The Emporium of Illusions (7/8) By Andy Bilton

(1/8), (2/8), (3/8), (4/8), (5/8), (6/8), (7/8), (8/8).

"Told you," she says, "I've flogged about two dozen of them this week. It's basic you see, real easy for a beginner to pull off and it's cheap, only one ninety nine. Mind you, you don't get a silk handkerchief for that, just a plastic thumb and a tatty piece of off-cut cloth, that silk thing must have been his own." I find it hard to believe that so much wonderment, amazement and entertainment, created by such a plain, ordinary man, came at such small cost and it annoys me a little that Michelle has revealed the price and moreover the secret of the illusion to me but at least she is talking again.

"One of your best sellers is it then?" I ask her. "Not really," she says, "we sell more joke things, you know the fake dog turds, itching powder, blue tongue chewing gum that sort of stuff. Well we get all the kids in from that school don't we? Some of them lads are right little shits, half of 'em just come in for a butchers at me I'm sure, you know what they're like at that age.

They come in and ask about all the tricks and stuff, ask how they work, asking for stuff at the bottom of the display cabinet we have in the shop, so's they can cop a look down me top, and I have to play the little helpful shop assistant, what with Neil watching over me, and I have to smile all the time, though I'd love to just give 'em a clip round the ear hole and ban 'em from the shop till they've got through puberty." "I see," I say, recoiling slightly at her outburst. "Well you asked," she says.

"Indeed." I call Mario over and order another pint and this time Michelle says she'll have an orange juice and Mario comes back with the drinks and the sweets menu. "I tell you one magic trick we do sell a lot of," she says. "What's that," I say taking a long hard gulp from my pint.

"The vanishing coin trick." "Which one's that?" I ask. "You know, the one where you put a coin on a metal cup then you put a second cup on top of the first and when you lift up the second cup, the coin's vanished." I seem to remember this trick or a variation of it being on the Paul Daniel's magic show when I was in my teens. "Oh yes," I say, "I know the one."

"That's a false bottom on the cup," she says, giggling a little "you lift the false bottom off the cup with the coin on it and it becomes the bottom of the top cup, if you see what I mean." I see all too clearly what she means. And she continues. Telling me the secret of trick after trick; the reforming rope trick, the linking chains trick, the vanishing queen trick and the trick where you put your thumb in a box and shove pins right through the box and when you pull your thumb out there's not a mark on it.

Continued...Next Page (8/8)

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