Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power

Read Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power for Free Online

Book: Read Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power for Free Online
Authors: David Pogue
a rope, and then they pull you along with a motorboat so you fly way up in the air.”
    Abby was amazed. “And you’ve
done
that before?”
    â€œOh yeah.” Sara cocked her head as she nodded. “I’m from Florida.”
    Abby raised her eyebrows, impressed. “And have you done
this
before?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMagic camp? Summer camp?”
    â€œWell, nobody’s done
this
camp. They just opened up,” said No-H Sara the Tour Guide. “But I’ve been going to summer camps, like, forever. My parents believe in exposing us to the world.”
    Sara stepped up onto a gleaming wooden bench, walked along its length like a tightrope walker, then hopped down at the far end to join Abby. “So what are you gonna sign up for? I’m gonna do Stage Magic. You wanna do it with me?”
    Already, Abby had heard plenty about Stage Magic. It was the most popular morning class by far, because that’s where you got to work with the big flashy illusions, like making people float in the air or chopping them into thirds.
    And it’s easy to understand why those classes were so popular. After all, when you’re at home, you hardly ever get to try that kind of magic, since you need a lot of big, expensive, special equipment to do it. “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare once wrote, but he forgot the part about howhard it is to fit those six-foot cabinets into the back of your parents’ Toyota Camry.
    Abby couldn’t help smiling at the thought of tiny Sara, the human hummingbird, flittering about the stage among the gigantic Cabinets of Mystery.
    But Abby had no interest in striding across the stage, gesturing grandly at assistants wearing sparkly leotards. In fact, although she didn’t dare let anybody at Cadabra know it, she didn’t have much interest in performing
at all.
She just wanted to discover the secrets of her magical power.
    â€œI—I haven’t decided yet,” Abby replied.
    She
had
flipped through the red book, looking over all the available classes. Yet amazingly enough, Abby hadn’t found anything called “Earlobe Power: The Rotational Characteristics of Poultry Products.”
    Instead, she planned to sign up for what looked like the next best things. “I was thinking of maybe Card Magic, Coin Manipulation, and Dinner Table Magic,” she said.
    â€œHuh!” said Sara.
Swing!
Sara had picked up a stick and was swatting at branches like they were baseballs. “So you’re into the close-up magic, then.”
Swing!
    â€œWell, if you’re so into close-up, then why don’t you sign up for Impromptu? That’s the best kind of close-up anyway,
I
think. You know, it’s all, like, spur-of-the-momentstuff, where you don’t have to set up the trick beforehand.”
    My egg thing certainly seems to fit that category,
thought Abby. “Sure! I’ll try that one! Unless, I mean—”
    â€œUnless what?”
    Abby took a breath. “Well, let me ask you. Do you think they might have any kind of classes where you can learn about, like . . .
real
magic?”
    No-H Sara stopped on the path and rested the bat-stick on her shoulder. She looked at Abby with a cocked eyebrow.
    â€œWhat do you mean,
real
magic?”
    â€œYou know, like—weird stuff you can’t explain. I saw a newspaper ad that talked about, you know, unexplained phenomena. Like moving stuff with your mind and stuff. What should I sign up for if I’m interested in that kind of magic?”
    No-H Sara studied Abby for what seemed like a very long time.
    â€œWhat you should sign up for is
Crazy
Class,” she said finally. “Only nut cases believe in stuff like that. My grandma always says, ‘The only people who believe in the invisible are people with nothing visible to believe in.’ ”
    Sara pounded her bat-stick on the freshly paved pathway. “Now come on.

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