President of Poplar Lane Read online

  This year’s theme: ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE.

  What You’ll Need:

  Sunscreen (gotcha!)

  A pen (the kind without pigs)

  A video recording device

  Your sickest magic skillz

  Your most hilarious comic stylingz

  Anything else that ends in z

  What to Do:

  Write a 250-word essay about how you have achieved the impossible with your magic.

  Send us a recording of YOU—yes, YOU—performing your most impressive magic trick.

  Now Let’s Get Serious . . .

  The Magician’s Code Is No Laughing Matter!

  The secrets of magic are sacred. When you share them with a non-magician, the magic is gone. That’s called “exposure.” Never expose the method behind the magic, unless you’re sharing your wisdom with another magician.

  REPEAT AFTER ME: “As a magician I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion to a non-magician, unless he or she also swears to uphold the Oath. I promise never to perform any illusion for any non-magician without practicing the effect until I can perform it well enough to maintain the illusion of magic.”

  2

  MIKE THE UNUSUAL

  When you wear headphones, most people leave you alone. But not Peter Gronkowski. He keeps talking.

  I sat in a white plastic chair outside the Town Hall kitchen while Peter paced back and forth in front of me. Pancakes sizzled on the griddle behind us.

  Peter is my business mentor. I’m not really sure how that happened, since I didn’t ask him to be my mentor. He just started giving me advice after my comedy-magic gig at his younger brother’s birthday party. Now Peter’s trying to help me “grow my brand.”

  Today’s gig was part of growing my brand. According to Peter, the Pancake Jamboree was a big deal. He said I could appeal to a “new demographic.” Basically, it was a chance to do magic for older kids. He got me the gig because he knows the booking agent, even though I’m pretty sure it’s just the Town Hall receptionist.

  The gig was a big deal for another reason. Peter was recording it for my Mystic Mayhem Magic Camp audition tape.

  Last week I set out the magic camp brochure for Dad on the kitchen table, kind of like a test. I found it in the recycling bin the next day.

  Dad doesn’t get it. He’d rather I do basketball camp because I’m tall and skinny. He wasn’t tall and skinny, so he thinks I should “take advantage.”

  That’s why I need a scholarship, so he can’t say no. But you’ve got to be really good to get a scholarship.

  I think I’ve got a shot, because I’m not only a magician. I’m a comedy magician. Peter calls comedy my “competitive advantage,” which is something that makes you stand out. Peter’s the only one who knows I’m auditioning for magic camp. Not even Granberry knows.

  You can do magic anywhere, but it’s not the same as camp. At camp, you see people just like you. People that speak the same language.

  Peter and I don’t speak the same language, but we still get along. He can talk all day, and I can just nod. He doesn’t care that I wear my headphones. Like always, I was listening to my favorite podcast, Amusing Illusions. It’s the number one comedy-magic podcast in the world.

  On today’s podcast, Al A. Kazam was explaining the Balducci Levitation. It’s a trick you do with your feet to make it look like you’re floating. While I listened, I tried to read Peter’s lips.

  “Brad, have a lotion,” he mouthed. But then he stopped talking, like he was waiting for me to say something. That’s not like Peter.

  I took off my headphones. “Come again?” I asked.

  “Brand evolution,” Peter said. “Adapt or die. As a businessman, you have to evolve to keep up with the world around you. Take me, for example.” He pointed at his head. “I’m parting my hair on the other side now.”

  I nodded, watching the streams of pancake-hungry families pour into Town Hall.

  “It’s so hot!”

  “So hot!”

  “I’ll get us a table!”

  “I. Will. Not. Wear. A. Shirt!”

  Clover O’Reilly’s giant family walked in. They’re pretty loud, so I heard them before I saw them. They were carrying a bunch of signs with her mom’s picture on them.

  Some people don’t have to evolve, like Clover. She fits in right where she is.

  “Everyone around us is changing, even if you can’t see it on the surface,” Peter said. “Business tip: back-to-school is the perfect time for brand evolution.” He nodded at a few kids huddled in the corner. “Did you see Jake Tripoli? Braces. That’s a solid investment in his dental future. And Seema Singh got taller.”

  “Is that evolution or . . . puberty?” I asked.

  “Both,” said Peter. Just then Hannah Greer toddled through the door in very high heels.

  It was weird to me that people thought they had to change just because a new school year was starting. I thought the Pancake Jamboree was about eating pancakes. But maybe Peter was right. It felt kind of like a fashion show or something, where people showed off how much they changed over the summer.

  Me, I didn’t change a thing. Granberry says I’m all arms and legs with a little bit of torso. I guess I grew more in all those areas. But I was still just me: Mike the Unusual, comedy-magician extraordinaire.

  “I’m evolving,” I said. “I’m trying out the new persona today.” A persona is a character a magician plays onstage.

  “Which one?” Peter asked.

  “The Lovable Loser,” I said. The Lovable Loser pretends to mess everything up and then wows the audience.

  Peter winced. “I’m not sure ‘loser’ is the brand evolution we’re after,” he said.

  Peter’s phone rang. It played the sound of a cash register.

  “Your stakes today just got a whole lot higher,” Peter said, showing me the screen.

  It was a text from Mel Chang, VIP (that’s how Peter had her listed on his phone). It said, “Save me seat in ft row k thx.”

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Only your opportunity for fame and fortune,” said Peter. “Mel’s coming to review your show for her blog.” I have no idea how he figured that out from her text. See? Another language. “This is it, Mike. The big time. Mel’s an eighth grader now. She has pull with tweens AND teens. A five-star review from Mel is a social seal of approval.”

  “Oh,” I said. A five-star review might also help me get the magic camp scholarship. “Well, time to suit up.” That means put on my costume. Dad says it a lot. But he actually wears suits.

  “I’ll ping Mel back,” Peter said, typing on his phone. “Terrific chat, Mike.”

  I walked into the far stall of the Town Hall bathroom and started my transformation.

  The Lovable Loser was going to kill (that’s a good thing in comedy). He’s a bumbling dude who doesn’t know what to say or how to act or dress. It even seems like he doesn’t know how to do magic, but when you least expect it, he lands the perfect trick.

  My blazer and pants were huge—on purpose—and inside out. I put my oversized shoes on the wrong feet and fastened a flower to my giant lapel. When I squeezed the flower, it would squirt me in the face. Finally, I put on upside-down glasses that I’d stomped on and taped up. I parted my curls on one side of my head and pinned a tiny hat on the other side.

  Peter was right about one thing, though. The Lovable Loser persona only works if you win in the end. What matters is whether you pull off the trick.

  Before I left the bathroom, I put on my headphones. Headphones keep me in my magic mindset. Onstage, I don’t need them. That’s because being onstage is like being in a universe I belong to. In the real world, I need my headphones. Sometimes I feel like I’m from a different planet even though I’ve l
ived here my whole life.

  On my way back to the main room, I passed two eighth graders. I pretended they couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see them. The magic mindset.

  I can make a ball disappear in midair and vanish a coin under glass. Magic is my communication. But most people don’t speak the language.

  Just then I saw Granberry coming into Town Hall. She winked at me and walked over.

  “Mike!” She pulled me into a warm hug, smelling like cinnamon rolls even though everything around us smelled like pancakes. “Looking sharp, kid. Just like Granbobby.”

  I’d seen pictures of Granbobby, so I knew I didn’t look just like him. My skin is lighter, and my hair is a lot bigger. Granbobby’s curls were flat against his head, and he had sideburns.

  “Got your patter all worked out?” Granberry asked me.

  I nodded. Patter is the stuff magicians say during their act.

  Granberry was a magician, too. She was part of a traveling magic show with Granbobby: Warty Morty and his lovely assistant, Selena the Strange. Strange is our last name.

  “Your dad’s on his way,” Granberry told me. “Coming straight from the station.”

  I froze even though inside my heart was jumping. I had to pull off my trick today, not just for magic camp, but to prove to Dad I was good at magic. This was the first time he’d see me perform at a real gig, in front of real people.

  Maybe Granberry could tell I suddenly got nervous, because she leaned in and whispered, “Pick a card.”

  “Any card,” I said back with a smile.

  When I was little, I didn’t say much. I’d only recite lines from cartoons or movies. Then one day, Granberry showed me a card trick. I started saying, “Pick a card, any card” to anyone I met. It was like how most kids might say “Hi.” That’s because I had words in my head that wouldn’t come out of my mouth unless I was doing magic.

  “Now go do your meditation,” Granberry said. “And don’t be too good! Remember Black Herman!”

  I nodded. Black Herman (his real name was Benjamin Rucker) was a magician from the 1900s. He was so good at burying himself alive and pretending to come back to life that no one believed it when he dropped dead onstage during a trick.

  As I walked to the stage to start my pre-show meditation, I felt a pair of small arms wrapping around my legs.

  “Mike the Unusual!” Gabby Jonas yelled. “It’s you!”

  Peter sprinted over from across the room. “No hugging the talent,” he said.

  Gabby pouted.

  “I’ll see you after the show,” I told her. She grinned. I get along great with little kids. You don’t have to worry about impressing them. They don’t care about brand evolution or five-star reviews. They just want to have fun.

  I hung my THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS sign over the stage. Then I went into a corner to meditate.

  “No fans, please,” Peter announced to the audience. “My client is visualizing.”

  I always meditate before a show. Peter calls it visualizing, but that’s not the same thing. When you visualize, you imagine the future.

  Meditation is about being in the present. You watch your thoughts go by, like they’re floating on a stream or rolling by like cars on a train. I watched Granberry’s smiling face and Mel Chang’s stars travel across the hazy sky in my mind.

  After a few minutes, I opened my eyes and saw Dad sitting beside Granberry.

  He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said JUST YOUR AVERAGE STAT NERD. He didn’t look like Stu the Sports Dude, sports analyst for WPOP-TV. On air, Dad always wears a suit and a tie with math symbols. But today he looked like a normal dad. Well, a normal dad obsessed with statistics.

  Dad waved at me and gave me a thumbs-up. I gave him one back and smiled.

  Dad’s the one who looks like Granbobby in those old pictures where he’s making grand gestures during a show. There’s a big difference in the way Dad and I move, even the way we stand in place. I shuffle my feet and stick to the sides of a room. Dad walks straight down the middle, leaning forward like he can’t wait to get where he’s going.

  I nodded at Peter, who was talking into a headset.

  Peter took off the headset and walked to the center of the platform. When Peter walks, it’s not like regular walking. He takes giant steps, like five at a time.

  “Fellow citizens of Poplar, especially the honorable blogger Mel Chang,” Peter said. “Fasten your seatbelts. You are in for the comedy-magic ride of a lifetime. Presenting my client . . . Mike the Unusual!”

  The crowd cheered as I, the Lovable Loser, stumbled onstage (on purpose).

  3

  MIKE THE UNUSUAL

  “Two stars,” Peter said, checking his phone while we walked back home with Dad and Granberry.

  “Huh?” said Dad.

  “Mel Chang’s official review,” Peter told him.

  “What else does it say?” I asked.

  “‘Not very compel,’” Peter read.

  “Compel?” Dad asked. “I don’t know that one.” He’s always trying to figure out what “the kids” are saying because he wants to “connect with his audience.”

  “Compelling,” Peter told him. “Mel always makes words shorter. It’s her brand.”

  “What’s ‘compelling’?” I asked.

  “It means interesting,” Granberry said. She waved her hand. “But don’t listen to her. Don’t read your reviews, Mike, and don’t believe your own press. That goes both ways, good or bad.”

  “You got some great You Reviews from the three-to-six-year-old bracket,” Peter said encouragingly.

  “You Reviews?” Dad asked.

  “It’s where kids leave their own reviews on Mel’s blog,” Peter said.

  “Three-year-olds have phones?” Granberry asked.

  “Koddlers are a growing market,” Peter said.

  “Koddlers?” Dad asked.

  “Between kids and toddlers,” Peter said. “A real sweet spot.”

  I didn’t really care what Mel or the koddlers had to say. It mattered, I guess. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened today.

  We stopped in front of Peter’s house, which is across the street from ours.

  “Peter, want to come over? Play some Battle Quest Spectacular?” Dad asked.

  I tried to imagine Peter playing a video game, but I don’t think he could sit still for that long.

  “No thanks, Mr. Strange,” Peter said. “I need to run the numbers from Mike’s show to compile a detailed postmortem analysis. I’ll ping you later, Mike. Good night, all,” he said, saluting us before he walked into his house.

  “Ping,” Dad repeated, typing on his phone.

  “Did he say ‘postmortem’?” Granberry asked. “Who died?”

  I shrugged.

  “Did you ever want to give up after a bad show?” I asked Granberry. I kept my voice down so Dad wouldn’t hear.

  She pulled me close as we walked up the sidewalk. “Bad shows are a magician’s rite of passage. One show was so bad I threw all my props in the trash when I walked offstage. All except the livestock. But we still did the next show. And the next one. You keep going. Magic is a part of you. You don’t just turn your back on magic, even when it lets you down.”

  “Right,” Dad said, looking up from his phone. I guess he could hear us. “Everyone makes mistakes. You know the Poplar Pigeons baseball team? Once I called them the Poplar Piglets, right on the air. Mistakes like that toughen you up.”

  I didn’t feel so tough.

  * * *

  The first thing you see when you walk into my house is a giant framed poster from one of Granberry and Granbobby’s shows. WARTY MORTY AND HIS LOVELY ASSISTANT, SELENA THE STRANGE, TAKE OVER THE BAYOU! it says. But it’s not a normal poster. My grandparents’ eyes kind of follow you when you walk past it. I don�
�t really notice it anymore, but it freaked me out when I was a kid. Beside the poster is a framed cartoon, drawn in crayon, signed ELLEN ARMSTRONG, CARTOONIST EXTRAORDINARY!

  Next there’s Dad’s framed college degree in statistics, and a trophy case of sports memorabilia. He’s got normal stuff like autographed balls and weird things like dirty socks that some pitcher wore all through the playoffs one year. And even though my parents are divorced, there’s an old picture of my mom. She’s grinning really big after her college soccer team won their conference championship. Now she’s a trainer for a traveling women’s soccer team, and she looks the same as she did back then: blonde ponytail, grass-stained jersey, and everything.

  I went up to my room while Dad and Granberry started fixing dinner: pork chops, black-eyed peas, and turnip greens. I flipped on my PowerForce game system to make it sound like I was playing Battle Quest Spectacular. Really, I was shuffling cards, trying to get into my magic mindset.

  Dad got me the PowerForce for my birthday last year, even though I’d asked for the Classique Comedy-Magic Gift Set. He thought it would be fun for us to play together.

  My phone rang, playing the Amusing Illusions theme song. It was a text from Mom.

  “How was the show, sweetie??” she asked. She even added little magic wand emojis.

  Right now, Mom’s on the road with her team. Usually I give her some details because she wants to picture it like she’s there.

  But today I just texted back: “Okay.”

  After a minute, I heard Dad through the vents. “Camille, hi,” he said.

  This is their pattern. Mom talks to me, and then she goes to Dad for the “play-by-play.” That’s what he calls it. Even though they’re divorced, they get along fine.

  I turned down the volume on my TV.

  Dad sounded like he was reporting what happened in a game. But he was talking about me. I could only hear bits and pieces.

  “It . . . all started okay,” Dad said. “Scratch that. He fell down as he was going onstage . . .”