The Delusionist by Don Calame

Author:Don Calame [Calame, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781536222357
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2021-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

I STAND IN THE HALLWAY, LOOKING THROUGH THE TINY window in the rehearsal room door, watching Dani practice her audition routine. She has a string of Christmas lights in her hand and has been doing the same sleight — changing a small red bulb for a large red bulb — over and over and over again. It was near perfect the first time I watched her do it, but there’s clearly something she isn’t happy with because fifteen minutes later she’s still doing the same move.

It’s hypnotic. The repetitiveness of it. The swoop of her hand. The focus on her face. The intensity in her eyes. I’ve tried to break the spell, look away for a second, but there’s a physical pull I can’t seem to resist. The fact that I could happily stand here for the rest of my life, my legs going numb, my eyes raisining, scares me a little.

I had no intention of getting here this early, but I had a terrible night’s sleep, filled with dreams of SWAT teams swarming my house, submachine guns drawn, coming to take me in, dead or alive. I’d wake every time with a start, breathing heavily, immensely relieved that I was only dreaming, until I’d hear the pounding on the front door again, the sound of squealing tires, the flutter of helicopter blades.

And the nightmare would begin all over again.

Finally, at around five thirty, I crawled out of my sweaty, tangled sheets, took a scalding-hot shower, got dressed, and rode my bike to school so I could . . . what?

Maybe talk to Dani before Perry shows up? Dani, our chief competition? Dani, who has told me — repeatedly — that she can’t be trusted?

Yeah, that sounds like something a sleep-deprived me might do.

Dani does one last bulb swap, blinks at her work a few times, then puts the string of lights down. She grabs her phone and starts tapping away, which seems to break the tractor-beam-like hold she had on me.

I spin from the window and have just checked the time on my own cell — 6:52 a.m. — when a green message balloon appears on my screen: YOU SPYING ON ME?

Shit! I squat down, fumbling my phone, barely catching it before it smacks the floor. How’d she get my number? I don’t remember giving it to her. I press my back into the wall, slowly, slowly, slowly raising myself up, cautiously twisting my head to peek in the small window —

“Boo!” Dani shouts.

“Oh Jesuscrapfuck!” I scream, reeling back from Dani’s grinning face on the other side of the glass.

She shoves the door open, cracking up. “Sorry. When I saw you duck down like a cartoon character, I couldn’t resist.”

“I wasn’t . . . spying,” I stammer, holding my hands up in surrender. “I swear. Not on purpose, anyway. I just . . . got here early, is all. I didn’t really see anything . . . much.”

“Relax,” Dani says, laughing. “I don’t care if you see my act. I’ve been practicing it for six months.

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