The continuous beep of his alarm clock woke Alec up at 1 in the afternoon. He was not an early riser if he could help it, due to his vampirish tendencies. (Those tendencies being, staying up until 5 in the morning and having a strangely strong aversion to sunlight.)

After yawning exaggeratedly and frowning to himself at the sound of birds chirping outside the bedroom window for a few moments, he somehow managed to drag himself out of bed. He almost went to open the curtains but thought better of it. Living in perpetual darkness was the only acceptable way of living after all.

Then after having staggered his way to the bathroom, he spent some time grimacing at his pale and pasty Irish reflection. Whilst he was asleep, Alec noticed that he had grown a little stubble on his chin and above his lip. What a pain.

Following a quick shave and a hasty addition of eyeliner to make himself look a little more magical, he shoved on his outfit, grabbed a marmite sandwich and made his way out of the flat to his car.

The drive to the hall in the next town took around half an hour and he had managed to arrive 10 minutes early. Alec sat in his car and tapped his fingers along the edge of the steering wheel in grudging anticipation.

Suddenly a knocking sound caused him to jump out of his skin. A burly middle-aged woman with curly blond hair and a red face was fiercely ramming at the window. God, she looked scary.

He manually wound down the window, which took a while because the handle was stiff and cranky. (His car was a very old, second-hand blue Renault that was falling to pieces and overdue for an MOT which it would probably fail.)

“Hello, can I help you?” he asked rigidly.

 “Are you the magician for Tommie’s party?” she asked enthusiastically.

“Yes, I am,”

“Ah, excellent! Perfect timing! I’m his mum, Linda! Come and follow me to the kitchen, would it be okay if you waited in there for a moment?”

“Sure,”

The woman got out of the way and let him get out of the car, she followed behind him as he went to the boot to grab his briefcase.

“And wow, I didn’t expect you to be Irish,”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,”

“Ireland really is a lovely country, I’ve been there on holiday before with some friends,”

“Have you?” He asked, pretending to be at all interested.

“Yes! I went on a road-trip and saw all kinds of castles, the countryside really is gorgeous too, did you grow up in the country?”

“No,”

“That’s such a shame, I don’t think I’ve seen such beautiful countryside anywhere else,”

By this point, they had reached the back door to the hall which led to a small kitchen.  

“Right, so wait here a while, help yourself to a sausage roll or sandwich if you want, I’ll come and get you when the kids are ready for you,”

“Thank you,” he forced a smile in reply.

He stared at the clock above the opposite doorway, watching the seconds tick by.

After six minutes had passed, he heard the clatter of children running around and the sound of excited screeching gradually fill the hall. There were probably about 10 kids in total.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

“Mr. Smoke?”

Alec turned around; Linda had arrived.

“I think we’re ready for you now, everyone is here, could you follow me to the stage? I’ll give you a little introduction before you go on,”

“Okay, sounds great,”

“Fabulous!” she smiled.

As he followed her along the passageway to the stage, he looked on from the wings as she went on and noticed that the stage wasn’t really that much of a stage. It was just a smallish platform with a pair of curtains that looked like they hadn’t been dusted in about a decade or two. He couldn’t help but look at it in disdain.

“Hello, children! Thank you for all coming today to celebrateTommie’s birthday! I am quite excited, as I am sure all of you are to welcome the wonderful magician Alec Smoke who is going to perform for us! Please give us a cheer as he comes on stage!”

The sound of little kids clapping and cheering permeated throughout the hall.

Guess that’s my cue.

Alec breathed in a sigh and braced himself. As he strode onto the platform, he was met with the garish display of birthday decorations and multi-coloured balloons adorning the room. Looking down, he spied at least 20 or more grubby little faces looking back at him. God, there were more of them than he had thought.

“Hi everyone!” he managed to muster up a false bravado, “Are you ready for some magic?”

“Yeeeeeesss!” The kids replied in chorus.

“Would anyone like to be a volunteer?”

“OH ME! ME!”

“PICK ME!”

“PICK ME!”

Suddenly Alec felt a stare to the side of his face, he looked and saw Linda eyeing him from the wings, her eyes bulging from her sockets, telling him something. He quickly caught on.

“Since today it is Tommie’s birthday, he can have the honour of being the first volunteer, but afterwards anyone can have the chance to be one… now… where’s our birthday boy Tommie?”

A little boy with wild blonde hair and a red face, almost like he was a little clone of his mother, stood up in excitement and rushed to the front.

“HERE!” He squealed.

It took every inch of self-control for Alec to not scowl at him.

“Come up to the stage Tommie!”

As Tommie clambered up, Alec pulled out a 2p coin from his pocket. “Look everyone, here I have an ordinary two pence coin, don’t you agree Tommie? Here, why don’t you examine it for me?”

Tommie grabbed at it eagerly, checking both sides before handing it back to Alec and exclaiming, “Yes!”

“Good, that was good checking Tommie, well done,” Alec took a moment to wave his hands dramatically, “Now everyone… watch closely!”

And suddenly, Alec made the coin disappear with his fingers.

“Now, I wonder where it’s gone?”

All the kids from the floor watched in awe as Alec made the coin materialise from Tommie’s ear.

The parents and kids clapped, but Tommie just looked at Alec, all unimpressed, “My dad can do that! Haven’t you got any other tricks?”

“Eh,” Alec blinked a few seconds, caught off guard by the kid behaving more brat-like than he could have expected, before he swung back into his persona, “Why of course, a good magician always has more than one trick up his sleeve,”

He waved his hands again and made a bouquet of flowers appear, “For the birthday boy,” he offered them to Tommie.

But Tommie was having none of it, “Eeew flowers! Those are for girls!”

Alec threw them angrily to the audience instead, and the other kids grabbed at them greedily.

"Here, how about a lucky coin instead?"

Tommie just sniffed in disgust, "Only 2p?"

Alec snapped, "Now look here, you ungrateful brat...!!" He stopped himself before he said anything else, but the damage was already done.

Tommie started bawling his eyes out, "Mummmiiieeeeeeeee,"

Oh god, I've seriously screwed up.

He fearfully looked to the side where he saw Linda's face contorted in fearsome rage.

There goes my job. 

Oh well, the show must go on.

"I'm sorry Tommie, look I'll show you another trick... this time with a fiver,"

"Ohh!" At the mention of a fiver, he seemed to instantly cheer up.

"Right everyone, watch closely again,"

Alec held out the fiver before ripping it to smithereens.

"MY FIVER!" Tommie cried, his eyes tearing up again.

Oh my god, chill out brat.

"Don't worry Tommie, I'll make it appear again,"

He gathered up the pieces into his fist, before blowing on it, and suddenly, low and behold there was a whole fiver again in his hand.

"For you, Tommie, since it is your special day,"

Tommie didn't even bother thanking him, he just grabbed it and leaped off the stage gleefully.

Thank God that was over.

"Now who wants to be the next volunteer?"

"ME! ME! ME!"

* * *

Thankfully, the rest of the party went by fairly uneventfully, except for the rest kids that were disappointed that they didn't also get fivers.

Alec could only hope that he had done enough so that Linda wouldn't be too pissed off at him.