You'll have your audience standing on their seats at every presentation of this colourful trick.

You explain in a grand manner that you wanted to make a real elephant disappear today but, unfortunately it didn't fit through the door. You therefore brought along a photograph of Wendelin, your elephant (multi-colour print on giant playing card measuring about 12x18cm). You ask your audience whether you may show them the trick with the photograph instead, and they will naturally agree. In order to make the disappearing act a little more exciting, you present a small stage with a nicely made curtain draping the front and sides.
To ensure that no-one can suggest that the elephant has been simply taken away to the rear, you build a small prop on the stage, consisting of two thin, flat boards. Wendelin is then placed between the boards. The children in the audience shout a magic spell, you remove the boards, show their fronts and backs - and everyone sees that Wendelin, the elephant, has really disappeared. The audience begins to applaud; you bow but are so clumsy in doing so that the audience is able to see behind the stage curtain where Wendelin is hanging in two loops under the stage!!!! Oops - you have been caught out.
Wendelin has obviously slipped downwards through a slot in the stage floor. Since everyone now knows how the trick works, you say you want to do it again slowly so that they can all follow what happens. Wendelin is taken out of the loops, the props are built up again and Wendelin placed between the boards. The children shout the magic words, the boards are removed, their fronts and backs shown and - of course, Wendelin is again hanging there in the loops under the stage. But how do the big and famous magicians do the trick with the elephant?
Do they perhaps have a different magic spell? Yes, that must be the answer. A new magic spell - and then immediately, without any suspicious movements, without any manipulation or transferring something or other out of the way, you pull the curtain from the stage. Speechless amazement, astonished muttering, Wendelin, the elephant has actually disappeared. Only the empty loops are hanging from the stage floor. Hidden in the curtain? No, you can immediately give it to the audience for inspection.