Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 FOUR DAYS EARLIER TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1900 AROUND 2:00 P.M. CHARLIE'S HOUSE GALVESTON, TEXAS It was a hot and sticky afternoon, and Charlie was alone in his room. His two-year-old sister, Lulu,

was supposed to be napping. But she was singing away in her bed across the hall. "La, la, la… La, la, la." Mama and Papa's sunny voices drifted from the kitchen. Busy city sounds rose up from the streets—the clop, clop, clop of horses, the squeaks and rumbles of wagons, boys whooping as they played marbles in the alley. But Charlie barely heard. He was busy practicing his magic. One by one Charlie went through his tricks—the disappearing coin, the vanishing balls, the floating card. He'd been practicing all summer. His best friend, Sarah, said he should try out for the talent show at school. But there was no way Charlie would do that. That was something Sarah would do, not Charlie. As for magic, he'd barely thought about it until a few months ago, when Mama and Papa took him to see a magician named Antonio Meraki. Charlie

had heard of him, of course—he was practically as famous as President McKinley. And the moment Meraki stepped onto the stage, Charlie understood why. Whoosh! Meraki threw a card into the air, and suddenly it was a yellow bird, fluttering around the theater. Presto! He took a stick, waved his hands, and the stick magically turned into a tree covered with big white flowers. He made a lady float up into the air, turn somersaults near the ceiling, and gently float back down. But the best came near the end. Meraki asked a lady from the audience if he could borrow her ring. He put it into a pouch and smashed it with a hammer. He sprinkled the sparkling crumbs into the barrel of a gun. Pow! Meraki shot the gun at a box hanging at the edge of the stage. He opened the box—and there was the ring, good as new.

The crowd went wild. Charlie just sat there in shock. That's impossible! he thought. And of course he knew it was. None of those things had really happened. That's what a magic trick was—a trick. Behind each one was some secret—a special prop or cleverly built box, a hidden mirror or trapdoor, wires or ropes the audience couldn't see. A magician made impossible things look… possible. Charlie wanted to be a magician! He bought himself a beginner's magic kit and Meraki's book, The Secrets of Magic. He tried doing some basic tricks. But he stank! He could barely shuffle a deck of cards. Coins clattered noisily to the floor. The vanishing balls got stuck in their jars. So Charlie put the kit away. But then a few weeks later, he picked up Meraki's book. The magician's picture was on the

cover—a bald man with a thick brown mustache and bright blue eyes. The book was long, but definitely not boring. It turned out that Meraki's life was as exciting as his show. He was born on a farm with nothing, lived with his mean uncle, and ran away from home when he was ten. By fifteen, he was performing in circus shows. By twenty, he'd traveled the world. Since then, he'd survived cobra bites, storms at sea, and enemies willing to kill him to steal his tricks. In his chapter about how to do magic, Meraki wrote: The road to fame wasn't easy. I was a failure at magic at first. But I practiced. And that is the first secret that every young magician must learn: to practice. Practice? Charlie had thought. Practice was for boring stuff, like the piano. He'd stunk at that, too—and quit.

But Meraki was right. Charlie practiced his magic tricks, and he got better. And there was something else. Doing his magic tricks gave Charlie a feeling—a bright and strong feeling—that he was more than just the shy boy afraid to talk to kids at school. And speaking of school, it was starting in just two weeks. He hoped Sarah was in his class. But then Charlie thought of another kid at school—Gordon Potts. His stomach twisted. His cards slipped from his hand. Would Gordon start picking on Charlie again? Charlie sat down on his bed and pictured Gordon—an overgrown goon with shadowy eyes and a puffed-up chest. Gordon was always making some poor chump's life miserable. And toward the end of last school year, that miserable chump was Charlie. Gordon had started tormenting Charlie last spring, and it went on until the last day of school. Happily, Gordon had been gone all summer. His