Читать книгу The Magical Peppers and the Island of Invention - Sian Pattenden - Страница 6

Boomph!

Esmé and Monty Pepper were on the beach when they heard the first explosion.

“What was that?” asked Monty, turning round.

“It came from that tiny island just out to sea,” replied Esmé, who had been looking for fossils. “I wonder what could have caused it.” Esmé wrinkled her brow and stood up facing the island, which looked like a palm tree pudding in a bowl of blue custard.

Boooomph!

There was another bang, bigger this time and closer.

“Oh, dear,” said Monty.

“It’s Potty!” said Esmé. “Come on, take your flippers off, Monty – we’d better go and check if he’s all right.”

It was springtime and the Pepper twins were spending the school break at the seaside with Potty – a professional and very tall magician with wispy, worm-like hair and one long eyebrow.

Potty had done a good job of looking after Esmé and Monty last summer. When they had arrived back from holiday, Mr and Mrs Pepper were impressed to hear how the twins had saved a local magic club and organised its new junior division. Now, Esmé and Monty’s hippie parents wanted to use the springtime school break to catch a quick glimpse of the Sacred Mountain of Terry in Goa, and sing a hymn to the Indian Goddess of Soil – or something like that. So again they entrusted Potty to look after their children at the seaside while he put on his latest Sea Spray Theatre show at the end of Crab Pie Pier.

Had Mr and Mrs Pepper been given details about last summer’s exploding toaster, flooded kitchen, spilt baked beans, damaged laptop, etc. then they might have thought twice about leaving their children with Potty again. But, luckily for Esmé and Monty, they weren’t told anything of the sort.

By the sound of explosion number two, Potty was up to his old tricks again. The twins ran towards the theatre as fast as they could.

Esmé, dressed with practicality in mind for a spring break on the British coast, was wearing a yellow mac over a sweatshirt and navy blue straight-fit trousers. Her plimsolls had plenty of grip that helped her to run across the pebbly beach without slipping. Monty, on the other hand, had dressed this morning in a Victorian blue-and-white striped bathing suit, complete with rubber ring and flippers, and his usual black velvet cape. Having been on the beach for the last two hours, Monty had picked up plenty of seaweed, which hung from his rubber ring and made him look like a cross between a sea monster and a chandelier. The curling fronds of seaweed trailed behind him as they ran up the steps to the Sea Spray Theatre.

The Sea Spray Theatre had been built on Crab Pie Pier in the 1930s. Throughout the decades it had played host to many top names: Pat Daniels, Timothy Cooper, Fay Presto. It was a great example of art deco architecture – featuring a curved facade, wooden panels around the front entrance and magnificent geometric arches along the roof. Well, it would have been a great example if the exterior had not been crumbling away – decades of salty air biting into the smooth, rendered surface, destroying the varnish on the wooden panels and bleaching the once-bright colours. The seagulls that always sat in a line along the top of the building had also added their own, rather sticky, decoration over the years.

The twins came running in through the main entrance, knocked over the spider plant by the main door and rushed into the auditorium.

“Potty, Potty!” called Monty. “Are you OK? We heard a loud noise…”

Potty stood alone on the dim, unlit stage.

He was wrapped up in a huge fishing net, struggling to get out. Underneath he wore a brand new cape, which had replaced the old tweed one because it smelt of smoked mackerel. This cape was yellow with vertical satin stripes and had the words, ‘The Potty Magician’ sewn on the back. Esmé thought that it made Potty look like a particularly happy banana.

“Oh, totality,” said Potty when he saw the Pepper twins, his huge eyebrow knotting into a frown. “I’ve blown the lights.”

“What happened?” asked Esmé.

Potty sighed. He was not a happy banana.

“I was trying to come up with the main trick for my new show,” he explained, gesticulating under the net. “I heard the sound of the waves lashing against the beach, the wind whistling over the sea and the seagulls squealing outside. I closed my eyes, trying to capture the essence of the great briney oceans thereof.”

“Briney oceans thereof?” asked Monty.

“Certainly, and very cold too,” replied Potty. “One minute I’m experimenting with the Flying Fish trick – the next minute the small turbot in my hand explodes and fuses the lights.”

“You had a live fish in your hand?”

“It’s not a real one,” answered Potty. “It’s made out of rubber.” He pointed to his left. “It’s over there.”

“I see,” said Esmé, glancing at the small fish lying on the ground.

“Then I got caught up in the net…” explained Potty. “And now I can’t get out.”

“We’ll help,” said Esmé.

“Wonderful,” beamed Potty. “The fact that I had spring-loaded the fish beforehand may have added to the problem.”

“Oh, dear,” said Esmé, trying to disentangle Potty. She remembered the toaster incident from last summer, when Potty decided to heat up a dynamite sandwich. “We had better phone the theatre owners.”

“No need,” replied Potty, his long, banana-coloured limbs now almost free of the net. “The Table sisters own the place – they live down the pier in the gypsy caravan, to the left of the coconut shy.”

“OK,” said Esmé, moving towards the auditorium door. “You and Monty stay here and tidy things up a bit and I’ll go and let them know what’s happened…”

An excerpt from

Dr Pompkins – Totality Magic

TRICK: How to Walk Through a Postcard

Friends, this is a marvellous trick, which goes back to Victorian times. Tell your chums that you can walk through a postcard.

It seems impossible, but fold a postcard lengthways, take a very sharp pair of scissors and cut like so {see fig. 1}, making a series of sideways slits.

Carefully open the card and see how it expands into a ring of enormous girth. Step into it, pull it up to your middle then over your head.

A resounding, “Amazing!” will be the cry from your audience.

Opening Act

At the start of your show, when the curtains open and you walk out on stage or at a simple gathering, the first thing that everyone will notice is your outward appearance… Walk briskly, as soon as your name is announced – the audience will see that you mean business. Smile to acknowledge the applause and start your act immediately. Confidence is all – get in there and do it.

Your exit is just as important; take your time to smile and bow. If you have performed well, come back on stage again – but only if the audience still applauds. If they have run away, have a big think about becoming a magician. You might want to look into the role of a chartered surveyor instead.

In all totality,

Dr Pompkins