Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci, Page 2

  Luckily, since Towser was growling even louder than the car, the Willing Warlock took his left foot off a pedal first. They shot off down the road. “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him.

  “Oh, shut up,” the Willing Warlock said. But nothing shut the car up, he discovered, except not pressing so hard on the right-hand pedal.

  Towser, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as soon as the car moved. He let go of the Willing Warlock and loomed behind him on the backseat, while the child sat and chanted, “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

  The Willing Warlock kept on driving. There is nothing else you can do if a child, a dog the size of Towser, and a car all combine to make you. At least the car was easy to drive. All the Willing Warlock had to do was sit there not pressing the pedal too much and keep turning into the emptiest streets. He had time to think. He knew the dog’s name. If he could find out the child’s name, then he could work a spell on them both to make them let him go.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, turning into a wide straight road with room for three cars abreast in it.

  “Jemima Jane,” said the child. “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

  The Willing Warlock drove, muttering a spell. While he did, Towser made a flowing sort of jump and landed in the passenger seat beside him, where he sat in a royal way, staring out at the road. The Willing Warlock cowered away from him and finished the spell in a gabble. The beast was as big as a lion!

  “You are wasting petrol,” remarked the car.

  Perhaps these things caused the Willing Warlock to muddle the spell. All that happened was that Towser turned invisible.

  There was an instant shriek from the backseat. “Where’s Towser?”

  The invisible space on the front passenger seat growled horribly. The Willing Warlock did not know where its teeth were. He hurriedly revoked the spell. Towser loomed beside him, looking reproachful.

  “You’re not to do that again!” said Jemima Jane.

  “I won’t if we all get out and walk,” the Willing Warlock said cunningly.

  A silence met this suggestion, with an undercurrent of snarl to it. The Willing Warlock gave up for the moment and kept on driving. There were no houses by the road anymore, only trees, grass, and a few cows, and the road stretched into the distance, endlessly. The nice gray car, labeled “WW100” in front and “XYZ123” behind, zoomed gently onward for nearly an hour. The sun began setting in gory clouds, behind some low green hills.

  “I want my supper,” announced Jemima Jane. At the word supper, Towser yawned and started to dribble. He turned to look thoughtfully at the Willing Warlock, obviously wondering which bits of him tasted best. “Towser’s hungry, too,” said Jemima Jane.

  The Willing Warlock turned his eyes sideways to look at Towser’s great pink tongue draped over Towser’s large white fangs. “I’ll stop at the first place we see,” he said obligingly. He began turning over schemes for giving both of them—not to speak of the car—the slip the moment they allowed him to stop. If he made himself invisible, so that the dog could not find him—

  He seemed to be in luck. Just then a large blue notice that said HARBURY SERVICES came into view, with a picture of a knife and fork underneath. The Willing Warlock turned into it with a squeal of tires. “You are wasting petrol,” the car protested.

  The Willing Warlock took no notice. He stopped with a jolt among a lot of other cars, turned himself invisible, and tried to jump out. But he had forgotten the seat belt. It held him in place long enough for Towser to fix his fangs in the sleeve of his coat, and that seemed to be enough to make Towser turn invisible, too. “You have forgotten to set the hand brake,” said the car.

  “Doh!” snarled the Willing Warlock miserably, and put the hand brake on. It was not easy, with Towser’s invisible fangs grating his arm.

  “You’re to fetch me lots and lots,” Jemima Jane said. It did not seem to trouble her that both of them had vanished. “Towser, make sure he brings me an ice cream.”

  The Willing Warlock climbed out of the car, lugging the invisible Towser. He tried some more cunning. “Come with me and show me which ice cream you want,” he called back. Several people in the car park looked around to see where the invisible voice was coming from.

  “I want to stay in the car. I’m tired,” whined Jemima Jane.

  The invisible teeth fastened in the Willing Warlock’s sleeve rumbled a little. Invisible dribble ran on his hand. “Oh, all right,” he said, and set off for the restaurant, accompanied by four invisible heavy paws.

  Maybe it was a good thing they were both invisible. There was a big sign on the door: NO DOGS. And the Willing Warlock still had no money. He went to the long counter and picked up pies and scones with the hand Towser left him free. He stuffed them into his pocket so that they would become invisible, too.

  Someone pointed to the Danish pastry he picked up next and screamed, “Look! A ghost!” Then there were screams further down the counter. The Willing Warlock looked. A very large chocolate gâteau, with a snout-shaped piece missing from it, was trotting at chest level across the dining area. Towser was helping himself, too. People backed away, yelling. The gâteau broke into a gallop and barged out through the glass doors with a splat. At the same moment, someone grabbed the Danish pastry from the Willing Warlock’s hand.

  It was the girl behind the cash desk, who was not afraid of ghosts. “You’re the Invisible Man or something,” she said. “Give that back.”

  The Willing Warlock panicked again and ran after the gâteau. He meant to go on running, as fast as he could, in the opposite direction from the nice car. But as soon as he barged through the door, he found the gâteau waiting for him, lying on the ground. A warning growl and hot breath on his hand suggested that he pick the gâteau up and come along. Teeth in his trouser leg backed up this suggestion. Dismally, the Willing Warlock obeyed.

  “Where’s my ice cream?” Jemima Jane asked ungratefully.

  “There wasn’t any,” said the Willing Warlock as Towser herded him into the car. He threw the gâteau, the scones, and a pork pie onto the backseat. “Be thankful for what you’ve got.”

  “Why?” asked Jemima Jane.

  The Willing Warlock gave up. He turned himself visible again and sat in the driving seat to eat the other pork pie. He could feel Towser snuffing him from time to time make sure he stayed there. In between, he could hear Towser eating. Towser made such a noise that the Willing Warlock was glad he was invisible. He looked to make sure. And there was Towser, visible again in all his hugeness, sitting in the backseat licking his vast chops. As for Jemima Jane, the Willing Warlock had to look away quickly. She was chocolate all over. There was a river of chocolate down her front and more plastered into her red curls like mud.

  “Why aren’t you going on driving for?” Jemima Jane demanded. Towser at once surged to his huge feet to back up the demand.

  “I am, I am!” the Willing Warlock said, hastily starting the engine.

  “You have forgotten to fasten your seat belt,” the car reminded him priggishly. And as the car moved forward, it added, “It is now lighting-up time. You require headlights.”

  The Willing Warlock started the wipers, rolled down the windows, played music, and finally managed to turn on the lights. He drove back onto the big road, hating all three of them. And drove. Jemima Jane stood up on the backseat behind him. The gâteau had made her distressingly lively. She wanted to talk. She grabbed one of the Willing Warlock’s ears in a sticky chocolate hand for balance and breathed gâteau fumes and questions into his other ear.

  “Why did you take our car for? What are all those prickles on your chin for? Why don’t you like me holding your nose for? Why don’t you smell nice? Where are we going to? Shall we drive in the car all night?” and many more such questions.

  The Willing Warlock was forced to answer all these questions in the right way. If he d
id not answer, Jemima Jane dragged at his hair, or twisted his ear, or took hold of his nose. If the answer he gave did not please Jemima Jane, Towser rose up growling, and the Willing Warlock had quickly to think of a better answer. It was not long before he was as plastered with chocolate as Jemima Jane was. He thought that it was not possible for a person to be more unhappy.

  He was wrong. Towser suddenly stood up and staggered about the backseat, making odd noises.

  “Towser’s going to go sick,” Jemima Jane said.

  The Willing Warlock squealed to a halt on the hard shoulder and threw all four doors open wide. Towser would have to get out, he thought. Then he could drive straight off again and leave Towser by the roadside.

  As he thought that, Towser landed heavily on top of him. Sitting on the Willing Warlock, he got rid of the gâteau onto the edge of the motorway. It took him some time. Meanwhile the Willing Warlock wondered if Towser was actually as heavy as a cow, or whether he only felt that way.

  “Now go on, go on driving,” Jemima Jane said when Towser at last had finished.

  The Willing Warlock obeyed. He drove on. Then it was the car’s turn. It flashed a red light at him. “You are running out of petrol,” it remarked.

  “Good,” said the Willing Warlock feelingly.

  “Go on driving,” said Jemima Jane, and Towser, as usual, backed her up.

  The Willing Warlock drove on through the night. A new and unpleasant smell now filled the car. It did not mix well with chocolate. The Willing Warlock supposed it must be Towser. He drove and the car boringly repeated its remark about petrol until, as they passed a sign saying BENTWELL SERVICES, the car suddenly changed its tune and said, “You have started on the reserve tank.” Then it became quite talkative and added, “You have petrol for ten more miles only. You are running out of petrol—”

  “I heard you,” said the Willing Warlock. “I shall have to stop,” he told Jemima Jane and Towser, with great relief. Then, to stop Jemima Jane telling him to drive on, and because the new smell was mixing with the chocolate worse than ever, he said, “And what is this smell in here?”

  “Me,” Jemima Jane said, rather defiantly. “I went in my pants. It’s your fault. You didn’t take me to the Ladies’.”

  At which Towser at once sprang up, growling, and the car added, “You are running out of petrol.”

  The Willing Warlock groaned aloud and went squealing into BENTWELL SERVICES. The car told him reproachfully that he was wasting petrol and then added that he was running out of it, but the Willing Warlock was too far gone to attend to it. He sprang out of the car and once more tried to run away. Towser sprang out after him and fastened his teeth in the Willing Warlock’s now tattered trouser leg. And Jemima Jane scrambled out after Towser.

  “Take me to the Ladies’,” she said. “You have to change my pants. My clean ones are in the bag at the back.”

  “I can’t take you to the Ladies’!” the Willing Warlock said. He had no idea what to do. What did one do? You have one grown-up male Warlock, one female child, and one dog fastened to the Warlock’s trouser leg that might be male or female. Did you go to the Gents’ or the Ladies’? The Willing Warlock just did not know.

  He had to settle for doing it publicly in the car park. It made him ill. It was the last straw. Jemima Jane gave him loud directions in a ringing bossy voice. Towser growled steadily. As he struggled with the gruesome task, the Willing Warlock heard people gathering around, sniggering. He hardly cared. He was a broken Warlock by then. When he looked up to find himself in a ring of policemen and the small man in the pin-striped suit standing just beside him, he felt nothing but extreme relief. “I’ll come quietly,” he said.

  “Hello, Daddy!” Jemima Jane shouted. She suddenly looked enchanting, in spite of the chocolate. And Towser changed character, too, and fawned and gamboled around the small man, squeaking like a puppy.

  The small man picked up Jemima Jane, chocolate and all, and looked forbiddingly at the Willing Warlock. “If you’ve harmed Prudence, or the dog either,” he said, “you’re for it, you know.”

  “Harmed!” the Willing Warlock said hysterically. “That child’s the biggest bully in the world—bar that car or that dog! And the dog’s a thief, too! I’m the one that’s harmed! Anyway, she said her name was Jemima Jane.”

  “That’s just a jingle I taught her, to prevent people trying name magic,” the small man said, laughing rather. “The dog has a secret name anyway. All Kathayack Demon Dogs do. Do you know who I am, Warlock?”

  “No,” said the Willing Warlock, trying not to look respectfully at the fawning Towser. He had heard of Demon Dogs. The beast probably had more magic than he did.

  “Kathusa,” said the man. “Financial wizard. I’m Chrestomanci’s agent in this world. That crook Jean-Pierre keeps sending people here, and they all get into trouble. It’s my job to pick them up. I was coming into the bank to help you, Warlock, and you go and pinch my car.”

  “Oh,” said the Willing Warlock. The policemen coughed and began to close in. He resigned himself to a long time in prison.

  But Kathusa held up a hand to stop the policemen. “See here, Warlock,” he said, “you have a choice. I need a man to look after my cars and exercise Towser. You can do that and go straight, or you can go to prison. Which is it to be?”

  It was a terrible choice. Towser met the Willing Warlock’s eye and licked his lips. The Willing Warlock decided he preferred prison.

  But Jemima Jane—or rather Prudence—turned to the policemen, beaming. “He’s going to look after me and Towser,” she announced. “He likes his nose being pulled.”

  The Willing Warlock tried not to groan.

  STEALER

  * * *

  OF SOULS

  * * *

  Cat Chant was not altogether happy, either with himself or with other people. The reason was the Italian boy whom Chrestomanci had unexpectedly brought back to Chrestomanci Castle after his trip to Italy.

  “Cat,” said Chrestomanci, who was looking rather tired after his travels, “this is Antonio Montana. You’ll find he has some very interesting magic.”

  Cat looked at the Italian boy, and the Italian boy held out his hand and said, “How do you do. Please call me Tonino,” in excellent English, but with a slight halt at the end of each word, as if he was used to words that mostly ended in o. Cat knew at that instant that he was going to count the days until someone took Tonino back to Italy again. And he hoped someone would do it soon.

  It was not just the beautiful English and the good manners. Tonino had fair hair—that almost grayish fair hair people usually call ash blond—which Cat had never imagined an Italian could have. It looked very sophisticated, and it made Cat’s hair look a crude straw color by comparison. As if this was not enough, Tonino had trusting brown eyes and a nervous expression, and he was evidently younger than Cat. He looked so sweet that Cat shook hands as quickly as he could without being rude, knowing at once that everyone would expect him to look after Tonino.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he lied.

  Sure enough, Chrestomanci said, “Cat, I’m sure I can trust you to show Tonino the ropes here and keep an eye on him until he finds his feet in England.”

  Cat sighed. He knew he was going to be very bored.

  But it was worse than that. The other children in the castle thought Tonino was lovely. They all did their best to be friends with him. Chrestomanci’s daughter, Julia, patiently taught Tonino all the games you played in England, including cricket. Chrestomanci’s son, Roger, joined in the cricket lessons and then spent hours gravely comparing spells with Tonino. Chrestomanci’s ward, Janet, spent further hours enthusiastically asking Tonino about Italy. Janet came from another world where Italy was quite different, and she was interested in the differences.

  And yet, despite all this attention, Tonino went around with a lost, lonely look that ma
de Cat avoid him. He could tell Tonino was acutely homesick. In fact, Cat was fairly sure Tonino was feeling just the way Cat had felt himself when he first came to Chrestomanci Castle, and Cat could not get over the annoyance of having someone have feelings that were his. He knew this was stupid—this was partly why he was not happy with himself—but he was not happy with Julia, Roger, and Janet either. He considered that they were making a stupid fuss over Tonino. The fact was that Julia and Roger normally looked after Cat. He had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder. Cat knew all this perfectly well, but it did not make the slightest difference to the way he felt.

  To make things worse, Chrestomanci himself was extremely interested in Tonino’s magic. He spent large parts of the next few days with Tonino doing experiments to discover just what the extent of Tonino’s powers was, while Cat, who was used to being the one with the interesting magic, was left to wrestle with problems of magic theory by himself in Chrestomanci’s study.

  “Tonino,” Chrestomanci said, by way of explanation, “can, it seems, not only reinforce other people’s spells but also make use of any magic other people do. If it’s true, it’s a highly unusual ability. And by the way,” he added, turning around in the doorway, looking tall enough to brush the ceiling, “you don’t seem to have shown Tonino around the castle yet. How come?”

  “I was busy—I forgot,” Cat muttered sulkily.

  “Fit it into your crowded schedule soon, please,” Chrestomanci said, “or I may find myself becoming seriously irritated.”

  Cat sighed but nodded. No one disobeyed Chrestomanci when he got like this. But now he had to face the fact that Chrestomanci knew exactly how Cat was feeling and had absolutely no patience with it. Cat sighed again as he got down to his problems.