Magicalamity (23 page)

“Is this leading to anything?” the judge interrupted crossly.

“Of course it is!” Tiberius stamped his foot hard and the row of medals dropped off his naked chest. (Another roar of laughter at the big screen—and a couple of giggles in court.)

“Well, get on with it. I’m bored.”

“You’ll be sorry for this, you miserable old git! I don’t care if you are a High Court judge and my fourteenth cousin!” Tiberius said. “OK, Drapton—tell him what happened next.”

“I went into the conservatory,” Derek Drapton said, in a trembling voice, “and found Milly lying dead. I knew then that she must’ve died of her broken heart.”

“Right, you can sit down, Tiberius,” said the judge.

“I haven’t finished!”

“I don’t care, I need to look at something beautiful. Ms. Pease-Blossom, have you any questions for this witness?”

Dahlia stood up—she had changed into a slim, shell-pink cocktail dress that looked elegant with her gown and wig. “Just one or two, my lord. Mr. Drapton—are you sure you asked Milly to marry you BEFORE you went to the supper room?”

“I … er … I—yes.” The Chief Adorer was very nervous.

“I’m prepared to call three waiters who remember giving you a plate of crab pastries. Did you eat any crab pastries that evening?”

“Er … I might have.…”

“Could you possibly have been holding the plate when you talked to Milly?”

“Right, that’s it!” Tiberius leapt to his feet. He snatched up his lightning-pistol, aiming it directly at Dahlia, and pulled the trigger.

Tom caught his breath—but Dahlia did not catch fire and disintegrate into ash. There was something wrong with Tiberius’s gun. The bolt of lightning bounced off Dahlia’s shoulder and into Tiberius’s flabby stomach, making a noise like a loud slap.

“Damn these cheap guns!” screamed Dolores. She jumped up and took a shot at Dahlia. This bounced back too, knocking Pindar’s ex-mother off her feet.

There was an uproar. People jumped to their feet, shouting furiously at Tiberius.

“SHAME!”

“Murderer!”

The screen suddenly went blank, and a moment later the nude folk dancing came on again.

“BOO!”

“BRING BACK THE TRIAL!”

Tom’s heart was in his mouth. Dad was in the middle of a gunfight, and he had to watch a load of silly dancers.

“Oh dear,” Clarence said. “I wish it wouldn’t do that. More tea?”

The picture came back after fifteen minutes. Tom studied the screen anxiously, and was very relieved to see his dad in the dock, still safe and sound.

“Tiberius Falconer,” Judge Plato said, “there’s nothing wrong with your guns. They failed because this is a High Court of the Old Law, and you are IN CONTEMPT. Ms. Pease-Blossom, I’m so sorry you were interrupted. Have you any more questions for Mr. Drapton?”

“No, my lord.”

“That’s all then, Mr. Drapton.”

The Chief Adorer hurried out of the witness box and sat down near Dolores.

“My lord,” Dahlia said, “let’s waste no more of this lovely summer evening. I’m going to prove that Jonas Harding hasn’t killed anyone, stolen any dead bodies or broken the old law. I’m also going to reveal Milly Falconer’s real killer.” She left a pause for everyone to gasp and murmur. “I call my star witness—MILLY FALCONER!”

The door of the court opened and in sailed Milly, stately as a galleon in her huge white dress.

The court erupted into pandemonium.

Derek Drapton fainted.

This time it was a nude choir singing fairy sea shanties—which could hardly be heard above the booing.

“This is getting ridiculous!” Clarence said. “Do the Falconers really think they can hide their crimes by blocking the airwaves? No—here it comes!”

Milly stayed splendidly calm. She hung the truth-globe round her neck and waited in the witness box until the court had quietened down.

“It’s impossible!” croaked Tiberius. “That can’t be my sister!”

“Shut up,” said the judge.

“Ms. Falconer,” Dahlia said, “tell this court where you met Jonas Harding.”

“We met in college,” Milly said, “when a few of us formed a punk-rock band, and I fell in love with him.”

“Did Jonas return your love?”

Milly sighed and smiled at Tom’s dad. “Poor Jonas, we were all in love with him; every single one of us except Lorna, who was engaged to a genie! But no, he didn’t love me. I spent the next few years trying to forget him and move on—my brother and his wife kept nagging and nagging me to marry someone else.”

“Did you have any other offers?”

“Hundreds!” Milly said. “But no other man was good enough.”

Derek Drapton started to sob again.

“What’s up with him, anyway?” Pindar said to Tom. “I thought he’d stop crying when he saw Milly again. You’d think he’d be pleased after all those years adoring a corpse.”

“Tell the court what happened next,” Dahlia said.

“My brother and his wife suddenly changed their tune.” Milly shot a scornful look at Dolores. “All of a sudden they desperately wanted me to marry Jonas.”

“Do you know why?”

“Oh yes. They wanted Hopping Hill. It was full of outlaws—and gold.”

Inside the court there were gasps. At Dragon’s Lawn the great crowd roared with fury.

“As soon as Tiberius found out the core of Hopping Hill is made of molten gold, he was consumed with greed. The wedding was announced,” Milly said. “Tiberius declared a public holiday and bought me this lovely dress. But the day before the wedding, Jonas escaped into the mortal world.”

“Darling—I mean, my lord,” Dahlia said, “I’d like to remind the court that Jonas’s escape was considered impossible. He was a marked man and couldn’t even make an illegal tear in the membrane without instant detection. There was only one person who could have helped him to escape—wasn’t there, Milly?”

“Yes,” Milly said. She held up her head proudly. “Me.”

“YOU!” screeched Iris, leaping up so quickly that her squashed hat fell off.

“YOU?” cried Lorna.

“Yes. Jonas flew in through my bedroom window disguised as a wounded bat and begged me to help him—his life was in terrible danger. And he had to ask me because I could get hold of the Falconer Seal.”

“The Seal’s a special Falconer pass in and out of the Realm,” Clarence explained. “Well, well! She must be more intelligent than she looks.”

“You great stupid girl!” Dolores Falconer was on her feet in the court. “You let my brother slip through your
fingers! Didn’t you WANT power? Didn’t you WANT gold? Didn’t you LOVE him?”

“Of course I loved him,” Milly said, “but not in any way that you’d understand, you horrid, cold-hearted woman! I loved Jonas so much that I didn’t care about power, or gold. I loved him so much that I wanted to help him—even if that meant letting him go.”

In the dock, Jonas dabbed his eyes with his handcuffed wrists; Tom had never seen him so moved.

“And anyway, I knew that I could never marry him,” Milly added.

“Why not?” asked Dahlia.

“Because,” said Milly, “Jonas was married already!”

F
or one moment a shocked silence hung over the court and the crowd watching on the big screen. Tom heard whispers rustling around him. He gaped at his dad up on the screen, too stunned to move.

Married? Dad had another wife before he met Mum? Tom wasn’t sure how this made him feel. He didn’t like finding out that his dad had so many secrets.

“He was married to my poor cousin Clover,” Milly said. “I wasn’t sure exactly what happened to her after the arrest, but my brother had put Jonas in prison, ready for our wedding.”

“Clover Falconer—I’ve heard the godmothers talking about her,” Tom said. “She’s the one who sneezed and
had big feet!” It was incredibly weird to think of this unknown girl as his dad’s wife.

“Was Tiberius angry when Jonas escaped?” Dahlia asked.

“OBJECTION!” yelled Tiberius.

“Oh, shut up,” said Judge Plato.

Milly gave her brother a look of scorn. “Tiberius went ballistic—and he suspected me, though he couldn’t prove it. So he arranged to have me murdered.”

This was a bombshell—the crowd burst into furious shouts.

“This is it!” cried Clarence. “Caught red-handed breaking the old law! Nearly time to open the champagne!”

Tiberius shouted, “It’s a LIE!”

“He didn’t do it himself,” Milly said. “He thought he could get round the old law if he paid one of his lackeys to poison me.”

“Who was it?” Dahlia asked. “Do you see him in this court?”

“Yes,” Milly said. “It was Derek Drapton.”

“WHAT!” Tom and Pindar gasped. Milly had been poisoned by her own Chief Adorer.

“Milly, forgive me!” Derek Drapton wailed. “Tiberius made me do it! I’ve spent fifteen years in agonies of remorse!”

“You TRAITOR!” shouted Iris. She jumped over to
Drapton and started whacking him with her feathered hat. “You slimy lying BEAST!”

“I’ve heard enough,” said Judge Plato. “Jonas Harding, this case is dismissed and you’re free to go.”

“Free!” Tom grabbed at Pindar’s arm. “He says my dad’s free!”

“Not so fast!” Tiberius’s nude body was scarlet with fury. “Who cares about the old law? If you refuse to kill him, I’ll do it myself!”

He raised his gun, and for one sickening moment Tom thought he was going to shoot Jonas.

But before he could fire, Milly did an extraordinary thing. She pointed a finger at her brother and screamed, “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!”

The scream went on and on, getting louder and louder, until everyone in the courtroom was covering their ears. The big screen on Dragon’s Lawn suddenly went blank—and still the scream rang on like a great fire alarm, until it seemed to rip through the entire Realm and pierce to the very heart of Hopping Hill.

Tom was flung off his chair onto the grass. The picnic table fell on top of him, covering him with cheese and biscuits.

“Earthquake!” yelled Pindar.

The grass beneath them rocked violently and rose up around them like great grassy waves in a stormy sea.

Milly’s supernatural scream died away and Tom began
to hear the shrieks of the crowd around him. The mountain stopped quaking and he struggled giddily to his feet. The front half of the arena was a chaos of upturned picnic furniture and shocked fairies, but no one seemed to be hurt.

The big screen—now blank and white—shifted, and something suddenly erupted right through it.

Tom was rooted to the ground with amazement. He wanted to run away, but he could only stand and stare. The thing that had smashed its way through the screen was—incredibly—the large head of a genuine dragon.

A dragon.

The shrieks and cries of the crowd hushed into silence. For the fairies this was as strange a sight as a living dinosaur would be to mortals, and they were very nearly as flabbergasted as Tom was.

“Oh joy!” whispered Clarence. The old outlaw’s eyes were full of tears. “It was TRUE! They’re not extinct after all! Oh—isn’t she splendid? You can tell it’s a female from the shape of the nostrils.”

The dragon shook her huge head impatiently and the screen shivered into fragments. Tom could see all of her now. Her scales were knobbly and dark gray, except where her sides glowed a dull red. When she moved she clinked and clanked like a gigantic iron stove.

His mouth was dry. She was too close. He could feel the heat blasting off her—but he didn’t dare to move a
muscle. She was the size of a removal van. The expression in her little black eyes was old, old, old—and perhaps not good.

The dragon made a rumbling sound deep in her chest, and the edges of her nostrils glowed red-hot.

“This is awkward,” Clarence said quietly. “I don’t want to annoy her, but I haven’t a clue how to do any kind of language spell. All dragon languages died out eons ago. I don’t know how we’re supposed to communicate.”

“She’s trying to tell you something!” Pindar blurted out.

Clarence shot him a look of surprise. “Don’t tell me you understand her!”

“I … I think I do, sort of.” Pindar was bright red, but stood his ground. “I used to keep pet lizards, and a couple of the words sound the same.”

“You mastered the reptile language spell? My dear boy! Even the greatest fairy scholars find that one nearly impossible!”

“Do they?” Pindar was bewildered. “I thought it was quite easy.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, say something nice to that dragon before she starts breathing fire!”

So dragons really did breathe fire. Tom looked at Pindar. Could he talk to her?

Pindar bravely walked right up to the dragon. A
deathly hush fell upon the crowd as his lips moved silently, muttering a spell. It was very weird indeed when he suddenly let a deep rumble out of his chest and the edges of his nostrils flickered.

The dragon turned her head sharply towards Pindar. When he had finished speaking she rumbled something back at him.

“Well?” hissed Clarence.

“Er … I said hello and welcome in Lizardish. She answered me in Old Reptile, but I can just about follow it. She said … well, she’s quite angry.”

There was another rumble from the dragon—longer this time, and ending on a growl.

“She says she’s had it up to here with fairies,” Pindar translated. “She says that thanks to fairies she’s been living all alone in the depths of the hill for the past eight hundred years. She says fairies destroyed her brethren and we’re a load of stupid, smelly, evil—er … er …” He was embarrassed. “And a lot of very rude words—do I have to say them?”

“No, dear boy,” Clarence said. “I get the gist. Tell her we’re all frightfully sorry, and find out why she’s here.”

“OK.” Once more Pindar rumbled, and twitched his nose (a strange and fascinating thing to watch). “She says she was driven out of hiding by the Falconers’ shameful disrespect for the old law. Now the old legend has come true and she was summoned by the One Good
Falconer, so that the new era could begin. And that just proves it’s not me,” he added to Clarence. “I certainly didn’t summon her!”

“Yes, but you can speak to her,” Clarence said. “That must be a sign. Ask her what she’d like us to do now.”

Pindar turned back to the dragon. He rumbled something at her, and her answer was long and detailed—and less fierce, Tom thought. To his surprise, Pindar suddenly smiled, and then he and the dragon exchanged some lively rumbles; and Tom could have sworn he saw a glint of humor on the ancient creature’s wrinkled, snouty face.