Wally Stock called that morning to tell Aidan he had won a bottle of sherry. This did not console Aidan in the least.
Trixie called in the afternoon to tell Andrew that he had guessed her weight correctly. Andrew thanked her and politely gave her back the £50 prize. He was very absent-minded that day, sitting on the mower under the stained glass in the roof of the shed, working out just exactly what each colour did. By the evening, he felt he almost had it.
During Sunday night, the giant marrow fell off the roof and burst.
Rolf, meanwhile, was making much of his burnt feet. He lay all Sunday in everyone’s way on the kitchen floor, moaning gently. On the Monday, Mrs Stock got so annoyed with him that she made Shaun carry him out on to the lawn, where Rolf lay in the sun and continued to groan, until Aidan came out with a dish of dog food. Rolf sprang up eagerly and galloped towards it.
“You,” Aidan told him, “are just a big fraud.” An idea struck him. “Hey!” he said. “I wonder if Groil’s had burnt feet too!”
Andrew sent Shaun up into the loft to see if he could mend the roof. After seeing that Best Robot, Andrew had boundless faith in Shaun’s ability to mend anything. “Humph!” said Mrs Stock.
Andrew ignored her and opened the front door to Stashe and Tarquin, who had come to discuss the wedding. They had barely done more than fix the date, when they were interrupted by tremendous roars from Mr Stock, followed by Mrs Stock screaming, “Don’t you go blaming our Shaun! He was only doing his best!”
“Now what?” said Andrew.
They all hurried outside. “By the way,” Stashe said as they went. “Did you know that Melstone Manor’s up for sale now? Ronnie Stock’s thinking of buying it. He thinks the Grange isn’t grand enough for him.”
“Very fitting,” Andrew said.
Out on the lawn, they found the mower standing there and Mr Stock now arguing with Aidan. “I tell you it won’t start,” Mr Stock was saying. “That lobby lout has been and spoilt my knack!” He pulled at the starting handle in his special way. Nothing happened. “See?” Mr Stock roared at Aidan. “Let me at that Shaun!”
“No, I’ll do it,” Aidan said. “Look.” He pulled the handle and the mower throbbed sweetly into life. “See?”
“Stay with him, Aidan,” Andrew said, “and start it again whenever it runs over a thistle.”
Mr Stock glowered. He was so annoyed that, later that day, when the lawn had become brown and bristly, he marched into the kichen repeatedly to dump six boxes full of his Fête entries on the table. Mrs Stock complained loudly.
Later that day, Aidan scooped up the sad remains of the marrow and helped Andrew load the woodshed roof with giant potatoes and vast tomatoes instead.
On Tuesday morning, while Andrew was getting breakfast, Aidan came dashing indoors with Rolf. “They’ve gone!” Aidan shouted. “Groil’s been here! He must just have had sore feet after all.”
“Good,” Andrew said, catching the kitchen door before it slammed. “Great. Now is there any chance that I can get on and write my book today?”
“Oh yes,” Aidan said happily. “Everything’s all right now.”
But it was not, or not exactly. In the middle of the morning the doorbell rang. As Mrs Stock was upstairs and Andrew’s computer had once more inexplicably gone down, Andrew went out into the hall to answer it. “It’s probably Tarquin,” he said to Aidan, who was nosily going to answer the door too. “His leg will need firming up, I expect.”
Andrew thought it was Tarquin for a second when he opened the door. But the little man standing there had two sturdy legs in floppy knee-length trousers and, though his leather jacket was very like Tarquin’s, this person was much plumper and had no beard. He held a large envelope out towards Andrew. “A letter from my master,” he said.
Aidan recognised the Puck and began to retreat at once. Unfortunately, he backed straight into Mrs Stock, carrying an armload of plastic packets. “These were under your bed,” she said. “Did I or did I not tell you to put them in the bin? You come upstairs with me at once and collect all your rubbish properly.”
The Puck grinned.
“Yes, Aidan,” Andrew said. “Go along and face the music. Does this letter need an answer?” he asked the Puck.
The Puck, still grinning, watched Aidan hurry away after Mrs Stock. Then he said demurely, “I am to wait for your reaction, sir.”
“Indeed?” said Andrew, taking the big stiff envelope. It was addressed in the loopy, spiky writing that Andrew now felt he knew quite well to A. Hope Esquire. Rather self-conscious with the Puck standing there looking at him, he tore open the envelope and held the letter into the daylight to read it. It said:
Mr Hope,
Your action in banishing me was rather hasty. I was about to tell you two things.
First, your exposing of both sets of enchanted glass was rash. The two together are much more powerful than I think you might guess and could be very dangerous in inexperienced hands.
Second, as soon as I set eyes on the boy Aidan, I saw at once that he was no child of mine. He is palpably and entirely human and probably a close relative of your own.
The girl Melanie almost certainly threw herself at your grandfather, just as she threw herself at me. I gave her the wallet as a precaution, so that I might trace her if need be, but since your people and mine do not readily breed, I was unconcerned until both my wives discovered its existence.
If you doubt the truth of this second piece of information, you have only to find a picture of yourself at Aidan’s age. The likeness is fairly striking. I saw you often as a boy.
You can now take charge of your new relative. I have no further interest in the boy.
Oberon Rex.
“Well, I’ll be—!” Andrew muttered. He had no need to go hunting for photographs of himself at Aidan’s age. One of the traditional fixtures in the living room, which Mrs Stock always put exactly in the middle of the mantelpiece, was a silver-framed photo of Andrew when he was twelve. The likeness was certainly there, if you allowed for the fact that Andrew had had fair hair and Aidan’s was brownish. In fact, Andrew rather thought that the reason that he had been so ready to have Aidan to live in Melstone House was that Aidan had a familiar, family sort of look about him “Well, I’ll be—!” he said again.
“Is that your reaction, sir?” the Puck asked from the doorstep.
“Not exactly,” Andrew said. “Tell your master that I am very grateful for both pieces of information.”
The Puck looked decidedly disappointed. “Very well,” he said and vanished from the porch.
Andrew reread the letter pensively. He wondered whether to tell Aidan. Stashe would have to help him decide.
Titles by Diana Wynne Jones
Chrestomanci Series
Charmed Life*
The Magicians of Caprona*
Witch Week*
The Lives of Christopher Chant*
Mixed Magics*
Conrad’s Fate*
The Pinhoe Egg
Howl Series
Howl’s Moving Castle*
Castle in the Air*
House of Many Ways
Archer’s Goon*
Black Maria*
Dogsbody
Eight Days of Luke
The Homeward Bounders
The Merlin Conspiracy*
The Ogre Downstairs
Power of Three
Stopping for a Spell
A Tale of Time City
Wilkins’ Tooth
For older readers
Fire and Hemlock
Hexwood
The Time of the Ghost
For younger readers
Wild Robert
* Also available on audio
Copyright
First published in hardback in Great Britain
by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010
First published in paperback in Great Britain
by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2010
Ha
rperCollins Children’s Books is a division of
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Visit us on the web at
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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Copyright © Diana Wynne Jones 2010
The author asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of the work.
ISBN-13 978 0 0 0 732080 6
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EPub Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-41496-3
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