Joy locked eyes on her sister. Through the white furry circles that surrounded them, she clearly recognized the fright in Julie's green eyes.
"Grab his wand," Julie said. "We've got to undo this."
"But you look amazing."
"I'm terrified." Julie's voice was cold and sharp. She squeezed Joy's hand tightly. Its fur was so soft Joy wanted to cuddle it. But it was obvious what Joy really needed to do right now, for her sister's sake.
She nodded to her fuzzy twin. "You're okay. Stay put."
In a moment, the applause had finally died down and Lupo was nonchalantly swaggering back to the sisters. "My, my, folks. If we have an ovation like that every time I make a change to our volunteer, we'll be here past midnight. You don't want her to turn into a pumpkin, do you?"
As he grinned toward the chuckling crowd, Joy swung her hand around him and reached into the pocket where she thought she'd seen him deposit his wand. She pulled out something else entirely.
"Crap," she muttered as she frowned at the deck of cards in her hand.
"Oh, we're long past finished with those, my dear," Lupo said with a sinister smile. "Or...perhaps we can find a new use for them?" He slowly removed his wand from his sleeve. "These days, we must embrace conservation. If we don't, ladies like our brave volunteer won't have a jungle to go home to."
He tapped the deck and little spritzes of light scattered. The plain white card back suddenly gained a tiger-stripe pattern. The crowd "ooh"ed and "aah"ed at the light show.
"Now we have ourselves some flash cards with fun tiger facts. Or as we'll call them..." He turned to the transformed woman with a shining smile. "Julie facts."
Joy laughed.
"Yes, I thought that was clever," Lupo said pleasantly.
"No, it's... My sister is nothing like a real tiger. She's the nicest person. She's kind and gentle. Neither of us even eat much meat. I don't think a lot of these are going to fit."
Julie couldn't help but smile at Joy's words. Lupo was smiling too, but in a much different way. That made Julie's expression sour quite a bit.
"That sounds like a challenge," Lupo said to Joy. "Why don't we see who's right?"
"H-how did you do that? With the wand?" Julie asked, stepping closer. "Can I see?"
"Ah-ah..." Lupo held up both hands and quickly slipped the wand back into his sleeve, but not quickly enough to keep Julie from seeing the long little pocket inside of it. "A good magician never performs the same trick twice. Joy, why don't you read the top card?"
Julie gave a pleading look to Joy, but the girl shrugged sympathetically and took a peek at the card. She read it silently and then looked back at Julie with a furrowed brow.
"I'm so sorry," Lupo said somewhat gruffly. "I meant out loud."
Julie shook her head, but Joy quietly said "It's nonsense, don't worry." Then she raised her voice so everyone could hear.