Ann at a Children's Party

Ann's shift this Saturday was coming to an end, when her boss came to ask if she would mind helping out once her shift was finished. She was told that Hannah had called in sick and she was supposed to be doing an outside catering job. Her boss wanted her to fill in. Naturally, Ann asked for details, because she was looking forward to getting home and watching some TV with her feet up.

The job was catering a children's party. She was told it would be just a few hours and the food was ready to go. All she had to do was drive the van to the home of the birthday girl, lay out the food, serve the jelly and ice cream, pack up and drive back. The sweetener was that the extra four hours she would be payed at time and a half; so effectively a whole day's pay for an afternoon and early evening she would have wasted anyway.

Ann said yes and was given the keys to the van and the address for the party.

At the end of her shift, Ann asked, "Is there anything I need to know?"

Her boss replied, "Yeah, leftover ice-cream goes back in the freezer, the rest goes in the dumpster, unless you want take some home. Oh and the clients name is Mrs Hamilton. Good luck and have fun."

Ann guessed that she would need the luck and could not imagine catering a party for children could be fun, but maybe tolerable. 'Just think of the money,' she told herself.

The trip to the Hamilton residence was uneventful, although she had never been to that suburb, the satnav in the van gave her clear and easy to follow instructions. Once she was on the right road it was easy enough to find the house with lots of silvery, helium filled balloons tethered on the front lawn. As she approached a harassed woman, flagged her down.

"Thank goodness you're here," gushed Mrs Hamilton, "I was beginning to think you weren't coming." She told Ann where to park and showed her the room that had been set aside for the party tea. "I thought that the feeding would take place in an hour, by then the entertainer will have arrived and he can set up while the little monsters are having their sandwiches and cakes. OK?" Before Ann could respond, Mrs Hamilton said, "Great! I'd better go and help Maria keep the kids entertained." Suddenly she was gone.

Quite used to being left to get on with the job at hand, Ann set about the task of transferring the food from the van to the room she had been shown; all the while hearing the shrieks and screams of young children having fun from the direction of the back garden.

About forty minutes later, Ann saw Mrs Hamilton again. The birthday girl's mum seemed to be in a flat-out panic. "You've got to help me!" she said. She seemed to be at a loss what to say next.

"What's the matter? And how can I help?" Ann asked trying to adopt a calming and comforting tone of voice.

"My son, Johnny, has been run over and taken to hospital. I told him he wasn't to go riding on the main road, but he passed his cycling proficiency this week and thinks he's invincible. I need to go to the hospital."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but how can I help?" asked Ann.

"I need someone to take charge of the kids until my husband gets back in a couple of hours. It'll just be looking after them while they're eating and then herding them in front of the entertainer; he can set up on the deck and the children can sit on the grass to watch. Then you'd watch them blow off any steam they have left until the parents come to pick them up and handing out the goody bags; they're in a box in the hall by the front door."

Ann was at a loss what to say. She was here to hand out the food and all of a sudden there was the prospect of being in charge of a bunch of stranger's children. Then she remembered that someone else had been mentioned. "Can't the other person be in charge? Maria, was it?"

"I'm afraid not. I asked her first, but she insists that she has to leave; something about a special date with her boyfriend. And I feel I can't impose on her anymore; today was supposed to be her afternoon off." Mrs Hamilton paused and saw the reluctant-to-get-involved look on Ann's face. "I can pay you for your extra time," she said and, opening her handbag, brought out a wad of notes that amounted to another day's wages (with tips).

Ann's desire to be helpful and the offer of extra money, ganged up on her desire not to be involved and bundled it into a sack and shoved it into a deserted corner of her mind, thinking if it goes wrong we can take the 'I told you so's.

"Of course, I'll help out," said Ann, feeling pleased that she was helping a mother in distress and that she was getting paid too.

"Great! You're a life saver! Maria will bring the kids in in about quarter of an hour, then goes off. The entertainer should be here by then. And the parents will be round to collect their darlings soon after the entertainer has finished. My husband will be back a little while after that and you can tell him I'm with Johnny in St Marks. He'll have to bring Jenny, when he comes; I hope it doesn't spoil her day. I must go now." And she was gone.

Ann was gathering her thoughts as she heard Mrs Hamilton drive off, possibly at a speed greater than the suburban speed limit. Shortly after that a battered van pulled into the driveway. In a way she could not identify, it seemed familiar.

With everything in the dining area under control, Ann went out to meet the person she hoped was the entertainer. A nervous-looking young man, probably eighteen or nineteen, jumped out of the van and pumped Ann's hand in an over-compensation for his evident stress.

"Mrs Hamilton?" he said, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

"No," replied Ann. She saw is face fill with concern. "But you have come to the right place." The relief was obvious, but did not mask the underlying anxiety. "I'm Ann. Mrs Hamilton got called away on an emergency and somehow I got left in charge. There's someone called Maria about, but I haven't seen her and she's leaving soon anyway. I guess you're the children's entertainer."

The teen's face showed some uncertainty. "Well, yes and no." Ann not sure how to interpret that waited for a clarification. "Yes, I am here to entertain the children, but I'm not the children's entertainer that Mrs Hamilton booked." Ann sensed that things were on the cusp of starting to go wrong and so soon after Mrs Hamilton had left. "Mrs Hamilton booked my mentor, Mr Jackson, but Mr Jackson has got ill. So he sent me to fill in for him; he said I'm ready. It'll be my first gig. Mr Jackson said if I can hold the attention of a bunch of eight- to nine-year-olds, I'd have a future in this business."

"You're sure you can cope?" asked Ann. He nodded with no great certainty. "Mrs Hamilton said you could set up on the decking round the back and the children will be sat on the grass."

"Great. That sounds ideal. Just one more thing, are there any more adults about?"

"Well, there's Maria, but she's leaving in a little while. Why?"

"I need an adult to help me for a couple of the tricks I'll be doing."

Ann's heart sank; fate had sent her another magician. Not wanting to appear hostile, she said, "What would be involved?" Then she remembered where she had seen the van before; outside a certain pub when she had attended a certain stag event. "Do you know Rod-erick, by any chance?"

The lad seemed taken aback. "You know Mr Jackson?"

Ann frowned at him as if to say, 'surely, I'd have mention it before, if I did.'

"Rod-erick is the name he uses when he's doing stag events, but mostly he's Mr Jackson the children's entertainer."

"You aren't going to be doing any magic here, are you?"

"No actual magic, although Mr Jackson is teaching me some of that. I hoped you'd help with the chair suspension and the sword through the neck trick," said the rookie entertainer. Seeing Ann's expression of horror, quickly added, "No actual magic involved, just your standard, off-the-shelve, illusionist's tricks; nothing can go wrong."

"Can't you use one of the kids?"

"Not really. They're adult-sized props and it wouldn't look right on a kid."

Not want to dash the young man's hopes or shatter his already fragile confidence, Ann said, "I'll consider it." He almost broke into a smile. "But don't count on it." He realised that he had to perform well in order to get a chance to do the big illusions he had brought with him. "I need to get back to the food. It's nearly 'the little monsters feeding time'." Ann turned to go and then turned back. "By the way, what's your name?"

A bit flustered, he just said, "Charles Pennington."

"I meant, so that I can introduce you to the children, not my mother."

His fluster grew. "I haven't got a stage name. I never needed one before."

"What about if I call you 'Charlie Penn'?" suggested Ann. "It sounds much more friendly and a lot less formal."

Charles tried it out for sound and said, "'Charlie Penn the Clown'. That sounds great. Thanks."

Ann return to the dining area and was shortly joined by a young woman who looked almost as harassed as Mrs Hamilton. Rather than wait for her to introduce herself Ann said, "Maria, I assume." The girl nodded, seeming glad that someone seemed to be taking control. "I'll be ready in a couple of minutes, so bring them in then and introduce me; I'm Ann, by the way."

Ann's curiosity got better of her, so she decided to ask why she was being left with a horde of children. She was also hoping she could persuade Maria to stay on at least a bit longer. "Mrs Hamilton, said something about a special date. What's so special that you can't hang around some more? After all I gather it was your afternoon off."

"Well," Maria said as if trying to assess whether Ann could be trusted with a secret. "My boyfriend is going to propose to me this evening. I'm not supposed to know, but when he ropes in the help of so many friends to make it a special event, I couldn't help hearing, but I'll have to act surprised. He's hired a band and got some of my friends from out of town in, so it's not like he can do it another time."

Feeling guilty for even considering trying to get Maria to stay, Ann said, "Ok, bring in the children, introduce me and then go and have a great time."

The relief at not having to fend off another attempt to coax her to stay was visible on Maria's face. "I hope the rest of the evening goes well for you too, 'coz they're good kids really, just a bit excitable."

Minutes later, the twenty children knew she was called Ann and was in charge. Maria was already on her moped half way down the street; she had paused long enough to say a quick 'thank you', but no longer.

The feeding of the throng of eight-year-olds went quite smoothly. They turned out to be better behaved and more polite than some of the boisterous drunks she had met in her years of waitressing. She did not even feel she needed to use the threat of calling a child's parents to collect them early; which would have been an empty threat, because she had no clue about who the children were or how to contact their parents. The only child she knew by name was the birthday girl, Jenny, who Maria had made a special point of introducing Ann to, saying that she would be looking after her until her dad came home. Jenny was wearing a silvery Disney princess type of dress and stood out from the rest who were dressed in more ordinary party outfits.

As the jelly and ice-cream were following the sandwiches, cakes and sausage rolls, Ann took the opportunity to find the deck that would serve Charlie as a stage and ask if he was ready.

He still seemed nervous, but not as much as before. "I'm ready, 'coz if I'm not ready now, I'll never be." Ann took a while to parse what Charlie had said.

To try and help calm the clown's nerves, Ann said, "They seem a quite well behaved bunch, but whether they'll be sleepy digesting all the food they've put away or more hyper on the fizzy drinks is anyone's guess. Good luck." As she returned to the children to see what havoc they had wrought in her brief absence, she added, "Break a leg! Well, don't break a leg. Well, you know what I mean."

When she returned, things seemed to be no worse than expected. One girl was crying, because she had dropped her ice-cream, this was soon soothed, by supplying more ice-cream. While the children finished their party tea, Ann cleared up the dropped blob of cold white creamy stuff from the floor.

It did not take much cajoling to get the kids to troop onto the lawn and face the decking. Charlie was not there. Ann stood on the edge of the deck and hoped that he was near enough and would take the hint and make an entrance.

"For Jenny's party, we have a very special person to keep you amused." Out of the corner of her eye Ann saw Charlie coming round the corner of the house. She finished her introduction with, "And here he is. It's Charlie Penn the Clown."

Ann was amazed by the transformation from nervous late-teen in grey sweat shirt and sweat pants, to someone who looked and acted like a proper clown. He wore baggy bright red trousers, held up by yellow braces which contrasted in an eye-jarring manner with his blue shirt with orange spots. As he approached he seemed to be struggling to control an invisible dog on a lead.

As he got to Ann, he asked, "Which one is the birthday girl?"

Ann whispered back, "Jenny, in the middle; silver Disney princess."

Charlie gave himself time to whisper, "Thanks," before lurching onto the stage, still apparently being dragged by the invisible dog, which judging by the harness on the end of the rigid lead could not have been larger than a small terrier.

Ann missed the next few minutes of his act, because a small girl asked to be escorted to the toilet. Fortunately, the girl seemed to know where it was, but was nervous of being in the otherwise empty house on her own.

When Ann return Charlie had the audience laughing with him. He pulled a large red and white spotted handkerchief from his pocket and extravagantly blew his nose and suddenly transformed it into a cane, which exploded from his hand and could easily have gone up his nose or into an eye. The children found this hilarious. Ann could not tell if Charlie was really this inept or was skilful enough to appear this clumsy.

The cane stopped being a cane again; it was now two large yellow silk squares and then when he crumpled the squares together out came a white dove. This he gently put into a small cage on a one-legged table. On the way back to centre-stage, he seemed to stumble in his larger-than-life shoes and sneeze and there was another dove in his hand. This dove he also placed into the cage.

His next bit of business was putting a cloth of the caged doves and removing it to reveal a small dog. He got out the dog and took it around for the children to pet. Back on stage he placed the dog in a small box on a small table and promptly dismantled the box and table with no sign of the dog.

The next section involved Jenny and one of the few boys at the party. Charlie seemed to pour a bucketful of water into the boy's ear via a funnel and then applied the funnel to his elbow, his other ear and his knee to get most of it back. But Charlie did not seem to think he had all his water back, so he had the boy give Jenny a 'birthday kiss', much to the embarrassment of both, and the put the funnel to Jenny's elbow and had the boy pump her other arm up and down. The bucket was soon up to its former level. With much sploshing, he staggered round the stage wondering where to empty the water out, then he did another big shoe stumble and shot the contents of the bucket over the audience. The kids nearly forgot to applaud, because instead of being soaked then were showered with white confetti.

He followed this by puzzling them with the sticks and strings and pompoms trick. They seemed enthralled and answered when he asked them what would happen if he did this or that; each time, no matter how clearly reasoned the answer was, they were wrong. Finally, he asked Jenny, who seemed to have cottoned on that everyone was getting it wrong, so she described some consequences of his proposed action which made no sense; lo and behold that is exactly what happened.

"Now, to finish, I'm going to float someone on air. Do I have any volunteers?" Of course, every hand went up. "I really need someone a bit bigger. It would definitely be more impressive with someone bigger." He looked directly at Ann. "Would you mind helping, miss?"

Jenny piped up, "Her name's Ann."

"Miss Ann, would you mind being floated on air?" Charlie asked again.

Ann realised that this was the point where she had to make a decision; whether to participate or refuse. He seemed to be doing the magical stuff well and with a bit of humour and he had told her that these were standard issue illusions you could buy from any magic shop. Then the girls and boys of the audience turned to looked at her; twenty pairs of eyes pleading to see her floating on air.

She nearly resisted all this pressure when Jenny said, "Please Miss Ann. I'd love to see you float on air." This broke down the last feeling that she could refuse without spoiling the party.

Ann walked from where she had stationed herself and up the steps to the decking area. The children applauded her for stepping up when asked.

Charlie greeted her as if they had never met. "I've got a nice flourish that I can add to the end of this, if you're ok with that."

Ann reminded him, "It's your first show. Keep it as straight-forward as possible, so it goes right. You can try out your flourish some other time, when it's not me being flourished with."

"It wouldn't have meant much to the kids, but I was hoping to impress you."

"Impress me by getting through this without causing either of us injury or embarrassment."

Charlie nodded to Ann and addressed the audience. "Well, we've got the first thing we need to float a person on air; that is a person to float. Say 'Thank you' to Miss Ann for volunteering to help me out with this."

Ann was bombarded with a torrent of 'thank you's from the young audience.

"Next we need some air to float Miss Ann on." He mimed breathing deeply and lifting a finger to test the breeze. "Yes, we seem to have enough air for the job," Charlie confirmed. Some of the audience giggled.

"As some of you will know, floating things can be a tricky business. Heavy things don't float as well as light things, right?"

The audience responded with a chorus of, "Right!"

"Is Miss Ann heavy or light?" Charlie asked the children and got a mixed response. "We'll try that again. Is Miss Ann heavier or lighter than air?"

With unanimity the answer came back that Ann was heavier than air.

"So the main problem is going to be getting Miss Ann into the air, so that she can float there, Right?" The children responded as before.

Charlie did an 'I've-thought-of-something' mime and took two steps to where two fold-up chairs were leaning against a railing. These he hastily placed near the front edge of the stage so that the seats and the front legs nearly touched. He then took out a tape measure and mimed measuring Ann's height and the gap between the backs of the chairs. "Miss Ann can't lie across the seats because they are too close together. And she can't lie across the backs because they are too far apart."

Charlie took a moments to ponder. Ann spotted several of the children miming pondering too. No-one suggested moving the chairs until the seats were the right distance apart.

Charlie's ponder bore fruit. He rushed to where the chairs had been and brought back a thing that looked like a short ladder. This he placed across the backs of the two chairs. "That'll get Miss Ann into the air long enough to get her floating, won't it, kids?"

Delighted to be consulted, the children responded with a round of variations on the word 'yes'.

"It doesn't look at all comfy, does it?" called Charlie. The audience chorused, 'No'. Ann shook her head too, because it looked very uncomfortable. Moments later Charlie found a roll of plain red fabric, which he unrolled along the ladder and then unfolded the tucked in edges so that they hung down either side. "That's better," Charlie enthused and the kids agreed.

Soon a box was placed in front of the assemblage, as a step, and Ann was invited to lie down on top of the cloth-covered ladder. Part of her speculated about saying that she was needed for something else, but could not think of a plausible excuse to be elsewhere. While she was distracted, Charlie had guided her to sit and then lie down on the ladder; it felt more supportive than she expected.

When she return from her fruitless internal search for a reason to be somewhere else, she was already shifting towards one end, with Charlie whispering, "It's a balance thing, so once you're in place, stay totally still, because we don't want you to overbalance"

Once Ann was positioned to Charlie's satisfaction, he lifted the edge of cloth that was draped down the front, which he told his audience was to prove to no-one had crept under there to hold Ann up. Then he draped it over her, having got her to cross her arms over her chest. This he told the throng of young ears, was so they could keep their young eyes on the space below the soon to be floating Ann. The cloth behind the ladder was also draped over, on the excuse that it meant that they could also see that nothing was back there holding the ends of the ladder. What he whispered to Ann was that it would help her to keep still and in balance.

With Ann wrapped in a horizontal cocoon, Charlie told the children that it was time to try and get her to float, but he would have to do it gently. Ann could just about see him standing at her feet, but was more concentrating on remaining still. What the crowd of youngsters saw was Charlie gently remove the supporting chair from under Ann's feet; they acknowledged this with an awed intake of breath in unison. With the chair put aside he waved his hands under her feet.

Charlie came round the front and looked at the scene and said, "There you are, Miss Ann is floating on air." The children clapped politely, until Charlie put on a puzzled look, then announced the Ann was floating on a ladder. No-one questioned what was holding the ladder up.

Once more at Ann's feet, Charlie fiddled with something and then Ann saw him waving the ladder around her body. She also heard a creak from the chair under her shoulders.

Charlie gave the children a little time to express their wonder at Ann's improbable position, before making a move to re-introduce the ladder under her. Again Ann heard a creak. Then Charlie accidentally brushed her ankle with the flouncy cuff of his vivid shirt, which caused her to twitch abruptly.

There was a sudden crack and the ladder, cloth and Ann slowly sagged from the horizontal. She slid down the slanting ladder; bump, bump, bump. Before she could do anything, Ann was slumped on the floor still wrapped in the red cloth. Fortunately, the only thing bruised was her dignity.

As Charlie tried to free Ann from the enfolding cloth, he seemed concerned that she might be injured, but the children were laughing. Ann hoped that they thought that this was part of the act.

Charlie succeeded in freeing Ann and she found he had lifted to sitting on one of the folding chairs that had supported the ladder. He whispered in her ear, "Are you ok?"

Ann reacted with, "Sort of. I'm not hurt, but no thanks to you."

"In that case we can save the act. Just go with the flow." He added a pleading, "Please."

Ann, feeling that she might regret it, nodded. She felt she did not want to destroy the young performer's confidence, because of what seemed to her was just bad luck of the apparatus breaking.

In a voice that evidently was intended to carry to the children, he asked, "Miss Ann, How is your neck?" and then in a whisper said, "Please say it hurts."

Knowing she was not a great actress, Ann turned her head a bit and faked a wince, which caused the young throng to coo in sympathy.

It occurred to Ann to wonder why she was pretending to have a hurt neck, then she remembered that the magician clown had asked her to participate in the sword through the neck trick when she had met him as the nervous young man before his first gig. After the problem with the levitation she worried that this one might go wrong, but then she remember that he had assured her that nothing could go wrong, because it was just an illusion, not real magic.

"Does your neck hurt, Miss Ann?" asked Charlie.

Ann nodded and then remembered to wince, just a little too late. This clued the children in to that fact that she was pretending and they relaxed to watch what would happen, instead of worrying that Ann was really hurt. Having seen the change in the audience Ann relaxed a bit too.

It was a bit of a surprise to Ann, but not to the watching children, when the clown produced a stethoscope and began to put the business end in various places around her neck. He stage-muttered that her sacroiliac bone was out of place and needed re-aligning. This amused the children.

Charlie's next movement was to massage her neck, which made her relax, despite him positioning her head in some odd postures. Ann remembered to add the odd wince of mock pain, to keep up the charade that her neck hurt.

After the neck massage, the clown said, "That doesn't seem to be working. I need to get my sacroiliac bone re-positioning device." He went and rummaged in a case that was at the back of the deck and brought out a metal collar-like device with a sword through it. Behind Ann's back, he pulled the sword from the collar and placed a finger to his lips to tell the children not to let Ann know what was going on. He laid the sword aside.

"First, we need to put the sacroiliac bone re-positioning device around Miss Ann's throat," said Charlie. This gave Ann enough notice that she did not jump when she felt the cold metal squeeze her neck on either side. Charlie came round the front and did up a catch under Ann's chin. He then guided Ann's hands to hold the front of the collar, "To hold it steady."

"Now that the collar is in place, we need to introduce the re-positioning tool." The clown took up the sword again and lined it up with hinge at the back of the collar. He gently insert the tip of the blade and asked Ann if she could feel it.

"Yes, I can feel the point against the back of my neck."

The clown hurriedly withdrew the sword, and looked worried. "You weren't supposed to feel that." He paused, while the children giggled and dug out of his pocket a bottle of clear liquid with a spray nozzle on top. "What we need is some anaesthetic." He sprayed the back of her neck, causing her to give her first genuine wince since this began. The cooling action and smell told Ann that she had been sprayed with alcohol and she felt a few drops running down the back of her neck.

Charlie paused for a moment, "To let the anaesthetic take effect," before taking up the sword again. As he inserted it this time Ann felt nothing to tell her that the blade had been re-inserted and told Charlie so when he asked.

"This may be a bit uncomfortable," said Charlie, "but bear with it. You'll be fine."

Immediately Ann felt the tip of the blade going into the back of her neck, through her throat and out the front. She screamed the pain this caused as her eyes focused on the tip of the sword that came into view from the front of the collar that she was holding.

The children seemed stunned, some from the fact that the implied promise of a sword through Ann's neck had been delivered and a few concerned that Ann was hurt.

Charlie quickly twisted Ann on the chair to show that the sword had indeed penetrated Ann's neck, then he quickly withdrew it and wiped it with a large handkerchief. Ann felt some more liquid drip down the back of her neck.

Charlie quickly thanked Ann for her help, which the children echoed, and all but shoved her off the stage.

"Well that's the end of the show, but I'll be about for a while, while I tidy up. So if any of you want to meet 'Little Hercules' again, I'm sure we can find him. This will let Ann do some tidying up of her own in peace." Sudden the audience rushed the makeshift decking stage, leaving Ann alone on the grass.

Ann returned to the untidiness that had be created in the dining area and with the aid of a large black bin bag, returned it to order. This process was interrupted several times by parents arriving to collect their offspring. Most of them asked where Mrs Hamilton was and made understanding noises when told that she had been called away for an emergency. A lot of them gave a funny look when she returned from the garden with their children.

She had cleared up the food, by the time the last of the guests had left. Then Charlie came in bringing Jenny with him. "Would you mind looking after Jenny, while I get my stuff back in the van?"

For Jenny's sake, Ann just said, "Yeah, fine." She was not feeling at all kindly towards Charlie, but the fact that he had taken charge of the children, allowing her time to do her proper job had softened her mood slightly.

Once Charlie had returned to the garden to round up his props and animals, Jenny asked, "Does having a sword through your throat really hurt?"

Ann thanked fate that, at that moment, Mr Hamilton arrived and she was caught up in explaining why Mrs Hamilton was not there.

Ann took the last few items back to the catering van and watched Mr Hamilton drive off with Jenny to find his wife and her brother at St Mark's hospital.

Charles came onto the drive and placed the final items in the back of Mr Jackson's van. "I'm really sorry about the tricks." He seemed truly regretful.

"Ok, tell me what happened." Ann had considered giving the young performer a huge mouthful of abuse, but he seemed to have reverted to his vulnerable self, that was his default state when he was not being Charlie Penn the Clown.

"The levitation was a plain mechanical failure, but I guess that jerk you gave, when I accidentally touched your shin, was the final straw. You weren't hurt by that were you?"

"Not really, although it was a bit of a surprise. And what happened with the sword through the neck?"

"Another mechanical failure, I'm afraid. I guess Mr Jackson needs to maintain his props a bit better. I had to do it for real; using real magic. It was either that or disappoint the kids and you know the saying, 'The show must go on'."

"You did real magic on me without asking?" Ann screeched. Charlie cowered. "You know I could report you for assistant abuse?" The young man did not know whether this threat was genuine, but still reacted as if it might be. "You know that hurt like hell?"

"No," said Charles, shocked. "I just thought you were over-reacting for the children. When Mr Jackson did it to me I didn't feel a thing."

"I didn't feel a thing when he did something to me, either. I guess he's good that way, but I've known a couple of magicians that made it feel good, and a couple who I reckon deliberately made it feel worse. You shouldn't be using magic on people until you can control how it feels." Charles seemed disappointed. Ann felt the urge to say something positive. "I must say the small tricks were very well done and the way you held the children's attention was great."

"Thank you." Charles held out a few notes as he got into his van and turned the ignition key.

"What's that for?" asked Ann, suspecting that Charlie had taken her threat too seriously; in which case he underestimating the amount of hush-money she'd have wanted.

"It's the least I could do, having got a blood stain on the back of your shirt." He placed the money in her hand and drove off.