Disclaimer:
~Big thanks to DC comics for making the fun characters, and to Lilith Langtree for making the universe to play in.
Author's Note: Here's my stab at the Comics Retconn universe. A very big thanks to Padfoot for helping with the edits.

The audience broke into a loud round of applause, as the Great Zatara astounded them with his latest illusion. The trick he had just completed consisted of moving from one side of the stage to the other side, without the audience seeing his movements. However, if everyone knew how it was done, there really was no mystery to how he had performed the trick, and it would seem boring. Yet, backstage I still applauded with the rest of the audience, proud of how masterfully the illusion had been performed.

John Zatara, the illusionist who had just finished performing on stage, took his final bow as the curtain came down on the stage. This performance had been for charity, and he had been amazed at how big the turnout had been and how good the audience was. Once the curtain was down, he sighed deeply, I could see the worry in his eyes and on his face. He tried to hide it so I could not see, but I saw him wipe it off and then walked over to me, his son of nearly sixteen years.

“Did you enjoy the show, Zane?” he asked, as he came up to me and looked at me nicely.

“As always,” I replied, “but, it’s not as fun now, since I know how some of the tricks are done.”

Dad laughed and smiling as he said, “I suppose not. But, there are still many things that I still haven’t even taught you yet.”

“And when will you be teaching me these things? Huh?” I asked, wondering and hoping to myself when I would be able to learn some of the secrets of my father’s tricks.

“On your sixteenth birthday, I promise,” he replied, nicely to me with a smile.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said, with a big smile forming on my face. “Especially considering that it’s only a few days away and then I will be able to know tons of new and amazing things.”

Dad laughed at my comment, and then we began to pack up all the magic tricks and the parts to them. All the things he had used in his act had to be moved out of the way for the concert that would be performed in a couple of nights on this same stage. It was some girl band that was performing. My friend, Elissa, wanted to go and see, and I would be going with her. I thought she would be one of those girls that would go for a boy band, but from what she told me about this one girl group, they were supposed to be really good. I didn’t care too much about listening to the music, but I did humor her when she started talking about it nonstop and even tried to play me some of their music.

I’ve known Elissa since we were in kindergarten together. We hit off on that first day we had met, and have been best friends ever since. We rarely left each other’s sides and liked to spend tons of time together. Her parents and my father have always thought it was unusual for a girl and a boy to be best friends and not like each other more than that. However, they let the matter drop and just went with it, thinking that things would work out to be anything that it should be and just to see how things go. After cleaning up for a couple of hours, we moved the simple tricks into in the neighboring storage facility, where they were usually stored in.

Dad then turned to me after we put the last box in the storage shed, “All right, that’s good for the night. The moving crew will put the big stuff away in the morning, so it looks like we’re all done here, squirt. What do you say we go and get a bite to eat before we go home?”

I inwardly cringed whenever he called me that name, since I was still just under five feet tall. However, I simply smiled at him and replied, “Can we go get a good burger, Dad? I really want one now.”

“Sure, we can swing by Chili’s on our way home. They have a Two for Twenty deal that’s going on right now.”

“Sounds good to me, since their burgers are super good.”

The two of us climbed into our small Prius and began our long drive home; he wanted a small family car for the two of us and it was a perfect choice. Dad took the surface streets to the 101, and soon we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, on our way to our home near Sausalito and out of the big city. The city and the bay looked absolutely beautiful at night, as I gazed out at the big city behind us, with the moonlight shining down upon it, I couldn’t help but wonder at how amazing it looked. After we had crossed the bridge and out of the city, Dad went into the nearest Chili’s to grab our dinners. We were both tired and did not feel like eating out tonight. He instead ordered our food to go, so we could enjoy it at home tonight.

We drove through the streets of Sausalito before we neared the edge of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Our estate was located on the edge of the forest, near a small stream bank that flowed down and into San Francisco Bay. The house was obscured from the street, since our driveway was long and went very close to the edge of the woods and was also pretty far from the main road. I would have to say that our house was more like a manor than anything else; it even had a manor-like name, Shadowcrest. However, for all the stuff we had inside of the manor, it did feel a little empty inside. I figured I was probably because it was only just my dad and me living there, and it was hard to not feel lonely living in a place this big.

My dad never really even talked about my mom a lot, and even seemed to instead want to hide anything and everything about her away from me. From what he had told me though, she was a beautiful woman, who loved him and me very much. The two of them would go on adventures together, travelling around the world and having what fun they could with the lives that they led. He told me that it was something that he never would have done if it hadn’t been for mom. He did enjoy doing the things they had done together and was very happy just being with her and doing anything he could with her. They eventually got married, and a year later I was born. I had found out, that a few months after I was born, my dad told me that my mom had to go home for some kind of emergency. He never said what it was about and I finally stopped asking, but he did tell me that it was important to know that she would always love me and wishes she could be with us if it were possible.

We pulled up to the garage a few minutes later and he parked inside next to the BMW. The Prius we were driving was going to be my car when I turned sixteen in a few days. Dad said and thought that I deserved a car of my own when I turned sixteen, so he went out and bought it without my knowledge. Dad wanted to drive the car before my birthday, in case he ever wanted to get a hybrid for himself, and figured that he could test it and see if he liked it better than his or the same as his BMW.

We took our food and went to the living room, and my father switched on the late night news as we ate our dinner. I went to go and get us a couple of plates and some napkins from the dining room. As I reentered the room, I was only able to catch a bit of the developments that were happening in southern Asia. The anchor then passed it over to Stephanie Shapero as I sat down to watch and eat. I enjoyed watching Stephanie’s stories, since she was the news correspondent that always talked about the discovery of the metahuman gene.

She had been around for about a month now, ever since Jade had first appeared and talked to the world about the emergence of the metahumans in the population that would soon start to begin. Lately, Stephanie had been talking of the exploits of a metahuman who called herself Terra. From what she was saying, Terra was just a teenager going to a party when her metagene activated. She also was very instrumental in stopping a volcano from erupting violently in Japan, which could have hurt and killed many people.

I thought the whole notion of there being metahumans was pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind being one of them, but I wouldn’t want to hide my new abilities from my dad or Elissa. I cared for them too much to leave them in the dark about anything like that. Metahumans have to hide their powers and I knew that I couldn’t do that to my friend or my father. Even though I wanted to be one, it would be better for me to stay normal.

My dad turned to me and said, “Alright Zane, time to go get cleaned up and go to bed. You have school in the morning.”

He then pointed at me and added, “I don’t want to hear you’ve been sleeping in class again because you haven’t gotten enough rest.”

I groaned and said, “Alright.”

My bedroom was on the second floor of the house, with my bathroom right next to it. My dad’s room was down the hallway from mine. On the first floor were the living room, kitchen, dining room, and my father’s study and library. He never let me into his personal library, and he only let me into his study whenever he was in it. He just told me that when I was ready, he would show me what was inside in his library and that I would spend a good amount of time learning things and bonding with him.

----------------

After waking up the next day, I went about my daily routine as I got ready for school: a warm shower, a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast and then a quick check of all my school stuff, making sure I had everything that I would need for the day. I rummaged through my closet trying to figure out which shirt that I wanted to wear with my blue jeans. I was stuck trying to decide between a blue polo shirt and a black t-shirt. I thought for a bit, and decided on the polo shirt, since there was a good chance of rain in the forecast. I looked in the mirror in the bathroom and saw those sapphire blue eyes that I inherited from my mother. I began to take a comb through my raven-like black hair, which I had inherited from my mother. My hair was quite long and at this moment was nearly shoulder length, I however, secretly wanted it longer. I knew that I would probably end up being teased for that, but I didn’t care. I ended up pulling it back into a small ponytail to have my hairstyle appear somewhat masculine in appearance and to try and avoid some of the inevitable teasing that I would face.

After I finished dressing and taking care of my hair, I double-checked and made sure that I still had the necklace around my neck. It was very important to me, because my father had told me that it had been a gift from my mother before everything happened. She wanted me to have it, this was according to my father. This happened before she went home to deal with that emergency. For some reason like something out of a very distant memory, I knew that it was important for me to have this part of my mother with me. As it was almost time for me to go, I headed for my father’s study to tell him goodbye for the day. However, he was not there when I went in after knocking on the door.

It was unusual for my dad to not be in his study at this time of day. It was also very strange that he gone into San Francisco before eight in the morning. He would often be in his study working on something; I figured that it was most likely his next show even though he was retired and shouldn’t be working so hard, when I went to school in the morning. His study contained a couple of bookshelves that were stocked with many books, a few plants, and his old antique desk. I shrugged off the feeling that something was wrong for now, thinking that he must have had a good reason to leave early, and that he would tell me when I saw him afterschool today. I quickly checked to make sure all the doors were locked in the house and then grabbed my bike out of the garage and headed for school, not wanting to be late as I was already cutting it to close for comfort.

Along the way to school, I met up with Elissa. Today she wore a dark leather jacket, a cute, black t-shirt that had the words: “Some mistakes are too fun to only make twice” written upon it, a pair of nice fitting blue jeans, and her white sneakers. The bottom of her fiery red hair stood out against the backdrop of the forest near my home. I could only see the bottom of it since the rest of it was currently being protected underneath her helmet.

She smiled at me and said, “What kept you, Zee? You should’ve been here five minutes ago.”

Zee is the nickname that Elissa has so kindly bestowed upon me. It wasn’t very clever, since it was just my first initial made long, but I was cool with it. She was my best friend and I was okay with her giving me a not-so-clever nickname.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I replied. “Just that my dad wasn’t around when I left and it surprised me a bit.”
Elissa looked a little concerned, since she was also aware of my father’s habits, most notably from him offering us a ride when the weather wouldn’t allow for us to ride our bikes to school. She also tended to live with us when she felt like it as well, her parents not minding it.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He probably just had to go into the city early today and forgot to tell me. By the way, looking good today.”

“Don’t look half bad yourself,” she replied, before quickly changing the subject to baseball.

Elissa and I loved to watch the San Francisco Giants play. We agreed with Duane Kuiper when he called this year’s team: “Torture.” It was a good kind of torture in our opinion, considering that they had just recently won the World Series, and the team and myself had been celebrating since. As we were talking about it for quite a while, the rest of the bicycle ride was quickly going by. We soon pulled into Sausalito High School and locked our bikes up at the bike rack on campus. We barely made it to school with just about five minutes to spare before the first period class would be starting; Elissa had gym, and I had pre-calculus. I enjoyed my math class, as well as my science and history classes that I have throughout the day. The other classes weren’t as much fun in my opinion.

The day went on as any other day at school seems to go, and I didn’t think anymore about why my father had left early. Soon, it was time for my US History class. Elissa and I thankfully shared that class together, which was just before lunch. Our teacher, Miss Carlson, was lecturing on the American Revolutionary War today. As she lectured, I imagined what it must have been like in those days, trying to fight for the life of a newborn nation, with hopes of it becoming a great nation one day or maybe they just wanted it to become self-sufficient and I couldn’t help but wonder what they were thinking at that time. It was an interesting daydream, as I was fighting along side the Continental Marines in one of those historic battles against the British.

However, I quickly snapped out of my daydream when the bell rang. I realized that I had been daydreaming throughout class and had not taken any notes. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, the look on Elissa’s face told me that I was lucky and she had been the only one to notice. We both packed up our things and, after copying down our homework, we headed off to lunch. I was just happy to eat and spend time with Elissa, and not be in class for a bit. She was looking at me a little bit funny for some reason and I said, “Alright, out with it.”

“Daydreaming, Zee?” she asked me playfully with a smile.

“Huh?” I replied, trying not to let on that she was right in her assumption of me daydreaming in class.

“Oh, c’mon. I know that glazed look from you anywhere. You were off in another world. Demons? Dragons? Wizards? Or magic?”

“The American Revolution,” I replied, in a low tone knowing that she would think it is odd.

“That’s a new one,” she replied, surprised at my reply and how it was odd even for me.

“What?” I said defensively, “sometimes, I just get into history. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, not sounding convinced by my defensive tone.

I just shook my head and we continued to the food court. Elissa usually buys her lunch from the school’s dining services. She usually gets a slice of pizza, but you never know with her; sometimes she like to surprise me and will instead order a hamburger with French fries just to trick me. Oddly, I don’t mind her doing that kind of stuff. It made her fun and good to be around. I, on the other hand, always make my lunch and bring it with me to school every day. Today, happily, is a salami sandwich with some crackers.

After she grabbed her lunch and I waited for her, we headed for the Overlook. The Overlook was an area on campus that was known for its awesome view of San Francisco Bay. The view it provided was magnificent as it stretched from one side of the East Bay and continued all the way around to the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, there was a good amount of sunshine, so we could see everything. However, there was a storm coming in on the horizon, and it looked to be a pretty mean one coming in. As we gazed out towards the Pacific, we could see the stormy and ominous dark clouds make their way towards the shore.

We both knew that we may not end up dodging the storm on our bike ride home, but it was a chance that we were both willing and wanted to take. As we ate our lunch, we talked about how some of our classes were being really difficult and a lot harder than they needed to be; she was having trouble in English, while my problems always seemed to be in gym class.

I didn’t just have problems in my gym class; I absolutely hated the class and wished that I didn’t have to take it. It didn’t have to do anything with physical exercise; I had no issues with that, since I rode my bike to school when the weather was nice. I also tended to bike ride a lot around where I lived to get exercise, I tend to be in pretty good shape because of this. The only issue I had was changing in front of the other guys in the locker room, since I was so short and easily the target of being picked on. I was wondering when puberty would finally hit for me, considering that I was almost sixteen years old and still hadn’t decided to come. To try to avoid trouble, I would be the first or the last in the locker room, so I could avoid the embarrassment of changing in front of the others and having to be called ‘short’ names or any other joke they decided to throw at me. I had no problem with being around other guys, just not in a locker room. Elissa thought I was being silly, but she did care about how I felt about this and would listen to me when I talked about it.

The school bell rang out a few minutes later, and we trudged ourselves to our afternoon classes. Elissa was off to biology, while I was off to English. I didn’t completely enjoy my English class. Writing essays about trying to extract hidden meanings out of literature was just boring and mundane to me and I don’t see the point in doing that or why it was completely needed. However, reading the book for pure enjoyment was another story altogether. I love to just read books, especially fantasy novels. For some reason, those adventures that involved magic always seemed to captivate me and my imagination in amazing ways. It seemed hard for most things to capture my mind that well. If that weren’t enough, I also greatly enjoy playing fantasy-style games on my computer at home and would spend hours on them. Elissa would play with me online a lot too, but she thought I seemed to get into the game a little too much and too often, as she told me many times. She also made a little fun at how I always ended up making female characters.

Class ended after we finished up, talking about our latest book that we were reading for class. I thought that Brave New World book is a good read, but I could deal without all our discussions about utopia and how humanity wasn’t meant for that. I felt like we should just try to enjoy the book and not analyze it to death. However, I did find the talk we had about selective breeding to be pretty interesting. I also enjoyed science fiction as much as fantasy, considering that the two areas often overlap and were put together.

After English, I made my usual mad dash to the locker room, so I could get changed quickly and I was thankful again for my luck beating everyone else there. I hated changing clothes in front of the other guys. Luckily, I was the first and only person in the whole locker room. I breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly changed into my gym clothes and left the locker room just as all the early people were coming in.

I was already on my way to the gym floor by the time the other guys were filtering into the locker room from their other classes, I just sat there and waited for the class to start. Gym was not that bad today; we ended up playing basketball, and one of my favorite games, Knockout. The gym class passed quickly as we played the game, and I did alright by not getting knocked out until there were about ten of us left in line. I managed to hold off getting changed back into my normal clothes until the very end, while everyone else was heading to their next class. After reporting out of the class and the locker room, I headed to my final class of the day, Computer Programming.

As I walked out of the breezeway and towards the computer classrooms, I could see that the storm was getting ever more dangerously closer. I was hoping that it wouldn’t arrive in time for the bike ride home. I enjoyed bike riding home with Elissa and did not want to lose spending that time with her or get soaking wet from the storm. The programming class went by quickly; it happened to be a fun and challenging class. I enjoyed it a lot, as it allowed me to create programs that have the possible potential to make my life, and maybe others, a little bit easier.

My dad didn’t approve of the class; he however understood the importance of technology in this day and age, which is why he bought a computer for my room, along with the internet. This made things a lot easier for my programming class and my internet gaming habits that I had developed.

He remains adamant about not using a computer himself though, since he believes that there is more value in the written word than in a computer. He tends to not use them whenever he can avoid it. He did have a cell phone; he dislikes it and hates to use it, which he only uses when he’s talking with his agent. He uses it mostly to plan special shows in San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, London, Paris, Istanbul, and many other amazing places around the world. However, that and driving a car is the limit of his skill with modern technology. I never understood why my father didn’t like using it, but I knew that my father is thankful that the phone was the only area of technology that he had to be around.

The final bell rang as I finished up the day’s assignment. I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the bike rack to wait for Elissa, so that we can head out and go home. She should just be getting out of her art class, which happens to be completely on the other side of the campus. Due to this, I knew she would take some time to get here and she would be a long in a few minutes. Elissa is really into her art class, but she also enjoyed computers, not as much I do, but I liked seeing her happy with her classes. She’s very excited about taking the new graphic art class that’s being offered next year, since it is a mix between art and computers. As I finished removing the lock on my bike, I looked up and saw Elissa emerge from the school and coming to the bike area.

“What kept you?” I asked, smiling and knowing full well what kept her.

“Just storing my project for the weekend. It’s looking really good and I don’t want anyone to mess with it.”

“Why you being so overprotective of it?” I asked, knowing she cared a lot about her art projects and was extremely defensive of them. I couldn’t help but wonder if she would be so excited about me.

“It’s important to me,” she told me, smiling and starting to free her bike from the rack.

She saw me looking skeptical, and then added, “Don’t worry. I’ll let you see it when I’m all done.”

“Alright,” I replied, thinking that would most likely never be able to happen.

She giggled when she saw my look as I spoke, the look clearly showed that I didn’t believe her.

“I mean it this time, Zee.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, still not convinced, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

She laughed at what I had just said as she managed to finally free her bicycle from the evil clutches of the rack. Soon, the two of us started on our way over to my house to work on our homework together. Along our trip, as we made our way through the streets of Sausalito and near the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, we could feel the winds starting to pick up and begin to grow ever more intense. As we kept biking, it seemed the sky was ready to have rain fall on us at any moment. The sky was now completely cloudy and also getting darker by the second, we could tell that we didn’t have much time left before the rain came. The moment that we rode into my driveway, we started to hear far off thunder and the rain started to begin to steadily fall.

“Whew,” Elissa said, “that was a close one.”

We quickly put our bikes underneath the overhang on the front porch, so that they could at least be out of the rain. I fumbled in my jean pockets for my keys for a few seconds and after finding them, I quickly opened the door to the house and walked in. We dropped our book bags by the inside of the front door and began removing our coats when we suddenly heard a downpour strike, which could be seen and heard on the doors and windows.

Elissa commented, as she finished taking her coat off, “At least we made it back before that hit.”
I sighed at her as she said that and then said, “C’mon, let’s get working on our homework before tonight’s show.”

She nodded at this and picked up and then quickly tossed my backpack to me before grabbing hers again. The two of us went into the living room to get comfortable enough to work and pulled out our binders and textbooks; and we started to work on our homework for US History. Our assignment was definitely interesting, that is to say the least. It was quite an odd project and neither of us knew what to do. The teacher had assigned the class to come up with a way of presenting the American Revolution in an interesting and different way, so that we could have fun while learning and researching for the assignment. Elissa and I sat on the couch as we tried to brainstorm ideas for a while, but we just wound up becoming extremely frustrated and quickly annoyed with what we should do.

After about an hour or two of trying to wrap our heads around this odd assignment and also trying to figure out a project idea, Elissa finally sighed, laid down on the couch, and said, “At least we have a week to do this.”

I laughed at her ability to not worry and wait until the very last minute, and said, “Yeah, but I don’t want to wait until the very last minute like we did last time. Remember all the stress and problems that caused?”

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” she retorted.

We continued to trade ideas back and forth with each other for a while longer, and as we did this, we could hear the storm thrashing about outside. The storm was oddly comforting, and seemed to help us think of some ideas. Some of our ideas included making a game similar to Risk for the project. Another idea that we thought of played with the notion of “What could have been?,” a game or idea that brought into account of what would have happened if the colonists successfully invaded Canada, or the French never entered the war on the side of the Americans. It gave us the ability to work out what might have changed and been different for the country and history.

A loud thunderclap echoed through the house and a bright flash shone through the windows. Elissa and I both jumped from our seats when we heard the thunder. I heard the front door open and shut itself and I quickly climbed off the couch to see if my dad was there. Turning the corner, I saw he was indeed there and holding a couple of pizza boxes with him.

“Need a hand?” I asked as I showed myself to him and not just poke my head out.

He looked at me and smiled. “Yes, would you put these in the kitchen?”

I took the pizzas from him and took them to the kitchen. I grabbed a few plates from out of the cupboard, along with a few napkins. Elissa and my father shortly came about a minute or so later.

My dad looked a bit wet from the storm, and he sighed as he entered. From my point of view, he looked a little distressed.

“Everything okay?” I asked trying to read him.

He looked up from the pepperoni pizza the he happened to be taking a slice from and replied, “Yeah, I had a busy day, today.”

“Okay, did you get everything that Elissa and I are going to need for tonight?”

He nodded, as we ate the pizza. “I’m proud that you decided to do that for the talent show tonight.”

“I never thought that doing a single magic trick would be so much work, Mr. Zatara,” Elissa added.

“It is a lot of work, but so are a lot of things in life,” my dad replied.

She nodded as she understood and then she grabbed another slice of pepperoni to eat, while I pulled three Pepsis out of the refrigerator for us to drink.

Elissa, after popping the top of her soda can, said, “So, are we going to be in costume?”

I nodded, and replied, “Yup, yours is on your bed.”

Elissa often stayed over with us, and used one of the spare bedrooms. We pretty much made that her room.
“Okay, but if you put me in a strip of fabric, I’m going to kick your butt,” she replied, as she was eating her food.

I had a moment of a guilty conscience when she said that, but I hoped that she would forgive me for what I picked out for her to wear at the talent show tonight.

After dinner, the two of us got ready for the talent show at the school. The show was a little contest that the student council was putting on and the winner would receive a small cash prize. Elissa and I decided to do a magic show, since I knew a few of my father’s tricks. I reluctantly agreed to Elissa making me do this, since I don’t think that I’m good enough to perform. However, she enlisted the aid of my dad, and they managed to force me to admit that I had some talent at it and so we were doing a magic show.

The both of us had decided that we wanted to dress the part of magician and assistant, so I went to an old costume shop, where they had the costumes for such an act. They had better magician costumes than assistants, so I tried to pick something out that Elissa wouldn’t have too much of a gripe about, I hoped. However, as I slipped the belt through the slots on the pair of slacks that I was wearing as a part of my magician’s outfit, I hear a series of pounding knocks on my door.

“Zane!” I heard Elissa scream.

I face palmed myself, groaned, and reluctantly opened the door. As I did this I thought, ‘I might as well get this over with.’

As I finishing opening the door, I saw Elissa in the outfit that I had picked out for her, as a magician’s assistant. She wore a green leotard with sparkles and a pair of dark pantyhose over her legs. She was holding the two-inch green heels in her hand, while she had the other on her hip.

“Care to explain this?” Elissa replied, fuming.

“I thought the green would go well with your hair,” I replied, trying to defuse the situation and make her happy.

She grumbled, “I look like a freaking Vegas showgirl!”

“I’m sorry, Elissa,” I said, as I buttoned up the white dress shirt. “I just wanted something that would fit the act, and distract the audience for me.”

Elissa still looked unconvinced after I said that, so I continued, “I’m sorry, I guess I just got a little carried away with getting everything perfect for our first stage performance. At least it’s just a little bit shinier than a swimsuit.”

Elissa sighed and then said, “Fine, I’ll wear it. But, payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

I threw the magician’s jacket over my arm, and then we went downstairs to climb into the car to travel back to school for the talent show. I think I had settled Elissa’s nerves, but I wasn’t too sure about my own. I did notice she played with her outfit a little too much and it made me know I wasn’t the only nervous one.

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The crowd in the auditorium applauded as a young man just completed his ventriloquist act. I was watching from backstage, my stomach was full of nerves and butterflies. I kept looking at a nearby mirror and was fidgeting with my costume. In the distance, I could hear Mozart being played on a violin. I knew that I would be up next, as I was part of the final show, since I was performing five different magic tricks.

After I had finished that last round of fidgeting with my costume, I began to pace around the backstage area. I could see my dad talking with the stagehands, as he was making sure that they didn’t damage the stuff that I would be using in my act. I saw Elissa walking over to me, I couldn’t help bu think that she looks pretty good in the magician’s assistant costume that I picked out for her, part of me wished I had chosen something bit more revealing, even though she would have never wore it. I noticed that she was a lot taller than me, as she walked in those heels. She was normally about 5’ 4”, six inches taller than me. With those heels, she’s now towering over me now.

“Are you doing okay, Zee?” she asked, seeing that I was a nervous wreck.

“I’m nervous as hell, Elissa. What if I screw up on some part of the trick and it doesn’t work? What if I’m laughed off the stage? What if–”

She put her finger up to my mouth and I became quiet. She then said, “Relax, Zee. We’ve practiced this act for months, you should be able to do this in your sleep now.”

“But–,” I started again

“But, nothing,” she cut me off. “If anyone should be nervous, it should be me. Look at what I’m wearing, with all the blushing I’m going to look like a tomato.”

I sighed, and said, “A cute one though.”

She playfully smacked me and laughed, “We can do this. Everthing will be okay.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

We heard a round of applause just after the Mozart piece was completed. I took another deep breath, and approached the place where I would be heading on stage from. I saw the violinist leave stage right and the principal of my school, John Wilson, approach the microphone.

He said to the crowd, “That was a wonderful piece of music played for us, and now it’s time to watch our final act of the school’s talent show. ‘A Touch of Magic’ will be performed by Zane Zatara and his assistant, Elissa Fairchild.”

The crowd applauded politely, as I walked out on to the stage. I saw all of them looking up at me with anticipation, and I tried to remember what I had planned to say. I was all mic’ed up too, so they could hear anything I said. I was still very nervous about performing in front of others, so I tried to imagine that I was back at home, like Elissa suggested.

“Now, I wonder where my lovely assistant is?” I said aloud. I had decided to imitate some of my dad’s performance in the way he said things.

A guy dressed in a mover’s outfit wheeled a tall, three-part box onto the stage. He then said, “Excuse me, sir, this just arrived for you.”

“Thanks, maybe it’s the more reliable assistant I ordered.”

I got a muted laugh for the joke. Off to a good start, I thought.

The mover set the box down in the middle of the stage and took the dolly away. I walked over to the box and opened the three doors on the sections of it.

“Hmm…,” I said. “One box, three doors….”

I closed all the doors and started pacing around in front of it on the stage. A few seconds later, there was a knock coming from the box. I looked at the box, and then at the audience.

“Did you hear that?” as I asked this I looked out in the crowd and saw a good amount of the audience nodding their heads.

I walked over to the box and I opened the bottom box saw a pair of legs and feet just standing there. I opened the top box and saw Elissa’s torso and the hand that did the knocking, waving out of it. I then opened the middle box and there was Elissa’s head sitting there, looking at me.

“Hey, Zee. Mind giving me a hand here?” Elissa’s head spoke to me.

“Sure, I can help you, I hope. Let’s see if I can put you back together again.”

I closed all the boxes and took the top one off and placed it on the ground. I removed the middle box, and set it next to the first, and then put the first one in its place. I then attached the other box to the top of it. After they were in place in what I thought was the right order, and I opened the doors and saw something that didn’t look right, her feet were now on top, but her midsection was in the right place. I opened the bottom door, and saw her head down there.

“Did you forget something?” she asked.

I smacked my head as I remembered, “Oh yeah!”

I closed all the boxes again, and this time spun in around three times and tapped the box with the wand that I pulled out of my jacket. I then opened the three doors.

Elissa stood there, with her hands on her hips and walked out, “Thanks for putting me back together; I was having problems telling which way was which.”

The audience laughed more for her than me. We both walked towards the audience and took a small bow. After doing that first trick for them, I was starting to have a lot more fun with doing this now. Being up in front of people didn’t seem so bad anymore. But, I was still worried about embarrassing myself if I made a mistake during the performance. Although, having Elissa next to me made it all better.

“For this next part I’m going to need a volunteer from the audience,” I said into the crowd.

A large number of hands rose from the crowd, and I selected a guy from the third row.

“Let’s give him a nice applause for being brave enough to volunteer,” I said, with the audience cheering for him.

I pulled a pack of cards out of a jacket pocket as he came up on to the stage. I took the cards out of the box, and handed the deck to the young man.

“What’s your name?”

“Uhh…Jason.”

“Now for my next trick. Please feel free to check the deck for anything out of the ordinary,” I said.

He fanned the cards, looked them over, and then handed them back to me.

I then shuffled the deck, and then fanned the cards to him. “Pick a card, any card.”

He pulled a card out of the deck, and looked at it.

“Feel free to show it to the audience,” I said, which he did. “Now, place it on top of the deck.”

After he placed the card, I said, “Now Jason, I’m going to cut the deck, and then you are going to help me out with this next part, okay?”

“Okay, how?” he asked.

“Hold out your hand, and hold the cards, loosely. Use your other hand to steady the deck.”

He did so, holding out his hand, as I placed the deck standing up in the palm of his hand.

“Now, I’m going to command the deck to push your card out of it.”

“Yeah, right,” Jason replied, thinking that it wouldn’t work.

“No, watch.”

I then waved my hands by the deck, and then, slowly, but surely, a card began to rise from the deck. I pointed at it and said, “Is that your card, the ace of spades, perhaps?”

He looked surprised and shocked, and then said, “How’d you do that?”

I simply smiled and winked at him. I then said, “Let’s give him a nice round of applause for helping me out.”

The crowd applauded again, and Elissa then walked over to me holding a handkerchief and a chain shackle.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked her.

“I want to see if you can get this escape like Houdini,” she said, teasingly to me.

She demonstrated the padlocks and chains on either end of the shackle, as well as the strength of the metal that connected the two together, but left a good deal of space between the two hands.

“You, sir, in the front row,” Elissa said, pointing to a young gentleman sitting next to someone in a
cheerleader’s uniform.

“Me?” he said.

“Yes, would you come up here and help me lock this guy up for trying to play magician?”

He laughed evilly, and then walked up on to the stage.

Elissa then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Steve.”

“Well, Steve, would you care to inspect the shackles?”

Steve nodded and inspected the chains, the locks and the metal of the chain shackle, and the wrapped the chains around my wrists and padlocked them.

“Make sure you have the keys,” Elissa said as she handed them to him.

Steve put the two keys into one of the pockets in his jeans and said, “Let’s see you get out of that, you little dweeb.”

I rolled my eyes at that comments, and tried in vain to try to get out of the shackles by trying to force them. He just stood there and laughed at me. I think this guy didn’t like me a whole lot for some reason. Elissa covered my hands as I tried to break free from the shackles.

As Steve was just standing there laughing, I reached with my right hand and pulled him closer to me, as
though my hand wasn’t in the shackle. He did a double-take and pulled the handkerchief off my hands.

“I’m still shackled here,” I said, proving it again by having my hands try to force their way out of the
shackles. “See? They’re nice and tight.”

He grumbled and then replaced the handkerchief. The sounds of the chain echoed in the room again. The handkerchief started to slip down one of my hands and I quickly replaced it with one of my hands, which again appeared free of the chain.

Before he could say or do anything, I pulled him closer with the other hand, which seemed be free of the handcuffed shackles. He pulled the handkerchief off of my hands again, showing that my hands were still shackled.

“Is something wrong?” I said, with a note of concern in my voice. “I’m still stuck here.”

The audience laughed lightly while he grumbled again and then replaced the handkerchief. The chains made their noise again as I worked to get out of the shackles and then I flipped the handkerchief down, holding the chain shackle in the other hand.

The audience broke out in applause and laughter. I thanked the audience member for his help. He begrudgingly handed me the keys to the padlocks, and I handed the chain shackle back to Elissa.

I pointed to the cheerleader who was sitting next to him, and asked her to come up onto the stage. She was rather chipper and excited to be coming up on the stage.

By the time that she got up next to me, I had pulled out a white handkerchief and held it in one of my hands.

I turned to the girl and said, “And who would you be?”

She replied, “My name’s Christina.”

“Christina, would you believe that I can make this float in the air?”

She giggled and then said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Watch.”

I then folded the handkerchief into a scrunched up ball and placed it in my right hand. With my left pointer finger I flicked it above it and acted like I had the handkerchief on a string. After a couple of seconds the handkerchief began to twitch and move around and then it began to rise from my hand by a couple of inches.

The volunteer from the audience opened her mouth wide, and then gasped, “Holy….”

“How about something prettier?”

She gave me a blank look, as I unfolded the handkerchief and begun to refold it tightly and into a unique pattern.

“What’re you doing?” she asked, trying to figure it out as I worked.

“This,” I said, holding up a flower.

I then placed the flower in my hand and placed my other hand over it. With that hand I motioned like I was controlling a wooden puppet and the flower rose from my hand, stood upright, and hovered above my hand for a bit. I then rotated my hands around the flower, and let them fall away.

The crowd gasped as the flower just hovered there, seemingly without any support whatsoever.

“How are you doing that?” Christina the cheerleader asked, with a look of shock on her face.

“Magic, of course,” I replied. “Now for some fireworks.”

I pulled out a lighter and lit the folded flower on fire. It burst into a tiny flame. I reached in and pulled out a delicate rose and presented it to the cheerleader.

“A token, of my appreciation for a lovely volunteer,” I said, as I lightly bowed to her as she took the rose.

The crowd burst into applause, and the young lady went back to take her seat. The guy she sat next to seemed to grumble, clearly not liking me giving her that flower.

I turned around and saw that Elissa, along with the help of the mover, had wheeled out a different box than the one she arrived in and bunch of swords. As they were setting up the last trick of the act, I turned to the audience and said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I enter this box and make myself disappear.
And, if that weren’t tricky enough, my lovely assistant will pierce the box with those swords. If I’m not able to get out of the box, you will see me skewered like a kabob when she opens it.”

The audience laughed at that little joke I threw in. I took a deep breath, bowed to the audience and stepped into the box. Elissa closed the box after me, and locked it tightly with the padlock. I could see the light filtering in through the slits where the swords would go. I tried my best to keep my breathing steady, as this was the trickiest illusion that I knew how to do. I knew that Elissa and I were as nervous as hell.

A few seconds later, as Elissa was performing the routine outside, I saw the first sword pierce the top of the box. I quickly began what I had to do get out of the box before I really did become a kabob.

Before I went out of the box, I heard a loud scream and the next thing I knew a sword came into the box at the wrong angle. I felt it pierce my gut and I cried out in pain. The box quickly opened, and I saw the audience looking at me and I figure out that something had definitely gone wrong with the illusion. I grasped my side where the sword had pierced me and saw the blood trickle out of the wound. I wondered what had happened as I collapsed to the ground. As I was blacking out from the excruciating pain, I was thinking that I was going to die.