Then Victoria drew the hanky across her outstretched hand – and suddenly there was a life-size baby doll perched there, way too big to have been cached up her sleeve, or folded in the hanky, or any of the other ways the stunned Young Magicians could think of making something appear from nowhere. Sophie took an instant vow never to pre-judge anyone ever again. The whole meek-and-mild, mousy look had been the very best weapons-grade misdirection concocted by a pair of absolute masters.
‘Hot under these stage lights, isn’t it, dear?’ Clive said. He produced a glass of water out of thin air. ‘Water? Or …’ he added, ‘something a bit stronger?’ He waved a hand over the glass, and the water became red wine.
‘No thank you, darling,’ Victoria said reprovingly. ‘You know I’m trying to cut back.’
She wagged a forbidding finger at the reddish liquid, which obediently turned back to water again.
It went on. Clive presented a wicker basket to the audience. Victoria plucked five small loaves out of thin air, one by one, and juggled them – well, jiggled them about is perhaps a more accurate description – while Clive got President Pickle to verify that the basket was empty. Then Victoria tossed the loaves one by one into the basket. Clive swung the basket at the audience and a whole cloud of loaves flew out towards the tables. Jonny caught one with a long arm, and broke it into four pieces so they could all taste a bit. It was definitely a small loaf, brown, wholemeal, slightly seeded. Very nice actually!
Clive celebrated the applause by holding out a hand and twirling Victoria round, a bit too vigorously. Victoria’s hand slid out of his and she staggered away across the stage with a small shriek.
‘Sorry!’ he cried loudly. ‘My hands are just a bit sweaty in this heat. Can you think of a way to keep us together?’
‘Oh, I think so,’ she agreed, producing a large hammer and a six-inch nail from nowhere.
‘No!’ Jonny whispered. ‘Absolutely. No. Way!’
Victoria and Clive held their left hands out, flat, one on top of the other. Clive took the nail and held it point down above his hand. Victoria hefted the hammer and gave the nail a single, solid thwack. The nail passed bloodlessly through their combined hands. They tried to tug their hands apart, just to show that they really were joined together by the medium of carpentry. A murmur of surprise and respect rippled round the crowd.
‘Is that … a trick?’ a boggled Alex asked, uncertain of whether he’d witnessed miracle or madness.
The overzealous hymn came to a hollering climax as the couple formed the sign of the cross with their combined bodies. Then, without even appearing to try, the nail was gone and they were separated.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been Resurrection. Thank you, God bless and goodnight!’ Clive announced, and they left the stage together to the silence that only comes when the audience is too stunned to applaud.
But then the applause did come – a bit determinedly from Cynthia at first, but then spreading round the room. The Young Magicians joined in enthusiastically. Cynthia looked around, encouraging every youngster to applaud, though even she – you could tell – was somewhat weirded out by the offering! Well, at least it was original, thought Cynthia, sighing.
Victoria gave the Young Magicians a wink, a far cry from the little mousy figure that had begun the show, as she and Clive passed them en route to the drinks table at the back of the room. Jonny winked back.
A slightly dazed Eric Diva took to the podium again.
‘Wow … Well! What a way to start a show, right? But now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, from the deepest, southernmost depths of the Deep South, the extraordinary mistress of deception, I give you Mizz … Belinda … Vi-i-i-ne!’
He stepped back from the podium and led the clapping as Belinda swept forward, like she was about to accept her Academy Award, in a delectable, shimmering, rainbow silk-and-chiffon outfit. Sophie usually paid as much attention to fashion as a platypus pays to nuclear physics, but even she had to admit Belinda had got it exactly right. Look glam at your first appearance, then dial it up even higher when it really matters.
Belinda got to the podium and leaned forward slightly to breathe into the microphone.
‘Hi, everybody, how are you doing?’ Belinda’s gentle Southern tones trickled round the room like sap filling the grooves of an ageing tree. ‘It is so lovely to be here, in the oldest hotel in the world with some of the oldest folk in the world – I presume!’
Everyone laughed. It was impossible not to be charmed by the hypnotic Belinda Vine. Even President Pickle cracked a brief but genuine smile.
Eric Diva was halfway back to his seat when she called his name.
‘Oh, Eric!’ She pronounced it Ay-uh-rick. ‘Don’t sit down yet!’ (yay-uht!) She picked up a roving microphone from the podium and waggled it. It was a large, lollipop type with a massive bulb on the end. ‘I have a little job for you!’
Eric Diva looked around as if to say, ‘Who? Little old me?’ Like anyone ever had to cajole him into popping back up onstage.
Sophie’s eyes narrowed. She remembered their brief meeting in the Dealers’ Hall earlier. Was this the set-up they had been planning? Surely Belinda was more sophisticated than that? Or perhaps Eric Diva was just such a bad actor that even when he was doing something perfectly normal he had the air of the oiliest of well-greased stooges.
‘Fix,’ murmured Zack, clearly having the same thought. He pulled a pair of theatre glasses from out of thin air and studied the two onstage carefully.
‘Now,’ Belinda said, while unclipping the podium mic from its stand and handing it to Eric so they both could be heard, ‘Eric, I would like you to go round this room from table to table …’
The Young Magicians looked at each other, wide-eyed, as Belinda described what Eric Diva was to do. To their utter delight, it sounded a lot like the Minds in Harmony mind-reading act of Ron and Nancy Spencer that Sophie had described earlier! Wow – had Belinda worked out the secret? If anyone was going to get to the bottom of such a deceptive plot, Sophie thought happily, it would be the brilliant Belinda Vine.
Eric Diva looked a little baffled as he stepped down off the stage and went to the nearest table. He began with President Pickle and Cynthia, while Belinda pointedly turned her back on the audience, the wire from her microphone trailing gracefully, threading round her fingers like an overly familiar snake. Sophie made even more mental notes. Somehow Belinda managed to keep all eyes trained on her, even with her back turned.
‘OK,’ Eric Diva said into his mic, a little uncertainly. ‘Mr President, do you have any small object about your person?’
President Pickle felt inside his pocket and handed something over. Eric Diva held it up so that anyone close enough could see. He put the mic to his mouth.
‘OK, Belinda, President Pickle has shown me … what?’
All eyes fell on the rear of Belinda Vine – so to speak.
‘Hmm, let’s see …’
Belinda began to pace about on the stage, her head bowed, always with her back to the audience. The Young Magicians studied the back of the stage carefully from where they were sitting. It was all curtains – no mirrors, nothing reflective she could have used to see what was happening behind her, no hidden cameras, no earpieces.
‘It’s … a pen!’
There was polite applause, but everyone had seen a stooge act before.
‘What kind, Belinda?’ Eric Diva asked.
Another pause while she paced about a bit more.
‘A … biro.’ And then, ‘Red.’ And, ‘Slightly chewed at one end, and there’s a crack in the plastic near the point,’ she finished.
The applause was louder now – some members still evidently recovering from what they’d witnessed during Resurrection. How on earth was she managing it? The applause grew louder still as Eric Diva, with increasing bravado, went from table to table, picking objects that Belinda identified flawlessly, even down to the smallest detail.
The Young Magicians watche
d in a kind of daze, though by now Sophie was smiling from ear to ear. So what if she had spotted something going on between Eric and Belinda? Even if he was in on it, whatever the secret code between them was, she had never guessed it would be as good as this! This really was Ron and Nancy’s act, brought up to date for the modern age.
Zack had his face jammed into the theatre glasses. Something in what he was seeing didn’t add up.
‘Are we absolutely sure everyone else here isn’t a stooge?’ Jonny asked, half joking, but clearly at a loss for any other explanation. Sophie shook her head.
‘It’s more than that,’ she said. ‘There’s lots of ways you can appear to read minds using a stooge, but the stooge always has to know what’s coming next.fn2 This is just too random. And too quick.’
OK, she knew from the Dealers’ Hall that Belinda and Eric had possibly planned something – but how could they have planned all this?
‘Size six!’ announced Belinda’s voice. They looked up. Belinda had guessed a woman’s shoe size, based on what was printed inside it, so that it was only visible when the woman took it off and gave it to Eric Diva to hold.
‘Or …’ Sophie paused, then grinned. ‘There’s the way I did it when Belinda was thinking of the false tee–’
‘Hardy Amies.’ Belinda’s voice interrupted them again.
‘Impossible!’ Zack squeaked. ‘That man tweaked his jacket back just enough for Eric Diva, and him only, to see the maker’s label inside.’ He peeled the theatre glasses from his face. He had been looking so hard that, when he took them away, he had little red rings around his eyes like he was wearing a thin set of scarlet spectacles.
‘But there was no stooge when you did your trick with Belinda. It was just you and B–’
Sophie grinned at him and the penny dropped.
‘Oh wow!’ Zack breathed. It wasn’t often that Zack was genuinely awestruck, but it happened now. ‘Belinda was a stooge?’
Sophie nodded happily. She dug in her pocket and produced the nail-writer.
‘I made her an instant stooge. Remember I gave her the napkin?’ she asked.
Wheels turned in the boys’ heads as they worked it out.
‘You wrote false teeth on it?’ Zack asked. Sophie nodded.
‘And that’s what she drew. When she underlined the drawing, she was crossing out my words. She’s a pro – she knew exactly what we were both doing and she helped me out! And that’s what makes her the best!’
Jonny whistled.
‘No wonder you looked terrified!’ He held his hands up together, palms out, and lowered them again like he was worshipping. ‘I bow down. I really do. That kind of boldness takes nerves of steel.’
Alex was still watching the show.
‘But then what about this?’ he said. ‘This is almost … real!’ The four of them looked on, hopelessly baffled. It was a wonderful feeling.
Sophie’s mind was whirring so much that she barely noticed that Steve and Jane had now taken to the stage with their infamous Ying and Yang act, which was as colourful as it was horrendous and repetitive. And that was before Steve even opened his mouth and attempted his undoubtedly dubious ‘foreign’ accent.
She still hadn’t worked out Belinda’s method a few tricks later, even when the first act of the second half came on: live from Moscow … Konveyyernaya Lyenta, which apparently translated as Conveyor Belt, and was a truly amazing juggling act with three men and three women: tennis balls, skittles, drumsticks, rings and knives, all flying through the air from hand to hand, left to right on top, right to left below, switching direction with two of the women at either end.
But that’s as much as Sophie took in, still in a daze. How. Had. Belinda. Done. It?
Then there was the ‘Nothing Up My Sleeve’ act, which – depending on precisely where you were sitting – was either made easier or a whole lot harder by the fact that the magician was wearing a T-shirt.
Come on, Sophie’s mind raced. How, how, how?
Then it was the Levitate-Several-Members-of-the-Audience trick, which would have been a fitting finale had it not so obviously turned out to be the Levitate-Several-Pre-selected-Members-of-the-Council trick. And only the thin ones – minus President Pickle, who now would have been an obvious candidate for this, but who had refused to come onstage on multiple occasions over the course of the evening, obviously not wanting to make himself any kind of further target.
It was a little before 9 p.m. when the Gala Show ended. The last of the applause died away as the audience gradually shuffled to its feet, many of them already grumbling about the quality of the seating, how it was already time for bed, or about the price of the nibbles – there were nibbles? Where were the nibbles? – or the loudness of the playout music, or the … sorry, what was that?
‘Well, if they’re all going to bed …’ Zack said, rubbing his hands together.
‘It leaves the field clear for us to do our thing!’ Jonny immediately saw where Zack’s mind had gone.
Cynthia was picking her way through the crowd towards them. The Young Magicians turned to face her, smiling, hopeful, awaiting her go-ahead for them to launch some through-the-night investigation.
But Cynthia waved her hands to gather all of the junior members together.
‘Now then, all of you need to be back in your rooms by nine p.m., please. No exceptions!’
Everyone’s faces fell. Cynthia gently waved down the protesting chorus of ‘buts’ and … well, it was a hundred per cent ‘buts’.
‘We’ve another exciting day tomorrow,’ she assured them, motioning for them to leave.
With every adult eye in the room on them, the Young Magicians (and indeed all the lower-case young magicians) didn’t have a choice. They had to shuffle towards the exits, mingling with the stream of grey faces intent on either hitting the sack or hitting the hotel bar, which – for some – amounted to almost exactly the same thing.
Cynthia had started to make her own way out. She turned ever so slightly to the right, signalling surreptitiously for the Young Magicians to hold back. Hope beat in their hearts. Cynthia knew President Pickle wanted them to help. Maybe she was going to give them permission to stay up!
‘Well,’ she said cheerfully, ‘I hope you’ll make the fullest use of this opportunity …’
They beamed happily back at her.
‘… to have a really good think about the clues so far. You can tell me what you’ve come up with in the morning. Don’t stay up too late chatting about it!’
Four faces fell.
‘B-but … we’d like to take the chance to look for clues now,’ Zack said. ‘You know – having a good poke about?’
She smiled sadly. ‘You still have the letters? Then you know everything I do. I’m sure you were all paying attention during the show, so maybe you saw something else that will fall into place if you all put your heads together. But poke about? I’m sorry but no. You have to remember that all of you here – especially you four – are the future of magic, and are my responsibility. And, for that reason, I must absolutely insist that you stay in your rooms while you do your thinking. It’s safest there.’
Cynthia was torn, but she would no sooner put her junior members in danger – even if it meant saving her dearly beloved – than she would adequately perform a buzzsaw illusion.
Their jaws all dropped like someone had released a pin in their mouths.
‘But … OK.’ Sophie made a decision. Cynthia had told them what she knew. It was only fair to do the same in return. ‘Cynthia, we found the latest note, torn up. Um, in reception …’
‘Oh, that one.’ Cynthia’s face took on a very unusual expression for Cynthia: anger. ‘And you worked out what it meant?’
‘It meant someone was planning to slip him cyanide at the banquet!’ Jonny exclaimed.
Cynthia nodded.
‘Exactly. And they failed, clearly, as Edmund is still alive. So they’re just going to be even more determined, aren’t they? We’ve had t
hreats, we’ve had flying swords … If it was dangerous before, it’s extra dangerous now. Yes, I wanted him to ask you four to find out who might be behind these lurid letters – but not to put yourselves at risk! At this point, I’m sorry, you really have to leave us adults to deal with it. We’d be irresponsible if we involved you any more. Steve and Jane here are going to escort you all to your floor, and will patrol to make extra sure that you stay there. I know you want to help, but I can’t let you endanger yourselves. Goodnight anyway, and sweet dreams!’
Dejected, the four friends followed after the other junior members, while Steve and Jane brought up the rear like pantomime police officers.
‘Never mind, little’uns!’ Steve called out cheerfully behind them. ‘I remember all the high jinks I used to get up to when I was your age, and look at me now! If that isn’t a life lesson, I don’t know what is … Off to bed now!’
He started to burble about all the jinks he had got up to – high, low and several intermediate – when he was a lad. The four friends made eyes at each other without him seeing. Steve had no idea what was at stake here.
‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be great!’ Deanna breezed cheerfully, slipping her arm through Sophie’s and – unusually – picking up on Sophie’s crestfallen look. ‘We can have a girls’ night in together! I’ve got so much to talk about!’
‘Wonderful,’ said Sophie, trying to sound like she meant it and that her hopes for the night weren’t in fact quite the opposite of a girly night in with Deanna.
‘Maybe I can help you work on your … you know – your overall look. Because it’s a bit … all over the place, isn’t it?’ Deanna added with such sincerity it could almost be taken as the nicest thing anyone had ever said about anyone. Ever.
Alex, Zack and Jonny slowly started to edge away, fully expecting a small mushroom cloud to appear over Blackpool’s neighbouring regions any moment now and wondering how much shelter they would get if they just hid behind, say, Jane. (That OK, Jane?)
Sophie gazed sorrowfully into Deanna’s eyes.
‘Oh, Deanna, that is so kind! But aren’t you feeling a little bit … sleepy?’
The Young Magicians and the 24-Hour Telepathy Plot Page 13