“Shell of dead turtle”
“Powdered pig brains”
“Vampire blood”
“Snake venom”
“Powdered pig brains”
“Vampire blood”
“Snake venom”
“Shazoom, Shaboom, Shabang, BAM!”
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************
Max sat at the kitchen table drumming his fingers against the underside letting the faintest of smirks spill across his face.
"You're doing it again," his mother said turning her head towards him without letting her eyes leave the monstrous pile of dirty dishes inhabiting the sink.
"What?" He cleared his throat. "Doing what?"
"Plotting."
Nothing. His mother turned at the unprecedented silence.
Max and his mother stared each other down, both waiting for some reaction. Finally, Max let out an overly dramatic sigh, shrugged, and as his shoulders fell, slid further down into his seat until he was eye to spoon with his oatmeal. He scowled and muttered incantations under his breath to make it disappear. Having no luck, Max took the spoon to his lips and stuck his tongue out just enough for it to touch the oatmeal. Immediately repulsed by it’s sticky texture and lack of flavor, he pulled his tongue back in his mouth, and shoved the spoon back in the bowl. He pushed his bowl to the side and picked up the deck of cards that sat in the middle of the table.
“Pick a card, any card,” he said in a taunting tone.
Humoring him, his mother took a card from his hand.
“Okay, now put it behind your back, and don’t think about anything but the card.”
Following his orders, she put her jack of hearts behind her back and waited for his next instruction.
“Now put it in the freezer,” he said with absolute certainty.
“What? Max, I don’t think so.”
“Come on, please?” he begged.
“All right,” she said with sigh.
“Okay, now I’m going to use my magical powers to look through the freezer door to see what the card is.”
Max closed his eyes and waved his hands in the air. He peeked one eye open to see his mother unimpressively looking back.
"You have to close your eyes too, or else…or else, it doesn't work!"
He waited until her eyes closed entirely, then pulled the napkin he had kept folded by his abandoned mush from the table and darted up the stairs as quickly and as quietly as possible.
"MAXWELL OWEN GRAHAM!!!!"
That same plotful smirk appeared as he crouched and watched from behind the bars of the railing as his mother desperately tried to remove the J and heart symbol he had so carefully carved into the kitchen table. He waited as she ran back and forth trying water and sprays and soaps until she suddenly stopped. Her eyes locked onto the carvings and her breathing started to still just as her husband called out from upstairs.
"Everything ok down there?"
Shaking off the shock she yelled back, "Fine! Fine, it's under control!"
The element of surprise is what attracted Max most to magic, seeing someone's face turn a certain way gave him goosebumps. He got up and walked a slow and silent victory stride over to his room to change into his school clothes and search for his backpack. He made a desperate leap over his chocolate brown bunny Burton's cage and landed on his bed. Searching between his outer space printed sheets, he found his notebook and from a huge blue ink spot found the pen he’d used for his homework last night. He lay down on his stomach, leaned sideways over the bed with his shaggy brown hair just barely touching the floor, and squinted to see under his bed, examining the maple wooden floor left to right. A glow in the dark yo-yo, an old stuffed dolphin he’d won at the fair, a green flashlight, and finally his backpack! He fell to the floor and crawled under the bed. His room looked so different from under there. The light blue walls looked ten shades darker, and all his furniture appeared ten times taller. He grabbed his black backpack, and after two quick sneezes, rubbed his nose with the sleeve of his flannel pajama shirt and slid out from under his bed. Making it through his room was a challenge with all the piles of dirty clothes and toys scattered everywhere, but he maneuvered around all its obstacles. He quickly got dressed and slid down the banister so as not to miss the school bus.
“Grilled cheese and chips, no knife needed!” his mother said, grabbing him by the handle of his backpack and holding out a brown paper bag he took with a nervous chuckle.
“Put on your jacket, it’s starting to rain. Later, little man,” his father said, kissing the top of his head. He put the hood over his head and at the sound of the bus’s horn, bolted through the screen door and down the cerulean blue porch steps, his arms outstretched and raincoat cape flying high above him.
Max loved school; it gave him the chance to try his magic tricks out on all different crowds. At 8:00 AM, he put his coat and backpack in his cubby and sat down in his assigned seat in Mrs. Wescott’s 2nd grade homeroom.
“Hey Max, guess what?” his friend Richie asked scooting into the seat next to his.
“What?”
“I got a turtle for my birthday! His name’s Charlie. I brought him to school, wanna see?”
“Yeah!” Max responded, his eyes widening in anticipation.
Richie opened his desk and pulled out a small white shoebox with tiny holes punched out on the top. Max leaned over and peered into the box in amazement. He had always used Burton for magic tricks, but now all he could think of were the magic tricks he could do with Charlie. Before he knew it, the final bell had rung, and it was time for everyone to go home. He watched as Richie put Charlie carefully into his backpack, then found his opportunity to strike when instead of leaving, Richie asked to go to the bathroom. Max slowly inched his way over to Richie's backpack, then covered it with his raincoat, and quickly stole and stashed away his loot. With a smirk on his face and a turtle in his backpack, he fled the scene of the crime.
When Max returned from school, he ran straight to his room, completely ignoring his mother’s attempt to ask how his day had been. He shut his door and put some books behind it to stop anyone from coming in. Very carefully placing his backpack on his bed, he unzipped the zipper and took out the white shoebox holding Charlie. He crossed his fingers, slowly pulled the lid off the box, and jumped with glee at Charlie’s lifeless body. Max was going to attempt the impossible; he was going to bring Charlie back to life.
“Shell of dead turtle”
“Powered pig brains”
“Vampire blood”
“Snake venom”
“Shazoom, Shaboom, Shabang, BAM!”
Having no success, he tried repeating the words louder, saying them in a different order, and even making up new ones altogether, but it was no use; Charlie would never live again. Feeling defeated, Max shut the lid and sat motionless on his bedroom floor. He stared at the white shoebox, wishing he hadn’t shoved it in his backpack and blocked Charlie’s air holes with all his books. “Abracadabra!” he screamed at the top of his lungs lifting the top off the box in a final plea for Charlie’s life. He put the lid back on for the last time, picked up the box in his hands clutching it tightly to his chest, and slowly walked towards his door pushing the books aside. Carefully he turned the knob, crept down the steps, past the kitchen where his mom was making dinner, and out the door into the backyard.
Max found a patch of dirt near his tree house that looked like it could fit Charlie and began digging with his hands. Fistful by fistful, he took his anger and sadness out on the dirt. When he felt he’d made a hole big enough, he lowered the shoebox into the ground and took his hands away from it. Kneeling over Charlie’s grave to say his last goodbyes, tears spilled onto the white cardboard lid and down the side of the box into the earth.
“I’m sorry,” Max whispered looking down at Charlie, then up through the kitchen window into his mother’s eyes.
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