Alton Davenport slowly stood up, suddenly aware that every eye in the ballroom was on him, and that, even if none of the other magicians present understood quite what was happening, this was all a whole lot more fun than the usual AGM, and they expected him to continue with the entertainment.
‘Um … yes?’ he admitted, fumbling his hands together, a glint in his eye hoping that this might end with a pitch so that he could sell some more of the damned sticky stuff for double the price now that it had been tested on the lips of a president, no less!
‘Then how do you get it off?’ Cynthia demanded. Alton shrugged.
‘It wears off very quickly. It’s only meant to last for as long as your act. If you want it off sooner, it just needs a solvent. Which I don’t sell. But simple nail-polish remover will do it. Not that I paint my nails,’ he added with such speed and force that he might as well have just come out and said I paint my nails. And who cares if you do, Alton!
Without further delay, Cynthia led President Pickle off the stage and back to her table, where her handbag was waiting, full – thankfully – of all manner of items, including the much-needed, aforementioned nail-polish remover.
‘So …’ Belinda finally spoke. Her arms were crossed defiantly. ‘If President Pickle was unable to say all those horrible things … how did we all come to hear them?’
‘We heard them the same way you and Eric did that amazing telepathy act – and Ron and Nancy Spencer before you!’ Sophie spat. ‘Because President Pickle didn’t say anything just now. Just like how you never said anything in your act either.’
She turned to face the audience.
‘All the time … it was Eric doing the voices,’ Sophie explained. ‘One of the first things Eric said to us was how he’s a rubbish impressionist and an even worse ventriloquist – well, now we know that was all a lie! In fact, he’s brilliant. At both! Last night, when Eric was going round the audience, getting people to show him objects, we were all so focused on watching Belinda that we never saw Eric impersonating Belinda’s voice impeccably, and all without moving his lips, straight into the microphone – such that the voice came out of the speakers. We all assumed it was Belinda speaking because that’s just what we expected to hear. Meanwhile, Belinda stood with her back to the audience so no one could see that her lips were in fact perfectly still.’
‘Well!’ Belinda affected an outraged pose, hands on hips. ‘That is certainly a fine theory, little lady, but oh dear, where to start picking holes in it?’
‘For instance,’ Eric Diva smirked, ‘during the act last night, I was holding a microphone – but just now President Pickle was up onstage and I was down there, in the audi– Hey!’
Because while he was so busy smirking at Sophie, Alex – small Alex, not-usually-noticed-in-public Alex – had come up behind him, reached under the collar of his suit jacket and plucked out …
‘A lapel mic!’ Alex announced. ‘Discreet and hidden!’
‘I couldn’t talk!’ President Pickle suddenly screamed from the back. Cynthia had been dabbing at his mouth with nail-polish remover – which you shouldn’t do unless it’s a real emergency, because apart from anything else it tastes disgusting – and the glue sealing his lips had finally dissolved. He pushed his way back onstage.
‘I couldn’t talk! You robbed me of my voice! My dearest possession, and you corrupted it! You monster!’
He glared at Belinda.
‘Monsters,’ he amended, and then he frowned at the Young Magicians. ‘How on earth did you work it out?’
Sophie smiled. ‘Believe it or not, President Pickle, you were the key to all of this.’
‘Really? How?’ President Pickle almost sounded flattered.
‘We thought you disappeared from a room – when, in fact, you were never really there! We thought it was you because we could hear you but not see you. But – as with some of the best magic tricks – the simplest explanation was that you weren’t there in the first place. It was just Eric practising his imitation of you for this morning’s grand performance.’
President Pickle gaped.
‘I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.’
The Young Magicians smiled at each other. OK, maybe it wouldn’t make sense to someone who didn’t have all the facts, but they all knew to which particular chapter in this whole plot Sophie was referring to.
Then President Pickle whipped back to Eric Diva, with a finger so close to the man’s nose that Eric had to hold his head back to stop the long and stretchy digit from going up a nostril.
‘Oh, and don’t think I haven’t guessed your game!’ the president hissed. ‘Yes, you wanted to replace me, but that was just the start of it, wasn’t it? All those little shortfalls in the accounts, and after we’d been bailed out by Her Majesty last year. All the little things that suddenly didn’t add up again, and I trusted you – trusted you! – when you told me not to worry about the society finances, and the overspending here and there … I see it now! You’ve had your fingers in the pie all along, haven’t you? I knew this convention should be making more profit than it showed. Was I asking too many awkward questions, Eric? Did you want me out of the way so you’d have a clear run at the piggy bank? Was that it?’
For the first time a murmur of discontent rippled round the room. The entertainment was obviously over. Maybe, with a bit of fast talking, Eric Diva could have persuaded them all that it had just been an honest bit of fun. No one had been hurt, he could have said truthfully, and he certainly wasn’t the only one who thought that, one way or another, maybe the Magic Circle could do better in the – you know – presidential area.
Eric sighed, and stepped away from President Pickle’s accusing finger so that he could stand up straight. He tugged on his jacket, straightened his tie – and smiled.
He looked over at Belinda.
‘I think the jig’s up, my dear,’ he said sadly. He held his hands out. Belinda smiled wryly and came over to join him, taking his hands in hers.
‘You may be right, Eric,’ she added with that infamous drawl.
They stood pressed close together, hands clasped, and turned to face the audience as if they were about to do the romantic reprise from the last act of a musical. Eric looked into Belinda’s eyes.
‘We got so close. Old Bill Dungworth dying was just going to be the icing on the cake. I’d have made an absolute steal out of the treasurer’s job!’
‘So much money there for the taking,’ she sighed. ‘And then the ultimate prize – the presidency itself!’
‘But of course they’re all forgetting one thing. President Pickle. The Young Magicians. Everyone.’
Every eye was on him as they all tried to work out what they were forgetting.
‘And what might it be that we’re forgetting?’ President Pickle demanded after an unnecessary amount of time.
‘Don’t try to truss a trusted trickster who can trip a trap,’ said Eric Diva, and he clicked his fingers above his head. The lights flickered, and he and Belinda vanished.
For a moment everyone was staring at the space onstage where they had been, the silhouette of Eric and Belinda’s frames still glowing in their retinas.
Then the Young Magicians dropped to their knees and were feeling round the edges of the trapdoor set into the floor of the stage. It was very well made. The crack was barely large enough to see, let alone dig fingers into.
The moment the trapdoor had opened, a spring mechanism had snapped it shut again. Impressive, thought Jonny. And no doubt that same mechanism was connected to the electrical wiring, to make the lights flicker right on cue – just when Eric and Belinda would have vanished from sight.fn1 The flicker was an important part of the illusion because, in the heads of any watchers, the brain would make an image of them persist when they were already gone, hiding the fact that they had dropped through the floor and making it really seem that they had just – well, gone.
‘No!’ President Pickle screamed, his eyes bulging so muc
h that a good slap on the back could probably have popped them out permanently. ‘Get them back! Track them down! Seek! Locate! Destroy!’
Cynthia was back at his side, calming, soothing.
‘Seek! Locate! Destroy!’ he continued to scream as she led him away for the second time, like he was a well-disciplined Dalek. ‘Seek! Locate! Destroy! Seek! Locate! Destroy …!’
The four friends looked up and their eyes met.
‘Should we follow them?’ Sophie asked.
‘Are you kidding?’ Zack asked. ‘This is what everything’s been building towards … It’s the final chapter! Alex, how do we get this thing open?’
Alex flexed his wrist, and a playing card slid into his hand from his sleeve. He started to work it into the crack, but the space was still too tight and the card just crumpled.
‘OK, we need something stiffer,’ he said. ‘See if anyone’s got a credit card.’
‘On it.’ Zack hurried off the stage into the audience to see if anyone there was willing to lend their credit card to a fourteen-year-old boy with a reputation for being a thief. The other three stood up and looked at the trapdoor thoughtfully.
‘Let’s try to think this through scientifically,’ Jonny said as he leaped up and down on it hopefully.
‘Oh, dead scientific,’ Sophie said with a grin, clearly still on a high from having outed Belinda and Eric so publicly – and once again cementing the Young Magicians’ reputation as no less than the very best in the business at foiling mischievous magical plots.
Jonny smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose it could take both their weight, so it’s unlikely to open just because I’m jumping up and …’
He trailed off and looked up. The other two followed his gaze. Jonny lifted a hand above his head – and suddenly he wasn’t there. The room erupted with further surprise. This AGM was turning out to be an absolute riot!
‘What happened?’ Zack asked as he came hurrying back, explicably credit cardless.
‘Jonny worked it out – somehow,’ said Sophie.
‘He was looking up there and then suddenly … Ah! Got it!’ Alex exclaimed.
He ran to one side of the stage and peered up. There was a tiny red dot of light on the wall about a metre above his head, like someone was shining a laser beam on to it. He looked back across the stage to where it was coming from. Yes, there was a pinprick of red light on the other side too.
‘There’s some kind of beam cutting across the stage,’ Alex said. ‘I bet it triggers the trapdoor mechanism. Remember when Eric clicked his fingers? He held his hand in the air – that’s how he must have set it off.’
Alex reached above his head and waved his hand, but he was the shortest of the Young Magicians and not quite lined up properly.
‘Let me tr–’ Sophie started, and suddenly she was gone too. The now-enraptured crowd went wild!
Alex and Zack looked at each other.
‘Shall we?’ Zack grinned, gesturing towards the space where Sophie had been standing.
Alex went to join him as Zack reached his hand into the air, clicking his fingers just like Eric had done minutes earlier.
Whoosh! Thud! Ouch!
Zack and Alex found themselves tangled together, all the breath knocked out of them, on the padded landing mat that Eric had put out precisely to prevent any broken bones on the hard concrete floor. A laughing Sophie and Jonny helped them to untangle and get up.
‘Welcome to the underworld!’ Jonny said in his best spooky voice.
In fact, they could quickly see it was a room the exact size of the stage, but underneath. Most of it was lined with shelves and cupboards full of the most truly intriguing bits of scenery and stagecraft that they had ever seen, and on any other day they would all want to come back here and explore for hours. But the most important thing now was that neither Belinda nor Eric were here.
A pair of double doors towards the far side of the backstage area hung slightly ajar, almost teasingly. Nothing to see through here. Yeah, I bet!
‘So they could be anywhere in the hotel,’ said Jonny. ‘Come on, we’ll stand more chance of catching them if we split up –’
‘Stop!’ Sophie said suddenly. ‘Think how Eric’s misdirected us up till now. “Oh, look how bad I am at ventriloquism!” No one leaves a door open like that when trying to escape, it’s just too obvious …’
The four friends quickly started to search the room for other ways out, running their hands along the walls, trying to locate a groove or latch that might open up some further hidden passageway.
‘Unless,’ said Zack, wrapping his fingers round the handle of a small cupboard door, ‘they never left in the first place and are still … here!’ He pulled open the door with a mighty tug and almost fell back as a blast of moist sea air blew into his face. The door led straight out on to the slope below the hotel! Well, they’d certainly been there before!
The Young Magicians burst through to the outside, the gale from the previous night still billowing and howling all around them almost as if to say, Welcome back, friends!
‘This way!’ screamed Zack as he made out a faint path in the scraggly seaside grass showing where it had just been trampled.
‘The chase is on!’ Jonny whooped, and he set off, his long legs eating up the distance while the others scrambled up the grassy slope practically on all fours.
Alex had to grit his teeth to pump his legs hard enough to keep up with the others as they fought their way further uphill. The only consolation was that if this were tiring for them, it would almost certainly be tiring for Belinda and Eric too. Plus, as he recalled, Belinda was in high heels and a flowing skirt, and he was almost certain you couldn’t run fast in either of those, and my oh my, if that flowing skirt got caught in the wind, then the lady might even take off like a hot-air balloon! But then, if anyone could predict which way the wind might blow, it would surely be the delectable and brilliant Belinda Vine.
‘Come on! Come on!’
Jonny was waiting for them at the top of the slope, hopping up and down with impatience.
‘Where are they?’ Zack gasped.
‘Can you see them?’ Sophie started scanning the area around them with narrow eyes, her chest heaving up and down. Jonny pointed down the hotel’s drive. In the far distance, he could just make out the grey blur of Eric Diva’s suit and the bright splash of colour that was undoubtedly Belinda’s outfit and hair singing against a backdrop of mid-morning sea fog and drizzle.
‘Well, come on!’ The sight gave Zack a renewed burst of energy and he started to run after them, dodging between the potholes. Sophie reached out to stop him with a hand on his chest.
‘Wait, let’s think this through,’ she said. ‘Where do we think they’re going?’
‘They probably have a getaway car,’ Alex panted, leaning on his knees and fighting to get his breath back. ‘They’d obviously planned an escape route out of the hotel, just in case things went wrong, so they must have a vehicle hidden away somewhere!’
‘What’s down the road?’ Jonny asked. ‘I mean, it’s a long way into town.’
‘The communications post?’ Zack suggested.
‘You think those two would ever choose somewhere so untheatrical?’
And it was then that all four of them remembered something with chilling clarity. The only other place on the road nearby.
‘The creepy funfair!’
Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun – that dank, sinister collection of rusting fences and dilapidated, rotting buildings.
‘The road curves round,’ said Zack excitedly, ‘so if we cut straight across the coastal path we might catch them up!’
‘Well then, why don’t you three get your six little legs pumping and let’s go!’ Jonny laughed.
They hurried off along the top of the cliff, skirting the EXTREMELY DANGEROUS sign, each of them giving it a mocking nod of approval as they went past. Sorry, don’t mind us … again! Coming through! It was easier to see their way ahead this time,
but that only meant you got a better view of how treacherous the path was and how lucky they’d been the previous night not to fall into the fizzing and hissing sea beneath them.
Soon the communications post was looming up ahead. Zack grinned and pointed at a hollow in the path, filled with sludgy brown goo.
‘Hey, Alex! Fancy a quick dip to cool down?’
‘Not funny,’ Alex grunted.
They came over a slight rise and – as if by magic – Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun appeared through the gloom like someone had dropped it from a great height where it had landed, splat, on the sodden moorland. They were just in time to see the fugitives disappear through the gates.
‘Got ’em!’ Jonny exclaimed, catapulting forward ahead of the others.
The throbbing roar of a powerful engine split the air as they ran closer. The rusty gates had been chained shut the last time they saw them, en route to the hotel in the minibus, but now they stood open. The Young Magicians spilled into the funfair and spun round as a motorbike and sidecar came bursting through the walls of one of the booths in an explosion of flying plywood fragments and with a roar as loud as a lion with a hernia.
A helmeted Belinda was at the controls, hunched over the handlebars with her chiffon scarf billowing behind her. Eric was squeezed into the sidecar, knees up round his ears, resplendent in goggles and a beanie. For just a second four young magicians and two older ones locked eyes and time stood still, for the smallest of moments. Justice, thought Sophie.
Then Belinda gave the handlebar throttle a twist, the engine howled, and the bike and sidecar shot forward. Half a tonne of petrol-powered metal versus four soft human bodies would be no contest, and Belinda must have been counting on them working that out for themselves and getting out of the way. Or, even worse, maybe she didn’t care about the actual outcome! The four scattered in four different directions as the bike zoomed ahead towards the open gates.
Zack started waving his arms and a discarded ice-cream cart suddenly began to move into the motorbike’s path. Belinda’s natural and automatic magician’s reaction – how did he do that? – was overridden by the more fundamental and practical reaction of a human being now hurtling at high speed towards a solid obstacle, notably exacerbated by Eric Diva’s terrified sidecar screams, which both hinted at exactly the same thing: Turn!
The Young Magicians and the 24-Hour Telepathy Plot Page 21