Neil Patrick Harris - The Magic Misfits 2

Leila sat on the comfortable sofa in the living room with Carter as Poppa heated milk on the stove in the kitchen. Her poppa, who her friends called the Other Mr Vernon , was the chef at the Grand Oak Resort. He was no magician, but he was a wizard at making late-night snacks. “Almost ready!” he called out.

Her dad, Mr Dante Vernon to most others, stood at the window in the parlour. As he spoke on the telephone, he looked outside at the dark street as if waiting for someone to come along looking for their missing monkey.

“Do you think Bosso is back?” Carter whispered with a shudder.

“I hope not,” Leila answered.

“I see. Yes, thank you again for taking my call so late at night,” Mr Vernon said, then hung up the phone and walked into the living room. “As far as the officials can tell me, Bosso is still locked up, far away from here, with the rest of his evil circus crew.”

“Except for his gang of frown clowns.” Carter shivered. “They got away.”

“And his monkey too, apparently,” Mr Vernon added. “As we’ve just seen, that wily creature is not easy to catch.”

“Why was he trying to steal your notebook, Dad?” asked Leila.

Mr Vernon removed the notebook from his pocket. It appeared to be one of the business ledgers from the magic shop downstairs – its cardboard cover had a marbled pattern. Leila knew her dad kept dozens of them behind the shop’s counter.

Vernon flipped the notebook open. Page after page, names and prices of items were listed in simple columns. “Now that, dear daughter, is a mystery. If I could get inside the heads of animals and decipher their thoughts, I’d be one of the most powerful practitioners of magic in this country.”

“Maybe he wasn’t trying to steal the notebook,” said Carter. “If he got left behind by the circus and hasn’t eaten in a few days, the monkey probably got lost looking for food. Poor thing is alone and confused and just needs a home.”

Mr Vernon smiled. “Anything is possible if you believe it so. In the meantime, we’ll need to sleep with the windows closed.”

“But won’t it get stuffy in here?” asked Leila.

Mr Vernon shrugged playfully. “We’ve all dealt with worse, no?”

The Other Mr Vernon came through the doorway holding a tray of treats: steaming mugs and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “Milk and honey for my honeys! Drink up and then everyone back to bed.”

As Mr Vernon slid the parlor window shut, Leila thought she heard a cry in the night. Could it have been the mysterious monkey, angry at them for chasing him? Or had it merely been the old window, squeaking in its frame? At that moment, Leila wasn’t sure which she’d rather believe.

Instead, she sipped the creamy and sweet froth from the mug her poppa had handed to her, allowing it to calm the fluttering in her belly.

“Pick a card, any card!” Carter said, fanning out a deck.

Ridley Larsen raised an eyebrow and tilted her head with a withering stare. “Before we start sharing tricks, we should officially call Magic Misfits meeting number eleven to order.”

“If you say so, boss,” Carter said with a grin. He split the deck into five small packs, then spiralled them around one another in a single grand gesture before flipping his palms over and revealing empty hands. Sometimes, it seemed to Leila, Carter could have made even the gazebo in the town green vanish with little more than a flick of his wrist.

“Boss?” asked Izzy Golden. “I think of Ridley more as our queen.”

“ Queen is too generic,” said Olly Golden. “ Empress has a nice ring to it.”

“Your ears’ll ring when I give you a sock to ’em,” Izzy said, waving her fist in the air playfully at her twin.

“ Rings and socks ? But I’m already fully dressed!” Olly noted.

Summer holidays had started, and Main Street was flooded with shoppers who were down from the resort and kids tasting the freedom of a school-free sunny afternoon. At almost every corner food vendors handed out samples of their wares: ice cream, chocolates, caramel corn, fruit-flavoured ice-slushes.

But the Magic Misfits had no sense of what was happening outdoors. With all six of them crowded into the secret room behind the rear bookcase in Vernon’s Magic Shop, they were practically bumping elbows in the dim light. None minded, though; they were practising what they loved most: magic.

Ridley reached inside Carter’s sleeve and removed the deck of cards he’d hidden there. “Hey! Not fair!” Carter cried out. “Stealing is not cool, Ridley.”

“Stealing?” Stone-faced, Ridley flipped through the cards and held them out to the group. The playing cards had somehow transformed into a handful of purple note cards – each marked with dots and dashes in black ink. “I brought these Morse code study cards from home. Your playing cards are right where you left them, Carter.”

Crinkling his brow, Carter raised his sleeve to find his deck of playing cards right where she’d said they’d be. Not only was Ridley an expert with transformations, she was also skilled at transforming the colour of people’s cheeks. In fact, Carter’s pale skin had instantly become a fierce pink.

“Nicely done!” said Theo Stein-Meyer.

“Thank you,” Ridley said. “Would you mind passing these out?”

Theo guided his bow over the study cards and, one by one, they floated to the members of the Misfits. Theo’s levitation ability was one of his most closely guarded secrets. When he finished, he slipped his magic bow back inside the leg of his tuxedo pants.

“I hope everyone has been studying this week,” Ridley went on. “The sooner we learn this Morse code stuff, the better we’ll be prepared to communicate secretly.”

“Oh, Ridley,” said Leila, “I don’t think we need to worry about another situation like the one with Bosso.”

“And yet only a few nights ago, his pet monkey tried to break into Mr Vernon’s office to steal one of his ledgers.” Ridley squinted at them. “Are you sure you’re not just inventing excuses to get out of doing your club homework?”

“I thought summer was supposed to be homework-free ,” said Izzy.

“No, no, Izzy,” said Olly. “You’re thinking of sugar -free!”

“But we love sugar!” said Izzy. “Mum and Dad hate it, though. Strange, because I always feel funnier after I eat sweets.”

Leila smiled from the back corner of the far wall. She used to hate small spaces, but now she didn’t mind them so much. Blocked by Ridley’s wheelchair, she mentally worked out a path through her friends that would allow her to escape the crowded room in less than five seconds. She was always solving puzzles in her head, as if she might one day use them on a stage.

“Leila, would you like to go first?” Ridley asked.

Leila glanced at her note card. The code read:

Leila figured out the translation in her head. “ If you work together… ”