A box of safety matches is turned upside down and the drawer is removed

The matches defy gravity: they do not fall out until commanded to do so.

You prepare for this one in advance by breaking a match in two and wedging it crosswise in the drawer (fig. 1). Then proceed as follows:

Display the matchbox and push the drawer out a little less than halfway so the spectators can see that it contains matches. Remove one match, close the drawer, and turn the box upside down.

"Did you know that if you hold a matchbox upside down and then pass one match around it three times in a clockwise direction this repeals the law of gravity so that the matches wont fall out when the drawer is removed?"

Push the upside-down drawer out, then hold it at the ends between thumb and forefinger (fig 1).

"And if you make the same mystic pass around the box in the other direction, it breaks the spell."

You do this and the matches promptly fall from the drawer -- because you squeeze the ends of the drawer slightly. This bends the sides of the drawer and releases the half-match, which then falls with, and is hidden by, the others.

Now use the matches for the Scrambled Arithmetic trick which follows.

scrambled arithmetic

A curiously baffling problem in arithmetic which becomes more baffling with each repetition.

"When you do arithmetic you are given a problem and you have to figure out the answer. Let me show you how to get a correct answer without even knowing what the problem is. Here are some matches. While my back is turned, make three piles of matches. Put the same number in each pile, but make it hard for me by putting at least four matches in each pile.

"You are going to add and subtract some matches, and when you finish I'll tell you how many matches are in the center pile even though I don't know how many matches there are at the beginning."

Step 1. "Take three matches from each of the end piles and put them in the center pile."

Step 2. "Count the matches that remain in either one of the end piles, take that many away from the center pile, and put them in the left-hand pile."

It makes no difference how many matches are being used; at this point the center pile will always contain nine matches. You could announce this as the answer, but don't. Ask the spectator to transfer a few more matches from pile to pile, mentally keeping track of what these additions and subtractions do to the nine in the center pile.

For example, have five matches transferred from the left pile to the center pile (9 plus 5 is 14), then have three matches moved from the center pile to either end pile (14 minus 3 is 11). Give this as the answer. Since you know that the center pile contains nine matches after Step 2, you can bring the final total to whatever you like.

The spectators may suspect that you are using some system which always produces the same answer. Disprove this by repeating the stunt and getting a different final total. Point out also that the spectator can begin each time with a different number of matches. The only restrictions are that the three piles must be equal at the beginning and that each must contain four or more matches.

You can confuse the issue even more by varying the procedure in Step 1. Instead of asking to have three matches transferred, have only one or two moved. If one match is transferred, the number of matches in the center pile, after Step 2, will be three. If two matches are moved, the center pile will contain six; if three are moved, it will contain nine. The center pile, after Step 2, always contains three times the number you use in Step 1.

Since you can arrive at any total you like, you can also predict the answer even before the spectator decides how many matches he will use.

When asked how it is done, say, "Nobody knows, but you don't need to know. Oddly enough, anybody can do it. You name any number between 1 and 12, the first one that comes into your mind!7

Repeat the trick, bringing the final total to the spectator's number.

"The answer is always whatever you want it to be. Wouldn't it be nice if they taught this kind of arithmetic in school?"

The fact that you never give the same instructions twice, since you don't know how many matches are being used, makes this trick a real mystery.

the tramps and the geese

This one is for the small fry. Older children may sometimes figure it out, but the smaller ones like it for the story.

Hold one match in each hand and put five on the table. "The five matches are five geese and the two I hold are hungry tramps walking along the road on Thanksgiving Day with nothing to eat. They see the geese and one tramp says, 'Look, Joe, there's our dinner.' Joe says, 'Oh, boy!' and he grabs one goose and puts it under his coat."

As you say this, pick up one of the geese with the right hand and hold it in your fist together with the match representing the first tramp.

"Then Sam took a goose, too. Then they took all the geese." Pick up the rest of the matches one at a time with alternate hands.

"Just then they heard the farmer coming and Sam said, 'Maybe we'd better put the geese back! So they did."

Lay the matches down, one at a time, from alternate hands, but start with the left hand. When the five geese have been replaced, you'll find that you have no matches in your left fist, two in your right.

"The farmer didn't stay long, and as soon as he had gone the two hungry tramps picked up the geese again." Do as before but start picking up with the right hand.

"Then Joe, the thin tramp, said, 'Sam, I know why you are fatter than I am. Somehow you always get more geese.'"

Open both fists and show two matches in the left hand and five in the right.

"This made Sam so mad he got into a fight with Joe. Meanwhile, all the geese ran home, had a Thanksgiving dinner of their own, and lived happily ever after."