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Trucy loves magic. She loves everything about being a magician: she loves the costumes, she loves the slight of hand tricks you have to perfect to even have a chance at fooling the audience, she loves the feeling of standing on the stage and the sounds of the audience and the stage lights and the whole sensation of doing these tricks effortlessly and everyone applauding her. She loves learning about magic, reading books on the history of the topic and more books about the art of performing magic tricks, and she loves practising her tricks for hours and hours. She loves it all.
She has loved magic for years, but has only recently become a Processional Magician, actually doing shows for more people than Daddy and Maya and a few of their friends. And she loves it. When she grows up, she is going to be able to do her favourite thing in the world as her job and earn a living doing magic.
Daddy says that magic is her special interest. A special interest is an autism term and it means that an autistic person has an interest that they’re totally obsessed with, and care about more than basically any other thing. For example, Maya’s special interests are burgers and ramen and spirit channelling. And Daddy’s special interest is defence law. And as Trucy is also autistic, she has a special interest too. And Daddy thinks that hers is magic, and she is inclined to agree.
Most evenings, when they’re meant to be watching TV, Trucy often turns to her father and takes out one of her many decks of cards.
“Want a magic trick, Daddy?” she says, tipping the brim of her top hap.
And Daddy smiles. “I’d love one, darling.”
Trucy grins and bounces her legs up and down as she shuffles the cards. Both of these actions are stims, things autistic people do when they’re happy or stressed or whatever, and help you calm down or focus or just show that you’re happy. Daddy stims a lot too, with his favourite one being to slam his hand on desks and shout when he gets something right.
And as Daddy watches, Trucy starts her favourite card trick. When she gets it right, she giggles with delight and Daddy hugs her.
Sometimes, she tries to teach her dad some magic tricks. Not her favourite ones, of course, because the most common member of her audience knowing how her tricks work would ruin the suspension of disbelief, but some of her less common (and easier) tricks. Today, for example, Trucy teaches Daddy how to perform a basic card trick.
They sit there for three hours, Trucy grinning and laughing as Daddy tries and fails to master the trick. But, finally, he does it correctly. And they hug and laugh, and Trucy loves sharing her special interest with him.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she says.
“No problem, darling,” Daddy says.
And at her next show, Daddy is at the front of the audience, cheering and applauding the loudest of them all.