The procession was surprisingly long. Beautifully groomed ponies came next, whose small, solemn riders looked thoroughly nervous at the thought of the competitions they were entered for. They were followed by equally tense people with dogs on leads who were entered for the Obedience and Obstacle Course. None of the dogs looked nervous or anything like obedient. They kept trying to fight each other.
Aidan thought of Rolf, left lying groaning on the living-room floor. He wondered if it would be cheating to enter Rolf for the competitions next year. Probably. He couldn’t see Andrew letting him or Rolf get away with it. Pity. They were bound to win.
Meanwhile, the Children’s Fancy Dress entrants were coming by, marching, shuffling and —in the case of the kid disguised as a tube of toothpaste —tottering past. There were enormous numbers of them. If he craned to look, Aidan could see them winding away into the distance, filling the road.
“What happens if a car or a lorry wants to come past?” he asked.
“Oh, they have police on duty to hold up the traffic,” Stashe said. She craned out too. “I can just see a policewoman down the end there, I think.”
At this, Andrew craned to look as well. There was a dim figure in the distance, who seemed to be holding up a few cars, but although he took his glasses off and put them on again, he simply could not tell whether it was a real policewoman or Mabel Brown pretending to be one. He checked that Aidan was still wearing his silver charm and, just to be on the safe side, he said, “I vote we all walk up and watch everyone arriving at the Fête.”
They did this, sidling along the verge and being jostled by other people doing the same. They reached the football ground just as the band was turning in through the gate, while Wally Stock held it wide for them and the band’s music clashed with the mechanical tune from the roundabout. There were two policemen on duty in the road there. One was holding up a line of cars with interested faces leaning out of them, and the other was directing more cars into the field opposite, which was labelled CAR PARK FOR MELSTONE FÊTE ONLY. Everything seemed to be orderly and unthreatening, Andrew thought, with relief.
They stood among the rest of the spectators and watched the procession all over again. There was quite a gap between the dog owners and the Fancy Dress children by now, almost certainly caused by the child dressed as a tube of toothpaste. They watched one of the Darth Vaders take her by her almost hidden hand and haul her through the gate. Then the rest of the children could go streaming through: gypsies, a skeleton, several more Darth Vaders, Supermen, Batmen, brides, footballers, fairies —lots of those —butterflies with big purple wings and crowds of aliens. Very realistic most of those aliens were, mostly green, with bobbing antennae on their foreheads…
Hang on! Andrew thought and looked at Aidan. Aidan was looking dubiously at those aliens, wondering if he had seen them before. “Would you like to go home now?” Andrew murmured to him.
As he spoke, the policewoman went past, shepherding the last of the aliens. She was definitely Mabel Brown. “I really think we should go away,” Andrew said.
“Please, no!” Aidan said. “I want to see what prizes Mr Stock has won.”
“And I’ve got to be here,” Stashe said. “I promised Ronnie.”
“In that case, we must be very careful to stay together,” Andrew said, wondering how feeble this made him.
Wally Stock shut the main gate with a clang and opened the small gate beside it. Then he went behind a table with a cash box and books of tickets on it. “Selling tickets now!” he bawled. “Please form an orderly queue. Each ticket is a raffle ticket and entitles the bearer to enter for sumptuous prizes.”
As cars began to go by in the road behind them, Aidan, Andrew and Stashe joined the other onlookers and shuffled forward through the small gate to buy their tickets. Out in the field everything seemed orderly and unthreatening again. The band was taking seats to one side of the platform. The roundabout was turning, but with no one on it. The bouncy castle was empty as yet. Someone was up on the platform testing the microphone in front of a row of chairs. Other people were arranging ponies, dogs and Fancy Dress children inside the different enclosures. The only odd thing was that there were very few aliens inside those ropes and no sign at all of Mabel Brown.
“It does feel like thunder,” Stashe said, looking nervously at the sky.
The clouds were as they had been all morning, hazy and silver-edged, and the air was perhaps a little heavier, but there was no sign of rain. Stashe led Aidan and Andrew over to the tents and stalls against the hedge to the right. Opposite, the bouncy castle was suddenly filled with children and there was a long queue outside the ice-cream van. The Fete was definitely under way. This side, beyond the noise of the Fair, Mrs Stock was presiding over a stall covered with artistic heaps of colourful clothing.
“My forecast is for rain,” Mrs Stock told them as they passed. She picked up a large golfing umbrella and waved it at them.
“I hope she’s wrong,” Stashe said.
They moved on beside a jewellery stall, a pottery stall, a stall selling eye-catching heaps of home-made fudge, and the stall Aidan slowed down beside, piled with more home-made cakes and pastries than he thought even Groil could eat in a week. But Andrew and Stashe kept going. Aidan sighed and followed them past the beer tent. This tent was mysteriously full of people who seemed to be well into their second pints. But it’s only been open five minutes! Aidan thought. There was singing in there already.
Beyond the beer tent was a small structure massively filled with Trixie. Andrew and Stashe stopped as if they couldn’t help themselves.
Trixie was sitting in a wide chair holding a notice which said GUESS MY WEIGHT!!! She was wearing an enormous, shapeless green garment that was probably meant to be Hawaiian —at any rate, she had a garland round her neck and paper flowers in her hair —and she had stuffed this green garment with pillows, enough to make her look twice her usual size. She was gross. She was enormous.
Shaun was standing on the grass outside, shouting, “Guess the lady’s weight. Fifty pence a guess. Prize of £50 to the winner. Roll up, roll up! Hello, Professor. Don’t my mum look a scream?”
Trixie was giggling and preening at the joke. “I reckon no one’s going to guess right,” she said. “Like to have a guess?”
“Certainly,” Andrew said politely. He was thinking that Trixie looked more than ever like Mabel Brown in this get-up. “Are we guessing in kilos or pounds?”
“Oh, I’m doing both,” Trixie said. She pointed cheerily to two bathroom scales on the grass beside her chair. “Come four o’clock, I weigh myself on both and Shaun shouts out the name of the nearest guess.”
Andrew paid over money for the three of them and they all guessed. Andrew guessed in stones, Stashe in pounds and Aidan guessed one hundred kilos because he thought that was a lot. Trixie, laughing heartily, carefully wrote the guesses down in an exercise book and told them to remember to stick around for four o’clock.
They left Shaun shouting and Trixie laughing and made for the next tent where the competition entries were. That was where they all really wanted to be.
Chapter Sixteen
The dim, hot, grassy space inside the tent was lined with long tables carefully covered with spotless white cloths, as if someone was preparing for a banquet. The entries were dotted along them. Some were very sparse, like the Best Bunch of Wild Flowers. No one had entered for that except Mary Stock, aged nine. She had won First, Second and Third Prize for a remarkable collection of dandelions. By contrast, the Best Home-made Robots covered most of a long table. There were cardboard constructs, Meccano creatures, Lego Daleks, things made of dustbins and junk, things with wheels, things with legs, things that steamed rather ominously. Towering out of them was a tall, man-shaped silver robot, most impeccably and neatly made. It had flashing blue eyes and a mechanical voice that kept saying, “I am Robot Appleby, at your service, sir or madam.” Then it raised one hand and bowed.
“Wow! Look at th
at!” Aidan said.
This robot had a gold card propped against it: First Prize, Shaun Appleby.
“Oh, good! Shaun will be pleased!” Aidan said.
They all three stared at Shaun’s robot with smiles of family pride for a moment, before moving on past the Best Home-made Jams and Chutneys —where Andrew noticed that Mrs Stock had won Second Prize for the tomato chutney he had told her to make —and arriving at the Best Vase of Flowers.
There were a lot of vases and they were all impressive, but no one Andrew or Aidan knew had won. They noticed, sadly, that there was no Prize card propped against the vase labelled T. O’Connor.
“Mrs Blanchard-Stock always wins this one,” Stashe said disgustedly. “She’s one of the judges too. It’s not fair. Let’s hope Dad’s won Best Single Rose at least.”
But, alas, when they reached the array of rose holders, they found the golden First Prize card propped against a blowsy golden yellow rose labelled Mr O. Brown. Mrs Blanchard-Stock had won Second and Third Prize for a red rose and a white one, both quite ordinary. Tarquin’s rose, a perfect creamy whorl with delicate pink edges, had won nothing at all.
“I’ve a good mind to change these cards over!” Stashe said angrily. “Do you think I dare?”
Aidan caught sight of Tarquin on the other side of the table. He looked across, meaning to tell Tarquin that his rose was by far the best, and realised that the face peering at him between the rose holders was not Tarquin’s after all. It had no beard and it looked sly.
“Don’t any of you try anything,” the Puck said.
Aidan’s hand flew to the talisman round his neck. It was still there. By the time his fingers touched it, the Puck was gone.
They came to the bakery section next, smelling deliciously of cake and new bread. The real Tarquin was there, propped on one crutch, grinning merrily, making the best of things. He said to them, “At least I won Best Sponge Cake. By way of compensation, so it is. And a Second for Rock Cakes too.”
“I don’t think Mr Brown eats cake,” Andrew murmured.
Aidan said loyally, “I think your rose was best!”
“Yes, you’ve been cheated, Dad,” said Stashe.
“Never mind. There’s always next year,” Tarquin said.
Tarquin went with them to the last table at the back of the tent, where the vegetables were. This was by far the largest set of entries of the lot. When Aidan touched the table, it creaked noticeably under its sheer weight of Prize Marrows, Largest Broad Beans, Bunches of Best Carrots, Best Boxes of Mixed Veg, Prize Onions and displays of carefully polished Roots —not to speak of the load of Prize Fruits up the other end. Melstone people seemed to have devoted the entire year to growing Prize Produce.
Halfway along stood Mr Stock. His arms were folded and the glower on his face was enough to curl a Prize Lettuce or fry a Best Onion. “Will you look at that! Just take a look at this!” he said to them.
He was standing beside the ecological zeppelin. Huge as it was, it had no card at all. Beside it was a whole row of other people’s marrows, some stout and yellowish, some nearly as big as the zeppelin, some thinner and greener, and none of these had prizes either. Beyond them, a whole row of pale, narrow marrows labelled Mr O. Brown had been given all three prizes.
“You too, my friend,” Tarquin said sadly.
“It’s a scandal!” Mr Stock said. He led them along the table, pointing angrily at each group of vegetables they came to. “No prize for carrots,” he said. “Nothing for onions, while as for cucumbers and tomatoes…! Not even my potatoes, and I swear they’re biggest of all! That Mr Brown has got First Prize for almost everything here!”
Stashe tried to be tactful. “Perhaps,” she said, “they’re not just going for size this year, Uncle Eli. They could be going for edible—” Mr Stock responded to this with such a glare that Stashe stopped, coughed and looked at her watch. “Andrew,” she said, “we’d best be getting along. Ronnie Stock will be arriving at any moment and I said I’d be there…”
She began to drift away, pretending she had not seen the look on Mr Stock’s face.
Andrew hesitated before following her. He was wondering if he should tell Mr Stock that, even with his glasses on, he could see that Mr Brown’s entries had all been heavily enhanced by magic. But when he took his glasses off and looked at the polished potatoes that Mr Stock was pointing at, each one a pinkish-brown mini-boulder, he knew that Mr Stock himself was not guiltless of magical enhancement either. So he said soothingly, “I shouldn’t wonder if Mr Brown isn’t trying to take over all Melstone.”
He stopped there, with his mouth open, knowing he had just spoken the absolute truth. This was exactly what Mr Brown was aiming to do: take over the entire field-of-care. When Mr Brown’s letter had talked of his plans for Melstone, this is what it had meant. The First Prizes were simply an experiment on Mr Brown’s part, to see if this could be done.
“Then stop him!” Mr Stock snarled, advancing his glare into Andrew’s face.
“I’ll try,” Andrew said. Urgently wondering how, he followed Stashe and Tarquin out of the tent.
Aidan followed Andrew, hoping that this Fete would turn out to be more exciting soon. He had a feeling of something gathering, waiting, hanging ready to happen, and he could hardly wait for it to be there.
Rolf surged out from under the Best Rose table and barged into Aidan’s legs, panting and whining.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” Aidan said. “Go home.”
Rolf glanced round, saw that nobody was looking, and dissolved into a small boy clinging to Aidan’s left leg. “Come away!” he growled softly. “You’re not safe. They’re all here.”
“I know they are,” Aidan whispered. “But they can’t find me when I’m wearing this charm.” He jingled it at Rolf.
“Then I’ll have to stay and guard you,” Rolf growled.
“Oh, all right. If you must,” Aidan said. He was fairly sure that Rolf did not want to miss whatever excitement was coming. “Be a dog then —a good dog —and walk to heel.”
Rolf obediently dissolved back into a dog and followed Aidan, tail waving sedately, as Aidan hurried after the others.
There were now important-looking people gathered on the platform beside the band. They were ladies in hats mostly, but there were one or two men in smart suits too. The vicar was there, in worn black, and so was Mr Brown, very tall and suave in a better suit than anyone else’s, with a rose in his buttonhole. A crowd was gathering in front of the platform. People were coming out of the beer tent to watch.
“Ronnie’s ever so chuffed at being asked to open the Fête,” Stashe told Andrew. “He’s planning a grand entry. I do hope he doesn’t make too much of a fool of himself.”
“He might. He never had much sense,” Tarquin said. “Outside horses, that is.”
The vicar stepped up to the microphone and tapped it to see if it was working. It caused a noise like an immense ear-popping all over the field. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the vicar began and was then drowned out by barking. The dogs in the roped-off enclosure had spotted Rolf trotting past behind Aidan. They seemed to know at once that he was not really a dog and they hated him for it. They yapped, they growled, they bayed and they barked, and hauled the owners on the ends of their leads towards Rolf. Mr Brown’s head turned sharply towards the noise and he seemed to be searching the place where Aidan was.
It was not pleasant. Aidan and Rolf scuttled hastily into the edge of the crowd, where they tried to stay quiet and hidden.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the vicar began again when the noise had died down, “it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mr Ronald Stock, whose Stables add such lustre to our village, and who has graciously agreed to open this humble Fête of ours.”
Everyone was bewildered. Heads turned, looking for Ronnie.
The vicar pointed dramatically towards the distant gate. “Mr Ronald Stock,” he announced. “Applause, please.”
The band began to play th
e Melstone tune.
Everyone swung round as Ronnie Stock came cantering through the gate and across the field towards the platform. He was riding a white horse caparisoned like the steed of a knight of old. The horse did not look happy. It was draped round with blue and gold cloth and adorned with a blue and gold visor topped with a gold spike. Ronnie himself was in Elizabethan dress: a red and gold doublet and cloak, red tights and small puffy pants, also red and gold. On his head was a large feathered hat, like an outsize beret, which he swept off and waved to everyone as he cantered up.
Stashe turned her face away. “Oh dear,” she said.
There was no doubt that this was a grand entry. Everyone clapped. The people by the beer tent whistled and hooted. Ronnie beamed as he reined in stylishly beside the platform, slapped the hat back on his head and gracefully dismounted. A young lady came briskly up to take charge of the horse.
“Hey!” said Stashe, starting forward. “I thought I was supposed to do that!”
“I’m glad you’re not,” Andrew said.
The moment Ronnie was off its back, the horse made a serious effort to rid itself of the blue and gold outfit. The young lady was carried high into the air and then had to dodge irritated lashing hooves.
“But that’s Titania!” Stashe said angrily. “I hope poor Snowy steps on her!”
Tarquin and Andrew each took one of her arms to stop her rushing off. Tarquin said soothingly, “There, there, there.” Andrew was speechless, watching Ronnie Stock gracefully swaggering up the steps of the platform. He had not seen Ronnie before this. He had always imagined him as short and wide, perhaps with a bluff red face. Not a bit of it. Ronnie was tall, thin and elegant-looking, with a narrow, aristocratic face. In fact…
Andrew found himself looking across at Mr Brown on the other side of the platform. Ronnie Stock could almost have been Mr Brown’s twin. Mr Brown was staring at Ronnie in utter white outrage, because the unthinkable had happened and Oberon himself had a counterpart in Melstone.
Enchanted Glass Page 20
