Читать книгу The Peppers and the International Magic Guys - Sian Pattenden - Страница 7

our days ago Uncle Potty had come to stay with eleven-year-old Pepper twins – Esmé and Monty. It was the summer holidays and while Mr and Mrs Pepper went on a quick trip to an ancient woodland site, Uncle Potty was in charge. The best and most exciting thing about this was that Uncle Potty was a professional conjuror, a member of the International Magic Guys (IMG) club, which happened to be based round the corner from the Peppers’ home in Highwood Road. The next best thing, as far as Monty was concerned, was that Uncle Potty was always practising magic and therefore always in need of an assistant. Monty had been delighted to help. He had fetched and carried for Uncle Potty (so far Monty had cleaned fourteen magic tumblers and one plastic bowl), polished Uncle Potty’s patent leather shoes and glued his magic top hat back together where it had split.

Uncle Potty was impossibly old and extremely tall. As a consequence, his sleeves reached his elbows and his trouser hems were always by his shins. He found it difficult to navigate those tiny waistcoat pockets with such long fingers and when he started to become anxious – like now – his hair would stick up on end, looking like crazy woollen worms on a roller-coaster ride. Uncle Potty’s eyebrows also seemed to have been knitted – to form one gigantic, fluffy strip. He had a loud voice and a basic theatricality. He could not have been anything other than a magician, although the rest of his family were a roaring success in the dry-cleaning business.

However, as thrilling as it was having a magician in the house, Esmé had begun to notice that most of Uncle Potty’s tricks seemed to end in disaster. Worryingly,

Uncle Potty had taken over the kitchen at the Peppers’ home all morning and was now standing by the kitchen table, ready to perform his latest act. Uncle Potty had so far removed the items in his way – Esmé’s homework notebook, a library book about wildlife, the Peppers’ laptop and some sticks that had yet to serve a purpose – and put them on the floor. In their place was a large bowl of water and five different fruits placed in a line – a kiwi, a melon, a medium-sized pineapple, an apple and a tangerine. The fruits were a little squashed and soggy and Uncle Potty had brightly coloured stains all over his shirt.

“I have discovered the trick of all tricks,” announced Potty, long arms in the air. “It involves making a watch disappear, then to be revealed in a piece of… fruit.”

Esmé gave Potty an encouraging look, even though the trick sounded quite complicated.

“What’s the time, Esmé?” asked Uncle Potty, in a dramatic voice. Esmé glanced at the extremely reliable watch that her mum had given her when she got a high grade in last year’s maths test and announced, “Half past twelve.”

Esmé waited for Uncle Potty’s next line, but instead Monty popped his head up from under the table, where he was supposed to be hiding. He handed Uncle Potty a long strip of paper.

“What’s that?” Esmé asked.

“Nothing,” said Monty. “You weren’t supposed to see.”

“Please get back under the table, Monty,” said Uncle Potty, politely but firmly. “I have the item now.”

Monty reluctantly disappeared again. “Ahem, thus we have safely concluded that it is half past twelve,” announced Uncle Potty. “May I see your watch, Esmé?”

Raising her left wrist, Esmé revealed her treasured Timex. Uncle Potty quickly unsnapped the watch from Esmé’s wrist before she could stop him and hid it behind his back. There was a scuffling sound as he handed the watch to Monty.

“Time is an extraordinary thing!” said Uncle Potty, even louder. “It reminds us that the bus is late, it flows with the seasons and it, er, gives us wrinkles.”

“Could I have my watch back, please?” Esmé asked, suddenly realising her watch was going to be hidden in a piece of soggy fruit, which might do it more harm than good.

“Of course!” replied Uncle Potty, searching his multi-coloured waistcoat pockets for something.

“Aha, your elegant timepiece!” said Uncle Potty, as he retrieved the now-crinkled strip of paper and balanced it on Esmé’s wrist. It had a badly drawn clock face on it,

showing the time: 12.30pm.

“This isn’t my watch, Uncle, it’s a piece of paper,” said Esmé. The strip quivered on her hand and then fell off.

“Well observed, young Esmé. So where is your real watch?” Uncle Potty spoke excitedly now. He picked up an apple. “Shall I ask the magic tangerine?”

“That’s not a tangerine…” Esmé noted.

“Oh, er, yes.” Uncle Potty tried to cover himself. “Just a little joke,” he smiled. “I will now dip all the fruit into the bowl of water to show you that your watch is not inside any of them.

“Take this apple for instance,” Uncle Potty continued, dunking the apple in the water. “Your watch is not in here! Hurrah!”

There was another scuffling sound and the tangerine started wobbling on the table.

An object fell on the floor with a tiny clang – a broken-watch sort of clang.

“I can’t do it!” whispered Monty audibly from under the table. “It won’t go in the hole.”

Esmé winced. She hoped Uncle Potty was not about to make a big mistake. What was happening to her watch?

“Pick another fruit,” Uncle Potty said to Esmé. “Maybe the kiwi?”

Esmé looked blank, but Uncle Potty seized the kiwi anyway and dunked it energetically into the bowl of water.

“No watch in here!” he hollered. “Shall I try the tangerine, finally?”

Esmé looked at the fruit trembling on the tablecloth. She assumed Monty was trying to stuff her watch inside it. But maybe this was a double bluff – her watch was in someone’s pocket. Or maybe the trick involved an optical illusion and the water wasn’t really water, but something dry. But Esmé feared the worst.

“Could I just have my Timex back, please?” Esmé asked.

“Of course,” Uncle Potty replied, picking up the tangerine from which Esmé’s watch strap dangled.

“My watch!” said Esmé and made a grab for the strap before Uncle Potty could submerge it in the water. But as she did so:

Shhhhlooop!

The bowl tipped over and water went everywhere – on to the table, Monty, the laptop on the floor, Esmé’s homework, the library book, the sticks…

“My sticks!” said Monty, appearing sodden from under the table.

“Your sticks? Look at my homework! Look at the laptop! Mum and Dad will kill us.” Esmé grabbed a tea towel and desperately started mopping water from the laptop, then her homework notebook. “Everything’s ruined!” she cried.

Uncle Potty started to tremble.

“Oh, me, oh, my… Monty, find some more teachers, er I mean tea cloths. I’ll go and get a sponge. Oh, Esmé, I’m terribly sorry.”

Uncle Potty handed Esmé the tangerine, with her watch half-stuffed inside. “I hadn’t meant for the bowl of water to be so… full.”

Esmé took the fruit-splattered Timex, sticky and dripping, and wiped it with her sleeve. The second hand had definitely stopped; there was no ticking sound. Esmé was crestfallen. It had been a very accurate watch.

“I’ll save up and buy you a new one,” said Monty, wiping the library book with an old towel. “I’ll go out and perform some street magic.”

Uncle Potty appeared from the garden with the mop that had a wobbly handle. “Or we could write our own magic book, Monty, and make a fortune!”

“Brilliant!” said Monty. “I’ll go and get a pen.”

As kind as these offers were, Esmé did not think that they were going to provide an immediate solution to the problems in hand. Things were getting out of control. The living room was becoming cluttered with magic books, the stairs covered in little plastic boxes with false panels and double hinges – and Uncle Potty kept throwing his stage clothes everywhere, ignoring the designated dirty washing bin. Now things were being damaged – Esmé’s homework, her watch, the laptop… Was the computer under guarantee? How would the family ever afford a new one? Esmé had been using it to help write a homework assignment about beluga whales on it. It was probably lost for ever. Esmé sighed loudly. She mustn’t get too upset. It wasn’t really Uncle Potty and Monty’s fault – it was Esmé who had actually knocked the water bowl. But Esmé did not think that anything would change until drastic measures were taken.