Magic Shop
Ooh, a good one. Here's what they'll see.
You wave a balloon over some little paper strips lying on the table. They stand up on end, jump, and follow the balloon about as if it were a wand.
Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.
On a big stage, floating uses hidden supports, careful lighting and angles that stop you seeing what's holding the weight. Close up, it's usually a finger or a thumb you can't see from the front. That's why a floating trick works from one direction and gives itself away from the side.
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.
More in Ask the Magician.
You wave a balloon over some little paper strips lying on the table. They stand up on end, jump, and follow the balloon about as if it were a wand. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 5 to 10 (grades K–4th), takes 5 minutes to learn, and needs 2 things you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone, and one step is marked for a grown-up.
Rubbing the balloon on your hair gives it a static charge, and the charge pulls light things towards it. The waving is theatre; the rubbing did the work.
“This is a wand. I know it doesn't look like one. Wands come in all sorts these days. Watch what happens when I tell these bits of paper to stand up.”
If nothing moves, rub it again for twice as long and say "it needs charging". That is literally true, which is the best kind of out.
Rubbing the balloon on your hair scrapes tiny electric charges off it, and the balloon keeps them. A charged thing pulls on anything light enough to be pulled, which is why paper, hair and a trickle of water all lean towards it. It is the same thing as the crackle when you pull a jumper off.
🪽 Levitation. Something floats. 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: Outs: when things go wrong. Have a joke ready and a spare trick in your pocket. Perform it and it counts towards the Kitchen Alchemist badge.
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