Phyllis spread the cards face-up so that Selena and all the spectators could see them. ‘Observe. A complete deck, all different.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Selena.
‘Yeah, sure,’ said Leizel under her breath, but loud enough for her cronies to hear her. Gervase Fielding shushed her and she shushed him back.
Phyllis closed the cards and turned them over. She spread the deck again. ‘Now observe: all of the cards have blue backs, yes?’
‘All of them,’ Selena said after a moment.
‘Now, my friend,’ Phyllis went on, her voice low and inviting, ‘as I spread them again, I want you to select a card. Choose it from anywhere in the deck, anywhere at all.’
Slowly Phyllis re-spread the deck with the blue backs visible.
‘That one!’ Selena put her finger on a card towards the end of the deck near Phyllis’s left hand.
‘Take it out,’ said Phyllis. ‘Look at it and memorise it. You can show it to the others if you want, but not to me.’
Selena took the selected card, turned it over so that Phyllis couldn’t see its face, and showed it to the people closest to her. (Leizel tried to crane her neck to get a glimpse, but she was too far away.)
‘Okay, is it memorised?’ Phyllis asked.
‘It is,’ replied Selena.
‘Now put it back into the deck, anywhere you want.’ Phyllis held the spread deck out to Selena, and she slipped the card, still face-down, back in amongst the other cards, somewhere near the middle. Phyllis closed the deck and squared it, tapping the edges of the cards on the table.
‘Now,’ said Phyllis, ‘what was your card?’
‘You’re the magician,’ said Leizel, loudly. ‘Why don’t you tell her what it was?’
‘Shut up, Leizel,’ said Clement.
Phyllis ignored her. ‘What was it, Selena?’ she asked.
‘The eight of clubs,’ said Selena.
Some of the spectators nodded.
‘The eight of clubs?’ repeated Phyllis. ‘Because it’s your special day, and you’re special, I’m going to make your card—the eight of clubs—special. Presto!’ Phyllis waved her hand across the deck. ‘Now look. Look at what’s special!’
Slowly she spread the cards face-down across the table. Halfway along, Selena gave a gasp.
There, in the middle of all the blue-backed cards, a single red-backed card had appeared!
Phyllis smiled, and she zinged with the zingingness she always felt at the moment that someone had lost themselves in a trick.
‘Take out the red card,’ she said to Selena, ‘and turn it over.’
Selena did so. It was the eight of clubs.
‘Wow! How did that happen? How did it change?’
Some of the kids gave a small round of applause.
Leizel Cunbrus snorted, but she said nothing.
‘Magic,’ answered Phyllis Wong. ‘But where there’s a little magic, there’s usually more . . .’
She took up the cards again. ‘I want you to hold onto that card, Selena. Put it face-down on your palm and put your other hand on top of it. Keep it firmly on top of it, as though your hands are a safe and the eight of clubs is a valuable gem.’
Selena did so, sandwiching the card firmly between her palms.
Phyllis began slowly shuffling the deck, face-down. ‘I’m going to ask you to choose another card now. Tell me to stop at any time.’
Selena watched her shuffling, then she said, ‘Stop!’
Phyllis separated the deck where she’d been stopped, and held up one half of the deck in her left hand, displaying the card at the point where the shuffling had stopped. She took this card out. ‘What’s the card?’ she asked.
‘The five of hearts,’ Selena answered.
‘The five of hearts,’ repeated Phyllis. She put it face-down on the top of the deck, which was now in her right hand. ‘Now I have the five of hearts here. You have the—?’
‘The eight of clubs,’ said Selena, looking down at her hands, safe-keeping the card.
‘I think not,’ Phyllis said, smiling. ‘Behold!’
She took the top card off the deck and turned it over. To everyone’s astonishment, it was not the five of hearts. It was Selena’s card, the eight of clubs!
‘What?’ said Selena.
‘And what do you have?’ Phyllis asked.
Tentatively, Selena took her hand off the card she’d been holding. She turned the red-backed card over. ‘The five of hearts!’ she exclaimed. ‘But how? It changed in my hand! I never felt a thing!’ She turned the card over and over and held it up to the sunlight and even gave it a small bend, but there was nothing tricky about it. It was just a normal playing card. A normal five of hearts.
‘Man!’ said Clement. ‘That’s one of the best tricks you’ve ever done!’
‘Thanks, Phyll, that was great!’ Selena gave her friend a tight, quick hug, and for a moment Phyllis knew what Daisy must feel like whenever Selena squeezed her.
Another small round of applause came from the crowd. Phyllis smiled.
‘It’s all fake,’ declared Leizel, coming forward. ‘She’s got faked cards, anyone can tell! She’s not doing real magic.’
‘No,’ said her friends.
‘Go on,’ Leizel dared Phyllis, ‘I bet you can’t make a rabbit appear out of my lunchbox!’
Her friends sniggered and looked defiantly at Phyllis.
‘Real magic?’ Phyllis said quietly. ‘You want real magic?’
‘Yeah,’ said Leizel, ‘but it’s not going to happen here.’
‘You think not?’ Phyllis rose, and what happened next took place so fast that some of the kids gathered there didn’t see it: Phyllis extended her arms, held out her hands with all her fingers spread wide apart, and two enormous bolts of bright yellow flame spewed from her fingers, flying across the table towards Leizel with a muffled air-parting whoooooooooosh!
And Leizel Cunbrus screamed loud enough to wake every zombie that Clement had ever encountered.
Burnt
‘It is a most serious occurrence, Mr Wong. Most serious indeed.’
Harvey Wong, Phyllis’s father, sat opposite Dr Ronald Bermschstäter, the headmaster at Phyllis’s school. The headmaster stared across his desk angrily, his glasses perched on the very tip of his bulbous nose.
‘I agree, Headmaster,’ said Harvey Wong, nodding. ‘I am very sorry this has happened. And so is Phyllis. I do apologise, most sincerely.’
‘It’s a matter of safety,’ the headmaster continued. ‘But more importantly, it’s a matter of the school’s reputation. Why, sir, if this gets out, we’ll never attract the sorts of students who will proudly uphold Pritherlee College’s traditions.’
Harvey Wong listened and noted in his head how the school’s reputation was so important.
‘No,’ Ronald Bermschstäter went on, ‘Pritherlee College is at the forefront of providing quality education in a safe, no-nonsense, calm environment. We have been doing it for one hundred and forty-seven years, and our motto—Strive Sensibly; Rock No Boats—has carried us through without blemish or the slightest hint of scandal.’
‘Pritherlee College is a very fine school,’ Harvey Wong said quietly. ‘That’s why I send Phyllis here.’
‘Yes, a very fine school indeed. All I can say is, thank goodness that none of the students filmed the thing on their phones and posted it up on the interweb.’
‘Net,’ Harvey said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Nothing, Dr Bermschstäter. Please, carry on.’
‘Yes, thank goodness it hasn’t gone out into the world. This sort of thing would go virus, I have no doubt about it.’
‘Viral,’ said Harvey Wong.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing, Dr Bermschstäter.’
‘It’s the last thing we want, grainy footage of a girl getting singed in her lunchbreak. And with the fire coming from another girl’s digits . . . why, heavens above, the world would think we are turning
out witches and the like. That’s the stuff of storybooks, sir, not calm reality like we strive for here.’
‘Indeed not.’
The headmaster’s wide nostrils twitched, and he clenched his fists. ‘And now I’m faced with the threat of legal action! The girl’s parents are considering suing! The Cunbruses are most upset. They say Leizel’s plaits will never be the same.’
‘I’m very relieved it was only her plaits that were singed,’ said Harvey Wong. ‘Is Leizel all right apart from that?’
‘Oh, she’s very flustered. She’s calling Phyllis a “little arsonist” every chance she gets; letting everyone know what’s happened. I think I will have to make some sort of compensation to her and her parents before they take the story to the press . . .’ He paused and looked at Harvey Wong above the top of his glasses, giving him a glare that seemed to say, It’s not in the school’s budget to have to pay out on this sort of thing, you know . . .
‘Please,’ Harvey said, reading the unspoken message in Dr Bermschstäter’s glare, ‘I would be only too ready to provide some sort of assistance. If you let me know what it takes, I will have my solicitors provide suitable compensation.’
Hearing this, Dr Ronald Bermschstäter sat back in his chair. ‘A wise decision, Mr Wong,’ he said. ‘A good idea to not rock any boats any further.’
Harvey nodded. He gave the headmaster a measured smile.
‘Now, regarding Phyllis.’ Dr Bermschstäter leant forward, placing his wide elbows on his desk and clasping his hands so that his sausage-like fingers interlocked.
‘As I said,’ Harvey told him, ‘Phyllis and I are both very sorry about what has happened. I will see to it that nothing of this sort will ever take place again.’
‘Certainly it will not take place again.’ Ronald Bermschstäter’s sausage-fingers were turning red. ‘It cannot be allowed to take place again, Mr Wong. And Phyllis needs to know that.’
‘She will know that,’ Harvey said. ‘I will make sure of this.’
‘I think the message needs to be a strong one. One that she will not forget in a hurry. And I think, in this case, in order for the message to have the full impact, I should take some action also.’
Harvey Wong felt his jaw muscles becoming tense. ‘What are you suggesting, Dr Bermschstäter?’
The headmaster leant back in his chair and gave a smile. ‘There is only one thing for it, Mr Wong. Phyllis must be taught a lesson.’
‘Suspended?’ gasped Phyllis.
‘That is what Dr Bermschstäter has decided,’ her father told her.
‘But he can’t!’
Daisy, sitting in one of her beds on the living room floor in their apartment, heard the tone in Phyllis’s voice. The mini foxy jumped out of the bed and sprang up onto the lounge next to Phyllis, putting her front paws on Phyllis’s leg and peering up with her shiny brown eyes into Phyllis’s face.
‘But he can, Phyllis,’ Harvey Wong said. ‘He can, and he has. Effective from this afternoon.’
‘What?’
‘As of this afternoon, you are not allowed back at school for three weeks.’
‘Three weeks? But Dad, school will have broken up by then!’
‘I think that is the headmaster’s intention. You won’t be going back to Pritherlee College until next year.’
‘That’s screwy!’ said Phyllis, using an expression she had picked up from one of her great-grandfather’s movies.
‘Screwy or not, that’s the way it is.’
‘But I’ll miss the end-of-term concert! You know how hard I’ve been practising that new illusion with Daisy! It was going to be the first time she’d ever been levitated. Oh, Dad . . .’
‘There’s nothing I can do, Phyllis. It’s the headmaster’s decision.’
Phyllis stroked the top of Daisy’s head. ‘That’s so not fair.’ She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. ‘Well at least I won’t have any homework for the next three weeks.’
‘Ah, but you will.’
‘Huh?’
‘Dr Bermschstäter said that he will arrange for your teachers to give Clement your homework. Clement will drop it in every day on his way home from school. He will then pick it up the next morning and take it back.’
Phyllis’s jaw dropped open. This was totally not a good thing.
‘And it all has to be completed,’ said her father.
‘Oh well, at least I’ll get to see Clem,’ she grumbled.
‘No, you won’t.’
She looked at him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I have arranged that Clem will leave your homework in the mailbox in the foyer. When you’ve done it, you’ll put it back in the mailbox and he’ll collect it every morning en route to school.’
Her jaw dropped open again.
Harvey Wong frowned. ‘I am not happy about this, Phyll,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the headmaster should be suspending you. I think he is being too harsh.’
‘I’ll say he is.’
‘But I am also not happy with what you did. You know that you have a great responsibility with your magic. There are some things that you are performing with that might be dangerous, and you should show caution with these things. We have discussed this before. What on Earth possessed you to shoot fire at the Cunbrus girl?’
Phyllis thought for a few moments. Then she replied, ‘It was an accident.’
‘An accident?’ Harvey stood and started pacing the room. ‘An accident? How could it be an accident? You shot fire out of your hands!’
Phyllis squirmed; she couldn’t explain how she did that, not even to her father. It was against the magicians’ universal code, to reveal the secrets behind magic.
‘Well?’ Harvey questioned.
‘It just went a bit wrong. It was something new I bought from Thundermallow’s. I didn’t think the flames would shoot as far. I only wanted to use it to have a big finish to the tricks I’d been doing for Selena. I guess I should’ve practised with it a bit more before I performed with it for the first time.’
Harvey stopped pacing. ‘A bit wrong? Yes, it did go a bit wrong. You are very lucky, my girl, it didn’t go a whole lot wrong! You could’ve seriously hurt somebody.’
‘She was being a nuisance,’ said Phyllis.
‘That is beside the point! Nuisance or not, you do not have the right to set fire to people!’
‘I just told you, it was an accident!’
‘So did you mean to singe her plaits?’ he asked. ‘Was that your intention?’
‘No! I just wanted to . . . to startle her. To make her back off a bit.’
‘And now you are suspended,’ her father said, shaking his head slowly. ‘That is a shameful thing, Phyllis Wong. Never has a member of this family been suspended from their school.’
Phyllis stroked Daisy’s ear—the ear that was not permanently folded down. ‘I’m sorry. Really I am. I’ll be more careful next time.’
‘Next time will be a long time coming. Phyllis, I am also grounding you.’
‘No! Ground me? But—’
‘You will not be allowed to leave this building for the next three weeks. The only times I will allow you to go outside is to walk Daisy for her usual morning and afternoon outings. And then you will come straight back here again. Understood?’
Phyllis gave her father a wounded look.
‘And there is another thing,’ he continued. ‘I do not want you doing any magic during the time of your suspension.’
‘What?’ she gasped loudly. Now she felt like she had been punched in the stomach.
Daisy gave a small yelp and hopped up onto her lap.
‘You heard me,’ said Harvey Wong. ‘You will not practise any magic, you will not open a single conjuring book or a pack of cards, you will not pick up a wand or handle any coins for prestidigitation. And you will not go anywhere near Thundermallow’s, do you understand?’
‘But—’
‘No arguments. This is what I have decided. There will be no magic for you
for the next three weeks.’
‘But Dad, if I can’t do any magic, I’ll—’
‘You will not die, Phyllis Wong. You are being melodramatic now.’
‘I wasn’t going to say die. I was going to say go crazy.’
‘That is still being melodramatic. You will not go crazy. It takes more than this to drive somebody crazy. Believe me—I work in the insurance business.’ He looked at his daughter, but not harshly—he could never look harshly at her. Then he said, in a softer voice, ‘I am sorry it has come to this, my girl. But you must trust me when I say to you that I am doing this for your own good.’
‘Huh.’ Phyllis made her lower lip tight so that it wouldn’t tremble in front of him.
‘And now,’ said Harvey, making for the door, ‘I will be in my study. I have some paperwork I must finish before tomorrow morning.’ He stopped at the doorway and turned. ‘Oh, and Phyllis?’
‘Yes?’
‘I hardly need to tell you that the basement of this building is strictly out of bounds for the next three weeks. Understood?’
Phyllis said nothing; she just looked at him, her dark eyes wide and incredulous.
It was only when he had left the room and shut the door behind him that she buried her face in Daisy’s fur and let her bottom lip tremble.
Definition below
A few weeks earlier, Phyllis had come across a new word when she had been reading something for school: mortified. Now she knew exactly what it meant, and she felt that if anyone looked up the word mortified in the dictionary, they would see, as part of the definition, a photo of Phyllis Wong.
She felt a combination of being embarrassed (at the fact that she wouldn’t be at school for the rest of term, and her absence would be a talking point for many of her friends, and probably a gossip point for Leizel Cunbrus and her hanger-onners); of being ashamed (that the dreadful climax of her tricks for Selena had gone so messily wrong) and of being humiliated (by being suspended and grounded and above all, by being forbidden to do any magic).
She felt truly mortified.
Never before had Harvey Wong prevented Phyllis from being what she was: a magician. Being a magician was as natural to her as breathing; it was something that she had been born with, and it had developed over the years as she had found new tricks and effects and illusions to add to her repertoire. (Her father had said to her on more than one occasion that he felt that her love of magic had come directly from her great-grandfather. He had also commented that she had the same smile as Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder!)
Phyllis Wong and the Return of the Conjuror Page 3