"Cecil Bean had both good luck and bad."
The opening line of this novel effectively communicates the concept that will drive the narrative. Cecil is not the only person with both good and bad luck, but this is his story, so he becomes the symbolic “everyboy” who stands in for all the rest of us. The opening line speaks directly to the premise: not only does everybody have both good and bad luck, but that good or bad luck is determined by totems that everybody else also have.
"Leek followed Cecil everywhere, because Leek was Cecil’s personal lucky rabbit. (Everyone has one, of course, but we almost never notice them because they’re so exceptionally clever.)"
The good luck totem is a rabbit. Which, considering the prevalence of lucky rabbit foods already in abundance, makes perfect sense. Leek is always at the ready to go into service as a lucky protector of Cecil, of course, but with rare exceptions that apparently require a comingling of birth and wealth and extraordinary gullibility on the part of millions in addition to their lucky rabbit, almost nobody is fortunate enough to experience only good luck. Despite being at Cecil’s side all the time and despite being really quite incredibly clever, bad luck does occasionally befall the boy. This is not entirely the rabbit’s fault, however.
"That’s when Millikin had The Most Sinister Idea of His Life."
The problem facing Leek in his attempt to ensure nothing but good luck comes to Cecil comes in the form of a black cat named Millikan. Duality is kept in proper balance by supplying a black cat looking to bring about bad luck for each person. Just as Cecil has a personal lucky rabbit, he also has his very own personal black named Milliken. Milliken’s only purpose in life is to ensure that Cecil doesn’t enjoy too much of a good thing. But, as he has complained to his therapist, Leek keeps stifling the execution at a higher rate than has become acceptable. When Milliken’s therapist nods in agreement that Leek is the cause of all his woe, the black cat begins what might happen if the path he crossed belongs not to Cecil, but to his lucky rabbit, Leek. And just like, Milliken develops a plot so innovative and visionary that is available for trademark.
"It was painfully clear to all assembled that Imbrolio wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever. What no one could possibly have known, at least not yet, was that they were in the presence of something truly special, of wonder and deep magic. For while Imbrolio himself was decidedly ordinary—and well below average with regard to personal hygiene—he did have something quite extraordinary up his sleeve. Or rather, on his head."
What is on the Great Imbrolio’s head that is so extraordinary is, of course, a hat. Tall and black and lined in red, the hat seems perfectly normal aside from the distinct odor of the head of its inhabitant, but appearance can be deceiving. The hat sitting atop the magician’s head when held out for inspection by Cecil seems as perfectly typical and average as the rabbit he pulls out from the folds of his magician’s cloak. The rabbit seems typical enough, except for a certain sad quality to the eyes and engendering a strange sense of familiarity that Cecil could not quite place. And before even having time to try to figure out what was causing this weird sense of having seen the rabbit before, Imbrolio had begun to recite an incantation in a foreign language, and then, in an instant, the rabbit was gone. The rabbit named Leek who was Cevil’s only protection against the bad luck a black cat named Milliken constantly tried to bring down upon him had disappeared into the hat. And the Great Imbrolio apparently had no intention of bringing him back, declaring that the magic show had officially reached its conclusion, leaving Leek inside and desperately trying to find a way to escape the hat which retained the stench of charlatanism.
