Pete found this odd.

Emperor must have had the recent respect of his peers to have been invited to the Kerry Theatre in the first place. So why, Pete wondered, the freeze-out before the incident? Chilled by the thought, Pete suspected Emperor was invited to the Kerry Theatre just so the others could ask him his secrets. Maybe Mr. Bench was right when he’d said Emperor could end up being the best of all of them. And maybe the other magicians, a union headed by Don Deanie, feared this.

Pete was liking Emperor more and more with everything he read.

He read on. Presto from the same time period.

FOR SOME, TOURING IS NOT A SEASONAL THING. IT APPEARS THAT ROMAN EMPEROR IS SET TO PERFORM IN EVERY CITY THE COUNTRY HAS TO OFFER. HE CLAIMS NO PLACE OF RESIDENCE AND YOU CAN PROBABLY SEE HIS BLACK MERCEDES PULL INTO YOUR TOWN IF YOU LOOK LONG ENOUGH. HERE’S TO HOPING ALL THAT WORK PAYS OFF.

Pete figured it had. Somewhat, anyway. Emperor was as familiar a name now as Wade McGowan or Albert Rich. That seemed a long way to come.

And the more he read, the more impatient he got for that ticket.

4

Mike wasn’t the only kid with his ticket that Tuesday in school. Four other kids had theirs, and rumor was that everybody was going to the midnight magic show at the Domino Theater. It was the biggest topic at school. It was all anyone could talk about. Pete wasn’t even sure how everybody knew! One kid’s dad said he’d take him himself. Another kid said his parents bought three tickets. Girls, boys, everybody was going. In one of Pete’s classes the teacher mentioned Harry Houdini. Referred to him as the “best there ever was.” Pete turned red in his seat. He wanted so badly to get up and tell everybody about Finn the Fantastic and Roman Emperor and the Kerry Theatre and all the touring and every little thing he’d read. But he didn’t want to share this with everyone else. None of this! Magic was his. The only thing he had to himself.

And here that prized possession seemed to be slipping from his fingers.

By Wednesday morning another fifteen kids had tickets. Pete considered stealing the eight dollars from a fellow student. In class he eyeballed pockets, looking for loose bills, like he was starving and there might be bread in there. The wait was torturing him. The school hours sluggishly bumped into one another like bumper cars driven by children. By lunchtime the coming midnight magic show was the only topic of conversation and Pete was losing his mind.

Ryan Dickson called him Roman Empire!

Oh, how the misinformation was driving Pete mad.

“He can make any animal out of a balloon. Even a kangaroo.”

“He dresses in a long black cape and pulls bunnies from a hat.”

“He can read your mind and write down your thoughts before you tell them to him.”