“Perfect!” said . . . someone. Charlie couldn’t see well enough yet to know who.

“Who are you?” Ty asked.

Charlie squinted. Ty rubbed his eyes.

“Oh, sorry about the flash,” said a young man. He held a big, old-fashioned camera. “It’s just too dark down here to shoot without it.”

“Why are you taking our picture?” Charlie asked.

“Well, I wanted a good shot of the magic wardrobe,” the man said. “Having a couple of kids in the picture seemed like good idea, for that human-interest angle. I’m Joey Bingham, by the way. I’m a reporter for Channel Fifty.”

“I thought I recognized you,” Ty said.

“Recognized him?” Charlie said. “I can still hardly see him.” He rubbed at his eyes with his fists.

Bingham let the camera hang from a strap around his neck. Then he picked up another camera that was also hanging from his neck. This time, it was a video camera. He switched it on. “Did either of you know the missing boy?” Bingham asked in a deep newscaster voice.

“Wait, are you filming us?” Ty asked, backing away.

“Of course,” Bingham said. He followed Ty with the camera. “Don’t you want to be on TV?”

“No!” Ty said, hurrying behind the wardrobe. “Especially not with Hitchcock. It’ll ruin my reputation.”

“Your name is Hitchcock? You mean like the scary movie director?” said Bingham.

Charlie nodded. He sometimes got tired having to explain his last name to people.

“That could be an angle for my story,” said Bingham. “You see, it’s just like a Hitchcock film. Some unsuspecting person disappears, and then—”

“Uh, he’s a student at Blackstone Middle School,” Charlie said as the reporter pointed the camera at him. “The kid who disappeared, I mean. I don’t know him, though. Paul something.”

“Paul Juke,” Ty said, jumping out from behind the wardrobe. “His name’s Paul Juke. He’s in my technology class.”

“Great,” Bingham said. “Let’s get something out to the station. They can have an interview on the air in two minutes.”

“An interview?” Charlie said. “Just because of a magic trick?”

“Of course!” said Theopolis in his booming voice.

Everyone turned to look as the magician came into the storage room, still wearing his mysterious black robe. “Because this was no simple magic trick.”

Bingham excitedly turned the little video camera on himself. “This is Joey Bingham with an exclusive story,” he said. “We have here the magician himself, the master of demons, the man responsible for the missing boy’s magical disappearance.”

Then Bingham crouched in front of Theopolis and aimed the camera at him.

“Mr. Theopolis,” the reporter said. “Tell us: where is the boy?”

Theopolis smiled. “I can produce the boy at any time,” he said. “I am in complete control of the dimensional shift that has occurred.”

“The what?” Ty said.

Theopolis fixed him with an evil glare. “The demons under my power can alter dimensions,” he said in a rough whisper. “If I so desire, they will take a piece of our dimension and move it to another dimension. That is what they have done.”

“And you can bring him back any time?” Charlie said.

Theopolis nodded gravely.

“Then do it,” Charlie said.

Theopolis threw his head back and laughed. Bingham was getting the whole thing on video. “I will, young man,” the magician said. “At tonight’s performance. Then the world will see that I am the greatest—and indeed, the first ever—real, true magician in history!”