(no subject)
Teller had most of his stuff moved to room 21 at Milliways. Room 21, as it turned out, was exactly the sort of room he’d needed - just a large, open space that resembled a small warehouse and had plenty of room for housing large props.
What still remained in his apartment was everything he didn’t particularly care about. Furniture, mostly, and the huge stack of records that had managed to migrate over from Penn’s apartment. He still wasn’t sure what he’d do with all that stuff (aside from the records, which he’d let Penn figure out), but he wasn’t too worried about it.
The shop was a different matter entirely. A full 90% of the inventory was cheap props favoured by hacks and beginners. They needed to go. A touring stage had no use for Hippity Hop Rabbits or Vanishing Coke Bottles. Really, nowhere outside of a six-year-old’s birthday party had any use for Hippity Hop Rabbits, but that’s another story.
He wandered around the shop, making mental notes of anything they may want to keep around after closing the shop. Disembodied Princess? Probably not. Break-away knives and cases of flash paper? Those may prove to be useful. Guillotine? Definitely.
As he rearranged one of the shelves to bring forward a large dove pan, the door opened. “Hey, Penn,” a young boy said as he walked into the shop.
Excellent.
“Hey, Wally,” Penn said from near the counter. “What can I do you for?”
Wally made his way straight up to the counter. “I need more of the Invisible Thread,” he said.
“Oh, you sold it all?” Penn sounded surprised at that. And, really, who could blame him? The trick sort of sucked.
“Yeah,” the young boy said. “You were right. It took a while to get used to performing it, but it’s one of my most popular tricks now. I’ve got twenty dollars, so I wanna get a few other props too.”
Teller made his way behind the counter to help with the demos.
“Well, Wally, you’re in luck,” Penn said. I don’t know if you saw our advert in Genii magazine, but we’re closing up shop. Everything here has been marked down to sell.”
Teller wasn’t sure if Wally was going to start yelling again. He tended to do that. “But you guys are the only shop in this area,” he said. “My mom won’t let me take the subway to Soho to go to Star. She says I can’t do that until I’m twelve.”
Penn and Teller both exchanged hesitant glances.
“Well, Wally,” Penn said. “We were offered an opportunity to take our show on the road. You know how Teller can get about people he doesn’t know running the shop. But look at it this way: that’s a full year to get really good at the stuff you have. And check out the ads in Genii; they’re always selling great books and limited-edition props. You can get your show to be perfect before getting Dave down at Star to get you booked. He does bookings, too. Most privately-owned shops do.”
Teller was fairly certain the man who ran Star Magic was not actually called Dave, and didn’t actually do bookings. But by the time Wally found out, they’d be long gone. Hopefully.
Twenty minutes later, they’d relieved the boy of his pocket money, and relieved themselves of a large amount of mostly-useless product. Once Wally left the shop, Teller sighed deeply and nearly collapsed on the counter.
“Yeah, I know, pal,” Penn said, patting him on the back as he moved out from behind the counter. “But things’ll be easier once we finally get out on the road.”
Somehow, Teller didn’t believe him.