Nowhere Boys (27 page)

Felix laid down a small garden trowel. ‘When my brother had his accident, my mum couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, everything changed. The only time I ever saw her smile was when she was in the garden. It was the only time she seemed to forget …’ Felix faltered.

Phoebe quickly jumped in. ‘And you, Jake?’

Jake laid down the Bremin Bandicoots pin. ‘My mum got this brooch from my dad, on their first date. They went to the footy and the Bandicoots won. My dad’s a loser in our world, but this is evidence, I guess, that they loved each other once.’ He stepped back.

‘Okay,’ said Phoebe. ‘Everybody hold hands, and Felix will recite the spell I gave him.’

‘Actually,’ Felix said, avoiding Phoebe’s eyes, ‘I’ve created another one. It’s a combination of a restoration spell and …’

Phoebe’s eyes darkened. ‘Fine. Whatever. You’re the witch.’

Andy watched as Felix got out his black book and studied it. ‘I thought that was your diary.’

Felix was always so cagey about that book. Never letting anyone near it. A few times, Andy had tried to look at it over Felix’s shoulder and he’d snapped it shut immediately.

‘It is,’ Felix sounded defensive. ‘I just sometimes write other stuff in here.’

‘Like spells?’ asked Andy.

Felix silenced him with a glare. ‘We need to focus. Everybody think about their mothers and the object you brought in. The memory has to be from our world and it has to be happy.’

Andy shut his eyes. He thought about his mum sitting on the end of his bed laughing as she told the story of Foo Ling being chased out of the water by a crocodile. He had told her you must always run in a zigzag to confuse a crocodile.

Felix had started chanting.

‘Water, fire, earth and air
The power to heal we all do share …’

Andy opened his eyes. Outside he could hear a loud rumbling sound like distant thunder. He looked at the others. Their eyes were tightly closed as they concentrated on their memories.

Felix kept chanting.

‘Inside our mothers place this spell
A son was born and by his hand
Your safety, health and happiness stand
So wake and know that all is well
So wake and know that all is well.’

There was a loud crack of lightning and then a deafening rumble of thunder overhead.

Felix let go of the other boys’ hands. They all looked at each other.

‘Come on,’ said Jake, opening the door a crack. ‘Let’s see if it worked.’

The boys tumbled out of the broom cupboard and ran to the glass door of the ward. A smile spread across Andy’s face as he saw his mum sitting upright. The colour had returned to her cheeks.

He looked across at the other mums. Jake’s mum’s eyes were open and the doctors were scurrying around her in disbelief.

Sam’s mum was looking at her arms in wonder. Her rash had completely disappeared.

Felix’s mum was drinking a glass of water and reaching for a magazine.

Andy turned to Felix. ‘You did it!’

Sam clapped Felix on the back. ‘Awesome, dude.’

Felix smiled.

Jake was staring at his mum thoughtfully. ‘That spell you did. Does that mean that our mums will remember us now?’

‘I don’t know how it works, exactly,’ said Felix. ‘But the memory works like a vaccine. It places the memory of us in them, so they have a negative reaction to us in real life.’

Phoebe looked knowingly at Felix. ‘Well played, Felix.’

By the time the boys left the hospital, dusk had fallen and the streets of Bremin were covered in long grey shadows. Jake and Sam walked ahead, a spring in their steps. Andy watched as Phoebe walked beside Felix, urgently whispering something into his ear. Felix was nodding in agreement.

It was curious. Ever since Andy had started to believe in this whole magic thing, something had bothered him: magic ran along the same principles as science. Cause and effect. You do something and there is a consequence.

The problem was that
they
were the consequence, the
magical disturbance
as Phoebe had put it. But what was the cause? Things didn’t just happen randomly. There was always a reason.

Andy noticed how protectively Felix held the bag containing his black book. If Felix could cast a spell as powerful as the one he cast today, then what else was he capable of?

That night, Andy put the photo of Foo Ling by his bed. He kept his eyes on Foo while he waited patiently for the others to fall asleep. Old Foo was a Chinese Bear Grylls, bravely going into new worlds, just like Andy. But Foo knew why he was in those new worlds and how he’d got there. And unless you knew
that
, there was no way you could find your way home again. That was the difference between him and Foo.

Sam fell asleep first, then Jake. And finally, Felix’s breathing deepened and he rolled onto his side.

As quietly as he could, Andy crept towards Felix’s bag. He reached in and pulled out his black book.

He took it to Phoebe’s desk and turned on the lamp. No-one stirred. Carefully, Andy began to turn the pages. The first few made no sense to him. Lots of drawings of dark-looking creatures. Notes about odd plants. Random verses. But then – there it was:
THE UNMAKING SPELL
. Next to it was a photograph of Oscar before his accident. Oscar walking.

Andy started to read:
To make this spell all four elements are required.

EARTH, AIR
and
WATER
had been written as headings and under each element a number of names had been written and scrubbed out. Andy stared at his name written in bold letters under
WATER
.

ANDY LAU: PISCES. WET, FLUID THINKER
. He kept reading.

Water, fire, earth and air
Elements that we all share.

That was the song Felix had played around the campfire.

Water wash our sins away
Earth guide us to a place.
Wind brings with it fear
Flames of fire we must face.
Walk upon this earth again
Walk upon this earth –

Andy read over the words in disbelief.

Felix had cast the spell that had got them here.

Felix was the cause.

And all this time, he’d been lying to them.

felix:
the fifth element

Three pairs of eyes stared accusingly at Felix. He looked away. What could he say?

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, looking at the floor.

Sam banged his fist hard into the wall. ‘You’re sorry?’ he shouted. ‘That’s it?’

‘I didn’t mean for this to happen.’ Felix heard the words coming out of his mouth. They sounded as weak as he felt.

He’d known all along that eventually they’d find out. In fact, now that it had happened, it was almost a relief. All Andy’s prying questions about why the demon would target him, and his insistence that an effect must always have a cause. A maths genius wasn’t going to take long to put two and two together.

‘I was trying to unmake Oscar’s accident, that’s all. I didn’t realise that the spell would unmake all of us as well.’

‘But you used us,’ said Andy. He held Felix’s Book of Shadows open at the unmaking spell. Sam and Jake crowded around him to look.

Jake grabbed the book and read out loud. ‘Jake Riles: Capricorn. Practical, stubborn, brutish. Earth.’ He handed it to Sam.

‘Sam Conte: Gemini. Selfish, superficial, lives in the clouds. Air.’ Sam flung the book to the ground in disgust.

‘I needed the four elements to make the spell work,’ said Felix quietly. ‘That’s all that was meant to happen. We were all supposed to go home after the excursion and nothing would have changed except Oscar would be able to walk again.’

‘So, us getting lost in the forest,’ Jake spat. ‘That was all arranged by you?’

Felix nodded. ‘I knew I had to do the spell at a certain place for it to work. I had a magic map I got from Alice’s Book of Shadows and I had to get you all to that particular place.’

‘But how did you know we’d be in the same group? Bates organised that,’ said Andy.

‘I knew the codes to the staffroom so I changed the groups on his computer. He never realised.’

There was silence as the others processed this.

‘Man, you sure put a lot of work into ruining our lives,’ said Sam eventually.

Felix felt terrible. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. I’ve been doing everything I can to get us home.’

‘You should have told us the truth,’ said Jake, clenching his fists in anger. ‘All this time, we had no idea what was going on. And you
knew
.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Felix felt the taste of failure in those two words. But what else could he say? Nothing would make them forgive him. And why should they?

‘Repeat the same actions to get the same result,’ muttered Andy.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Jake.

‘That’s what we have to do. That’s the key to getting home.’

‘I’ve tried that,’ said Felix. ‘In the forest. I did the spell again, but it didn’t work.’

‘I knew I’d heard those words somewhere,’ said Sam.

Andy frowned. ‘Then something must have been different.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Jake, standing up. ‘He betrayed us once. You really think he’s going to get us home? It’s all lies.’

‘I’m with Jake,’ said Sam.

‘Guys, please just give me a chance. I’m sure we can work –’

‘Give me your phone,’ Andy suddenly jumped to his feet.

‘Why?’ said Felix. ‘It’s completely dead.’

‘Because in scientific methodology there can be no variables.’

‘I’ve spent weeks with him, and he still makes absolutely no sense,’ Sam muttered to Jake.

Andy ignored them. ‘When we were in the forest you played us some extremely melodic music. That was the spell, right?’

‘But his sense of humour has definitely improved,’ Jake replied to Sam.

Felix nodded.

‘So for everything to be exactly the same, I think we need to play the spell on your phone.’

Felix pulled his phone out of his bag. Maybe Andy was right. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Andy walked over to Phoebe’s desk and plugged the phone into her charger. He turned back to the others. ‘Okay, so we go back to the forest with the phone, and we try again.’

Felix shook his head. ‘If the talisman doesn’t work, we’ll never survive another demon –’

A loud banging on the shop’s front door stopped Felix mid-sentence.

‘Great,’ said Jake. ‘That’s probably my dad with the burglary charges.’

Phoebe appeared at the doorway, still in her dressing gown. ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

‘Ah, the good news?’

‘The demon’s at the door.’

The boys jumped to their feet. ‘That’s good news?’

‘Sure,’ said Phoebe. ‘So now we can try and activate the talisman.’

‘And the bad news?’ asked Sam.

Phoebe looked at him like he was a moron. ‘The demon’s at the door, of course.’

Felix ducked through the beaded curtain into the shop. The others followed close behind him.

The shadow of a fist reached up and banged at the door again.

‘How does she know it’s the demon?’ whispered Andy.

Felix put his fingers to his lips and crept towards the front window. From there, he could see outside. A figure stood at the door. It raised its fist to bang again. Suddenly its head twitched jerkily to the right and it stared straight at Felix.

‘Bates,’ whispered Felix. ‘Quick. Out the back.’

‘Why does Bates being the demon not surprise me?’ said Jake, as they quickly made their way into the back room.

Phoebe had arranged bowls of water and earth on her desk and was lighting a candle. ‘Felix, come on, quick. We need to reactivate the talisman. We can use these to evoke each of the elements.’

‘Good idea.’ Felix pulled the talisman out from under his shirt.

The banging came again, louder this time.

‘Do the spell, Felix,’ ordered Phoebe.

Felix turned to the others. ‘When I say your element, you need to put it on the talisman,’ he said, indicating the water, earth and fire that Phoebe had placed on the desk.

He put the talisman on the desk and began to chant.

‘
Divinity of the elements, I summon thee. Earth …
’ He nodded to Jake, who placed his hand in the bowl of dirt and sprinkled some over the talisman. ‘
Water
… ’ Andy put his hand in the water bowl and did the same. ‘
Air …
’ Sam looked at him, unsure what to do.

‘Blow on it, airhead,’ said Phoebe urgently.

‘
Fire.
’ Felix took the candle and held the flame to the talisman.

‘Within this stone I invoke ye place
Your greatest strength, your kindest grace.
And while this stone remains at hand
Thou shall be safe throughout this land.’

Felix stared at the talisman, willing it to glow. But there was nothing. Not even the faintest gleam.

‘He’s stopped banging. Does that mean it worked?’ asked Jake hopefully.

Phoebe shook her head. ‘He’s just working out another way to get at you. If the talisman doesn’t glow, it’s not offering protection.’

‘Maybe it’s the glue,’ said Andy, turning the talisman over and inspecting it. ‘The cyanoacrylate could have interfered with the magic.’