The first trick I learned was a coin vanish in a handkerchief. I thought it looked pretty good, but instinctively knew that it wasn’t enough on its own. Here’s a coin, here’s a handkerchief, now the coin’s gone. One, so what? Two, it’s in the handkerchief, dumbass. You’re obviously just hiding it. So I went back to the book and looked for more moves I could add.

I started by marking the coin I used, then switched it out for a duplicate just before I did the vanish so I could produce it again somewhere else. Looking around my bedroom for any extra props I could use, I found a stuffed toy duck with an open beak that I could slip the coin into. The book had taught me about the principles of telegraphing and misdirection, so I thought this duck could be my silly assistant watching the whole thing to distract from what I was doing, before playing a part in the finish. I called him Ducky, and came up with a few lines so it looked like he was talking to me with snarky comments that only I could hear.

I showed the routine to Gary, who liked it. He thought the banter with Ducky was funny. I then did a few simple card tricks which he also enjoyed.

“Very good, but our deal’s not done,” he said. “You need to actually perform in a show if you want to see these legs.”

Before going back to see Pete I did some extra homework in the school and city libraries, taking out any books I could find on magic and magic history. I read about the great performers; Houdini, Thurston, the Blackstones, right up to present day performers like David Copperfield and David Blaine. I really wanted to see them in action, but as these were the days before the internet really got going – there were sites and forums, but the video sucked – I could only relate to what had been on TV, which I’d not paid much attention to until now, and the stories I read of the golden age of magic, which gripped me utterly.

I also found Pete in the local newspaper. He performed comedy magic around the local area as Peter Mazing, there was a photo of him at a community centre preparing to perform the head chopper on the centre manager. I found his advert in the back of the paper too;

“Peter Mazing, comedy magician, ventriloquist and escapologist. Available for cabaret, close up, strolling and publicity stunts.”

That Saturday I went back to see him, on my own this time.

“Hi, Darryl,” he said.

“Hi, Peter Mazing,” I said. “Is that your real name?”

Pete laughed. “Is yours Darryl?”

I blushed a little and was about to tell him I was really called Dianne, before he interrupted.

“It’s ok, I don’t need to know your real name,” he said. “Here, you can be Darryl. To be clear, are you doing this as a boy?”

My heart sank a little. Of course he’d known.

“Can I?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “In a way it’s a shame because we need more girls getting into magic, but I think this is who you actually are under there. So, Darryl it is.”

I was made up. Finally, someone who understood me.

I told him about the bargain I’d made with Gary, Pete laughed.

“Don’t let him back out of that,” he said.

I got Ducky out of my backpack and showed Pete my coin trick, getting him to sign the coin with a marker pen. When it was over he looked impressed.

“I saw you load the coin into Ducky and your moves need work, but I loved that you put that whole routine together. For a first time performance, that was really good. The whole gag where you’re arguing with the duck was weird in a good way, but then you used that distraction to try and hide the dirty work, which is a rookie mistake. Over time you’ll learn to use that kind of business to make people forget the dirty work instead.”

He broke down the routine with me, showing ways to improve the flow, doing this sleight here, misdirecting there, telegraphing this, loading that. We got it to the point where all the sleights needed to make the trick work had happened by the time I started having my argument with Ducky, so everything from that point on was about telling a story, leading spectators down a twisting path and making it harder for them to think back to what I’d actually done. As Pete put it, if they’d been entertained enough they won’t want to anyway.

We then moved on to cards. I showed Pete the basic fans and cuts I’d practiced, true to his word he gave me a poker sized deck to practice with alongside the bridge size. He told me to keep coming back, I ended up doing little cleaning jobs around the shop and backroom in return for his tuition, later he made it official by employing me for a Saturday job, since I hung out there every weekend anyway. This meant I had to provide my real name and details on the application form, which was an unwelcome brush with the outside world. I hated having to fill in “F” under sex, but Pete told me it was only for official purposes.

“It’s time you had a proper stage name,” he said. “You could use your real surname, but how would you feel about being Darryl Di’anna?”

I agreed that it was a good name. It felt like reclaiming myself from who I was before, and since my parents weren’t exactly supportive of who I was now I had no problem leaving the family name out of it. It seemed better for everyone concerned.

Pete also lent me a box of VHS tapes of old magic shows, which I began studying astutely with a notebook. It wound my parents up, they weren’t that sure about me dabbling with the “dark arts” and were quick to point out that I really ought to be putting all that effort into my GCSEs. I didn’t care, though, because I’d found my calling. In an effort to meet them halfway I learned a few gospel magic routines I could do at church, which were more or less appreciated by the clergy and pacified my parents a little.That was the only time I ever performed magic as a girl in feminine clothing, I still wasn’t allowed to be myself in that environment.

Pete taught me all aspects of the magical arts; close-up, stage routines, mentalism, even a little ventriloquism and escapology. He trained into me the need to develop and maintain a comprehensive set of skills so that I would always be equipped for anything I needed to make happen, he also noted that most of the time I would not actually be using advanced skills – in most performance situations, it is better to choose simple and reliable methods over difficult techniques the audience aren’t meant to notice anyway, but learning the skills means you both have them when needed and know how to fake them convincingly.

So now I had a new name, a mentor and a vocation. And whether he liked it or not, I also had an assistant.

---

Gary knew what I was learning at my Saturday job and was getting a little nervous about our arrangement, which I teased him about constantly. He was a good sport about it and made no attempt to back out, in fact he was happy that I’d found something I loved and was good at and wanted to support me. He was known as a joker so could get away with appearing in front of everyone dressed as a girl, especially if he was playing off of me, the school’s biggest tomboy. So he gave up and accepted his fate.

“You know what?” he said, “I think it’s time for me to pay up. You’ve gotten really good at magic, I made you a promise and it’s time you did a proper performance. What do you say we audition for a slot in the school show?”

Our school had an active and well known performing arts department, so the school concerts were big events. Mostly they featured items from the school orchestra and choir with some solo and group performances by music, dance and drama students. Mrs. Kemble, who ran the performing arts faculty, ran auditions at the beginning of the half term leading up to the concert, so we went to see her one lunchtime a few weeks in advance.

Neither Gary or I were known as performers – my magic shop career was strictly extra-curricular and I hadn’t told the teachers – so I wasn’t sure if Mrs. Kemble would take us seriously when she had more established actors and musicians wanting to perform. When we told her we were doing a magic act she was ready to kick us out there and then, just about every kid in school got a Marvin’s magic set and thought they were the next David Blaine. So I literally laid my cards on the table. I got out my deck of bikes and did my most technical routine for her. I told her about my training under Peter Mazing, how I’d been bitten by the bug and studied all aspects of magic history on my way to becoming a magician. And I told her about the deal I’d made with Gary, and why he was now here with me. Mrs. Kemble held in a laugh.

“So Gary is going to be your glamorous assistant?” she said. “What are you going to do to him? Or her, if I’m understanding you correctly.”

“Definitely a production illusion, there’s a couple of classic methods that we can set up easily on the stage. Then something else, if we have enough time.”

Mrs. Kemble told us to get the production illusion ready for the auditions in a few weeks’ time. If it was good enough to put in the show, she’d think about letting us add another illusion to the routine. We thanked her and headed out.

After school Gary and I went over to the magic shop to tell Pete what we were doing. He liked that I was committing to my first show, though was a little concerned about whether Gary would be able to learn everything he needed to in just a few weeks.

“Dianne’s my best friend and I want this for her,” answered Gary, “so I will do whatever you need me to. If I’m going to go out there and look like an idiot in front of everyone I’d rather do it in a good act than a rubbish one, and I know how hard Dianne works so I promise you I am not taking this lightly.”

Pete smiled. “OK, then. I know just the routine.”

Here’s a little piece of magic history not everyone’s aware of.

The second world war left a treasure trove of easy build illusion plans, because magicians were either away fighting in uniform or forced to work with limited resources at home, where most construction materials were commandeered for the war effort. Robert Harbin, one of the great magic inventors, published a series of full scale illusion plans in magic magazines which magicians would be able to build themselves cheaply and effectively. This they did, and some of those effects went on to become standard set pieces in the magic repertoire. Another lasting piece of literature produced at this time was authored by one Ulysses F Grant and gave instructions for a set of stage illusions that could be performed entirely with large foldable cardboard boxes, or “victory cartons” as they were known at the time. This is the book that Pete took out to show us, which contained the secret of how I would make Gary appear from a bunch of cardboard sheets.

When the shop closed, we went into the back room where we plotted out the basic moves. The boxes Pete had lying around weren’t perfect, but they were good enough to start practicing with and he said he’d get hold of the right size boxes for us as soon as possible. Gary made a real effort, listened carefully to everything he was asked to do and worked hard to get it right. Pete nodded his approval, then sat us down to give us some pro tips.

“Here’s what you need to know about stage illusions,” he said. “The basic principles are exactly the same as with smaller tricks, but because everything’s so much bigger you can’t hide your mistakes. You need to really understand your sight lines, if you get the angles even a little bit wrong the effect will be ruined. The same principles of storytelling, telegraphing and misdirection apply, but everyone involved needs to follow the script exactly. Every part of the routine leads to the next with no deviation, if you improvise, miss a cue or move out of place at the wrong time the whole thing will fall apart. So, what you need to do is go away and practice this a lot. You need every step to be instinctive, because I warn you that the minute you step on that stage with everybody watching, it will be a strange environment different to anything you’ve ever known, the only thing you’ll have to get you through is how well you’ve rehearsed. Do you think you can do that?”

We assured him that we would.