Addison Addley and the Trick of the Eye (6 page)
Sam did his own egg trick for the class. He was pretty nervous for some reason. How could you be nervous about stuffing an egg into a bottle? I've had lots of experience with stuffing eggs. I don't like them, organic or not. When Mom serves a hard-boiled one for lunch at home, I stuff it into my jeans pocket. When I get outside, I toss it to the dog next door. He doesn't like it either, but at least he can bury it. I tried it once with a fried egg but my jeans didn't look so good afterward.
There was going to be an intermission with cookies and punch at the fair. Chris would play the guitar, and Tiffany and her friends had made up a dance, something about genies. I'd have to make sure I did a vanishing act before that. After the intermission Miss Steane was going to present a slide show about optical illusions, and then Becky and her nice, clean ventriloquist's dummy were doing their act.
I was lucky because my invisible-ink trick was easy. It didn't take much time to do, so I got to watch everyone else practice.
The fair was going to be held in the library, but we were storing the props and supplies in our classroom. We spent the afternoon decorating the library with mirrors and cards and magician hats. It was a big improvement over books.
On the way home from school, Sam and I walked over to the other side of town to get a closer look at the new development. There was only one finished townhouse, which was being used as a display model. From what I could see, it was ugly, statue and all. And it was small. There wasn't one tree in the whole field where the townhouses were going to go, unless you counted a scrawny little bush beside the statue. What would a home without trees be like? Probably as bad as a creek without fish.
To top it all off, we ran into Trent near the new development. He was so surprised to see us that he dropped his backpack on his foot. He yelped and picked it up. Then he just glared at us and walked away as fast as he could.
“I guess he's still mad because we won the game,” I said as I watched him practically run down the street.
“Yeah, he's probably going home to study his signals,” Sam said loudly when Trent was far enough away not to hear him. Sam's not as brave as I am.
I noticed that Trent had dropped something on the sidewalk. It was a magazine. “Wait, you forgot your magazine!” I yelled. Trent just kept going. He must have still been really mad. I picked up the maga-zineand flipped through it. It was a collectors' magazine, full of old stuff like books and toys and puppets. Why anyone would want to collect stuff like that was a mystery to me. I had tons of junk lying around my room. I didn't need to add any more old stuff. I'd rather have new stuff, like new gaming systems. I did collect the odd sports card or two. Cards don't take up much room, and they left more space on the floor for my video games.
That night I played my Ancient Warrior game for two straight hours. I didn't want to think about Becky and burglars and notes and poor Sam. I didn't want to think about real estate. I wanted to think about real
escapes
instead. There's something about fighting two-headed dragons that makes you forget about your other problems. Besides, I needed to practice my eye-hand coordination for the magic fair tomorrow. I wanted to make my invisible-ink trick look good. Maybe if I got good enough at writing invisible notes, I would be even better at figuring out what the visible ones meant.
The next day was nice and sunny. It was a great day for fishing. Too bad we had to spend the whole afternoon setting up for the magic fair. Nobody should have to go to school on the weekend. I guess this one time was okay though, as long as they didn't make a habit out of it.
The fair started at seven o'clock in the evening. A ton of people came to it, mostly the families of all the kids at school. Some of the teachers brought their families. Unfortunately Tiffany brought her whole family, even her cousin Trent. My mom came too. She was in a good mood, probably thinking about the open house the next day.
The fortune-telling booth went over well. People paid a whole bunch just to hear that they would be going on a trip someday or that they might win some money. The optics-experiments table had a lot of people around it. The 3-d glasses were really popular. Alex did his mirror trick, and people liked it. I guess everyone likes to be tricked once in a while.
Sam was up next. Poor Sam. He gets nervous at the drop of a hat. Well, at the drop of an egg, in this case. His hands were so sweaty that the egg that was supposed to drop in the bottle slid through his fingers and dropped on the floor instead, just in front of Mrs. Wilson, Tiffany's mom. She tried to jump aside but landed on the egg instead when it rolled, probably because her feet are so big. Good thing it was hard-boiled instead of soft. Her heel was covered in a crumbly yolk, and that was the end of that trick. And the end of her new shoes, by the sound of her complaints.
I was the last act before intermission, right after Chris and his magic-hat trick. Since my trick took so little time, I was in charge of getting the props out of the classroom for the second part of the show. Everybody else got to stay in the library and eat cookies. Everyone except for Trent, that is. I'd seen him sneak out. I guess having to watch Tiffany do her genie dance during the intermission was too much even for him.
Chris started doing his trick. I yawned. It was so boring. He was really slow. All he had to do was say a few words and pull a fake rabbit out of a hat that had a secret compartment in it. Now if it had been a real rabbit, it would have been more exciting. Or maybe a real fish. That would have been even better. He messed up the trick and had to start over. I guess the rabbit was stuck in the secret compartment. If he had used a real fish, it would have just jumped right out of that hat.
I started daydreaming after he started the trick over again for the third time. My eyes drifted over to the bulletin boards beside me. Since it was the library, there were book reports and projects about authors plastered all over the wall. There was one bulletin board that featured authors from different countries.
Chris started the trick again, this time shaking the hat to make sure everything was working properly.
I looked back again at that last bulletin board. There was something there that caught my eye. I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate better. There was definitely something jumping around in my head, wanting to get out. Something big. I closed my eyes even tighter so that whatever it was could make its way to the front of my brain. I thought about the baseball game and the secret signals. I thought about magazines and streets. I thought about the disappearing-egg act. Suddenly the things that were simmering in my brain started to boil over.
Bit by bit, things bubbled up and became clear. So clear they almost popped right out of my head. I kicked myself. Why hadn't I seen them before?
Chris was still saying his magic words. I looked around quickly for Becky. I saw her at the back of the library, biting her nails and tapping her feet. She must have been super-nervous about her ventriloquist act. The last time she did it, it was a disaster.
I crept back to her.
“Becky, quick, over here,” I whispered. We didn't have much time. I needed to see if I was right. We hid behind the magazine stacks.
“Where did you say you got your dummy from?” I asked.
“My uncle picked it up at a yard sale. It was really cheap because it's so old.”
“Yeah, well, that's one way of looking at it,” I said. “Where did you keep it before it got cleaned up?”
“In the garage. Why?”
I nodded. “I thought so. One last question. Tiffany's cousin, Trent. He just moved here last month. Do you know where he came from?”
Becky thought for a minute. “It was from a different province. Quebec, I think.”
I knew it. I thanked Becky and then ran for the door.
“Wait! You're up next!” she cried.
“I can't!” I yelled. They'd have to do without me. I had more important things to do. Things like solving the break-ins and keeping my house.
I got out of the library in time to see him running to the exit at the end of the hallway. It looked like he had something hidden under his bright orange jacket.
I was glad that I'd had all of that running practice in baseball. I was fast. I'd catch up to him in no time.
Trent didn't stand a chance.
“Trent!” I yelled as I raced down the hallway. “Wait!”
Trent looked back once and then pushed open the door. He ran across the yard and out to the corner of the street. He paused for a split second, like he was waiting for someone. That split second almost gave me time to catch up to him. Almost, but not quite.
“Get back here!” I yelled.
He took off like the spaceship in my video game. One second he was there, and the next he was gone. I guess all that running in baseball helped him too.
He ran so fast that I couldn't catch up to him. He ran down Pine Street, up Oak Street and across Elm Street. When he got finished with the tree streets, he started on the others. I couldn't see any pattern to where he was going, sort of like I can't see a pattern to stuff I learn in math. I think he was trying to confuse me. It takes a lot more than that.
The light was fading fast. Soon it would be dark. We were in my neighborhood now. He headed toward my street and started to slow down. He must have been getting tired. I bet he was glad that I lived on a corner lot, because he decided to cut right across my lawn to get to the street on the other side of it.
Now I don't like to brag or anything, but sometimes I do stuff that comes in handy later, even if people don't appreciate it at the time. All of my hard work in the yard paid off. Just not how I expected it to.
You can't say I didn't try to warn him. “Trent, wait!” I yelled one more time as I saw his orange back disappearing into the almost-dark yard. That was the last thing I saw of him. I heard him loud and clear though.
“Aaaaaaaaah! Help!” I don't know which was louder, Trent's voice or the sound of the stones from the statue crashing down. I guess I should have used better glue to hold them together. The chewed-up gum hadn't worked too well there either.
You can't say that Trent wasn't stubborn. He limped to the gate and disappeared into the backyard. I guess he thought he could jump over the fence into the neighbor's yard and lose me.
By now I had almost caught up to him. I could hear Mom's voice behind me. She must have seen me racing out of the school. I pushed past the open gate just in time to hear Trent scream one last time.
I guess he didn't see the big hole in the backyard. Of course he might have been distracted by the mirror that I had hung with fishing line from the old pine tree. I'd wanted the worms to think that the feast that I'd left for them was even bigger than it really was. Most of the holes that I'd dug in the yard were small, but I thought that maybe if I dug just one super-big hole I might get super-big worms coming to it. Worms might like more space. Sort of like how I liked more space to live in. I guess Trent's foot hadn't liked that much space though. It got stuck in there, and he went flying into the worm feast of eggshells and banana peels. So did his parcel.
I quickly stepped over Trent and picked up what he had dropped.
I didn't need light to see what it was. Even though I knew better, I could swear that dummy's eyes were moving.
“You did it!” Sam cried as he slapped me on the back. “You figured it out! You solved the crime!”
Sam had come over right after his breakfast the next morning to congratulate me. His mom had told him the news when he'd woken up.
I poured more syrup on my super-big stack of pancakes. Mom had made an extra big batch today and had even added some organic chocolate bits. I offered some pancakes to Sam.
“How did you know it was Trent? How did you know it was the dummy he wanted? How did you figure everything out?” Sam asked in between gulps of juice.
That Sam. He knew I couldn't answer three things at once. I guess he was too excited to think.
“Well, Sam,” I said, “it was actually something you said that started things simmering in my brain.”
Sam looked puzzled. I took another bite of pancake and leaned back. It was nice taking my time to explain things. My brain had gone from simmering to boiling. Now it could slow down.
“Well, you see, it was all of that refraction stuff, looking at things from a different angle, from a different point of view,” I explained. “There really are a lot of optical illusions floating around.”
“I still don't get it,” Sam confessed.
Wow. It sure felt different being the smart one. Kind of nice for a change. I wouldn't want to get used to it though. It was too much work figuring things out and explaining them to everybody. Sometimes it was easier to just play dumb and sit back and listen.
“Remember when Trent got his signals mixed up at the baseball game?” I asked.
Sam nodded.
“Well, I didn't think anything of it at the time, except that he needed to get his signals straight. Then remember when we ran into him and he dropped that magazine?”
Sam nodded again. “Yeahâit was a collectors' magazine with old toys and puppets,” he said.
“Dummies are puppets,” I said. “I saw a picture of a dummy like Becky's in that magazine when I flipped through it. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Except of course that Trent was dumb to be interested in dummies.”
“So Trent was interested in dummies, specifically Becky's dummy. But how does that explain anything else?” Sam asked.
I poured myself a handful of chocolate chips. “We know that Becky's family keeps all sorts of junk from yard sales. Including the dummy. Trent knew that too. What he didn't know was that the dummy was hidden in Becky's closet. She hadn't wanted her uncle to see it until she finished cleaning it. The first time he tried to âborrow' it from the shed, he must have looked through the shed window and seen the old mannequin heads that Becky's mom keeps there, and guessed that the dummy was there too.” Becky's mom likes to make weird art out of anything.