The Magician

Unrevised

    One day a magician came to our class. I don’t know who had hired the guy, but I get the feeling it had been him hounding the school for a gig. Longfellow Elementary was old and crumbly. The halls were a hideously faded mauve color, with hallways that always seemed just a little too wide. There were big stairwells around, and the way they were built sometimes with overhangs above the first steps gave them the appearance of large gaping mouths with endless rows of stair-teeth. Being a first grader, I just tried to hustle through the halls as fast as possible to avoid all the scary big kids and their meddlesome agendas.
    He came on a rainy day, a real douser. They didn’t let us go out for recess it was pouring so hard. So there we are, a room full of hyper first graders who’ve been cooped up all day, and now this magic a*****e is going to entertain us.
    The teacher did her best to assemble us in an orderly fashion. I don’t know if it’s in the blood, but there’s something about getting kids to sit in even rows that’s like water trying to blend with oil. I was sitting next to Tabitha Roberts and Marshall Vanderbelt, and the whole time everyone was getting situated Tabitha sat still with her hands folded in the lap of her floral print dress. She smelled like a basket of laundry. Marshall kept snickering at the teacher’s futile pursuit, watching with glee as she scooted and prodded to get everyone in line. Marshall was a great snickerer.
    He made a big entrance. When we were all satisfactorily lined up, he came in through another class’s connecting door and made a big show of it. He was wearing a rented tuxedo--I can only hope anyways, I don’t want to imagine the poor b*****d actually owned that getup. He was middle aged, with grey flecks around his temples and a gut that tempted the seams of his cummerbund. He came in with arms splayed and a big s**t-eating grin on his face, letting us know that this great honor being bestowed on us was certainly all his. He had a satin bag slung over one shoulder, and he sauntered over the front of the crowd, dropped the bag, and took a bow.
    The teacher clapped, so we did too.
    “Hello, ladies and gents! I am the Amazing Artemis!”
    We clapped again.
    “Does anyone here like magic?”
    His eyebrows danced when he spoke, and he spread and wiggled his white-gloved fingers with every syllable.
    Marshall yawned.
    He was undeterred though, and kept his resolve as he reached into the bag.
    He took a folded newspaper and a carton of milk from the bag and held them high as though they were jewels freshly plucked from the earth.
    “This!” He shouted and shook the two objects. “Is magic!”
    In quick, practiced movements he formed the newspaper into a cup-like shape and opened the milk. There were approximately two ‘awes’ when he began to pour it and magically the milk didn’t spill or seep through the newspaper.
    But he stood his ground.
    Next from the bag came a top hat, already flattened down to a black disk. He flicked the hat, it jumped back to its original shape, and he placed it on the black stool Ms. Fennelbaum had consolingly provided.
    “I will need a volunteer for this trick, so who among you wants to see some real magic!”
    Marshall’s face was overtaken by a dastardly grin, and his hand shot up in a flash.
    “You there! Come on up!”
    Marshall ran to the front of the room.
    The magician whispered a few things to Marshall, to which he eagerly nodded.
    “Now then, I need something personal from one of you. Something I couldn’t forge. I’m going to make it disappear.” His eyes bulged as he said it. This guy probably got off to magic porn.
    I raised my hand.
    “Yes, you there! Come on!”
    I got up and went to the front, clutching my new dinosaur eraser in my pocket. In our class, if you did well on an assignment, you were allowed to go into the Treasure Box, a cardboard chest filled with toys and bright colored gotta-have-ems. I had acquired the green and purple striped T-Rex that morning, and was wary of handing it off to this jack-a*s, but I was curious to see the trick.
    I gave the eraser to Artemis, and sat back down in the front row.
    He dropped it into the hat, and with the wave of his hand, turned the hat over.     Nothing fell out.
    No one cheered.
    “And now, to make it reappear!” He said, and closed his eyes, muttered some incandescently sounding mumbo jumbo, and flipped the hat back.
    Nothing came out of the hat.
    He faltered for a second there. We all saw the confidence in his eyes flicker and his brow crease.
    “Uh, and now to make it reappear!”
    He hit the bottom of the hat. Marshall was snickering.
    Nothing came out of the hat, and I was starting to get worked up about this dick losing my new eraser.
    “Boo!” Gillian Greene called from the back of the class. A few kids laughed, and Ms. Fennelbaum scowled at them.
    Artemis was a pro though, he glued that smile back on and barely missed a beat.
    “And for my next trick!” He held up some silver rings.
    Marshall was bored, and decided to spice things up a bit. While Magic Moron was waving his hands around like a spastic, Marshall was digging in his black bag. Ms. Fennelbaum was now preoccupied with scolding the majority of the class, who had lost interest in the musings of a middle aged sad sack. He took a length of coiled rope from the bag, and a few people laughed.
    Artemis was trying to join the rings together, but was having some trouble with the third one.
    Marshall looped the rope around the magician’s feet, delicately and with more guile than any honest first grader should rightly have. He left it there and dashed back to the bag. His eyes lit up and he clamped his mouth when he dug deep enough to find a real gem.
    He came back to Artemis’ backside with a long, fake silver knife. The temptation was simply too much for him by now, and with no thought save for the impending punch line he jammed the plastic blade hard into the a*s of the a*s.
    The Amazing Artemis dropped his magic rings and tripped forward, catching himself in the well-placed rope, which tangled and tightened as he began his descent. We all watched him fall in slow motion, his eyebrows climbed up over his forehead towards his scalp, as if they were trying to run away from the ground. There were two snickers, a gasp, and a lot of heavy silence as he finished the fall, but a unanimous cringe at the sickening thud his head made on the tile.
    For a minute, nobody moved. And then in almost perfect unison--the first time that day, in fact, that the class was united on something--we all began to applaud. Ronnie Shaeffer stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. I clapped so hard my hands hurt. Everyone’s faces were covered in smiles.
    Marshall took a bow as the blood began to pool around Artemis’ head, and outside the rain started to let up a little.