The Wonder Brothers, page 1
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
To Mr Patrick Roose – a magical boy.
For the attention of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department: Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK.
RE OPERATION TOWER: We’d welcome your co-operation.
Last Wednesday, eleven year old girl – name Middy McNulty – told her father she was going out to play with her two cousins Nathan Wiley and Brodie Panatar. Also a large rabbit.
Her father said, ‘OK. But don’t go far. Your tea’s nearly ready.’
The children said ‘OK.’
It seems they then went to Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Lancashire Constabulary
THE MAGIC CODE
1. NEVER tell anyone how you do your tricks.
2. NEVER do a trick in public until you’ve learned to do it perfectly. If you do a trick badly people will be able to see how you did it and you will therefore be in breach of rule one.
3. NEVER perform a trick without telling your audience it is a trick. Magic is not the same as lying. The point of lying is to deceive. The point of magic is wonder. Magic is honest deceit.
4 NEVER refer to yourself as ‘The Great’ or ‘The Astounding’ or ‘The Mysterious’, unless you are great, astounding and mysterious. That’s lying and therefore a breach of rule 3.
5 NEVER be flashy. Magic is not about showing people how clever you are. People do not trust boastful or flashy people. Wonder comes from trust.
6 NEVER let your eyes look where you don’t want the audience to look. The audience is always paying attention. Your job is make sure that they are paying attention to the wrong thing. This is called misdirection and it’s the most important part of magic.
7 NEVER forget, if one magician fools another, that is the highest form of magic. And the fooled magician must show respect to the fooler.
8 NEVER EVER EVER promise that you can do a piece of magic if you are not completely sure, sure you can do it. NOT EVER. JUST DON’T. THAT IS THE WORST.
By the way, Rule Eight is totally and utterly true. Trust us. We know.
Because of Rule One, we can’t tell you everything. But Nathan broke Rule Seven.
He broke one of the laws of magic and before we knew it, we were breaking the actual law.
Anyway, now we’re going tell you about the greatest disappearance trick in the world, and how we purely vanished into thin air.
This is how the magic happened.
Signed, The Wonder Brothers
P.S. Nathan can get a bit extravagant at times. But you don’t have to believe him. You can believe me instead.
Middy
CHAPTER ONE
WE GO TO AMERICA BY MISTAKE
MIDDY:
To be fair, we did come quietly. As soon as we heard the sirens we knew we were in trouble. There were three police cars in the drop-off zone. Police were jumping out, spreading out, looking for us. Brodie said, ‘What are we going to do?’
I said, ‘You’re the oldest. You’re supposed to be in charge. You supposed to tell us what to do.’
Nathan said that thing you never want to hear Nathan say. He said ‘Leave this to me.’ Then he walked straight out of the front door, right up to one of the police cars and knocked on the driver’s window.
‘Are you the police?’ he said.
The man behind the wheel was wearing a police badge. His car had ‘Police’ written on the side. The siren on its roof was flashing. He said, ‘Yes I am the police.’
‘Great,’ said Nathan, ‘Just who we’re looking for. We want to report a robbery. The thief is right here in this hotel. We’re going to help you catch him.’
‘Son, I know who you are,’ said the police officer. ‘Get in the car.’
‘Shotgun, shotgun,’ said Nathan, trying to bags the front passenger seat.
‘In the back,’ said the officer. ‘Don’t play wise with me.’
By now me and Brodie were there too. Brodie said ‘Excuse me officer, we’ve come to America by accident. We’d really like to go home now.’
Being honest, so much had happened to us it was kind of a relief that an actual grown up was taking charge of us. So I just said ‘Hi’, and climbed in beside the other two.
Nathan said, ‘He’s right there in that hotel. We’ll lead you right to him. You can arrest him and probably get a medal or promotion or something.’
‘Thanks,’ said the officer, ‘but no thanks. I’m running you to the station.’
CHAPTER TWO
AND NOW . . .THE TWO AND ONLY WONDER BROTHERS!
NATHAN:
Captain Jimenez flashed her Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department badge and said she wanted to record our interview for ‘training purposes’. And also just in case we turned out to be a threat to National Security. Middy thought this was a great idea. She said professional magicians often film themselves when training.
I offered to operate the stop start button.
MIDDY:
Captain Jimenez said that we were in trouble. ‘You’re in trouble,’ she said. ‘If you want me to help you, you need to give me the Truth and give it me straight.’
Sadly when she said this she was looking at Nathan. He jumped up, threw out his arms and said to the whole room . . .
‘Whoever you are . . .
Whatever you are . . .
Get ready to be astonished
Because we are . . .
THE WONDER BROTHERS!!!!!!‘
Captain Jimenez rolled her eyes. ‘Son,’ she said, ‘this is a police investigation, not a circus. Just give us the details. No razzmatazz. Just the facts.’
Saying ‘no razzmatazz’ to our Nathan is like saying ‘no swimming’ to Mr Nibbles the goldfish. Razzmatazz is how Nathan moves.
Some people can’t see colours. Some can’t remember their number bonds. Nathan can’t see consequences. He does what he feels like doing. His mum says he’s complicated. My mum says he ‘can be bouncy’. His teachers call him ‘a character’. Basically he’s mostly OK but can be a bit of a flapjack sometimes.
‘If it’s details you’re after,’ he said, ‘you’ve come to the right people. Officer, we’ve got more details than you could shake your badge at. We’ve got details about plumbing, stowaways, brushes with death, magic that will make your skin tingle and the most incredible robbery in the history of the world.. I mean where do we even start?’
‘Let’s start with your names, shall we?’
‘We are the two and only Wonder Brothers. We are . . .’ He stopped. I’d given him The Look. One thing you learn when you’re part of a magic act with someone is how to watch each other really closely. Close enough to tell what the other is thinking. Like mind-reading. Nathan could tell I was thinking, Nathan. Stop talking.
So he stopped talking.
Ta-dah!!!
‘The Wonder Brothers,’ I said, ‘is our stage name. Not our real name. We’re not really brothers. For one thing, I’m a girl. We’re cousins. I’m Middy McNulty and he is Nathan Wiley.’
‘And this is Queenie.’ That was Brodie interrupting. ‘Queenie’s a rabbit,’ he said, holding Queenie up so that the officer could see her.
The Captain sat up suddenly. ‘Are you sure that’s a rabbit?!’ she gasped. ‘She’s the size of a small child.’
‘She nearly won the Best Oversized Rabbit prize at the Lancashire show last year. Do you need to know her full name? It’s Queen of Tobago.’
‘No. I don’t need the rabbit’s full name. I need to know what three little British kids are doing wandering around Las Vegas, USA, with no adult supervision.’
Nathan said, ‘Like I said, we’re here to report a theft. Someone stole something from our town and we’re not going home until we’ve found it.’
She licked her pencil, ready to take notes. ‘OK, let’s have a description of your stolen property.’
I explained that the stolen property wasn’t exactly ours. ‘It belongs to our whole town. To the whole world, really.’
‘Just describe it.’
‘It’s tall and thin and mostly metal.’
‘How tall?’
‘We’re talking about the World-Famous Blackpool Tower.’
‘How,’ snarled the officer, ‘would anyone steal a tower?’
‘Magic,’ said Nathan.
Captain Jimenez put down her pencil and gave him a bad look.
Nathan said, ‘You don’t believe me. Maybe you don’t believe in magic. Don’t worry, you will by the time we tell you what happened to us.’
CHAPTER THREE
WELCOME TO BLACKPOOL . . . HOME OF MAGIC!
NATHAN:
Blackpool people will tell you that the Tower is the tallest or the oldest or the most famous Tower in the whole world. I’m going to be completely honest with you now. It’s none of those things. The Eiffel Tower in Paris is bigger and more famous. Our Tower isn’t the biggest or the most famous. What it is, though, is the Best. No question.
Listen to this. The bottom bit is a circus. The floor of the top storey is made of glass, so when you walk across it, you can look down at the ground five hundred feet below your Summer shoes. You can pretend you’re floating in the air. If you dare. It’s called the Walk of Faith. Uncle Kevin says that sometimes he goes to the top of the Tower, looks out to sea and pretends he’s a careless cloud.
You can see the Tower from miles away. When we’re on our way to Middy’s house in the summer, the first one to spot it poking up above the trees and rooftops always shouts, ‘I can see it!’ And then we know we’re nearly there.
Everyone famous has been to Blackpool Tower – Lady Gaga, the Beatles, Will Smith, and people from Coronation Street. Also every famous magician ever, including Harry ‘Handcuff’ Houdini; Max ‘the Marvel’ Malini and Dai Vernon (also known as the Professor). Probably. And if they haven’t, they should have done.
Middy’s dad – my uncle Kevin – says, ‘This earth spins on its axis. An axis is a spindle that goes right through the middle of a planet. The axis of this planet is Blackpool Tower. The World literally revolves around Blackpool Tower.’
Uncle Kevin should know because uncle Kevin is only the chief electrician of Blackpool Tower and Illuminations, that’s all. He’s literally in charge of one million light bulbs. His father did the job before him. And his father before that. Going right back. Hence us calling him the Illuminator.
Every year when a big celebrity comes for the Big Switch-On, uncle Kevin gets to stand next to them. You feel right proud seeing him up there next to people who’ve won the Olympics or Strictly Come Dancing or whatever.
Every year the lights have a different theme. One time it was ‘Doctor Who and the Daleks’. Another time, ‘Spirits of Ancient Egypt’. This year it’s ‘Under the Sea’. But that’s beside the point.
The point is the celebrity switcher-on this year was the Master of Mystery – Perplexion. You know who that is? Well, I mean, no one knows who he is in real life. Because he’s a mystery. No one knows where he’s from. Or how old he is. Or what language he speaks, because he hardly ever speaks at all. But everyone knows he is the greatest magician in the world.
When Middy’s dad told us it was going to be Perplexion, we couldn’t even believe him. Why would Perplexion come to Blackpool Tower?
‘Because Blackpool is the home of magic and the centre of the world. Also because he’s just done a massive farewell tour – Moscow, Rome, Berlin, Paris, London – so . . . why not stop here to turn on the lights before he goes home? That’s all he’s doing. Turning the lights on.’
I said, ‘Is he doing a show? Can we go? Can we MEET HIM?’
‘He’s not doing a show here. He’s doing one big, spectacular last ever show in Las Vegas, and then – no more Perplexion. All the greatest magicians in the worldwill be there. But here in Blackpool. . . he’s just switching on the lights. As for meeting him, he doesn’t talk to ordinary folk.’
‘But he’ll talk to you, uncle Kevin – you’re the Illuminator. And besides, we’re not ordinary folk. We’re fellow magicians.’
Uncle Kevin said even he wouldn’t be talking to Perplexion directly. ‘It’s all done through his bodyguard and his glamorous assistant.’
Auntie Anya said, ‘Don’t call her the glamorous assistant. She’s a talented woman. And she has a name. Zenith.’ Auntie Anya by the way is the Boss Plumber of Blackpool Tower. She’s in charge of like a million gallons of water and miles of piping. That’s why we call her Aqua Auntie. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘Perplexion won’t need any assistance. All he’s got to do is turn the lights on. And go. But – as long as Brodie doesn’t mind looking after you – I might just be able to swing it for you to stand in the wings when he’s doing the switch-on.’
Brodie is supposed to be able to look after us because he’s, like, one year older. Brodie is not interested in looking after anything except his rabbit.
But standing on the side of the stage would be beyond amazing. We’d be so close to the Master of Mystery.
Brodie said, ‘Will there be any bangs or flashes or loud noises or anything that might frighten a rabbit?’
Uncle Kevin said, ‘He’s literally going to appear, turn the lights on and then disappear. Queenie should be all right.’
Middy thought this was going to be the greatest moment of her life. ‘This is going to be the greatest moment of my life,’ she said. ‘We have got to get to talk to him.’
I reminded her that Perplexion doesn’t talk and that magicians are not supposed to tell how they do their tricks.
‘But if I show him one that he doesn’t know, then he has to show me one that I don’t know. That’s the rules. That’s how good magicians become great magicians. They learn from each other. Imagine having the Master of Mystery as a mentor.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T . . .
NATHAN:
I know he said he wasn’t going to do a magic show, but when Perplexion appears, well, just his appearance is magic. Absolutely the whole town was crowding around the stage waiting for Perplexion to appear and turn the lights on.
First of all, his bodyguard came onto the stage. He was wearing a suit and little pair of round, very dark sunglasses that made it look like he had holes instead of eyes and a skull instead of a face. But a skull with ginger hair. Why anyone needs sunglasses at all after the sun has gone down, I don’t know. Anyway, he inspected the stage for anything that might injure or annoy Perplexion, while uncle Kevin checked all the electrics.
Ever since the Tower was built the person in charge of the lights gets to introduce the person who is going to switch them on. So uncle Kevin tapped the microphone a few times, then said, ‘Blackpool, are you ready to welcome . . . the Master of Mystery himself . . . Perplexion!’
Massive roar from everyone. Especially us. The bodyguard moved to the side of the stage and looked down into the audience, watching for trouble. The curtains at the back swished open and out came . . . not Perplexion. But Zenith. She was so glamorous. She didn’t say anything, just stood in the shadows with her hands clasped in front of her as though she was holding something really fragile. Like a baby bird, maybe.
She looked down and opened her fingers just a bit. You could see there was something glowing and flickering in her hands. It splashed a bit of light onto her face. Everyone was trying to figure out what it could be. Was she carrying a hot coal in her hand or something?
She opened her fingers wider. The little light whooshed up out of her hands towards the top of the Tower like a luminous bird. Everyone craned their necks, trying to see what it would do. When it was almost out of sight, it burst like a firework rocket. But when a firework rocket bursts into sparks, it disappears. This seemed to hover over the very top of the Tower like a really small planet.
Then it started slowly, slowly floating down.
The whole town was silent. You’ve never heard quiet as quiet as that. Every eye, every brain was focused on that strange glowy, floaty shape as it got nearer and nearer to us.
‘Anticipation,’ whispered Middy, ‘that’s what this is. Everyone holding their breath waiting to see what will happen. Karabas says Anticipation is the first course in the feast of magic. Literally page one of her book, My Secrets Revealed. ’
