Miss Mystery: Little Magics
The weather was warm, so Mike and Judy were glad to find a table on the terrace of The Café in the Park. The blond waitress handed them menus and said that she would be back in a few minutes. Mike replied that there was no hurry, because they were waiting for a magician. The waitress seemed a little unsettled by this remark and rushed off to do something on the other side of the terrace.
When they had returned from their previous rehearsal and the subsequent trip into town to visit Barbara’s Boudoir, they had found a note on Judy’s kitchen table. The note said, “Need more rehearsal, see you in Lakeside Park tomorrow afternoon. MM”
The note was in a different hand to the notes they had seen from Miss Mystery. This led to a discussion that had ‘who wrote the note?’ and ‘how did it get onto the table?’ as its central questions. The main conclusion was that they would go to the park the following afternoon to see if there were any answers to be had. Mike emailed from his phone that they would be there on the Sunday, and cc’d Magda, in case.
Judy spent the evening modelling the bargains she had picked up at Barbara’s Boudoir’s grand reopening sale. They both enjoyed this activity.
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As the waitress made a third attempt to take an order, Magda arrived confident in her slender Scandinavian figure and smart business suit. She immediately ordered a coffee, prompting Mike and Judy to order tea and scones.
“I thought we were meeting Miss Mystery,” commented Mike.
“She’s setting up by Buskers Square; she said she would be about half an hour. She asked me to find you and offer you a change of clothes if you were not dressed right. But given that the change is a T-shirt and shorts, it seems a little redundant.” Both Judy and Mike were dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, to make the most of the warm weather.
“Ok, so what will we be doing?” asked Judy.
“While she did not give me any details to pass on, I know that you will be with her performing the magic. And you, Mike, will be drumming up audiences of two or three to watch her and Judy rehearse together.” Mike face showed some disappointment. “She said you can join the last audience and see the rehearsed version, when she thinks that it is ready.”
The waitress delivered the order, then asked, “Are you really a magician?” in response to Magda’s puzzled look, she added, “They said that they were going to meet a magician, but you don’t look like a magician, but you can never be quite sure.”
Magda seemed flattered that she might be a magician. “No, My Child, I am not a magician, but my friend is one, but she couldn’t get here because she’s busy, so she asked me to bring a message.”
The waitress seemed relieved and expressed the hope that they would enjoy the food and drink.
“So, how come you know Miss Mystery?” asked Mike.
“We’re friends and have known each other since school; beyond that it gets into ‘It’s complicated’ territory.” Mike tried to imagine how the Nordic beauty would end up in the same school as an eastern European, but drew a blank; also the chance that they might have been friends there baffled him.
Magda steered the conversation to more comfortable topics and as she took her last sip of coffee, she declared it was time that she got on with another errand for Miss Mystery, this time to the Maiden’s Theatre, where she had to ask some questions that her friend wanted the answers to, muttering something about, it would be easier to ask by email.
Magda left enough money to pay for the food, with enough left over to constitute a generous tip for the waitress. She headed for the nearest carpark at a pace that denoted hurry. Mike and Judy went in the opposite direction towards Buskers Square.
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They arrived at the square and saw the competition. First they heard a trombonist who was making a good attempt at the Flight of the Bumblebee. Then they saw a juggler, and a mime. Miss Mystery’s tent was set up at the far corner. As they got closer a hand beckoned from the flap of the tent.
The couple arrived at the tent and the flap was held aside to let them enter, to see Miss Mystery sat in her chair on the other side of the tent. The tent was lit by a source-less red glow, as usual but the furnishing was different. There was a row of four chairs facing Miss Mystery’s seat with a gap in the middle to allow patrons to reach a seat. The only other item was a tube on a tripod stand close by the magician’s throne.
“Judy, My Child, please come here, I have a stool for you.” From the space between the back of Miss Mystery’s chair and the tent wall the magician produced a stool that had its seat about two and a half feet from the floor. She set it down and patted the wooden top to invite Judy to sit. “Mike, My Dear, you will take on the role of box office; encouraged people to come and see me and Judy perform magic and collect what donations you can when they come out.”
“And what do I say it’s for?” asked Mike; he was not sure that he wanted to be dealing directly with the public.
“It’s for the charity that I always raise money for, but this time it’s a little indirect, because I hope we can raise enough money this afternoon that I won’t need to claim any expenses for the show. Off you go, My Dear. We should be ready for the first practice in about five minutes and after the first lot leave you should have a good idea of how long it’s taking. If you get some feedback too, that would help a lot.”
Mike ducked out of the tent into the brightness of afternoon. He saw some people looking at him, apparently curious about there being a tent on Busker Square; most buskers set up in such way as to maximise their audience, rather than exclude people.
“Hello, can I help you?” Mike asked the couple that was closest.
They seemed surprised to be asked. “What’s happening?”
“We’re rehearsing for a charity magic show next month and wanted some audience feedback and if we get a few donations to help cover expenses that would be a help too.” Once he had said his piece Mike’s tension about speaking to the public eased.
“Why in a tent? Why not let everyone see?”
For a moment Mike was stumped by this, then inspiration struck. “Like I said, we’re rehearsing, so we don’t want to muck up in the full on glare of the public gaze, and we’ll be at the Maidens Theatre on the 16th so we want to keep the indoor environment as much as possible.”
Mike looked back at the tent and spotted a note pinned to the fabric beside the tent flap. It was a fist with an upraised thumb. “I think they are ready to premiere the trick that we are practising this afternoon. Would you like to see?”
The couple dithered for a moment before deciding that seeing a magic trick would at least be a break from the brightness of the sun.
With the ice broken, Mike found that he could talk to most people. He found that if he let people know that these were rehearsals for a charity magic show, they would generally respond positively, even if he failed to persuade them that they wanted to see what was on offer. As the afternoon wore on, he got better at timing being at the tent with the next audience and ready to receive the feedback and a donation from the last audience; this was helped by that notes that regularly appeared by the tent flap. He also noticed that the donations he was collecting were getting bigger; at first the audiences were handing over pocket change along with their generally positive opinions of what they had witnessed.
After the first few audiences, he found a stack of flyers under a rock beside the tent flap, which allowed him to give something to people interested in what they were rehearsing for.
It frustrated Mike a little that the audience comments did not give him much clue about what was actually happening in the tent.
It was getting towards tea time, when Mike spotted Monika and Keisha across the square. He waved. They had already spotted him and walked across the square.
“What brings you here?” asked Monika.
“Another rehearsal, with Miss Mystery,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the tent. “And you? I got the impression that you’d have your noses in books or be bashing away typing an essay or something.”
Keisha replied, “We were studying, but then we both felt the lure of pleasant walk to blow away the cobwebs that seemed to be accumulating. Besides, who can resist ‘Havana’ played on the trombone?”
Mike glanced at the tent and saw the note that indicated two minutes before the previous patrons emerged from the tent. “The next show is in two minutes. Would you like another taster of what Miss Mystery can do?”
The girls enthusiastically said that they would.
Soon a mother, two sons and a daughter emerged from the tent, squinting a little against the lowering sun. Mike indicated that Monika and Keisha should enter. The children enthused that they had seen something that was weird, without seeming to be worried by it. The mother placed a twenty into Mike’s palm and said, “That’s probably the longest that they've been quiet together for a long time, without being asleep, playing with something electronic or being up to mischief. And I haven’t a clue how they did it, but they did it very well.”
As the family walked away, Mike glanced at the tent and saw that the note had been changed for a beckoning hand. He put his head through the tent-flap. Miss Mystery said, “Come in, my dear! We are about to start our final run-through of the illusion I’ve been trying this afternoon. I see you found some friends too.”
Mike entered into red interior of the tent and found it pleasantly warm, but not stuffy as he imagined it might be. He also noticed that the strains of a Brahms lullaby from the trombonist were inaudible within the tent.
Mike sat. Miss Mystery said, “We begin.” Judy stood up from the stool where she had been sitting and went to the tube on the tripod stand. She gave it a push and it rotated allowing glimpses down the ends that showed it to be empty. As the spinning slowed she stopped the tube and lifted it, revealing that a single short rod attached to the bottom was how the tube stayed on the tripod and allowed it to rotate. Judy carried the tube to the three observers and gave them a closer look at the tube; it seemed to be made of brass and be hinged along one side and held shut by catches on the other. She unfastened the catches and opened the tube to show the smooth interior.
While she was returning the tube to the stand she closed the tube and refastened the catches and refitted it so that the hinged side was away from the watchers. She knelt down beside the tube and put her arm through it until her whole hand came out the other end; her shoulder was pressed against her end of the tube.
“Turn your hand as far as you can to the right and then the left,” instructed Miss Mystery
Judy first rotated her hand backwards from being vertical with her thumb upmost to being flat with her thumb pointing slightly downwards away from the audience. Then she turned it the other way from the original position until it was once more vertical, but with her thumb pointing downwards and a little away from the seating. She returned her hand to its initial thumb up position.
Miss Mystery pulled a silky red cloth from a sleeve and waved it, proving it concealed nothing. She then took opposite corners in each hand and stretched the cloth between them, except that suddenly is was not a cloth but a lacquered cane in the same scarlet colour. Miss Mystery’s green eyes, which seem to be the other thing in the tent not effected by the red ambiance, sparkled with pleasure at this tiny, but startling transformation.
The magician passed the cane to Judy’s hand. Judy wrapped her fingers round it and held her thumb up the rod. With a conspiratorial wink, that implied that Miss Mystery and the audience know what was planned, while Judy was in the dark, the magician put a finger against the top of the cane and pushed it backwards until it was horizontal and Judy’s hand with it. Then she leant forward and using the same finger applied what seemed minimal pressure to raise the front end of the cane until it had been inverted. Mike was trying to keep an eye on the turning of the stick and the over-turning of Judy’s hand and her face; her face showed concentration, but whether that masked pleasure, pain or something else, Mike could not tell.
Miss Mystery continued to turn the rod by applying a token amount of pressure until it had been rotated three full turns. She reached past Judy’s hand to release the nearest catch on the front of the tube, while Judy used her free hand to undo the catch by her shoulder. In a move that seemed perfectly coordinated, without any obvious signal between Miss Mystery and Judy, they opened the tube, so that Judy could raise her arm, which showed no evidence of having been twisted beyond normal human limits.
Mike had expected the show to end there, but Judy moved the stool to stand at end of the brass tube. While she repositioned the stool, Miss Mystery pulled another brass tube from behind her chair. The magician handed the new tube to Judy who brought it forward for us to inspect.
The new tube was a little larger in diameter than the previous tube, had a slot opposite the hinged edge, and a pair of half rings at one end which prevented the tube from closing fully. There was a catch on the open end of the ring.
Judy returned to the tube to Miss Mystery and then sat on the stool. Once she was steady on her seat, she lifted her leg and laid it into the tube on the stand. Between them Judy and Miss Mystery shut the tube over her leg and fastened the catches. Her foot stuck out the other end by the arm of Miss Mystery’s chair. In emulation of the previous trick, Miss Mystery took of Judy’s shoe and placed a finger between the two biggest toes and applying a similarly small force turned the foot through a full revolution until it was pointing up again.
“How did that feel, My Child?” asked by Miss Mystery, got a thumbs up from Judy. “Good,” the magician confirmed.
She took the second tube and opened it and passed one end to Judy. Together they lowered the second tube over the first and closed it. Miss Mystery fastened the catch that closed the ring around the base of Judy’s shin. There was a moment’s pause, as if to give the audience a chance to guess what would happen next.
Miss Mystery took hold of the outer tube and pulled. The tube slide along the inner tube and Judy’s bare foot remained sticking out of the end of the tube, even though the distance from the end by Judy’s hip to the end held by Miss Mystery had increased by 50 percent.
There was another pause; this time it seemed to ask if we wanted Miss Mystery to go further. Mike glanced at Judy to determine if she had an opinion on this matter, but met the same expression of concentration as he had seen before, that could have masked pleasure, pain or indifference. Monika was trying to assess Miss Mystery’s preference; with little to go on, but a look in the magician’s green eyes, seemed to challenge her to make up her own mind.
With an audience of two-thirds ditherers, Keisha’s vote counted. She asked, “Does it go any further?”
Miss Mystery’s cheeks wrinkled slightly; an indication of a smile under the veil. Judy’s expression was less easy to read, was it relief, fear or anticipation?
Without answering the question directly, Miss Mystery teased the outer tube further beyond the inner tube, with frequent glances at Judy, to gauge her reaction. Mike could not detect any reaction from Judy, she barely blinked, but Miss Mystery seemed to be modulating the speed at which was drawing Judy’s foot further beyond its usual reach.
As the inner tube became almost totally revealed, and Keisha continued her murmurs of wonder and awe at the trick being performed in front of her, Mike detected a miniscule nod from Judy, which increased the shadow of the smile under Miss Mystery’s veil and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Mike spotted a movement of Judy’s fingers that was echoed by a similar movement of the magician’s. At the moment that he determined that magician and assistant were counting down to something, it happened.
With a sudden movement, that Judy seemed braced for, Miss Mystery pulled the two tubes apart and for the moment it took for anyone to react she held the brass tube with the foot sticking out of the end. Keisha’s jaw dropped as she stared open-mouthed at the scene. Monica express herself in a single word, “Wow!” Mike was torn between rushing forward and doing something to get Judy back to normal and sitting back and seeing what occurred next; a twitch of a smile from Judy kept him in his seat.
The next move was Miss Mystery lowering Judy’s foot to rest on her knee. This was followed by an instruction for Judy to wriggle her toes. The toes on the foot standing on Miss Mystery’s knee twitched and wriggled in time with the toes of Judy’s foot on the leg that was still connected.
After some moments the magician lifted the foot from her knee and pushed the other end of the tube onto the near end of the tube on the stand. When the outer tube covered the inner tube, she rotated Judy’s foot in the opposite direction two turns, then undid the catch to remove the outer tube which quickly disappeared into the shadows behind her chair. Between them, Miss Mystery and Judy undid the catches on the inner tube and released Judy’s leg, which seemed unaffected by either being twisted or divided into two.
Judy moved to sit straight on the stool. Miss Mystery addressed the audience of three. “Thank you for coming to see what we have done this afternoon. If you want to know more, you can pick up a flyer up outside the tent.”
Feeling dismissed, Monika, Keisha and Mike left the tent. Mike picked up a flyer from under the stone by the tent’s entrance and handed it to Monika. “So? What did you reckon to that?” he asked.
“Well, the criticism from yesterday, still stands. Miss Mystery seems a bit static, although the magic is great. I must say that Judy didn’t seem quite as engaged in the magic. I do hope there’s something that can be done about that. How long have you be rehearsing that one?”
“The last few hours, I guess. And I know what you mean about Judy not seeming particularly there with the magic. Thank you for coming to see us and I guess we’ll see you two on the 16th.”
Keisha replied. “We only came out to freshen our minds for an evening of studying, but what a superb way to freshen them. We’ll see you then.”
Monika and Keisha waved as the strolled back to their waiting studies.
Mike poked his head back into the tent. Miss Mystery beckoned him to come in.
“So, My Dear, What are they saying?”
“The general consensus is that the magic itself is great and astounding, but the presentation lacks that extra something. Most people also commented that Judy seem a bit detached from what was going on, despite doing everything on cue.”
“That last bit is my fault. Judy was getting almost as nervous as I was at the thought of performing for strangers, so I hypnotised her; perhaps a little too much. Would you like to take her home and have her your obedient and unremembering slave for the evening? It would only last until she got some sleep.”
“No, thank you. I think I prefer Judy the way she normally is.”
Miss Mystery snapped her fingers and Judy seemed to return to full awareness of where she was.
“What happened?” Judy asked.
“It seems that you spent most of the afternoon having your arm twisted and your leg pulled,” replied Mike with a smile.
“I don’t remember any of that; in fact, I don’t think I remember anything after telling Miss Mystery that I was a bit nervous.”
“I think we should get you home and I make us some supper. That is unless you would like some help taking the tent down.”
“Thank you, My Dear. But Magda will help me pack up when she gets back from the theatre. Go have a lovely evening, I expect you’ve got work tomorrow.”