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Authors: Lissa Evans

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BOOK: Horten's Incredible Illusions
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CHAPTER 15

Stuart took the receiver.

“Hello?” he said.

“The kid?” asked a crackly American voice, the voice of someone extremely old. “Are you the kid?”

“Which kid?” asked Stuart. His father was already heading downstairs again, his shoulders drooping rather sadly.

“The kid who found the tricks?”

“Yes. My name’s Stuart.”

“Well, thank my stars I can understand you. The guy who answered the phone—was he speaking in code, or what? I never heard a bunch of words like that in my whole life.”

“That’s my father,” said Stuart. “He’s very clever,” he added loyally.

“And how about you? Are you clever? Or are you smart—which is a whole heap better than being clever?”

“Excuse me, but who
are
you?” asked Stuart.

“You can call me Miss Edie. Maxwell Lacey told me he thought you were a smart boy.”

“Who’s Maxwell Lacey?”

“He’s a lawyer. Works for me. He came to see your tricks in the museum—gray-haired fellow with a mustache.”

“I remember. He kept asking me if I was related to Tony Horten, and whether the tricks had been found on council property. He went on and on about it.”

“Lawyers aren’t paid to be interesting.“

“But why did he want to know?”

“Because I’d given him a job to do.“

“What job?”

“To buy the tricks. Buy them all. And if he’s going to buy them, he needs to find out who owns them.“

“I do,” said Stuart.

“Can you prove that?“

There was a pause, and then Stuart shook his head, forgetting for a moment that he was on the phone. The voice on the other end of the line was so vivid and vital that he could almost picture the speaker: ancient and white-haired but crackling with life.

“Well?” she demanded, still waiting for her answer.

“No …” he said hesitantly. “I can’t prove it.”

“I thought so.” She gave a dry laugh that ended in a cough. “And I spoke to Maxwell Lacey earlier today. He’s been poking about in the basement of that town library of yours and he’s found a local law that says everything found on council property belongs to the mayor, unless there’s legal proof otherwise. And where’s your mayor?“

“She disappeared,” said Stuart.

“I know she did. So there’s a mess. You’ve got no proof, and the town’s got no mayor. Could take years to sort out. And I don’t have years—I might not even have months—and I want those tricks.”

“Why?”

“I promised my grandma I’d get them.”

“Your grandma? But she must be … I mean, the tricks are about fifty years old, and surely your grandma must have—”

“My grandma died eighty-five years ago.”

“But—”

“And before she died she told me something I’ve never forgotten. Hidden in one of the tricks—it’s well hidden, she said—is Tony Horten’s will. And it leaves everything to the person who finds it.”

“But—”

“It’d be all the proof you’d need. Find that will, and the tricks are yours to keep.”

“But—”

“Or yours to sell. I’d pay you a good price for them.”

“Hang on,” said Stuart. He felt as if he were being buffeted by a strong wind—strong enough to push him in a direction that he didn’t want to go. He tried to make his voice sound firm and certain. “Hang
on.
Even if there
is
a will—and I still don’t understand how your grandma could possibly have known that—and even if I could find it, I don’t want to sell the tricks. If I can actually prove they’re mine, then I want to keep them.”

“Fine words.”

“But I really mean it.”

“I see.” The speaker coughed again—a dry, jagged sound. “You know, there’s something particular about me that you don’t know,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m rich. Very, very rich. I am Rich with a great big golden capital
R
. My grandma was a businesswoman, the smartest you could ever meet. She left England with ten pounds in her pocket and a head full of ideas, and she set up a factory in Canada and made more money than you would ever believe. It’s all mine now. I’m the last one left, and I can give away as much of it as I like. Do you know what it means to be rich?”

“No,” said Stuart.

“It means you can get anything you want. What do you want, Stuart?”

Stuart hesitated. “Nothing that I can
buy
,” he said.

“Now that’s an interesting kind of answer. Let me see if I can guess what you mean…. Maxwell Lacey tells me that you’re new in town and you’re just a little fella—smaller than the other kids. Must be hard, especially when you’re starting at a new school in a couple of weeks’ time. Kids can be cruel, especially kids you haven’t grown up with, and if you’ve got a name like S. Horten, then you’re going to get a nickname real quick. Am I right?”

Stuart said nothing, but he could feel his face grow hot. He thought of all the times in his life he’d been called Shorty Shorten. The phone was sticky in his grasp. Miss Edie’s voice continued, crackly and compelling.

“Money sure can’t buy you height, but it can buy you power. The best bike in town, the best computer, the best sneakers, the best parties, the best vacations—you ever been to Disneyland?”

“No,” muttered Stuart, his voice hoarse.

“You could take the whole class. Wouldn’t matter how tall you are then, they’d really respect you. Take the whole class, except anyone who’s mean to you. Buy a Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur to drive you to school, and only give rides to the kids you like. Buy a house with a swimming pool in the backyard, and see how nice everyone is to you then. Friendship’s like any other commodity, Stuart. You can buy it if you have enough money …”

Stuart’s chest was thudding as if someone inside it were banging a drum.

“You still there?” asked Miss Edie.

“Yes.”

“You have a real think about what I said. Find that will, and I can make your dreams come true. They won’t call you the shortest kid in class any more; they’ll call you the richest …”

“But—”

Before Stuart could say any more, the line went dead.

 

CHAPTER 16

He stood staring at the silent receiver, and then something tugged insistently at the back of his mind, and he fetched the tin money box in which he kept his most treasured possessions, and took out Great-Uncle Tony’s note.

use the star to find the letters, and when you have all six, they’ll lead you to my w

“Lead you to my will,” said Stuart quietly.

So that was it, then—the letters were clues that would lead him to his great-uncle’s will, and when he found it, he would have a choice.

For a strange moment he felt as if he were standing on a bridge over a dark, rushing river. On one side of the bridge was a feast of magic: Great-Uncle Tony’s illusions and the bizarre adventures that Stuart and April were finding within them. On the other side was a fabulous world of money, glittering with all the things that Stuart could buy, if only he were rich. He stood poised in the center of the bridge, like an iron filing between two magnets.

Then his father called him from downstairs and he found himself back in the real world, ravenously hungry, and a bit ashamed of himself.

“Sorry, Dad,” he mumbled, coming into the kitchen. “Sorry I was rude to you.”

“Expiation delightedly accepted. I surmise that you were sorely in need of sustenance and therefore I have prepared a porcine-based comestible.”

He waved a hand toward the table, and Stuart looked at the large, delicious-looking sandwich, stuffed with bacon and oozing tomato ketchup. And then he looked at all the other things that his father had spent the entire afternoon cooking.

“Can I have some soup as well?” he asked. “And maybe a small slice of the vegetable flan and a bit of salad. Just a small bit?”

After five minutes of steady chomping, Stuart felt much fuller and much, much healthier.

“Thanks, Dad.”

His father was looking thoughtful. “Do you think it might aid mutual colloquy if I endeavored to converse in a less polysyllabic manner?” he asked.

“What does
mutual colloquy
mean?”

“Our conversation.”

“And
endeavor
means
try
, doesn’t it?”

“Indubitably.”

“So what you’re saying is,
Would it be easier for us to talk if you used shorter words?

“Yes.”

Stuart nodded cautiously. “Well, it might speed things up a bit. What do you want to talk about?”

“I confess to a mild sense of curiosity about your recently completed telephonic communi—” His father paused and swallowed. “Your phone call,” he said, rather slowly, as if speaking a foreign language. “Who was it from?”

“A very old lady. She knew about Great-Uncle Tony’s workshop being found, and she wants to buy all the tricks. She’s says she’s very rich. Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever wanted to be rich?”

“Such an ambition has never come within the compass of—” His father stopped and cleared his throat.

“I mean to convey that I have always engaged in wider considerations than—” He cleared his throat again.

“No,” he said simply. “There are more important things than money.”

In the brief silence Stuart heard April shouting his name from the backyard.

“Can I go and see her?” he asked, and instead of saying something like
you have my unconditional assent
, his dad just smiled and replied, “Yes.” And Stuart thought, with a burst of pleasure, how much simpler life would be if his father stuck to this new way of talking.

The fence between the yards always made Stuart feel especially short; it was too high for him to see over, whereas April was tall enough to comfortably rest her chin on it. She was standing on her side of it, sucking a bright-blue popsicle.

“Hello,” she said. “You look all weird and excited about something. What’s going on?”

“Well, I had this mysterious phone call and—”

The entire top of April’s popsicle broke off in her mouth, and she let out a piercing scream.

Stuart stared at her.

“It’s
cold
,” she wailed madly, hopping from foot to foot. “My teeth have gone all
tingly
.
Ooooh!
It’s like pins and needles only in my
teeeeeeeeth
!”

Stuart folded his arms. “You’re not April,” he said.

“What?”

“She wouldn’t make a fuss about something like that. You must be May.”

Instantly April popped up from where she’d been hiding behind the fence, next to her sister.

“Very good,” she said. “We were just testing you. I lent May my glasses, and then I hid.”

May laughed. Stuart felt a bit irritated. “What did you want anyway?” he asked.

“To tell you that I can’t be at the museum tomorrow morning. We’ve got to go shopping for school shoes.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, then.” She walked away, and May trailed after her, still complaining about her teeth.

Stuart watched them go, and then jumped violently as the third triplet suddenly bobbed up from behind the fence.

“Hi,” she said, grinning. “I was hiding too. Did you like our test?”

“Not much. But at least I got it right.”

“Half right. The one with the popsicle was May, but the other one was June.
I’m
April. You missed a vital clue.”

“What?” asked Stuart.

“June isn’t as curious about things as I am. She didn’t ask you all about the mysterious phone call, whereas I would have. It’s about
what
we say as well as
how
we say it.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe, if you really concentrate, you’ll get all three of us next time.” She leaned her chin on top of the fence and smiled down at him. “So what
was
the phone call about?”

“It was, um …” Suddenly he didn’t feel much like telling her; he wanted a bit more time to think about Miss Edie’s offer and what it might mean.
Rich with a great big golden capital
R
….
April wouldn’t spring silly tests on him and then lecture him on the result if he had lots of money. She’d be too busy wondering whether she was going to get a ride in his new car. He imagined the triplets trudging to school in torrential rain while he swooshed by in his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s no time to tell you now—it will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okay.” She said, looking disappointed. “See you then.”

“See you.”

“Oh, hang on, Stuart. I had a brainwave about the Fan of Fantasticness. You know we’d decided that it must fold up somehow but we haven’t worked out how?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I remembered that May had this stupid plastic fan she won at a fair last year. When you opened it, it stayed open until you tried to stretch it out a bit
more
, and then it suddenly sprang shut. It broke after about two tries, but I’ve done a drawing to show you what I mean.”

She handed a piece of paper over the fence to him.

“I wondered if Great-Uncle Tony’s fan might work in the same way. But I think it would probably take two of us to try it—the mechanism might be quite stiff after all this time.”

BOOK: Horten's Incredible Illusions
12.53Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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