stopped dead in her tracks, horrified by the sight of Chris being divided in half and Jeffery froze like deer in the headlights, his hands on the two halves of the box. “AAHH!” she screamed. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?—Ohhh..." she fell to the floor in a dead faint.

 

At the sight of Mrs. Robison on the floor, Jeffery and Chris all looked at each other in a worried way.

 

“Uh-oh…” they said in unison.

 

“Mommy!” cried Jason, rushing over to her and shaking her. “Wake up, Mommy, it's only a magic trick! I asked them to saw Christ in half.”

 

Jeffery and Chris hurried and finished the trick. Jeffery quickly combined the two halves of the box into one, took out the mirror boards and opened the lid, letting Chris out, unharmed. They then rushed forward to Mrs. Robinson, followed closely by Kit.

 

 

“Is she okay, Jeffwie?” asked Jason worryingly, as Jeffery took his mother’s pulse.

 

“Hey Jeffery, do that CDR thing.” Chris suggested.

 

“Eek! Cuz, you don't do CPR on fainting ladies!” Jeffery squeaked, horrified by the idea of giving HER mouth-to-mouth.

 

“Anyone got a smelly sock?” Kit asked

 

“Why would you need a smelly sock for, cuz?” asked Jeffery, confused

 

“Trust me, it’ll wake her up.” Kit said grinning

 

“Well, I don't have a sock, but Jeffery's feet still smell bad from the milk trick earlier, will that work big brother?" Chris asked. 

 

Jeffery looked back at Chris with a look that said: ‘Ah gee, thanks Chris!’ He then swung an arm around Chris’ neck and gave him a light nuggie.

 

“Hey! What was that for?" Chris asked as Jeffery released him.

“For being silly,” Jeffery replied, sticking his tongue out at Chris.

 “Ohhh…” Mrs. Robinson groaned as she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her head.

“Mommy! Are you okay?” Jason asked as he hopped onto her lap and hugged her around the neck.

“I think so,” she said, uncertainly. “But never do that again!” she directed these words at Jeffery and Chris, both of whom grinned rather sheepishly.

 She seized Chris’ arm and pulled him to her, placing her hands on his hip, feeling him for traces of a gash across his belly, but to her relief and confusion, she couldn’t find a single injury on Chris.  

“B-b-but, you had him sawed in half!” she stammered confusedly. “How is it that he’s not bleeding?” She wrapped her arms around Chris and hugged him. 

“Come here, Mrs. Robinson…” Kit said gently, prying her off of Chris and leading her over to the Saw-in-Half. There he explained to her how the trick was done and assured her that what she saw wasn’t real.

As they were getting ready to leave for the talent show, Mrs. Robinson handed them each a five dollar bill.

“Here’s your pay for babysitting,” she said. “And dears, Jason’s birthday’s coming up and I would be delighted if you did a magic show for his party.”

“YAY!” cried Jason happily, hugging the three of them. “Please come to my party, please, please!”

“Okay, we will.” Chris said, hugging Jason.

“Bye boys, we’ll come to watch you at your talent show.” Mrs. Robinson said, causing Jason to whoop with happiness again.

The Cloudkicker trio smiled and waved. “Bye!” And with that, they left the house, closing the door behind them.

Chapter Eight

The Grand Finale

In no time at all, the evening came and the audience was slowly filling up as people came to watch the school talent show. Behind the red curtain on the stage, kids were having some last-minute practice with their tricks. 

In Kit’s corner, behind the portable wall he and Jeffery set up, Chris had his arm out of one sleeve of his bunny suit as his brother did some last-minute practice with Jeffery and discovered that he could unzipped the suit from the inside!

“Hey!” he exclaimed excitedly, pulling the zipper all the way down to reveal his baby blue-sweater beneath. “It came undone!”

Kit and Jeffery were at his side in an instant to investigate. Jeffery took the zipper between his fingers and examined it.

“So that’s how it works!” Jeffery exclaimed in delight. “The trick is that this is a two-face zipper, goes up at the front and down at the back. This is genius! Very clever, Grandpa!” Jeffery said with a slight sniff, looking toward the heavens, a single tear dripping down his cheek.

The talent show begins and the Cloudkicker Trio used the time they had before their turn to plan a few new tricks.

Up first, was Ernie from the Jungle Aces in a gray suit with a red bowtie , who demonstrated a talent of juggling eight balls at once for a full minute before he lost control and the balls all came down and rolled across the stage in every directions and poor Ernie had to scramble, blushing scarlet, to pick them up.

Despite the applause, Ernie came backstage with a raincloud over his head. Remembering him in his overalls and a cooking pot on his head, Kit thought he looks strange in a suit with a bowtie.

Jeffery took pity on Ernie and went to cheer him up.

“Hey Ernie, cheer up.” Jeffery said encouragingly. “You juggled eight balls in a whole minute! I couldn’t have done that, I still have trouble with two!”

Ernie smiled weakly, still looking embarrassed. “Thanks, Cunningham.”

Next up was Oscar. He came up on stage and ran toward the piano, his foot caught the leg of the stool and he feel down on his face.

“Oscar!” Kit cried as he ran out on stage to help Oscar up. “Are you alright?” He half-lifted Oscar and set him on the stool.

“Aww…” cooed the audience.

“Y-yes, Kit, I’m—I’m fine…” Oscar said, looking up at Kit through broken glasses. “Kit, why are there eight of you?”

“Oh, no, Oscar…” Kit groaned. “Your glasses are broken. Can you still play?”

“Uh, I think so…” Oscar said uncertainly.

“Okay, I’ll be backstage if you need any help.” Kit said and he went backstage.

Oscar started playing Heart and Soul on the piano, though badly, having to see through scattered leans.

 The audience held its ears until the end of the badly played song and despite the poor performance, they applauded politely, all except one jerk who shouted: “BOO!” but fell silent at glares everybody were giving him. 

Oscar heard the “BOO!” and ran backstage in tears and bumped into Kit.

Kit caught Oscar before he fell and hugged him,

“It’s okay, Oscar, I think you did great.” Kit said gently, leading Oscar over to Jeffery and Chris.

“R-r-really?” Oscar sniffed.

“Of course we do, Oscar.” Jeffery declared, hugging Oscar with Kit. “Your glasses were broken and you did the best you could in that circumstance. That guy was just a jerk, don’t pay attention to him.”

“Yeah, he was mean!” Chris said, looking angry for Oscar’s sake and joining Kit and Jeffery in hugging Oscar. “I thought you played really well.”  

“T-Thanks, Jeffery's Mom gave me a few lessons.” Oscar said, wiping his tears on the sleeve of his suit. “W-who are you?”

“I’m Chris,” said Chris, shaking hands with Oscar. “Kit’s brother.”

“You didn’t tell me you have a brother.” Oscar said to Kit

“Oscar, I didn’t know I had a brother until recently.” Kit said defensively. “And I haven’t even introduced him to Ernie and the Jungle Aces yet, so don’t feel bad. You got to meet him before they did.”

 The thought of meeting the brother of Kit Cloudkicker before any of the members of the Jungle Aces did cheer Oscar up a bit. He smiled up at Chris, while continuing to shake his hand.

“I’m Oscar Vandersnoot, nice to meet you, Chris.”

Just then, they heard Mr. Pomeroy’s voice onstage.

“That was Oscar Vandersnoot, played very well for someone with broken glasses and I want that guy who booed out of here!”

“Hey-hey, leave it to me, Prince-o-pal.” said Baloo’s voice

“And me!” said Melissa’s voice, sounding angry.

They heard the sounds of punches and then the sound of someone being thrown from the building.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer soon!” shouted Oscar’s mother’s voice.

Backstage, Jeffery and Oscar bowed their heads and blushed as they clapped a hand to their face and groaning in unison: “Mom…!”

Behind them, Kit did the same and groaned: “Papa Bear…!”

“Why is everyone so embarrassed for?” Chris asked, innocently confused.

“Never mind, Chris.” Kit said gently, “I don’t think you’d understand.”

“Oh, okay.” Chris said simply and he didn’t pursue the subject.

Just then, a hippo kid came up on stage and demonstrated his talent, which is swallowing twenty whole pies at once.

“Whoa, that kid just beat my record by five pies!” shouted Baloo’s voice from the audience. “YOWL!”

Kit heard his Papa Bear’s yell and suspected that Rebecca had grabbed Baloo’s ear in an iron grip.

Next, a cloud of blue smoke appeared on stage and when the smoke cleared, there stood a white

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