Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power (13 page)

Eliza glared at him. “No, no, no!” she said. “Nothing like that.” She stared miserably ahead at the dashboard. It was half a minute before she spoke again.

“The buffalos have to be wearing diapers. Happy now?”
The three other kids, having promised not to laugh, did everything they could to contain themselves.

“Ohhhhh,” said Ricky solemnly, but the “ohhh” soon fell apart into a paroxysm of coughing that was designed to mask his giggling. Abby, trying desperately to conceal her huge grin, covered her face with her arm as she pretended to scratch her opposite ear.

Ben tried to think sad thoughts, tried to focus on the scenery, tried to hold his breath—but he couldn't hold it. A weird sort of noise exploded out of him, sort of a cross between a laugh and a loud burp.

Eliza glared at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Okay, so . . .” Ricky was biting the sides of his tongue, hoping that the pain would stop him from laughing about a herd of backward-walking buffalos wearing diapers. He cleared his throat loudly several times, but his stomach was tense and quivering with the suppressed laughter.

Abby, who had managed to pull herself together, tried to change the subject, at least slightly. “That's really amazing, Eliza. Seriously. How did you ever discover your power?”

Eliza sighed. “It was a TV show called
The Ren and Stimpy Show
, this really, really old cartoon from a long time ago. My parents had it on a videotape. Sometimes they'd put
on these tapes for my brother and me when they wanted to get us out of their hair for a while.

“Anyway, they put this one tape in the VCR, and we watched it, and there was a part with these baby buffalos, and they were all wearing diapers. It was pretty funny, actually.”

“But they were walking backward?”

“No, no, they were walking normally,” Eliza responded. “But my brother wanted to go back and show me his favorite part again. So he was rewinding the VCR, you know, scanning backward, and that makes it play in reverse. So it looked like all these buffalos in diapers were walking backward. And suddenly I just—I just floated up off the couch. Just a little tiny bit. But it felt
so
freaky, and it was so unexpected, that I, like, screamed a little. And my brother's like, ‘Cut it out, Lize.' And I'm like, ‘I can't help it! Did you see that?' And he's like, ‘What?' And so I realized that it happened to me, but not to him. So I didn't want him to know. So I said, ‘That buffalo part. I love that.' He had barely even noticed it.”

Abby was surprised that Eliza was talking so much. Until this moment, she hadn't heard Eliza say more than a couple sentences at a time.

“Anyway, now my brother starts scanning
forward,
to get to the buffalo scene again. And I sank back into the couch.
And he hits Play and he's like, ‘What, this part?' And I'm like, ‘Yeah—isn't that hilarious?' And he goes, ‘Whatever.' And he hits Rewind again. So now the buffalos are all walking backward again, and I'm thinking about it again, and up I go!

“So I'm a little freaked out, so I go upstairs to my room. But on the stairs, I'm thinking about what just happened. And I'm remembering that it only happened when my brother was rewinding through that one scene. And every time I thought about that scene, it would happen
again!
I actually levitated right there on the stairs. I mean, you know. A tiny bit. But I lost my balance. I almost fell over and cracked my head open!”

It was about the most bizarre story Abby had ever, ever heard.

“So you never told anyone?”

Eliza shook her head. “Practically nobody.” And she left it at that.

“Hey,” Ben said. “Can we—can we see? I mean, can you show us?” He shot a glance at Abby for support.

“Forget it,” snapped Eliza. “I don't do it on command. I'm not a trained dog.”

“Aw, come on,” said Ricky. “I showed you mine!”

“And I'll show you mine as soon as we get, you know, some eggs,” added Abby.

“That's a No.” Eliza was firm. “It's not gonna happen.”

But Ben had a twinkle in his eye. “So your trigger is just picturing—you know, that one particular image of that certain animal dressed—that certain way?”

“Yes! I told you.”

“And every time you think of it, you levitate?”

“Yes. What's your point?”

“So to make you levitate, all we'd have to do is get you to think about that certain subject?”

Eliza turned to face him. “Yes, but you can't. I'm too good. I've learned to think about other things.”

Ben held up a notebook, open to a page.

“Even if I showed you this?”

You couldn't
really
tell whether his drawing showed buffalos, cows, hamsters, or what; Ben was a terrible artist. But it was clear that whatever they were, they had something diaper-ish wrapped around their hind legs. And he'd drawn a huge 3-D arrow pointing away from them, as though to suggest that they were walking backward.

Let's put it this way: if you'd just been talking for twenty minutes about buffalos walking backward, and now you were trying
not
to think about that, seeing Ben's drawing would definitely make you think about it again.

If you were watching closely, you could have seen
Eliza's entire body pop up. Not a lot—just enough to look as though she were a marionette whose strings had just been jerked a bit.

“Hey!” Eliza shouted, grabbing the seat in front of her for support.

“Abby! Here!” Ben tossed his notebook over the seat to her.

Abby knew right away what it was for. She smiled, grabbed the notebook, and slid it along the seat toward Eliza. And sure enough: it slid freely and easily under Eliza's rear end.

It was the easiest science project Abby had ever done.

“It's true, folks,” she announced. “Nothing under Eliza right now but thin air.”

It didn't take long for Eliza to start thinking about something else besides animals in potty training. In a blink, she sank right back down onto the seat, pinning the notebook under her.

She glared around the van. “That was
not
cool,” she seethed. She yanked Ben's notebook out from under her and angrily threw it at him. It hit him in the forehead.

Abby didn't like Eliza much, but she didn't feel good about making her upset, either.

“I'm sorry, Eliza,” she said sincerely. “We shouldn't have done that.”

Ben rubbed his forehead and put his slightly mushed notebook back in his backpack. “Me, too. Sorry.”

“It's kinda neat, though,” said Ricky enthusiastically. (There was almost nothing Ricky ever said that
didn't
sound enthusiastic.) “You can do your power just by thinking about it.”

“And it's a great power, too,” said Abby encouragingly. “It's a lot more useful than spinning an egg.”

“Or fogging up glass,” added Ricky.

“Or flipping a key,” Ben pointed out.

This last point seemed to interest Eliza.

“What do you mean, flipping a key?” she said, calming down at last.

“Is that your power?” asked Ricky. “Can I see?”

Abby looked back at Ben, alarmed. She was under the impression that Ben did not, in fact, have any special power at all. In fact, she had absolutely no idea what he was doing in the van.

“B
EN.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE
?
”

Abby had managed to keep her mouth shut for what had seemed like two years in that van. She was smart enough to recognize that Ben was up to something—and to keep her own mouth shut. But she couldn't wait to talk to him in private.

She finally got her chance. Ferd had spotted a Sushi Shack, his favorite fast-food restaurant, just off the highway, and announced that it was definitely time for dinner. For two reasons: first, Ferd was hungry.

Second, Ricky was getting carsick.

But it wasn't until they had slid into the plastic booths in the Sushi Shack and placed their orders that Abby finally
saw her opportunity. Ben got up to visit the men's room, so Abby excused herself and left the table at the same time.

She cornered Ben right by the goldfish tanks on his way back from the bathroom and whispered as loudly as she dared.

“Ben.
What are you doing here?
”

He pretended not to know what she meant. “Well, I was sort of hoping to enjoy some slabs of raw fish.”

“Come on! You know what I mean. Why are you part of this group? Ricky and Eliza and I all have these—these dumb little powers. But you . . . you told me that you don't! You said you're just a magician! You said you didn't even believe that there's . . . you know, real magic, or whatever.”

Ben leaned back against the glass of the aquarium. “What can I say? I lied.”

“You lied? What do you mean? To me?”

“No, not to you. To Ferd.”

Abby was shocked. “You mean, he thinks your key trick is an actual power?”

“Hey—it fooled you, remember?” Ben wiggled his eyebrows. “After I heard about your invitation to super camp, I kind of showed off my key trick to a kid at lunch at the same table where Ferd was eating. He took me aside afterward
and asked me if I'd share how I did it. And so I said what I always said.”

“That even you don't know how you do it.”

Ben nodded. “Yep. Once you'd told me about getting invited to the super camp, I kind of knew what to say already. I knew what Ferd was going to suggest.”

“But why? I mean, why did you want to come?”

“Are you kidding? 'Cuz it's fun! See the world a little! Get out of camp for a little while. Hang out with you. You know, find out what happens at the camp for magician freaks.” He looked very pleased with himself.

Abby still wasn't comfortable with the whole thing. “But what if you get caught?” she asked.

“What if I do?” He shrugged. “They'll send me back to camp, I guess. What else can they do?”

Abby couldn't believe that he'd do anything so risky. She looked down at the floor.

“They're probably gonna find out, Ben.”

Ben shrugged. “So what? It'll be fun while it lasts. Let's see how long we can stay on this ride. You're not gonna tell, are you?”

She shook her head no.

“Okay, then. We're partners with a secret, right? Come on, let's go back to the table. My California rolls are getting cold.”

They made their way back to the table and rejoined the others. Everyone was eating sushi except Eliza, who said she was allergic.

(“To fish?” Ricky had said.

“No, to rice.” She had a hot dog instead.)

Ferd had just piled a chunk of wasabi onto his tuna roll and was preparing to slam the whole thing into his mouth when Abby and Ben returned.

“Aha, they're back,” he said. “We were just talking about you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ben said, sitting down. “Only nice things, I'm sure.”

“Everyone's told their stories except you,” Eliza said accusingly. “You practically haven't said a word since we crossed the New York state line.”

Ben smiled. “I'm a man of few words. What can I say?”

“I wanna see his power,” said Ricky. There was a single grain of white rice stuck to his cheek, which bobbed up and down whenever he spoke.

“I don't know. It's kind of dumb,” Ben said modestly.

“It's not dumb,” said Abby encouragingly. “Just show 'em.”

Eliza shot her a suspicious look. “You've seen it?”

Abby nodded. “I met Ben the first day of camp.”

“Okay, then, let's see your trick. You've already seen
mine,
” she added dryly.

Ben fished in his pocket for the car key he always used. He held out his flat palm. “Can everyone see okay?”

Everyone could.

He put the key flat on his hand and said the words Abby had heard before. “I'm not going to touch this key. I'm not going to blow on it. No strings attached. All it is . . . is a momentary flux of gravity.”

And he squeezed one eye shut. Ricky gave a little gasp as the key slowly, visibly lifted up on its edge and then fell over on its back.

“Wow, that is
wicked,”
breathed Ricky. “You could use that as a real magic trick, you know? It's not like our powers, like, totally pointless. That one, you could do in a show.”

“I do, actually,” said Ben. “I've been doing magic shows since I was nine. I do a lot of birthday parties.”

Eliza was studying him carefully. “So you were into magic
before
you discovered you had a power?”

“No, not really,” Ben replied. “I've been able to move the key like that since I was about seven years old.”

Abby noticed how he was choosing his words carefully. Clearly, Ben didn't want to just come right out and lie, yet he did want the others to keep thinking that his power was real.

“And what's your trigger, exactly?” asked Eliza, probing.

“It's that thing with your eye, right?” asked Ricky, proud of himself for noticing. “When you squint your eye, that's what makes it turn over.”

Ben smiled, but Abby sensed that he was getting uncomfortable with his game of pretending. She stepped in to help.

“Yeah, exactly,” she said, nominating herself to be his official spokesperson. “Ben, you probably have the least weird trigger of anyone here.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he answered with a grateful half smile.

“From whence do you hail, Ben?” chimed in Ferd.

Ben looked at him blankly. Ferd rolled his eyes and then asked a different way: “Where are you from?”

“New Jersey,” he said. “But we've moved around a lot for my dad's job.”

Abby suddenly realized that she didn't know much about Ben's background at all. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.