Magicalamity (13 page)

They were in a plain white room lined with lighted mirrors, and there were costumes hanging on a rail—this must be the dressing room of Dahlia’s rock-star son. A lanky young man with large pointed ears and bright red hair was sprawled on a chair. Tom had never met any kind of rock star before. He was impressed, and a bit
shy, and he could see that Pindar was even more shy. Pindar thought Jay Trebonkers was wonderful.

When the rock star saw his mother, however, he reacted like any other son—he looked startled and guilty and tried to hide what he was drinking. “Mum! What’re you doing here? You hate my gigs!”

“Justinian, sweetie!” Dahlia kissed him. “As you see, I used your drums for a little people-smuggling.”

“Oh yeah?” Justinian did not seem surprised. “Well, you picked the right place—I paid Superintendent Falconer a fortune to keep the police off my back today.”

“Darling, I knew you’d help us. This is my old college friend Lorna Mustard.”

“Cool,” said Justinian. “Hi, Lorna.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lorna said stiffly.

“And this is Tom, the Harding demisprite.” Dahlia pulled Tom forward. “He’s our godson.”

“Cool,” said Justinian again. “Hi, Tom. You don’t look anything like your ‘Wanted’ posters.”

“Thanks,” Tom said, shaking hands with the fairy rock star. Justinian was wearing a bright green bodysuit and heavy boots with yellow wings attached to the heels (Tom couldn’t take his eyes off these; they kept fluttering like the wings of live birds), and his pointed ears bristled with metal studs.

“And this is Pindar Falconer.”

Justinian stared at Pindar. “But you’re dead!”

“Dead?” Pindar’s face had been red with shyness at meeting his favorite singer, but it now turned white. “I’m not dead!”

“Well, they buried you, mate. I sang at your funeral—and your parents still haven’t paid me.”

“Hang on,” Lorna said. “What are you talking about? If Pindar’s dead, why didn’t we see it on the news?”

“They wanted it to be low-key.” Justinian shrugged. “You know what the Falconers are like. They control what goes out on the news.”

“My own parents have had me declared dead because they wanted to get rid of me—I told you they didn’t like me,” said Pindar. “If they see me again, they’ll kill me.” He spoke calmly but looked very sad. “It means I don’t belong anywhere now.”

“You do!” Tom said fiercely. “You’re my cousin, and my dad’s your uncle—you belong with us!” It was horrible that someone as nice as Pindar should be so lonely and unloved. Tom knew Mum and Dad would never turn their backs on him; they were far too kind. “If we ever get out of this mess, you can come and live in our flat above the deli—we could easily fit another bed in my room.”

This struck him as a brilliant idea, and he was glad to see the hope coming back into his cousin’s face.

“Thanks, Tom,” Pindar said, smiling. “I wouldn’t care about being officially dead if I could stay with you.”

“Your own parents!” Justinian shook his head thoughtfully. “Heavy! Are you guys staying for the gig?”

“I wish we could—Tom’s never heard any of your music.” Pindar sighed. “But we’re here on a mission.”

“We can’t tell you anything else,” Dahlia said. “You haven’t seen us, do you understand?”

“OK. Good luck, then.” Justinian grinned at both boys—he was nice, Tom decided, and less scary than his mother. “It’s great that you’re not dead, Pindar, mate. And Tom, since my mum’s your fairy godmother, we’re sort of brothers, aren’t we? Take care, man!”

“Bye, Jay—great to meet you—I think you’re the coolest person in the universe—thanks for singing at my funeral … Ow!” Pindar was hustled out of the dressing room by Lorna, who was muttering crossly, “No manners … didn’t even kiss my hand … and that room REEKS of alcohol!”

“Poor Justinian!” Dahlia said. “He’s always nervous before a concert—so sensitive!”

Lorna muttered something else—Tom caught the words “lout” and “National Service.”

Luckily Dahlia didn’t hear this. They were outside the star’s dressing room in an empty corridor, and she was crisp and businesslike. “Right, we’re right on schedule. Follow me out of the stadium and stick close.”

She set off along the corridor, and Tom, Pindar and
Lorna hurried after her. They went down a dank stone staircase to an emergency exit deep in the basement. Dahlia opened it, and they were suddenly on a crowded street.

“Try to blend in,” Dahlia said, putting on her sunglasses. “Tom, try to look as un-mortal as possible.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Just keep your head down.”

Tom didn’t want to keep his head down. He wanted to gaze around him, taking in every weird and wonderful detail. This was the Realm, and it was incredible. The sunlight had a silver dazzle to it, like the early morning of a hot day, and the colors were so intense it almost hurt to look at them. A crowd of fairy teenagers in T-shirts like Pindar’s poured past them, making for the stadium. Tom and the fairies walked steadily in the opposite direction. Pindar tried to hide his face, but Tom was worried that someone would recognize him and think they’d seen a ghost.

He relaxed a little as they began to leave the mass of screaming teenagers behind. They were walking through a bustling street market now, and Tom could see that it was very pretty, with dinky little stalls and shops straight out of a fairy tale. Beyond the quaint streets a purple-sided mountain rose out of soft green fields. Its steep slopes were covered with thick forest, and Tom was suddenly sure this was Hopping Hill—the reason
his aunt Dolores wanted to kill his dad. He hadn’t expected it to be so beautiful.

But though the Realm was beautiful, it was also a seedy-looking place. Many of the shops were boarded up; some were blackened ruins. One even had flames shooting out of all the windows, and nobody took the slightest notice. They had to hurry past the entrance of an alley where a gunfight was going on.

A bolt of lightning narrowly missed Lorna’s boot. “OI!” she yelled furiously. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing!”

“Don’t get into a fight!” hissed Dahlia. “Do you want to draw attention to the fact that you’re walking beside a demisprite and a Falconer who’s officially DEAD? Boys—put your heads down!”

Tom and Pindar focused hard on the pavement as they dodged a crowd of drunken leprechauns outside an Irish bar—it was incredibly strange to see storybook creatures in real life. As they moved away from the stadium and the noise of screaming faded, the sound of explosions grew louder. Tom couldn’t see where they were coming from, but the air was sour with gunpowder and his hair was soon filled with brick dust.

“Blimey,” Lorna said, “it’s even worse than I remembered! Is it always like this?”

“Actually today’s pretty quiet,” said Pindar.

“Quiet? Tiberius has let the Realm go to rack and ruin—I can’t wait to get back to my scrapyard!”

“Oh, how tiresome.” Dahlia halted suddenly. “There’s a police patrol up ahead.” She pointed to a bank of flashing lights at the end of the street. Two police fairies, with dark-blue leather wings and blue helmets, hovered above the crowd like big blue dragonflies.

“Oh, help!” gulped Pindar. “Now what do we do?”

“Run!” Lorna grabbed Tom’s arm.

“Hold your nerve!” Dahlia rapped out in a tone of voice that must be obeyed. “If we panic, we’re finished!”

“But they’ll spot Pindar! There’s no way we can hide that blooming great nose of his! I mean—sorry, Pindar.”

“No, you’re right,” Pindar said cheerfully. “It’s a really terrible nose. I’d love a magical nose job—but it’s the Falconer nose, and my father thinks it’s noble.”

“I’m glad you’re not too attached to it,” Dahlia said, with one of her slightly dangerous smiles. “I’ve had an idea.”

“We don’t have time!” cried Lorna.

“Nonsense, it won’t take a minute. See this chemist’s shop?” She raised her eyebrows in the direction of a little shop nearby—nothing like the local chemist near Tom’s home, which was stark and white, with shelves full of diapers and cough medicine, but cobwebby and mysterious, its window crammed with dusty bottles.
“I’m going inside—I’ll keep the assistant talking for as long as I can to give you and the boys time to nip round to the back of the shop.”

“But there’s no time,” Lorna hissed. “They’ll arrest us—we’ll never get to the Chapel. Iris can’t kidnap Milly’s coffin all by herself—and we won’t have any defense for Jonas.…”

Tom knew they had to stay calm. He looked at Dahlia. “What do we have to do?”

“Yes, Tom, I’d better give the orders to you,” Dahlia said. “You may be a demisprite, but you’re very clearheaded. This shop is the old-fashioned kind of fairy chemist that makes all its own potions. There’ll be a vat of handsome-mixture bubbling away somewhere.”

“A vat of what?”

“You remember the handsome-token I gave you for your christening? You buy them at the chemist’s. The mixture is very expensive and unstable, and you’re only allowed to buy tiny amounts at a time, and it only works on newborn babies. But to make the tokens, they boil the potion up in big vats. Pindar, I want you to break into the back of the shop, dip my handkerchief into the handsome-vat and rub it on your nose—and your ears—well, your entire face. That should be enough to disguise you.”

Tom was suspicious. “Won’t it be dangerous?”

“Dangerous?”

“You said it was unstable.”

Dahlia sighed rather crossly. “All right, if you want to split hairs, the wrong dose can work in reverse and turn you hideously ugly—there’s an illness called Ugly Chemist Syndrome that’s caused by contact with handsome-mixture.”

“You can’t make Pindar ugly!” Tom was annoyed by the way Dahlia didn’t seem to care about anybody—didn’t his cousin have enough troubles?

“I don’t care,” Pindar said. “Honestly, Tom—I’m not very handsome anyway, and at least I’d be disguised.”

Dahlia took a large white lace handkerchief from her handbag and gave it to Pindar. “Go on, then—I’ll keep him talking as long as I can.” She went into the shop.

Tom, Pindar and Lorna ran down the narrow passage at the side of the chemist’s shop. They found another door, which opened into a backyard full of barrels and bottles. Tom was so nervous he could hardly breathe—suppose they were caught? What would those flying police do to them?

“This’ll be where he makes his potions.” Lorna pointed to a pair of shabby padlocked doors. “They’re locked, but I don’t see why he bothers—his security’s rubbish!” She muttered a few words, waving her fingers around the lock, and it fell open.

Pindar started sneezing helplessly. “Sorry—achoo! It’s my allergies—achoo!”

“Shh!” Lorna pushed open the big doors. “Good grief, I haven’t heard such dreadful sneezing since poor Clover!”

They crept into a cluttered, dark, weird-smelling space like a garage, crammed with test tubes, bottles and heaps of printed labels—
SWAIN
’
S ANTI-SPITE POWDER, SWAIN
’
S OWN RECIPE WART ENHANCER, SWAIN
’
S CURSE-REMOVING CREAM
. There was a big stove where several cauldrons filled the air with thick steam.

“Aha! That’s what we’re looking for!” Lorna pointed to a shadowy corner, and Tom saw a huge metal drum, sunk into the ground, giving off an odd, heavy sort of steam that poured down to the floor and hovered there like a low cloud. “OK, Pindar—dip in the hanky, and then we can go.”

The vat was sunk so deeply into the floor that Pindar had to kneel on the very edge. “Achoo! Achoo! The potion’s a long way down—”

“Careful!” hissed Tom.

“Achoo! Oh no—I dropped the hanky! I’ll fish it out—”

“NO!” wailed Lorna, forgetting to be quiet.

Too late. Pindar pulled his arm out of the mixture, and they all stared at it aghast. Tom would’ve loved to say something positive, but what? This was a disaster. Poor old Pindar’s hand and arm up to the elbow had
turned wizened and scaly and moldy green, like the claw of a particularly shabby old lizard.

Lorna groaned. “That’s ruined it! Now you’re more noticeable than ever!”

“ACHOO!” sneezed Pindar.

Tom tried to grab the back of his cousin’s shirt, but he wasn’t quick enough. Pindar toppled right into the vat of potion, with a loud gulping noise as if he were being swallowed into a swamp.

T
om didn’t lose his head. “The broom!” he hissed at Lorna.

“What?”

He pushed past her and grabbed a long broom that was leaning against the wall and held it out over the seething gloop in the vat. Pindar took hold of the handle and together Tom and Lorna dragged him out onto the concrete floor.

Tom couldn’t see anything at first except a dark shape in a reeking cloud of steam. He watched it fearfully, bracing himself in case Pindar had turned into a hideous lizard—he swore to himself that he’d still like his cousin no matter how ugly he was, but how could Pindar ever
come to live in the mortal world if he looked like Godzilla’s grandfather?

“Bum!” Lorna cursed softly. “We’ve made a right mess of this!”

Tom and Lorna stood gaping at Pindar as the steam cleared.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Pindar looked at his arms and legs. The potion had evaporated very fast, leaving his jeans and T-shirt spotlessly clean and dry—they even looked ironed. “I’m not scaly anymore, but tell me the truth—I can take it! How …? How ugly am I?”

Tom caught Lorna’s eye—and they both suddenly burst out laughing. When you’re not supposed to laugh, it is very hard to stop, and Tom had to put his hands over his mouth to keep quiet. Lorna laughed so hard that she had tears in her eyes.

“Wow, I must be totally repulsive,” said Pindar.

“Repulsive?” Tom managed to calm down. He had only laughed because he was so shocked. “You must be kidding! You’re really, really HANDSOME!”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, my dear Pindar,” Lorna said, wiping her eyes. “You’re beautiful!”

And it was true. The old Pindar had had a big nose like a turned-up duck’s beak, and great flat ears. The new Pindar had the same friendly, helpful, slightly worried expression, on a face of film-star handsomeness—Tom
felt slightly shy of the gorgeous stranger, until his cousin sneezed, turning bright red, and he saw that the essential Pindar was just the same.