Your friend picks a card and you lose it in the middle of the deck. You snap your fingers and turn over the top card: it's theirs. You push it into the middle again, and again it comes back to the top.
🎩 Level 3: Wizard
⏱ 3 to 6 days to learn
🃏 Cards
🎒 Ages 10+
A real secret move, or a longer routine. Practise over days.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Practise the double lift alone for a few minutes every evening, in a mirror, until the two cards move as one.
Sleight of hand means secret moves made with your fingers, like holding a coin in a hand that looks completely empty. "Sleight" is an old word for skill or cleverness. It takes real practice, and it's one of the best feelings in magic.
How do you do a card trick?
Most beginner card tricks use a secret "key card" that you know, or a special order the cards are in before you start. Your friend picks a card, the secret quietly leads you to it, and then you reveal it in the most dramatic way you can think of.
The Card That Keeps Coming Back for kids: the whole trick
Your friend picks a card and you lose it in the middle of the deck. You snap your fingers and turn over the top card: it's theirs. You push it into the middle again, and again it comes back to the top. It's a level 3 wizard trick for ages 10 to 13 (grades 5th–7th), takes 3 to 6 days to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
Their card is always second from the top, and you turn the top two cards over together as if they were one: a move called the double lift. The card you push into the middle is a different card.
What you need
A deck of cards
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Practise the double lift alone for a few minutes every evening, in a mirror, until the two cards move as one.
How to do it
Let your friend pick any card from the deck, show everyone, and put it back on top.
Openly put one more card on top of theirs. Say: to bury it.
Snap your fingers over the deck.
With your thumb, lift the top two cards together at the back, lined up exactly.
Turn the pair over onto the deck as if it's one card. Their card is face up on top!
Turn the pair face down again, still together, and square the deck.
Take only the top card, keep it face down, and push it into the middle of the deck.
Snap your fingers again and slowly turn over the top card. It's theirs, back again!
Magic words to say
“Some cards are shy. This one is the opposite: it wants to be on top. I can put it in the middle, I can bury it, I can tell it off. Watch what it does.”
Pro tips
The double lift must look exactly like how you turn one card over. Practise turning a single card the same way, so both look the same.
Do it three times at most. A trick that keeps happening gets easier to catch.
Look at your friend, not the deck, when you push the card into the middle.
If something goes wrong
If the two cards slip apart, turn the top one over and say "that's the card it's hiding behind". Then finish with the Key Card Trick instead.
Safety notes
Needs a helper.
Practise in a mirror.
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.
What kind of trick is this?
🔀 Transposition. Something jumps from one place to another. 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:Practise like a pro. Ready means ten times in a row without looking at your hands. Perform it and it counts towards the Card Keeper badge.
Questions about the card that keeps coming back
What is sleight of hand?
Sleight of hand means secret moves made with your fingers, like holding a coin in a hand that looks completely empty. "Sleight" is an old word for skill or cleverness. It takes real practice, and it's one of the best feelings in magic.
How do you do a card trick?
Most beginner card tricks use a secret "key card" that you know, or a special order the cards are in before you start. Your friend picks a card, the secret quietly leads you to it, and then you reveal it in the most dramatic way you can think of.