I turn. The children gasp. Archie pulls a bright yellow scarf from the back of my hood, and I have absolutely no idea how it got there.
“Sparkle, could you check your left pocket for me?”
I reach in. There’s a red scarf. I pull it out slowly, staring at it.
“And your right pocket?”
Blue. I didn’t put any of these here. When did he?—
“Sparkle, there seems to be something coming out of your horn.”
A green scarf is dangling from the tip of my light-up unicorn horn. The children are in hysterics. I reach up and tug it free, and it keeps coming—three feet, four feet, an impossible length of green silk unspooling from a plastic horn.
“Sparkle is full of magic,” Archie tells the audience solemnly. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
I stare at the pile of scarves in my hands. The children are screaming with delight. And I genuinely have no idea when he planted any of this.
“That’s a better impressed face,” Archie says.
The scarves trick transitions into a card trick that requires me to hold up a giant deck of cards while Archie shuffles a regular-sized deck.
“Now, Sparkle is going to pick a card from this deck. But here’s the thing about unicorns.” Archie leans in conspiratoriallytoward the kids. “They’re not very good at picking cards. Their hooves get in the way.”
The children giggle.
“So, Sparkle, pick a card. Any card. Show it to the audience but not to me.”
I draw a card. The seven of hearts. I show it to the children, who immediately start whispering loudly about what it is, completely defeating the purpose of not telling Archie.
“Excellent. Now put it back in the deck.” He shuffles elaborately, angling his body so every child can see.
“And now, Sparkle, I need you to hold up the giant deck again.”
I’ve been wondering what the oversized cards are for. I hold them up, fanned out toward the audience. They’re all blank on the face side.
“Everyone, look at Sparkle’s big cards. Are there any pictures on them?”
“NO!” the children shout.
“Sparkle, say the magic words.”
I was not informed about magic words. I was told about saying “I’m the proof,” but from the gleam in Archie’s eye, this is something else.
“Go on, Sparkle. Say the magic words,” he instructs.
“What magic words?”
“You know.” Archie gestures encouragingly. “The ones all unicorns know.”
I stare at him blankly.
“Fine, I’ll help you out.” He cups his hand around his mouth and stage-whispers to the children. “Everyone help Sparkle remember. The magic words are ‘I am a pretty, pretty unicorn, and I believe in magic.’ Ready? One, two, three…”
The children scream the words at me expectantly.
I am going to switch his phone language to Mandarin. I am going to replace his coffee with decaf. I am going to sign his email address up for every mailing list I can find.
“I am a pretty, pretty unicorn,” I say through gritted teeth, “and I believe in magic.”
