19

The magician catches sight of you edging a little closer and hesitates for a moment before bringing her cards a little closer to her chest.

"Excellent work, my young assistant!" the magician exclaims. The little girl giggles. "Now, make sure you show the card to everybody but me. Don't even let me sneak a peek."

The magician covers her eyes but pretends to peer through her fingers before forcibly slapping her other hand over her face. The children burst into laughter as the little girl shows you all that her card is the king of diamonds.

"Have you shown everybody? Wonderful! Now, my young assistant, would you be so kind as to return the card?"

Still covering her eyes, the magician holds out the deck and the girl quickly slips the card back into the middle. You can tell she takes her job very seriously.

"Very well done, miss," the magician says and once again starts shuffling the cards at lightning speed. You can see through her mask that she's not even looking at her hands. "Now, everyone, watch very closely. For the magic to work, I have to mix up the cards so much that they've forgotten which one's which. That way, I can make sure that wherever you've hidden your card, it gets so lost that it comes right out to the top—"

Just as she's in the middle of a very complicated movement, her hands slip and the cards explode into the air in a huge flurry. As one, the children gasp; the little girl claps her hands to her mouth in horror.

"Um—oh, gosh—I'm sorry, I never used to be this clumsy!" the magician stammers, a note of panic in her voice. "Quickly, children, can you find all the cards? We need to count them to make sure nothing's missing. Remember, there are 52 cards in a deck!"

Immediately, the children band together to form a rescue party, rushing around to pick up every last fallen card. But even as they set about trying to retrieve them all, you can see that a few of them are at risk of getting caught up by the wind—or even trampled under the feet of oblivious passers-by.