The Magic Misfits 2. Neil Patrick Harris

nodded. “You heard the crash and the yelp too?”

      Before he could answer, there was another crash. The clamour came from behind Mr Vernon’s office door. It was as if the man were barreling into furniture and knocking things over.

      Leila and Carter pounded on the door. From inside, her dad gave a muffled grunt. Carter tried the knob, but it was locked. Leila whipped out her lucky lockpicks from the pocket of her nightgown. With a few swift movements, Leila worked her magic, and the door swung inward.

      Dante Vernon was standing in the corner, his curly white hair messy, his dark eyes as wide as the crystal balls that he sold in the magic shop downstairs. His chest heaved as if he’d just sprinted around the neighbourhood. “Oh good,” he said with a sudden smile. “At least now I know I’m not dreaming. Please shut the door. We can’t let it get out of the room with my book.”

      Despite her confusion, Leila did as she was told.

      “It? ” asked Carter. “What do you mean by it ?”

      Mr Vernon pointed beneath his desk. Something in the shadows let out a horrifying screech.

      Both Leila and Carter jumped.

      “I’d been writing in my notebook when I dozed off. I woke up when something snatched the book out from under my hand,” Vernon explained. “The creature snuck in through the window, which I’ve closed and locked. It’s of vital importance that we get my book back. Understood?”

      Leila and Carter nodded.

      “Carter, toss me the little rope on the table beside you,” Vernon directed. Carter threw the white cord, and Vernon caught it one-handed. “Now, Leila, when I say go, slide the chair away, okay? On the count of three.”

      Leila nodded even though she wasn’t nearly as ready as she would’ve liked. But that was what it meant to be a Vernon and a member of the Magic Misfits. You trusted your friends and your family… even when they asked you to help catch a mysterious creature that had snuck into their office in the middle of the night.

      “One…”

      Leila edged toward the chair.

      “Two…”

      Something growled from under the desk. Leila felt her stomach move up into her throat.

       “Three!”

      Leila yanked back the chair as Vernon dove under the desk. A blur of blondish fur raced over his spine, back toward the wall, and leapt into the shadows behind a large houseplant.

      “What is that?” Carter yelped, more curious than frightened. Leila leaned forward. The creature’s silhouette was about a foot high and resembled a gremlin.

      Mr Vernon got up, pushing his hair out of his face. He flicked his wrist and the soft rope became rigid in his grip, a loop forming at the end like a lasso. “Children, back away now. I’ve got this.”

      “Hold on, Dad.” Leila’s voice quivered. She picked up the knocked-over lamp and aimed its bulb at the shadows.

      Instantly, they could see it clearly. The creature looked up at them with fear in its dark eyes – a skinny little thing with a long tail and a black spiked collar around its neck. It shrieked again. It was a monkey.

      Friends, I’ll bet you’re thinking that if you were ever in this situation, you’d plop yourself onto the floor, hold open your arms, and coo, “Give me a hug, you cuuuuuutie !” Let me assure you: Nighttime monkey thieves are not nearly as adorable as you’d like them to be.

      “It’s Bosso’s monkey,” said Carter, his voice shaking. “I’m s-sure of it.”

      Vernon raised his finger to his lips, trying to not startle the monkey, who snarled and tensed as if getting ready to jump at them. That was when Carter snapped his fingers, revealing a shortbread cookie in his other hand.

      Carter was doing a simple trick called palming. Every good magician has practiced palming at one time or another. Have you? It’s a form of misdirection in which a magician hides an object by cupping it in the palm of his or her hand. The magician will then reveal the object by using their other hand to create a distraction. In this case, Carter snapped his fingers to capture the monkey’s attention, then showed him the cookie.

      After being practically homeless for so many years, Carter always seemed to keep a cache of goodies in his pockets, Leila noted to herself. Looked like it came in handy too.

      The monkey’s snarl faded as he focused instead on the treat in hand. Carter snapped his fingers again, and one cookie became two. The monkey made a cooing sound as he inched close enough to reach out and snatch the cookies from Carter. He shoved both into his mouth, chewed them up, and swallowed. His eyes glassed over with satisfaction.

      Leila laughed. The creature wasn’t so scary after all. She approached the monkey, sneaking up from the other side as Carter snapped his fingers and revealed another cookie. He let the monkey snatch that one too. He revealed a fourth cookie. The monkey was so mesmerized by the sweet treats that he didn’t notice Leila until she grabbed the notebook and tossed it to her father, who tucked it inside the wide pocket of his robe. The monkey swung his head back and forth, conflicted. He looked from the book to Carter’s hand, full of cookies. Finally, the monkey caved to his instincts and settled for the cookies. (And who wouldn’t? Cookies are delicious.)

      Carter dropped one cookie after another across the floor, leaving a path toward Mr Vernon, who was waiting with the magical, stiffened rope. Her father nodded for Leila to stay where she was, in case she needed to grab the furry little thing. Closer and closer it crept. Vernon was ready to collar the creature when...

      A knock came at the door, and a voice called out, “Dante? Everything okay in there?” With a squeak and the sound of scrabbling claws, the monkey retreated into the shadows on the other side of the room.

      The office door swung open, and in rushed the Other Mr Vernon, Leila’s poppa. He stood there with a worried look on his face, dressed in a white vest and black-and-white-checked pyjama bottoms. When he saw the state of the office, his sleepy eyes grew wide.

      “Close the door, Poppa!” Leila cried. Before he could, a blur of blond fur raced past his ankles and into the hallway. Poppa let out a scream.

      “After it!” shouted Mr Vernon.

      Leila and Carter rushed past her dazed poppa and out into the hallway. They followed the racket that echoed from Leila’s room. To her horror, she realized that her bedroom door was open, and so was her window.

      The trio reached her doorway just in time to see the monkey’s tail slip past the edge of her windowsill out into the night.

      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.