24

8 A.M.

The ballroom was already filling up by the time the Young Magicians got there as the older contingent trudged in like zombies, already moaning about more things than there were physically possible to moan about. The front row of tables – the ones that had so concerned Eric Diva and Belinda earlier – was now reserved for council members, and even the ones behind those had begun to fill up. The four friends would have liked to be closer to the front, but still at least …

‘Sophie! Over here!’ Deanna called. She must have skipped breakfast and come straight here. Her eyes were wilder than usual, her hair was a web of blonde and it didn’t look like she’d slept well at all. But her Sophie-DAR was evidently up and running perfectly this morning.

‘How does she do that?’ Zack murmured.

‘Yeah, you should probably disable that tracking device at some point, Soph!’ added Jonny.

Deanna had kept four seats free for them. Which may go down as one of the most practically useful things Deanna has ever done. At least without assistance.

‘Thank God you’re OK!’ Deanna gushed, looking up at Sophie with huge, tragic eyes as they filed over. ‘I dreamed I kept waking up and you weren’t there! It was awful!’ Deanna held her haunted expression for about ten seconds too long, which undoubtedly meant she wanted – hell, needed – a response.

‘Probably just a dream!’ Sophie joked, tapping Deanna on the head. Deanna slowly turned to face the stage, shocked into silence by the possibility that perhaps Sophie had been out all night. Without her.

The clock at the back of the stage was just ticking the final seconds to eight o’clock. On the dot of eight, Eric Diva jumped up on to the stage and rapped a gavel on the podium, much lighter of touch than President Pickle, but just hard enough to prove that he still meant business. He had changed out of his so-cool-it-hurts-actually-these-are-genuinely-too-tight jeans and T-shirt outfit into a grey business suit but with a fluorescent rainbow tie … as if to reinforce the fact that his personality was STILL THERE!

‘Ladies and gentlemen, honoured members of the Magic Circle, young and old.’ He beamed at the audience, but this time there were no bing-bongs or other sound effects.

‘I declare the Annual General Meeting of the Magic Circle to be open.’ He gave the podium a final thwack with the gavel. ‘Pray silence for your president and mine, Edmund Pickle.’

President Pickle stood up from his chair as slowly as if he had lead weights in his pockets. For all the differences they had had, even Zack suddenly felt sorry for him. Even without knowing what Cynthia had just told them, you couldn’t dislike someone who looked so utterly, utterly miserable. Zack almost wanted to run down the aisle and give the man a big hug.

But he couldn’t do that. Not yet.

Just a bit longer, Zack promised telepathically, though he of all people knew that telepathy was just a big illusion. Just a few more minutes …

The four friends leaned forward in their seats, tense and poised for action, with their eyes flitting from President Pickle to the podium to the back of the stage to the backs of the heads of the council members at the front – anywhere or at anything that might provide the final piece of the puzzle. Belinda and Eric were going to enact their plan and take over the Magic Circle. That much they knew. But precisely how was yet to be determined.

President Pickle tapped his sheaf of notes for his speech on the podium in front of him.

‘Ladies and gentlemen …’

His voice came out as a wheeze. He coughed, and then took a sip from the glass of water in front of him.

Zack slapped his knee gleefully as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

‘It’s the glass!’ he exclaimed quietly, so that only his friends could hear. ‘It’s the glass!’

President Pickle spoke. His amplified voice could be heard plainly around the ballroom.

‘First of all, thank you for your support at this difficult time. Some of you might have heard rumours of what I was up against. Poison-pen letters, even death threats …’

There were sympathetic nods and murmurs from the audience. Onstage, President Pickle was becoming a little agitated, moving from side to side.

‘However, it gives me great pleasure to tell you … None of it was real! None! I had you all completely fooled!’

Now there were gasps of shock. Every member of the council, most especially Cynthia, was sitting bolt upright, staring at him in disbelief.

‘This whole thing was my plan to make you all – yes, all of you, every single one of you here – realize that the Young Magicians – Zack Harrison, Jonathan Haigh, Sophie Yang and Alexander Finley – are just a bunch of jumped-up upstarts with no talent and no respect for their elders, who couldn’t even solve a problem like Maria, let alone anything else!’ President Pickle yelped. Even though the four had heard bits of this over-rehearsed speech before, hearing it delivered – first hand, as it were – in front of a room full of their contemporaries wasn’t easy.

Now President Pickle seemed to be dancing a little jig, shaking the podium back and forth. He gave the microphone a couple of thumps.

Cynthia’s face had started to crumple as her eyes filled with big, globby tears. She was shaking her head slowly from side to side, devastated by her husband’s humiliating public breakdown.

Zack saw it, and his heart filled with burning anger. She was such a sweet soul and she didn’t deserve this.

‘Let’s end this,’ he said, and he stood up, the others with him. Deanna watched in awe as they started to pick their way through the tables towards the stage.

‘But let’s not be too harsh on them!’ President Pickle almost screamed. ‘They are young, and easily led. Easily led by you, honoured members of the Magic Circle. You gave them all this recognition and adulation. There’s even … merchandise! You must bear some of the blame here. You had me – a man who has given his life to your service, to our glorious and magical Circle, who has been here for you for literally decades, through thick and thin, always at your beck and call, never complaining, never asking for anything – and you dared to turn your back on me and look to them as the future of magic? But no, apparently, not one of you was intelligent enough to see through their act! So let me ask, sincerely and honestly, just between ourselves – are you all really that stupid?’

President Pickle plucked the microphone from its stand now and started to pace about the stage, rocking from side to side like he was on deck during a frenzied storm. The throng of conventioneers watched, agog, the odd bit of dribble falling from their mouths on to their knobbly knees, as their once-respected hero rattled on as if he had gone positively mad, now almost chewing on the microphone like it was a Cornetto.

‘And I’ll tell you what else you are too. Jealous! You’re jealous of me and the successes I’ve achieved during my tenure as president of the Magic Circle. Oh, don’t deny it! I can see it in all your eyes. All you hopefuls and possible president-elects. You’re all hoping to ride on the coat-tails of the Young Magicians into positions of power!’ President Pickle ranted. ‘You want me out of the way so that you can take the Magic Circle in your own “modern” direction!’

Belinda and Eric Diva had both left their seats and gone on to the stage by the staircases at either side. They approached President Pickle from different directions.

‘Well, I think I’ve proved that I am completely on top of things, don’t you? I’ve shown you who’s boss –’

Belinda gently plucked the microphone from his hands.

‘I think that’s quite enough, don’t you, Mr President?’ she asked kindly.

President Pickle’s face was beetroot red. Without the microphone, he seemed to all intents and purposes to be struck dumb, gesticulating wildly with his arms like a giant chicken desperate to fly. Belinda handed the microphone to Eric, gazing sorrowfully into his eyes.

‘Well …’ Eric Diva turned to face the audience. His face was suddenly ashen and his voice shook, like someone in a soap opera who had just received the worst piece of news of the entire series. ‘That was unexpected. Ladies and gentlemen, I have no choice but to propose an emergency motion. I can’t offer a medical opinion, but it’s clear President Pickle has suffered some kind of mental breakdown. It’s a sad thing to happen to such a fine and magical mind, but he obviously cannot continue as our president under the circumstances. I propose that President Pickle be relieved of his duties with immediate effect.’

Even at a time like this, even knowing what he was doing, Sophie had to admire the showmanship. The act was perfectly timed. Eric Diva was riding the wave of sympathy and confusion in the room perfectly, bringing order to a scene that had suddenly erupted in all the wrong directions. People instinctively sought order over chaos. They wanted certainty. His tone was firm and definite – he wasn’t giving orders, just speaking with quiet assurance, as though this were the most natural thing in the world, that even these seasoned magicians couldn’t object to it. It was almost like hypnosis!

Eric Diva had never shown this talent so explicitly before, Sophie thought – but then that was the sign of a great magician. If he didn’t show it, no one would know he had it in him, and the trick would come out of the blue.

‘Seconded,’ Belinda said sorrowfully. President Pickle wheezed and groaned and twisted in her grasp, but he couldn’t break free of her grip.

‘All in favour?’ Eric Diva asked, and such was the grip of his magnetic spell that, one by one, the hand of every person in the room went up.

Except five.

Cynthia – who was too busy sobbing quietly into her hanky.

And four fine Young Magicians, who had their hands firmly in their pockets, except Zack, who jabbed in fury with a rigid finger at the stage.

‘NO!’ he bellowed. The shout echoed round the room and startled people out of their daze. If anyone was still a bit groggy from breakfast and hoping for a sneaky doze during the AGM, even if they had somehow managed to nod off during the ravings of President Pickle, then their hopes were almost certainly dashed now. Zack strode down the aisle, backed up by Alex, Jonny and Sophie, as murmurs and questions arose around them.

‘Passed, I think,’ Eric Diva said calmly, pointedly ignoring the oncoming wave of Young Magicians, ‘in front of all these witnesses. Hardly worth counting the nos.’

‘This is a stitch-up and you know it!’ Zack raged as he clambered on to the stage to face Eric Diva.

‘I really don’t think so, Zack. We all heard what he said. Uh – Belinda?’ Eric Diva turned to face his companion. ‘Could you escort ex-President Pickle out the back? I think he should have a lie-down before we get him the medical help he so obviously needs.’

President Pickle seemed to have slumped into a silent heap. Days of going without eating had left him broken and defeated. He turned to look at the Young Magicians, as Belinda started to lead him to the back of the stage, with anguished, bloodshot eyes that begged for help.

Alex, Sophie and Jonny quickly ran across the stage and blocked Belinda’s way. Perhaps if she’d been without a wilting ex-president in her arms she might have squeezed past, but even though President Pickle had lost a lot of his interior mass, he still had a rather impressive and bulky frame. No matter how much these people starved him of his puddingy treats, you couldn’t diminish the size of the man’s bullish bones. And that meant that Belinda Vine was well and truly trapped.

With her back to the audience, no one but them could see Belinda’s expression. Her usual charm, with its hints of magnolias and sultry warmth, was stripped away, replaced with cold, icy, intoxicating rage. The glare between Belinda and Sophie could have stripped the nuclei from the atoms in the air.

But it was Zack who was left to go toe to toe, nose to nose with a coolly smirking Eric Diva.

‘We all heard what he said?’ Zack snapped. ‘But President Pickle didn’t say any of that, did he? Because he can’t say anything!’

‘Please!’ Cynthia begged. She climbed onstage, still dabbing at her glassy eyes, but determined to be brave. ‘Please, for the love of digital dexterity, will one of you just explain what’s going on?!’

Cynthia gently but firmly lifted Belinda’s hand from her husband’s shoulders and guided President Pickle over to the side of the stage, his eyes still bulging, his lips writhing as strange gurgles erupted from between his lips. Was the man now having a fit?

‘I’ll show you,’ Zack said. ‘I didn’t know exactly how you were going to do it – until I saw the glass.’

He snatched the glass of water that President Pickle had drunk from off the podium, pressed his palm against the rim and held it up. He splayed all five fingers wide so that everyone could see that he now wasn’t holding on to it – but somehow the glass stayed hanging from his hand.

‘It’s glue!’ said Zack. ‘Glue around the rim, which got on to his lips when he drank from it.’ He scanned the audience. ‘Alton, are you out there? Did you sell Eric Diva some of the glue you were showing us yesterday?’

Alton Davenport slowly stood up, suddenly aware that every eye in the ballroom was on him, and that, even if none of the other magicians present understood quite what was happening, this was all a whole lot more fun than the usual AGM, and they expected him to continue with the entertainment.

‘Um … yes?’ he admitted, fumbling his hands together, a glint in his eye hoping that this might end with a pitch so that he could sell some more of the damned sticky stuff for double the price now that it had been tested on the lips of a president, no less!

‘Then how do you get it off?’ Cynthia demanded. Alton shrugged.

‘It wears off very quickly. It’s only meant to last for as long as your act. If you want it off sooner, it just needs a solvent. Which I don’t sell. But simple nail-polish remover will do it. Not that I paint my nails,’ he added with such speed and force that he might as well have just come out and said I paint my nails. And who cares if you do, Alton!

Without further delay, Cynthia led President Pickle off the stage and back to her table, where her handbag was waiting, full – thankfully – of all manner of items, including the much-needed, aforementioned nail-polish remover.

‘So …’ Belinda finally spoke. Her arms were crossed defiantly. ‘If President Pickle was unable to say all those horrible things … how did we all come to hear them?’

‘We heard them the same way you and Eric did that amazing telepathy act – and Ron and Nancy Spencer before you!’ Sophie spat. ‘Because President Pickle didn’t say anything just now. Just like how you never said anything in your act either.’

She turned to face the audience.

‘All the time … it was Eric doing the voices,’ Sophie explained. ‘One of the first things Eric said to us was how he’s a rubbish impressionist and an even worse ventriloquist – well, now we know that was all a lie! In fact, he’s brilliant. At both! Last night, when Eric was going round the audience, getting people to show him objects, we were all so focused on watching Belinda that we never saw Eric impersonating Belinda’s voice impeccably, and all without moving his lips, straight into the microphone – such that the voice came out of the speakers. We all assumed it was Belinda speaking because that’s just what we expected to hear. Meanwhile, Belinda stood with her back to the audience so no one could see that her lips were in fact perfectly still.’

‘Well!’ Belinda affected an outraged pose, hands on hips. ‘That is certainly a fine theory, little lady, but oh dear, where to start picking holes in it?’

‘For instance,’ Eric Diva smirked, ‘during the act last night, I was holding a microphone – but just now President Pickle was up onstage and I was down there, in the audi– Hey!’

Because while he was so busy smirking at Sophie, Alex – small Alex, not-usually-noticed-in-public Alex – had come up behind him, reached under the collar of his suit jacket and plucked out …

‘A lapel mic!’ Alex announced. ‘Discreet and hidden!’

‘I couldn’t talk!’ President Pickle suddenly screamed from the back. Cynthia had been dabbing at his mouth with nail-polish remover – which you shouldn’t do unless it’s a real emergency, because apart from anything else it tastes disgusting – and the glue sealing his lips had finally dissolved. He pushed his way back onstage.

‘I couldn’t talk! You robbed me of my voice! My dearest possession, and you corrupted it! You monster!’

He glared at Belinda.

‘Monsters,’ he amended, and then he frowned at the Young Magicians. ‘How on earth did you work it out?’

Sophie smiled. ‘Believe it or not, President Pickle, you were the key to all of this.’

‘Really? How?’ President Pickle almost sounded flattered.

‘We thought you disappeared from a room – when, in fact, you were never really there! We thought it was you because we could hear you but not see you. But – as with some of the best magic tricks – the simplest explanation was that you weren’t there in the first place. It was just Eric practising his imitation of you for this morning’s grand performance.’

President Pickle gaped.

‘I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.’

The Young Magicians smiled at each other. OK, maybe it wouldn’t make sense to someone who didn’t have all the facts, but they all knew to which particular chapter in this whole plot Sophie was referring to.

Then President Pickle whipped back to Eric Diva, with a finger so close to the man’s nose that Eric had to hold his head back to stop the long and stretchy digit from going up a nostril.

‘Oh, and don’t think I haven’t guessed your game!’ the president hissed. ‘Yes, you wanted to replace me, but that was just the start of it, wasn’t it? All those little shortfalls in the accounts, and after we’d been bailed out by Her Majesty last year. All the little things that suddenly didn’t add up again, and I trusted you – trusted you! – when you told me not to worry about the society finances, and the overspending here and there … I see it now! You’ve had your fingers in the pie all along, haven’t you? I knew this convention should be making more profit than it showed. Was I asking too many awkward questions, Eric? Did you want me out of the way so you’d have a clear run at the piggy bank? Was that it?’

For the first time a murmur of discontent rippled round the room. The entertainment was obviously over. Maybe, with a bit of fast talking, Eric Diva could have persuaded them all that it had just been an honest bit of fun. No one had been hurt, he could have said truthfully, and he certainly wasn’t the only one who thought that, one way or another, maybe the Magic Circle could do better in the – you know – presidential area.

Eric sighed, and stepped away from President Pickle’s accusing finger so that he could stand up straight. He tugged on his jacket, straightened his tie – and smiled.

He looked over at Belinda.

‘I think the jig’s up, my dear,’ he said sadly. He held his hands out. Belinda smiled wryly and came over to join him, taking his hands in hers.

‘You may be right, Eric,’ she added with that infamous drawl.

They stood pressed close together, hands clasped, and turned to face the audience as if they were about to do the romantic reprise from the last act of a musical. Eric looked into Belinda’s eyes.

‘We got so close. Old Bill Dungworth dying was just going to be the icing on the cake. I’d have made an absolute steal out of the treasurer’s job!’

‘So much money there for the taking,’ she sighed. ‘And then the ultimate prize – the presidency itself!’

‘But of course they’re all forgetting one thing. President Pickle. The Young Magicians. Everyone.’

Every eye was on him as they all tried to work out what they were forgetting.

‘And what might it be that we’re forgetting?’ President Pickle demanded after an unnecessary amount of time.

‘Don’t try to truss a trusted trickster who can trip a trap,’ said Eric Diva, and he clicked his fingers above his head. The lights flickered, and he and Belinda vanished.

For a moment everyone was staring at the space onstage where they had been, the silhouette of Eric and Belinda’s frames still glowing in their retinas.

Then the Young Magicians dropped to their knees and were feeling round the edges of the trapdoor set into the floor of the stage. It was very well made. The crack was barely large enough to see, let alone dig fingers into.

The moment the trapdoor had opened, a spring mechanism had snapped it shut again. Impressive, thought Jonny. And no doubt that same mechanism was connected to the electrical wiring, to make the lights flicker right on cue – just when Eric and Belinda would have vanished from sight.fn1 The flicker was an important part of the illusion because, in the heads of any watchers, the brain would make an image of them persist when they were already gone, hiding the fact that they had dropped through the floor and making it really seem that they had just – well, gone.

‘No!’ President Pickle screamed, his eyes bulging so much that a good slap on the back could probably have popped them out permanently. ‘Get them back! Track them down! Seek! Locate! Destroy!’

Cynthia was back at his side, calming, soothing.

‘Seek! Locate! Destroy!’ he continued to scream as she led him away for the second time, like he was a well-disciplined Dalek. ‘Seek! Locate! Destroy! Seek! Locate! Destroy …!’

The four friends looked up and their eyes met.

‘Should we follow them?’ Sophie asked.

‘Are you kidding?’ Zack asked. ‘This is what everything’s been building towards … It’s the final chapter! Alex, how do we get this thing open?’

Alex flexed his wrist, and a playing card slid into his hand from his sleeve. He started to work it into the crack, but the space was still too tight and the card just crumpled.

‘OK, we need something stiffer,’ he said. ‘See if anyone’s got a credit card.’

‘On it.’ Zack hurried off the stage into the audience to see if anyone there was willing to lend their credit card to a fourteen-year-old boy with a reputation for being a thief. The other three stood up and looked at the trapdoor thoughtfully.

‘Let’s try to think this through scientifically,’ Jonny said as he leaped up and down on it hopefully.

‘Oh, dead scientific,’ Sophie said with a grin, clearly still on a high from having outed Belinda and Eric so publicly – and once again cementing the Young Magicians’ reputation as no less than the very best in the business at foiling mischievous magical plots.

Jonny smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose it could take both their weight, so it’s unlikely to open just because I’m jumping up and …’

He trailed off and looked up. The other two followed his gaze. Jonny lifted a hand above his head – and suddenly he wasn’t there. The room erupted with further surprise. This AGM was turning out to be an absolute riot!

‘What happened?’ Zack asked as he came hurrying back, explicably credit cardless.

‘Jonny worked it out – somehow,’ said Sophie.

‘He was looking up there and then suddenly … Ah! Got it!’ Alex exclaimed.

He ran to one side of the stage and peered up. There was a tiny red dot of light on the wall about a metre above his head, like someone was shining a laser beam on to it. He looked back across the stage to where it was coming from. Yes, there was a pinprick of red light on the other side too.

‘There’s some kind of beam cutting across the stage,’ Alex said. ‘I bet it triggers the trapdoor mechanism. Remember when Eric clicked his fingers? He held his hand in the air – that’s how he must have set it off.’

Alex reached above his head and waved his hand, but he was the shortest of the Young Magicians and not quite lined up properly.

‘Let me tr–’ Sophie started, and suddenly she was gone too. The now-enraptured crowd went wild!

Alex and Zack looked at each other.

‘Shall we?’ Zack grinned, gesturing towards the space where Sophie had been standing.

Alex went to join him as Zack reached his hand into the air, clicking his fingers just like Eric had done minutes earlier.

Whoosh! Thud! Ouch!

Zack and Alex found themselves tangled together, all the breath knocked out of them, on the padded landing mat that Eric had put out precisely to prevent any broken bones on the hard concrete floor. A laughing Sophie and Jonny helped them to untangle and get up.

‘Welcome to the underworld!’ Jonny said in his best spooky voice.

In fact, they could quickly see it was a room the exact size of the stage, but underneath. Most of it was lined with shelves and cupboards full of the most truly intriguing bits of scenery and stagecraft that they had ever seen, and on any other day they would all want to come back here and explore for hours. But the most important thing now was that neither Belinda nor Eric were here.

A pair of double doors towards the far side of the backstage area hung slightly ajar, almost teasingly. Nothing to see through here. Yeah, I bet!

‘So they could be anywhere in the hotel,’ said Jonny. ‘Come on, we’ll stand more chance of catching them if we split up –’

‘Stop!’ Sophie said suddenly. ‘Think how Eric’s misdirected us up till now. “Oh, look how bad I am at ventriloquism!” No one leaves a door open like that when trying to escape, it’s just too obvious …’

The four friends quickly started to search the room for other ways out, running their hands along the walls, trying to locate a groove or latch that might open up some further hidden passageway.

‘Unless,’ said Zack, wrapping his fingers round the handle of a small cupboard door, ‘they never left in the first place and are still … here!’ He pulled open the door with a mighty tug and almost fell back as a blast of moist sea air blew into his face. The door led straight out on to the slope below the hotel! Well, they’d certainly been there before!

The Young Magicians burst through to the outside, the gale from the previous night still billowing and howling all around them almost as if to say, Welcome back, friends!

‘This way!’ screamed Zack as he made out a faint path in the scraggly seaside grass showing where it had just been trampled.

‘The chase is on!’ Jonny whooped, and he set off, his long legs eating up the distance while the others scrambled up the grassy slope practically on all fours.

Alex had to grit his teeth to pump his legs hard enough to keep up with the others as they fought their way further uphill. The only consolation was that if this were tiring for them, it would almost certainly be tiring for Belinda and Eric too. Plus, as he recalled, Belinda was in high heels and a flowing skirt, and he was almost certain you couldn’t run fast in either of those, and my oh my, if that flowing skirt got caught in the wind, then the lady might even take off like a hot-air balloon! But then, if anyone could predict which way the wind might blow, it would surely be the delectable and brilliant Belinda Vine.

‘Come on! Come on!’

Jonny was waiting for them at the top of the slope, hopping up and down with impatience.

‘Where are they?’ Zack gasped.

‘Can you see them?’ Sophie started scanning the area around them with narrow eyes, her chest heaving up and down. Jonny pointed down the hotel’s drive. In the far distance, he could just make out the grey blur of Eric Diva’s suit and the bright splash of colour that was undoubtedly Belinda’s outfit and hair singing against a backdrop of mid-morning sea fog and drizzle.

‘Well, come on!’ The sight gave Zack a renewed burst of energy and he started to run after them, dodging between the potholes. Sophie reached out to stop him with a hand on his chest.

‘Wait, let’s think this through,’ she said. ‘Where do we think they’re going?’

‘They probably have a getaway car,’ Alex panted, leaning on his knees and fighting to get his breath back. ‘They’d obviously planned an escape route out of the hotel, just in case things went wrong, so they must have a vehicle hidden away somewhere!’

‘What’s down the road?’ Jonny asked. ‘I mean, it’s a long way into town.’

‘The communications post?’ Zack suggested.

‘You think those two would ever choose somewhere so untheatrical?’

And it was then that all four of them remembered something with chilling clarity. The only other place on the road nearby.

‘The creepy funfair!’

Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun – that dank, sinister collection of rusting fences and dilapidated, rotting buildings.

‘The road curves round,’ said Zack excitedly, ‘so if we cut straight across the coastal path we might catch them up!’

‘Well then, why don’t you three get your six little legs pumping and let’s go!’ Jonny laughed.

They hurried off along the top of the cliff, skirting the EXTREMELY DANGEROUS sign, each of them giving it a mocking nod of approval as they went past. Sorry, don’t mind us … again! Coming through! It was easier to see their way ahead this time, but that only meant you got a better view of how treacherous the path was and how lucky they’d been the previous night not to fall into the fizzing and hissing sea beneath them.

Soon the communications post was looming up ahead. Zack grinned and pointed at a hollow in the path, filled with sludgy brown goo.

‘Hey, Alex! Fancy a quick dip to cool down?’

‘Not funny,’ Alex grunted.

They came over a slight rise and – as if by magic – Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun appeared through the gloom like someone had dropped it from a great height where it had landed, splat, on the sodden moorland. They were just in time to see the fugitives disappear through the gates.

‘Got ’em!’ Jonny exclaimed, catapulting forward ahead of the others.

The throbbing roar of a powerful engine split the air as they ran closer. The rusty gates had been chained shut the last time they saw them, en route to the hotel in the minibus, but now they stood open. The Young Magicians spilled into the funfair and spun round as a motorbike and sidecar came bursting through the walls of one of the booths in an explosion of flying plywood fragments and with a roar as loud as a lion with a hernia.

A helmeted Belinda was at the controls, hunched over the handlebars with her chiffon scarf billowing behind her. Eric was squeezed into the sidecar, knees up round his ears, resplendent in goggles and a beanie. For just a second four young magicians and two older ones locked eyes and time stood still, for the smallest of moments. Justice, thought Sophie.

Then Belinda gave the handlebar throttle a twist, the engine howled, and the bike and sidecar shot forward. Half a tonne of petrol-powered metal versus four soft human bodies would be no contest, and Belinda must have been counting on them working that out for themselves and getting out of the way. Or, even worse, maybe she didn’t care about the actual outcome! The four scattered in four different directions as the bike zoomed ahead towards the open gates.

Zack started waving his arms and a discarded ice-cream cart suddenly began to move into the motorbike’s path. Belinda’s natural and automatic magician’s reaction – how did he do that? – was overridden by the more fundamental and practical reaction of a human being now hurtling at high speed towards a solid obstacle, notably exacerbated by Eric Diva’s terrified sidecar screams, which both hinted at exactly the same thing: Turn!

Belinda heaved on the handlebars and the motorbike spun round ninety degrees, leaning over dangerously and only staying upright under the weight of Eric Diva – no offence, Eric. It lurched up on to the veranda of the ghost train, where the carriages usually waited for sugar-fuelled kiddies to get on board, and smashed through the double doors into the depths of the ride. The engine popped and gargled and then died entirely.

Alex peered over the top of the ice-cream cart that he had managed to push into Belinda’s path, the bulk of the freezer compartment evidently blocking her view of him. Nice work, Alex!

‘Crikey! Do you think they’re all right?’

‘Let’s go and see,’ Jonny said grimly. They hurried towards the shattered doors. The remains of the peeling paintwork – grinning skulls and constipated ghosts – peered sadly back at them as though they blamed the four friends for what had just happened to their fine looks. We used to look great before this!

The Young Magicians peered into the dark.

Just inside the doors the tunnel split in two and headed off in different directions. The motorbike had crashed into the back end of an abandoned carriage, the front wheel now buckled back on itself like the claw of a crow. One thing was for sure: Belinda and Eric wouldn’t be going anywhere soon on that.

There was no sign of either culprit.

‘Which way do you think they went?’ whispered Alex, hoping Jonny wasn’t about to suggest that they should –

‘Let’s split up,’ said Jonny. ‘This ride is probably a loop that starts and finishes here. If we go both ways, we’ll have them cornered and can regroup back here.’

‘It’s kind of … dark …’ Alex pointed out.

Jonny reached into his pockets, and suddenly a soft green glow filled the space as he removed two glowsticks.

‘I’ve only got two, so one per pair?’ he added, his teeth shining green in the strange chemical light.

‘OK, this way.’ Zack grabbed Jonny and the two of them marched down the left-hand tunnel. Alex and Sophie gripped hands and headed to the right.

It wasn’t totally dark. There were wormy holes in the sides of the wooden tunnel that let in pinprick beams of light, egging them on. Skeletons, ghouls, witches and Frankenstein’s monsters loomed out of the dark, glowing with luminous paint and almost appearing half alive in the strange light of the glowsticks. Sophie and Alex made their way cautiously down their tunnel, keeping either side of the rails.

‘I wonder what this does?’ Alex said, bumping into something at the level of his knees. It looked like a lever, the kind that might be used to shift the points on a real railway. He gave it a small, thudding kick.

‘Look out!’ Sophie shouted as two glowing skeletons came hurtling at them, flying through the air without any apparent support. The skeletons jerked to an abrupt halt just in front of them, juddering and jiggling in delight – like they were thrilled to be finally scaring some punters again after such a long period of unemployment.

Alex and Sophie had both dropped into a crouch, covering their heads with their hands. They straightened up slowly and Alex held the glowstick up to look at the dangling skeletons more closely, which still twitched like they were involved in some nervous dance. With the light up close, you could see that each of them was hanging from a chain, painted black to merge into the darkness, connected to a runner on a rail fixed to the ceiling.

Sophie gave the lever a second kick and the skeletons slowly trundled back the way they had come, pulled back into hidden recesses on either side of the tunnel.

‘I guess the front of the train hits the lever on its way through, sending the skeletons out, then something on the back of the train hits the lever the other way and they reset themselves until next time,’ Sophie mused, ever the one to know the mechanics behind a good trick, regardless of the circumstances. ‘Kind of neat.’

They moved on down the tunnel and it widened out into a large graveyard. The train tracks ran between rows of crooked gravestones, with hungry-looking zombies poised on hidden rollers that would lumber about, arms akimbo, the moment the power was switched back on.

Sophie whispered in Alex’s ear. ‘We should check behind the graves.’

Alex swallowed and nodded. He didn’t like the idea of going up against either of the fugitives in broad daylight, let alone in a shadowy, papier-mâché graveyard!

They moved off in different directions with Alex clutching the glowstick like it was a magic wand as he slowly worked his way round the gravestones, before lunging across to the other side, glowstick now held out like a sword – en garde! Its light disturbed several surprised spiders and a couple of centipedes whose body language Alex couldn’t really read due to the number of legs getting in the way – but they were undoubtedly annoyed. (Centipedes are almost always annoyed.) But there were no hidden humans here. Not yet at least.

Suddenly Alex’s heart pounded faster as he realized a figure was moving along the wall a couple of metres away, just beyond the circle of green light cast by the glowstick.

‘Sophie? Is that you?’ Alex asked, his voice trembling.

‘Look out, he’s right behind you!’ shouted Sophie’s voice suddenly.

Alex spun round as a figure came pelting out of the dark towards him. Alex felt his stomach turn to water and readied himself.

‘Take that!’ he howled bravely, putting his head down and charging right into the stomach of …

‘O-oo-oo-oo-f!’ Sophie wheezed, collapsing to the ground, all the wind knocked out of her. She heaved for breath. ‘What did you do that for?’

Alex climbed on to all fours. ‘But you said he was behind me.’

They both understood what had happened at the same time. Alex leaped to his feet and jerked round, just in time to see a square of daylight open up in the ceiling above and the silhouetted frame of Eric Diva as he clambered out, giving them a cheerful wave, before slamming the hatch shut behind him.

‘He was throwing his voice again!’ Alex realized. ‘He was pretending to be you!’

‘Well, he’s not getting away with it this time,’ Sophie vowed fiercely, keen for both Eric and Belinda to face justice. She grabbed a ring set into the wall that led up towards the hatch. They both quickly scrabbled up to the roof and emerged, blinking, into the daylight.

Jonny and Zack advanced cautiously down the tunnel, walking on either side of the railway as Alex and Sophie had done. Zack bit his lip, aware that the daylight was slowly receding behind them; plus, he had no idea how Belinda or Eric would react if cornered. At one point, it had looked like Belinda was more than happy to mow them down with a motorbike, so that didn’t quite fill him with confidence!

The tunnel was well soundproofed, so that when punters were on the ride there would be no light-hearted distraction from the music and laughter outside. Just the ominous music and sound effects and the noise of their own screams instead. Nice. And now it meant that all the two boys could hear were their own footsteps and breathing and heartbeats and – was that more footsteps?

Zack’s heart rate went up abruptly as something soft and slimy slid across his face.

‘Oh, that is so old,’ Jonny muttered nonchalantly. He brushed whatever it was away from his own face. ‘I mean, fake webs? Who is actually scared of this kind of stuff?’

‘Beats me,’ Zack agreed, grateful that Jonny couldn’t see his deep blush.

Light glimmered ahead and the tunnel widened out. The railway ran past what might have been a pleasant picnic scene, if your idea of a pleasant picnic scene included a group of hideous, warty witches and a steaming, glowing cauldron. A sign hung above it in glowing red letters: BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BOIL AND TROUBLE.

‘Well, they’ve got that wrong too,’ said Jonny. ‘It should say double, double toil and trouble. We did Macbeth in English last term. It’s from the bit where he meets three witches.’

Zack’s eyes narrowed.

‘Three witches?’ he whispered.

‘Yup.’

‘There’s … four!’

One of the witches suddenly lunged towards them. A high-pitched scream filled the air – possibly Zack’s – as Belinda fled back the way they had come, towards the entrance, in her borrowed witch’s robes.

They both leaped after her as Jonny reached out with long arms, desperately trying to grab a handful of the rotting robe now flapping wildly in front of them. Jonny yanked a handful of it back, causing Belinda to decelerate abruptly and Jonny to tumble into her. Zack careened off course, stumbling into the legs of a waxwork mummy, which now slowly fell towards Belinda, arms held out, as if trying to embrace her as it toppled, finally pinning her to the ground.

‘Get it off! Get it off!’ Belinda shrieked.

Zack grabbed the end of the mummy’s bandages and yanked hard. They started to unravel as Zack wrapped them tightly round Belinda’s heels.

‘You idiots!’ she raged. ‘Don’t you know what you’ve done? Eric and I were poised to take over the Magic Circle and we’d have taken you with us! You dummies would have had a free ride straight to the top with us in charge!’

‘Thanks,’ Jonny said, sounding pleasantly upbeat, ‘but we don’t need a free ride to the top of your greasy pole. We’re getting where we’re going on our own merits, or not at all.’

Belinda screamed in frustration as Zack tied the final knot on her wrists and stood up.

‘Think she can do escapology as well?’ he grinned.

‘I wouldn’t put it past her, but not if we keep an eye on her,’ Jonny said as they helped Belinda to her feet. She was still cursing under her breath, her accent out in full force now, though not perhaps with the silky undertones it had had before.

‘Come on,’ said Zack, ‘let’s see how the others are doing.’

Sophie and Alex stood on the roof of the ghost train, blinking in the sunshine. There was another flat-topped building next to them, about a metre away, where they had just caught a glimpse of Eric Diva’s hand disappearing into a hatch below.

‘Which ride is it?’ Sophie asked. Alex squinted down, but the front of the building – the bit the paying public saw – was out of sight.

‘I can’t tell from here.’

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.’

They both had to take a run-up to get over the gap between the roofs. Alex thought ruefully how Jonny could have done it without even breaking his normal stride! They reached the hatch and pulled it open. Sophie peered over the edge. Oh no, what new hell was this?!

She was looking out over a geometric pattern of triangles and squares and hexagons. The room appeared to be a maze of little cubicles, about two metres high, each one with three, four or six sides. Every hexagon had a square attached to one of its edges, and every square had a triangle between it and the next one. And the next one after that. Confused yet? Over on the other side, about twenty metres away, she could see daylight shining through the entrance.

‘It’s … some kind of maze, I think,’ Sophie reported. She stared at it for a bit longer, admiring the aerial view, before jumping down into the gloom, with Alex right behind her.

Their feet touched the ground and they turned round, suddenly startled. Half a dozen Alexes and Sophies stared, suddenly startled, back at them from a million different directions.

‘Ah, so it’s a mirror maze,’ Alex said.

‘We have to try to stop him reaching the exit,’ Sophie decided, hearing footsteps. ‘You go that way, I’ll go this.’

They carefully headed off into the most baffling maze either of them had ever set foot in. Most of the sides of each cubicle were formed entirely of mirror glass, but – crucially – others weren’t. So sometimes the only way out of a cubicle was the way you’d come in, and other times you could walk in one way and out the other. Yet all the time you were surrounded by an often distorted array of images of yourself, or whoever was in the next cubicle, or sometimes both!

It was confusing, but with a bit of effort Sophie could make herself see past the mirrors and spot the way through. It was actually easier to put the glowstick away, and be guided by the dim amount of daylight, than try to see through the glare of the glowstick, reflected multiple times.

At one point, Sophie looked herself in the eye and moved towards where she thought the exit must be. She froze in surprise and shock, heart pounding, as the reflection moved the other way.

Sophie realized she was looking at a reflection of a reflection: a reversed mirror image. In other words, she was seeing herself exactly as she actually appeared. This was the Sophie everyone else saw except her … It made her feel quite dizzy.

‘Sophie! Where are you?’ she heard Alex call. She was about to answer when she heard Alex again, more indignant and in a different direction.

‘That wasn’t me!’

‘OK,’ Sophie called back, ‘he’s doing his voice tricks again. But this is the real me.’

‘Oi! That’s my voice you’re stealing!’ she heard her own voice shout.

‘No, it isn’t!’

‘Sophie, where are you?’

Something moved in the corner of Sophie’s eye and she whirled round. Followed by a dozen other Sophies.

‘I think I saw him,’ Sophie called.

‘Don’t listen to him! That’s a lie!’ came back Sophie’s voice.

‘It’s OK, I can see him!’ said Alex.

‘No, I can’t!’ replied Alex again!

Sophie took a breath. One Alex on her left, one on her right.

‘Alex, on the train yesterday, what were the cake options?’ she called.

‘Chocolate or carrot!’ shouted the Alex to her right, sounding very pleased. Well, there’s no way Eric Diva could have known about the cake, Sophie reckoned, so that meant he was standing … Sophie started heading left.

‘You ask me something,’ she called.

‘Um – OK,’ the real Alex answered. ‘What stopped you crash-landing over the wall at Buckingham Palace, when you jumped from the zipwire?’

‘A pile of compost!’ both Sophies suddenly shouted.

Eric Diva grinned to himself. The story of how the Young Magicians had got into Buckingham Palace was already a minor legend within the magic community. Alex himself had scraped the pile of compost together for the other three to land in safely. Oh, silly Alex, you should have asked the girl something else!

‘OK, let me try another – when did you last see an evil twin?’ Alex called.

Eh? a baffled Eric Diva thought.

‘Last night!’ Sophie laughed.

Now Sophie knew roughly where Alex was and where Eric Diva was, based on their joint shouts of ‘Compost!’; plus, she knew where she was. In her mind’s eye, she had put the pattern of mirror cubicles that she had seen from above into a memory palace. Now she was slowly working through it again, room by room, cubicle by cubicle. Sophie started to move, slowly and surely closing in on where she knew Eric Diva must be hiding.

On the other side of a mirror, Eric Diva froze. How had she got that close? It shouldn’t be possible! Was she navigating by radar, or something? He turned round, and froze as he found himself staring at Sophie.

Sophie was the first to unfreeze. She ran forward but went slap into a mirror.

‘Ow!’

She stumbled back, clutching her nose, her eyes streaming.

Eric Diva quickly ducked out of the cubicle before Sophie could get her bearings. No, no, no … that was close, he thought. Much too close.

‘How you doing, Sophie?’ Alex called anxiously.

Eric Diva didn’t bother imitating the littlest Young Magician again. He was close to the exit. Another couple of cubicles to go and he’d be free …

Suddenly he was facing the reflection of a man. He moved, but the man moved in a different way.

Not in the different, real-world way that a reflection, or even a reflection of a reflection, might move. This ghoulish man moved in a completely different way altogether, striding confidently towards him, arms outstretched. Eric Diva froze and screamed as he came face to face … with a real-life ghost.

‘What is it?’

‘What happened?’

Alex and Sophie stumbled in from opposite directions to find Eric Diva lying unconscious on the ground with the figure of another man crouched over him. The figure turned, looking up, and his lugubrious features split into a grin.

‘I believe that the showiest of showmen, Eric Diva … just fainted,’ said Alf.

Alf, Sophie and Alex escorted a recovered and squirming Eric Diva out of the Hall of Mirrors, Eric now having at least worked out that he wasn’t being manhandled by an actual ghost.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he gasped. ‘Do I know you? I’m sure we’ve met …’

The three friends smiled at each other. Alf’s portrait was on display back at Magic Circle headquarters – or at least the portrait of a man who looked very like him was, with the caption ALF RATTLEBAG, PATRON SAINT OF STAGEHANDS, 1892–1923. (It’s a long story. READ BOOK O– … Oh, I’m sure you’ve got the picture by now, haven’t you? Especially if you’ve got this far!) Eric Diva had probably walked past the painting a thousand times.

‘Let’s just say I know you, Mr Diva,’ Alf told him, straight-faced.

Out in the daylight they found Zack, Jonny and a truly trussed-up, balefully glaring Belinda waiting. Her eyes met Sophie’s. Sophie slowly smiled and Belinda looked away, scowling into the middle distance.

‘Alf! When did you get here?’ Jonny exclaimed in delight.

‘I couldn’t get back to sleep after your call last night,’ Alf said. ‘And I knew you were either getting into trouble or you could do with a hand – so either way I thought I could do more good up here than down there. So I got the Magic Circle van out and – well – here I am.’

He nodded over to a corner of the fairground where a very, very old, very battered, very Ford Transit was parked, with the words MAGIC CIRCLE in glowing, seventies-style letters on the side.

‘But how did you know to come to Ferdinand’s Fantastic Festival of Fun?’ asked Alex.

‘Well … I was on course for the hotel, but I couldn’t just pass by without dropping in to pay my respects. You don’t get places like this any more. Plus, something told me that if there were ever a place you lot might wander off to, given your penchant for little errands and theatrical detours, then this one would surely tick a lot of boxes. Then I heard the two of you shouting at each other in the Hall of Mirrors. So why were you chasing Mr Diva, and what’s wrong with this lady?’

‘Right, well, it’s a long story,’ Zack grinned.

‘It’s preposterous,’ Belinda snapped. ‘I don’t know who you are, but I can tell instantly that you’re a reasonable guy – it’s a gift I have. These four children have concocted the most ridiculous tale –’

‘And I don’t know who you are either, ma’am,’ Alf interrupted politely, ‘but you ought to know that if I have to choose between believing these four, or a complete stranger who’s tied up in mummy bandages, I will always go for the former four.’

‘It’s not worth it, Belinda,’ Eric Diva muttered. ‘It’s over.’

‘Anyhow, we can easily sort this out,’ Jonny said. ‘Let’s take the van back to the hotel, and then President Pickle can vouch for everything.’

‘There you are then,’ Alf agreed. ‘Not something I’m prone to say, but let’s leave it up to the wisdom of President Pickle as to what to do with you!’

And with that he started to march Eric Diva towards the van.