What does it take to captivate and entertain a cafeteria of Noblesville High School students? For Sophomore Matthew Lingren, the answer is all in the cards.

Students in gold day B lunch are treated to amusing and bemusing card tricks at the hands of Lingren. He walks from table to table, offers a card trick for them and asks for nothing more than they pick a card. Any card, really. Self-taught, with a little help from YouTube tutorials, Lingren’s card-based tomfoolery began before the lunchroom.

“[When I was six], my brother and I got a magic kit for Christmas, and so we started to perform little shows for our family in the living room. Well, I was never very good at the tricks, so I eventually sort of gave up,” Lingren said. “Then there was a long period of time where nothing really happened, until this summer, I was leading a group of elementary kids at church camp, and there was this deck of cards on the table. I thought, ‘Hmm… It’s been a while. Let’s do it.’ After that is when I started performing at school.”

Since then, Lingren has taken his form beyond the halls. While performing magic for the doctors and nurses at his dentist’s office, one of the nurses offered him and his card skills a spot as a performer at a fundraiser for Noblesville Sister Cities. He performed table to table, much like he does at school, except, this time, his audience was students from Nova Prata, Brazil, and Cittadella, Italy, local teachers. Among the audience members was none other than Mayor Ditslear, who just couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Well, he fit into the skeptical category,” Lingren said. “He was trying to catch me slip up, but he just couldn’t do it.”

As far as compensation, Lingren and his family only received a free dinner that night, but he says it was still well worth his time.

As the first stop on his tour around the cafeteria, Lingrens lunch table is his eager testing ground. Lingren will, every so often, present his newest illusion to this control group to make sure it’s just complicated enough, which usually isn’t an issue.

“You can never figure it out,” Sophomore Armando LASTNAME said. “Nope, not even close.”

Rachel Solyst and her 6th block Spanish II class have been among those exposed to Lingren’s magic antics. Lingren would perform one of his tricks at the Elmo, projecting for the whole class to see, almost everyday.

“I love that he has this interest that he has shared with the class,” Solyst said. “It has made the class a tighter knit community and has gotten other kids to come out of their shells with what they’re passionate about.”

And passionate he is. He hopes to continue his magical card endeavors well into the future.

“Not necessarily for money, though that would be nice,” Lingren said. “As long as people enjoy it, I’ll keep performing.”