It was simply amazing. And Houdini did a similar trick using razor blades. I always wondered how he did it.
It didn’t take long for a reply to come back:
“I HID A THREADED SET OF NEEDLES BETWEEN MY UPPER GUM AND CHEEKS THE WHOLE TIME,” he explained. “AFTER I PULLED IT OUT OF MY MOUTH, I WOULD GET RID OF THE OTHER NEEDLES IN THE GLASS OF WATER AND MY ASSISTANT WOULD TAKE IT AWAY.”
Of course! I should have been able to figure that out.
“What about walking through walls?” I tapped. “How did you do that?”
It was another Houdini classic. A team of bricklayers would come up on stage and actually build a brick wall while the audience watched. Houdini would be on one side of the wall. Then a curtain would be placed in front, and Houdini would magically appear on the other side of the wall.
“THERE WAS A TRAP DOOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE,” came the reply. “WHEN IT WAS OPENED, THE CARPET SAGGED JUST ENOUGH FOR ME TO SQUEEZE UNDER THE WALL AND COME UP ON THE OTHER SIDE.”
Wow. Whoever this guy really was, he sure knew his stuff.
“What about the trunk escape?” I tapped. “How did you pull that off?”
The trunk escape was one of Houdini’s most famous tricks. That’s the one in which he would be locked up in chains and put inside a large trunk. The trunk would be nailed shut with dozens of nails, and then dropped into a river. People would line the banks, freaking out while it seemed like Houdini was drowning. A minute or two later, he would bob to the surface, smiling and free of the chains.
“SIMPLE,” was the reply. “THE TRUNK HAD A HIDDEN PANEL HELD ON BY TWO SHORT NAILS. I WOULD GET OUT OF THE CHAINS WHILE THE TRUNK WAS NAILED SHUT AND THEN PUSH OUT THE TRICK PANEL UNDERWATER.”
“Yeah, but how did you get out of the handcuffs and chains when you were locked in the trunk?” I tapped.
“THERE ARE A MILLION WAYS,” he texted back. “IF YOU HIT MOST HANDCUFFS ON A HARD SERVICE, THEY WILL OPEN. IF THAT DIDN’T WORK, I WOULD PICK THE LOCK WITH A SHOESTRING, HAIRPIN, PAPER CLIP, OR PIANO WIRE.”
I knew very well that before an escape, Houdini would invite people to come up on stage to look him over carefully to make sure he wasn’t hiding anything he might use to pick a lock. Sometimes they even had a doctor examine him.
“Where did you hide all that lock-picking stuff?” I asked.
“SOMETIMES BESS WOULD SLIP ME SOMETHING WHILE SHE WAS GIVING ME A KISS,” was the reply. SOMETIMES I HID IT IN A FAKE HOLLOW FINGER. THEY NEVER COUNT YOUR FINGERS.”
Wow. This guy was blowing my mind. He was either really good, or he was really Houdini.
But he couldn’t be Houdini! Houdini was long dead. And you can’t communicate with dead people—who, by the way, didn’t have cell phones in 1926. I had to keep telling myself not to let this guy make a fool out of me.
“Knowing all that stuff only proves you’re a fake!” I tapped. “Everybody knows that magicians never reveal their secrets.”
“DEAD ONES WOULD,” was the response. “WHAT DO I HAVE TO LOSE? MY LIFE IS OVER.”
He had a point, I suppose. If he was really dead, there was no reason to hold onto his secrets anymore. He might as well tell the world. My head was spinning.
“ARE YOU CONVINCED NOW?” it said on my screen.
I thought about it for a long time before replying.
“No,” I tapped. But honestly, I wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe the guy really was Houdini, talking to me from the grave.
“IF I COULD NOT EXPLAIN MY TRICKS, YOU WOULD HAVE SAID I WASN’T HOUDINI. AND WHEN I EXPLAINED MY TRICKS, YOU SAID I WASN’T HOUDINI. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO PROVE I AM WHO I SAY I AM?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“YOU HAVE ASKED ENOUGH QUESTIONS. NOW LET ME ASK A QUESTION OF YOU.”
“Go ahead,” I tapped. I can play along.
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“You don’t know who I am?” I tapped.
“NO.”
“My name is Harry Mancini,” I tapped. “I’m eleven years old.”
“AND WHAT YEAR IS IT?”
“It is the 21st century,” I tapped, tapping out the year to be more specific. There was a long pause.
“NOW IT IS YOU WHO IS MAKING THINGS UP.”
“I swear it’s true,” I tapped.
“WHERE DO YOU LIVE?”
“New York City,” I tapped.
“WHERE IN NYC?”
“In Harlem,” I tapped.
“WHERE IN HARLEM?”
“278 West 113th Street,” I tapped before it occurred to me that I shouldn’t give out my address to a total stranger.
“THAT’S MY HOUSE!” he replied.
“I know!” I tapped.
“YOU LIVE IN MY HOUSE?”
Something occurred to me.
“How come you could tell me exactly how I could have gotten out of the escape room,” I tapped, “but you didn’t know where or when I live?”
I waited for a response. Nothing.
Aha! I had him! He couldn’t answer that. He was a fake! I don’t know how he pulled it off, but he did it.
“Why did you contact…” I couldn’t tap in the word “me.” It didn’t show up on the screen.
Then I noticed that the screen was blank.
The battery of the cell phone had died.
A PIECE OF JUNK
The next day I got to school early. I needed to speak to Zeke before first period.
“I gotta talk to you,” I said when I saw him at his locker.
“I gotta talk to you too, Harry,” he told me. “You won’t believe what happened to me last night. Five minutes after I went to bed there was a siren outside my window. I figured it was an ambulance or a fire engine or something, so I got out of bed to see what was going on. And do you
