Tricky Nick

by Nicholas J. Johnson

  Attach a broken whoopee cushion to a ceiling fan. As the fan spins, air will rush through the suspended cushion and create the sound of unrelenting farts, giving the impression that I am in my room, busily passing wind.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a piano, a blender or even a broken whoopee cushion in my room. Also, I was supposed to be asleep, not vacuuming, piano playing or farting. So instead, I switched on my clock radio and turned it down low enough that my parents could hear it if they walked past my door but not so loud that they would come barging in telling me to ‘turn that racket down’.

  It was just past seven when I slid open my bedroom window, scrambled through and landed in the bushes below. It had been a cloudy day and it was already pitch black outside. Steam puffed from my mouth as I crawled along the side of the house beneath the lounge-room window. I risked a peek inside, where I saw my mother and father watching a boring show about a farm vet. I hated that show. How many times could they watch a guy stick his arm into a cow’s bum?

  I held my breath as I passed beneath the window, trying my hardest not to squash my father’s flowerbed. He might not notice me missing but he’d definitely notice if one single petal of his pansies was out of place.

  I had never done anything like this before. I was not a naughty kid. I mean, I wasn’t a particularly good kid either, I was just too scared of getting into trouble to do anything really bad. Say what you will about the troublemakers of the world, at least they’ve got guts. I had no idea how my parents would react if they caught me sneaking out. Somehow, not knowing what I was in for if I got busted made me even more nervous. My insides hadn’t settled down since the library and now the butterflies were even worse.

  My BMX was beside the house where I’d dumped it. I didn’t have a light for it and my helmet was in the hall by the front door. But I didn’t need them. I was a rebel, a rule breaker. I was one of the troublemakers. I clambered onto my bike and took off into the night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A kick in the BUM

  The Brotherhood of United Magicians met in an old scout hall on the edge of a small park two suburbs from my house. You could tell it was a scout hall because of the large white flagpole out the front. Scouts love a good flag. It must be all the knot-tying and saluting.

  Looking around, I wondered whether I was in the wrong place. It felt too quiet and just a handful of cars dotted the car park. But then I noticed a beaten-up old black van with a rabbit coming out of a hat airbrushed on the back. The words ‘Magic Ian’ were written in big letters on one side.7

  ‘The boy conjurer!’ a voice behind me boomed. I nearly took off up the flagpole but instead spun around on the spot. It was Mr E. That was the second time he’d managed to creep up behind me without me hearing a thing. Maybe he was a sneakier magician than the fire at the library made him seem. He grabbed me by both of my trembling shoulders. ‘I’m so glad you are joining us this evening.’

  He slung an arm around me and began to frogmarch me towards the hall. My instincts kicked in and I pushed back against his grip, but he just shoved me along harder, my feet taking two stumbling steps for every one of his long strides.

  ‘You are a fortuitous young man,’ he continued. ‘This is a rather exclusive institution. Very few people have set foot upon these hallowed grounds.’

  ‘Hallowed grounds?’ I said. ‘You mean the scout hall?’

  ‘Er, yes, the scout hall.’

  He pushed open the double doors and we entered a large open room where a handful of old men sat around a large trestle table under flickering fluorescent lights. On the table in front of them sat piles of paperwork and mismatched mugs of tea.

  The men all looked the same as each other but different too, like a row of Mr Potato Heads with interchangeable features. Between them, the men shared three bald heads, three pairs of glasses, four beards and two moustaches. They were all dressed like they had somewhere better to go right after this, although I doubted they did. They wore polka-dot bow ties and brightly coloured ties, double-breasted jackets that didn’t quite fit and shiny, shiny shoes. They turned to face Mr E and me.

  I guess it should have felt mysterious and awe-inspiring to be about to step over the threshold into this secret society, but seeing them sitting there on plastic chairs in their ridiculous outfits, it also just seemed a bit silly. Before I had a chance to turn and leave, Mr E shoved me forward into the light.

  Light.

  That was the problem.

  I imagined a magic club being a shadowy place filled with dark, mysterious corners. This place was too bright and exposed. I could feel that funny stomach feeling coming back.

  ‘Mr E!’ the baldest of the old men said. ‘You’ve decided to grace us with your presence!’

  ‘My apologies, Jeremy,’ Mr E said. ‘I was delayed.’

  An older man grumbled disapprovingly and leaned over. ‘Now, Mr E, I know you are our newest member, but you know the rules. Magic names only.’

  ‘My apologies once again,’ continued Mr E, bowing in deference to the older magician. ‘We must, of course, maintain the illusion at all times.’ The other magicians rumbled in agreement.

  ‘Here we rely on the use of our professional pseudonyms,’ Mr E whispered in my ear. ‘Real names are verboten.’8

  Mr E turned back to the assembled magicians. ‘Allow me to introduce Magic Ian, Cosmo and Aces O’Connor,’ Mr E said, pointing to each man in turn. ‘And, at the end, that’s Horatio T. Zephyr the Third.’

  The third? Did that mean there had been at least two other people called Horatio T. Zephyr before this guy?

  ‘And this is?’ said Horatio, gesturing towards me with his cup of tea.

  ‘Nick,’ I responded.

  ‘Your stage name,’ Mr E whispered, pushing me forward.

  My stage name? I’d never even been on stage, so why would I have a stage name?

  ‘Nick . . . Trick,’ I mumbled. ‘No wait, Tricky Nick.’

  The men murmured their approval and banged their fists on the trestle table in front of them. I smiled. That was a pretty good name to come up with off the top of my head. Way better than Horatio T. Zephyr the Third.

  ‘An excellent choice,’ said Aces O’Conner. ‘And I’m sure he will make a fine addition to the Brotherhood.’

  ‘Now, now,’ chided Horatio. ‘Let’s not be too hasty. There is protocol to address. There are inductions, interrogations and initiations to be considered.’

  ‘Don’t be so pompous,’ said Magic Ian, laughing and shaking his head so that his moustache quivered. ‘Our club is sorely in need of new members.’

  ‘But we must adhere to due process,’ insisted Horatio.

  ‘Well, come in, boy, tell us about yourself,’ said Magic Ian.

  The room was hot and I took off my jumper as I slid onto one of the hard chairs. Mr E took a seat next to me. The men leaned forward, smiling expectantly. This was getting really weird. It wasn’t what I’d imagined a magic club to be like at all. In the books I’d seen at the library, magic clubs were held in giant mansions filled with hidden doors and secret passages. The only thing remotely like that in the whole room was a large bookcase on a far wall. The bookcase sat inside a giant cage, its doors open, a padlock hanging off one side. Inside were rows and rows of magic books. At least ten times what I’d seen at the library. A goldmine of magic secrets and mysteries. I got why they needed the cage. The last thing they wanted was a bunch of scouts going through their secrets when they weren’t there.

  ‘I want to be . . . I mean . . . I am a magician,’ I said. I wasn’t sure about these guys but I really wanted to get my hands on those books.

  ‘And what type of illusions do you favour?’ Cosmo asked, fiddling with the small pair of round glasses on the tip of his nose.

  ‘Indeed, what genre of the magical arts attracts you?’ Horatio added.

 
‘Are you a cardician?’ tried Aces O’Connor.

  ‘Or a mentalist?’

  ‘Or do you prefer the grand tradition of stage illusions?’

  I didn’t want to admit I only knew one trick.

  ‘Coins?’ I finally said.

  The old magicians murmured in approval. This was clearly the correct answer.

  ‘A budding Bobo then.’

  ‘Bobo?’ I said. ‘Wasn’t he a clown?’

  ‘That’s Bozo,’ Mr E explained. ‘J.B. Bobo is the greatest coin magician who ever lived.’

  ‘Bah,’ said Magic Ian. ‘He is overrated. Slydini is the finest.’

  ‘Slydini?’ scoffed Aces O’Connor. ‘A hack.’

  While the magicians argued, Mr E leaned over again. ‘Show them your little coin trick.’

  I cleared my throat and stood up. He gave me a reassuring smile, but I swear there was the hint of a smirk in it. I reached into my pockets to grab a coin. I didn’t have one. Rule number one of coin magic: always make sure you have a coin on you.

  ‘Can somebody please lend me a coin?’

  The magicians fell silent. Cosmo reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick silver coin. He rolled it across his knuckles, over his little finger and into his fist. I know now that it’s called a Steeplechase Flourish. If you want to master the art of rolling a coin over your knuckles like Cosmo, it’s best to start with a nice heavy coin. Play around with a few until you have the one that is right for you.

  Hold the coin at the bottom of your index finger with your thumb like this.

  Slide the coin over the bottom section of your index finger with your thumb, lifting up your middle finger a little as you do. Everything will happen in the section of fingers right where your fingers join your hands.

  Slip the coin under the middle finger and bring it down so that the coin is now wedged between your index and middle finger. Don’t let it slide too far down between your fingers.

  Tilt your hand a little and loosen your grip so the coin falls towards your ring finger. This is the hardest part and the moment when you will one hundred per cent without a doubt drop the coin. Luckily, the dog will now be hiding after the last coin trick ended with him getting a coin up the nose so you don’t have to worry about hitting him in the head. I reckon you should try it standing over your bed. The coin won’t fall as far and it won’t roll away.

  Lift up your ring finger and let the coin fall beneath it. Now push down on the coin with your ring finger, levering the coin up just like you did with your middle finger.

  You are now going to perform the same action with your little finger but, rather than flipping it over your little finger, you’ll let it slide between your ring and little finger and onto your thumb, which in turn slides it back along your fingers to where you started.

  Do you see what happened there? You went to a lot of effort and energy to get a coin to flip over each of your knuckles one by one only to have the coin end up where it started. There was no magic. No miracle. No gasps of amazement. It was just showing off.

  And that is exactly what Cosmo was doing.

  He spun the coin across the table with just enough force so it stopped in front of me, turning round and round until it fell flat with an intimidating clunk. The coin looked giant compared to the tiny coins I’d been using. There was a huge eagle holding a shield on the face of the coin.

  ‘An American half-dollar,’ he said. ‘The coin of choice of any self-respecting coin man.’

  I picked up the coin with shaking hands and placed it on my finger, preparing to click the fingers of my other hand. The coin wobbled unsteadily. It was way too heavy for my fingers to shoot it up my sleeve. This was going to end in disaster.

  ‘Attempting a little sleeving, are we?’ Horatio jeered, and I blushed. Why did I think I could possibly fool a room full of magicians? They could tell how I was going to do the trick before I’d even done it. ‘Because I think you’ll find it a little difficult without—’

  ‘Be quiet,’ snapped Magic Ian. ‘Let the boy make his own mistakes.’

  A fraction of a second before I clicked my fingers, I realised what they were talking about.

  I wasn’t wearing long sleeves.

  I’d taken off my baggy jumper when I’d stepped inside the warm hall. There was no way I could make the coin vanish wearing only a t-shirt. I went to pull my hand away but my fingers had other ideas. They were already clicking.

  The heavy coin shot backwards, past my bare forearm and my elbow. I heard a quiet thunk as it bounced off the chair behind me. The coin flew up and over my head, towards the assembled magicians, whose eyes were still glued to my hands.

  Please don’t hit anyone, please don’t hit anyone.

  I watched the coin tumble slowly towards Cosmo’s forehead. In the most miraculous stroke of luck ever, it missed his head and fell, with a plop, into the pocket of his jacket.

  I stared at the magicians, waiting for them to laugh at me, to mock me, to kick me out of the club.

  Instead, they burst into applause.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Magic Ian. ‘Did you just vanish a coin up short sleeves? I’ve never seen such a thing.’

  ‘No . . .’ I replied warily. Then it dawned on me. The magicians had been watching my hands so closely, they hadn’t noticed the coin bounce off the chair and land in Cosmo’s pocket. Even Cosmo hadn’t noticed.

  Magicians call this ‘misdirection’. The magician makes you look at one thing so that you don’t notice the real secret. Your brain can only focus on a tiny number of things at any moment. We miss a huge amount of stuff that is happening right under our noses.

  I had just used dumb luck and misdirection to make a coin vanish right in front of the eyes of four professional magicians. Five if you count Mr E, who was looking vaguely annoyed that I had succeeded.

  ‘It’s not up my sleeve,’ I said.

  ‘Then where is it?’ demanded Horatio.

  ‘It’s in Cosmo’s pocket,’ I said, pointing across the table.

  Cosmo laughed and reached into his jacket pocket. As his fingers touched the coin, his face screwed up in annoyance. He slowly pulled it out and held it up.

  ‘How in the world . . .?’

  The magicians stared at the coin in Cosmo’s hand and then at me.

  ‘It’s a different coin,’ Horatio said finally. Cosmo shook his head.

  ‘It’s the exact same one,’ he exclaimed. ‘A 1963 Kennedy half-dollar. This one has a little dent on the edge.’

  Cosmo slid the coin down the table to where Horatio and I were seated. Horatio leaned forward to peer at the coin, his arms crossed, but he didn’t pick it up. I grabbed it myself and turned it over in my fingers.

  ‘Then Cosmo is in on it,’ said Horatio. ‘You’re a stooge, a confederate.’

  ‘A stooge?!’ Cosmo said. ‘How dare you!’

  A lot of magicians hate the idea of having someone in the audience who is secretly in on the trick. They think it’s cheating. Which is ridiculous because all magic is cheating.

  The magicians started talking over one another, throwing around theories and accusations, desperately trying to figure out how I’d performed the miracle. They weren’t used to being fooled and they didn’t like it one bit.

  The only thing magicians hate more than being fooled is being upstaged. Which might have been a big part of why they were so annoyed about what happened next.

  There was a loud bang and a flash of light.

  Everyone turned to look at the doorway. The scout hall’s double doors had been flung open to the night. Smoke billowed through the doorway as if from another world. The magicians fell silent, their mouths open. As the smoke cleared, I could make out the shape of someone standing in the doorway.

  It was a girl, about my age, holding a small silver briefcase in one ha
nd and a slick black-and-silver magic wand in the other.

  ‘Is this the magic club?’

  Magic Ian is a terrible name for a magician. It’s like a superhero called Super Brian. Wait. Magic Ian. Magician. Ohhh, I get it now. Never mind.

  Verboten means forbidden. Why say verboten when no one knows what it means and we have a perfectly good word like forbidden? Personally I think the word verboten should be verboten.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Interrupting the story for a quick word about girls

  Magicians have not been very nice to women in the past.

  It isn’t fair but it is true.

  For a very long time, almost every woman you’d see in a magic show was the assistant. The job of the assistant was to look very pretty and wear very silly costumes and do all of the thankless jobs. Assistants got locked in boxes and stabbed with swords. They got sawn in half. They were made to vanish and float. They were stretched and twisted.

  Obviously, these were all tricks and nobody got hurt. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bunch of very talented women not getting credit for all their hard work. They would end up hidden in a secret compartment in a box trying not to smell their own farts. Meanwhile, the magician was on stage getting all the applause.

  Don’t get me wrong, there have always been great women magicians. Adelaide Herrmann could catch six bullets fired by firing squad. Celeste Evans used to produce white dove after white dove without needing to wear a jacket or even sleeves. And Lady Frances only stopped performing magic so she could join the army and fight in World War II.

  But despite all these amazing women, magicians were pretty rude to women both on and off the stage. One of the biggest magic clubs in the world, The Magic Circle, didn’t even let women join until 1991. They only got rid of this rule after a teenage girl dressed up as a boy and tricked them into making her a member.