The Morning of the Show

The sunlight coming through Danny’s bedroom window woke him from his sleep at the same time his mother was calling to him. “Danny get up, time to get up, you don’t want to be late for school,” yelled his mother. Danny knew he did not have to get up just because his mother was calling for him to wake up. Today was special, most mornings his mother had to yell for him to get up for at least a few minutes, before Danny would answer or get out of bed. Danny would yell back every time he heard her, “Yeah Mom I hear you I'm up already.”

However, this morning when Danny heard his mother yell for him to get up, he was already jumping out of the bed. His blanket went flying through the air as he bolted up. Danny’s feet hit the floor before the blanket landed half way on the bed and the floor in a heap. Danny certainly had a special purpose for this morning and he was not going to be late for school today. Danny was very excited to get to school today, because a performance of a Halloween magic show in the school auditorium was after lunch today.

Danny had been looking forward to seeing the show for the past two weeks, ever since he saw the poster outside of the schools office on the bulletin board. Danny was in the fifth grade at Thomas Jefferson elementary school and was interested in magic ever since he could remember. Danny’s main interest was magic card tricks and illusions. Danny tried to watch every magician act that came on TV he could. Danny would go to the library and take out every book on card tricks that he could find and then he would perform them for his parents and his friends. Danny was able to do quite a few card tricks very well. Danny really liked the ones that would leave people wondering how he did that. Danny also learned that if he did one trick too many times no matter how well he performed the trick, he ran the chance of the audience figuring it out.

Danny hurriedly took off his pajamas tossing them on the bed as he ran over to his dresser and took out a clean set of clothes. He got dressed as if he was a firefighter responding to a raging fire. All dressed Danny ran to the bathroom and cleaned up. He splashed water on his face. Combed his hair and brushed his teeth. He ran back to his bedroom to make his bed. The order in which Danny did things this morning was a bit out of his normal routine. Getting dressed before he cleaned up and brushing his teeth before he ate breakfast. He figured he would save lots of time if he did all of these things at once. Danny picked up his pajamas, bundled them up in a lopsided clump, and quickly shoved them under his pillow. He picked up the blanket off the floor and snapped it over the bed a few times until it floated down almost covering the mattress. “There, that looks Ok to me,” Danny said as he raced out of the bedroom.

“Danny, your breakfast is on the table for you.” “Ok Mom, I'll be right there.” Danny ran into the kitchen almost knocking into his Mom. “Danny, be careful what’s the rush this morning?” asked his mother. “The Halloween magic show is today Mom, I can't be late for school today.” “Oh, I see, well you have plenty of time before school and the magic show starts, so just sit down and eat your breakfast,” said Danny’s mother.

Danny’s mother was tall and had long dark hair. She was little older than the rest of his friends parents but she did not look any older. Danny’s mother did not have a full time job. Every year before the holidays, she would work part time as seasonal help at one of the local department stores. The rest of the year, she was always home cleaning, cooking, baking and taking care of Danny and her husband.Danny was too excited to eat breakfast this morning. All he did was sit at the table and moved the cereal around in the bowl of milk rapidly with his spoon. Every now and then, he would eat a spoonful of the cereal. He was much too eager to get to school as soon as he could. He looked at the clock above the kitchen sink. “Mom, is that clock right? I think it’s slow or broken,” said Danny nervously. “The clock is working just fine dear, you are just way ahead of your normal time this morning,” his mother reassured.

Danny still had fifteen minutes before it was time to leave. As Danny sat at the table killing time, he looked out the kitchen window across the back yard past the vegetable garden to the farthest section of the yard. Danny was looking at the tree fort he and his friends had built last year. He was imagining playing in the fort with his friends and visualizing the fun, he had this summer playing in it.

Danny’s back yard had four big oak trees in the back yard. Two of the oaks trees were very large and close to the house. Once during a big thunderstorm a few years ago, one of the branches broke off and crashed through their kitchen window. Since then every time a bad storm was coming my mother would keep everyone all out of the kitchen for fear that another branch would break off and fly through the big window, or the whole tree would fall down and crash into the kitchen.The other two oak trees were at the end of the yard. Danny and his friend decided to build the fort on one of those two. They chose the oak that was closest to the alley, because of the shape of the branches. The trunk of the tree went up for about six or seven feet and split off into three sections. This section formed a nice cradle, which they were able to nail some boards to make the floor of the tree fort.

The trunks then continued to go upward. Two of the trunks were close enough together to nail more boards on them to make one wall. There were no other walls, because the gaps were too large and they did not have any more long boards. The tree fort was not really, what you would expect a real fort to be like. An old frontier fort, one with high walls made of sharpened logs standing on end all linked together with canon towers on every corner and a strong gate to keep out intruders. To them the fort was perfect. They just imagined having all of that.

They used the rest of the left over scrap wood to make a ladder. These were smaller pieces just big enough to get a foothold to climb. Danny nailed the boards into the trunk spacing them about every foot apart until they could reach the floor of the fort. The tree fort was only about seven feet off the ground but to them, that seemed very high up. When Danny and his friends played in the tree fort, they imagined it was huge and impenetrable. Danny and his friends won many battles fending fending off enemy troops, monsters, and other intruders they could conjure up. Besides defending the fort, a lot of time was spent reading comic books and eating snacks in the fort.

Danny looked past the fort and into the yard and a house beyond the alley. This was Cindy and Lacey’s house. Their house was a very large modern style ranch without a basement. Danny’s house was a little smaller and called a raised ranch with a full basement. Danny could see their back door and was waiting for the two girls to come out of their house. Some days when the weather was bad Cindy and Lacey’s mother would drive them to school. On nice days they walked together down the alley to the school that was only two blocks away.Danny’s mother did not drive the family car much, they only had one car and his dad drove it the most. He thought how cool that their mother had her own car. Their Mom’s car was black, shiny, brand new and had leather seats. Danny only rode in it a couple of times when it was raining very hard. The inside of their car smelled like new shoes or a new belt and you could feel no bumps, unlike his dad’s car that smelled of fast food and coffee. His dad’s car was a bit older and every bump the car hit made squeaky noises from beneath it. When the car hit bigger bumps, you could feel them inside of the car as well.

Danny was getting bored just sitting and waiting for Cindy to come out of her house as he dangled his spoon in the cereal slowly moving the floating bits of wheat flakes around in the milk. Waiting is especially hard to do when you are excited about having something else to do. Time goes by so slowly.

Cindy was same age as Danny and one of his closest friends. Cindy had long light brown hair and green eyes. Cindy always wore her hair in a ponytail with a different colorful tie around the base every day. She was not like Danny’s boyfriends and she did not play with Danny when it was just the guys, but they always got along very well when they were together. They could talk together about things your own friends might laugh about or make fun of each other for even mentioning certain things. When they were together, they would play cards or board games. Cindy was always eager to see any new magic tricks Danny learned and if he messed it up, she would patiently wait for him to get it right and still be sincerely amazed with the trick. Sometimes after school they would do homework together, or just sit on the swing set and talk about many things.

Just as Danny brought a spoonful of cereal up to his mouth, he glanced out the window. He noticed the back door of Cindy’s house open and saw Cindy come outside on her patio. Danny pushed himself away from the table, jumped up and yelled to His Mom, “Bye, I see Cindy outside now, I’m going to school.” Danny opened up the kitchen door and jumped over the three stairs down to the landing by the back door. Danny loved hitting the landing with both feet firmly, which made a heavy sound that shook the whole house. Danny opened the doors and ran outside in a flash. “Ok, and don’t let the screen door slam you know the spring is broken and it...” that is all Danny heard as the screen door to our house slammed shut with a sharp bang.

The morning fall air was a bit crisp as Danny ran across his back yard. The large oak leaves and acorns where crunching under his feet. He ran right up to Cindy who was still standing on the patio. “Hi Danny,” Cindy said, with a big smile. “We have to wait for Lacey, she is still getting ready.” “Oh great, of all the days for her to be pokey, Lacey has to pick today to take her time,” said Danny. “Don’t worry she won’t be long,” said Cindy. Danny blurted out, “You do know what today is don’t you? Today is the Halloween magic show at school, how can your sister be late on this of all days?” “Danny the magic show is not until after lunchtime, so we have plenty of time. Besides Lacey is always late,” said Cindy. “Yeah you’re right, but she still had better hurry up. Maybe you should go holler for her, I do not want to take any chances today,” said Danny impatiently.

Lacey was Cindy’s younger sister by one year. Lacey had medium brown wavy hair and bright grey eyes. She had smaller features then Cindy and was a bit shorter and very thin. “No, if I do that she will only take more time just to aggravate us, you know how she is,” said Cindy. “Yeah I guess you’re right, but she better hurry up, or we’ll just leave without her,” said Danny. Lacey was unique and very opinionated. She always acted as if she was smarter than everybody was. No matter what you were talking about she would always butt in and have her say about it. “Well we might as well sit and wait for Lacey to come out,” said Cindy.

By the back door of Cindy’s house was a driveway that came off the alley. Just off the driveway was a concrete patio. On the patio was a barbeque grill, picnic table, and chairs. Danny and Cindy decided to sit at the table and wait for Lacey to come out. They watched the squirrels run about digging in the yard. “Aren’t they cute?” asked Cindy. There were always quite a lot of squirrels in our yards probably because of the many oak trees around. You would see them every day running about digging holes in the ground and burying acorns.

The squirrels were always climbing the trees jumping from branch to branch, scurrying along on the telephone wires then hoping back into the trees. Occasionally Danny’s dad would throw a few ears of dried corn in the back yard for them to eat. Danny enjoyed watching them hold the whole ear in their paws biting off the kernels and stuffing them in their cheeks until their checks stretched out so much they looked like they would explode.
What bugged Danny the most about the squirrels was when you were walking past a tree and a squirrel was clinging to the other side of the trunk and just as you approached the tree it would startle the little animal and it would zip around to the other side of the trunk very fast and run up the tree. The sound of the squirrel’s claws scraping and scratching the bark always made Danny jump.

“Cute? Not really,” Danny said. “Yes, they are and I would love to have one as a pet,” said Cindy. “You can’t have a squirrel as a pet. They would bite you, see those sharp teeth?” “Danny, I feed them all the time. They take food from of my hand. They are friendly and would never bite me.” “Well maybe you’ve been lucky so far. My Dad said don’t get close to them they’ll bite you.” “No they would not.” They went on like this until Lacey came out of the house. “Finally, here comes little miss special,” Danny said with a sigh of relief. “Come on, let’s get going.” “Good morning Danny,” said Lacey slowly as she gave him a big smile. “Morning yourself, slowpoke,” replied Danny trying to hold back asking her why she has to always keep them waiting. “Hey Danny what are you going to be for Halloween?” “You haven’t told me yet, I am going to be witch with a big crooked hat and a magic wand.” Lacey went on talking not giving anyone a chance to answer. This was one of her most annoying habits. Lacey would start talking and ask a question, and then before you could answer the question she was already asking another question or making a new statement.

“I was going to be a princess but I changed my mind. What do you think? Do you think I would make a scary looking witch? Cindy is going to be a cat. A cat, can you believe it? A cat is not even scary. You are supposed to be scary for Halloween.” Lacey would go on like this forever. She did not even give you a chance to answer before she was asking another question. However, Cindy was not in the mood to listen to Lacey carrying on this early, she got up, and started to walk away from her. “Can’t you shut up already?” yelled Cindy as she turned around to look at Lacey. “No one cares what you are going to be for Halloween and besides a cat doesn’t have to be scary. I like cats, and besides everyone picks out being a witch. That is not very original. There will be so many witches it will be a witch convention on Halloween night and you will just blend in with all of them, so there.”

“Well, I will be the best witch of them all cause I'm going to carry a wand that glows instead of a broom and every one will think you look really stupid as a little fluffy cat, meow, meow, meow, how dumb,” replied Lacey. “Oh, you’re impossible,” moaned Cindy as she put both hands up to her head while shaking her head from side to side. Lacey had a way of always contradicting or correcting whatever anyone said which was annoying mostly all of the time. The only way to stop her was to agree with, ignore, or just walk away from her.

Turning away from Lacey, Cindy saw her neighbor Mrs. Hall stepping outside of her house. “Hello, Mrs. Hall,” yelled Cindy as she approached Mrs. Hall’s house. Mrs. Hall was on her back porch sweeping away leaves that had fallen during the night. Mrs. Hall was an older woman that lived alone. She had silvery white hair that was always wound up neatly in a bun. She had a round figure and she always wore a dress, headscarf, or a large straw hat and apron. Mrs. Hall was a very nice neighbor. The best part was that she would always have chocolate treats, candy, or cookies for everyone to eat when they were outside playing.

“Good morning, children,” said Mrs. Hall in a high pleasant voice. “My, my, don’t you all look so nice this morning. I will be making some special treats for Halloween so be sure to come to get them. Oh Cindy, I have that recipe for your mother. I will be home tonight so just stop by after school today and I will give it to you. Oh, I hear my oven buzzer going off so I have to get back in. You all have a nice day at school today,” said Mrs. Hall with a big smile. “Ok we will, bye, see you later,” yelled Cindy as they both waved goodbye to each other.

Mrs. Hall’s house was the nicest and the biggest house on the block. The house had a very large front porch with large stone pillars in the front that held up the roof of the porch and wood railings painted white all around it. The house was at least three stories high with many different peaks on the roof. All of the windows and doors had ornate trim and decorations on them. The yard was very large, with flower gardens, birdbaths, bird feeders of all types, pretty birdhouses, a squirrel feeder and other yard decorations like sun globes, wind chimes, statues and a beautiful fountain in the center of the garden.

During the spring and summer, her yard had the most beautiful flowers you could imagine. The flowers in her yard were arranged so precisely. so that when one would stop blooming another type would fill the empty space. Mrs. Hall had so many different types of flowers growing from asters to zinnias and ones they had never seen before. She had flowers to attract butterflies and humming birds. The highlight of the yard was a bright blue picket fence about three feet high that encircled the whole yard.

The unique thing about our neighborhood was that no two houses were alike. Some were big like Mrs. Halls and others were plain and simple. Some were two stories high and others were ranch homes with all rooms on one level. Some of the homes were old and built long ago and others were new. Many of the older houses had large porches in the front of them. The newer homes just had concrete steps up to the front doors. There were many types of trees in our neighborhood, very big cottonwoods, maples, ash, oak, willows and elm trees. Some of the trees were very old and some smaller decorative ones that people would plant in their yards. This gave our neighborhood a very pleasant look.

As they started to walk to school, Lacey tried to get more information out of Danny. “So Danny, what are you going to be for Halloween?” asked Lacey. “I really haven’t made up my mind yet,” said Danny. Although Danny already had his costume bought, but he did not want to let her know just because of what she would say about it. “Well you don’t have much time left slowpoke, all of the good costumes will be all gone,” replied Lacey. “Then you’ll have to make a crummy costume up like an old cut up sheet for a ghost or dirty yourself up to look like a hobo or a pirate,” laughed Lacey.

Danny wanted to be a robot this year. Danny’s mother had already bought the costume for Danny about a week ago. The box the costume came in looked awesome. There was a killer drawing of a robot on it with laser guns blasting away. When Danny opened the box, he was very disappointed with what was inside. Instead of a helmet, there was a cheap flimsy robot mask. The entire costume was a cheesy windbreaker material that was all one piece with an opening in the back that you had to step into to put it on. The laser guns were made of cheap plastic that were a sickly pinkish red color. The plastic was so thin it squeezed together when you held them tight. The mask, costume, and lasers looked nothing like the drawing on the box.

The whole thing looked like some little kids costume. Danny argued with his mother to take it back, and get something else for him to wear for Halloween. His mother said that she couldn’t because it was a special clearance item and there were no returns. Danny was so mad at the company that made this thing. How could they get away with making something like this? Danny did find this written on the box in small letters (artist’s conception on box for illustration only actual costume may vary). This was the manufactures escape clause.

“What rotten crooks! These people should go to jail for cheating and deceiving people,” said an angry Danny. Danny didn’t have any other costume in mind that he wanted to wear for Halloween. His mother felt bad. “I’m sorry Danny how could I know what was inside. Well you still have last year’s costume. You could wear that.” “Mom…..its last year’s costume….I can’t wear that again, no one ever wears the same costume two years in a row. Everyone will make fun of me and besides the mask is broke and the costume is all ripped,” explained Danny. “Maybe we could buy a new mask or make one for you Danny, I can sew a little. We could fix up last years and make it look different.” “Mom,,, really? I’ll just get some makeup and go as a homeless person or something else, maybe a pirate,” said a disappointed Danny. “Well a pirate sounds good Danny, I have some old jewelry, hats and a lot of old stuff that I could help you make a fine pirate costume, how’s that sound?” “Ok mom that might just work. I’m already thinking up some good ideas, we’ll have to get working on it soon, cause it’s almost Halloween,” said a happier Danny.

Just then, Tommy and his little brother Mark joined them in the alley. Tommy was Danny’s best friend. He was the friend that helped Danny build the tree fort. Tommy was tall and skinny and had dark hair. Mark, his brother looked just like him only a little shorter. “Hey guys,” yelled Tommy. “Hey,” Danny and the girls replied. “All ready for the magic show today? It’s gonna be so cool,” said Tommy. “Yeah I can’t wait. I hope they cut a woman in half,” said Danny. “Yeah that would be great, better still if it went wrong, blood and guts all over,” said Tommy.

“I know how they do that trick,” butted in Lacey. “They use two very short women. One is already hiding in the box. Then the woman on stage gets inside of the box and curls up her legs. The women who is already in the box sticks her feet out of the end. They both fit in there so when you cut the box in half one of the women is on one end and the other women is on the other end. That’s why they put that metal plate in both sides so you can’t see inside the box.”

“You’re nuts,” said Tommy. “That’s not how it’s done.” “You are,” replied Lacey, “I saw it done on a TV show that showed all of the magic tricks and how they were done.” “No way,” said Danny. “Magicians would not give up their secrets to be shown on TV, if they did that and gave away all of the secrets there wouldn’t be any magic shows anymore cause everyone would know how it’s done.” “Well I know more then you,” said Lacey. “You don’t know anything…” replied Tommy, “Blah, blah, blah,” repeated Tommy as Lacey tried to reply but Tommy had stuck his fingers in his ears and was yelling, “I can’t hear you, blah, blah, blah.”

Everyone was laughing except Lacey who was getting mad now, because she could not get her point across. Lacey and Tommy argued until they approached the front door of the school. “Here we are, see you at lunchtime Cindy,” said Danny. There were two classrooms for fifth grade. Danny and Tommy were in Mrs. Moore’s classroom and Cindy was in Mrs. Rider’s classroom. Lacey was in the fourth grade and was in Mrs. Fillmore’s room. “I sure hope we don’t have any tests today,” said Tommy. “Cause I didn’t study for anything last night.” “Me either,” said Danny. “I couldn’t concentrate on doing any homework last night. I was too excited about the show today.” “I know, I couldn’t either,” said Tommy. Tommy was also interested in magic, but he had difficulty doing card tricks. He wanted to learn more about illusions.

Danny and Tommy went to their classroom and sat down at their desks.“Good morning class,” said Mrs. Moore as she walked into the room. “Carl, Tim please take your seat, Johnny turn around and be quiet now, Carole, Donna please hang up your coats.” and with that, Mrs. Moore started to take attendance. The morning passed by ever so slowly, again time was just dragging for Danny. The clock above the chalkboard seemed frozen at the same time even though the second hand was moving. Danny figured it was best to try to pay attention to Mrs. Moore then keep worrying about the time, hoping that would make the time pass more quickly.

Finally the lunch buzzer sounded. “Class, right after lunch we will all meet in front of the auditorium to see the Halloween magic show,” said Mrs. Moore. Small outbursts of cheer went up in the room. Everyone in the class got up, formed a single line and left the classroom to go to the cafeteria. The smell of different foods drifting down the hall from the cafeteria smelled so good it made your mouth water. Of course the food never tasted as good as it smelled. “Hmmm, I hope we have meatloaf today.” said Tommy, “That’s my favorite besides pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, tater tots, corn dogs, spaghetti, meat balls, tacos and chocolate pudding,” said Tommy. “Mine to,” said Danny.

Danny and Tommy met Cindy in the cafeteria. They all got the lunch specials of the day and found an empty table to sit down. Surprisingly the food today was quite good. They finished lunch in record time and returned their trays to the dirty tray rack as they headed for the auditorium.

The Magic Show

When all of the classes assembled outside of the auditorium doors, the teachers opened the doors and let everyone go in. The lighting was low and made the inside look like an elegant movie theater. There were deep red colored curtains, which stretched across the entire stage. The curtains were very long they hung from the top of the high ceiling down to the stage. Lights from overhead shone down on them giving the folds in the curtain different shades of reds. This was the first time Danny had been in the school’s auditorium and he was very surprised with how nice

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Gary Evans
Bildmaterialien: Gary Evans
Lektorat: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 29.10.2012
ISBN: 978-3-7309-1100-6

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Widmung:
This book is dedicated to: Michelle, Jenny, & Ashley