She was looking forward so much to a good read that she hardly noticed the walk, except to pick Waif up again when Waif began panting and toiling. With Waif in her arms, she kicked Great-Uncle William’s gate open and found herself confronting Rollo halfway up the path, scowling all over his small blue face.
“What is it now?” Charmain said to him, and seriously wondered whether to pick Rollo up too and throw him into the hydrangeas. Rollo was small enough to hurl beautifully, even when she had one arm wrapped round Waif.
“Them flowerheads you got all over that outside table,” Rollo said. “You expect me to stick them back on, or something?”
“No, of course not,” Charmain said. “They’re drying in the sun. Then I’ll have them in the house.”
“Huh!” said Rollo. “Prettifying in there, are you? How do you think the wizard’ll like that?”
“None of your business,” Charmain said haughtily, and strode forward so that Rollo was forced to hop out of her way. He shouted something after her as she was opening the front door, but she did not bother to listen. She knew it was rude. She slammed the door shut on his yells.
Indoors, the smell of the living room was more than musty. It was like a stagnant pond. Charmain put Waif on the floor and sniffed suspiciously. So did Waif. Long brown fingers of something were oozing under the door to the kitchen. Waif tiptoed up to them warily. Charmain, equally warily, put out her toe and prodded the nearest brown trickle. It squished like a marsh.
“Oh, what has Peter done now?” Charmain exclaimed. She flung the door open.
Two inches of water rippled all over the kitchen floor. Charmain could see it seeping darkly up the six bags of laundry beside the sink.
“Doh!” she cried out, slammed the door shut, opened it again, and turned left.
The corridor there was awash. Sunlight from the end window flared on the water in a way that suggested a strong current coming from the bathroom. Angrily, Charmain splashed her way there. All I wanted to do was sit down and read a book! she thought, and I come home to a flood!
As she reached the bathroom, with Waif paddling unhappily after her, its door opened and Peter shot out of it, damp down his front and looking thoroughly harassed. He had no shoes on and his trousers were rolled up to his knees.
“Oh good, you’re back,” he said, before Charmain could speak. “There’s this hole in one of the pipes in here. I’ve tried six different spells to stop it, but all they do is make it move about. I was just going to turn the water off at that woolly tank through there—or try to anyway—but perhaps you could do something instead.”
“Woolly tank?” Charmain said. “Oh, you mean that thing covered in blue fur. What makes you think that will do any good? Everywhere’s flooded!”
“It’s the only thing I haven’t tried,” Peter snarled at her. “The water has to come from there somehow. You can hear it trickling. I thought I might find a stopcock—”
“Oh, you’re useless!” Charmain snarled back. “Let me have a look.” She pushed Peter aside and flounced into the bathroom, raising a sheet of water as she went.
There was indeed a hole. One of the pipes between the washbasin and the bath had a lengthwise slit in it, and water was spraying out of it in a merry fountain. Here and there along the pipe were gray magical-looking blobs which must have been Peter’s six useless spells. And this is all his fault! she snarled to herself. He was the one who made the pipes red hot. Oh, honestly!
She rushed at the spraying slit and angrily planted both hands on it. “Stop this!” she commanded. Water sprayed out round her hands and into her face. “Stop it at once!”
All that happened was that the slit moved sideways from under her fingers for about six inches and sprayed water over her pigtail and her right shoulder. Charmain scooped her hands along to cover it again. “Stop that! Stop it!”
The slit moved off sideways again.
“So that’s how you want it, is it?” Charmain said to it, and scooped some more. The slit moved off. She followed it with her hands. In a moment or so she had it cornered above the bath and the water spraying harmlessly into the bath and running away down the plughole. She kept it there, by leaning on the pipe with one hand, while she thought what next to do. I wonder Peter didn’t think of this, she thought in a sort of mutter, instead of running about casting useless spells. “Great-Uncle William,” she called out, “how do I stop the bathroom pipe leaking?”
There was no answer. This was obviously not something Great-Uncle William thought Charmain would need to know.
“I don’t think he knows much about plumbing,” Peter said from the doorway. “There’s nothing useful in the suitcase either. I had it all out to see.”
“Oh, did you?” Charmain said nastily.
“Yes, some of the stuff in there is really interesting,” Peter said. “I’ll show you if you—”
“Be quiet and let me think!” Charmain snapped at him.
Peter seemed to realize that Charmain might not be in a very good mood. He stopped talking and waited while Charmain stood in the bath and leaned on the pipe, thinking. You had to come at this leak two ways, so that it couldn’t slide off again. First you fixed it in one place and then you covered it up. But how? Quick, before my feet are quite soaked. “Peter,” she said, “go and get me some dishcloths. At least three.”
“Why?” said Peter. “You don’t think—”
“Now!” said Charmain.
To her relief, Peter went crossly splashing off, muttering about bossy, bad-tempered cats. Charmain pretended not to hear. Meanwhile, she dared not let go of the slit and the slit kept spraying and she was getting wetter every second. Oh, blast Peter! She put her other hand on the farther end of the slit and began pushing and sliding her hands together as hard as she could. “Close up!” she ordered the pipe. “Stop leaking and close up!” Water spouted rudely into her face. She could feel the slit trying to dodge, but she refused to let it. She pushed and pushed. I can do magic! she thought at the pipe. I worked a spell. I can make you close up! “So close up!”
And it worked. By the time Peter came wading back with just two cloths, saying those were all he could find, Charmain was soaked through to her underclothes but the pipe was whole again. Charmain took the cloths and bound them around the pipe on either side of where the slit had been. Then she snatched up the long back brush from beside the bath—this being the only thing remotely like a wizard’s staff that she could see—and batted at the cloths with it.
“Stay there. Don’t dare move!” she told the cloths. She batted at the mended slit. “You stay shut,” she told it, “or it’ll be the worse for you!” After that she turned the back brush on Peter’s blobby gray spells and batted at them too. “Go!” she told them. “Go away! You’re useless!” And they all obediently vanished. Charmain, flushed with a sense of great power, batted at the hot tap beside her knees. “Run hot again,” she told it, “and let’s have no nonsense! And you,” she added, reaching across to bat at the hot tap on the washbasin. “Both hot—but not too hot, or I’ll give you grief. But you stay running cold,” she instructed the cold taps, batting them. Finally, she came out of the bath with a great splash and batted at the water on the floor. “And you go! Go on, dry up, drain away. Go! Or else!”
Peter waded over to the washbasin, turned the hot tap on, and held his hand under it. “It’s warm!” he said. “You really did it! That’s a relief. Thanks.”
“Huh!” said Charmain, soaked and cold and grumpy. “Now I’m going to change into dry clothes and read a book.”
Peter asked, rather pathetically, “Aren’t you going to help mop up, then?”
Charmain did not see why she should. But her eye fell on poor Waif, struggling toward her with water lapping at her underside. It did not look as if the back brush had worked on the floors. “All right,” she sighed. “But I have done a day’s work already, you know.”
“So have I,” Peter said feelingly. “I was rushing about all day tryi
ng to stop that pipe leaking. Let’s get the kitchen dry, at least.”
As the fire was still leaping and crackling in the kitchen grate, it was not unlike a steam bath in there. Charmain waded through the tepid water and opened the window. Apart from the mysteriously multiplying laundry bags, which were sodden, everywhere but the floor was dry. This included the suitcase, open on the table.
Behind Charmain, Peter spoke strange words and Waif whimpered.
Charmain whirled round to find Peter with his arms stretched out. Little flames were flickering on them, from his fingers to his shoulders. “Dry, O waters on the floor!” he intoned. Flames began to flicker across his hair and down his damp front too. His face changed from smug to alarmed. “Oh dear!” he said. As he said this, the flames rippled all over him and he began to burn quite fiercely. By then he looked plain frightened. “It’s hot! Help!”
Charmain rushed at him, seized one of his blazing arms, and pushed him over into the water on the floor. This did no good at all. Charmain stared at the extraordinary sight of flames flickering away under the water and simmering bubbles appearing all round Peter, where the water was starting to boil, and hauled him up again double quick in a shower of hot water and steam. “Cancel it!” she shouted, snatching her hands off his hot sleeve. “What spell did you use?”
“I don’t know how!” Peter wailed.
“What spell?” Charmain bawled at him.
“It was the spell to stop floods in The Boke of Palimpsest,” Peter babbled, “and I’ve no idea how to cancel it.”
“Oh, you are stupid!” Charmain cried out. She grabbed him by one flaming shoulder and shook him. “Cancel, spell!” she shouted. “Ouch! Spell, I order you to cancel at once!”
The spell obeyed her. Charmain stood shaking her scorched hand and watched the flames vanish in a sizzle, a cloud of steam, and a wet, singeing smell. It left Peter looking brown and frizzled all over. His face and hands were bright pink and his hair was noticeably shorter. “Thanks!” he said, flopping over with relief.
Charmain pushed him upright. “Pooh! You smell of burned hair! How can you be so stupid! What other spells have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, raking burned bits out of his hair. Charmain was fairly sure he was lying, but if he was, Peter was not going to confess. “And it wasn’t that stupid,” he argued. “Look at the floor.”
Charmain looked down to see that the water had mostly gone. The floor was once again simply tiles, wet, shiny, and steaming, but not flooded any longer. “Then you’ve been very lucky,” she said.
“I mostly am,” Peter said. “My mother always says that too, whenever I do a spell that goes wrong. I think I’m going to have to change into different clothes.”
“Me too,” Charmain said.
They went through the inner door, where Peter tried to turn right and Charmain pushed him left, so that they went straight and arrived in the living room. The wet trickles on the carpet there were steaming and drying out rapidly, but the room still smelled horrible. Charmain snorted, turned Peter round, and pushed him left through the door again. Here, the corridor was damp, but not full of water any longer.
“See?” Peter said as he went into his bedroom. “It did work.”
“Huh!” Charmain said, going into her own room. I wonder what else he’s done. I don’t trust him an inch. Her best clothes were a wet mess. Charmain took them off sadly and hung them around the room to get dry. And nothing was going to cure the big scorch mark down the front of her best jacket. She would have to wear ordinary clothes tomorrow when she went to the Royal Mansion. And do I dare leave Peter alone here? she wondered. I bet he’ll spend the time experimenting with spells. I know I would. She shrugged a little, as she realized she was no better than Peter really. She had been quite unable to resist the spells in The Boke of Palimpsest either.
She was feeling much more kindly toward Peter when she came back to the kitchen, dry again except for her hair and wearing her oldest clothes and her slippers.
“Find out how to ask for supper,” Peter said, as Charmain put her wet shoes to dry in the hearth. “I’m starving.” He was looking much more comfortable in the old blue suit that he had arrived in.
“There’s food in the bag Mother brought yesterday,” Charmain said, busy arranging the shoes in the best place.
“No, there isn’t,” Peter said. “I ate it all for lunch.”
Charmain stopped feeling kindly toward Peter. “Greedy pig,” she said, banging on the fireplace for food for Waif. Waif, in spite of all the crumpets she had eaten in the Royal Mansion, was delighted to see the latest dog dish. “And so are you a greedy pig,” Charmain said, watching Waif gobble. “Where do you put it all? Great-Uncle William, how do we get supper?”
The kindly voice was very faint now. “Just knock on the pantry door and say ‘Supper,’ my dear.”
Peter got to the pantry first. “Supper!” he bellowed, banging hard on the door.
There was a knobby, flopping sound from the table. Both of them whirled round to look. There, lying beside the open suitcase, were a small lamb chop, two onions, and a turnip. Charmain and Peter stared at them.
“All raw!” Peter said, stunned.
“And not enough anyway,” Charmain said. “Do you know how to cook it?”
“No,” said Peter. “My mother does all the cooking in our house.”
“Oh!” said Charmain. “Honestly!”
Chapter Nine
HOW GREAT-UNCLE WILLIAM’S HOUSE PROVED TO HAVE MANY WAYS
Peter and Charmain naturally converged on the fireplace then. Waif scuttled out of the way as, one after another, they beat on the mantelpiece and cried out, “Breakfast!” But it seemed that this spell only worked properly in the morning.
“I wouldn’t even have minded kippers,” Charmain said, miserably surveying the two trays. They had rolls, honey, and orange juice on them, and nothing else.
“I know how to boil eggs,” Peter said. “Will Waif eat this lamb chop?”
“She’ll eat almost anything,” Charmain said. “She’s as bad as—as we are. I don’t think she’ll eat a turnip, though. I wouldn’t.”
They had a somewhat unsatisfactory supper. Peter’s eggs were—well—solid. In order to take Charmain’s mind off them, Peter asked her about her time in the Royal Mansion. Charmain told him, in order to take both their minds off the way hard boiled eggs did not mix with honey. Peter was highly intrigued by the way the King seemed to be looking for gold, and even more intrigued by the arrival of Morgan and Twinkle.
“And a fire demon?” he said. “Two infants with magical powers and a fire demon! I bet the Princess has her hands full. How long are they staying?”
“I don’t know. Nobody said,” Charmain said.
“Then I bet you two Afternoon Teas and a Morning Coffee that the Princess turns them out before the weekend,” Peter said. “Have you finished eating? Then I want you to look through your Great-Uncle’s suitcase.”
“But I want to read a book!” Charmain protested.
“No, you don’t,” Peter said. “You can do that any time. This suitcase is full of stuff you need to know. I’ll show you.” He pushed the breakfast trays aside and pulled the suitcase in front of her. Charmain sighed and put her glasses on.
The suitcase was full to the brim with paper. Lying on top was a note in Great-Uncle William’s beautiful but shaky writing. “For Charmain,” it said. “Key to the House.” Under that was a large sheet of paper with a tangle of swirly lines drawn on it. The lines had labeled boxes drawn on them at intervals, and each line ended in an arrow at the edge of the page, with the word “Unexplored” written beside it.
“That’s the short key you’ve got there,” Peter said as Charmain picked this paper up. “The rest of the stuff in the suitcase is the proper map. It folds out. Look.” He took hold of the next sheet of paper and pulled, and it came out with the next sheet joined to it, and then the next, folded back and forth to fit in the sui
tcase. It came out on to the table in a huge zigzag. Charmain stared at it resentfully. Each piece had carefully drawn rooms and corridors on it and neatly written notes beside each thing. The notes said things like “Turn left twice here” and “Two steps right and one left here.” The rooms had blocks of writing in them, some simple, like “Kitchen,” and some eloquent, like the one that read “My store of wizardly supplies, kept constantly replenished by an intake spell I am rather proud of. Please note that the ingredients on the left hand wall are all highly dangerous and must be handled with great care.” And some of the joined sheets seemed to be all criss-crossing corridors labeled “To unexplored North Section,” “To Kobolds,” “To Main Cistern” or “To Ballroom: I doubt if we shall ever find a use for this.”
“I was quite right to leave this suitcase shut,” Charmain said. “It’s the most confusing map I ever saw in my life! It can’t all be this house!”
“It is. It’s enormous,” Peter said. “And if you look, you’ll see that the way the map is folded is a clue to how you get to the different parts of it. See, here’s the living room on the top page, but if you go to the next page, you don’t get his study or the bedrooms because those are folded back, see. You get the kitchen instead because that’s folded the same way….”
Charmain’s head began to go round, and she closed her ears to Peter’s enthusiastic explanations. She looked at the swirling lines on the piece of paper in her hand instead. It almost seemed easier. At least, she could see “Kitchen” right in the middle of it, and “Bedrooms” and “Swimming Pool” and “Study.” Swimming Pool? Not really, surely? An interesting swirl led off to the right, underneath these boxes, into a tangle containing a box labeled “Conference Room.” An arrow pointed off from this box labeled “To Royal Mansion.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You can get to the King’s house from here!”
“…out to a mountain meadow that says ‘Stables,’ but I can’t see how to get there from his workroom yet,” Peter expounded, unfolding another zigzag. “And here’s ‘Food Store.’ It says ‘Stasis Spells operate.’ I wonder how you take those off. But what interests me are the places like this one, where he’s written ‘Storage Space. Just Junk? Must investigate someday.’ Do you think he created all this bent space himself? Or did he find it already there when he moved in?”
House of Many Ways Page 11
