The Yo-yo

A Story by terranova

Hypnotis gone sorta right, sorta wrong.

When Jimmy was about ten years old he saw a hypnotist on TV. Jimmy and his brother Richie thought it was amazing. They wanted to hypnotize someone and make them act like a dog or a monkey or forget the number five. They thought it was a pretty easy thing to do.

“I can hypnotize you easy,” Jimmy said to his younger brother Richie.

“No you can’t,” the eight year old said.

So, Jimmy ran upstairs to get his yo-yo. The hypnotist used a watch on a chain, but Jimmy didn’t have a watch, but he thought the yo-yo would work. As he ran back down the stairs he giggled at the thought of hypnotizing Richie with a yo-yo. He was still giggling when he held the yo-yo in front Richie.

Then Richie started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“That’s not a watch,”

“Of course it’s not. We don’t have one of those watches on a chain.”

“Then how’re you gonna hipanotize me?”

“It’s not ‘hypanotize.’ It’s hypnotize…”

“That’s what I said, hypanotize.”

“See, you said it again.”

“What?”

“Hyp-A-notize.”

“You can’t do it with a yo-yo!”

“Sure I can. You just sit still and I’ll hypnotize you.” Jimmy held the yo-yo up again and Richie started laughing again.

“You have to be quiet so we can do this.”

“I get to hypanotize you after you hypanotize me.”

“You won’t be able to hypnotize me.”

“Yes I do. If you get to hypanotize me, then I get to hypanotize you.”

“Okay, you can try, but be quiet.”

Jimmy started swinging the yo-yo in front of Richie’s face, but Richie started giggling again, so it was awhile before Jimmy was able to start. For the first fifteen minutes every time he would say, “watch closely and listen to my voice,” Richie giggled.

“You have to be quiet and just listen to me and watch the yo-yo.”

“But it’s a yo-yo.”

“Just imagine it’s a watch.”

When Richie was finally finished giggling Jimmy tried remembering what the hypnotist said. As he swung the yo-yo slowly back and forth in front of his brother’s face Jimmy spoke very slowly and softly: “You are getting sleepy, very sleepy. Imagine you are sitting in a very comfortable chair. It is a very soft chair. You are getting sleepy, very sleepy; your eyes are getting tired. They are starting to close. Just listen to my voice and think about how tired you are. You are so sleepy you can hardly stay awake. Listen to my voice. You are very sleepy. You’re eyes are closing.”

Jimmy repeated the words, trying to make his voice deeper and deeper in the softest voice he possibly could. He watched his brother’s eyelids start drooping. It was working…

Suddenly someone was shaking Jimmy’s shoulder. “Jimmy, wake up,” his father was saying, “You better go upstairs. It’s almost bed-time anyway.”

Richie was in the living room watching T.V.

“Did you get hypnotized?” Jimmy asked him.

“Sure,” Richie said, “It was cool, but when you dropped the yo-yo, I said, ‘Am I hypanotized now?’ and you said I was. Then when I said, tell me to bark like a dog. Say, 'Bark Like a dog.' Then you barked. When I said, 'Say, act like a monkey,' you hopped around going ‘yeeee, yeeee, yeeee.’ That was pretty funny. I like being hypanotized. Let’s do it again tomorrow.”

“Sure, let’s.”

Before he went up to bed, Jimmy found the yo-yo and hid it in one of his dad’s old boots in the hall closet.