You hand somebody a sealed envelope to hold before anything starts. Your friend picks a three-digit number of their own and does some adding and subtracting. When they open the envelope, your number is their answer.
🌟 Level 1: Apprentice
⏱ 5 minutes to learn
🔮 Mind reading
🎒 Ages 7+
Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Write 1089 on a slip of paper, seal it in the envelope, and give it to somebody to hold before you start.
They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.
What do you say during a magic trick?
The words a magician says are called patter. Good patter tells a small story, asks the audience to help, and then goes completely quiet for one second at the magic moment. Every trick in this shop has magic words to say that you can copy or change.
You hand somebody a sealed envelope to hold before anything starts. Your friend picks a three-digit number of their own and does some adding and subtracting. When they open the envelope, your number is their answer. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 7 to 12 (grades 2nd–6th), takes 5 minutes to learn, and needs 3 things you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
Follow those steps with any three-digit number whose first and last digits are at least 2 apart, and the answer is 1089. Every single time.
What you need
A sheet of paper
A wooden pencil
An envelope
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Write 1089 on a slip of paper, seal it in the envelope, and give it to somebody to hold before you start.
How to do it
Ask your friend to write any three-digit number on the paper with the pencil.
Tell them the first and last digits must be at least 2 apart. So 721, not 323.
Ask them to write it backwards underneath, then take the smaller from the bigger.
If their answer has only two digits, like 99, write it as 099.
Now write that answer backwards too, and add the two together.
Ask whoever is holding the envelope to open it and read it out.
Magic words to say
“I've been practising seeing into the future, but so far it only works with numbers. I looked this morning and wrote down what I saw. That was before you'd even thought of a number.”
Pro tips
Give the envelope to somebody else to hold. A prediction in somebody else's hand is worth twice one in yours.
Never do this twice for the same person, or they'll notice the answer never changes.
Let them use a calculator for the sums. It makes no difference and it speeds the trick up.
If something goes wrong
If they pick a number whose ends are too close, you'll get 0 or 99. Say "ah, that one's too shy" and ask for another with the digits further apart. You warned them, so it's fair.
Safety notes
Sit at a table.
No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.
Why it works
A three-digit number minus its own reverse is always a multiple of 99: 198, 297, 396 and so on up to 891. Add any one of those to its own reverse and you get 1089. The rule about the end digits is just there to stop the difference being 0.
What kind of trick is this?
🔮 Prediction. You knew all along, or you read their mind. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.
The skill it teaches:The big finish. End on your best one, then stop. Perform it and it counts towards the Mind Reader badge.
Questions about the 1089 trick
How do magicians read minds?
They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.
What do you say during a magic trick?
The words a magician says are called patter. Good patter tells a small story, asks the audience to help, and then goes completely quiet for one second at the magic moment. Every trick in this shop has magic words to say that you can copy or change.