This Might Hurt(14)

The path between the house and wall is narrow enough that I could touch both if I extend my arms. I turn back to Gordon.

“I’ll skip orientation,” I say. “Tell me where Kit’s room is and I’ll be out of your hair—”

The five of us freeze on the path. I’m cut short by a scream so long and loud and bloodcurdling I think my knees might give out.

It comes from the other side of the wall.





6





I PULLED THE cream-colored paperback from our bookshelf and sat on my twin bed. Illustrations of long chains wrapped the front and back of the book. houdini was printed in bold black letters across the cover. Under his name was a drawing of the man himself in an olden-day straitjacket and full-body restraints. The spine was cracked. Gingerly I flipped to the chapter about handcuff escapes. Some of the pages were close to falling out.

“How many times are you going to read that dumb book?” Jack asked from her bed a few feet away. She was doodling in a notebook, probably drawing hearts around the names of boys she’d never tell me about.

“As many times as it takes to master every one of his tricks,” I said without glancing up. “And it’s not dumb.”

“I don’t get what’s so great about the guy.”

This time I looked up. “He performed in front of thousands of people, pulling off stunts no one ever had before.” I closed the book. “He wasn’t afraid to do them either. Imagine not being scared of anything.”

My sister didn’t seem impressed.

“He made ten-thousand-pound elephants disappear like that.” I snapped my fingers.

That got her attention. “How?”

I waved the book in her face.

“No, thanks.” She scrunched her nose. “You’ve read that thing every day for a year.”

“And two months.”

“You must have memorized every paragraph by now.”

“Memorizing instructions and being a great magician are not the same thing.” I grabbed my deck of cards off the bookshelf. “Harry Houdini made people believe magic is real.”

When Alan lent me his copy after swim class, I tore through the book in three days. I read it a second and third time before Alan said his dad wanted the book back. I convinced Mother to buy me my own copy, saying I needed it for school.

I shuffled my deck. “Want to see my latest trick?”

“Not really.” Jack returned to her doodles.

Apathetic: not interested, even when someone is trying to show you something super cool.

“Point check,” Sir called from downstairs.

I stilled and peeked at my sister.

“Already did mine,” she said.

“Coming,” I called back.

I scooped my small black notebook off the floor, shoved the deck of cards into my back pocket, and took the stairs two at a time. I stopped next to Sir’s recliner in the living room and waited. The sooner I wrapped this up, the sooner I could get started on rope practice, if I ever found the thing.

Sir didn’t acknowledge me as I stood by his side with perfect posture. He kept right on reading some old Western, holding the book in one hand and balancing a bag of frozen peas on the other. He’d brought a hammer down on his thumb again while working on a customer’s house. I didn’t dare clear my throat to get his attention.

I could hear Mother opening cupboards and wiping down counters in the kitchen. We’d had pot roast again, the meat dry and rubbery. Mother served the same handful of flavorless meals over and over; Sir wouldn’t let her waste money on spices or condiments. He said only the weak live to eat, that eating to live instead built moral fiber.

When he reached the end of the chapter he was reading, Sir closed the novel. “Think you’ve got fifteen?”

I consulted my notebook, though I’d already quadruple-checked the math. You lost two points for an inaccurate tally.

“I do, Sir.” I rattled them off. “Two points for making my bed this morning, two for going to school, three for bringing home an ‘Excellent’ on my Charlotte’s Web book report.” I showed the pristine white pages to him. “One for setting the table before dinner, one for clearing my plate after dinner, two for mastering the three-card prediction trick, three for graduating to level five in swim class, and one for folding laundry.”

I handed the notebook to him so he could check my math. He stared at it awhile, so long that I began getting nervous I had, in fact, messed up the count. Mother shuffled into the living room, settled in the other recliner, and picked up her cross-stitch with a tired sigh.

Sir looked up. “Let’s see the three-card trick, then.”

I kneeled at the coffee table in front of his recliner and moved a stack of old newspapers out of the way. Underneath them was the rope I’d misplaced. I set it on top of the papers. Sir closed the footrest and leaned forward, eagle-eyed, as I pulled the deck from my pocket. I spread the cards out in front of him, restacked them, cut the deck, and shuffled it with the ease of a Vegas dealer. I fanned the deck out in my hands, chose a card, and placed it facedown. I let him choose a card. He plucked the seven of hearts and put it faceup next to the first card. I chose a second card and handed him the deck to pick another. We repeated the process a second time. Six cards sat on the table in three pairs. Sir’s picks lay faceup, mine facedown.