Tricky Nick

by Nicholas J. Johnson

  We were safe here, for now.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ I asked, having just got my breath back. ‘And no more stalling.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Trixie smiled wearily. ‘Aren’t you having fun?’

  ‘Fun?’ I shouted. ‘How can I be having fun? You’ve stolen from the Brotherhood of United Magicians, my teacher and that joke shop. You’ve set off smoke bombs and fire alarms. And why was everything going crazy in there? Are you psychic or something?’

  I had seen a scary movie on TV a few months before about a girl who could start fires with the power of her mind. Maybe Trixie was someone like that.

  ‘No,’ Trixie said, the smile fading from her face. ‘That was caused by gravitational fluctuations.’

  ‘Gravitational what?’

  I was angry now, hysterical. If I wasn’t so angry I would have cried.

  ‘Please don’t be upset,’ Trixie said. ‘I promise, everything is going to be fine.’

  ‘I thought you said “fine” just meant “terrible but I don’t want to say so”!’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘That was a bad choice of words. But everything is going to be okay.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I shouted back. ‘I could get in big trouble because of you. This whole thing is insane!’

  Trixie grabbed hold of a branch of a tree that hung just above her head and pulled herself up. She sat on the branch, one hand resting on the tree trunk. I sighed and clambered up after her and she made room, moving along the branch and steadying herself against the branch above her.

  From here, we could see the whole city stretched out in front of us.

  ‘If I tell you, do you promise you won’t freak out?’ Trixie said in a quiet voice.

  Warning: Don’t ask people to promise not to freak out. That just makes them want to freak out even more.

  ‘Why would I freak out?’ I said.

  Trixie took a deep breath. ‘It’s not that I’m predicting the future. Like that thing with the plane. It’s more like I’m predicting the past.’

  I knew it. She was crazy.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said. She wasn’t making any sense. You can’t predict the past. Knowing something that has already happened isn’t predicting, it’s just remembering.

  ‘Didn’t you think it was weird that I knew so much about you?’ she said. ‘That I knew what you were going to do? Where you were going to be? I knew you’d be at the Brotherhood of United Magicians that night. I knew Mrs Dorbel was going to confiscate that book from you. I even knew exactly what number you were going to think of. Sixteen million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand—’

  ‘—four hundred and six,’ I finished.

  ‘Right,’ she agreed. ‘But I didn’t know all this because I could predict the future.’ She stopped and took a deep breath. ‘I knew it because I’m from the future.’

  Okay. Let’s just stop right here so I can remind you of two things. First, I told you this book was going to take twists and turns and you’d be scratching your head wondering how it could all be true. So don’t say I didn’t warn you. Second, you chose to read this book. So if it’s all too weird and confusing for you, you can put it down now. But if you think you can handle the truth, then you can keep on reading. I promise you, things are going to get even more exciting (and weirder).

  ‘What do you mean you’re from the future,’ I said. ‘What, like Doctor Who?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ she agreed. ‘I’m from the future. Thirty-five years into the future, to be exact.’

  I looked down at the ground below me and wondered if I should jump and make a run for it. I had known Trixie was crazy but I didn’t think she was this nuts.

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Is this a trick?’ I tried. ‘Like a joke?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s the truth. I travelled thirty-five years into the past to make sure you become a magician.’

  ‘Me?’ I scoffed. ‘Why would it be important that I become a magician? Am I some big famous magician in the future?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say famous . . .’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Do I invent a new magic trick?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Am I any good as a magician?’

  ‘You’re fine,’ she said, and the look on her face showed that she instantly regretted her choice of words again. ‘I mean, you’re not terrible.’

  Not terrible? Did she really expect me to believe that she was a time traveller who had travelled from thirty-five years into the future to make sure that I became a ‘not terrible’ magician?

  ‘Look, I know it’s hard to believe,’ Trixie said, rocking back and forth on the branch. ‘But I can prove it.’

  She let go of the branch above her and, gripping with her legs, she fell backwards and somersaulted to the ground. She took a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. Then she stopped, as if she’d remembered something.

  ‘Did your dad tell you about the magic show?’

  ‘Magic show?’ I asked, scrambling down the tree after her.

  ‘Next weekend?’ she explained. ‘There’s a magician booked to perform at your school fete next weekend.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I muttered, looking at the paper in her hands. I hadn’t given it much thought.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘That means everything is on schedule.’

  She handed me the piece of paper. I unfolded it. It was a front-page newspaper article with the headline: BUS IN POND AFTER FREAK LIGHTNING STRIKE.

  ‘Tonight, there’s going to be a big storm,’ Trixie said. ‘A bolt of lightning is going to hit the 333 bus and it’s going to crash into that giant pond in the middle of the roundabout in town. Everyone will be okay but the driver is going to be attacked by a family of ducks.’

  The photo accompanying the article showed the front end of the bus submerged in the pond while the back half stuck in the air. The picture had been taken at night and you could see the bus headlights lighting up the water. Tomorrow’s date was clearly printed at the top.

  ‘But how could you possibly have this, if it hasn’t happened yet?’ I said.

  ‘Because I’m from the future, remember?’ she replied gently, handing me the piece of newspaper. ‘Where I’m from, it has happened. Look, I’ve written an address on the back. If you believe me, meet me there at ten o’clock tomorrow night.’

  I looked down at the newspaper article in my hand. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  An Act of God

  Dad picked me up from the front of the shopping centre half an hour later. Neither the firefighters nor Mr E were anywhere to be seen. Even so, I hid behind the bus shelter until I recognised our apple-green station wagon pull up. Dad honked the horn and I jumped into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t come in with you,’ he said. ‘But one of our lab technicians mislabelled a whole tray of metamorphic rocks as sedimentary. Can you believe it?’

  Actually, I could believe it. In an unbelievable day, that was the most believable thing I had heard. Even so, I smiled as Dad pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ I asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I ask you a stupid question?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with stupid questions. It’s stupid answers that get you into trouble.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible to travel through time?’

  Dad was smart. He was a scientist, after all. If anyone could help me figure out whether Trixie was telling the truth about being from the future, it was him.

  ‘Is it possible?’ he said. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Really?’ That wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

  ‘I mean,
theoretically,’ he corrected.

  Theoretically is one of those annoying words that means ‘maybe but probably not’. Theoretically, your parents might take you to Disneyland for your birthday and buy you a lion you can ride to school. But they probably won’t.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed.

  ‘You’d need to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light or how to fly through a black hole or create a wormhole,’ Dad explained. ‘It’s not likely to actually happen anytime soon. We don’t have the technology yet.’

  ‘But maybe in the future?’ I said hopefully.

  Dad thought about it and shook his head.

  ‘Probably not in the future either, now that I think about it.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If time travel exists in the future, wouldn’t we have met a time traveller by now?’

  I didn’t eat any dinner that night and went to bed early. If Mum and Dad were suspicious, they didn’t show it. It took me hours to fall asleep and, even then, I didn’t sleep well. I kept waking up, switching on my light and unfolding and refolding the newspaper article.

  Time travel? Really?

  I wanted amazing things to happen to me. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to be a magician. But this was too amazing. This didn’t feel safe. Mr E didn’t seem like an incompetent magician who liked using long words anymore. He seemed dangerous. Maybe that’s why people like magic so much. It’s a chance to have your mind blown while still feeling like you’re in control. At the end of the show the lights come up, the rabbit goes back in the hat and everyone gets to go home.

  But someone travelling through time wasn’t really the same as magic, was it? It was more like science. I mean, it was mind-blowing, earth-shattering, unbelievable science, but it was still science.

  Maybe that’s all real magic was. Science we’ve never seen before.

  I folded up the newspaper article for the umpteenth time and put it on my bedside table. My watch was sitting there, the same watch Trixie had stolen from me the first day we met. I picked it up and strapped it to my left wrist. I grabbed my wrist just like the Encyclopedia of Amateur Magic had instructed and tried to undo the watch strap with my thumb. Every time I tried, my thumb would catch and the band would slip back into place. I tore off my watch and threw it across the room into a pile of dirty laundry.

  Everything was just too hard and too impossible to even think about.

  Sometime in the night, a storm rolled in, just like Trixie had said it would. Lightning struck, filling my bedroom with light. Thunder boomed, shaking the walls. It rained so hard that the gutters filled up and overflowed like a waterfall in front of my bedroom window.

  I stuck my head under my pillow and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. I didn’t want Trixie to be telling the truth. If she was telling the truth then I would have to go to the address she’d given me. If she was lying or crazy, I could just ignore her and go on with my life.

  I don’t know what time the storm finally stopped but it must have been before the newspapers went to print because, when I woke the next morning, there was a story about the storm on the front page of the paper.

  ‘Rice Bubbles or cornflakes?’ Mum said, holding up both boxes. I grabbed the newspaper from the table and stared at the story in front of me.

  BUS IN POND AFTER FREAK LIGHTNING STRIKE.

  I pulled out the article Trixie had given me and unfolded it next to the paper on the kitchen table. Every word was the same. The photo too. The only difference was that Trixie’s article was yellow and faded compared to the one that had arrived on our doorstep that morning. How could Trixie possibly have done this? Did she have a friend who worked at the newspaper? Had she crashed a bus? Could she control the weather? Every possible solution I thought of just led to more questions.

  ‘Yes? No?’ Mum said, shaking the boxes. She shook her head and poured me Rice Bubbles, then added the milk for me, too.

  How could Trixie have got a copy of today’s newspaper yesterday? Before the story even happened? The only explanation that made sense was that Trixie was telling the truth. She really was from the future.

  ‘I wonder whether insurance would cover that,’ Dad said, looking over my shoulder at the newspaper article and the bus sticking out of the pond.

  Mum stood over me, dropping a spoon into my bowl. ‘It’s an Act of God, so I’m sure the bus company is covered.’

  ‘What’s an Act of God?’ I asked, ignoring the now soggy bowl of cereal in front of me.

  ‘It means it’s a one-in-a-million freak accident,’ Dad explained. ‘That no one is to blame.’

  I looked up at Dad. ‘So it’s something no one could have predicted?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  At nine thirty that night, after my parents had gone to bed and the house was dark, I snuck out again. I knew the address Trixie had given me: Parkwood Road.

  Every city has a Parkwood Road. It might not be called Parkwood Road but it always looks the same. It’s usually in the worst suburb, with the worst houses. It’s the street where old cars are devoured by rust. It’s the kind of street where you’d find the abandoned quarry or the malfunctioning sewage plant or the haunted glue factory. In my town, Parkwood Road was home to the rubbish dump, a battery chicken farm and the Funshine Caravan Park.

  I pulled up in front of the caravan park, dumping my bike behind an overgrown bush. The park had been closed for as long as I could remember. Once, it had been a place where people could have a cheap holiday on the outskirts of town, but the chicken farm and sewage plant weren’t very good tourist attractions and it had gone out of business. I knew that teenagers liked to go there late at night and light fires and smash windows. But tonight the park was silent.

  I stuck my head through a broken section of the chain-link fence.

  ‘Trixie!’ I hissed into the darkness. There was no reply.

  I squeezed through the gap and made my way along the gravel path. On each side of the walkway I could make out the hulking white shapes of the old caravans. Weeds grew up around them as if the ground was slowly trying to swallow them whole. They looked like dragon skeletons on a battlefield. It wasn’t a cold night but I shivered anyway.

  ‘Trixie!’ I whispered again, as loudly as I dared.

  There was the sound of creaking and cracking as a breeze moved through the park. The swing in the playground squeaked as it swung.

  ‘Nick?’ a voice said from the darkness. Trixie stepped out of the shadows and flicked on a torch. It shone in my eyes, blinding me for a second.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, pointing the torch at the ground. ‘Follow me quickly, or you’ll miss it!’

  ‘Miss what?’ I said, but Trixie had already taken off further into the caravan park. I followed her as she ducked and weaved between the caravans. A few times, she vanished from sight altogether, leaving only the light from her torch for me to follow. I caught up with her at the back corner of the park, where she was standing in front of a silver caravan covered in wires and light bulbs. She flung open the door and stepped inside.

  I followed her and saw . . . nothing.

  The caravan was stripped bare. There were no beds or cupboards or tables. There weren’t even any cobwebs. Just an empty space. Trixie shone her torch on her watch.

  ‘Good. She’s not here yet. Let’s wait outside.’

  We stepped back outside the caravan and stood in front of it. Trixie turned off her torch and slipped it into the backpack she was carrying. She took out two pairs of sunglasses and put one on, handing the other to me.

  ‘You’ll want to wear these,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ I said, slipping the sunglasses onto my face. There was barely enough light to see without the glasses. Now I was almost completely blind.

  Before Trixie could answer, I heard a humming sound. It
sounded like a car engine or a motorcycle in the distance. But as it got louder, the hum got higher and higher, until it reached a squeal. I jammed my fingers in my ears.

  Suddenly, there were lights. Hundreds of them all over the caravan. They’d been almost invisible in the dark but now they shone brightly. There were old-fashioned light bulbs, fairy lights, lanterns and fluorescent tubes that flickered and blinked, turning the caravan in front of us into a giant Christmas tree. The louder the noise got, the brighter the lights shone. Finally, there was a single loud pop like a giant balloon exploding and the light bulbs all blinked out at once.

  As the silence and darkness returned, I could hear a dog barking in the distance. Before either Trixie or I could speak, the door of the empty caravan was flung open and a woman stumbled out. She was a little older than my mum with blonde, wavy hair. She was wearing fingerless gloves, gold sneakers and a long red coat that flowed out behind her like a cape. Her face lit up when she saw me.

  ‘My goodness,’ she said, stepping down and grabbing me by both shoulders. ‘You look just like your photos. I can’t believe how young you are!’

  Up close, I could see that this woman not only had the same wavy blonde hair as Trixie, she also had the same face, the same fashion sense, and the same twinkle in her eyes. She was clearly Trixie’s mother.

  I turned to Trixie, who smiled and said, ‘Nick, this is Beatrix.’

  ‘Your mum has the same name as you?’

  ‘What?’ Trixie said. ‘No. She’s not my mum.’

  ‘But her name is Beatrix! You said that’s your real name. And she looks just like you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the older woman said. Her voice was kind and patient. ‘She does look just like me.’

  ‘But she’s not your mother . . .’ I looked from one to the other.

  ‘Of course not,’ they both said simultaneously, rolling their eyes in exactly the same way.