The girls stood looking on frustrated. They looked at his hands but there was no way the ball could be in there- it was too big. Still they looked on anyway. They had spent frustrating minutes trying to prise open the fingers but to no avail. Finally they were ready to give up. Noticing this he released a finger from his balled hand to reveal momentarily enough of the pink plastic piggy ball to draw their attention before hiding it again with the finger. It did the trick. The two girls launched at the hand and tried once more to rip the fingers apart.
After a time they gave up so he relented and asked the oldest to open her hand. The balled fist hovered above it and then opened. No ball dropped though. He turned over his hand to reveal it was empty. The two girls gaped with eyes wide and then looked at each other to giggle. They were amazed.
"Wow, that was magic daddy" said the oldest.
"It was" I replied.
They insisted I do it again but this time the oldest was more attentive. She wouldn't take her eyes off the hand. Whereas last time they had been diverted enough to hide the ball while they were not looking this time there was no chance. I had in the end to say that all the magic had run out. The oldest pleaded to be shown how it was done but I had to say that it was magic and could not be shown.
Five minutes later after going away for a think my oldest daughter returned. She said nothing but opened up my hands and started rubbing her palms on my own. When I asked what she was doing she told me she was rubbing some of my magic on to her own hands. This made me laugh. She looked at me a little bemused.
"Its not really magic is it daddy?" she enquired.
At this point I wasn't sure what to say. Do I keep up the pretense and become the father of allure or do I come clean? I decided to be honest.
"I didn't think so" she said quite pleased with herself.
I thought it would end there but she insisted I show her how I did it. What had been a spur of the moment thing was now being prolonged. So I showed her and she was pleased going off to do the trick to her mum. But no end there. Now she had a taste for it. She was back demanding more. New tricks, better ticks. I didn't have any tricks so she was left disappointed. What I did promise her though was that the following day I would teach her something new.
That was yesterday. I have no interest in magic tricks but spent 4 hours last night browsing the Internet looking for something simple to show her. God it was mind numbing. Some were just rubbish. Some were too hard. Some just wouldn't work. Some needed props. Just a simple trick was all I wanted but the search was taking forever. Finally I found something. All it needs is a bit of paper and a coin. When she comes in from school I will give her a little performance and then show her how. I have a funny feeling it could become a daily occurrence until she gets bored. This is a great trick though and very clever yet simple. Its all down to how you fold the paper and after a couple of tries I've got it sussed. This will really give them a hoot. I am looking forward to it.
