Poesy Swift
I went back to our cabin but Lizzie wasn’t there and I was glad. I couldn’t bear to face her. What if she asked me about why Ruby and Clarissa and Tempe had wanted to see me? She would be appalled.
I picked up my two dollies, Topsy and Turvy, and pressed their little bodies against my cheeks. Yada had tried to clean them once with eucalyptus oil, and ever since they had smelt of gum trees. It didn’t make me long for home. It made me think of Charlie and us being wedged side by side in our tree outside Balaclava Hall. I tucked them into my apron pocket and stepped out into the passageway.
I knew I’d be in terrible trouble if I was caught but I simply couldn’t sit on my bunk waiting for Lizzie. I tiptoed down the corridor with my heart in my mouth and knocked on Charlie’s door. I hoped he’d be alone because Lionel was nearly always shadowing Mr Arthur. When no one answered, I opened the door myself.
‘Poesy!’ exclaimed Charlie. He was sitting on his bed in his undershorts. He jumped up quickly and turned his back on me while he pulled on his trousers.
‘I knocked,’ I said, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind me. I suppose I should have been embarrassed to catch him half-undressed but I felt oddly pleased. It made me feel we were like brother and sister.
Charlie and Lionel’s cabin was tiny, no bigger than a cupboard with two little bunks set into the wall. I looked around with curiosity, trying not to stare at Charlie’s naked chest, while he pulled on his singlet.
‘I was sewing up my trousers so the pockets make a cone shape, rather than squares,’ he said. ‘It makes it easier to find things when you’re doing a trick. Would you like to see?’
‘I thought you said girls shouldn’t know about magic.’
‘You’re not like the other girls,’ he said. He snatched an old Gladstone bag from beneath his bunk.
‘I want to show you everything. You see this, this is my servante, my magic bag of tricks.’
He patted the bunk and we sat down opposite each other with the servante between us. One by one, he showed me his props: hats, balls, dice, cards, eggs, wands, coins, handkerchiefs and two tiny jars of white powder. Then he took out a shiny red book with a wizard dressed in a long shroud on the cover and rubbed his hands over it. The title, The Magician Annual 1909, was embossed in silver letters.
‘It’s science, really,’ said Charlie. ‘Not mumbo-jumbo.’
I leaned closer to him as he flicked through the pages, pointing out news of the world of magic and explaining the tricks. Suddenly, he looked up.
‘Why are you here, Poesy?’
‘If I have to be locked in a cabin, I’d rather be locked in with you than anyone.’
He smiled but he wouldn’t look at me. The silence between us grew until I couldn’t bear the weight of it. My eyes began to sting with tears.
‘It’s just I hate the way all the girls do nothing but talk about men and boys in a really horrid way.’
Charlie pulled a face. ‘That’s what they do, that lot. They flirt and tell stories. If you don’t like ’em, don’t listen. Then it won’t matter what they say.’
‘But they tell lies! They pretend that men like them and they think every girl wants nothing but to be kissed and it’s all they want to talk about.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t pay those girls no mind. All a storm in a teacup, if you ask me.’
‘Do none of the boys listen to them?’
‘I should think not,’ he replied. He reached into his servante and pulled out a red velvet bag.
‘Let’s not talk about all that rubbish any more. I’ll show you a trick. Have you got something I could do a vanishing act with?’
‘I wish you could put all those girls’ terrible lies in that bag and make them vanish.’
Charlie rolled his eyes.
‘I’ve got Topsy and Turvy,’ I said, pulling my dolls out of my apron pocket. ‘But you won’t really make them disappear for good, will you?’
‘No,’ he said, scrunching up his nose. ‘I’m going to make them come to life and actually be like Houdini. You watch. There’s more to these dolls than meets the eye.’
Charlie took Topsy and Turvy from me and turned them this way and that, studying them closely. He smoothed their wiry black hair down and adjusted the fall of their dresses. When he finished examining them, he winked at me and then he made Topsy and Turvy dance about on the top of his servante while he whistled a little tune. Next he made them peek over the edge of the case to look at what was hiding inside. He animated them so well, it was almost as if they were really alive. When they’d finished studying all his things, he sat them both in the crook of his arm while he shook out a soft red velvet bag and showed Topsy and Turvy how it was lined with black silk.
Before I could stop him, he’d tumbled them both into the bag.
‘Now look into my servante and fish out that long green ribbon,’ he said as he held the bag firmly shut with both hands. ‘We don’t want them to escape. We want them to prove that the magic has taken hold of their souls.’
My heart fluttered in my chest but I did as I was told and tied the ribbon in a tight knot around the top of the bag. ‘Now you keep hold of both ends of the ribbon, Poesy, so you can be sure that Topsy and Turvy are safe inside.’
While I held the long ribbon stretched in either direction, Charlie pulled out a silk scarf and covered the bag. I could feel my heart beating faster. The air in the cabin suddenly seemed very close. I pulled the ribbons tighter and tighter, almost afraid that Topsy and Turvy really were going to come to life and wrestle their way out of the bag. And then, that’s exactly what they did.
Charlie put one hand under the scarf and up jumped Topsy and Turvy. I let out a shout of surprise and at the same moment he threw away the silk scarf and I was left holding the two ends of the ribbon with the bag still firmly hanging in the middle. It was extraordinary. I grabbed the bag and untied the ribbon. Of course it was empty, for Topsy and Turvy were sitting on Charlie’s knee. I studied the bag to see if there was some secret hole that he had slipped them through, but it was neatly sewn on all sides.
‘How did you do that?’ I asked.
‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be magic.’
‘Please, Charlie. I can’t bear not knowing. You mustn’t lie to me.’
‘I’d never lie to you, Poesy,’ he said, suddenly hurt and shy in the same instant. He hung his head and picked at Topsy and Turvy’s clothes. ‘I just can’t tell you all my secrets.’
Even though I longed to know how he’d done it, I nodded. Gently, I prised the dolls from his fingers. I kissed each of them tenderly and then tucked them back in my pocket. All the while, Charlie sat watching me.
‘One day, perhaps I might tell you,’ he said.
We stared at each other for a long moment.
‘One day,’ I said, ‘we might tell each other everything.’