“Oh no! That’s awful,” Jessie said.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Oliver with a sigh. “Perhaps it’s for the best. I’ve wanted to cancel the show anyway.” She turned away from the children and hurried into the storeroom.

  A Shattering Crash

  The Aldens left the noisy magic shop. They stood out front on the shaded sidewalk and drank from a water fountain. The day was getting hot.

  “Mrs. Oliver is really upset,” said Violet as she untied Watch from the tree.

  “She sure is,” Jessie agreed. “I don’t blame her. The Amazing Arthur disappeared without telling her anything. He’s supposed to help her in the shop and give magic lessons.”

  Benny said, “And someone took all her flyers. Who would do that?”

  The children crossed the street in a crosswalk. They were taking Watch to the park again because he’d been sitting so long.

  Henry said, “News all over town has brought publicity, but it’s distracting. It made her forget an order.”

  “And did you see all those little kids running around?” Benny asked. “I would never do that.”

  His older brother and sisters smiled at him.

  “We know you wouldn’t, Benny,” said Jessie.

  As they reached the park, Henry unclipped Watch’s leash. Watch cooled his paws in the giant splash pad and had a good long slurp of water. He shook his wet fur. The Aldens dashed with him through the jumping plumes of spray to cool off. They ran across a soccer field, passing the tennis courts and playground. By the time they reached the community center, they had dried off.

  The building had its own parking lot. But at this hour there were no cars or trucks. “I wonder when it opens,” said Henry as they neared the front door. “Benny, can you read the sign?”

  Benny stood on his toes to see the small print. “‘Twelve o’clock noon,’” he read.

  “Good job, Benny,” said Jessie. She tugged at the wide glass door. “Locked. Should we come back after lunch?”

  But Henry was walking around the side of the building. Near the loading dock he said, “This is where that person was carrying stuff the other night.”

  A narrow door below an exit sign was propped open. A small chunk of wood held it open wide enough for a person to slip through.

  “Looks like someone’s here,” Violet said in a quiet voice.

  “Can we go in?” whispered Benny.

  “I don’t see a sign that says we can’t,” said Violet. “So I guess it’s okay.”

  Benny tied Watch to a shady tree. “Stay here, boy. We’ll be right back.”

  The Aldens cautiously stepped inside. Their footsteps echoed in the entryway.

  “Hello?” Henry called. “Is anyone here?”

  A janitor at the far end of a hallway waved to the children. He was pushing a broom across the tiled floor.

  “I’m in the magic show this weekend,” Henry told him. “Would it be okay if we looked at the stage?”

  “Help yourself,” the janitor said.

  The community center was dark except for windows that looked out onto the sunny park. Jessie opened a set of double doors with a loud clunk. It was the auditorium. Rows of seats sloped down toward a wide stage. The room resembled a movie theater.

  Henry drew in his breath. “So this is where Mrs. Oliver wants the magic show. The stage is huge compared to the one in the magic shop.”

  “Would you be nervous being up there by yourself, Henry?” Violet asked.

  “I think so!” he answered. “What if I make a mistake? Or what if one of my tricks doesn’t work? People will laugh at me.”

  “I don’t think they will, Henry,” said Jessie. “People are nice when kids try new things. How many tricks are you going to do?”

  “Just two,” he replied.

  “Can we see which ones?” asked Benny.

  “Well…” Henry thought a moment. “Let’s look around here first.”

  They peeked backstage. There were several boxes with their tops ripped open.

  “Hey, look,” Benny said. “These are the boxes we saw the other night.”

  “How can you tell?” asked Violet. “It was dark.”

  Benny pointed to a stamped label on each carton. “‘Greenfield Magic Shop,’” he proudly read.

  “Oh! You’re right, Benny,” said Violet.

  They looked through the boxes.

  “These are props for the magic show,” Henry said. “Lots of ’em.”

  “Can you tell us what tricks they’re for?” Benny asked.

  Henry held up a cardboard tube that had once held wrapping paper. “This is a Magic Cylinder. It’s empty now, but things will appear inside.”

  “But how does it work?” Benny asked.

  Henry just smiled.

  Jessie unpacked a box of stars cut out from construction paper. They were assorted colors and had numbers on one side. “How about these?” she asked.

  “Mind reading,” Henry answered.

  “But how do they work?” Benny asked again.

  “Magic,” said Henry.

  Benny pouted.

  “Okay, I’ll show you one trick.” Henry pulled out a cowboy hat. With his other hand at the bottom of the box, he gathered up several scarves. He did this so quickly, his siblings didn’t see what he had done. Then he secretly tucked the scarves into his palm.

  “Don’t look at me until I tell you,” Henry instructed. He turned his back on them. Now he squished the scarves into a small pocket hidden inside the hat.

  “Okay, now you can look.” Henry put on the hat, turned around twice, then whipped it off his head. He rotated it this way and that way. He turned it upside down to show that the cowboy hat was empty. Since the pocket holding the scarves was camouflaged, Jessie, Violet, and Benny could not see where the scarves were hidden.

  Now Henry waved his hand over the hat. “Abracadabra!” he cried. He slowly pulled out a red scarf. It was tied to a blue one, which then emerged from the hat. A green one followed, then orange, then a purple one. He kept pulling until all the scarves were out. He waved them in the air like a colorful kite.

  “Wow!” Benny cried. “How’d you do that?”

  Once again Henry just smiled. “Magic,” he said.

  “Now I understand,” Jessie remarked. “You can tell us what these things are for. And you can perform the trick. You just can’t show us how they work.”

  “You’re honoring the magician’s code,” Benny said.

  “That’s exactly right,” said Henry.

  “What are you supposed to do if you goof up on stage?” Benny asked. “In front of all those people staring at you?”

  “That thought scares me,” Henry admitted. “But you know what the Amazing Arthur told me?”

  “What?” his siblings said at once.

  “To just keep going. Keep up the patter.”

  “Patter?” Benny asked.

  “That’s where you say things like ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ or ‘How’re all you folks doing today on this splendid afternoon?’ You keep talking so they don’t notice you dropped the deck of cards or forgot to roll the dice.”

  Jessie said, “Patter away, Henry.”

  “I need to practice that too,” he said.

  Violet went to the center of the stage where she could look out over the rows of seats. A huge clock was high up on the far wall. “Hey everyone,” she called. “It’s eleven thirty. This place opens in half an hour. We’re running out of time. If we don’t find the Amazing Arthur, Mrs. Oliver will cancel the magic show! She won’t even let Captain Cannon take it over.”

  A sudden crash echoed through the empty auditorium.

  Benny jumped. “What was that?”

  “It sounded like it came from over there,” Jessie said.

  The Aldens carefully stepped backstage. A large mirror had fallen to the floor and shattered.

  Thousands of sharp pieces of glass were strewn across the floor.

  Jessie grabbed the back of Benny’s shirt. “Careful!” she said.

  “Is that the mirror from the shop?” Violet wondered.

  “Uh-oh, I think it is,” said Henry. “The one the Amazing Arthur suddenly appeared in front of the other day. I still don’t know what trick this mirror is used for. He didn’t explain.”

  Jessie carefully pushed the toe of her tennis shoe through the broken glass. “I bet it’s for the new trick he was going to unveil. We didn’t see him—or that person—the other night carrying in a big mirror. But if this is it, the Amazing Arthur must’ve been planning to be at the magic show, even if it’s held here at the community center.”

  Henry said, “The Amazing Arthur wouldn’t have left town if he was planning to be at the show, right?”

  “Right!” Jessie agreed.

  Benny stepped around the shattered mirror and into the hallway by the door where they had entered. He held the door wide open. The bright sunlight revealed something new.

  Spots of red paint had dribbled from the mirror out through the door. “Someone spilled paint,” Violet said.

  Jessie leaned closer. “Uh, that’s not paint,” she said. “I think it’s blood. It’s a deep red, kinda oozy-looking.”

  “Blood?” Benny cried.

  Henry bent down for a better look. “I think it’s blood too. Whoever was just here must have knocked over the mirror.”

  “And must have gotten cut on the glass,” Jessie said.

  “But who?” Violet asked. “I hope it’s not a serious cut.”

  Henry stood up. “Me too. Let’s keep looking. We need to find out who was here. But first let’s let the janitor know about this dangerous mess before someone else gets hurt.”

  The Disappearing Trail

  Benny was first out the door of the community center. Violet followed, then Jessie and Henry.

  “The trail goes this way!” Benny shouted. He hurried to unclip Watch from his leash and then untied the leash from the tree. He patted the terrier on the head and then pointed. “Good boy, Watch. See these bloody drops? Show us where they go.”

  Watch looked up at Benny in earnest. He wagged his tail then took off in the opposite direction. He had seen a squirrel.

  “Wait, come this way!” called Benny.

  “He’s not a tracking dog,” said Jessie. “Let’s go. He’ll come back in a minute.”

  The children followed a fading trail of blood. It looked like the person had been running. The children kept their heads down and stepped carefully around the spots. They went through the parking lot and then onto the sandy volleyball court where Watch caught up to them.

  “Over here!” shouted Violet. “This way, toward the soccer field!”

  Just as they ran onto the grass, the park’s sprinkler system splashed on. The field suddenly became drenched, as if a summer raincloud had burst.

  “Oh no!” Henry yelled above the noise of swishing sprinklers. He looked down. “We’ve lost the trail. It’s being washed away.”

  “How can we follow something that’s not there?” said Violet.

  “We can’t,” Jessie said. “It’s like trying to find the Amazing Arthur when we don’t know where he went.”

  For several minutes the Alden children watched the sprinklers. Sunlight sparkled through the plumes of water. Mist cooled them off.

  Finally Violet said, “Is anyone else hungry?”

  “I am!” yelled Benny. “It’s lunchtime, right?”

  “Yep,” said Henry. “How about that little cafe Grandfather likes to go to when he’s in town? It’ll only take us a few minutes to walk there.”

  “I love that place. Let’s go!” said Jessie.

  ***

  The Bluebell Cafe was on a quiet side street. A striped awning protected the entrance from the hot sun. A teenage boy in a blue T-shirt greeted the Aldens with menus. He wore a black sash around his waist as an apron. “Patio or inside?” he asked them.

  “Patio, please,” said Jessie. “For our dog.” Sitting outside would also help them all dry off after being splashed by the sprinklers.

  “Okay, awesome,” the boy said. “Come this way.” He led them to a table under a large blue umbrella. “I’ll be right back to take your order,” he said. Watch settled himself in the shade near a splashy fountain. Below it was a water bowl with a sign.

  “‘Dogs welcome,’” Benny read. “No wonder Watch likes to come here.”

  After the children ordered lunch, they discussed the case.

  “We already had a lot of questions,” Jessie began. “And now we have the broken mirror to wonder about. Do you think it has anything to do with the Amazing Arthur’s disappearance?”

  Henry said, “Actually I do. For one it was in the magic shop that day he suddenly appeared in front of it, out of nowhere.”

  “But now it’s shattered and completely useless,” Violet said. “I wonder who was there. And why did they leave in such a hurry?”

  “Could someone else be looking for the Amazing Arthur?” Henry wondered.

  “What if it was the Amazing Arthur himself?” Jessie asked.

  The teenage boy rolled out a tray to their table. He passed around blue plastic baskets with their wrapped cheeseburgers and pickles. Another basket held hot, crispy French fries. The boy set tall creamy milkshakes by each of the Aldens. “Have a nice lunch,” he said. He pulled a bottle of ketchup from his apron and placed it on the table before turning to go. “Just holler if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you,” the children said.

  “I think the mirror is connected to the new magic trick,” said Violet. “The one the Amazing Arthur was planning. He was very secretive about it. And Captain Cannon threatened him. He really wanted to know how it would work.”

  Jessie took a small notebook from her pocket. She liked to keep track of clues by writing them down. Clicking her pen, she said, “Okay, we know that the Amazing Arthur likes making an entrance. He’s famous for making a big dramatic splash. So just plain disappearing isn’t his style.”

  “Right,” said Violet. “He loves an audience to applaud and cheer him on. When he vanished the only person who could have possibly seen it was Mrs. Oliver. Why would he do a trick with only one person to notice?”

  “These are good questions,” said Jessie. “So what happened to him?”

  Henry squeezed ketchup on his fries and put the basket in the center of the table to share.

  “I think Captain Cannon is probably involved. He’s a big show-off and is bossy. I witnessed how mean he was to the Amazing Arthur,” said Henry. “And he accused the Amazing Arthur of not being able to perform his new trick just because the Amazing Arthur wouldn’t break the magician’s code.”

  Benny said, “And don’t forget he said the Amazing Arthur would regret not telling him the secret. Isn’t that what he said, Henry?”

  “That’s what he said,” Henry replied.

  Benny ate the whipped cream off his milkshake and the cherry on top. Then he poked a straw into the ice cream. After a big swallow he said, “I also think Mrs. Oliver is involved.”

  “Really? Why?” asked Violet.

  “She’s mean,” Benny answered.

  “Being mean doesn’t make her guilty,” said Jessie. “Remember how upset she was about all the stuff going wrong? If she were involved she wouldn’t care so much. At least that’s what I think.”

  “But I agree Mrs. Oliver isn’t very friendly,” Violet said. “What I don’t get is why she’s so ready to cancel the magic show. It’s a long tradition of the Greenfield Magic Shop to host the show. Those newspaper clippings on her wall go back years and years.”

  “Let’s face it,” Henry said, “we don’t know much about the Amazing Arthur’s new magic trick. We’re only guessing. But he’s missing. We found the big mirror smashed into pieces, and we’re pretty sure someone cut themselves on the broken glass. That’s what we know for sure.”

  Violet shrugged. “I guess we need to keep investigating.”

  As they left the table, Benny went over to the water fountain where Watch was patiently waiting. “You’re such a good boy, Watch. It’s all right if you’re not a bloodhound.”

  Henry paid for lunch, and then the children walked through the summer crowds back to the magic shop.

  A Confession

  The Greenfield Magic Shop was still hectic with kids roaming the aisles. Their voices were loud and full of wild laughter. No parents were in sight. No one was at the register.

  “I wonder where Mrs. Oliver is,” said Violet. “I don’t see her anywhere, do you?”

  “I hope she hasn’t disappeared now!” Jessie said.

  “Maybe she’s at lunch,” Benny grinned. “She might’ve been hungry like we were.”

  Henry laughed. “That sure was a good lunch, wasn’t it Benny?”

  Since Henry was taller than his siblings, he could see over the rows of toys and props. He noticed an adult on the far side of the store. He could just see a gray head of curly hair.

  “I think Mrs. Oliver is over there,” Henry said. He led them to a corner where a display of plastic spiders and lizards had spilled into the aisle. Magnetic coins and rings had fallen into a pile.

  Mrs. Oliver was organizing a box of insects. A carton of trick thumbs and fingers had also been knocked over. One by one she was returning each prop to its proper box. She did not seem to be in a hurry. She looked up at the children but did not smile. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying.

  “Can we help you clean this up?” Violet asked. “This looks like a lot of work.”

  “We’re happy to help,” said Jessie.

  “That would be lovely, children. Thank you,” said Mrs. Oliver.

  While the Aldens searched the floor for other tiny creatures, Henry asked if the Amazing Arthur had shown up.

  “Not yet,” Mrs. Oliver replied. “I’ve been here all day. If he were here, he’d be managing those wild kids or helping me organize things.”

  “Are you still thinking of canceling the magic show, Mrs. Oliver?” Violet wanted to know. “It’s just a few days away.”

  “Still thinking about it,” the woman answered. “At the very least I’m considering letting Captain Cannon run it. He’s so insistent. It’s almost like he caused the disappearance of the Amazing Arthur just so he can be in charge.”