The Houdini Effect by Bill Nagelkerke Page A

(it’s
a well-travelled phone.) They were both trying to find out why I
hadn’t turned up at the pool.
    To Rach I said, ‘I’m so, sooo sorry,’
despising myself for sounding so sycophantic (don’t you just so
love words? Look this one up if you want to know what it means) but
knowing she was the sort of person who needed soft-soap placating.
‘I just couldn’t make it because I had to help Harry with one of
his magic tricks.’
    During our conversation I texted Em back
(I’m quite good at multi-tasking), ‘Sorry, I was all tied up
helping Harry with one of his magic tricks. He’s entering a talent
quest.’
    On both occasions there
was a prolonged delay at the other end of the phone while this
infor-
    mation was being
processed.
    Rach eventually said, ‘You think a magic
trick is more important than hanging out at the pool
    with us and the all the cool-looking dudes?’
For a Luddite, Rach is surprisingly non-traditional and
non-conservative when it comes to boys.
    ‘ The talent quest is a
pretty big thing,’ I mumbled. ‘Even you must have seen the ads for
it on TV.’
    ‘ I think
I have,’ she admitted, ‘but the talent at the pool is far more
interesting.’
    ‘ But
blood is thicker
than water.’ (I can italicize with the best of
them.)
    ‘ And you must be thicker than either of them,’ Rach said tartly, which
really hurt even if she said it as a friend and I happened to agree
with her. But what could I have done? It was too late by then to
turn back the tide. (Or, to paraphrase our maudlin clock: Soon, in
passing on, you’ll find time gone).
    In the middle of this conversation Em sent a
second message that read, ‘Magic? Wot planet r u on?’
    Immediately followed by a third. ‘Troy was
asking after u.’
    ‘ Was he?’ I asked Rach who,
of course, had no idea what I meant but must have guessed I was
texting Em while also talking to her. She hung up.
    Not, I hasten to say, because I hadn’t done
what I had promised and gone to the pool. No, she just couldn’t
stand it when the person she was trying to talk to was distracted
by texts arriving at the same time and getting muddled about who
she was speaking to or texting. So much for multi-tasking. Anyway,
at least her going meant I could focus on Em’s texts. They needed
focusing on. They were
    often hard to interpret.
    ‘ You mean he noticed I
wasn’t there?!’ I texted back.
    Emma replied somewhat
enigmatically, ‘B thr nxt tme. K?’
    I went off into a brief romantic daze. With
the revelation that Troy had noted my absence even the mirrors were
fleetingly forgotten.
    And then Em went silent as well. She can’t
stand not getting instant replies.

    Strange things happen
     
    As well as missing the company of my best
friends two days in a row (I wished I could have told them about
the mirrors but how could I?) I suddenly began to pine for a sight
or sound of Troy. Had he really asked about me or had Em just
concocted a story to make sure I’d didn’t stand them up next
time?
    If it were true, then what did it mean? Was
Troy really interested in me or was this just Em’s fancy? Maybe he
had been asking after me but only out of polite interest. He would
have seen us together - our trio was often together - unless he had
a vision impairment as well as a speech impediment (speaking some
words backwards, I mean,
    although I understood this
was by choice, not design.) On the other hand maybe he’d asked
about my absence ( if he’d asked) because he was keen on Em and was using me as an
excuse to talk to her. After all, she was far better looking than
me.
    This was getting way too complicated so I
told myself to forget about it. For now at least. I had a
    far more complicated, and
at least equally com-pelling, thing to think about - the pictures
I’d seen in the mirrors (remember them?). They had
created
    more than enough complexity in my life to be
going on with.
    After a while, my mobile rang again. Who was
it this time?
     
    Greeks