Night of the New Magicians (3 page)

J
ack ran after Annie. He caught up to her outside the huge building made of glass. She was standing in line waiting to buy tickets.

“Listen,” Jack said breathlessly, “we … we’ve got to make a plan. What if we suddenly find the sorcerer? What do we say to him? What if he tries to use his powers against us?”

“We use a rhyme,” said Annie.

“Which rhyme?” said Jack.

“How many, children?” interrupted the ticket seller. They’d reached the front of the line.

“Two, please,” said Annie, holding out some coins. The man gave her two tickets, and Annie turned back to Jack. “Let’s go inside and see if we can find the sorcerer. Then we can figure out which rhyme.”

“Okay, but be cool,” said Jack, “so the sorcerer doesn’t notice us.”

Jack and Annie walked through the entrance of the glass building. “Oh, man,” whispered Jack.

The Hall of Machines was the size of a football stadium. It was filled with thousands of people— and thousands of machines! Motors roared, wheels spun, gears clanked.

“What kind of place
is
this?” asked Annie.

Jack pulled out their guide book and read aloud:

“Look at that!” Annie interrupted. She pointed to a mechanical walkway overhead. The walkway circled the entire exhibit hall. Sightseers gazed down on all the exhibits. “We can get a look at everything from up there.”

“Good,” said Jack. “Maybe we can spot the sorcerer.”

He put away the guide book and led the way up the stairs. They stepped onto the crowded moving walkway and peered down at all the people milling about the exhibit hall below.

There were lots of men dressed in black coats and top hats. There were American cowboys and bearded men in Arab robes and headcloths. But Jack didn’t see a single scary-looking guy in a hooded cloak.

As Jack and Annie moved slowly over the exhibits, the air grew hotter and the sounds in the hall grew louder. Hammers hammered, sirens blew, bells rang, whistles whistled. The voices of other sightseers swirled around Jack and Annie. “What genius!” “The Age of Machines!” “He’s the Wizard of Menlo Park!”

“Did you hear that?” Annie shouted to Jack. “Someone said something about a wizard!”

“I heard!” said Jack.
“The Wizard of Menlo Park!
We just read something about Menlo Park.” He pulled out their guide book and found the page he’d been reading. He read aloud:

“Thomas Alva Edison!” said Jack. “He’s one of the most brilliant inventors who ever lived! Where’s
his
exhibit?” They looked down at all
the booths. Directly below them was a booth with a big sign that said
EDISON.

“There! Let’s go down!” said Annie.

When the moving walkway came to a staircase, Jack and Annie jumped off and hurried down to the main floor, squeezing past people as they went.

“Okay, where is it?” said Annie, looking around.

“Follow me,” said Jack. He led her down a wide aisle until they came to the Edison exhibit. Lots of people were gathered around the booth.

Jack and Annie slipped through the crowd to get a good look. Many of Thomas Edison’s inventions were on display. One of them had a big tube and lots of switches. Above it was a sign:

Phonograph

“What’s a
phonograph?”
Annie asked.

“I think it’s like an old-fashioned CD player,” said Jack. “It was the first thing that played recordings of music.”

A man with earphones was listening to the
phonograph. Tears ran down his wrinkled face. “It’s incredible!” he said to the woman beside him. “Now we can hear the dead sing!”

“What does he mean?” Annie asked Jack.

“I guess he means that even after people die, you’ll still be able to hear their voices on the recordings,” said Jack.

“I never thought of it like that,” said Annie.

“Shh!” someone said. People were trying to listen to a man delivering a speech to the crowd. His name tag said:
HENRI.

“Yes, indeed,” Henri was saying. “Thomas Alva Edison of Menlo Park, New Jersey, U.S.A., invented the phonograph, shown to the public for the first time here at the Paris World’s Fair. Mr. Edison has invented many other things, too.” Henri moved to another display in the booth: a lightbulb with a switch. He clicked the switch, turning the bulb on and off.

“Ten years ago, after years of work and thousands of experiments, Thomas Alva Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb,” said Henri.
“When electricity passes through the thread, it gets very hot. There is no oxygen in the glass bulb, however. So the fire glows, but it does not burn.”

As others moved closer to the lightbulb to get a good look, Jack turned to Annie.
“His fires glow, but they do not burn!”
he whispered. “Thomas Edison is the Magician of Light!”

“I know!” said Annie. She turned to Henri. “Excuse me—is Mr. Edison in Menlo Park now?” she asked.

“No, as a matter of fact, Mr. Edison was here at this exhibit just a short while ago,” said Henri.

“Do you know where he is now?” asked Jack.

“No. All I know is that he was invited to a party and he left,” said Henri.

Jack felt the hair on his neck go up. “The sorcerer,” he whispered.

“Did a strange messenger in a cloak deliver the invitation?” asked Annie.

“Why, yes,” said Henri.

“Do you know where the messenger went after he left here?” Jack asked.

“He asked for directions to the Pasteur Institute. That is all I know,” said Henri.

“The Pasteur Institute?” said Jack. “Where’s that?”

But Henri didn’t answer. Another boy had asked him a question about the lightbulb.

“Come on,” Annie said to Jack. “We’ll find it somehow!”

As Jack and Annie left the Edison exhibit, they could hear Henri repeating his speech word for word: “Ten years ago, after years of work and thousands of experiments, Thomas Alva Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb….”

J
ack and Annie pressed through the crowd of people swarming about the Hall of Machines. Finally they reached the exit and slipped back out into the warm Paris night. The fair was just as crowded outside the hall as inside. Musicians played guitars, singers sang, food sellers shouted, “Chocolate milk! Cheese! Bread! Wine!”

“We have to get to the Pasteur Institute fast!” Annie shouted to Jack.

Jack pulled out their guide book and scanned
the index, looking for the Pasteur Institute. “It’s not in here,” he said. He closed the guide book. “It must not be part of the fair.”

“Maybe one of those horse-and-buggies can take us there,” said Annie. She pointed to a row of carriages along a street. There was a line of people waiting to get into them.

“Come on!” said Jack.

Annie and Jack made their way through the crowd and stood in the carriage line.

“Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell!” said Jack. “The sorcerer must think they’re new magicians with secret powers!”

“And now he’s invited them to some kind of party,” said Annie, “so he can steal their secrets.”

“I’ll bet he’s inviting the other two,” said Jack, “the Magician of Iron and the Magician of the Invisible.”

“I wonder if they’re inventors, too,” said Annie.

“Come on, it’s our turn,” said Jack.

They had reached the front of the carriage line. “We need to go to a place called the Pasteur Institute,” Jack called to the coachman. “Can you take us?”

“But of course,” said the man.

“Thanks!” said Annie. She and Jack climbed into the back of the open carriage. The coachman shook the reins, and his white horse clopped down the cobblestone street.

“Excuse me,” Annie said, leaning forward. “But what exactly
is
the Pasteur Institute?”

“It is a laboratory for finding the cures for diseases,” said the coachman.

“Oh …,” said Annie. “Interesting.” She turned back to Jack. “Why would an evil sorcerer look for magicians in a place like that?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack.

“Maybe the sorcerer got sick,” said Annie.

“I don’t think so,” said Jack. “But now we
really
need a plan. What if we run into him at the institute? Remember, he has magic powers.”

“But
we
have magic powers, too,” said Annie.

“Right,” breathed Jack. He reached into his satchel and pulled out their book:

10 MAGIC RHYMES FOR ANNIE AND JACK
FROM TEDDY AND KATHLEEN

By the light of the carriage lantern, Jack and Annie looked at the table of contents.

“Remember, we can only use a rhyme once,” Jack said to Annie.
“Make a Stone Come Alive—
we’ve done that.
Make Helpers Appear out of Nowhere—
done that.
Mend What Cannot Be Mended—
done that.”

“But we haven’t used
Spin into the Air.”
said Annie, “or
Make Something Disappear
, or
Find a Treasure You Must Never Lose
, or
Pull a Cloud from the Sky
, or
Turn into Ducks.”

“Go back, go back,” said Jack.
“Make Something Disappear.
What about that?”

“Is a person a ‘something’?” asked Annie.

“Why not?” said Jack. “This one rhyme could solve our whole problem. We’ll just make the sorcerer disappear.”

“Yes,” breathed Annie.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Jack. “Let’s memorize the rhyme now. Then as soon as we see the sorcerer, we can say it without having to look in the book.”

“Great,” said Annie.

Jack turned to a page in the rhyme book. “I’ll memorize the line that Teddy wrote. You memorize the line in Kathleen’s language,” he said.

“Got it,” said Annie. She looked at the rhyme and started to say her line,
“Thee-be-wan—”

“No, don’t!” yelped Jack, putting his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say it out loud until we need it! You might accidentally make one of us or something really important disappear!”

“Sorry,” said Annie.

“We’ll practice silently,” said Jack. “And we’ll each only learn our own line. So neither of us can say the whole rhyme at the wrong time.”

“Good plan,” said Annie.

Annie studied her line silently while Jack studied his. As Jack repeated his line in his head, the carriage rolled down a busy street. The
street was filled with more carriages and many bicycles. Some of the bikes were built for two people. Couples dressed in fancy evening clothes pedaled together.

Other Parisians ate by candlelight in outdoor cafés. Waiters in white aprons carried trays high in the air. Everyone seemed relaxed and cheerful. As the carriage turned onto a quiet tree-lined street, Jack wished that he and Annie could just have fun in Paris like everyone else and not be worrying about an evil sorcerer.

“Here we are!” said the driver, interrupting Jack’s thoughts. He brought the carriage to a stop. “The Pasteur Institute.”

“This is it?” said Jack. The Pasteur Institute
looked like a spooky mansion. Its huge front doors were closed. Its tall windows were dark.

“Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?” Annie asked in a small voice.

“But of course I am sure,” said the coachman. “The institute appears to be closed. Would you like me to take you somewhere else?”

“No thanks,” said Jack. “We’ll get out here.”

Annie gave the coachman a few coins. Then she and Jack climbed out of the carriage.

“Thanks,” said Annie.

The coachman flicked his reins, and the white horse trotted away down the street.

Jack and Annie stared at the dark, silent building.

“I guess we should go up and knock,” said Annie. She and Jack climbed the stone steps to the gigantic front doors.

“We’ve come to the right place,” said Jack. A gas lamp lit a small metal sign that said:

Louis Pasteur Institute

Jack knocked on the door three times.

No one answered.

Annie turned the huge handle and pushed. The door was locked.

“Maybe there’s another door somewhere,” said Annie.

Jack and Annie walked around the institute. They knocked at a back door and a side door, but no one answered.

When they got back to the front of the building, Jack heaved a sigh. “It’s no use,” he said. “We’ve come to a complete dead end.”

“We can’t give up,” said Annie.

“I know,” said Jack. They both stood looking at the street. All was quiet, except for a few bikes rattling by.

Suddenly a whispery voice came from behind them.
“Hellooo?”