Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

But then Kevin fanned his hand…and Ricardo saw he’d captured at least twice as many. At least.

“Let’s start with Gold Team,” Monty said. “Bev, you’re holding a queen, a jack, and a nine. That gives you twenty-nine points.”

Bev nodded. She didn’t look thrilled.

“And Red Team leader, Kevin Kazan, you have a three, a five, a seven, a king, a two, and a four.”

The moment Monty announced the number on Kevin’s last card, Bev’s face fell, and Ricardo knew he wouldn’t have to bother trying to add them up.

“The winner of the first leg of Four Prop Challenge,” Monty said, “with thirty-one points, is Kevin Kazan for the Red Team.”

A PA traded Bev her glasses for the safety goggles. Ricardo watched Bev walk back to the gold couch with a sinking feeling in his chest, but he greeted her with, “Good try, Bev, you did great,” to which Muriel and Sue added their own sympathetic encouragement. Grips hauled away the clear booths, and several large cardboard boxes were dragged to the center of the ballroom floor. A props assistant pulled a top hat from one of the boxes, then another, then another, setting them upside-down on the floor until the entire center was covered by a sea of top hats.

“One hundred and forty-four,” Bev said. “Twelve dozen. A gross.”

Once the hats were arranged, the assistants cleared the set, cameras rolled, and Monty said, “The next leg of the challenge involves magic hats…and the Gold Team selected Sue, its leader, to perform this challenge. Come on up, Sue, and tell us why you were the best person for this challenge.”

“Well, Monty, since I work at the gift shop at Magicopolis, I’ve handled lots of different props, from toy magic tricks for children, to cheap souvenirs, to decently-made entry level props. If we needed to demonstrate the use of a false chamber hat, I would be the most familiar with it.”

“Good reasoning, Gold Team. We’ll see if it pans out for you. And the randomly selected magician you’ll be competing against from the Red Team…”

Please be John. PLEASE BE JOHN.

“…is Amazing Faye.”

Ricardo’s heart sank. He was going to be put up against John, he just knew it. And if they competed with linking rings—be it juggling them or counting them or marching around with them stacked on top of their heads—Ricardo would win. Because the rings were his props. Even if he wasn’t trying to influence them like he did with Bev’s cards, he was so connected to the way they felt and sounded (and even smelled), they’d still pick up on whatever it was he wanted them to do.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” Muriel whispered. “You look a little green.”

Ricardo shook his head, said, “I’m fine,” and shifted his attention back to Monty.

“Pulling a rabbit out of a hat,” Monty read from the teleprompter, “is such a common magic trick that one might say it’s even become a bit of a cliché. But finding a rabbit in a hat among a sea of other things…might prove to be more difficult. Especially when your opponent is trying to find that rabbit first. Ladies, take your places, and when you hear the buzzer, begin searching. The first magician who finds a rabbit is the winner. Ready…set….”

The buzzer sounded. Sue dropped to her knees, while Faye bent at the waist to thrust their hands into the nearest hat. Sue pulled out a stuffed ladybug. Faye pulled out a small teddy bear. Both of them flung the toys over their shoulders and reached for another hat. Sue pulled out a plush monkey, a stuffed dog, a rag doll. Faye pulled out a plush parrot and toy cat. Sue waded forward on her knees. She was quicker, and the pile of stuffed carnival toys behind her was obviously growing faster than Faye’s.

Sue’s progress was not lost on Faye, who decided to use the fact that she was still standing up to her advantage. She leapt into the center of the field of hats in her stiletto heels and began working from there. It hadn’t seemed as if the assistants who’d set up the stunt placed a “winning hat” in any one particular spot…but Faye’s decisive move toward the middle made Sue start working even faster, grabbing hat after hat. She tried to speed things up by shaking the stuffed toys out, one hat in each hand, but the contents were packed in tightly enough that she needed both hands to get them out. In her excitement, she began flinging both the toy and the hat, and soon so many plushies and hats were flying, it seemed as if the whole ballroom had turned into one big card-grabbing booth.

Soon there was a cry—a triumphant shriek so startling Ricardo couldn’t say who it had come from. But then he saw Faye standing tall, brandishing a blue and purple stuffed rabbit over her head, waving it gleefully, while Sue sagged down onto her hands, hair hanging in her face….and the churning dismay in Ricardo’s gut told him that now he’d not only end up pitted against John, but now he’d need to try for all he was worth just to keep Gold Team from losing a member….

“Faye,” Monty called out, “that is not the winning rabbit. The judges are telling me you’ve found a donkey.”

“A what?” Faye turned the stuffed animal around and looked at it as if it had just spoken to her itself. “That’s no donkey! How is that a donkey?”

Sue barked out a gleeful laugh and dove back into searching while Faye was still stunned by the revelation that the long-eared toy in her hand was not, in fact, a rabbit. “Ha!” Muriel said. “Look at the tail! It’s got a little donkey string-tail!”

Faye flung down the purple donkey so hard it bounced.

“Go, Sue!” Muriel called out, and Ricardo and Bev joined in. “Go, Sue! Go, Sue! You can find it, Sue!” And the Red Team