Horten's Incredible Illusions Read online

  “GOOD LUCK,” he heard April shout faintly. “THE LIGHTS ARE GOING OUT ON THIS SIDE. I THINK I’M ON MY WAY BACK NOW—ACTUALLY, I CAN HEAR SOMETHING ODD. I CAN HEAR A SORT OF CLICKING SOUND IN THE …” Her voice faded away.

  “APRIL!” he yelled. “APRIL?”

  But there was no reply. He was completely on his own.

  “I am so bored.”

  Well, nearly on his own.

  CHAPTER 11

  Stuart peered from one image to the next, frowning, comparing, worrying, while Bored Stuart grumbled on in the background. Mirror after mirror showed a boy with shortish hair, grayish eyes, a roundish face, and a few brownish freckles. An ordinary sort of face, with an ordinary array of expressions: puzzled, amused, tired, interested—

  “Bored. I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored in my whole entire life.”

  “Please,” said Stuart, “I’m trying to think.”

  “There is nothing to do in here.”

  “You could help me work out which of these images is actually me.”

  Bored Stuart glanced at the wall of mirrors and groaned. “But there are loads of them. It’ll take ages.”

  “You’re not exactly doing anything else, are you?”

  Bored Stuart sighed and wandered over to the arch. “That one,” he said almost immediately, pointing to a mirror on the bottom row.

  “You sure?” asked Stuart. “Why that one in particular?”

  Bored Stuart shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “You’re just guessing, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stuart stared at the image; it looked just as much like him as all the others. There was nothing to lose. He pulled the mirror off the arch, fitted it into the empty frame, and put the frame on the easel. Instantly the mirror disappeared.

  Behind him, there was a grunt. “How many of these can you do in one minute?” demanded a voice.

  Heart sinking, Stuart turned. Another Stuart was doing a series of one-armed push-ups.

  “I can’t do any of those at all,” said Stuart.

  “There’s no point in being short and unfit,” said the other Stuart, a bit breathlessly.

  “I’m not unfit.”

  “Okay, how about some arm wrestling?”

  “No,” said Stuart.

  “Arm wrestling’s really boring” said Bored Stuart.

  “Are you saying I’m boring?” demanded Fit Stuart, leaping to his feet.

  Stuart put his fingers in his ears and walked over to the arch again. It was hopeless. He couldn’t tell one image from another, so he’d just have to get lucky. He started pulling off mirrors until he had a huge stack of them, and then, one by one, he put them in the frame….

  “Bad idea,” muttered Stuart to himself, a bit later. “Bad idea.”

  The darkness around the arch was filled with Stuarts. Studious Stuart was reading a history textbook. Jokey Stuart was making farting noises with his armpit while Serious Stuart made a disapproving face. Fit Stuart had organized a hurdles race, using Lazy Stuart, Sleepy Stuart, and Bored Stuart as hurdles. Boastful Stuart had told everybody beforehand that he was superb at running, and he had just now lost rather badly to Silent Stuart, who hadn’t said anything at all but had so far won the hurdles, the arm wrestling, and the prize for the largest number of jumping jacks in five minutes. The prize had been a spider in a matchbox, donated by Nature-Loving Stuart. Moany Stuart had complained about the amount of noise they were all making.

  Stuart slapped another mirror into the frame. It disappeared.

  “There are one hundred and thirty-seven mirrors in that arch,” said a voice behind him, “which is one of my favorite prime numbers.”

  “Hello,” said Stuart, not bothering to turn around. “So, you’re a Stuart who likes math, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what are the chances of me finding one particular mirror, if every time I choose wrongly a new one appears?”

  “Infinite.”

  Stuart nodded dully. “I thought so,” he said. Suddenly feeling exhausted, he sat down and put his head in his hands.

  “I don’t know what to look for,” he muttered. “What makes me me? What am I best at? I’m not sporty or mathematical or really studious or jokey.”

  “Got anything to eat?” asked Greedy Stuart, prying open Stuart’s lunchbox and then making a face when he saw the healthy contents. “Is this all you’ve got?” he said disgustedly. “Salad? And fruit?”

  “It’s healthy,” said Stuart.

  And he remembered the letters his mom had written—one to his dad all about making sure Stuart was eating healthily (much love to my kind, clever husband), and the other to himself (much love to my brave, energetic son …)

  So maybe that’s who he was—Energetic, Brave Stuart. But how could he see those things in a mirror? And anyway, just because his mom had said them, that didn’t make them true; moms were always boasting about their kids, and half the boasts were exaggerated. By energetic his mom only meant that he was more eager about doing things than thinking about them. (His report card always said: Stuart is an energetic boy. As if that wasn’t a very good thing to be.) And by brave she was probably referring to the time when he (aged four) had apparently dragged a stepladder halfway across the yard to try to rescue a cat that had got stuck up a tree. She was always telling people how the cat had scratched little Stuart, and then he’d fallen off the ladder and landed on his chin, and how if you looked carefully …

  Stuart sat up straight and slapped a hand to his chin. If you looked carefully … you could still see a little scar where he’d had two stitches.

  He scrambled to his feet, ran across to the arch, and began to peer at the mirrors.

  “What are you doing?” asked Bored Stuart in a bored voice.

  “Looking for a Stuart with a tiny scar like the one I’ve got on my chin. Can you help?”

  “Sounds a bit boring.”

  “I’ll be able to find it,” said Boastful Stuart. “I’m really, really observant—in fact, my teacher says I’m the most observant child she’s ever met. She put that in my report card.”

  “Well, get on with it then,” said Stuart, still searching.

  “I bet I can find it first,” said Fit Stuart, bouncing on his toes. “Get ready. Get set. Go!”

  “What about a ‘loudest burp’ competition instead?” said Jokey Stuart, who then burped incredibly loudly and raised his arms in triumph. “I’ve won!”

  Stuart felt a tap on his arm. It was Silent Stuart, and he was pointing at the other end of the arch. Stuart followed him across. Silent Stuart placed a finger on one mirror, and Stuart peered at the image. And there it was—the little indented scar on the chin.

  “Thanks,” said Stuart hoarsely.

  “You’re welcome,” said Silent Stuart.

  “So you can speak?”

  “Only when I have to.”

  “So what are you doing the rest of the time?”

  “Thinking.”

  “Oh. Perhaps I ought to do a bit more of that.”

  Silent Stuart grinned, and together they went back to the easel. Stuart fitted the mirror into the frame, and suddenly the vast dark space full of arguing, moaning, yawning, sprinting, and burping Stuarts was empty. Only Stuart himself was left, and the mirror in the frame was now just a mirror. Stuart frowned, smiled, and yawned, just to make sure that his reflection did the same, and then he went over to the arch again.

  It too had changed. Instead of rows of Stuarts, each mirror now showed the image of an identical letter.

  A wide silver W.

  The light began to fade slowly, as if someone was turning a dimmer switch. The silver letters dwindled and disappeared. For a second there was complete darkness, and then the light flashed on again, and Stuart was back in the museum, blinking with the shock of it.

  “At last!” said April, who was sitting on the high bronze throne of the Reappearing Rose Bower, surrounded by the curling stems of a hun
dred metal flowers. “You’ve been ages and ages. And I’ve been dying to tell you what I’ve found.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “What?” asked Stuart, still a bit dazed. When he’d left, the room had been sunlit, but now the sky through the window was heavy with dark clouds, and the odd drop of rain streaked the glass. “Just a moment,” he added, going over to the Arch of Mirrors and retrieving the Magic Star from its socket. Before the adventure, it had had five spokes; now only four remained.

  April waited for him to return. She looked rather grand, sitting high on the throne, her legs crossed.

  “The reason I took ages was because I kept getting the wrong Stuarts,” said Stuart. “How did you find the right April so quickly?”

  She shrugged. “Easy. Like I said, I just looked for the one that was me. The one with my expression.”

  “What expression’s that?”

  “Sort of decisive and determined. It’s what makes me stand out from my sisters.”

  “And what expressions have they got?”

  “June’s very, very serious, and May’s just crazy and hysterical.”

  “Is she?”

  “You know, once you start observing instead of just guessing you’ll find it quite easy to tell us apart,” said April, sounding like a particularly bossy teacher. “Anyway, I want to explain about what I found. I was sitting here eating my lunch, and I accidentally dropped a grape down the side of the seat. When I tried to reach down for it, I felt a funny little lever.”

  “What happens when you pull it?” asked Stuart, suddenly curious.

  “I didn’t try,” said April, looking a bit offended. “Obviously I was waiting for you.”

  “Well, try it now.”

  “Okay.”

  April slipped her hand down next to the seat and pulled something.

  Clickety-clack.

  She let out a squeak of surprise as the twining rose stems snapped together into a tight thicket, surrounding the whole throne like a silver basket.

  For a moment Stuart couldn’t figure out whether he was witnessing machinery or magic. “Are you still in there?” he asked, trying to peer between the branches. He couldn’t see a thing.

  “Yes, I’m here.” April sounded slightly nervous. “A sort of silver band has snapped across my middle. A bit like a seat belt.”

  “Pull the lever again,” suggested Stuart.

  “Okay. Here goes.”

  Clackety-click.

  This time she gave a loud scream.

  “April?” called Stuart worriedly.

  “Get me out!” she yelled. Some good hard kicks came from somewhere inside the illusion.

  “Where are you?”

  “Hanging upside-down. The whole throne flipped over.”

  “So that’s why there’s a seat belt,” said Stuart thoughtfully.

  “But how do I get out?”

  “Pull the lever?”

  “Okay.”

  Clickety-clack.

  Instantly the twining rose stems relaxed into their starting position, and Stuart could see the throne again.

  It was empty, though, and it looked somehow … different. There was a pattern on the seat that hadn’t been there before.

  He ran a hand over it and felt a trio of grooves beneath his fingers: a wheel with just three spokes.

  “It’s here!” he exclaimed. “The place where the magic star goes. There must be two thrones, one on top and one underneath, and they revolve.”

  “Can I remind you,” shouted April from somewhere directly beneath him, “that I am still hanging upside-down in total darkness.”

  “Sorry. Try the lever again.”

  Clackety-click.

  With a rattle and a screech, the rose stems snapped shut once more, blocking the view of the throne.

  “Still upside-down,” shouted April, by now sounding rather annoyed.

  “Pull it again.”

  Clickety-clack.

  There was another scream from behind the basket of stems.

  “Right way up now,” she called through gritted teeth. “One more pull.”

  Clackety-click.

  The bower screeched open to reveal April, looking red-faced, her hair sticking up in dusty clumps. She got out quickly.

  “That was not nice,” she muttered, brushing herself down.

  “But we’ve found out how the trick works and where the star goes,” said Stuart encouragingly, trying to cheer her up.

  She folded her arms and looked back at the throne. “Hmm. There’s just one problem, though. Isn’t there?”

  “What?”

  “Who’s going to use it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can only put the star in the right place when the lever’s been pulled and the seat’s flipped over. So only one of us will be able to go on the adventure. The other one will spend the entire time hanging upside-down in a fifty-year-old metal box full of dust and insects.” Delicately, she picked an earwig off her T-shirt and flicked it away.

  “Right,” said Stuart, nodding. “I see what you mean. In any case, it’s not the next adventure. It’s the one after next.”

  As he spoke, there was a brilliant flash outside, followed by the rumble of thunder. As lightning flooded the room, they both saw that three illusions now failed to sparkle in the sudden brightness: the Well of Wishes, the Pharaoh’s Pyramid, and the Arch of Mirrors.

  “I forgot to say—did you see a letter W,” asked April, “reflected in the mirrors right at the very end?”

  Stuart nodded. “So we’ve found an S and a W so far.”

  “I wonder …” began April thoughtfully.

  “What?”

  “I wonder what they’re leading us to? We still don’t know, do we? When you were following the trail of coins, you knew you were searching for your great-uncle’s workshop. But one by one, we’re squeezing the magic out of these tricks. What’s going to be left at the end?”

  Before Stuart could think of a reply, his stomach gave a loud growl and he realized how hungry he was. He’d left his lunchbox in the roomful of Stuarts, and it seemed hours since breakfast. He checked his watch and was startled to see that it was a quarter past five.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be going somewhere?” he asked, frowning.

  April smacked a hand to her mouth. “Clifford’s performance! I totally forgot!”

  They ran.

  CHAPTER 13

  The entrance to St. Cuthbert’s church hall was down a dingy alleyway between a pub and a butcher’s shop. A board was propped against the wall, with the words: MAGIC SHOW THIS WAY, 6 P.M.! handwritten on it, the letters blurred by the brief rain shower. A tiny line was waiting outside the door. It consisted of a teenage girl, a very small boy, and three older ladies.

  April got out her notebook and scribbled something down.

  “What are you doing?” asked Stuart.

  “I’m supposed to be writing a review for the Beech Road Guardian,” she said. “I’m just setting the scene.” She showed him what she’d written:

  A small but enthusiastic crowd gathered eagerly outside the hall.

  “They don’t look very enthusiastic to me,” said Stuart.

  The teenage girl was checking her makeup in a mirror, while the boy sucked on a huge jawbreaker. He kept taking it out of his mouth to check to see whether it had changed color.

  “Why’s it wed?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” said the girl.

  “It was all gween and now it’s wed. How did it turn wed?”

  “No idea,” said the girl. “You’ll drop it if you keep doing that,” she added.

  “I won’t. Why isn’t it square? Why’s it wound?

  “Because it just is.”

  One of the old ladies tapped the girl on the shoulder. “Is that your little brother?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you a kind girl taking him out!”

  “Mom’s paying me,” said the girl. “She said he
was driving her mad with his questions.”

  “Why are we waiting here?” asked the boy. “Why can’t we go in?”

  Just as he spoke, the door opened to reveal Clifford, dressed in a badly fitting silver suit and with a large Band-Aid on one hand.

  “Sorry to start so late,” he said, “but I had a problem with the wild-animal finale. Come in.”

  They filed into the hall. About a hundred chairs were arranged in rows, and a purple curtain drooped in front of the stage. Clifford disappeared behind it, and Stuart and April sat down in the front row. April did some more scribbling.

  A late start was due to the magician being savaged by a wild beast.

  “You make it sound as if his arm was hanging off,” said Stuart.

  “Reviews have to be dramatic,” replied April loftily. “Otherwise no one will read them.”

  From behind the curtain came a short burst of spooky music, and then all the lights went out, other than a flickering green EXIT sign by the door.

  “Oooh!” said one of the old ladies. “Exciting!”

  There was a long pause before the curtains opened in a series of jerks, revealing a darkened stage. After a moment a desk lamp clicked on, and Clifford hurried into the feeble spotlight, pushing a small cart decorated with silver stars.

  “Welcome,” he said, “to the marvelously mysterious world of Mysterioso the Magician. A world where anything can happen—where red handkerchiefs can turn green …”

  He took a red handkerchief out of his pocket, stuffed it carefully into one fist, said, “Abracadabra,” and pulled it back out again.

  “It’s gween!” said the small boy in an awed voice.

  There was a smattering of applause.

  “A world where green handkerchiefs can turn red …” continued Clifford, doing the same trick again, only in reverse.