Magicalamity (16 page)

“I don’t think Clarence will want me when he finds out about my record,” Pindar said, and they both laughed.

The escape hole in the membrane was near the summit of Hopping Hill. Ten strong men in masks carried Milly’s glass coffin, and the others followed it along steep, winding paths through the thick forest. It was a long walk, through darkness that somehow felt and smelled different from the darkness at home.

After nearly an hour of solid climbing, they reached a flat clearing. Tom’s legs were tired and he would have loved to rest, but Terence called, “Time to hand over the coffin, lads!” And before he had a chance to sit down, Tom was back at his place by Milly’s feet.

“We’d better make for Mustard Manor,” Lorna said. “I had it double-sealed to hide from my ex-husband.”

“One day,” said Dahlia, “when we’re not fleeing for our lives, remind me to ask you what on earth that genie did to you. Tom—hold very tight, this won’t be easy for you. We’re about to enter the mortal world through an illegal tear in the membrane.”

He was alarmed. “I won’t disintegrate, will I?”

“No, but it’s a lot harder than going the legal way, and I’m not a hundred percent sure you’ll be able to stand the cold, though it won’t last long—oof, this wretched thing’s heavy!”

“Good luck!” called Terence. “And if you see Jonas
before I do, tell him the Hoppers of Hopping Hill are right behind him!”

Tom was finding the flying spell easier every time; it had sunk into his memory like riding a bike. Tired as he was, he gabbled out the words and snapped his fingers (very awkward when you were hefting a coffin), and they rose slowly into the air.

There was a tremendous ripping sound, loud as a clap of thunder, and a feeling like being sucked down a giant plughole. Tom was suddenly bitterly cold—the coldest he had ever been. His hair turned to ice, his fingers stuck to Milly’s coffin and his teeth froze together in his mouth. It was agony.

But Dahlia was right; the freezing didn’t last long. There was a sudden gust of warmth, so delicious that it took Tom several minutes to notice they were flying again. There were no sirens, no shouts, no police. They were cruising in the warm darkness, above a carpet of orange lights. The air smelled of gasoline, grass, summer, mortal cooking and HOME.

They circled slowly over Lorna’s scrapyard, and Tom thought the broken trucks were absolutely beautiful—the ordinariness of the mortal world had never looked so good. Hector barked a loud welcome.

“Phew!” said Lorna. “I haven’t had a cup of proper mortal tea in days! And I can’t wait to put down this blooming coffin!”

“Achoo! Achoo!” Pindar sneezed violently.

The coffin jolted as Tom lost his grip.

“ARRRGH!” screamed all three godmothers.

The glass coffin had dropped onto the concrete and shattered into a thousand pieces.

T
om, Pindar and the godmothers hovered for a moment in horrified silence, before landing one by one on the carpet of broken glass in front of Lorna’s disguised house. The body lay in a heap of glittery white material—Tom didn’t want to look at the ghastly thing, but couldn’t help it.

“She’ll go moldy now that she’s been exposed to air,” Iris said. “We’d better put her in the freezer.”

Tom shuddered at this—but it was nothing compared to the shock that hit him next.

The corpse sat up.

Milly Falconer brushed bits of broken glass off her
dress. “Hello,” she said. “Where am I? Are there any more of those crab pastries?”

“I told you Tom’s mother was right,” said Dahlia. “For a mortal, she’s really quite intelligent. It’s Snow White all over again!” She added, “Hello, Milly.”

“You were poisoned,” Iris said. “And you’ve spent the last fifteen years in a glass coffin.”

Tom made himself take a couple of deep breaths. He was getting used to weird and scary sights, but seeing a corpse sit up and talk was truly incredible. In dumb amazement he watched while Pindar and Lorna helped the stout, dazed fairy to her feet. There, in the middle of the scrapyard, stood the famous Milly Falconer, in her huge white dress and glittering wings, with the dingy orange light catching at the jewels in her crown.

She stared round at them all in absolute bafflement. “Who are you? Will someone call my flying coach? And what’s the point of all these broken mortal machines? Is this a new kind of theme party?”

“Keep calm, Milly,” Iris said soothingly. “Your memory’s still a bit dodgy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my memory! And who are you, anyway? You look very much like my flatmate from college—only years older! Are you her mother?”

Iris frowned. “I AM Iris Moth! And I’m trying to tell you that you’ve missed the past fifteen years!”

“Iris? What happened to you? How did you get so wrinkled? I was at a nude ball—why am I wearing the dress I bought for my wedding?”

Milly thought she was still at the ball where she had been poisoned. Tom felt sorry for her—it must be tough, suddenly waking up to find you’ve missed the past fifteen years. How would he feel if he woke up thinking he was still eleven, and Charlie was twenty-six?

“You’ll feel better when you’ve had a nice cup of tea,” Lorna said, searching through her big bunch of keys. “I know I could MURDER one—whoops—sorry, Milly.”

“Lorna Mustard!” cried Milly. “How’s dear old Abdul?”

Lorna frowned. “We’re divorced.”

“Divorced? You and Abdul? But you adored that genie! What on earth happened?”

Tom would have liked to hear the answer to this, but Lorna shook her head. “I’d rather not tell you exactly what he did, if you don’t mind. Let’s just say we were—incompatible.”

“Achoo!”

The sneeze made Milly look sharply round at Pindar, seeing him in the dim light for the first time. “Jonas?”

It was very strange, the way people kept looking at Pindar and seeing Dad.

“Don’t be daft,” Lorna said. “Jonas is as old as the rest
of us. This is his nephew, Pindar Falconer. I’ll explain what he’s doing here when I’ve made us all some tea.”

“He’s your nephew too,” Tom said. “His dad’s your brother Tiberius.”

Milly looked at Tom and cried, “Great garters—another Jonas lookalike! Who are you, boy? You’re no fairy!”

“I’m a demisprite,” Tom said proudly. “Jonas Harding is my father.”

“Your fa—Garters and gussets! I’m in shock! How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“And you—” She turned back to Pindar. “I’m amazed that my brother and his wife finally managed to have a baby—I thought nothing in the whole Realm would lift that curse!”

“You have a lot of catching up to do,” Dahlia said. “Let’s go inside.”

“Dahlia Pease-Blossom!” Milly did not look pleased to see her. “Well, well. Are you sure it’s healthy to be that thin?”

“Milly, darling, you haven’t changed!” The way Dahlia said this made Tom feel it wasn’t a compliment.

Across the yard Hector let out a series of sharp barks. Lorna, unlocking Mustard Manor, barked something back. “Nothing to worry about—he’s just reminding me to pick up my mail. I’ll do it later. Do come in, Milly.”

“What—into this horrid little hut? Oh, my mistake—it’s a magic house. Didn’t I come here for your wedding reception?”

“Tom,” Lorna said, “leave us old fairies to bring Milly up to date. Take Pindar up to Uncle Clarence’s room.”

Tom suspected she wanted them out of the way, but he didn’t care. He was eager to show Clarence’s old bedroom to his cousin. For Pindar, it was like entering a museum. He walked around slowly, examining each object one by one. Being a fairy, he could explain a lot of things that had puzzled Tom.

“That’s a very old-fashioned diagram of a flying coach. They’re more streamlined nowadays. My first job after Terence left was driving one.” Pindar grinned suddenly. “Total disaster, of course.”

“Don’t tell me—you sneezed?”

“Yep. I was allergic to the weightless paint they use on the chassis. Nobody was hurt, but I wrecked nine coaches.” They both laughed.

“What about this?” Tom picked up a long fossilized bone from the top of the chest of drawers. “Is it a dinosaur bone?”

“No, it’s a dragon’s.”

“A dragon’s? Seriously? I thought dragons were just made up.”

“You thought fairies were made up too,” Pindar
reminded him. “Dragons are extinct now, but they definitely existed once. That’s where we get the design for our wings.”

“So they died out, like the dinosaurs? What happened to them?”

“Terence said they were hunted to death—in the olden days fairies used real dragons’ wings. Thousands of dragons died every time they raised an army.” Pindar added, “It’s great to know that he’s all right.”

“He’s really nice.” Tom knew how much Terence meant to Pindar—far more than his evil parents did. “And it was amazing to meet a demifur—nobody mortal would believe it. We—I mean mortals—are quite horrible to animals.”

“It’s a bit better for them in the Realm,” Pindar said, folding up his wings, “but not much. Fairies think animals are lower class. Most of them work as servants in return for food.”

“I suppose that’s more or less the same as here,” Tom said, “if they’re farm animals. But what about wild animals, or really tiny creatures—like rats and mice?”

“They can work too, but they mostly live wild. There’s a lot of trouble with gangs of rats—they’re behind most of the organized crime in the Realm. My father’s always cracking down on them, but he never manages to wipe them out.”

“Are the animals in the Realm sort of fairy animals?”

“No—there’s nothing magic about them, unless they’re demifurs like Terence. But animals are a lot cleverer than mortals think.”

“We can’t talk to them,” Tom said. “Maybe that’s the problem. You’re so lucky that you can—if I could talk to an animal, I could make friends with it, like your dad did with Terence. Do you have any friends who’re animals?”

“Well, I used to have some great pet lizards. And I did get quite close to one of the elephants at the circus,” Pindar said. “She was the one who told me the rumor that Terence had escaped.”

“Oh.” It was odd to think about hearing a rumor from an elephant. “Maybe you could teach me how to talk to my cat, when you come to live at the deli.”

“Look, Tom—I’d love to live with you,” said Pindar. “I’d love it so much that I hardly dare to hope for it. But we haven’t asked your parents.”

“I know they’ll say yes.” Tom was very confident about this. How could they say no? Now that he had found Pindar, he refused to think of letting him go. And surely nobody would expect Pindar to be the One Good Falconer if he didn’t want to. “Let’s see if they’ve finished briefing Milly about all the terrible changes.”

Downstairs in the kitchen Milly sat at the table, eating chocolate biscuits and dabbing at her eyes with a lace
handkerchief. “Hello, boys—Iris, please tell me more about my Adorers. Did you see any of their faces?”

The three godmothers looked embarrassed.

Iris said, “We definitely saw Derek Drapton.”

“Dear, faithful Derek!” sighed Milly. “What about Brian Flitting? Was he there?”

“He got married a couple of years back,” Lorna said.

“Oh. Well, what about Hamish Ptarmigan?”

“He’s married too,” Dahlia said. “To his fourth wife.”

“Christopher Trout? Any of the Boot brothers?”

“Well … no,” Lorna said. “The fact is, as we keep trying to tell you, things have changed.”

“I haven’t,” Milly said. “I’m not nearly as wrinkled as you three. I suppose now that I’ve woken up I should marry one of my Adorers—it seems only fair. Is there anything else to eat?”

Far away in the gatehouse, Hector barked twice.

Lorna stood up. “He says the food’s here—I ordered us a mortal Indian takeaway.”

She went out to pay for the food and fetch her mail, and Tom and Pindar helped Iris to set the table. Dahlia made a jug of a cocktail called Rheingold Rocket (mostly orange juice and Kaulquappe, as far as Tom could see) and there was ordinary Coke in the fridge for the boys. The huge white skirt of Milly’s wedding dress billowed around her chair and it was hard not to tread on it—particularly for Pindar.

“Great garters, boy—stop trampling on my gown!” Milly snapped the fourth or fifth time it happened. “You might not look like my hideous brother, but you’ve certainly inherited his gigantic feet!”

“Sorry.”

“I think you should call me Auntie Milly.”

“OK … er … Auntie Milly.”

Milly looked closely at Pindar. “You know, you remind me of someone else—but who? Someone in my family who had gigantic feet and was always sneezing—oh, my memory’s in as many pieces as my coffin! Perhaps food will help.”

It wasn’t long since tea, but maybe food eaten inside the Realm didn’t count, because Tom was starving again and the Indian food was wonderful. They all ate enormously, especially Milly.

“Mortal food is so yummy!” she sighed. “Somehow, food inside the Realm never tastes quite so delicious!”

“You should meet my late husband Mr. Ghopal,” Dahlia said. “He makes a terrific saag aloo.”

Now that he was full, Tom realized how tired he was. What a day he’d had, and he couldn’t even remember when it began. He and Pindar both kept yawning till their eyes watered.

“I’ll make you boys some cocoa, and then you can go to bed,” said Lorna. “Pindar can have the camp bed in Tom’s room. Dahlia and Iris, you can sleep in the two
rooms at the back—please don’t open the windows, or there’ll be no hot water tomorrow. Milly, you’d better have my mother’s old room at the front. It’s got a lovely four-poster bed, if you don’t mind a bit of woodworm.”

“But I’ve only just woken up!” Milly said crossly. “I’m not going straight back to sleep!”

Iris refilled the godmothers’ glasses with Kaulquappe. “I’m in the mood to stay up for a bit.” She had relaxed, Tom thought; her hair wasn’t so stiff, and her little T. rex eyes were sparkling. “Tell you what, who’s up for a game of electric poker?”

“Good idea,” Milly said. “How many volts?”

“Count me in,” Dahlia said with one of her wicked smiles. “I warn you, I can take a lot of electricity—it’s going to cost you! Are you in, Lorna?”