Page 80 of Grumpy Puck

“But Tortellini is my stage name.”Torey/Tortellini shakes my hand, and as he pulls it away, a face-down playing card remains on my palm somehow.

“Quick,” Tortellini says.“What card do you think that is?”

I peer at it.“The Ace of Spades?”

Looking triumphant, Tortellini tells me to turn the card over.

Well, I’ll be damned.Itisthe Ace of Spades.“So… you’re the magician of the family?”

He frowns.“My name didn’t give it away?”

“No.”But it does make me hungrier for dinner.

“Haven’t you ever heard of Houdini?”he demands.“Or Slydini?Or Cardini?Or Cantini?”

“Only the first one,” I say.“Whenever someone escapes a tight situation on the ice, Coach tells them they’ve ‘pulled a Houdini.’”

Tortellini nods with great enthusiasm.“He should use the others too.If someone is very sneaky with the puck, he could say they’ve pulled a Slydini, and if?—”

“How about you let me introduce Michael to more of the family,” Calliope says sternly to her brother and drags me away before there’s an answer.

“Sorry about Torey,” she whispers.“Magic to him is what rats are to me.”

I wave it away.“I respect passion, and there seems to be a lot of it in your family.”

“Sure.Let’s call it passion,” she says, stopping next to a door on which she knocks.

“Come in!”shouts a female voice.

“Are you decent?”Calliope shouts back.

“Sure.Why not?”

Calliope opens the door.“This used to be my room.”She points at the ceiling.“And that’s my sister and former roommate.”

I shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point, but it’s still a shock to find said sister hanging upside down, like a bat.

“I’m Seraphina.”She extends me her hand, and I shake it, a surprisingly disorienting gesture when the other person is in that position.

“I’m Michael.”

“I know.”Seraphina waggles her eyebrows.“Calliope has told me all about thekoala-tytime you’ve had together.”

I blink.“Koala-ty?”

Calliope groans.“Seraphina doesn’t know how much you hate bear-related jokes, so that was an attempt at one, I think.”

“I’ve used up all the best ones already,” Seraphina says with a pout.“Now I’m scraping the bottom of thebear-rel.”

“And that’s our cue to leave,” Calliope says sternly and drags me out of the room.

“Sorry about her,” she says.“She didn’t know about your thing.”

I shrug.“When the puns arethatbad, I don’t feel offended.I actually pity the punster.”Especially if he’s a guy, because I’d still punch him, on principle.

“All right,” Calliope says.“Let me introduce you to a few more people.”

“A few” turns out to be an understatement.I meet so many Klaunbuts I barely remember their names, and even their circus specialties start to blur.

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