Now, Uncle Sly wasn’t the type of man to celebrate his young nephew’s ability to change up his oldest and best illusion, but he was smart enough to notice an opportunity when it was sneezing ice cubes right in front of him. So on Carter’s birthday, instead of throwing him a party, Uncle Sly decided to test him. He sent the boy up to a random couple on the street to perform his very first show.
As Carter approached, he nervously slicked his blond mop of hair to the side, pinched his pale cheeks, and opened his blue eyes wide. The couple seemed happy to stop for him. First, Carter presented a deck of cards and asked the woman to choose one and keep it hidden between her two hands, making sure not to show him.
“Now, hold on to it tight,” he said, “while I guess which card you picked.… Is it the queen of diamonds?”
“It is! It is!” the woman gasped. But when she opened her hands to look, she yelped, “The card is gone!”
“Is it?” Carter asked, holding it up in his own hand.
“How did you do that?” the man asked.
“With magic, of course,” Carter said, though the words were just words. Carter didn’t believe in real magic, but he knew a thing or two about making people pay attention to one thing while he distracted them from something else. Growing bolder, he added, “Now, would you mind giving me back the card you’ve taken, sir?”
“I didn’t take a card,” the man said.
“Then what is that in your pocket?”
The man reached into his breast pocket, and sure enough, the king of diamonds was inside.
The couple laughed. With a flick of his wrist, Carter produced a bouquet of colorful paper flowers. He presented it to the woman, then took a bow, just like Uncle Sly had taught him. The couple clapped and clapped and clapped.
The lady kissed Carter on his cheek. The man gave him a nickel. Carter’s proud uncle shook both their hands before hustling Carter away.
Carter beamed like the sun. He had brought joy to the young couple. In earning their smiles, he recalled his own two parents and their laughter. He didn’t care that there was no party. It was still a very good birthday.…
At least until later, when Carter realized his uncle had stolen the man’s wristwatch and the woman’s wedding ring. Uncle Sly had used him. Carter knew too many stories in which villains stole from innocent people. These stories always made him feel as if someone had stolen his parents from him.
What was left of that earlier, good feeling squeezed out of him like a balloon with a leak in it.
Uncle Sly was not an ideal guardian by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the opposite. You already know that he was a thief, but you should also understand that he was a con artist—someone who cheats others by getting them to believe something that isn’t true.
Carter’s uncle enjoyed “short cons.” This means he didn’t go in for long-term scams that took days or weeks to pull off. He did it as quickly as possible, robbing money or valuables off people in the blink of an eye. By the time they realized they’d been robbed, Uncle Sly was gone.
This was the reason why Carter never had a home. He’d never had friends or his own bedroom. He’d never gone to school or had a place that made him feel safe. He and his uncle slept in shelters on good days and in dark alleys on bad ones, constantly moving from town to town to town. After all, when you’re in the habit of making other people’s things vanish, it’s best that you know how to vanish too.
Sometimes Uncle Sly even disappeared for days at a time, leaving Carter behind. Carter wouldn’t know where his uncle had gone, if he was hurt or in trouble, or if he’d ever see him again. Yet Uncle Sly would always come back without a word of explanation. Carter knew better than to ask where he’d been, especially with the cruel and angry glint in Uncle Sly’s eye, along with the scrapes and bruises that told their own story.
Left alone, Carter would practice his tricks, or find the closest library. He loved to lose himself in books about ideas like hope and strength and wonder, but also about things like train engineers, gymnastics, and pie recipes. Over time, he became good at fending for himself. He also became an expert cartwheeler and dreamer of sugary treats.
As the years went by, Carter’s patience began to wear down. His uncle was a crook—Carter knew that. Yet he kept hoping that Sly would suddenly pick a town, get a job, and settle down. Perhaps it was a slim hope, maybe even an impossible hope, but hope was one of the few things Carter had in his possession. At least until a particularly brisk spring night…
“See that man over there?” Uncle Sly whispered to Carter. “I want you to go over and nick his watch.” The word nick, while usually a man’s name, can also mean steal.
“How many times have I told you?” Carter said. “I don’t steal.” He’d come up with this rule years ago when he’d figured out what his uncle really did. He promised himself that he’d never be like his uncle. No matter what. It had been Carter’s code ever since.
“You little—” Uncle Sly growled as he grabbed Carter roughly by his shirt. A cop appeared, walking down the street, twirling his baton. Uncle Sly put on a bright smile and hugged Carter close, like a valued son. “—ball of sunshine! Oh, good evening, Officer.”
The officer nodded and kept walking.
When the cop was out of sight, Uncle Sly took Carter by the collar and snarled, “Fine. Then keep a lookout while I work.”
Carter’s uncle’s idea of work wasn’t typical. He didn’t invent the Hula-hoop or operate heavy machinery. He didn’t grow rhubarb on a farm or train zoo snakes to not bite children. Uncle Sly’s idea of work was a con artist’s version of work: stealing from others.
Carter’s fingers rubbed over the rectangular shape in the side of his leather satchel. All that he owned fit into this bag. It contained a deck of playing cards, three cups, three coins (one of which had a deep scratch down its face), some marbles, an extra pair of socks, a rope, his newsboy cap, and a small wooden box with the initials LWL on it. The box appeared to be sealed shut with no way to open it, but Carter didn’t care. It was the only thing he had left of his parents.
“I’d rather just go back to the halfway home,” Carter whispered to Uncle Sly. “My stomach doesn’t feel good.”
“It’s called a halfway house,” Uncle Sly snapped. “I won’t have you acting all sentimental-like. That kind of thinking can be dangerous for folks like us. Now, pull up your britches and get ready to help me out, would ya?”
Carter swallowed a groan as Uncle Sly searched the street for a victim. Minutes later, the cop reappeared, strolling slowly, looking inside shopwindows. Carter whistled, a signal telling his uncle to stop whatever criminal act he was doing. As the officer moved around the corner, Carter looked left and right for any others on patrol. When the coast was clear, he gave Uncle Sly a nod.