EllRay Jakes Is Magic Read Online Free Page A

“Because it’s perfect, see?” I tell Dad. “For the talent show!”
    “The lamer the better,” is what I don’t add. It’s my own
silent
quotation.
    Because—I don’t want to get
in
the talent show, remember?
    I just have to try out and get it over with so we don’t let Ms. Sanchez down.
    And that’s worth two dollars any day of the week.

5
DOOMED
    “I thought you said Sundays were meant for hikes and picnics,” Alfie says, sitting inside a circle of dolls and doll clothes. She looks like an angry cartoon kitten when she’s mad, I sometimes think.
    “It’s raining out,” Dad says, not looking up from the newspaper.
    Yes, we still get actual newspapers at our house.
    “It’s not real rain,” Alfie argues, staring out the window.
    “You’re right, honeybun,” Mom says, giving her a hug. “It’s more like a drizzle, really. It’s still wet out, though.”
    “But I wanted to bring my sparkly lunch box with us,” Alfie says. I can hear the wobble in her voice from where I am sitting cross-legged on the family room rug. I have been going through mynot-so-amazing first magic set with no top hat, the lamest wand in the world, and no DVD for probably the tenth time.
    That wobble in her voice means Alfie’s clouding up, which means she’s about to BURST out crying. And her bad moods can last forever.
    But I’ll leave that problem to my mom.
    “I know what,” Mom says, sounding both desperate and inspired. “I’ll make a special indoors picnic, and you can show us your sparkly lunch box then. And I promise we’ll all be amazed. How does that sound?”
    The “sparkly lunch box” Alfie is talking about has all those fake jewels on it. First, my dad spray-painted an old lunch box gold for Alfie. Since then, Mom has been helping her glue stuff onto it: pieces of the broken-down jewelry we’ve found at yard sales, sequins, and fake diamonds and rubies from the craft store. Mom has to use special grown-up glue for most of the stuff, but Alfie gets to paste down the sequins all by herself.
    She usually ends up with one or two of them stuck to her, somewhere.
    “Oka-a-y,” Alfie says, sounding sorry to give up her gripe so soon. And Mom goes into the kitchen to make our pretend picnic.
    I move my magic set supplies around on the rug as if that might make them look different, better. But here’s what was in the taped-shut box:
    1. One wand, as promised. It’s really a hollow black cardboard tube with a silver paper band at each end, though. I guess you’re supposed to be able to pull a silky scarf or something out of the tube, only sorry, no scarf was included.
    2. One big plastic coin that my dad says looks like a poker chip.
    3. One pretend egg.
Buk, buk, buk.
    4. One bunny hand puppet. Alfie snagged it right away, so it’s not really in front of me now. But I didn’t know what to do with it anyway, so I don’t care.
    5. One dead spider crumpled up in a corner of the box. I guess it gave up on ever becoming a magician and astounding all its spider friends.
    “How’s it going over there, EllRay?” my dad asks, glancing over the top of his newspaper.

    “Terrible,” I admit. “You can’t tell by looking at any of this stuff what you’re supposed to do with it. Anyway, I don’t think there’s enough here to do even a
bad
trick for the talent show tryout, not that magicians call them ‘tricks.’ You’re supposed to callthem ‘effects’ or ‘illusions,’ the box says. But I’m doomed without that DVD.”
    “What talent show?” Alfie asks, looking up from her dolls.
    “They’re making us have one at our school assembly next week,” I tell her. “All the grades have to try out, but I’m pretty sure it’ll just be the big kids who get chosen.”
    “Can I be in it?” Alfie asks.
    “No, Alfie,” Dad says, answering for me. “You don’t go to Oak Glen Primary School yet, remember? That pleasure still awaits you.”
    Dad talks fancy like that, sometimes.
    “I saw a talent