Ladybugs!

Hello everyone!

Today at breakfast I was playing under the table when I was supposed to be eating my strawberries and pain au chocolat, and I noticed two ladybugs on the floor! Mum said that's because it's Spring now and all the ladybugs have woken up from their hibernation (that's a very long sleep that some animals take during the winter - I learned about it in school!). She said that ladybugs are good luck, and that it meant that I was going to have a good day today. I got very excited about my lucky day, and I told Jeremy about it as soon as I saw him, but then he got very jealous (Jeremy's one of my gang - you can read about him in my books). We decided to go looking for a ladybug for him out behind the school building so that he could have a lucky day too, but we couldn't find one, and we ended up being late for the start of class!
Our teacher was very mad at us for being late and gave us a really boring punishment at the end of the day, so I'm not so sure I think ladybugs are very lucky after all. But, maybe I just got stuck with Jeremy's bad luck because I was with him the whole time.

Have you ever had a really lucky day? Write me a letter and tell me about it, I love it when I get letters from my friends!

Okay, time to go have dinner!

Your friend,
Nicholas

Magic Tricks!

Hello everyone!

I just got back from taking a spring vacation with my Mum and Dad and my dog Rex- it was lovely! We went to visit my Granny, since she came to visit me last time. (You can read about that visit in the green book if you like - she gave me lots of attention and all sort of sweets and candies. I love it when Granny comes to stay). As soon as I got home, I found this letter from my friends -- it was so exciting!

To our cool Friend Nicholas,

My Brother Lance and I LOVED the email you sent us about the disappearing coin trick! We practiced it many times and once we had it right, we decided to put on a magic show for our friends. Everything had to be perfect! We had recently seen a great magician perform in our town, and after the show he sold magic wands for $2.00 each. I already had a black and red cape to wear and a tall velvet top hat.

My brother wore a suit jacket because he didn't have a cape. He was ok being my assistant. We have a puppet theater that we used as a ticket booth for our magic show. Four of our friends came over and our mom made buttered popcorn for the show.

I, Marc the Magnificent, will tell you how it went....AWESOME!

We started with your disappearing coin trick and our friends were amazed!

The only problem was that my five year old brother quickly told everyone that I dropped the coin down my back. We know that a good magician should never tell his tricks. I also did a card trick my uncle showed me and later pulled a green hanky out of a red velvet bag (there was a little switch inside to do this). The last trick I performed was a mind reading trick. The other person has to be in on it. You ask your partner to ask someone in the the audience to give them a number from 1-20. The magician can't know this number. Then you place your fingers on the sides of your partners head (temples) and say that you will read their mind and know the secret number. Your partner will then bite down and clench his jaw as many times as whatever the number is. This is how you know the number.

When someone clenches their jaw, you can feel this on their temples.

They should try not to make clenching the jaw so obvious.

This is a really great trick too because you are never saying or writing down the number... most people can't figure it out.

Magic tricks are as cool as ice cream...

Thank you for sharing your trick with us and we hope you like the one we shared with you!

Your friends,

Marc and Lance

Wow! That is such a cool trick! Thank you so much, Marc and Lance, I'm going to try it out on my gang as soon as possible -- I bet Jeremy will fall for it for sure! Magic IS as cool as ice cream. I'll be sure to send out more magic tricks to my friends -- if you want to get the newsletter, you can sign up for my great club by going the website www.phaidon.com/nicholas. Hope you are having nice weather, and I'll write again soon!

Your friend,

Nicholas