TWENTY-ONE

From the top of the stationary train car in the train yard, Carter could see the Grand Oak Resort, the quiet town of Mineral Wells, and the tents of Bosso’s carnival, which was silent and still in the morning light. After everything that had happened in the last few days, Carter wondered if he was beginning to believe in magic. Not the kind where you can actually make things disappear or cast a spell, but the kind where you can’t sleep because you’re so full of joy that you stay awake and watch the sun come up.

Carter was certain that he’d never seen such beautiful colors in the sky before. Sitting cross-legged on top of B. B. Bosso’s “loot car,” Carter watched below as the police cracked open the locks. When they finally got the metal train car door open, a mountain of wallets and watches and rings and more poured out. Later, the police would find that there had been a rash of thefts in every town B. B. Bosso’s carnival had been to.

Carter and the misfits had solved hundreds, if not thousands, of unsolved petty theft crimes.

While the police collected and boxed the goods, trying to figure out how to return everything to their proper owners, Carter continued to marvel at the sky’s streaks of yellow, orange, and red, all tied together like the multicolored silk handkerchiefs that his father had used in a magic trick long ago. As the brilliant sun crowned the horizon, it sent a fan of rays toward him, surrounding him with warmth.

A few tracks away, a freight train chugged off into the distance, fleeing from the rising light. Carter wondered what he would do next.

He couldn’t stay at Theo’s house for long. Mr. and Mrs. Stein-Meyer would only start asking questions. Should I hop a train, he wondered, just to see where it takes me next?

“You weren’t going to leave without saying good-bye, were you?” Mr. Vernon asked.

“Gaaah!” Carter screamed, startled to find he was no longer alone. The magician sat next to him, as if he had been there the whole time. “How do you do that?” Carter asked.

“Very quietly.” Mr. Vernon smiled. “Well, were you? Going to leave town?”

“I don’t want to,” Carter said. “But the police are already asking about my parents. I can’t go into foster care. Who knows where I’d end up?”

“A wise man once said that decisions are best made in the morning after a good night’s sleep, a shower, and a well-rounded breakfast. At this point, you’ve missed the sleep part, but the Other Mr. Vernon is making breakfast back at our home. And there are a few people who’d like to see you before you make a decision.”

“Breakfast sounds good,” Carter said, feeling his cheeks burn.

“Good. Come along,” Mr. Vernon said as he climbed down the train car ladder.

When he walked into Mr. Vernon’s dining room in the apartment above the magic shop, Carter was surprised to see the entire gang there. Theo, Ridley, Leila, Olly, and Izzy were all helping to set the table.

“Carter!” they screamed, running over to hug him.

“We did it! We really did it!” Leila said. “We took down Bosso and his circle of stooges.”

“Not all of them,” Theo said. “The police arrested Bosso, the Sideshowers, and the Pock-Pickets, but they never found the frown clowns.”

“A worry for another day,” the Other Mr. Vernon said, walking into the room with a platter stacked high with pancakes and strawberries. “For now, it’s time to eat.”

“Perhaps after presents?” Mr. Vernon suggested. He presented four boxes and placed them before Carter, Theo, Leila, and Ridley. “I’m sorry, Olly and Izzy, but I didn’t know we’d be having two more join us.”

“No worries!” Olly said, stuffing his mouth. “These pancakes are treat enough.”

When the four misfits opened their packages, they found what they had thought lost—Leila’s lucky lockpicks, Ridley’s journal, Theo’s bow, and Carter’s wooden box. Carter held the small, carved box to his chest, tracing his fingers over the initials LWL. “But how?” Carter asked.

“A good magician never tells,” Mr. Vernon said.

But Carter’s quick mind began to sort through the details of the last few days. When he first met Mr. Vernon, he’d given Carter the book about the “vanishing object on the podium” trick. Mr. Vernon was old friends with B. B. “Bobby” Bosso. He must have known that Bosso would try to steal the diamond, and how. He also must have pickpocketed the Pock-Pickets along the way and retrieved the misfits’ things.

“We were never on our own, were we?” Carter concluded. “You were looking after us from the beginning, making sure we were never in any real danger.… The coins in my pocket…? The blanket in the park…?”

Leila squinted. “What coins? What blanket?”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about.” Mr. Vernon smiled, helping himself to a pancake.

“What will you do now, Carter?” Theo asked.

Carter shrugged. After everything they’d been through together, after everything they’d done for him, how could he tell his friends what he’d been planning only an hour earlier? The thought made him feel empty inside. He didn’t want to leave Mineral Wells or his new friends, but what other option did he have?

The others must have been able to read it all in Carter’s face. “You can’t leave!” Leila blurted out. “You have to stay!” Theo patted Carter on the back, and even Ridley seemed to frown.

“Actually, I may have one more trick up my sleeve,” Mr. Vernon said. He waved the kids to follow him out of the apartment and into the connecting magic shop. Theo, always a gentleman, held the door open for everyone.

“Woof-woof. I’m a rabbit,” squawked Presto.

“Silly bird.” Leila laughed.

Mr. Vernon led the kids and the Other Mr. Vernon into the secret room and over to the wall covered in photos. On it were dozens of black-and-white images of different magicians. But near the bottom, there was one that stood out. It was a sepia-toned photo of six kids, their arms around one another.

“Who are they?” Leila asked, studying the photo.

“The Emerald Ring,” said Mr. Vernon. “There’s me as a boy, about your age, and that’s Bosso. Back then he went by the name Bobby Boscowitz.”

“You knew each other?” Ridley asked.