Stephanie Wrobel

resisted the urge to relax. The platter was steady. All I had to do was keep it exactly where it was for fifteen more minutes. I could do anything for that long, couldn’t I?

The task ahead of me was easy compared to Houdini’s work. For the Upside Down Trick, he locked his feet in stocks, then had himself lowered upside down into a tank filled with water. He stayed in there for two minutes until he escaped. He performed the trick hundreds of times.

the Underwater Box Escape, he was handcuffed and put in leg-irons before climbing into a wooden crate. The crate was weighed down with two hundred pounds of lead, nailed and chained shut, then hoisted off the side of a barge into New York’s East River, like Alan said. It sank immediately. Fifty-seven seconds later, Houdini resurfaced, free of the restraints. When the crate was brought

ashore, it was intact, shackles still inside.