Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter 1 – The “Trick Of All Tricks”

Chapter 2 – Mind Magic

Chapter 3 – The Costsnippas Convenience Store

Chapter 4 – Preparations

Chapter 5 – The “Houdini Secret”

Chapter 6 – The Trunk with the Secret Panel

Chapter 7 – A Strict “No Children” Policy

Chapter 8 – The International Magic Guys

Chapter 9 – Stuck

Chapter 10 – Secret Escapology

Chapter 11 – The Greatest Show on Earth

Chapter 12 – The Cage of Possibilities

Chapter 13 – A Mouse, a Lion and One Hundred Doves

Chapter 14 – A Magnificent Day

Afterword by Dr Pompkins

Coming Soon

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Copyright

About the Publisher

Tell your friends that sugar lumps are magnetic; as you place a full bowl in front of you, pick up one lump, then “stick” it to another and hold both aloft.

Watch your pals’ frustration as they try to do the same!

Of course, you prepared a lump beforehand with a small dab of butter, but your friends are not to know that…

If you are reading this book then undoubtedly you have a thirst to learn the secrets of the great magicians who perform such tricks regularly. I, Dr Pompkins, famed for tricks including my one-legged straitjacket escape act in a telephone box full of water and 25 man-eating lizards, can teach you some of them.

Read on, dear performer, and you too could be fi lling audiences with astonishment and joy. If you enjoy magic, and I believe that you must do, then walk beside me on this fantastical journey and we shall see great sights and experience true wonders.

In all totality,

our days ago Uncle Potty had come to stay with eleven-year-old Pepper twins – Esmé and Monty. It was the summer holidays and while Mr and Mrs Pepper went on a quick trip to an ancient woodland site, Uncle Potty was in charge. The best and most exciting thing about this was that Uncle Potty was a professional conjuror, a member of the International Magic Guys (IMG) club, which happened to be based round the corner from the Peppers’ home in Highwood Road. The next best thing, as far as Monty was concerned, was that Uncle Potty was always practising magic and therefore always in need of an assistant. Monty had been delighted to help. He had fetched and carried for Uncle Potty (so far Monty had cleaned fourteen magic tumblers and one plastic bowl), polished Uncle Potty’s patent leather shoes and glued his magic top hat back together where it had split.

Uncle Potty was impossibly old and extremely tall. As a consequence, his sleeves reached his elbows and his trouser hems were always by his shins. He found it difficult to navigate those tiny waistcoat pockets with such long fingers and when he started to become anxious – like now – his hair would stick up on end, looking like crazy woollen worms on a roller-coaster ride. Uncle Potty’s eyebrows also seemed to have been knitted – to form one gigantic, fluffy strip. He had a loud voice and a basic theatricality. He could not have been anything other than a magician, although the rest of his family were a roaring success in the dry-cleaning business.

However, as thrilling as it was having a magician in the house, Esmé had begun to notice that most of Uncle Potty’s tricks seemed to end in disaster. Worryingly,

Uncle Potty had taken over the kitchen at the Peppers’ home all morning and was now standing by the kitchen table, ready to perform his latest act. Uncle Potty had so far removed the items in his way – Esmé’s homework notebook, a library book about wildlife, the Peppers’ laptop and some sticks that had yet to serve a purpose – and put them on the floor. In their place was a large bowl of water and five different fruits placed in a line – a kiwi, a melon, a medium-sized pineapple, an apple and a tangerine. The fruits were a little squashed and soggy and Uncle Potty had brightly coloured stains all over his shirt.

“I have discovered the trick of all tricks,” announced Potty, long arms in the air. “It involves making a watch disappear, then to be revealed in a piece of… fruit.”

Esmé gave Potty an encouraging look, even though the trick sounded quite complicated.

“What’s the time, Esmé?” asked Uncle Potty, in a dramatic voice. Esmé glanced at the extremely reliable watch that her mum had given her when she got a high grade in last year’s maths test and announced, “Half past twelve.”

Esmé waited for Uncle Potty’s next line, but instead Monty popped his head up from under the table, where he was supposed to be hiding. He handed Uncle Potty a long strip of paper.

“What’s that?” Esmé asked.

“Nothing,” said Monty. “You weren’t supposed to see.”

“Please get back under the table, Monty,” said Uncle Potty, politely but firmly. “I have the item now.”

Monty reluctantly disappeared again. “Ahem, thus we have safely concluded that it is half past twelve,” announced Uncle Potty. “May I see your watch, Esmé?”

Raising her left wrist, Esmé revealed her treasured Timex. Uncle Potty quickly unsnapped the watch from Esmé’s wrist before she could stop him and hid it behind his back. There was a scuffling sound as he handed the watch to Monty.

“Time is an extraordinary thing!” said Uncle Potty, even louder. “It reminds us that the bus is late, it flows with the seasons and it, er, gives us wrinkles.”

“Could I have my watch back, please?” Esmé asked, suddenly realising her watch was going to be hidden in a piece of soggy fruit, which might do it more harm than good.

“Of course!” replied Uncle Potty, searching his multi-coloured waistcoat pockets for something.

“Aha, your elegant timepiece!” said Uncle Potty, as he retrieved the now-crinkled strip of paper and balanced it on Esmé’s wrist. It had a badly drawn clock face on it,

showing the time: 12.30pm.

“This isn’t my watch, Uncle, it’s a piece of paper,” said Esmé. The strip quivered on her hand and then fell off.

“Well observed, young Esmé. So where is your real watch?” Uncle Potty spoke excitedly now. He picked up an apple. “Shall I ask the magic tangerine?”

“That’s not a tangerine…” Esmé noted.

“Oh, er, yes.” Uncle Potty tried to cover himself. “Just a little joke,” he smiled. “I will now dip all the fruit into the bowl of water to show you that your watch is not inside any of them.

“Take this apple for instance,” Uncle Potty continued, dunking the apple in the water. “Your watch is not in here! Hurrah!”

There was another scuffling sound and the tangerine started wobbling on the table.

An object fell on the floor with a tiny clang – a broken-watch sort of clang.

“I can’t do it!” whispered Monty audibly from under the table. “It won’t go in the hole.”

Esmé winced. She hoped Uncle Potty was not about to make a big mistake. What was happening to her watch?

“Pick another fruit,” Uncle Potty said to Esmé. “Maybe the kiwi?”

Esmé looked blank, but Uncle Potty seized the kiwi anyway and dunked it energetically into the bowl of water.

“No watch in here!” he hollered. “Shall I try the tangerine, finally?”

Esmé looked at the fruit trembling on the tablecloth. She assumed Monty was trying to stuff her watch inside it. But maybe this was a double bluff – her watch was in someone’s pocket. Or maybe the trick involved an optical illusion and the water wasn’t really water, but something dry. But Esmé feared the worst.

“Could I just have my Timex back, please?” Esmé asked.

“Of course,” Uncle Potty replied, picking up the tangerine from which Esmé’s watch strap dangled.

“My watch!” said Esmé and made a grab for the strap before Uncle Potty could submerge it in the water. But as she did so:

Shhhhlooop!

The bowl tipped over and water went everywhere – on to the table, Monty, the laptop on the floor, Esmé’s homework, the library book, the sticks…

“My sticks!” said Monty, appearing sodden from under the table.

“Your sticks? Look at my homework! Look at the laptop! Mum and Dad will kill us.” Esmé grabbed a tea towel and desperately started mopping water from the laptop, then her homework notebook. “Everything’s ruined!” she cried.

Uncle Potty started to tremble.

“Oh, me, oh, my… Monty, find some more teachers, er I mean tea cloths. I’ll go and get a sponge. Oh, Esmé, I’m terribly sorry.”

Uncle Potty handed Esmé the tangerine, with her watch half-stuffed inside. “I hadn’t meant for the bowl of water to be so… full.”

Esmé took the fruit-splattered Timex, sticky and dripping, and wiped it with her sleeve. The second hand had definitely stopped; there was no ticking sound. Esmé was crestfallen. It had been a very accurate watch.

“I’ll save up and buy you a new one,” said Monty, wiping the library book with an old towel. “I’ll go out and perform some street magic.”

Uncle Potty appeared from the garden with the mop that had a wobbly handle. “Or we could write our own magic book, Monty, and make a fortune!”

“Brilliant!” said Monty. “I’ll go and get a pen.”

As kind as these offers were, Esmé did not think that they were going to provide an immediate solution to the problems in hand. Things were getting out of control. The living room was becoming cluttered with magic books, the stairs covered in little plastic boxes with false panels and double hinges – and Uncle Potty kept throwing his stage clothes everywhere, ignoring the designated dirty washing bin. Now things were being damaged – Esmé’s homework, her watch, the laptop… Was the computer under guarantee? How would the family ever afford a new one? Esmé had been using it to help write a homework assignment about beluga whales on it. It was probably lost for ever. Esmé sighed loudly. She mustn’t get too upset. It wasn’t really Uncle Potty and Monty’s fault – it was Esmé who had actually knocked the water bowl. But Esmé did not think that anything would change until drastic measures were taken.

A Ping-Pong ball is best for this trick.

The ball is held in one hand, then suddenly glides through the air to the other.

The secret? Thread a piece of black thread through the ball – the forefingers of both hands hold the loop taut, forming a sort of track along which the ball slides. The lightness of the Ping-Pong ball is an asset to this trick, as your friends will see.

Just do not let them stand too close to you…

The golden rule that any magician knows is never, ever, to repeat a trick to the same audience. Once the element of surprise is missing, the audience – or at least part of it – will work out how the trick is done. It only takes a slight difference from one performance to the next to see the mechanics of the act itself. As I was saying to Mrs Dr Pompkins only yesterday over a nice glass of sherry and a Chelsea bun – repetition is the enemy of surprise.

In all totality,

smé was small for her age; she was sensible-looking and always wore trousers and flat shoes. Her brother Monty was not an identical twin – his hair was lighter and he had more freckles (and besides, he was a boy). In general, he looked relatively sensible, until yesterday, that is, when they had all gone to the local party shop. Monty had spied a black sateen cape, which he excitedly purchased with three months’ pocket money. From the moment he put it on, Esmé thought, he did not look very sensible at all.

That in itself was not a huge issue. The real issue was that Esmé had been subjected to non-stop magic for the last few days and she was beginning to feel overawed. As Uncle Potty stood mopping in the kitchen, Esmé thought back to the cause of the current trouble: Dr Pompkins.

On the morning that he arrived, exactly four days ago, Uncle Potty gave Monty a book called Dr Pompkins – Totality Magic, as a source of magical inspiration for his new assistant. As soon as he opened the musty pages of the book, Monty was enraptured.Sitting in the armchair in the living room, he immediately insisted on trying Pompkins out on Esmé. The first thing that he wanted to try, Monty explained, was “a highly simple card trick, in all totality”.

“Pick a card, any card,” he said, producing a deck that he splayed into an irregular fan shape with his fingers.

Esmé chose the Jack of Hearts, memorised it and put it back into the deck carefully.

“And now, my magic shuffle!” said Monty.

Monty had read something about shuffling the cards in a certain way, which actually meant not shuffling them at all. For a few seconds Monty shifted the cards from one hand to the other, without actually changing the order. He kept a watch on Esmé’s card all the way through.

However, eagle-eyed Esmé noticed what he was doing – or rather, what he was not doing.

“Are you shuffling properly?” she asked.

“Just keep thinking of your card, Esmé,” Monty replied. “Do not forget.”

Monty fixed his twin sister with what was supposed to be a hypnotic expression, but which looked closer to someone trying to contain a burp. “Magic is supposed to make people ‘suspend their disbelief – to believe things they wouldn’t ordinarily believe’. I read that in Dr Pompkins,” he said.

“I do believe,” replied Esmé. “I believe that you are not shuffling properly on purpose.”

Monty picked – a card from the middle of the deck – it was the Jack of Hearts.

“See!” said Monty. “I just need to take some time to get the technique right, the sleight of hand.”

“Yes, maybe that’s all it needs,” said Esmé, who didn’t want to dampen her brother’s enthusiasm.

Montague Pepper picked up Dr Pompkins’ book and silently started on a new chapter. Esmé carried on with her summer homework assignment, the one which was based around beluga whales and the fact that a scientist in Japan had discovered they could understand five basic words, which included “bucket” and “goggles”. Esmé decided to draw a large picture of a beluga whale, which she did carefully – adding arrows that pointed to parts of the animal, for instance its huge brain, a fin and the bit where she thought the ears might be.

After twenty minutes, Monty set the book down.

“I am now going to perform mind magic on you, Esmé,” he said with great seriousness.

“You are in the right frame of mind,” he continued. “You have been so absorbed in your work that your brain is emitting what Dr Pompkins calls ‘mega waves’.”

Although Esmé thought that “mega waves” sounded utterly ridiculous, she did think that “mind magic” was interesting. She had seen a certain Derek Brown perform this sort of routine on TV and she had been fascinated by how he made ordinary people believe in all kinds of nonsense – from ghosts and spirits to making them think that they could rob a bank or steal a race horse. Esmé liked the idea of hypnosis, but only on other people. Would Monty make her fall into a trance – only to find he was not able to wake her up again? And would he also send himself into a reverie? Esmé could not remember Monty doing anything even vaguely hypnotic before, apart from a very odd dance on Christmas Day last year after he’d eaten a large bowl full of profiteroles.

And if Esmé remembered rightly, Monty had been sick fifteen minutes later.

“Look into my eyes,” Monty suddenly commanded. “Go on, really concentrate.”

Esmé did what she was told. Maybe this time she would suspend her disbelief. She looked into Monty’s left eye, then his right, then back to the left again.

“My eyes are wiggling,” she said. “Is that normal?”

The longer Esmé stared, the more her eyes wiggled, and the more she thought about her eyes wiggling the less hypnotised she felt.

Now Monty spoke in a low, long voice: “Your mega waves are definitely vibrating. I want you to draw whatever comes into your mind.” He handed Esmé a blank sheet of A4 paper.

“When you’ve finished, fold the paper once,” Monty said, taking his own sheet of paper. “And I, the great Montague Pepper, will draw the exact same thing using my own mega waves that are connecting with yours, miaow.”

“Draw anything?” asked Esmé. “Anything, miaow,” he replied.

Esmé was not sure she’d heard right. “Anything, miaow?” she repeated.

“Use your, um, miaow imagination,” said Monty quickly, under his breath, to drive the point home.

Esmé raised an eyebrow at her brother. Feeling mischievous, she thought it would be funny to draw a small sausage dog. She did so and folded the paper up twice.

“Once, not twice,” Monty said, sighing. “Oh, well. Now let us show the powers for enjoined mega waves and open our pictures! 1 – 2 – 3!”

Dramatically, they each opened their drawings.

“A cat!” exclaimed Monty proudly of his picture, before realising that Esmé was holding up a picture of a dog – and what’s more, a sausage dog.

Monty looked devastated.

“You didn’t draw a cat,” he said.

“Er, no,” said Esmé. “You kept saying miaow so I thought…”

“…that you’d do the opposite.”

“Sorry, Monty,” Esmé said, realising that her brother was upset. “I’ll try harder next time.”

Four days of magic and chaos later and Esmé was standing in the devastated kitchen, wondering just what to do. Some of the plastic floor tiles looked like they were curling up at the edges under all that water, not helped by Uncle Potty’s low quality mopping. Uncle Potty heard Esmé sigh again and reached into one of his many waistcoat pockets and brought out a bunch of silk flowers.

“To cheer you up,” he said. Esmé tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth were not having any of it.

Uncle Potty reached into another pocket with some difficulty and found a sweetie tube that contained a selection of nuts and bolts. He put it back and then found a five-pound note from another pocket. His waistcoat certainly had a lot of potential.

“Here, Esmé. I know I can’t replace everything, but you could at least get yourself some chocolate from the CostSnippas convenience store,” said Uncle Potty kindly. “Maybe even a new pencil from the stationery shelf.”

“And a homework book as well?” asked Esmé.

“Why not?” said Uncle Potty. “Monty and I will finish clearing up here while you’re away and everything will be shipshape when you come back.”

“OK, thanks,” said Esmé, reaching for her coat.

As she went for the front door, Esmé heard her brother say, “I’ve got a new trick, Uncle Potty,” he said. “What about turning a pineapple into a bicycle?”

Esmé sighed as she stepped out of the door and closed it quietly behind her.

Take a coin between the fingers of your right hand and announce that you will make it disappear.

Wave your left hand over the right, as if to grasp the coin with this hand [misdirection], while secretly keeping the coin in your right hand.

Shouting “Pompkins! Pompkins! In all totality!” might also help startle your audience, as you point your right index finger (still concealing the coin) to the left hand which opens up to reveal... nothing.

It also helps if you change

your name to Pompkins.

Traditionally, the magician adopts a stage name to inspire a certain appeal. My advice in this area: take stock of who you are, what your most interesting qualities might be, and devise a “persona” to fit.

When I became Dr Pompkins I took to wearing a stethoscope and many times was asked to perform vital surgery when out and about. I saved as many lives as those I tragically cut short… Just joking – everyone survived!

In all totality,

smé made her way to the shop, thinking how she had never had this much bother over a tangerine before. She wondered why she was always the sensible one, always buying cleaning products and worrying about her watch, while the rest of her family were singing odes to pot plants, or now making string appear from crisp packets.

While Uncle Potty did the magic, Esmé’s parents were self-confessed hippies – they were spiritual, enlightened, at peace with the rhythms of nature, but perhaps at odds with bringing up a very practical young daughter. They had gone on a woodland holiday as a chance to “reconnect with nature”, which meant incredibly long, arduous walks for hours. As Monty and Esmé were now, at the grand old age of eleven, finding these hikes less appealing, Uncle Potty had been given the job of babysitter for the week.

Jane and Roger Pepper had first met under the light of a May Full Moon, when they had both travelled to an ancient stone circle near Penge to celebrate the Goddess of Worms (or something like that, Esmé did not quite remember). Jane had a very prominent spiritual side that manifested itself in buying Eastern religious icons, small spears of dull-coloured crystal and a great many beaded skirts. (Mr Pepper had joined in recently by growing a beard.) There were wind chimes outside the front door and a large Buddha that sat in the hallway just to the left as you came in – it was from Thailand and it had taken a considerable amount of effort to get it all the way back to London.

Monty was entirely fine with the wind chimes and the Buddha – in this respect, Montague Pepper was his mother’s son – but Esmé had always thought that the Buddha could at least have been put in a corner somewhere, which would have reduced the risk of injury to visitors.

The way Esmé saw it, the world was an incredible place already, without the need for wind chimes and rambling walks. Her parents were spiritual people, which was fine, but Esmé liked facts. That scientists could communicate with a whale was impressive, and more so because it was based on solid evidence, nothing wishy-washy. Esmé imagined having a chat with a parrot, writing a letter to a kangaroo – even sending an email to a horse. Maybe one day she would visit a beluga whale and ask just exactly what the bottom of the ocean was like. Hopefully, the whale in question would have learnt to say more than “goggles”, as that could make conversation somewhat limited. Maybe by the time she got there it would have learnt to say, “I can help with your homework,” or “Would you like to be a marine biologist?” in a deep, whaley voice. Esmé really hoped so.

As Esmé approached CostSnippas, the International Magic Guys (IMG) HQ opposite came into view. The building itself was impossibly old and rather dark, with battered brickwork and leaded windows. There was a crooked spire that cast a deep shadow across the road, and ugly gargoyles were situated at points along the roof edge. The huge front door was made from oak, but had warped slightly. The windows were thin and narrow. The IMG looked mysterious and out of step with the modern world. Even the hedges looked dusty.

In front of the old oak door was a statue of Barry Houdini, the IMG’s founder. Houdini’s most celebrated trick involved him escaping from a large wooden chest that had been dropped into the middle of the ocean. Houdini would always be shackled and chained, sometimes with a mouth full of sewing needles or maybe some razor blades. Sometimes he filled the trunk with lead, to make the trunk sink faster in the water, adding more danger. Sometimes he dangled off buildings or was “buried” under six feet of soil. He would always escape. The bronze statue outside the IMG depicted the great magician dressed in his underpants, chains round his feet, holding an open padlock aloft in victory. It was an arresting pose.

Esmé enjoyed going to the CostSnippas shop, especially if she was allowed to go on her own. Music tinkled from the radio – pop songs about driving big cars and going out on a Saturday night – but most of all, Esmé liked the new stationery shelf.

Esmé picked up an A4 lined notebook, spiral bound and sporting a green cover, which shimmered slightly, reflecting the strip lighting above. She chose a chocolate-covered wafer bar, that had extra crunchy blue cracknel on the top, then, after a moment’s thought, she bought a cleaning spray, just in case they had run out at home.

Jimi Sinha ran CostSnippas and over the years he’d often helped Esmé out with anything from difficult maths homework to practical stuff like fixing her bike. Jimi knew Uncle Potty, and Esmé thought that he might have some good advice for her on how to cope with the squashed fruit, disappearing watches and the terrible, terrible mess. Jimi watched her, wondering why she was so different from the rest of the kids who came in here. Most of them just lingered by the sweets, although some of them came in just to steal lollies from the freezer cabinets. Esmé was happy buying paperclips and Mr Muscle.

He smiled at her as she approached the till. “Buying another?” he asked, pointing to her notebook. She had bought one only last week.

“My last notebook was ruined just now,” Esmé explained. “An accident with a bowl of water and a citrus fruit.”

“One of Potty’s tricks gone wrong?”

“How did you guess?” Esmé replied, genuinely surprised.

Everyone in the local area knew the Potty Magician. He had spent a lifetime at the International Magic Guys HQ, sometimes hanging out of the window performing card tricks on pigeons or trying to make the ornamental shrubbery round the building disappear.

“I don’t mind a few magic tricks now and again,” said Esmé, “but Uncle Potty can’t stop. Plus he keeps messing things up.”

Jimi looked extra pensive. He had looked through the shop window on many occasions to see Uncle Potty trying to make traffic wardens levitate. He chuckled to himself. Uncle Potty was a “wild card” – a true eccentric.

“Could he be messing up the tricks on purpose, as part of a new routine?” asked Jimi.

“I don’t think so,” replied Esmé. “Yesterday he tried to produce twenty tins of baked beans from a long silk scarf. There were an awful lot of beans to clean up afterwards. The living-room carpet was ruined.”

Jimi scratched his left eyebrow pensively. “The tins were open?”

“Yes.” Esmé warmed to her theme. “And yesterday, Uncle Potty managed to get stuck in the bathroom for an hour while he worked on his ‘Underwater Sea’ trick and somehow fused the boiler at the same time, so we have no hot water. Plus he’s broken the door bell, my watch, damaged the Hoover trying to suck up the beans and spilt water over Mum and Dad’s laptop.”

“Oh, dear,” mused Jimi. “My brother could look at the laptop for you and maybe the vacuum cleaner, if you bring it in. The doorbell might just need a new fuse. Not sure about the boiler – maybe Potty knows a good plumber.”

Esmé shook her head. “I don’t think he knows what a plumber is.”

“Do you think he’s nervous about the IMG performance the day after tomorrow?”

“What performance?” replied Esmé.

Jimi lowered his voice, although the only other person in the shop was a man who had been staring at light bulbs for half an hour.

“Rumour has it that the show is being put on for the Pan-Continental Magic Corporation, who own and fund the club. If the IMG doesn’t make the grade it could face the axe.”

“If the IMG closes, Uncle Potty will be devastated!” said Esmé.

“I’ve heard the PCMC are very hard to please – in particular the boss, Nigella Spoon,” said Jimi, who seemed to know a lot about the matter. “She takes a great deal of pleasure in closing down a failing club. Nigella is as hard as nails. I met her once and she trod on my toe – although she claimed it was an accident, it is hard to forget. I’m sure that she meant to do it.”

Esmé was worried. If Uncle Potty’s tricks were anything to go by, the whole club could be in trouble.

“If the IMG closes, each and every one of the IMG members will face financial and emotional ruin,” Jimi added, looking grave. “From leader Maureen Houdini – the late Barry Houdini’s daughter – to Uncle Potty, the other members, their families… so many people will be affected. It will also be a sad day for the world of stage magic, and for humanity itself. It would also hit me hard as I do the catering for all the shows from my Global Snack Tea Trolley. I need to sell my pakoras and light Thai bites.”

“And when is the show?”

“Day after tomorrow,” replied Jimi.

Esmé suddenly realised why Uncle Potty must be trying to invent the “trick of all tricks”. He must have hidden the truth about the Pan-Continental Magic Corporation from the children so as not to worry them. But the International Magic Guys was in trouble. The club meant everything to Uncle Potty, and Esmé wanted to help because she understood it was so important to him. But what exactly could she do?

Esmé was no magician herself – she could not perform a trick or do a dance to save the IMG. But to every problem there is a solution, she thought, and there must be a way to ensure the IMG’s survival. Esmé decided to go back and talk to Monty. With his new-found knowledge of magic and her common sense they might be able to hatch a plan.

Drill a hole in one end of your wand, affix a bent paperclip and tie a rubber band round it, which you then tie round your middle finger. {See fig. 1}

If you hold your hand so as the audience will not see the rubber band, the wand inexplicably rises up.

Cue much applause.

Some of you may know that in the magic world, wands have a mind of their own and rabbits appear from top hats. Danger! I cannot state it more clearly, in all matters of health and safety, that using a wand can result in very serious injury if accidentally poked in the stomach. Animals, on the other hand, are easily available and an ideal way to create magic entertainment that poses no harm at all.

In all totality,

smé arrived back at Highwood Road, left her shopping bag next to the big Buddha in the hallway and ran upstairs to find Monty. He was standing in their shared bedroom with a stuffed toy elephant on his head.

“At last, my willing assistant Esmé is here,” Monty announced smoothly, as if he were a well-rehearsed TV presenter who had been churned into butter and spread thickly on toast. “Aloha, Miss Esmé Pepper. Welcome to the Hiding the Elephant trick. Come feel the weight of the elephant and let me hoist the heavy animal on to your shoulders, then see if I can make you both disappear.”

It was clear that Monty’s interest in magic had not abated since Uncle Potty’s disastrous trick.

“Where’s Uncle Potty?” asked Esmé.

“He’s downstairs fiddling with the laptop. Now, I must continue – let me hoist the heavy ani––”

“Monty, I have to talk to you,” said Esmé earnestly. “The IMG are in trouble. They might be closed down if we don’t help them. That’s why Uncle Potty’s getting all his tricks wrong. He’s a bag of nerves.”

Monty looked crossly at his sister.

“I think that Uncle Potty would have mentioned any nerves to me,” Monty replied, irritated that Esmé was interrupting his trick. “I am his new assistant, his trusted aide. I have access to the inner workings of the conjuror’s mind, and would be able to tell if my own uncle was nervous or not.”

“Oh, don’t be so silly,” said Esmé. “They have to do a big show for the Pan-Continental Magic Corporation the day after tomorrow. Jimi at CostSnippas has told me all about it.”

Monty took the elephant off his head. “And Jimi knows, because he does all the IMG catering.”

Monty sighed.

“I think we should try and help,” concluded Esmé.

“OK, fine,” agreed Monty at last. “The International Magic Guys cannot disappear, just like that. Why don’t we take out a TV advert where Uncle Potty explains the problems of the IMG, and appeals to people to donate their money to the club?” suggested Monty. “I saw something similar about sponsoring pandas.”

Esmé was slightly taken aback by Monty’s lack of media knowledge. “You do know it costs thousands of pounds to take out a TV advert?” she told him.

“Uncle Potty and I could write that book about magic ourselves, so if we do that we’ll get someone famous to write the introduction – like the Queen or one of Hunkatron, the boy band – then we will sell loads of copies and the money we make could pay for the ad.”

“It takes a long time to write a book, get it published and earn royalties,” explained Esmé, realising that her brother did not have a grasp on such realities.

Monty was thoughtful. “I could always sell my cape,” he said.

Esmé meanwhile had come up with a sensible idea.

“You’ve got the Dr Pompkins book, right? What we should do is collect the best, most fail-safe tricks and work on a programme that we can present to Uncle Potty. Right now he needs to focus. We can help him put together a show that can’t fail to impress the PCMC.”

Monty agreed enthusiastically, grabbed Dr Pompkins and set about marking its pages as Esmé crept downstairs to grab her new notebook.

Together, she and Monty started compiling the best tricks from the book, from a simple rabbit-in-hat trick to something called “The Cage of Possibilities”, which involved a box inside a twirling cage and a quick change of personnel. Leafing through the book, Monty saw a trick that he wanted to perform himself – the Dairy Creamer Eye Splurge.