The magician - Sue

Freda cavorts around the tiny bedroom with her i-pod hanging out of her left ear. She is still in her pink flannelette pyjamas as her hair whip lashes around her face and her bare feet spring effortlessly from the carpet. The white net curtains billow slightly in the wind and the early morning sun sends a shaft of brilliant light onto her dance floor.

She slips, her foot rolling over an overturned cup, and lands bum first on the floor. But her bum doesn’t stay on the floor. It bounces off the red carpet and hovers just a few feet from floor before bouncing again, and then again. Her body is behaving like she’s on a trampoline, not a hard bedroom floor.

“I can bounce? What? How odd!” the questions hover unanswered.

She clambers up onto the bed and jumps onto the floor. The same thing happens, her feet bounce off the floor, pause a while in mid air and then bounce another couple of times before she, or they, stand still.

Her curious young mind doesn’t really argue with what’s happening. She accepts that she has developed a weird super power that allows her to bounce around the town. She heads for the stairs and breakfast, being careful not to jump and bounce.

Half an hour later she’s on the school bus, sitting next to Claire. The secret bouncing burbles irresistibly out in a fit of giggles.

“Guess Claire, go on, guess what happened to me this morning” and without pausing for breath

“I bounced. I bounced when I fell on the floor and I bounced when I jumped off the bed.”

“You what? You bounced? Only balls bounce you idiot”

Freda hesitated.

“I swear I did”

“OK, OK, but why?” and Claire slips her arm around her best friend’s shoulders.

“Now that is the million dollar question?”

“I know” whispered Claire. “Let’s just wait and see what happens. It will be our secret.”


Nothing happens all day. Freda and Claire keep glancing sneakily at each other, trying not to laugh. Claire goes home with Freda, pretending that they are going to do their homework together. Instead they sit upstairs in Freda’s bedroom and wait and watch and listen.

“Shall I try now?” says Freda

“No, I think you should wait until you need to bounce somewhere. Maybe it’s important”

There’s a pathetic whimper outside the bedroom window. The girls look at each other. It comes again, but much much louder. It sounds more like the roar of a lion. They peer through the curtains, not sure what to expect.

There, balanced on the tiniest of branches, right at the end where it’s thin and brittle, is Mischief the Siamese. But he has something in his paws.

“It’s Leo, my stuffed lion. How mean. Oh Leo” cries Freda.

“Well you can’t get up that tree, it’s miles too tiny. But you know what, you can bounce up there” says Claire. “Off you go, let me see you”

“I’ve got to rescue Leo before Mischief mauls him to pieces. You think so, you think I can bounce there?” and she’s out of the bedroom door.

But she jumps the last number of stairs, lands on the polished floorboards of the hall and bounces. She hits her head on the chandelier which shatters into pieces sending glass raining all around the hall. Mischief wakes up. He is so terrified, he leaps out of the tree and disappears. Leo lies on the grass with a weird sort of smile. Does he have magic powers?