Tim Swanson loves magic tricks. Someday he wants to be a real stage magician, just like his hero Amaz-O. Unfortunately, his parents don't approve, and his bratty little sister keeps ruining his act when he tries to perform for the neighborhood kids.
Then one day, Tim scores tickets to one of Amaz-O's shows, but in return for the magician's rudeness, he ends up swiping his idol's bag of tricks. And soon, he discovers the magic may not be so staged...
It was adapted into the fourth episode of the second season of the 1995 TV series, with a novelization based on the episode being released as book 10 of the Goosebumps Presents series.
The book provides examples of:
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Ginny is basically a slightly toned-down Tara Webster.
- Bat Scare: When viewing Midnight Mansion at night, Tim thought he saw bats fluttering around two vacant towers.
- Black Eyes of Evil: More "creepy" than "evil", but the host at Midnight Mansion has these, along with looking like a living skeleton. He keeps an eye on Tim and Ginny because they showed up at the place without their parents, whom they claim are just out parking their car.
- Broken Pedestal: Happens to Tim when he discovers that his idol, Amaz-O, is a stuck up Jerkass.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover of the book seems to suggest that the rabbit shown is a Hair-Raising Hare that poses a dangerous threat to the main character. In actuality, the rabbit is really Amaz-O and he himself doesn't do much harm except turn Tim into a rabbit at the end of the book. What really drives most of the danger of the plot is Amaz-O's magic tricks that Tim stole and the havoc that is caused by them.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Before Midnight Mansion was bought and turned into a nightclub, it was owned by a crazy woman who wore ragged old clothes, ate nothing but peanut butter right out of the jar, and threw rocks at people whom tried to visit her. She had about fifty cats.
- Creepy Basement: Tim finds himself in this in Midnight Mansion as part of the "disappearing" act. He constantly hears a dripping noise, and scuttling as if a rat is down there, and a single flickering bulb on the ceiling. Tim finds the experience horrible.
- Exact Words: Late in the book, Tim is promised by Amaz-O that he can be a part of the legendary magician's act... by being his rabbit.
- Fate Worse than Death: Tim turns into a rabbit, whose job is to be pulled out of a hat in Amaz-O's act from then on.
- Forced Transformation: Tim's sister Ginny gets turned into a rabbit. Amaz-O got turned into one ages ago, and Tim turns into one himself at the end as well.
- Foreshadowing: As a joke, Tim tells Ginny he can turn her into a rabbit. Afterwards, he wishes he could but thinks that it's sadly impossible. She is later indeed turned into a rabbit.
- Lame Rhyme Dodge: When their parents are going out, Ginny says that she and Tim have a secret. When he convinces her to shut up, they ask her what she just said, and he says that she was wanting a "wee pet" and that it was just her attempt at a Scottish accent.
- Mind Your Step: When sneaking out of the house to go to Amaz-O's show, Tim makes sure to step over a top step that squeaks. He recalls how he got busted by this one time when he was sneaking down one Christmas night to check out his presents, and his mother caught him.
- Misery Poker: Tim's parents hate the jobs they work, and they each complain about it during dinner one night. Tim's mother is a principal at a school, and she complained how a boy in one class threatened to beat people up, and when sent to her he threatened to beat her up. Tim's father works at a car dealership, and he counters that he had a worse day, because he was offering one customer a test-drive in a car and said person just took the keys and drove off without ever coming back. This makes Tim try to get them in better moods in order for them to say yes to him going to Midnight Mansion.
- Mutagenic Food: Eating the carrot in Amaz-O's magic hat turns the eater into a rabbit. Ginny learns this the hard way.
- "Open!" Says Me: Tim has just landed in the Midnight Mansion basement and is trying to get out of there, but the doorway upstairs out of there is locked. So, he backed away and then ran towards it to ram it down. On the second try, the door flew open.
- Parental Bonus: Tim complains that his mom takes his sister's karate lessons more seriously than his magic hobby because "girls need to know how to defend themselves". He may feel like The Un-Favourite in the family, but his mom does have a point.
- Parental Favoritism: Tim's parents clearly prefer his sister Ginny over him.
- Pick a Card: Tim does this trick at the beginning of the book as part of his attempt at a magic performance. He tells a girl to pick one, and she picks the three of clubs, and he guesses that it is hers. However, Ginny comes along and reveals the ruse by showing that ALL of the cards are the three of clubs, which infuriates Tim.
- Prompting Nudge: At the magic show, Amaz-O asks for any volunteers for the disappearing act. Earlier before the show, he discreetly went to Tim and asked him to volunteer, but Tim forgets. It takes Ginny to nudge him under the table to remind him so that he can step forward.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: This happens a few times in the book, including Tim attempting to do this at his own magic show, but the rabbit runs away before it could happen and it has to be retrieved. By the end, he gets turned into one himself and used in Amaz-O's show for this purpose.
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: After getting insulted by Amaz-O and having the door slammed in his face backstage, Tim thinks that his idol turned out to be a big fat jerk. He then thought that he wasn't actually fat, but he was still the biggest jerk he ever met.
- Skewed Priorities: When being chased by security guards outside of Midnight Mansion, Tim thinks that he would rather be arrested than grounded. But then he thinks that if he got arrested, he would still be grounded.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: When Tim and his best friend Foz go to Mr. Malik's magic shop to look at his tricks for sale, they find him with a sword apparently stuck to his stomach. It turns out to be fake, and he was just messing with them. In revenge, Foz puts his hand in the guillotine that was in the same shop and pretended to have sliced his hand off to scare Mr. Malik. He even used fake blood to make it look real.
- Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: After dinner and during desert, Tim had just buttered up his parents to get them in good moods, then asks them if he can go to Amaz-O's show at Midnight Mansion. After hearing that it starts at 10 o'clock at night, they refuse to let him go, just as Tim feared they would. He abandons his ice cream and storms upstairs, with Ginny more than happy to take it as a second helping.
- The Un-Favourite: Tim. His parents are constantly praising his sister's karate skills, but never praising their son's magic "skills".
- Unishment: Tim is turned into a rabbit to be included as part of Amaz-O's magic show, partly as punishment for stealing his magic kit. Yet Tim is still grateful to finally be a part of his idol's show and perform on stage.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Amaz-O comments on the absurdity of the name "Foz" (which is actually short for "Foster") at one point.
