A Trick and a Barb

“Look, pick one,” I said, holding the cards out in front of me, face down. Lisa was having a hard time choosing a card to pull. “Pick a card, any card.”

“Don’t rush me,” she snapped. “I like this one.”

“Take it, then.”

“I am.” She swiped the card and held it close to her chest. 

“You can look at it.”

“Oh,” she mouthed and looked at her card. “Do I tell you?”

“No, I have to guess,” I said, and I knew I could, too. I had been practicing the trick for ages, and I thought that I had finally mastered the technique. 

“Oh, okay.”

“Is your card…” I paused for the main reveal. “The six of clubs?”

“No, it’s not,” Lisa replied with a grin. She started to laugh but double-checked her card to make sure it wasn’t the six of clubs. 

“It’s not?” 

“Nope.”

“Damn it!” I put my cards back down on my desk. I hoped that no one else had heard my vulgar language. “I practiced for so long. Which card was it?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Lisa smirked, hiding her card under her sleeve.

I was feeling really embarrassed at that point. “Is it the six of hearts?” 

“No, but it is hearts.” 

“Hearts? Okay, ace.”

“No.”

“Two?”

“No.”

“Three?”

She chuckled. “No.”  

“Which is it, then?” I was getting annoyed. 

“It’s the queen of hearts.” She pulled the card out and revealed the queen. 

“Not too far off from the six of clubs,” I said, trying to control the damage. 

Lisa slammed the card down on her desk. “That is NOT close at all.” 

A few other students looked over at us, and Mrs. Bentley, our homeroom teacher, approached us slowly. “Lisa, August, I said you guys could play but quietly.” 

“Yes,” we both said. 

“Can you guys be quiet, please? Your classmates are trying to play, too.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” we said. 

Mrs. Bentley smiled and shuffled back to her desk. Lisa and I looked at each other and silently giggled. 

“Can I show you another trick?” I asked her.

She nodded her head excitedly and started tapping her desk with her fingers. She always tapped her desk when she was excited. “Yes, show me!”

I picked my cards back up and started shuffling. I didn’t know how to shuffle well, so cards were all over the place by the time I had finished. After searching the floor for runaway cards, I gathered them all together and held them out again, face down. 

“Do I pick one?”

“Yeah,” I said. 

Lisa didn’t take her time like before. “I like THIS one.”

“You sure?” 

“Yep.”

“Take it.”

She carefully pulled the card and placed it on her desk. “Do I look at it?”

“Yes.”

She examined the card. “Okay, so now what?”

“I’m gonna make your card appear in my deck!” I was so happy to see her face turn to shock. She tapped her desk. 

“No, you will NOT,” she insisted. 

“Yes, I will. Let me touch your card; I won’t look.”

She held her card out face down, and I placed my palm over it. I concentrated as hard as I could, imagining a blue energy flowing from my hand into the card. 

“Are you done?”

“Yeah,” I said. I knew exactly where the card was in the deck but pretended I was thinking hard and second-guessing myself. Finally, I pulled the card out and held it in front of my face dramatically. Lisa was practically holding her breath.

“Well?”

“Is this…” I paused once again. “Your card?” I revealed the king of diamonds. 

“No,” she said, disappointment in her voice. 

I was disappointed as well. “What? But I put two in!” 

“This is actually the jack of clubs,” Lisa replied. She showed me the card as proof. “You haven’t gotten a trick right yet.”

Her words hurt. “But I’ve practiced for so long.”

“Magic isn’t your thing, then. You’re not good at it.” 

I made a fist and shook it at her; she flinched slightly. “Shut UP! I’m trying!” 

Mrs. Bentley called to us from her desk: “August, Lisa, go outside! I’ll join you.” 

I put my fist down, and Lisa and I walked out of the classroom and into the hallway. 

“Great, now you got us in trouble.” Lisa sounded annoyed and angry. 

“I didn’t mean to,” I responded. I started to feel guilty and tried to apologize, but Mrs. Bentley walked out into the hallway. 

“August, what was that? Why are you yelling?” 

“I was mad because my magic trick didn’t work, sorry,” I said, feeling even guiltier. I was praying she wouldn’t give me an infraction. 

“Lisa, is that what happened?” 

“Yeah, and I think I made him mad,” she admitted. 

“Well, I’ll let you both go back inside as long as you stop doing magic tricks, okay?” Mrs. Bentley was serious, and I knew it because she adjusted her glasses; she always did that when she was serious. 

“Okay,” we both said.

It was recess and the teachers released the students into the playground. I found Lisa on a swing and walked up to her. I had to duck to avoid getting struck by her legs. She slowed down and stopped to talk to me. 

“Hey,” I said. 

“Hey.”

“Sorry I got mad.”

She started rocking back and forth. “It’s okay.”

I sat down on the swing next to hers. We both started swinging, and we didn’t say anything to each other for a while. We didn’t even compete to see who could swing the highest or jump off and land the farthest. It was a peaceful coexistence. 

“Can we walk?” she asked after a few minutes. 

We got off and started walking around the track next to the playsets. The track was bordered by a fence, so sometimes we’d stick our fingers through the holes. This time, we just walked.

“I’m sorry I said you’re not good at magic,” Lisa said suddenly. 

“It’s okay. I need to get better,” I replied. 

“When you do, can you show me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

We walked in silence for a few seconds. 

“Do you ever wanna jump the fence?” she asked, pointing to the metal barrier. “We only ever stick our fingers through. Do you think we could do it?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I looked the fence up and down. “It’s too tall.”

“But it has holes. We could stick our feet in them and climb.” I could tell she was excited by the idea. 

“We’d get in trouble, though.”

Lisa frowned. “You’re no fun. It’s just a fence.” 

The idea of climbing the fence frightened me a little, I must admit. “What if you climb it and I can’t? And then we can’t reach each other.” My anxious brain was producing a million reasons why we couldn’t climb the fence. 

“That won’t happen.”

“A teacher would catch us.” 

“Whatever,” she sighed. “One day, I’m climbing it.”

I looked over at the fence again. “I’m not.”

Just then, recess ended, and the teachers called for us to walk back into the building. 

“I WILL climb that fence,” Lisa promised. 

“Okay,” I said. 

And we walked back to class, holding hands as young friends would do.