All day long at school, I had a bad feeling inside. Houdini was going to text me again at some point, for sure. But I didn’t know when. I had left the flip phone at home because I didn’t want to deal with him. I was beginning to regret ever getting the phone. It’s funny, when Houdini first contacted me, I was so excited. Now I was avoiding him, like he was a telemarketer trying to sell me something.
“Mr. Mancini, did you hear the question?” my Social Studies teacher Mrs. Ashbury suddenly asked me.
“Huh?” I said. “Yeah, I’m sorry. My mind was wandering.”
“Well tell it to wander back to the Revolutionary War,” she replied. “We’ll have a test on this material tomorrow.”
When I got home from school, I did my homework and tried to study. I didn’t talk much over dinner. Afterward, I went to my room and watched some YouTube videos to take my mind off Houdini. My mom poked her head into my room.
“You okay, honey?” she asked. “You’ve been awfully quiet today.”
“I’m fine,” I replied. “I guess I’m a little nervous because I have a Social Studies test tomorrow.”
“Maybe you should get to bed early tonight,” she said. “I’m going to sleep now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Yeah, going to bed sounded like a good idea. Maybe Houdini wouldn’t call at all. Maybe he got Metamorphosis out of his system and I wouldn’t hear from him again. It occurred to me that once the battery on the phone died, he wouldn’t be able to contact me if he wanted to. But right now it had a full charge. It would take a few hours of solid texting to drain it.
That’s when it happened.
Bzzzzz…bzzzzz…bzzzzz…
Oh no, it was him. I didn’t want to text with him.
I let it ring a few more times, hoping it might stop. But it didn’t. Reluctantly, I flipped opened the phone. This was on the screen…
“HARRY, IT’S ME, HARRY.”
Of course it was him. Who else could it be?
“Yeah,” I tapped.
“THAT WAS SOME METAMORPHOSIS, WASN’T IT?”
“Yeah,” I tapped again. I didn’t want to get into an argument about it. I was mad.
But Houdini was in a talkative mood.
“I WAS A BOY, LIKE YOU!” he texted. “IT FELT SO GOOD TO BE YOUNG AGAIN! AND THE CITY CHANGED SO MUCH! THE CARS! THE FASHIONS! THE SKYSCRAPERS! I HAD A WONDERFUL TIME! AT ONE POINT I GOT ARRESTED AND THE COP HANDCUFFED ME. THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD HOLD ME WITH HANDCUFFS! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?”
He went on and on, describing his adventure in New York just the way it had happened in my dream. He could barely contain his excitement.
I didn’t respond. I just watched the words scroll up the screen. It didn’t seem to register in his mind that I was angry.
“SO HOW DID YOU LIKE BEING THE GREAT HOUDINI?” he finally asked.
I didn’t reply. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That’s what my mom always tells me.
“YOU STILL THERE, HARRY?”
“Yeah,” I tapped.
“SOMETHING WRONG?”
I decided to be honest.
“Yes, something is wrong,” I tapped. “You deceived me.”
“HOW?”
He didn’t have a clue. It was like he didn’t pick up on other people’s feelings.
“How do you think?” I tapped. “I could have been killed.”
“BUT YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO BE FAMOUS,” Houdini texted. “I SAID I WOULD MAKE YOU THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN THE WORLD FOR ONE HOUR, AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I DID.”
“You didn’t tell me I’d have to hang upside down and get out of a straitjacket!” I tapped angrily. “You did a misdirection on me!”
“YOU WANTED TO BE FAMOUS, HARRY,” he continued. “FAME DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN TO PEOPLE. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO GET FAMOUS.”
In the 21st century, it occurred to me, people can become famous overnight by simply putting on some silly costume or by posting an outrageous tweet that goes viral. In Houdini’s day, you had to actually do something amazing to get famous. And after you did it, there was no Internet to spread the word about what you did. They didn’t even have television yet. Houdini had to risk his life escaping from something every day, in every town, in front of a live audience. And the people must have felt they had to make the effort to be there to see it in person. Because they never knew when he might fail to escape, or even die trying.
Still, I was mad. He should apologize.
“You should have warned me,” I tapped. “That would have been the right thing to do.”
“BUT ADMIT IT,” he texted. “YOU HAD FUN, DIDN’T YOU?”
“Fun?” I tapped. “I wouldn’t call it fun. Maybe it’s fun for you to put your life on the line. It wasn’t fun for me.”
“BUT YOU GOT OUT OF THE STRAITJACKET, RIGHT?” he texted. “YOU ESCAPED.”
“Yes.”
“AND YOU CONFRONTED YOUR FEAR OF HEIGHTS.”
“I had no choice.”
“AND I BET IT MADE YOU A BETTER PERSON,” he texted. “NOW YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU COULD ESCAPE FROM THAT SITUATION, YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.”
“Maybe.”
“AND I’LL BET YOU LIKED HEARING ALL THOSE PEOPLE CHEERING FOR YOU.”
“Yes.” I had to admit I enjoyed it when I threw off the straitjacket and the crowd went crazy.
“AND YOU GAVE THOSE PEOPLE HOPE THAT THEY COULD ESCAPE FROM THE PROBLEMS IN THEIR LIVES.”
“I suppose.”
“SO ALL IN ALL, METAMORPHOSIS WAS A GOOD THING FOR YOU, AGREE?”
Maybe it was. I don’t know. I was just glad it was over. He was a jerk.
I thought that would be the end of it. I didn’t want to communicate with Harry Houdini anymore. He had tricked me, and I didn’t like being tricked. I had been living a perfectly happy life before he entered it. I didn’t need so much stress and excitement in my life.
I tried to think of a way to end the conversation.
“I’m pretty tired” I began tapping, when his next text came in.
“HARRY,” he texted. “THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO TALK
