29

Zack, Sophie and Alex had practically thrown themselves into the room towards Jonny, immediately hijacking his conversation with Max (who had dutifully wandered off to practise his appearing egg routine, happy as a hippo), desperate to hear about the zip-line and to fill him in on everything – from Alf to Alex’s miraculous escape.

Jonny couldn’t believe his long ears at everything that had gone on since they’d parted company. ‘Oh, wow! So Alf’s real?’ he whispered excitedly. ‘I knew Granddad would have a trick up his sleeve!’

The others nodded, glad to be a four again.

‘Well, he’s not the actual Alf who died all those years back, but he’s a sort of Alf!’ answered Sophie, sitting next to him.

Jonny lowered his voice. ‘And we can definitely trust him?’

‘Yes, he’s one of the good guys, like your granddad,’ said Zack. ‘I can feel it.’

For the rest of the afternoon the four talked through their plan, drilling the sequence of events again and again so that they wouldn’t even have to think when the time came.

Sophie looked around at her friends. Had it really only been three days since they’d first met? That was when you knew you had friends for life, she thought; when a new friendship felt like it had already lasted a lifetime. Like there wasn’t even a time before the Young Magicians and The Thieves’ Almanac!

‘Of course, once we’re inside Buckingham Palace, then it’s a case of … improvising!’ said Zack, trying to sound confident but hardly daring to think that far ahead. Were they really planning on going to the Queen with all this? He looked around at the other young magicians getting ready, some equally nervous but for different reasons Deanna was already beginning her warm-up routine, which was less of a warm-up routine and more of a full cardiovascular workout. No Henry, Zack noted, feeling a touch of guilt. Had his run-in with the thieves actually driven him away for good?

‘And … the zip-line can definitely hold all our weight?’ asked Alex nervously.

Jonny nodded, and was about to launch into a detailed run-down of the superlative strength of the Farrimond friction hitch – but was thankfully interrupted by Cynthia calling for their attention.*

‘Right,’ she said, taking to the small raised area once again. She levered herself up with a bit of effort, smiling down at them all. ‘Now, if I can give any final word of advice, it would be to just do your best. Council aren’t expecting miracles, they just want to see that you have a firm grasp of the basics. After all, this is all about making a good first impression.’ Her eyes lingered on the four at the back. ‘Now, I know we’ve got a group performing tonight, along with everyone’s solo efforts …’

The four looked across the room as the posh lads, all dressed in their finest top hat and tails, clad in pristine white tie, clapped each other on the back.

‘All I’ll say to those particular people –’ Cynthia’s eyes flashed at the four – ‘is do please try and keep to the schedule, and be careful. After all, you are the future of magic.’ She smiled a tired smile. A smile that summed up a lifetime of effort at the Magic Circle.

‘OK,’ she chirped, clicking her fingers, a bout of her usual energy back, ‘on the subject of the schedule, I’ve got some rules that apply to your solo performances so that we don’t overrun.’ She lifted a grotty page of yellowed paper, the kind you might find in the loft, buried under a pile of old records that should have been binned in the late sixties. The kind of paper that hadn’t seen much daylight. She held it tightly between her left thumb and finger as her other hand flailed around for the glasses bouncing around her belly, having a whale of a time. ‘These rules come straight from the top, so please pay attention …

‘No apprentice must perform his set for longer than eight minutes. Should he run over, he will be immediately disqualified.’

Sophie tried not to shout out at the language – like female magicians didn’t even exist! Like this set of rules had been written before the very idea of a woman!

Cynthia continued reading. ‘To assist with timings, the Right Honourable Treasurer, Bill Dungworth, will ring a bell at six minutes, ring three bells at seven minutes, and then sound a continuous foghorn from eight minutes onwards. Should any apprentice attempt to continue his performance past eight minutes and one second, President Pickle has permission to launch a …’ She trailed off. ‘Well, I don’t think any of us plan on performing for longer than eight minutes, do we?’ She hastily crumpled up the piece of paper.

‘Right, well …’ Cynthia looked at her watch nervously. ‘Perhaps we should all go through to the theatre – it’s almost time.’

The four Young Magicians exchanged glances. Yes, it was almost time!

Cynthia led the parade of juniors down the corridor and through the poster of the entranceway, the four forgetting for a moment that the peculiar experience of walking through a picture into the Grand Theatre of the Magic Circle was unfamiliar to most of their peers, who ooh’d and aah’d at the optical illusion and the size of the auditorium, just like Sophie, Alex and Jonny had done before.

‘Oh wowwwwwww!’ exclaimed Jonny, pretending this was the first time he’d seen it too, but overacting dreadfully.

Zack gave his sleeve a tug. Now wasn’t the time to attract attention!

It was strange seeing other people in the theatre, thought Sophie as Deanna, Max and the group of boys, who looked like a royal quidditch team, traipsed down the aisle. This had been their place – whether they were meant to be in here or not!

Alex craned his head up to the gods where they had been sitting earlier that afternoon. It was hard to make out much in the dim lighting, but he could just see the faint outline of Alf, his white teeth twinkling at them like faint stars through the gloom of space.

Jonny followed Alex’s gaze, giving the distant figure a surreptitious wave. ‘Nice to meet you, Alf!’ he mouthed.

Zack watched as a few greying council members began to take their seats, filling the stalls haphazardly, like the remains of an unfinished chess match, pieces dotted about willy-nilly, delighted to see Jonny’s granddad taking a seat near the front. Ernest bowed his head at them reassuringly.

‘Right, this way, please!’ Cynthia gathered everyone together and led them into a glass partitioned room at the back of the stalls, away from the inquisitive eyes of council members – most of whom looked at the young magicians as if this was the first time they’d ever seen one. Were we ever like them? Surely not!

The four friends entered the temporary ‘green room’ (green with mould), which was about the size of a downstairs bathroom, the walls covered in cracked wallpaper, the odd decomposed good luck cards from times gone by still visible through the dust.

‘This is where I’d like you to wait until you’re announced on to the stage,’ said Cynthia, flicking a light switch and causing one of the few remaining bulbs to immediately pop and shatter. ‘Oops, watch out for all that, of course!’

Zack, Sophie, Alex and Jonny moved into a corner of the room, away from the others.

‘Are we all set?’ whispered Zack.

The others nodded.

‘Just remember to breathe.’ Sophie used her hypnotizing voice. ‘We can do this!’

‘There’s a running order on the door …’ said Cynthia, busily trying to tack a sheet of paper on to the crumbling door, the peeling paint coming away under her fingers like it was never meant to be there in the first place, like it was shedding its skin, preventing the tack from adhering. ‘Oh dear, I’ll just read it out, shall I?’ she said eventually, catching the list as it fell to the floor for the tenth time. ‘So first up, to get the ball rolling, as she was already inducted last time, we have Deanna.’ Deanna’s mother was now massaging her daughter’s shoulders like she was about to enter the boxing ring. ‘Henry is sadly not feeling well and can’t be with us, so let’s just take his name off the list to avoid any confusion, shall we?’ She took one of her glittery pens to the sheet, obliterating Henry’s name in a fantastic mess as Zack and the others shared a knowing look.

‘Next,’ continued Cynthia, ‘it’s Max!’ The boy waved a fat wand in the air.

‘Then it’ll be Hugo, then Jackson, Charlie, Salisbury and then Mayhew,’ she said, moving her finger down the list of names.

The kid with the floppy, bouffant hairdo coughed irritatingly and sneered across at his competitors.

‘Then we have Jonny, Zack, Sophie, Alex, and finally – you four – we’ll end with your … escape thing. Everyone OK with that?’

Cynthia gave them a tight smile, clearly unsure as to why her latest protégés felt the need to perform such a reckless effect. She bustled out into the theatre and down towards the stage.

The four looked around as the rest of room checked and rechecked their pockets and props, preparing for their performances and practising their patter.

It was strange, thought Zack as he surveyed the other magicians: usually he would be pretty nervous by this point. In fact, it had been at this point last time that he’d been escorted off the premises for ‘stealing’ President Pickle’s gavel, so he’d never even got the chance to perform in front of Council. But all that paled into insignificance compared to the journey he and his three friends were about to embark upon.

They synchronized their watches and Alex’s mind began to race at the prospect of giving his first ever solo performance. He wiped his damp hands down the front of his shirt. No, come on – you can do this, Alex! Pinkie break, reverse cull, palm off selected card, double lift, pressure fan …

‘Oh, and by the way,’ said Cynthia, poking her head round the door like an inquisitive emu. ‘Tomorrow we’ll be having a little party to celebrate, so do feel free to bring along any family and friends … regardless of what happens tonight,’ she added a touch too pointedly.

All of a sudden a dusty brown speaker hanging from the ceiling began to pop and squeal – decades-old dirt shooting out of the object like it was clearing out its lungs. Steve’s friendly but distorted voice echoed into the room, barging its way about as if the overzealous man was at the back of the stalls himself. ‘Is this on?’ Tap, tap, tap, pop, squeak! ‘Ah yes, there we are.’ He cleared his throat loudly, causing the audience to wince in pain. ‘That’s better. Great. Right, please pray silence for Mr President Pickle!’

They heard a smattering of applause as President Pickle took to the stage, grabbing the mic off Steve (pop, squeak, rustle, tap tap tap!) before letting out a loud sigh.

Everyone fell quiet. The Young Magicians huddled in the doorway, looking out at the stage as the society’s foolish figurehead – the society they so desperately wanted to reform – began to speak.