Mark Leveridge Magic

A Wrinkle On - The Spooks

BRUCE HETZLER

Bruce e-mailed this idea which he didn't give any specific handling for but for which it would be fairly simple to devise one. His idea was to create an extra surprise ending after all the four card face revelations have been done. To do this he suggests printing up some self adhesive stickers with pictures of a ghost on them. Before you start the trick you get one of these stickers into your right hand with the sticky side facing away from your palm and as you arrange the spectator's hand palm up, you secretly attach the sticker to the back of their hand. Since their hand is held palm up for the entire trick the sticker should remain unnoticed. At the end of the trick you can patter along the lines of, "I mentioned at the start of this trick that there are four cards each with a ghost on, and yet we have ended up with three ghosts and one haunted house, so you may wonder where the fourth ghost has got to." At which point you remove the cards from the spectator's hand and get them to turn over their hand to reveal the fourth ghost stuck there!

Jack says that in order to make sure, when pattering, that he does not get mixed up himself about which ghost he is talking about, he lets them appear in alphabetical order i.e. Creepy, Eerie and then Scary. Also, Jack wanted to inflict, er, I mean, share, these 'ghostly' lines with everyone. I accept no responsibility for any after effects...

How do you get Creepy to lie perfectly flat? You use a spirit level

There once was a ghost from Darjeeling
Who got on a train bound for Ealing
It said at the door
"Please don't sit on the floor"
So he floated up and sat on the ceiling

What do you get if you cross Eerie with a packet of crisps? Snacks that go crunch in the night

Why did Scary go to the hospital? To have his ghoul stones removed

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Ivan
Ivan who?
Ivan to hear you scream

What did the pub landlord say to Scary,Creepy and Eerie? Sorry, but we don't serve spirits here (Old as the hills I know, but entertaining with the trick nonetheless)

What did Creepy's mummy say to him when he was a little boy? Don't spook until you're spooken to

What sort of ghost would you find up your nose? A bogeyman (The children love this one)

What sort of music do Creepy, Scary and Eerie like best? Haunting melodies

Why do Creepy, Scary and Eerie go back to the same place every year for their holidays? They like their old haunts best What do you call a ghost that doesn't scare anyone? A failure

Did you hear about the ghost who cut down trees at three o'clock in the morning? He was the thing that made stumps in the night

What do you call twin ghosts? Dead ringers

How did young Scary get a girlfriend? He wooooooood her

What is the difference between a ghost and a custard cream biscuit? Have you tried dipping a ghost in your tea?

Enough, enough, enough....... but you get the idea.

Here are a few more lines as suggested by Paul. He starts by saying: "Not a lot of people know this, but before this building was erected there was another house on this spot, a haunted house. And on some of these cards there are pictures of the ghosts who used to haunt it"

Paul refers to the third ghost as Scary. So when the second card has been dealt onto the spectator's hand face down, he says:"Scary isn't it?" Pause and then add:"No, not the trick, this ghost card here, this one's Scary!" and he points to the third blank face.

Finally, after the third ghost has materialised, he says:"You'll notice they look more miserable than frightening, that's because they no longer have a house to haunt, so with a click of the fingers let's create one for them." And that leaves you ready to reveal the house on the last card.

MARK LEVERIDGE

I was teaching my 13 year old daughter to perform The Spooks and because she couldn't do The Elmsley Count with any confidence, I decided to just leave it out. The Count actually only shows the card backs at the start (although it does emphasise the fact that there are only four cards and that they all do have a blue back), and the Flustration Count which follows shortly after it also gives the impression that you see all four backs, so you can jump over the Elmsley Count if you set up the cards from the start in the following order, reading from the top down: Haunted House, then both ghost cards with backs, all those face down, and finally the last card, ghost side upwards.

JAMES FORTUNE

James uses both The Spooks and its 'brother-in-arms' This One, That 1, and he organises the revelation of the card faces slightly differently in order to increase the surprise factor. The handling is the same as the instructions except that he does not turn over the first card placed on the spectator's hand at the start, but leaves it face down. He then places the second card on top of it, does the apparent magical swapping of the two cards, and then shows the card in HIS hand is printed and asks them to turn over the top card of their two to reveal that is printed too. This leads him to ask them to turn over the original card placed on their hand so that they see that that one is now printed as well, leaving him to reveal the final card of the haunted house! He feels that bringing all the card 'printing' together one after the other in quick succession makes the whole thing more of one long surprise, rather than revealing one card face long before the others and thus tipping what is going to happen.