Academy For Losers by Cat Shaffer

Author:Cat Shaffer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: friends, school, magic, teen, boyfriend
Publisher: Cammie Eicher

Chapter Nine

The shop was small but neat. Everything in it was old but in a good way. The place reminded me of my grandpa’s basement with jars of screws and bolts and tools hanging off pegboard racks on the wall. The owner, whose work shirt had a patch that read Franklin, introduced himself as Snick. I figured out why when he offered me a Snickers bar from a stash under the counter where the old-fashioned cash register sat.

While the men talked, I looked around the room. The portable phone sitting on the counter was a plus. The lack of any other electronics was a definite negative. Snick didn’t even have a TV on the wall. This must have been like when my parents were my age when video games were sucky and nobody had even invented the Internet yet. If this were a movie, I’d be in a time warp where everything I knew was still in the future.

But this was my life here in the twenty-first century. The cell phone hanging off Morry’s belt was proof of that.

“Come on back and let me show you how to take apart a weed whacker.” Snick waved his hand for me to follow him. “We’ll let the professor here watch the front.”

Whoa. Everything missing in the customer part of the store was back here. A computer and printer sat on a beat-up desk in a corner. Shelves next to them held power drills and other tools. Snick pointed toward a mini-frig and said, “You get thirsty, go look in there.”

It didn’t take me long to figure out that Snick’s a man of few words. “Watch me” was the bulk of his conversation. He grabbed a cordless screwdriver and undid some screws, and things started coming off on the weed whacker. I was surprised how quickly time went by. It seemed like we’d just started when Morry came in to see how we were doing.

“We’ll let her set until tomorrow.” Snick leaned back against a tool bench. “You two have your work to do now.”

Morry unzipped a backpack he must have brought in while I was back here with Snick. He did some amazing stuff again before he sat back to watch me. Tonight the rope was perfect. It stood up straight, it danced, it even went back into one piece again after I cut it in two.

“Great job.” He patted my shoulder and put his stuff away. “You’re doing really well.”

“Good enough to represent Hempstead?”

“That’s up to you.” His face was serious. “I can teach you the skills, but I can’t make you a magician. That comes from deep inside. Not only do you need confidence in what you do, you need to be an artist. Every movement has to be smooth and eye-catching. When you’re on stage, you’re giving the audience a gift. You’re lifting them out of their everyday life into something special, something truly memorable.”

He wasn’t talking to me anymore. His gaze was far beyond the walls of this shop.

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