Andrew James Hillam wasn’t a particularly good looking 12 year old. His face was craggy – craggier than is normal for a 12 year old. Normally that sort of face is only found on much older people, people who have experienced some of the hardships of life. He had wavy brown hair – what a Hollywood critic might call ‘uninteresting hair’. He wore it as long as he could – he wished he could have longer hair, but his Dad didn’t think long hair was appropriate for a boy. “When I’m old I’m getting dreadies” thought Andrew. Andrew was taller than most of the other boys in Mrs. Farcich’s class, but only because his growth spurt had arrived early. When he was older he would actually be shorter than most men.

It’s not that Andrew was ugly; he just wasn’t as good looking as a lot of the other kids in his class. But Andrew was intelligent. He was particularly good at science. His Uncle Aaron got him interested in Science. One day Uncle Aaron gave him a set of cards – a bit like the cards that have sports players on them – but on these cards were the names of all the elements. Hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon…more than 100 of them. Andrew learnt all their names, and could classify each of them as a metal or a non-metal. Andrew also had a periodic table poster on the wall of his bedroom. It showed every element in its correct place. Another time Uncle Aaron gave him a corked bottle full of water with a tiny light globe in it – when Andrew pushed the cork down, the globe sank. When he lifted the cork up, the globe rose. It was called a Cartesian diver. It was because of Uncle Aaron that Andrew was so interested in science. He was good at it too. He was the top student in Science in Grade 7.

Andrew was also developing another passion. Because he spent so much time with Uncle Aaron, and so little time with his own Dad, he became good at the things that Uncle Aaron was good at. Uncle Aaron used to be a magician, and he was teaching Andrew some magic tricks. He could already do lots of tricks with a pack of cards. His first trick, which he learnt when he was 11, was to tell someone to pick a card out of a pack, look at it and put it back in the pack. Andrew could then tell the person what card it was, without even looking at the pack. Nobody else but Uncle Aaron knew how to do that.