Horten's Incredible Illusions (5 page)

He stood, hands on hips, breathing heavily, panic crawling inside his chest. How was he going to solve this? And what if he
couldn’t
? He took a deep breath.

“Okay, it’s a puzzle,” he said out loud again—somehow it was easier to think in a calm and logical way if he imagined he was talking to someone else. “And it’s
not
just a jigsaw puzzle.”

Grimly, for the third time, he lifted three sides into place. He remembered that there was a small loop right at the top of each, and this time he hooked the fingers of one hand through them. Could he hold up three of the sides while he lifted the fourth?

He reached out vainly.

No, he couldn’t, it was too far away—he’d need an arm the length of an orangutan’s.

“If I had a thin rope of some kind,” he said, “I could slip it through the loop on the fourth side and pull it up while I was still holding onto the others. But where can I find a thin rope?”

The answer to his question walked by just a few yards away, reins dangling.

“Okay,” said Stuart to himself. “So all I have to do is catch a camel.”

CHAPTER 7

Stuart had once watched a program on camels in which it had been shown that they could spit accurately and kick in any direction. But was this camel real, or was it a sort of figment of Great-Uncle Tony’s imagination?

He moved closer. It looked real. It
smelled
real.

“Stay,” he said feebly, edging toward it. “Nice camel.”

It glanced at him, and then went on ripping at the thorn tree with teeth the size of piano keys. The reins were tied to a woven nose band which fastened just under its chin. Just under its chin and very close to its teeth.

“Good boy.” Stuart remembered the half-stick of chewing gum in his pocket. He took it out and held it at arm’s length.

The camel stopped eating.

“Here, boy,” said Stuart, his voice sounding reedy and nervous. “Yum yum.”

The camel took a pace forward.

“Lovely chewing gum.”

With incredible swiftness, the camel lunged toward Stuart and snatched the gum out of his hand. Stuart made a grab for the reins. The camel tossed its head and Stuart found himself flying through the air.

“Ow,” he said, landing in the sand several feet away. The camel gave him a contemptuous look and then cantered off into the shimmering distance, chewing as it went.

Stuart was left alone.

As he got to his feet, he thought of a phrase in Great-Uncle Tony’s letter:

“
A little stronger than I intended
,” finished Stuart, rubbing his leg. And then he noticed something on the ground and stooped to pick it up. It was a length of bark, revoltingly saturated with camel spit, but long and stringy nonetheless. He hunted around for other pieces and knotted three or four lengths together until they were long enough to thread through the loop. Feeling a bit like a survival expert on TV, he gave the bark string an experimental tug. It broke. Clearly it needed to be thicker.

“Perhaps if I make three strings and then braid them …” he said doubtfully. He’d never done any braiding, but it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

After about three minutes of hopeless twiddling and twisting and unraveling, he caught himself wishing that April was with him. He had no doubt that
she’d
know how to braid—it was just the sort of thing that girls always knew. They’d be out of here in two minutes.

A drop of sweat trickled into his eyes, and he paused to wipe his forehead. His T-shirt was damp, his jeans sticking to his legs, the buckle of his belt so hot that it was actually—

“
Belt!
” shouted Stuart, leaping to his feet. “My
belt
!”

It took him about six seconds to get back into the pyramid, take off his belt, slip it through the loop on the fourth triangle and grab the loops on the other three sides. He took one last look at the blistering landscape, the circling birds, the blurred and distant blob that was the camel, and then gave the belt a pull.

As the fourth side closed, the blurry distant blob moved closer, and Stuart realized that it wasn’t the camel at all but something much smaller. Something white and brown. And then, before he could see it properly, the fourth side snapped shut.

For a moment all was darkness, apart from the glimmer of red stars, and then Stuart yelled as a vivid green shape writhed suddenly across the inside of the pyramid. It was an emerald
S
, which stretched and tautened and glowed and grew—and then disappeared utterly as one side of the pyramid opened.

“Are you all right?” asked one of April’s sisters, peering anxiously in on him. Behind her, the museum looked reassuringly normal. “I heard you shouting,” continued May (or June).

“I’m fine,” said Stuart, climbing out, though actually he felt shaky and strange and in dire need of a sofa and a glass of water. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t April come?” he added.

The triplet frowned. “
I’m
April,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”

“What do you mean,
No, you’re not
? I should know who I am, shouldn’t I?
I’m
April, and
you
promised to wait until I got here before you started exploring.”

“But you’re not wearing glasses,” said Stuart. “And you’ve got a camera.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “I was on my bike delivering papers, and then I swerved to avoid a hedgehog, fell off, and scraped my knee and broke my specs,” she said. “That’s why I got here two hours late. And then I happened to borrow May’s camera because I thought it would be useful.”

“Oh.”

“I so wish you’d just
try
to—” she began, and then tilted her head, puzzled. “Why are your shoes all covered in sand?” she asked. “And why are your trousers falling down?”

There was a pause in the conversation while Stuart scuttled back to get his belt.

“The thing is,” he said, bending to pick a thorn out of one of his socks, “you’ll never believe where I’ve been for the whole of those two hours. I don’t believe it myself.”

April lost her cross expression and looked at him eagerly. “
Magic?
” she whispered.

“Yes. Definitely.” And he told her about his jigsaw puzzle in the desert. And about the emerald letter
S
that had greeted his return.

“
Use the star to find the letters!
” exclaimed April. “That’s what the message said, didn’t it? Oh, I
wish
I’d come.”

“So do I,” replied Stuart honestly, “and next time you will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” Stuart held out his hand, and April started to shake it and then froze, gazing open-mouthed past his head.

“Look,” she said. “It’s not shining anymore.”

Stuart turned. The sun was pouring in through the window, but the golden surface of the Pharaoh’s Pyramid barely glinted. It was still a beautiful object, but like the Well of Wishes it had lost its luster.

“The magic must be all used up,” said Stuart wonderingly. “It’s like a flat battery—there’s no more power in it.”

Then he remembered the six-pointed star and ducked back into the pyramid to retrieve it.

“Whatever’s the matter?” asked April as he blinked at the object in his hand.

Stuart held up the star so she could see it. One of the six spokes had completely disappeared.

She stared for a moment in amazement. “So what happens if you put it back in the socket again?”

Stuart tried it. “Nothing,” he said, taking the star out for a second time. “So that must mean you can only do each adventure once.”

April nodded slowly. “One down,” she said softly. “Five to go.”

CHAPTER 8

The opening of the exhibition was a bit low-key; only a few people bothered to follow the handmade sign in the foyer, and most of them were related to either Stuart or April. Inside the room, the only note of celebration was a table with some feeble refreshments.

“Good thing I’m not hungry,” whispered April, grimacing at the plate of plain cookies and single bowl of chips before returning to where her parents were looking at the Cabinet of Blood.

Stuart sipped from his cup of watery fruit juice, and watched the guests amble among the exhibits.

Stuart’s father was being escorted around by Rod Felton, and although the two men
appeared
to be looking at the Arch of Mirrors, Stuart could hear scraps of Latin floating across the room, and the curator seemed to be miming a Roman sword fight.

April returned to the table and took three cookies and a huge handful of chips.

“I thought you said you weren’t hungry,” said Stuart.

She glowered at him.

“Oh,” said Stuart. “You’re not April, are you?”

“No.”

“June?”

“I’m
May
!” she screeched indignantly. “Are you
blind
?”

She stalked off toward her sisters and began a whispered conversation with them. Dark looks were cast at Stuart.

He turned away and ate a chip or two. He couldn’t help getting the triplets mixed up—they had the same faces and the same hair, and they wore the same sort of clothes. Other than April’s glasses there wasn’t a single way of telling them apart, yet they went mad if you pointed that out. If they really wanted people to know who was who, he thought, then they should dress in different colors.

“Excuse me?” A soft-voiced man was peering down at Stuart. “I see from your badge that you’re the curator. You seem kind of young for that.”

“I’m ten,” said Stuart.

“Okay. Well, I’d like to be shown around the exhibition. Is that at all possible?”

Stuart nodded. “Are you American?” he asked.

“Canadian. Maxwell Lacey—good to meet you.”

They shook hands. Maxwell Lacey was wearing an expensive-looking jacket and emerald cufflinks. He looked about the same age as Stuart’s father but had a black mustache and neatly brushed pale-gray hair.

“So how did you get to be in charge?” he asked Stuart.

“Partly because I found the tricks in the first place, and partly because Teeny-Tiny Tony Horten was my great-uncle.”

“Really? Well, isn’t that something!”

Maxwell Lacey paused by the first exhibit. He leaned over the rope and gazed at the great bronze throne surrounded by intricately worked flowers and tendrils, and then he switched his attention to the little card pinned to the wall next to it.

THE REAPPEARING ROSE BOWER

A large bronze seat surrounded by metal stems and flowers. The illusion involves the disappearance and reappearance of the roses.

“We didn’t have a lot of time to write the cards,” said Stuart apologetically. “And we still haven’t worked out how the trick operates, so the second sentence is a bit of a guess. We’re going to have another try tomorrow.”

“And by
we
, you mean …”

“Me and April. One of the triplets over there.”

“And is April also related to Tony Horten?”

“No, that’s just me.”

“I see.”

They moved on to the Arch of Mirrors. “We didn’t have a lot of time to look at this one, either,” said Stuart quickly.

THE ARCH OF MIRRORS

An arch that is completely covered in mirrors. How the illusion operates is currently not known.

“It’s a fine-looking object,” said Maxwell Lacey, adjusting his tie in one of the many reflections that bounced back at him. “And this workshop where you found the illusions—was it on your property?”

“No, it was in the town park, underneath the bandstand.”

“I see. And who owns the park?”

“I don’t know. The council, maybe?”

As they progressed past the Cabinet of Blood (which Stuart and April still hadn’t managed to open) and the Fan of Fantasticness (which they hadn’t managed to close), Maxwell Lacey asked several more odd questions about local council land ownership.