Floods 11

by Colin Thompson

  ‘That sounds amazing.’

  ‘Well, no, it doesn’t,’ said the old wizard. ‘He went everywhere at the same time. In other words, every one of his atoms went off at the same time in totally different directions.’

  ‘So how did they all get back again?’ said Betty.

  ‘They didn’t,’ said Merlin. ‘If you take a microscope anywhere you can think of and look at anything you can think of and magnify it really big, you will see one of the young wizard’s atoms.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Merlin. ‘So if you don’t want every one of your atoms to rush off and hold hands with young Higgs Boson of Brentford’s, I think we’ll keep away from the Speed of Light Spell for a while.’

  Betty agreed.

  ‘You will know when you are ready,’ Merlin told her. ‘Anyway, there are still millions of places we can go to and back in one night.’

  Betty decided she would like to have dinner in the world’s greatest restaurants, or rather those that were within flying distance. She told Merlin she would go on Google and make a list.

  She decided she would ‘borrow’ the best recipes from the best restaurants and improve them in her own special way. She was desperate to tell Ffiona about it, but knew she couldn’t. In the meantime, she decided to make a detour on her way home and dig up Letitia Puddle’s cookery book from the old tearoom.

  It turned out that her grandfather had also been at school with Letitia. In fact, he had had a bit of a crush on her.

  ‘Ah Letitia, I remember her well,’ said Merlin. ‘It had the best water you could get anywhere.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her well, it had the best water ever.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was rumoured that the water not only stopped you getting any older, but it actually made you younger,’ said Merlin.

  ‘Do you know where this well is?’ said Betty, crossing her fingers behind her back.

  ‘Absolutely. It’s in the back garden of her old teashop. Though I imagine it’s buried under tons of rubbish and weeds now,’ said Merlin. ‘From what I hear, the old place is decaying into the ground.’

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ said Betty. ‘You know how you’ve told me I mustn’t tell a single soul about being able to fly and coming here to see you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you must promise not to tell a soul this,’ said Betty, ‘but I have just bought the teashop.’

  ‘Who from? I mean, Letitia is dead and buried, has been for ages.’

  ‘I resurrected her and she was only too happy to sign a back-dated deed of sale,’ Betty explained. ‘It’s mine now. My friend Ffiona and I are going to start a restaurant there, and when we get it going, I’m going to resurrect Letitia permanently and she’s coming back to work there.’

  Merlin was overwhelmed and delighted.

  ‘Book me in for a cream tea every Friday afternoon at four o’clock,’ he said. ‘No wonder you and your mother are getting on each other’s nerves. You are brilliant. She would never have thought of anything as devious as that. Though I’m not sure how your signature on a deed of sale that was written a long time before you were born will stand up in court. But if you’ve got Letitia working there, no one can say anything, can they?’

  ‘Mother is going to be the main problem.’

  ‘Well, I have every confidence in you overcoming that,’ said Merlin. ‘Now let’s fly down to Rome and have a late supper.’

  ‘What happens when you suddenly appear out of thin air?’ Betty asked. ‘Don’t the humans all freak out and run around screaming about aliens?’

  ‘Well,’ Merlin explained, ‘many years ago I had a very clever wizard make me a People Detector, so whenever I wanted to fly anywhere it would guide me to a quiet, secret place where I could land without any humans seeing me suddenly drop down from the sky.’

  ‘I need one of those,’ said Betty.

  ‘Actually, I think it might be a good idea for a while if you only fly outside Transylvania Waters when I am with you,’ said Merlin. ‘Later on, we’ll look into copying my detector.’

  ‘I’m sure Winchflat could copy it, no problem,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, problem,’ said Merlin. ‘The first thing he’d say is, “What do you want it for?” and then what would you tell him?’

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Betty.

  ‘I think you’ll find there are quite a few things you haven’t thought of,’ said the old wizard. ‘So let’s agree that for now the only thing you do on your own is fly from your window to here and back.’

  Betty agreed, even when Merlin said she should not start doing up the inside of the teashop yet, though he did say it would be all right to fix the roof as long as it looked like it hadn’t been touched. He also said it would be fine for her to go and rescue Letitia’s recipe book and try and uncover the well, as long as she made him some of Letitia’s wonderful grated verruca scones and brought him a bottle of the well water.

  So Merlin and his granddaughter Betty flew down to Rome and landed in a deserted alleyway behind a street full of wonderful restaurants, where all the young waiters tried to flirt with Betty and all the old waitresses tried to flirt with Merlin.

  ‘I could get used to this,’ said Betty, as they both tucked into bowls of ravioli followed by the finest Italian ice-cream before going back to the deserted alley and flying home again.

  The next night Betty flew across to the old tearoom and landed in the back garden. In its heyday it had been the prettiest garden in Transylvania Waters, but now it was an overgrown wild jungle, home to rats, massive spiders, snakes and a flock of tiny finches that had eaten so many of the spiders they were too fat to fly.

  A nice bit of gardening, Betty thought, will be the perfect project for Ffiona.

  It was nice and uncomplicated and safe from any secrets that her friend might accidentally let slip out. It was perfect because Ffiona adored gardening. Until a few months ago it had been her favourite hobby, but now, for some reason she couldn’t explain and was too embarrassed to talk about, boys were becoming more important than flowers.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ Ffiona said when Betty told her about clearing up the garden. ‘I mean, flowers are bright and happy and smell lovely. Whereas boys are the absolute opposite to all those things, especially the smelling bit.’

  ‘And they’re better for cooking too,’ said Betty. ‘I mean, there are few soups nicer than stinging nettle and liverwort consommé, but I’ve never heard of a nice soup made of boiled boys.’

  ‘Eugh.’

  Betty hacked her way through the undergrowth looking for clues as to where the well might be. Dark clouds slipped over the moon, and suddenly Betty was in total darkness. She tried to walk back to the tiny open patch of grass where she had landed, but there were brambles and branches everywhere and the more she tried to free herself, the more tangled up she became.

  ‘I suppose I could do some sort of spell,’ she said.

  ‘But I thought your spells never worked properly,’ said a voice.

  Not a stranger’s voice, but a voice that sent a shiver down her spine nevertheless.

  Mordonna.

  ‘And what are we doing out here? You are grounded, remember?’ said Mordonna, and at that moment the clouds cleared and once again the moon lit up the garden.

  Think. Think. Think, Betty said to herself.

  A few months ago, she would have started to cry and then begged her mother’s forgiveness, and a few months ago she would have got it.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you are doing here,’ Betty said. ‘This is private property and you have no right to be here.’

  Mordonna was staggered and, for a second, quite speechless.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘But that goes for you too, and double because you’re grounded and trespassing.’

  ‘Well, actually, mother, not double,’ Betty said. ‘I know I’m grounded, but I am not trespassing, because I own this pl
ace. So that probably means I can be here too because being grounded kind of means “go to your room”, and all these rooms and this garden are mine.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Mordonna. ‘Just because a building is old and deserted doesn’t mean anyone who feels like it can say it belongs to them.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Betty, feeling more and more self-confident. ‘I actually own it. I’ve got title deeds to prove it.’

  ‘That’s impossible. The old lady who owned it is dead and buried up in the, er … Oh right, so that’s what you were doing in the cemetery the other night.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Betty. ‘I’ve more important things to do than waste my time with boys.’

  ‘So you dug her up and got her to sign a sale contract, did you?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Dead people aren’t allowed to sign contracts,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘The contract was back-dated,’ said Betty. ‘She was alive when it was drawn up.’

  ‘But you weren’t born then. So your signature doesn’t count.’

  ‘Mother, you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am not a silly little child anymore …’ Betty began.

  Mordonna felt one of her old memories jump up inside her head and give her a kick. ‘What did you say?’ she said.

  ‘I said, you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am not a silly little child anymore,’ said Betty.

  Mordonna sat down on the grass with a strange expression on her face that went from being overjoyed to overmiserabled and overwhelmed all at the same time.

  ‘I, um, er,’ she mumbled.

  ‘What?’ said Betty.

  ‘I said those exact same words to my mother when I was your age,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘Yes well, umm …’ Betty began. She had been about to tell her mother that Merlin had told her about that, but just managed to stop herself.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ Mordonna continued. ‘Like I said, the sale contract is invalid because it’s dated before you were even born.’

  ‘And like I said,’ Betty replied, ‘you have to come to terms with the fact that I am not a silly little child anymore.’

  She took a small piece of folded paper out of her pocket, handed it to her mother and said, ‘This is a photocopy of part of the contract. I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 14, subsection 3a.’

  3a – This contract is not legally valid until it has been signed by the buyer. The buyer, who shall be called Betty Flood, may sign this contract any time between being born and being one hundred and seventy-five years old, and having done so, Betty Flood will then become the legal owner of the teashop and all its contents including the spiders.

  ‘That wouldn’t stand up in court,’ said Mordonna, but she knew it would.

  ‘So now we have established that I am the legal owner of this property, Mother,’ Betty continued, ‘perhaps you would like to explain to me exactly what you are doing trespassing here?’

  ‘Now, listen to me, young lady,’ said Mordonna, trying to re-establish her authority. ‘I said you were grounded – and you are – and by coming over here you have disobeyed me, so you will now be grounded for a month.’

  ‘And how did you know I was here?’ said Betty.

  ‘I followed you.’

  ‘You followed me? How exactly did you do that?’

  ‘What are you talking about, you silly girl?’ Mordonna snapped. ‘I watched you come out of the castle gate and followed you over the road.’

  What do I do now? Betty thought. She’s lying, because I didn’t walk here. I flew.

  Did she see me flying? She certainly won’t have guessed I can fly.

  Does she have spies who saw me flying?

  Do I just tell her the truth? No, Merlin said to tell no one, not even my own mother.

  Do I just lie and tell her that I did walk here like she said?

  Yeah, lying’s always good.

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty, which actually said nothing.

  ‘OK, young lady, now tell me why you have got this place?’ said Mordonna. ‘As if I didn’t know.’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Yes, umm indeed. You think you and your little friend Ffiona are going to start a restaurant here, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, umm.’

  ‘I told you there is no way you could do that, didn’t I?’

  Betty nodded. It’s now or never, she thought. Either give up the whole thing and be the good little girl her mother wanted her to be, or stand up for herself and be the person she wanted to be.

  No contest, really, she said to herself.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Betty said, ‘but you’re not going to stop me.’

  ‘Listen, young lady, I could do a quick spell and this place would be burnt to the ground in thirty seconds,’ said Mordonna.

  Betty turned her back on her mother and muttered a Fireproof-With-Revenge-Insurance Spell.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that, Mother,’ said Betty. ‘I do keep saying that I am not a silly little child anymore, but you just ignore it.’

  Mordonna was furious. From her very first child, Valla, up until a few hours ago, she had been the undisputed head of the family. In fact, she had been the head from the minute she had met Nerlin, and no one had ever questioned it. They had no reason to, because they all liked it that way. Mordonna was incredibly beautiful and incredibly clever and pretty well always right about everything.

  Now all that was under threat, and there was no way Mordonna was going to give up her status without a fight.

  ‘Don’t you threaten me,’ she said and chanted a Conflagration Spell.

  For a split second nothing happened. Betty and Mordonna looked up the garden at the old tearoom, but there wasn’t even a wisp of smoke never mind any flames. Then there was a faint smell of burning.

  ‘I did warn you, Mother,’ said Betty, grabbing an old tin can full of water.

  Mordonna’s hair was on fire.

  Betty threw the water at it and put it out, but the air was filled with the smell of burning hair, which is one of the worst smells there is especially if you are a witch with very long shiny black hair.

  Mordonna spun round, and now her eyes were on fire and no bucket of water was going to put that fire out.

  ‘You, you …’ she screamed, throwing curse after curse and spell after spell at her daughter.

  BUT as EVERYONE knows –

  Betty was not a silly little child anymore!

  And she had already prepared herself for any attack with a whole collection of Total Protection Spells – Super Deluxe Edition with Bio-Organic Action.

  So the curses and spells screamed round the garden, bouncing off everything and leaving Betty totally unharmed. Most of the dead plants and rubbish in the garden went up in a flash and the tips of Mordonna’s fingers grew red hot, totally ruining her nail varnish. But not even a single hair on Betty’s head was touched, though a toffee she had in one of her pockets melted a bit, but not enough to make it inedible.

  All the crashing and crackling and smoke drew the attention of the castle guards, who reported to the duty sergeant, who reported to someone else, who told someone else and so on until the last someone else went and woke Nerlin up.

  ‘Excuse me, Your Majesty,’ said the last someone, ‘but the duty sergeant is reporting smoke and loud noises just over the road from the castle gate. He thinks that maybe some rebels loyal to the deposed tyrant King Quatorze might be attacking us.’

  ‘He hasn’t got any rebels loyal to him,’ said Nerlin. ‘Everyone hated him, even his own miserable wife.’

  He got out of bed and went over to the window.

  ‘I can smell burning hair,’ he said. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, it is the Queen’s hair. Go and tell the duty sergeant that I think I know what’s going on and I’ll go and deal with it.’

  ‘Very well, sire,’ said the last someone else. ‘Shall I go and get you a gun?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,
thank you.’

  ‘How about a sword?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Big stick?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Small stick with a pointy end?’

  ‘I will not be needing a weapon at all, thank you.’

  The last someone else went off and told everyone how Nerlin was the bravest king in the whole world who could wipe out a whole rebel army single-handed.

  ‘What on earth is going on here?’ said Nerlin when he got over to the old tearoom garden. ‘I’ll have you know you’re frightening the servants.’

  ‘It’s her fault,’ said Betty and Mordonna, pointing at each other.

  Nerlin, who had always favoured the easiest road through life, realised that things were changing and it was probably time for him to take charge. He could see all those wonderful afternoons playing with his stamp collection21 and building huge wizard castle models out of Lego and then melting them with a hot air gun were likely to become things of the past when he had to start doing Ruling-the-Country sort of things.

  ‘You will both totally and completely shut up,’ he said to his wife and daughter. ‘You will answer my questions, and every time the other one interrupts, I will give you a horrible purple throbbing pus-filled boil on your face.’

  Mother and daughter opened their mouths but said nothing as Nerlin held up his hand. They were both in awe of this new, assertive Nerlin, not realising, of course, that his father, Merlin, had been doing a bit of magical adjustment to his son to help him manage the Mordonna–Betty situation.

  After they had both answered his questions and behaved fairly well – Mordonna had three disgusting pimples and Betty had two – Nerlin held up his hands for silence and spoke.

  ‘It is obvious that neither of you are going to back down, so we need a compromise,’ he said. ‘Betty, I know that you have been visiting my father.’

  Mordonna opened her mouth in disbelief, but her three pimples were throbbing dangerously, so she said nothing.

  ‘Yes,’ Nerlin continued and, taking Mordonna’s hands in his, added, ‘and you, my darling, should be proud of our little girl, and once you stop being angry, you will be. Do you know why?’