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  To Gene, my favorite magician

  In any art or craft, the truly valuable secrets are hard-earned.… Short cuts are an illusion. Participation is required.

  —The Book of Secrets by John Carney

  From the beginning, we have heard that the three rules of magic are: Practice. Practice. Practice.

  —Magic by Design by John Carney

  conjure—

  to practice the art of magic

  Z COULD ALWAYS FIND a reason to feel cursed. When he got a B on a test, he wondered about not getting an A. When he got an A, he wondered about not getting an A plus. He never got A pluses, so maybe he was cursed.

  This was the last day of spring break, so he walked around town with his head down and his shoulders slumped. He should have been grateful for a whole week without homework, but in Z’s opinion, a week wasn’t long enough.

  “We sit in class for months,” he told his buddies Dominic and Loop. “And all we get is one week off? I can barely catch up with the shows on the DVR.”

  His buddies nodded because they wanted a longer vacation, too. As best friends, Dominic, Loop, and Z had a lot in common. They even looked alike, all of them with brown hair and brown eyes. Dominic was the tallest; Loop had the spikiest hair (he bragged about spending a lot of time making his bangs stand straight up), and Z was the cutest, according to the girls at school who couldn’t stop talking about his eyelashes. Apparently, his curly lashes were adorable, but Z didn’t think this was a good-luck thing. His curly lashes were nothing but trouble when they caused girls to sit in the chairs he saved for his friends or to send him quizzes with questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” “When’s your birthday?” “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Z kicked a stone. “I can’t believe we have to go back to school tomorrow.”

  “This vacation went by faster than a car with rockets,” Dominic said.

  “You mean faster than a plane with rockets,” Loop said.

  “No,” argued Z. “Faster than rockets—just plain and simple rockets.”

  Loop glanced at him. “That’s what we said.”

  “No, it’s not. My rockets aren’t attached to anything like yours are. That’s why they’re faster. They’re the fastest of all.”

  Dominic and Loop nodded and said, “Okay, you win.” Z smiled. He liked winning. He could forget about being cursed when he got the upper hand with his friends.

  Truth was, the boys loved to compete against one another. They’d been doing this since their first day in kindergarten when the teacher took the class outside for recess, and Dominic, Loop, and Z got stuck on the sidelines after all the other kids took over the swings, seesaws, and monkey bars. That’s when Dominic pointed to the far border of the playground and said, “Let’s see who can reach that fence first.” After a quick “get ready, get set, go,” the amigos ran as fast as they could. Loop won that first race. But the next day, Dominic won the contest for who could hold his breath the longest, and a week after that, Z won for his expert tic-tac-toe skills. In fact, they had planned all sorts of contests for their spring break—a video game marathon, a Ping-Pong tournament, “pain games” like eating hot chili peppers or putting their hands over candle flames, and their own version of Fear Factor, which meant seeing who could handle roaches crawling under his shirt or who flinched the least during horror movies. They had intended to have a grand vacation, but Dominic had to spend time with his father in Corpus Christi, Loop got grounded for going from As to Cs on his report card, and Z had to complete a ridiculously long list of “enrichment” activities, which felt like chores, because they meant hanging out with his older brothers and sisters.

  “A whole week of vacation and nothing interesting happened,” he complained.

  “At least it isn’t cold,” Loop said.

  “Why would it be cold? It’s March already.”

  “In some places, it’s still winter in March. The kids up north don’t have spring break until April.”

  “It never gets cold in Victoria,” Dominic said. “Even when it’s a real winter month, like December.”

  “Yeah,” Z added. “I’ve never even seen snow.” It was true. It only snowed two or three times every hundred years in their part of Texas.

  His friends sighed because they’d never seen snow, either, and because there were so many things to complain about—like how they had to go back to school tomorrow, and how their families got on their nerves, and how they got clothes for their birthdays instead of video games.

  “How many days till summer?” Loop asked as they made their way toward a shopping center on the corner of Laurent Street and Airline Road. The center had a furniture outlet, a store that sold scrubs for nurses, and gift shops called Pizazz and Rings ’N Things. The boys just meant to pass by, but then they noticed something new.

  “Check this out,” Loop said, pointing to a shop called Conjuring Cats. Its display window had a cape and top hat hanging from a coatrack, a black stool with a wand resting upon it, and an easel with a poster of Houdini in a straitjacket, hanging upside down over the words DEATH-DEFYING ESCAPE.

  Z didn’t know what the “conjuring” part of Conjuring Cats meant, so when they stepped through the door, he said, “You sell cats here?”

  The lady inside laughed as if Z had asked a silly question. But how could it be a silly question? The cats were right there! A black one chased a ball, and a white one yawned and stretched on the counter.

  “I would sell them if I could,” she said, “but she won’t let me.” She pointed to a girl who had her back to them as she dusted a shelf of DVDs. She had two long braids, and she wore a hot-pink T-shirt and jeans with hearts embroidered on the back pockets. She was listening to an iPod, humming and swaying a bit. Her music must have been loud, because she hadn’t turned around. Normally, Z tried to ignore girls, but this time he caught himself wondering if this one liked curly eyelashes.

  After a few moments of awkward silence, he asked the lady, “So what do you sell?”

  She waved her arm across the store. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  spectator—

  a person who watches some kind of performance, like a magic trick

  DOMINIC COULDN’T BELIEVE Z thought this was a pet store. “Conjuring” obviously meant magic, and if you weren’t sure, then you could use the context clues, like they were taught to do at school. Why would there be a top hat and a Houdini poster in the window if this were a pet store? His friends sure knew how to embarrass him sometimes.

  Like right now. As soon as the lady invited them to check out the store, Loop and Z ran to the aisles as fast as little kids when they hear the ice-cream truck. Okay, so Dominic liked ice cream, too, but he never ran to the truck without looking both ways first.

  “Check this out,” Loop said. “It’s fake blood.” He held up a package. “And here’s fake vomit and fake poop, too.”

  Dominic laughed. He had to admit, it was kind of funny. What were fake blood, vomit, and poop doing in a magic store? He joined his friends as they investigated whoopee cushions, shock pens, rotten teeth, plastic roaches, and coffee mugs shaped like grenades and toilets. Then Z and Loop found a Magic 8 Ball and started asking it ques
tions. “Do ghosts really exist?” and “If we jump into a volcano and swim through the hot lava, will we reach the center of the earth?”

  The Magic 8 Ball answered both questions with “Don’t count on it.”

  Dominic wandered off and found an aisle with tarot cards, Ouija boards, and posters of some guy named Alexander, a man in a turban who “knows all, sees all, tells all.” Then he found the crystal balls and picked one up. It wasn’t very large; he could hold it in one hand. He rubbed the top and whispered, “Abracadabra, alakazam, hocus pocus, presto… shazam. Tell me the secrets of the universe, like why the sky’s blue and the rain clouds are gray.” He paused a moment, searching for a word that rhymed with “gray.” “Tell me when the world began,” he continued, “and tell me when it’ll go away.” He peered into the glass orb and waited. A long minute. Then another.

  “See anything?” Loop asked.

  “No.”

  “Hey, guys,” Z called from two aisles over. “Check these out!”

  They joined him and found shelves full of cards. Some shelves held normal decks, the kind with cupid riding a bicycle, and some decks had cards as big as notebook paper. Others weren’t full decks at all, just packets of single cards, some blank, some with the queen of hearts on both sides, and others that had a joker on one side and an ace on the other. Those were in a section called “gaff cards.”

  “What would you do with these?” Z wondered aloud.

  Dominic usually knew the answers to questions, but this time, he was stumped.

  “Let’s check out the last aisle,” Loop said.

  It was full of top hats, capes, and magic wands. Dominic picked up one, and when he saw that the white cat had followed him, he waved the wand over it and said, “Abracadabra, alakazam, instead of a cat, you shall be a man.” Nothing happened, though he tried three times. Meanwhile, Loop and Z had grabbed wands, too, but instead of casting spells, they pretended to sword fight, swinging wildly, the wands clacking as they struck each other.

  That’s when the girl from the DVDs stomped over. “Stop that!” she said. She had removed her earbuds, but Dominic could still hear the tinny music on her iPod. “Respect the merchandise,” she commanded as she took the wands from them. “These aren’t toys.” She put the wands away—all except for one. She looked at it a moment, smiling to herself. Then she bounced it on her knee, and it disappeared.

  “No way!” Loop said.

  “Where’d it go?” asked Z.

  “Can you make it come back?” Dominic wanted to know.

  She rolled her eyes as if he had asked the stupidest question. Then she flicked her wrist, and the wand reappeared.

  “Wow!” Z said. “So you’re a real magician, huh?”

  “I’m the reigning champion of the Texas Association of Magicians’ teen stage contest, so, yes, I guess that makes me a real magician.”

  “So you did that trick and won a contest?” Z asked.

  Dominic gave him a look. “That’s what ‘reigning champion’ means.” Z just rolled his eyes.

  “Please,” the girl said, making the word two syllables, puh-leeze. “This is kids’ stuff.” She put the wand back on the shelf. “Besides, you can’t win the contest with one trick. You need a whole routine.”

  “So what was your routine?” Loop asked.

  “It’s too hard to explain.”

  “Then show us.”

  She sighed, all bothered. “You kids are probably too young to appreciate it.”

  “What do you mean?” Dominic said. “We’re the same age as you.”

  “Please,” she said, two syllables again. “Are you even in seventh grade yet?”

  The boys looked down. They were in sixth grade, but they’d be in seventh grade next year.

  “Ariel,” the lady at the counter said, “be nice to the customers, remember?”

  “They aren’t customers,” Ariel argued. “They aren’t going to buy anything.”

  “I am,” Loop said, pulling twenty bucks from his pocket. Dominic was glad Loop had a response, but he also hated when Loop showed off his money.

  “You should perform your routine,” the lady told the girl.

  “No, Mom.”

  The lady put her hands on her hips. “Do you want your allowance or not?”

  Dominic and his friends giggled, but when Ariel narrowed her eyes at them, they immediately stopped.

  “Fine,” she said. She did an about-face and headed to the back of the store, disappearing behind a doorway with a purple velvet curtain. Above the door was a sign reading THE VAULT.

  Dominic mentally listed all the places with vaults—banks, museums, millionaires’ homes, and underground headquarters for spies. Even though this doorway had a curtain instead of a twelve-inch steel door with a combination lock and retinal scanner, Dominic knew that calling it the Vault could mean only one thing—behind that curtain was a top secret place for magicians!

  suspense—

  curiosity about what is going to happen next; magicians use suspense to keep the audience guessing about the next step in their routine

  LOOP COULDN’T WAIT TO see Ariel’s magic routine. She probably levitated. She probably stepped behind a curtain and disappeared. No, she probably got in a box and asked someone to slice her in half. Loop would definitely volunteer for that!

  “So she’s your daughter?” Loop asked the lady.

  “My one and only.”

  “Why did you name her after the mermaid from that Disney cartoon?” Z wanted to know.

  Dominic elbowed him. “Just because she’s named Ariel doesn’t mean she’s named after the movie.”

  “That’s right,” the lady said. “But we did name her after a famous character.”

  Now Z elbowed Dominic. “See? I wasn’t completely wrong.”

  “Her full name’s Miranda Ariel Garza,” the lady continued, “and we named her after characters in a Shakespeare play. It’s called The Tempest. Miranda was the king’s daughter, and Ariel was his magic fairy.”

  Loop and his friends nodded. It made sense. Maybe Ariel didn’t look like a fairy because she didn’t have wings, and maybe she didn’t act like a fairy because she was rude, but she had already cast a spell on them… well… on Loop at least. She was so pretty with her hair in trenzas and her eyes as brown as the best chocolate.

  “Mom,” she called from the back, “get the stage ready.”

  Mrs. Garza told the boys to follow her to the stage. Only, it wasn’t a stage, just a clearing at the back of the store. Loop was disappointed. Where were the axes, swords, and knives that could cut a body in half? The single folding table was a lame setup. Mrs. Garza covered the table with a black cloth and placed a ceramic vase on it. Then she inserted a CD into a stereo against the back wall. She told the boys to sit down, but instead of comfy, stadium seats like at the movies, they had to sit on benches, the kind that go with picnic tables, all lopsided and splintered.

  Loop heard Ariel from behind the curtain. “Dad, aren’t you coming?” A man responded, but his words were muffled. Then Ariel said, “Well, never mind!”

  She stepped out from behind the curtain. Instead of her T-shirt and jeans, she wore a ballet folklórico dress, bright blue with white lace on the ruffles of the blouse and skirt. Loop had seen folklórico dances before and knew that when the girls spun around, the top skirt lifted to show layers of colorful skirts underneath. Ariel wore a mid-calf skirt, so he could see her white, high-heeled boots. She had also tied back her braids with a silk scarf. “Give me a sec,” she said, before closing her eyes. After breathing deeply a couple of times, she opened her eyes and nodded to her mom.

  Mrs. Garza pushed “play” on the stereo. Loop heard classical guitar music, soft and meditative. Ariel didn’t dance, but she walked gracefully to the table. She reached into the ceramic vase and pulled out a stem. She cradled it for a moment. Then she held it in front of her face and blew on it. Little by little, a red rose started to bloom. Ariel looked surprised and then p
leased. She smelled it and cradled it again, the whole time her movements following the pace of the music. As she put the rose in the vase, she peeked into it and smiled. She waved her hand over the vase and, slowly, another rose emerged. She put her hands over her heart and looked up, as if thanking the sky for this gift. Once again, she waved her hand over the vase, and a third rose appeared! She took the flowers, now a bouquet, and danced with them, twirling so that her skirt lifted to show extra layers of red, like a giant flower beneath her dress. Then she put the roses back in the vase. After admiring them for a second, she untied the silk scarf that held back her braids. She shook it, so the audience could see that it was a normal scarf, just a big white square of silk. Ariel played with it the way bullfighters play with their capes. Then she made a fist with one hand and tucked the silk into it. When she opened her hand, it was gone! She made the fist again, this time pulling the silk out. It had mysteriously reappeared! Her hands went back to her heart, and her eyes back to the sky. Loop looked up, too, expecting to see an aurora borealis right there in the store. But no, all he saw was the ceiling. Ariel turned her attention to the vase again and pulled out two more silks. She gathered them, holding the corners before flipping them to reveal their undersides. All of a sudden, different colored silks started to pour out of her hands. They went from white to pink to red to purple. Ariel twirled as she revealed them, stopping only when she had a giant flower in her hands. She held it up triumphantly at the moment the music reached a long, vibrating note. Then she put it on the table.

  She was motionless for a while because the music had stopped. But Loop could tell it wasn’t the end of the song, only a quiet moment. Sure enough, the music returned. Now it was fast-paced, so Ariel stomped to the beat. A few rose petals fell from her skirt. She jumped back, surprised but delighted, too. She stomped again, and more petals fell. She stomped some more, just like a real folklórico dancer. Then she twirled, and her skirt lifted, showing the red petticoats and even more dropping petals. They rained down. It was a total petal storm! Loop couldn’t believe it. His friends were astounded, too. He could tell because their eyes were wide. Where did all those petals come from? Loop wondered. The music got louder and the spinning faster, and Loop got dizzy from watching. Then—just as the music reached its final and most dramatic crescendo—Ariel stomped one more time and even more petals fell from her skirt!