A Spotlight for Harry (7 page)

Dash turned around and closed his eyes. “One … two …”

“Here are the cuffs,” said Harry.

Dash opened his eyes. Harry stood before him, holding Sheriff Lennon’s handcuffs. They were still locked, but Harry had gotten free.

“How did you do that?” Dash gasped,
amazed. “How did you get out of those handcuffs without opening them?”

“I remembered what Monsieur Weitzman told me yesterday. I did what I promised, but not what you expected,” Harry explained. “Look at these handcuffs, Dash. They’re made for a man’s wrists, not a boy’s. As soon as I saw them, I knew they’d be too big to fit me, even if you locked them all the way. I spread my fingers wide when you were putting them on so they wouldn’t fall off.”

“And I never noticed how big they were!” Dash said. “That’s really smart, Harry.”

“I had them off before you even started counting,” Harry said.

There wasn’t time to talk after that. Harry slipped the handcuffs into his pocket as Miss Purdy came through the door with a jug of cold milk and a tray heaped with oatmeal cookies. Harry, Dash, and Miss Purdy had a
picnic in the barn. Then Miss Purdy got the wheelbarrow from the garden. She helped the boys carry away the last of the hay and straw.

Harry and Dash made their way home down College Street in the bright noon sunshine. Harry’s pockets were full of oatmeal cookies and his head was full of plans.

“We’ll get busy as soon as we get home. I have lots of ideas I want to try for our circus,” he told Dash.

“Circus?” Dash exclaimed. “What are you talking about, Harry? How are we going to have a circus? Papa has forbidden us to get on a tightrope. You don’t have any front teeth. Forget it. Our circus days are over.”

“Not at all,” Harry said. “We don’t need to walk a tightrope. Every circus in the world has a tightrope artist. And I might hang from
a rope one day. But I have to wait for my new teeth to grow in. So I was wondering, what else could we try?”

Dash shrugged. “I don’t know. What else is there? Horses? Elephants? Sword swallowing?”

Harry shook his head. He already had a plan. Harry dug between the cookies in his pocket for what he wanted. He twirled what he found around his finger so Dash could see.

“I was thinking about handcuffs.”

T
his story is based on actual events in the life of Harry Houdini (1874–1926), perhaps the greatest magician and escape artist of all time. Harry, whose real name was Ehrich Weiss, used the stage name “Houdini” as a tribute to Jean-Eugéne Robert-Houdin, a famous French magician of the nineteenth century. Harry’s brother Dash (1876–1945) also became a celebrated magician. He performed under the name “Hardeen.”

Harry Houdini became fascinated with locks as a boy in Appleton. One night, to challenge himself, he picked the locks on all the doors of all the stores along College Street. His skill was so well known that the sheriff asked him to open the handcuffs for a prisoner scheduled to be released. The sheriff had lost the key, and the prisoner didn’t want to wait around while he looked for it.

Harry’s boyhood interest in locks became a lifelong passion. As “the Handcuff King,” he challenged audiences and police departments all over the world to come up with a lock or shackle he couldn’t escape from. No one ever did.

E
ric A. Kimmel grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is the award-winning author of several well-known children’s books, including
Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock
and the Caldecott Honor Book
Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins
, as well as the Stepping Stone books
A Horn for Louis
and
A Picture for Marc
. He and his wife, Doris, live in Portland, Oregon.