The Magic Trick

Anant loved magic tricks. Ever since he saw a magician perform at his friend's birthday party, he was hooked. 

Abaracadabara became his favourite word. He got hold of a ruler and would go about abaracadabra-ing everyone and everything. So much so that his teacher summoned Papa to say that she was concerned about this fixation of his.

But Papa wasn't too much worried. He said it's a phase, and that Anant would soon get out of it. I agreed. Being his elder brother, I could understand very well the truth of Papa's statement. So, for his tenth birthday, I presented him with a book that detailed how to perform easy magic tricks. 

He was elated. He read it thoroughly and performed all the tricks. He got so good at them that Anant and his magic tricks were the talk of our locality. He set his sights higher and would talk of doing more complicated tricks. None of us was prepared for what happened next. Never, in our wildest dreams we could have imagined it. 

Anant went missing. When he didn't return till dinnertime, Ma got worried. She sent me to look for him. I went to all the possible places, but couldn't find him. Meanwhile Papa too was asking around. We drew a blank. Ma was getting agitated. One of our neighbours suggested we form a search party to look for him. All our neighbours offered to help. Someone else suggested we inform the police. We did both. Night turned to morning, still we had no news of him. Morning turned to evening, and we were no better. 

The news of Anant's disappearance had reached his teacher. She came home with a piece of news. Anant had been telling his classmates that he wanted to try the act where the magician is locked in a box and is able to free himself from chains and locks. He told his friends that he wanted to learn it.

Everyone had the same thought. Did Anant try to do this act? His teacher asked if we had checked the house thoroughly. This question shook us up. We scrambled to every corner of the house. Papa rushed to the store room. There were two old iron trunks that belonged to my grandfather. Due to theIr sentimental value, Papa had still preserved them. Both were closed shut. 

Papa hurried to open one. It was empty. I opened the second. And inside was Anant, lifeless.