I lay down on my back and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath.
Nothing happened. Not at first. Maybe nothing was going to happen. Maybe Houdini didn’t know how to do Metamorphosis after all.
And then I noticed a rumbling. An earthquake? My bed wasn’t shaking. I was. It was very gentle at first, and gradually it became more powerful. It didn’t hurt. It was sort of like one of those coin-operated vibrating chairs they have in airports and furniture stores.
I wanted to open my eyes to see what was happening to me, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to mess things up.
It felt like the room was spinning.
And then I was gone.
MISDIRECTION
When I opened my eyes, I was outdoors. It was daytime, and bright. I had to shield my eyes from the sun. I didn’t know where I was. It didn’t look like New York City.
There were people all around me. There must have been hundreds of them. And they were all staring at me, buzzing with conversation and excitement. I looked around quickly for clues. There were lots of tall buildings. I was downtown in a big city somewhere, but I didn’t know where. It sure didn’t seem like the 21st century. All the men were wearing those old-time hats I’d seen in movies. Nobody wears those hats anymore.
I scanned the advertising signs: COFFEE 5 CENTS. CHEVROLET. BROMO-SELTZER. GAYETY THEATER. LOEW’S STATE. A movie theater was playing something called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. A street sign read MCGEE. I didn’t remember any McGee Street in New York.
Three tall guys walked over to me. One wore glasses, and one had on some sort of military uniform. He had a pleasant smile on his face.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Hahaha!” laughed the guy in the uniform. “Very funny.”
He said it as if it was totally obvious where I was.
“Kansas City, of course,” said the guy with glasses.
I noticed the big sign overhead—KANSAS CITY STAR. That must be the name of the local newspaper.
I looked down to see that I didn’t have on my regular clothes. I was wearing a pair of striped pants, black shoes, a white shirt, and a jacket and tie. I would never have picked out these clothes. And I hate wearing a tie.
“Are you ready?” asked the guy in the uniform.
“Ready for what?” I asked.
He laughed again.
“What’s happening?” I demanded. “What am I doing here? What year is it?”
“It’s 1921, of course,” said the guy with glasses.
So Houdini had done it. He had somehow pulled off Metamorphosis, just like he said he would, and sent me to Kansas City a hundred years in the past. I wondered where he was. Maybe he was sitting in my house at the same instant, watching my TV or playing with my computer.
I took a deep breath. I had known that Metamorphosis was going to happen, but it was still a shock to my system.
“Can I have a mirror?” I asked the guys.
“Get the man a mirror!” barked the guy in the military uniform. In seconds somebody hustled over with one of those little circular mirrors that ladies use to put on their makeup. He handed it to me and I looked at myself.
Oh no. I was Houdini.
My head was big, with piercing, penetrating blue-gray eyes that looked almost frightening. My hair was thick, bushy, and curly, and parted in the middle. My forehead was big, my eyebrows were wide, and my chin and cheekbones were sharp. I didn’t look anything like the real me. And I was a grown man.
Not that grown. The three guys around me were all much bigger. I couldn’t have been taller than five foot six. My legs seemed a little bowlegged. I knew Houdini was a short man. That was one of the advantages he had when it came to escaping from enclosed spaces.
“Are you okay, Mr. Houdini?” asked the guy in the uniform. “You look a little…under the weather.”
“I need to sit down for just a moment,” I said. “To catch my breath.”
“Get Houdini a chair!” barked the guy in the uniform.
Somebody rushed over with a wooden folding chair.
I sat down heavily and put my head in my hands, trying to clear it. How did I get into this? And how was I going to get back home?
As I was looking at the ground, I noticed a sheet of paper beneath my feet. I picked it up and flipped it over.…
Oh no.
This was bad. This was real bad.
You may not even know what a straitjacket is. Houdini got his start by escaping from handcuffs and manacles. But after a few years people got bored watching that. They wanted something more exciting, and they didn’t want to sit around for an hour waiting for him to open the handcuffs. So he started dreaming up other escapes. He was constantly trying to top himself to keep the public interested.
At some point, Houdini visited an insane asylum and saw inmates constrained in these heavy canvas “jackets.” He knew immediately that could be his next escape.
A guy holding a big white megaphone addressed the crowd.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “Thanks to the good folks at the Kansas City Star, I would like to welcome to our fair city the king of handcuffs, the master of manacles, the amazing Harry Houdini!”
The crowd erupted in applause and hat waving.
“For your entertainment and amazement,” the megaphone man continued, “the great Houdini—who will be appearing at the Orpheum Theater tonight and tomorrow night—will perform—for free—for you—a feat which at one time was thought to be utterly impossible—that of escaping from a regulation straitjacket. Do you think he can do it?”
The crowd hollered back a chorus
