Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power Read Free Page B

into her library books, Abby reached what she thought were two important conclusions about magic.
    First, people have always wished that magic were real. The first civilizations worshiping the sun and the stars . . . the Greeks with their mythology of magical gods . . . people these days who pay to see magicians who they
know
are faking it—everybody wants to believe that magic is possible.
    Second, people usually find out eventually that there
is
no real magic.
    Oh, there are close calls. There are all kinds of things that people
want
to believe in. There are freaky coincidences, rumors, and ancient tales of mysticism from centuries ago.There are religious miracles that nobody’s ever seen firsthand.
    But when it comes to magic that you can see yourself, repeat reliably, prove scientifically, there’s never been much of anything.
    Until I came along,
Abby thought with mixed emotions.
    One night, she was sitting on her bed, flipping through the last chapters of
Sorcery and Society: The Need to Believe,
when a voice boomed from her doorway.
    â€œPardon the intrusion, my little Abbitha. Do I disturb?”
    She looked up to see her father’s grinning face.
    â€œNo, no, come on in,” she said.
    It was hard to resist Mr. Carnelia. He had a gentle soul, he had little nicknames for everyone, and he made the best spaghetti sauce ever.
    Or at least he did when he was around. In those days, he worked as an airline pilot. And airline pilots have some of the wackiest work schedules in the world: they’re away from home for twenty days in a row, flying around the country, and then they’re home for two weeks straight. Abby liked the dad-at-home weeks a lot more than the dad-not-there weeks.
    â€œDoing some homework, are we?” he said as he sat down on her stuffed-animal trunk.
    â€œYeah,” Abby lied. “Just some school stuff.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Homework about witch doctors and Houdini?”
    He nudged a book on the floor with his foot. It was called
The Focus on Hocus Pocus.
On the cover, there were pictures of magicians through the ages.
    â€œWhat kind of school do we send you to, anyway?”
    Abby sighed and flopped back on her pillows. “Okay, it’s not really school homework,” she said.
    Mr. Carnelia bent over, picked up the book, and walked over to sit on the foot of her bed.
    â€œNow listen, little one,” he said kindly. “You don’t get to be as old as I am without learning how to tell when something is on your favorite daughter’s mind.”
    He tapped her ankle gently twice with his meaty fist. “You rush off from dinner every night, you haven’t written anything on your blog in two weeks, and we’ve almost forgotten what Morgan looks like. Something is up with you, beetling.”
    Abby scrunched farther down into her pillows.
    â€œI’m going to stick my neck out here,” he went on, “and make a guess. I believe that all of this has something to do with what happened the other day to your hard-boiled egg. Am I close?”
    Abby just turned over onto her stomach, face in the pillows.
    â€œI’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Well, in that case, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I don’t believe in magic myself. But I do believe in Abigail the Magnificent. And I would like to become your patron.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” Abby allowed one eye to peek out from the pillow folds.
    â€œIn the golden age, my dear, there were great musicians and artistes, and then there were the patrons—the rich and the royals, who gave money to those performers and creators to support their artistic endeavors.”
    Abby flopped back over to look at him, listening carefully.
    â€œWhat you may not realize, little McAbbister, is that I was once quite a magician myself. I pulled enough quarters out of ears to fill the Grand Canyon. I did amateur birthday party