18 Conjuring

Chapter 18 Conjuring conjuring (v) making something appear unexpectedly, as if out of nowhere; (n) the performance of magic tricks Evan was good at stage patter, but he couldn't keep talking like this forever. He had already walked three times around the basket, pointing out that it was truly empty and that Jessie had disappeared into thin air. Then he had turned the basket upright again and refastened the lid. Then he had lifted the basket off the ground, carefully holding the false bottom in place, to show that there was nothing under the basket. "My assistant is gone! Disappeared! Vanished! Who knows if we will ever see her again?" The audience was completely silent, staring in wonder at the stage. Evan felt as though he had cast a spell over

them. But it was a spell that wouldn't last forever. Where was Jessie? Why didn't she appear at the back of the audience as they had planned? Maybe she was stuck under the porch? Could she have hurt herself when she fell through the hole? Maybe she'd gotten so scared in the basket that she'd fainted after escaping. Evan scanned the back of the audience, trying to see if there was any movement in the woods. She should have appeared by now. Something must have gone horribly wrong. He was just about to announce that the show was over, pull the curtains closed, and go through the hole in search of Jessie, when he saw her sneaking through the trees behind the audience. What a relief! She was probably just being her usual klutzy self, taking twice as long to crawl out from under the porch as anyone else. That was Jessie! "Yes, she's gone!" he called out to the audience. "Gone! But I have the power to bring her back! With a wave of my magic wand—one, two, three!"—Evan swished his wand in giant circles, as if he were

scooping up the air and gathering it into a powerful cyclone—"I will make her reappear! As you can see!" As Evan pointed his wand to the back of the audience, everyone in the backyard turned. When they saw Jessie standing there, they burst into wild applause. "And look what I can make reappear!" yelled Jessie over the loud applause as she walked to the stage. "Professor Hoffmann!" She raised both hands over her head so that everyone could see the small white rabbit she held. Evan shouted, "Woohoo! That's all, folks!" and jumped down off the stage. He rushed up to Jessie and put both his hands on Professor Hoffmann, just to be sure he was real. He'd learned enough about smoke and mirrors to know that you couldn't always trust your eyes, but touching the rabbit's soft fur and feeling his familiar twitch convinced him that the rabbit was back from the dead. "He was in the woods?" asked Evan. "No!" whispered Jessie. "He was under the porch.

There's a tiny hole in the foundation. Tiny!" She held up her hand and made a circle about the size of a half-dollar. "He must have squeezed through it! And he's been hiding under the porch ever since." "Wow! He's the escape artist! We should call him Houdini," said Evan. "Nope. He's Professor Hoffmann, and he's never going anywhere again." Jessie lifted the rabbit to her face and laid her cheek against his soft fur. She loved Professor Hoffmann. He had survived a Category 1 hurricane, too, just like them. "Take a bow!" said Megan. So Evan and Jessie jumped back up onstage and bowed over and over again as the audience applauded and whistled and shouted "Bravo!" Evan had the feeling that Jessie would stay up there all day, but he could tell that Professor Hoffmann was getting jumpy, so he called out, "Show's over!" and people started trailing away. Jessie put Professor Hoffmann safely in his rabbit box with a whole lettuce leaf. Evan knew that if the rabbit pooped, he'd be the one who had to clean it,

but that was okay. Jessie had done such a great job with the Amazing Disappearing Trick that he didn't mind taking care of doody duty. They were hauling a large branch over to the side yard when Evan saw something that made him forget everything else. "Mom!" he shouted, dropping the branch and running full speed at his mother. By the time he wrapped his arms around her and breathed in her familiar smell (green tea shampoo and powdered laundry detergent), Jessie was pulling on their mother's arm. Evan wasn't sure why, but he suddenly started crying, and then his mother started crying, too! "We got a rabbit!" announced Jessie. "What?" asked their mother, disentangling herself from Evan's full-body hug. Evan glared at Jessie. He didn't think that was the best beginning to their mom's return. "His name is Professor Hoffmann. He was

supposed to be part of our magic show. That's why Dad got him. But then he couldn't be in the show because we thought he had died because... because... he..." Jessie's voice stumbled and faltered and then simply collapsed into silence. "A rabbit? Huh." Their mother shook her head, and Evan could see a trace of annoyance on her face. "Let me talk to your dad about that." She started to walk around the side of the house and into the backyard, but she stopped dead when she saw the Climbing Tree. "Oh, my God!" she said. Jessie started to jump up and down. "It landed on my bed! Right on my bed! Evan saved my life because he told me to sleep in your bed. When we woke up, there was a sound like a cannon going off! Kapow!" "Why didn't Dad call me? When did this happen?" Then Evan saw that their mother was staring at the porch. The railing was missing, but not in jagged pieces. It was cleanly removed. "Evan, did