“I don’t want to,” Carter said. “But the police are already asking about my parents. I can’t go into foster care. Who knows where I’d end up?”
“A wise man once said that decisions are best made in the morning after a good night’s sleep, a shower, and a well-rounded breakfast. At this point, you’ve missed the sleep part, but the Other Mr. Vernon is making breakfast back at our home. And there are a few people who’d like to see you before you make a decision.”
“Breakfast sounds good,” Carter said, feeling his cheeks burn.
“Good. Come along,” Mr. Vernon said as he climbed down the train car ladder.
When he walked into Mr. Vernon’s dining room in the apartment above the magic shop, Carter was surprised to see the entire gang there. Theo, Ridley, Leila, Olly, and Izzy were all helping to set the table.
“Carter!” they screamed, running over to hug him.
“We did it! We really did it!” Leila said. “We took down Bosso and his circle of stooges.”
“Not all of them,” Theo said. “The police arrested Bosso, the Sideshowers, and the Pock-Pickets, but they never found the frown clowns.”
“A worry for another day,” the Other Mr. Vernon said, walking into the room with a platter stacked high with pancakes and strawberries. “For now, it’s time to eat.”
“Perhaps after presents?” Mr. Vernon suggested. He presented four boxes and placed them before Carter, Theo, Leila, and Ridley. “I’m sorry, Olly and Izzy, but I didn’t know we’d be having two more join us.”
“No worries!” Olly said, stuffing his mouth. “These pancakes are treat enough.”
When the four misfits opened their packages, they found what they had thought lost—Leila’s lucky lockpicks, Ridley’s journal, Theo’s bow, and Carter’s wooden box. Carter held the small, carved box to his chest, tracing his fingers over the initials LWL. “But how?” Carter asked.
“A good magician never tells,” Mr. Vernon said.
But Carter’s quick mind began to sort through the details of the last few days. When he first met Mr. Vernon, he’d given Carter the book about the “vanishing object on the podium” trick. Mr. Vernon was old friends with B. B. “Bobby” Bosso. He must have known that Bosso would try to steal the diamond, and how. He also must have pickpocketed the Pock-Pickets along the way and retrieved the misfits’ things.
“We were never on our own, were we?” Carter concluded. “You were looking after us from the beginning, making sure we were never in any real danger.… The coins in my pocket…? The blanket in the park…?”
Leila squinted. “What coins? What blanket?”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about.” Mr. Vernon smiled, helping himself to a pancake.
“What will you do now, Carter?” Theo asked.
Carter shrugged. After everything they’d been through together, after everything they’d done for him, how could he tell his friends what he’d been planning only an hour earlier? The thought made him feel empty inside. He didn’t want to leave Mineral Wells or his new friends, but what other option did he have?
The others must have been able to read it all in Carter’s face. “You can’t leave!” Leila blurted out. “You have to stay!” Theo patted Carter on the back, and even Ridley seemed to frown.
“Actually, I may have one more trick up my sleeve,” Mr. Vernon said. He waved the kids to follow him out of the apartment and into the connecting magic shop. Theo, always a gentleman, held the door open for everyone.
“Woof-woof. I’m a rabbit,” squawked Presto.
“Silly bird.” Leila laughed.
Mr. Vernon led the kids and the Other Mr. Vernon into the secret room and over to the wall covered in photos. On it were dozens of black-and-white images of different magicians. But near the bottom, there was one that stood out. It was a sepia-toned photo of six kids, their arms around one another.
“Who are they?” Leila asked, studying the photo.
“The Emerald Ring,” said Mr. Vernon. “There’s me as a boy, about your age, and that’s Bosso. Back then he went by the name Bobby Boscowitz.”
“You knew each other?” Ridley asked.
“We did. We were the best of friends,” Mr. Vernon said. “Bosso, myself, and the rest of our friends were all misfits, just like you lot. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. I wanted to draw Carter’s attention to Lyle.” He pointed to one of the boys in the photograph.
“He looks kind of like Carter,” Leila said.
“Lyle was my dad’s name,” Carter whispered, confused.
“Just as I suspected,” Mr. Vernon said, tears forming in his eyes. “From the first time I saw you, I wondered… but I decided it was impossible, that my old mind was playing tricks on me. Then this evening, when I pickpocketed the Pock-Pickets, I found your box with the initials LWL. By chance, do they stand for Lyle Wylder Locke?”
Carter nodded, stunned. “You knew my dad?”
“I did, and very well too,” Mr. Vernon said. “Lyle was my cousin.”
Something welled up inside Carter, forming a baseball-size lump in his throat. Other than Uncle Sly, he didn’t think he had any family. “Your cousin?”
“When Lyle met your mother, they moved to the West Coast to be closer to her family,” Mr. Vernon explained. “After your parents… you know… I knew that you ended up living with another relative, but no one seemed to know who, or where. For years, I looked for you. I never gave up, but I never imagined that fate would bring you to Mineral Wells.”
“Not fate,” Leila said. “Magic.”
Magic, fate, or coincidence. Carter wasn’t sure which was which anymore. He remembered hopping onto the yellow train car several days earlier like it was the right thing to do. Then again, all the tracks were leading in the same direction. Magic. Fate. Coincidence. Maybe at a certain point, thought Carter, all of these ideas start to blur together.
“Carter, would you like to come live with us?” Mr. Vernon asked. Carter didn’t have any words. So he just nodded yes.
The four friends gathered in the secret room hidden inside the magic shop. After they’d gotten their faces in the local paper for saving the day, they decided they should keep practicing magic and see what they could really do.
“Should we have a name for our organization?” Theo asked.
“What about the Emerald Ring?” said Leila. “Just like my dad’s group from when he was a kid?”
“That’ll only make me think of Bosso and his goons,” Ridley added. “Thanks, but no thanks!”
“How about the Olly and Izzy Gang?” Olly said.
“Or the Izzy and Olly Gang,” Izzy said.
“Where’d you two come from?” Ridley asked, annoyed.
“You’re not the only ones who know tricks,” the twins said together.
Olly added, “And we’re happy to join. We have our own performance to perfect, but we don’t mind showing up from time to time.”
“As guest stars,” Izzy finished. “So yes, count us in too.”
“This is awkward,” Ridley said, nodding toward the twins. “But we are forming a gang of magicians.”
“Yeah, awesome!” cried Olly.
“Does this mean we get special outfits?” asked Izzy.