced at Phyllis and she smiled at him.

  Then, from out of the shadows, there emerged a young woman with pale skin and jet-black hair and dark orchid-coloured lipstick. Her extra-long eyelashes were as dark as her hair, and her eyes were almost as black. ‘Certainly, Mr Thundermallow,’ said the young woman, her voice seeming to seep into the shop like thick honey sliding down the side of a honey pot. She turned her head—slowly, as though she were in a dream—and gave Clement a piercing look, her dark eyes big.

  Clement couldn’t help staring at her. There was something about the black dress she was wearing, and the languorous way she spoke, and those big unblinking eyes, that made her seem to be floating in the space before him. ‘Um . . . erm . . . well, over there . . .’ He turned his head towards Disguises, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on Miss Hipwinkle.

  She watched him unblinkingly, as though she were trying to decide whether he should be allowed near the Disguises section and all the secrets it contained. Then her eyes seemed to become darker. She raised a pale hand, curled her index finger and beckoned him over.

  Phyllis watched him following her, as though he were in a trance.

  ‘So,’ Mr Thundermallow said when they had left, ‘something special, you mentioned?’

  A new amazement

  Phyllis nodded, smiling her inscrutable smile—a smile which always hinted that she knew that impossible things might be possible (a perfect smile for a conjuror to have). ‘Yes, please. A little something special. To use in close-up. Something to startle and distract.’

  ‘Ah!’ Aubrey Thundermallow’s violet eyes lit up. ‘Something to misdirect?’ he whispered.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Phyllis, still smiling. ‘To misdirect.’

  ‘I think I know just the very thing. Hmm-yesindeed.’

  He went behind one of the counters, turned around and nimbly mounted a small stepladder. Phyllis watched as he reached up to one of the upper shelves that was crammed with dozens of the dark green and purple cardboard boxes with the Thundermallow’s labels glued onto the ends. He moved his plump fingers across them, occasionally tapping one of the boxes as he muttered, ‘Hmm-yesindeed . . . now I know I have them somewhere here . . . although for the life of me, I can’t . . . let’s see . . . it’s been a while since we last sold these . . . ah, perhaps this one . . .’

  Then he pulled out one of the boxes, and with it a propulsion of fine white dust that billowed like a tiny cloud of talcum powder. He descended the stepladder and placed the box on the counter. ‘I think you will be pleased,’ he announced in a hushed tone, brushing the dust from the box.

  Phyllis placed her hands together, intertwining the thumb on one hand with the little finger on the other and curling her fingers around the backs of her hands. Her heart was beating with delicious anticipation.

  Aubrey Thundermallow lifted the lid of the box, without letting Phyllis see what was inside. He quickly darted his hands in there, then withdrew them and took a step backwards, to be further away from her. What happened next was silent and astonishing.

  He opened his left hand and, from the very centre of his palm, a brilliant blue light shot out. It dazzled Phyllis and she gasped out loud. ‘Wow!’

  He smiled at her, closed his hand, then opened it again. His palm was completely empty; the light had disappeared.

  Phyllis would have said ‘Wow!’ again, but she was not one to repeat herself if she could help it.

  Mr Thundermallow then slowly opened his right hand. Another brilliant blue beam of light shot out, shining into Phyllis’s face.

  She squinted at the brightness and started to giggle.

  He closed his hand, then opened it again to show his palm empty and the light gone.

  Whenever Phyllis was watching a master magician at work, she felt as though time had stopped. It was a feeling like she was floating, of being very still and motionless, of not being able to hear any sound around her at all. This was one of those times.

  Aubrey Thundermallow now opened both hands, and two beams of the blue light speared towards her. He moved his hands in a circular motion (Phyllis thought how well this would go with music in a performance), then closed them, vanishing the lights.

  He continued producing the lights from his palms: he made a single beam jump from his right hand to his left and back again, each time opening his palms wide to reveal them to be totally empty after the light had left them. He made the light jump to his forehead so that it looked like he had a third, blazing eye up there. He made it vanish from his forehead with a quick pass of his hand. And to finish, he put the light on the tip of his nose, wiggled his nose around and then said, ‘Hey PRESTO hmm-yesindeed!’ The light dissolved away quicker than a blink.

  When he had concluded he asked, ‘Was that special enough for you?’

  ‘Oh, that was brilliant, Mr Thundermallow!’ Phyllis had no idea how he had done that. She couldn’t even begin to work it out, which was unusual, because Phyllis Wong knew so much about magic that she usually had an idea how a trick was being performed or what methods were behind it.

  ‘Glad to be of entertainment,’ he said, smiling. ‘You just witnessed The Incandescent Blue Lights of Aurora, named after the ancient Roman goddess of the dawn.’

  ‘It’s really impressive. But it’s not quite what I’m looking for.’

  Mr Thundermallow gave a half-smile. ‘Oh?’ he said, a little surprised.

  ‘No. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of it, and I’ll take the blue lights if I can afford them. But what I need that’s special is for outdoor close-up. Something I can use in the playground at school.’

  ‘Ah. I see, hmm-yesindeed. Yes, you’re right, Phyllis Wong; daylight would all but drown out the brilliance of The Incandescent Blue Lights of Aurora. They’d be nothing but watery little piddle-ations of unimpressiveness. And we can’t have that, not for someone as accomplished as your keen self, can we? No, most certainly we can not. Now, let me think . . . something to dazzle in the daylight . . . to distract and divert . . . to attract the attention away from—Ah!’ All at once he stopped, and he clapped his hands together loudly. ‘I believe I have just the thing!’

  ‘R-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r-rr-r!’ Madame Ergins growled nervously from her Underworld beneath the chair.

  And, once again, Phyllis waited expectantly as Mr Thundermallow mounted the stepladder and began searching his shelves . . .

  ‘So, what’d you buy, Phyll?’ asked Clement as they made their way to their homes.

  ‘Can’t tell you. It’s something I need for a trick I’m working on.’

  Clement knew there was no point needling her to tell him—when it came to her conjuring, Phyllis Wong was incredibly secretive.

  They walked along in silence as the evening shadows began to creep around the corners of the city blocks. Clement dropped back behind his friend and began fishing about in his Thund
ermallow’s carry-bag. Phyllis watched the passers-by as she walked; she enjoyed studying people and wondering about their stories and where they were going, or where they had come from. She always had, ever since she was little.

  ‘Well,’ Clement said after a few moments, ‘look what I bought. Don’t turn around yet. Wait a sec . . . ouch! . . . okay, you can look!’

  Phyllis turned around, and her jaw dropped.

  There stood Clement, wearing a pair of spectacles with springy-out eyes (he had them on over his real glasses), a false pointy nose with a wart on it, a latex gory scar on his cheek, an enormous set of vampire fangs in his mouth, a bald-head wig with reddish hair sticking out at the sides and a fake black goatee beard and moustache.

  ‘Whaddya think?’ he asked, trying to smile in such a way that the fangs wouldn’t fall out and the moustache wouldn’t come loose.

  Phyllis stifled a giggle. ‘You look like you’ve been in an explosion in a joke factory!’

  ‘Ha. Very funny. Hey, no one’ll recognise me like this. I could go anywhere and they wouldn’t know me. Not even my own mother!’

  Phyllis shook her head. ‘That’s for sure. You could even get out of xylophone practice . . . your mum would die of a heart attack if she saw you like that. Or she’d put you up for adoption.’

  ‘Ha. You are too, too droll.’

  ‘Yes, I too, too am.’ She laughed and he laughed too, quickly shoving the fangs back into his mouth when they started slipping out.

  ‘So,’ said Phyllis as they continued up the street, ‘why’d you buy so much?’

  ‘I’ve always been interested in disguises.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Since when?’ Phyllis was smiling. ‘All you’ve ever been interested in is your games or whatever new phone or webPad or computer’s just come out.’

  ‘Yeah, that too.’ (Clement’s parents owned one of the biggest appliance stores in the city, and when a new electronics item was released they often gave it to Clement to try out, so they could recommend it to their customers if it was any good.)

  ‘So why the sudden interest in dressing up?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t stop. She just kept showing me things, and they all looked like I should have them. Like I needed them, so that I can have a wide assortment in my disguises collection. You never know when a fake nose will come in handy, you know.’

  ‘She’s quite the salesgirl, that Miss Hipwinkle, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s cool. Hey, Phyll, did you see her lips? They were black!’

  ‘They were dark purple. Yeah, I noticed. It was lipstick.’

  ‘I knew that. And her eyes looked like she hadn’t slept for eighteen months. And she was paler than a vanilla milkshake. She looked . . .’

  ‘She looked like what, Clem?’

  He thought for a moment, adjusting his fangs because he’d started to dribble while he’d been speaking. ‘I dunno. She just looked cool, I guess.’

  ‘She looked like it was her second time on Earth,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Nah, you’re wrong. Zombies don’t have dark purple lips. Not in the games I play.’

  ‘I’ll bow to your extensive experience,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Yep, I’ve battled ’em all. Every zombie game there is: Attack of the Zombie Vampire Accountants; Zombies in Love; Muddled Zombies of Thistledrockit—they wore kilts in that one; Zombie Mission Implausible; Zombies A-Go-Go at the Astral Bloodbath Ballroom; Revenge of the Crumbling Zombies; Fire-spewing Zombies of Varaswani; Fifty Shades of Zombies—that one was really weird—’ ‘Thank you, Clement, I get the message.’

  ‘Yep, if there’s anything you want to know about zombies, I’m your expert.’

  They had arrived at the Wallace Wong Building, the small Art Deco apartment block that had been built in 1932 by Phyllis’s great-grandfather. (The Wallace Wong Building was only three storeys tall from the street, and was overshadowed by a phalanx of towering, gleaming skyscrapers. Despite many offers to buy the building, Phyllis’s father, who owned it, had always resisted.) Phyllis and her father and her little dog Daisy lived on the top floor, in a big penthouse apartment above a floor of other flats, which in turn were on the floor above the ground-floor shops: Lowerblast’s Antiques & Collectables Emporium and The Délicieux Café.

  ‘Okay,’ Phyllis said, ‘I’ll see you at school tomorrow.’

  ‘Ergh,’ grumbled Clement. He took out his fangs and shoved them in his pocket. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’ He pulled off his bald-head wig with the hair on the sides, and the springy-eye spectacles, and shoved them into his Thundermallow’s bag (he forgot he still had on the false pointy nose and the scar and the goatee beard and moustache). ‘Okay, see you tomorrow.’

  He started up the sidewalk while Phyllis found her key to unlock the old glass-and-chromium front doors. Then he turned. ‘Hey, Phyll, are you going to do your new magic tomorrow?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ she said, smiling her inscrutable smile. ‘Wait and see what tomorrow brings . . .’

  That night, after dinner, Phyllis was lying on her bed, trying to concentrate on her homework, but thinking of other things.

  Daisy was lying at the end of the bed with her little pink stomach on display. The brown-and-white miniature fox terrier always liked these times of the evening, when Phyllis had settled down and was still. Daisy was the sort of dog who believed it was her duty to keep a watchful eye on her best human friend, and sometimes, especially when Phyllis was in a darting-about-here-and-there mood, it became very tiring for the small dog to keep vigil.

  Daisy watched sleepily as Phyllis pushed her homework out of the way and fanned out a deck of Bicycle cards across the bed instead. ‘This is a great trick, Daisy girl,’ Phyllis said quietly. ‘I’ve been practising it and practising it and tomorrow I’ll be all set to perform it. It’ll be my special birthday present for my friend Selena. You remember her, she always wants to hold you and squeeze you whenever she meets up with us . . .’

  Daisy made a tiny sound at the back of her throat—a sort of gargling sound, as though she had small marbles rolling around back there.

  Phyllis reached into her Thundermallow’s carry-bag. ‘And now I’ve just got the very best thing to add to it,’ she said, her eyes glowing. ‘Something to finish it all off with a bang!’

  Unforeseen outcomes

  At lunchtime the next day, in a corner of the playground protected from the chilly breezes by a tall row of shingle oaks, Phyllis sat at one of the wooden outdoor tables, surrounded by her friends.

  ‘This one’s for you, Selena,’ she said to the red-haired girl sitting next to her. ‘Happy birthday.’

  Selena smiled, and a mild ripple of excitement made her shudder. She loved it when her friend performed magic.

  Clement, standing around with the others, had one eye on his phone (where he was battling a creature from the marshes of Abbyssnottia) and the other eye on Phyllis.

  The young magician reached into her black velvet bag, the bag in which she always brought her tricks to school. ‘Today it’s a card trick,’ she told everyone. ‘Well, actually it’s more than one. It’s two card tricks I really like.’ She turned to Selena. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ Selena answered.

  ‘Swell,’ said Phyllis. ‘Prepare to be astounded, my dear friend! Now I want you to concentrate. I want you to clear your mind of everything—’

  ‘Ha! That won’t be hard,’ came a loud voice from the back of the crowd. ‘Selena’s head isn’t exactly Ideas Central!’

  Everyone turned to see Leizel Cunbrus, who had arrived with three of her friends. They stood there with the sorts of expressions that implied that they were only there because they had nothing better to do at that particular moment.

  ‘Shut it, Leizel,’ said one of the boys standing nearby.

  ‘Or what?’ said Leizel. ‘I can be here if I want. My parents pay the same school fees as yours, and I’m entitled to be wherever I want to be in the playground.’

  ‘Yeah,’ s
aid one of her friends, the corner of her mouth lifting in a sneer.

  ‘Yeah,’ repeated another of her hanger-onners.

  Phyllis took a deep breath. ‘You’re welcome to stay and watch,’ she said. ‘This is for Selena’s birthday.’

  ‘Couldn’t you afford a proper present for her?’ sneered Leizel Cunbrus.

  Clement put his phone away. ‘Are you going to heckle and spoil it for everyone?’ he asked her.

  Leizel sized him up from head to toe. Then she sniffed and said loudly to her friends, ‘Some people should be put through the washing machine before they come to school.’

  Clement looked down at his sweater and tried to wipe off the fresh orange juice stain that had ended up there earlier, while he’d been battling the swamp creatures from Abbyssnottia as he’d been drinking the juice and walking across the playground, which had caused him to bang into a fence post. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and blushed.

  One of the bigger boys—a softly spoken boy named Gervase Fielding—said, ‘Leizel, if you want to stay just keep quiet, okay?’

  Leizel snitched up the corner of her mouth, waggled her head in a mimicking fashion and rolled her eyes at her friends. Like copies of her, they also rolled their eyes.

  Everyone else turned back to Phyllis and Selena.

  Phyllis took out a deck of blue-backed Bicycle cards from her velvet bag and opened the packet. ‘Now, Selena,’ she said as she took the cards out, ‘just clear your mind and concentrate.’

  ‘I’m concentrating,’ said Selena. She hadn’t let Leizel’s taunts get to her—she was too excited at her special gift from Phyllis.