Read Online Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power by David Pogue - Free Book Online

loved it. A couple of people whooped, and there was a smattering of applause.
    â€œPart of what will make this demonstration so annoying is that I’m not going to be involved. I won’t touch anything, choose anything, or handle anything. I’m going to rule out every possibility that anything is rigged, gimmicked, or prepared in advance.”
    To make her point, she walked to the side of the stage, about fifteen feet away from the table that the stagehands had wheeled out.
    She looked out across the crowd of strangers. Her mouth was dry as dust. She’d always wondered what real magicians loved about performing onstage—and now, with her knees barely holding her up, she was more mystified than ever.
    â€œI’m going to need a couple of helpers for this little experiment,” she went on. “But it’s important that it’s somebody completely random. It can’t be somebody Iknow. So here’s how we’re going to choose the volunteers:
Catch!”
    With that, she pulled two foam Nerf balls out of her skirt pockets and threw them out into the audience.
    After a scramble, two kids wound up clutching bright-orange foam-rubber balls.
    â€œPretty random, right? But not random enough. I want the selection of these volunteers to have
nothing
to do with me. You two with the Nerf balls—throw them into the crowd
again!”
    There was a laugh, as the crowd caught on to her little game. By having two strangers throw the balls to two
other
strangers, there was no chance that Abby would wind up choosing volunteers that she’d secretly trained beforehand.
    â€œOkay, great! You two with the Nerf balls—please join me on stage. Oh—and nice catch.” She smiled, and there was a little bit of clapping.
    To Abby, it looked like the two volunteers were moving at the speed of slugs; in the time it seemed to take them to come onto the stage, she thought, she could have run off the stage, hailed a taxi, and driven all the way home to Eastport.
    Finally, they were with her, awaiting instructions.
    Abby asked for their names—they were Joshua and Carly—and introduced them to the crowd.
    â€œAll right. First you, Joshua. On the table to your left,you’ll see a carton of a dozen hard-boiled eggs. We only need one of them. Your job is to prove to this audience that there is absolutely nothing tricky going on with any of these eggs. Go ahead: pick up a couple of them. Crack ’em with your fist. Peel off the shell. Throw a couple out to people in the audience. All I ask is that we wind up with one egg to use for the trick.”
    As the crowd giggled, Joshua picked up three eggs, hefted them, examined them—and then began to juggle them, showing off.
    This is what I get for doing the trick at a magic camp,
Abby thought.
    â€œThat’s great, Joshua,” she said aloud. “You get to perform in
tomorrow’s
Camper Show.”
    The crowd cracked up. Abby felt the tiniest flutter of pride and excitement; that line Ben
hadn’t
written.
    Joshua cracked a few eggs on the edge of the table, split them, showed them, tossed a couple more into the crowd. The cameraman followed all of the action.
    â€œOkay, Joshua,” Abby said finally. “Are you pretty satisfied that this was a dozen ordinary eggs, and that you’ve wound up with one of them that you, and you alone, picked out?”
    â€œYes I am,” said Joshua, waggling his eyebrows into the camera.
    â€œAll right. Carly, you’re up next. For you, I have a littlearts-and-crafts project. Also on that table, I’ve brought you a dozen spools of thread, all different colors. You’re going to pick one—I’m not going to pick one, or even touch one. Pick out any color you like, and break off a four-foot piece of thread.”
    â€œOkay,” Carly said. She bent over to examine the thread and finally picked out a spool of dark blue.
    â€œHow’s that thread look