Addison Addley and the Trick of the Eye by Melody McMillian Page B

pancake and leaned back. It was nice taking my time to explain things. My brain had gone from simmering to boiling. Now it could slow down.
    â€œWell, you see, it was all of that refraction stuff, looking at things from a different angle, from a different point of view,” I explained. “There really are a lot of optical illusions floating around.”
    â€œI still don’t get it,” Sam confessed.
    Wow. It sure felt different being the smart one. Kind of nice for a change. I wouldn’t want to get used to it though. It was too much work figuring things out and explaining them to everybody. Sometimes it was easier to just play dumb and sit back and listen.
    â€œRemember when Trent got his signals mixed up at the baseball game?” I asked.
    Sam nodded.
    â€œWell, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, except that he needed to get his signals straight. Then remember when we ran into him and he dropped that magazine?”
    Sam nodded again. “Yeah—it was a collectors’ magazine with old toys and puppets,” he said.
    â€œDummies are puppets,” I said. “I saw a picture of a dummy like Becky’s in that magazine when I flipped through it. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Except of course that Trent was dumb to be interested in dummies.”
    â€œSo Trent was interested in dummies, specifically Becky’s dummy. But how does that explain anything else?” Sam asked.
    I poured myself a handful of chocolate chips. “We know that Becky’s family keeps all sorts of junk from yard sales. Including the dummy. Trent knew that too. What he didn’t know was that the dummy was hidden in Becky’s closet. She hadn’t wanted her uncle to see it until she finished cleaning it. The first time he tried to ‘borrow’ it from the shed, he must have looked through the shed window and seen the old mannequin heads that Becky’s mom keeps there, and guessed that the dummy was there too.” Becky’s mom likes to make weird art out of anything.
    Mom had filled me in on the details of Trent’s plans that morning after she had talked to Becky’s mom. Now I filled Sam in. It seems that Becky had told Trent that her uncle had only paid fifty dollars for the dummy. Trent had told his friends about it. One of them had just done a school project on ventriloquists. He thought the dummy was worth more. A lot more. Trent did some research and found out just how much more. He said that he was just trying to “borrow” the dummy to get it appraised, but you’d have to be pretty gullible to believe that fishy story.
    Sam scratched his head and then his nose. Then he scratched his chin.
    â€œSo then Trent tried to break into the garage. I still don’t understand how you figured things out. What about the notes?”
    I smiled. That was the good part. “Think about it, Sam. Remember what you said. Sometimes things are completely different, depending on how you look at them. Even words. Sam 11 didn’t have anything to do with you or your birthday. It did have something to do with a specific day though.”
    I let the words sink in. They didn’t have too far to sink with Sam though. He caught on pretty quickly. Like I said before, he’s a smart guy.
    Sam’s face lit up like a firecracker. “French!” he yelled. “Those words are French! Sam 11 ! The magic fair was on Saturday, May 11. Samedi is French for Saturday! Sam for short.” Sam looked pleased with himself. And relieved.
    I nodded before I gulped down the last of my orange juice. “Yep. I realized it during the magic show. That bulletin board in the library came in handy. I got to thinking about the authors from different countries, and how the same word means different things, depending on how you look at it. Sort of like how Trent’s old baseball signals meant something completely different to his new team. Then I