EllRay Jakes Is Magic (4 page)

“We’d better go, or Alfie’s gonna have a meltdown,” I warn Dad as he studies his list of chores in the driveway, even though I don’t see why he needs a list. Like I said, we pretty much always do the same thing.

“That’s ‘going to,’ not ‘gonna,’ son,” my dad says. “No lazy tongues at our house, please.”

But he
BIPS
open the car door locks, and we get in and buckle up.

“I was checking a few addresses for a sensible driving plan,” Dad tells me as he backs out of our driveway. “Because I thought we’d hit the yard sales first, for a change.”

“What are you looking for?” I ask as Dad heads away from where most of the houses are in Oak Glen.

“Just the usual,” Dad replies.

Oak Glen is about halfway between San Diego and Disneyland. I’m not sure why they built a town here in the first place, now that I think about it. But, like just about every place in California, my dad says, it’s getting bigger every year.

Our town is partway up a low mountain. It curves around a couple of bulging, rocky foothills like it’s a stretched-out cat taking a nap in some giant’s garden.

If Oak Glen
were
a sleeping, stretched-out cat, Oak Glen Primary School would be sitting on the cat’s head, our house would be on its chest, and we would be driving around one of the almost treeless hills toward the pretend-cat’s tail.

“What about you?” Dad asks, like he just reminded himself to be polite and ask me questions, too. “Looking for anything special today?”

“Just a present for Alfie,” I say. “You know, a broken bracelet, or something else sparkly. Or maybe some old Barbie stuff. Um, Dad?” I ask.

“Mmm?”

“Were you or Mom talented when you were kids?”

“Talented like how?” Dad asks, his forehead wrinkling as he thinks back. “I learned my times tables before anyone else in class. Felt pretty darn good about it, too,” he says, smiling a little.

Wow,
that
skill sure didn’t get passed down. Not to me, anyway.

Not with seven-times-
anything
—except one or ten.

But I try to imagine standing in front of the Oak Glen Primary School Talent Show Tryout Committee, stumbling over my times tables. Would that satisfy Ms. Sanchez and our principal?

“You weren’t talented at music or anything?” I ask, my voice hopeful.

“Sorry,” Dad says, shaking his head. He turns off onto a smaller road.

He signals even when there are no other cars around, I have noticed.

“What about Mom?” I ask, still hopeful. Maybe there’s still some hidden family talent that was passed down to me—only I don’t know it yet.

“Hmm,” Dad says. “She likes to sing.”

Okay. I may only be eight years old, but
already
I know that “liking to sing” isn’t the same as being able to sing. Sing
well
, that is.

I mean, I like my mom’s lullabies and random kitchen, garden, and shower songs fine, but she’s not exactly
talented.
No offense.

“What other talents are there in life?” I ask my dad.

“Why this sudden interest in talent, EllRay?” Dad says, slowing as we approach a line of cars parked along the edge of this dusty road.

“It’s for school,” I say, shrugging. “See, our principal got this idea that the whole school should have a talent show at assembly next week. Ms. Sanchez just announced it yesterday.”

“Really?” Dad asks, pulling in behind an out-of-state SUV. “That seems kind of last-minute, doesn’t it? The school year’s over in a couple of months.”

“I
know
,” I say, agreeing with him. “It’s messed-up, right? And the whole thing’s so embarrassing! It’s going to end up just being talented fifth- and sixth-graders,
obviously
, because they’re the only ones who are good at stuff. Or at least the only ones nobody will boo off the stage. And maybe they’ll
throw in a few kindergarten kids, for laughs.”

“So what’s the problem?” Dad asks. “That sounds like a show.”

“It’s the principal,” I try to explain. “He told Ms. Sanchez that every class has to take part—in the tryouts, anyway. So Ms. Sanchez says that our class has to come up with at least five tryout acts. We have until Monday morning.”

“Maybe there’s some hidden talent in your class you don’t know about,” Dad says as we cross the empty road—after looking both ways, of course.

“Dad,
please.
You know my class,” I say, eyeing the groups of yard sale shoppers—the competition—clustered around the card tables and blankets scattered across the yard sale family’s dried-up lawn. I look for the jewelry-tangle table and the kids’ area.

“Point taken,” Dad says, laughing. “Although some of the girls in your class might surprise you, EllRay. They’re probably taking lessons in all kinds of things.” He sighs.

“That’s what Ms. Sanchez said,” I tell him. What is it with girls and talent? Alfie’s already nagging Mom and Dad for classes in ballet, horse riding,
gymnastics, and
archery
, which is just one
SCARY
idea.

“Maybe,” I say. “But none of them stepped up when we were talking about it on Friday, that’s for sure.”

“Too bad,” Dad says, heading like an arrow for a table with an old basket of geodes on it.

He doesn’t seem too worried about my problem.

But that’s okay, I figure—because I’m worried enough for both of us.

I spot it five minutes later, among a bunch of other toys spread out on an old picnic blanket on the brown grass. The toys include:

There’s a five dollar sticker on the box.

Magic. That’s it! Magic is a talent, isn’t it?

“It’s missing the DVD,” the bored-looking teenage kid guarding the blanket tells me. “And I think the top hat got wrecked, so that’s gone, too. But otherwise it’s good. You should get it, bro.”

I have only three dollars in my pocket, and I wanted to spend at least a dollar to buy a present—okay, a
bribe
—for Alfie. And he’s not my “bro.”

But even if I spent all my money on myself, I wouldn’t know how to turn three dollars into five dollars. I’m not that good a magician—
yet.

My dad says you can usually bargain with the sellers at yard sales, but I don’t know how to bargain—especially with a teenager.

I don’t even know whether I should try to look rich or poor.

So I just stand there, as frozen as the tangled
cowboy puppet, staring at the taped-shut magic set. “Does it still have the wand?” a voice behind me asks.

Dad! Just in time.

“Yeah,” the boy says, standing up a little straighter. “And a few props. I
think.
”

“What about an instruction booklet?” Dad asks.

“Most of the instructions were on the DVD, which got lost,” the teenager says, scowling. It sounds like he’s blaming the DVD itself for getting lost.

So basically, he’s trying to sell a box with a stick—excuse me, a
wand
—inside it.

“How about three dollars?” the kid says, starting to sound desperate.

“Can you afford three dollars?” Dad asks me.

“I can afford two dollars,” I tell him. “Because I have to save a dollar for Alfie’s present. I promised.”

“Hey,” the kid says, eager for a sale. “If you’re gonna spend money on something else here, too, I’ll let you have this magic set for two dollars. It’s really cool,” he adds, not sounding very convincing.

“Did you learn any tricks?” Dad asks him.

Besides figuring out how to sell a taped-shut box with a stick in it for two dollars, I guess Dad means.

“I could kind of make something small disappear,” the teenager says, trying to remember. “But that was a few years ago. Do you wanna look inside the box?” he asks.

I can tell he’s scared we’ll say “Yes.”

“EllRay?” Dad asks. “You’re the buyer, son.”

“No. That’s okay,” I tell the kid. “Here’s your two dollars,” I add, fishing the
CRUMPLED
bills out of my pocket.

“You’re sure you don’t want to look inside the box?” Dad asks me. “‘Let the buyer beware,’” he adds, quoting from somewhere.

My dad loves quotations. I think that’s part of being a college professor.

“I’m sure,” I tell him, tucking the almost-empty box under my arm. We walk away from the toy blanket and the relieved teenager. “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

“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 my
not-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.