by E. M. Cooper
Marnie believed his earnest expression.
‘Now you must hurry back to the Arnolds as it’s almost lunchtime,’ Mystilic said. ‘Two weeks to go, Seb. You need to give it everything.’
He nodded. ‘I know ... I will.’
When they reached the Arnolds’ street, Marnie peered down the footpath and spotted a driver opening the door for the Arnolds to climb into their car. ‘Looks like the family’s going out to lunch.’
‘Great, a peaceful afternoon.’
Seb and Marnie hurried back to the Arnolds’ mansion and as they walked in the door, Clara hustled them into the kitchen for lunch.
‘How come you two were allowed out?’ Molly asked in a scratchy voice. ‘It isn’t fair. We had to clean all the windows while you two were having fun.’
Marnie stepped forwards. ‘That’s because we have to pull weeds this afternoon while you get to do what you want.’
Molly looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Says who?’
‘Mr Arnold told us before he went to lunch.’ Although it wasn’t true, Marnie knew it would make Molly happy and get them outside for the afternoon.
Molly gave her satisfied smile.
Marnie winked at Seb.
‘Lunch is ready now,’ Clara announced. ‘Sit down.’
After a meal of soup and bread, Seb and Marnie escaped to the garden. Marnie loved being outside and weeding the garden seemed like the best fun she could conjure in the Arnolds’ strange home.
‘Can you tell me what you’ve learned in your book?’
Seb nodded. ‘I’ll try. It might help you next year.’
‘Tell me what it says about the school—Fanglewick, I mean.’
‘Actually, nothing. The manual’s related to the test. You only get to know about the school if you’re accepted.’
‘I only got to the end of the first page after the title. It said there were three parts to the exam: word, number and picture puzzles and each took an hour.’
‘That’s right. The manual gives you lots of practice tests and answers. On the day of the test, you only get a minute to answer each one. Once you’ve finished, they correct the papers quickly. If you fail, you’re sent home straight away.’ Seb looked around and pulled the booklet from under his jumper. He flicked it open to a set of puzzles with many clock hands running in different directions. Some were only outlines while others were solid. ‘See the empty square after that series of clocks?’
‘That one?’
‘Yep, you have to choose which shape below fits it best.’
Marnie screwed her nose up in concentration. ‘The third one.’
‘Why?’
‘Because all the clock hands have turned three places and the hands pointing to even numbers on the clock are solid while the odd number hands are outlined.’
‘Wow, you’re right. It took me a while to get that. I find the puzzles the worst. Once you learn to read words fast, you’ll find the exam a breeze.’
Marnie could see Seb seemed dejected or worried.
‘I bet it was just a lucky guess. Show me a number puzzle.’
Seb flicked the pages over and opened the book at a page packed with numbers, which instantly made Marnie feel at home.
‘This is a series and you need to find the next two numbers: 9, 11, 7, 13, 15, 7, 17, _ _.’
Already Marnie knew the answer was 19, 7, but this time she kept quiet, not wanting to undermine Seb so close to his exam.
‘I know it’s tricky at first,’ Seb said. ‘The answer’s 19, 7. The 7s are only there to distract you.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Her brain ticked over. ‘Do you have to pass all parts of the test to be accepted?’
Seb frowned. ‘I’d expect so, but you can learn to get good at these if you practise enough.’
Later that evening, Mrs Arnold ordered the children to bed early. As Marnie wandered down the corridor past the closed doors with shiny knobs, she heard strange popping sounds and weird indecipherable muttering from inside one of the rooms. She kept walking, but before she reached the ladder to her room, a door slammed behind her. Turning, she saw Charlie leaving the room where she’d heard the noises. He walked towards the bathroom. Creeping back along the corridor, she sneaked into Charlie’s room and closed the door behind her. A lamp lit the desk and a few books lay spread open on its surface. She recognised one was the same Fanglewick manual Seb owned, while another thinner one lay open beside it. After checking its cover, she reeled when she read the title, Fanglewick School of Magic Examination Paper 2051. Flicking it open, she realised someone had circled the right answers and this was the very exam Seb and Charlie were going to sit in a couple of weeks. Marnie had just opened another book on the desk, Millicent Murgatroyd’s Workbook for Advanced Wand Bearers when she heard footsteps in the corridor. In a panic, she glanced around for somewhere to hide.
Footsteps stopped outside and the door handle rattled.
She dived under the bed a few seconds before Charlie opened the door.
Holding her breath, Marnie lay listening as Charlie sighed and sat at the desk. She lay in the dust with her nose pressed against a pair of Charlie’s smelly socks. Realising she was trapped, Marnie relaxed and waited. Eventually she drowsed into sleep until she woke with the clock chiming midnight in the hallway.
Charlie was still awake and pacing the room while muttering a few strange words over and over, ‘Arantus milpithicus arisa’.
The words made no sense to Marnie, but she assumed they were from the wand bearer’s workbook. A few minutes later, she heard Charlie pace across the floor to open the door again. Relieved when the sound of his footsteps faded, she scrambled from under the bed and into the dark hallway before noticing light spilling from the library. As she crouched in the passage, she waited to be sure the light had woken no one else in the household. Curious, she crept forwards to investigate. Moments before she reached the library door, she heard a muffled cracking sound and Charlie cursing. After opening the door a fraction, she saw him standing on the scrying table gazing at the skylight with his wand held high. She gasped as she realised the beautiful dome was fractured.
Charlie clambered from the table and hid under it moments before the glass shattered and showered the floor, chairs and scrying table. When the glass stopped falling, he crawled from under the table. ‘Restoray skylight,’ he called and waved his wand uselessly at the hole in the dome. He shrieked as masses of luminescent butterflies swarmed through the open ceiling under the swollen moon.
Footsteps and voices sounded down the corridor, so Marnie shrank and hid behind a leafy potted plant opposite the library doors.
Dressed in an ordinary dressing gown and slippers, Mr Arnold rushed to the library and for several moments, stood transfixed at the sight that greeted him. His neck veins bulged before he spluttered through his rage. ‘Charlie!’
‘It wasn’t me, Father,’ Charlie lied. ‘I swear.’
Mrs Arnold reached her husband’s side moments later, wearing one-piece pyjamas and holding a net stretched over her oily hair. ‘Are you hurt, my darling?’ she asked Charlie.
Charlie had already regained his composure and hidden his wand before walking towards his parents through the swarming butterflies. ‘I’m fine. It was one of the children who broke the glass.’
Mrs Arnold rushed forwards to hug Charlie and comfort him. ‘Which brat was it?’
‘I didn’t get a close look, Mother, but I’m pretty sure it was one of the boys—Seb, I’d say.’
Incensed, Marnie stepped from the shadows into the library. ‘I think you’re wrong.’
Charlie glared at her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I heard a noise when I was in the bathroom and investigated.’
‘You shouldn’t be wandering alone around our house at night,’ Charlie said.
‘Quite right,’ Mrs Arnold said still holding Charlie.
‘I can’t help my small bladder.’
Mr Arnold coughed as though disturbed a
bout such a frank admission.
‘What beautiful butterflies. I wonder why they’re flying at night,’ said Marnie knowing Charlie’s magic had drawn them like the beetles outside Mage Mystilic’s window in the library.
‘Just pests,’ Mr Arnold muttered. ‘I’ll have them sprayed tomorrow.’
Marnie stared at Charlie and grinned slightly. ‘I saw a weird man in a long dress holding a small stick. He rushed from the library and out the front door just after the glass broke. Then I followed Charlie in here and saw the mess.’
Charlie looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘y-Yes, now that she mentions it, I did hear the front door close. Maybe it wasn’t Seb after all.’
Mr Arnold fumed and grumbled to himself. ‘Meddling wiz ... I mean men ... common criminals all of them. I’ll ring the police now. Get to bed, you two. The mess will need to be cleaned up in the morning. In the meantime, not a word about this to anyone. Understood?’
Marnie nodded.
Seb and Molly met Marnie on the way down the corridor.
‘What’s going on? We heard banging and voices,’ Molly said.
‘Nothing. A bird or something hit the glass dome in the library and it shattered,’ Marnie said. ‘Go back to bed. Mrs Arnold is coming this way to check everyone.’ Marnie held Seb back by the sleeve and waited until Molly had gone.
‘Charlie broke the skylight in the library practising magic. He tried to blame you, but I told the Arnolds I saw a man wearing a long dress holding a small stick leaving by the front door.’
‘Smart.’ Seb chuckled. ‘But he’s such a snake.’
‘I think Charlie was so relieved to have an excuse, he backed my story.’
‘Aye, anything to save his own skin.’
‘There’s more. Not only is he practising illegal magic, but I think he’s going to cheat on the Fanglewick exam.’
* * *
CHAPTER 6
Alignment of the moon and stars
‘From what I can gather, the vortices will touch down next weekend, when the moon is at its fullest,’ Mage Mystilic said to Seb in his library office on Saturday. Seb and Marnie had managed to slip out of the house after seeing the Arnolds pile into their car and drive away on one of their many outings.
‘What day is the exam?’ Marnie asked.
‘They’ll hold a few sessions at Fanglewick over the week ending in the full moon.’ With a vague expression, Mystilic watched Seb collect a number of dirty plates from the carpeted floor and take them to a small sink to rinse. ‘Most of the youngsters taking the exam are residents of the Old World, but others like Charlie and Seb will arrive at Fanglewick in the vortices.’
‘So you’ll need to figure out when and where to catch them,’ Marnie said.
‘Exactly,’ Mystilic said.
‘Either we’ll overhear them talking about it at the wizards’ chapter meeting on Friday night, or I’ll just have to keep watching Charlie and follow him.’ Seb picked up a few coffee mugs from the carpet and peered at their contents. ‘This doesn’t look very healthy.’
Marnie frowned. ‘Is that a good plan? What if they take a car?’
‘Hmm, she’s right,’ Mystilic said. ‘If you can find out which night, I’ll come with my car, so we can follow them.’
‘Can you fly a broomstick?’ Marnie asked Seb.
‘How did you know about them?’ Mystilic asked.
‘We heard them talking about broomsticks at the wizards’ meeting,’ Seb explained.
Mystilic shook his head. ‘Although I could fly, it would be illegal for Seb to even try without a magical licence. They monitor magic in this world, you know. If you were caught practising what they call feral magic, you’d never have the chance to go to Fanglewick or gain your own licence. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘It doesn’t sound fair.’ Marnie frowned. ‘But what about Charlie and his wand? Won’t they know he practised magic?’
‘He did? How interesting.’ Mystilic flicked paper wrappings into the air with his wand and watched as they twirled before dropping into a bin. ‘Ah, the Arnolds, a law unto themselves. People like the Arnolds design these rules for underlings and consider themselves above it all.’ He half laughed. ‘I’m sure dear Zachary has shielded the mansion just in case.’
‘I don’t understand why they worry so much about feral magic,’ Marnie said.
Seb gathered cups and plates from the table and took them to the sink.
‘Some rebel wizards left the Old World and came to Earth. They fell for humans, which displeased the Imporium elite, who are guarded and possessive about magic and worry about magic being watered down through the children of rebellious wizards. To them it’s a double whammy—the worst wizards pairing with mortal partners.’
‘You’re cleaning up?’ Marnie watched Mystilic poking and flicking orange skins from under the couch before zapping them away with his wand.
‘Yes, once Seb leaves for Fanglewick, I’m off to Africa to meet some associates.’ He smiled at Marnie. ‘Don’t look so worried. I’ll return in March to focus on your reading dilemma and to prepare for next year’s Fanglewick exam.’ He turned to Seb. ‘You’d better get cracking. You have a vortex to line up!’
* * *
The week passed too quickly and on Friday when the wizards’ chapter meeting was due, Marnie and Seb offered to help prepare supper. They planned to climb onto the telescope platform again and listen to the wizards’ meeting. As evening approached, Marnie sidled up to Clara, who was washing the cooking utensils after preparing supper.
‘Would you like me to give the library a quick sweep and clean like last time?’ Marnie asked quietly. ‘It’s looking dusty in there.’
‘Oh yes, you’d better,’ she glanced at the clock on the wall, ‘but please be quick. They’ll be here in a few minutes.’
Marnie entered the library with the broom in one hand and a duster tucked under her arm. She left the broom by the door and hurried across the library to the ladder. After scrambling up onto the platform, she was horrified to discover Mr Arnold adjusting the telescope’s dials and knobs and Charlie fingering the coloured lenses.
‘What are you doing here?’ Charlie asked in an abrasive tone as he pulled the curtain to hide the lenses.
Mr Arnold stood back, eyeing her suspiciously. ‘Yes, what are you doing up here in my library?’
‘Sorry, sir, but Clara asked me to give the place a clean. I could see lots of dust in the air and thought it best to start here and work my way down.’ She deliberately stared at the air vacantly. ‘Cause it all floats down eventually, doesn’t it?’ She batted at the dust motes with her feather duster.
With his face deep purple and his fingers twitching, Mr Arnold looked as though he were ready to explode.
Marnie pretended not to notice. ‘Where do you suppose it comes from—the dust, that is?’
‘Get out! Get out of here, you mindless girl! Never come into my library again unless I specifically say.’
‘What if Mrs Arnold or Clara asks me to sweep or clean in here?’ She knew the more stupid she seemed, the less they would suspect her of mischief.
‘Go,’ Mr Arnold whispered with a deathly stare.
‘Yes, sir, right away. I apologise, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Marnie scurried down the ladder and raced across the library floor but before she reached the door glanced up at Mr Arnold and Charlie to see they were out of view. She ducked inside the cleaning cupboard near the door and shut it. After turning a metal bucket upside down quietly, she sat on it to wait for the wizards to arrive. In the hallway outside, she could hear Mrs Arnold yelling at Seb not to loiter and to go to his room. Marnie was alone, taking a huge but necessary risk, yet it thrilled her to the bone.
‘Good evening, Thigimus,’ Mr Arnold called. ‘I thought you would’ve left for Fanglewick by now?’
Marnie could see the pair of men in the library doorway through slats in the cupboard.
‘I had to sell the house and find someone to look
after Arty ... he doesn’t fare well in the vortices.’
‘What about using a travelling bag?’ Mr Arnold suggested.
‘No, no, unfortunately, he’s too highly strung. I’d be afraid he might scratch his way out of the bag en route. Not to worry, I found a pair of witches, the Greenfettle sisters. They have a cottage by the ocean and dote on cats. Plenty of fish and fresh air ... I’m sure he’ll be fine although I’ll miss him dreadfully. Still, I’ll visit in the holidays.’
‘Charlie’s leaving this weekend,’ said Mr Arnold, obviously not interested in Thigimus’ cat. ‘We’ve been watching the skies. My best bet is tomorrow night.’
‘Well, I was going to suggest I could chaperone the lad. The first crossing’s always a heart stopper.’
Charlie stepped out from behind his father.
‘There you are,’ Thigimus said. ‘Well, what do you say, dear boy?’
‘I’d love to travel with you, sir, thank you,’ Charlie said in the grovelling voice he chose to use around Thigimus. ‘It would be an honour.’
‘While everyone’s having supper, we could check the telescope for signs of developing vortices,’ Mr Arnold said. ‘I think the yellow lenses have been identifying them best over the colder months.’
‘Ah yes, glass, more an art than a science,’ Thigimus said. ‘It’s in the eye of the beholder though. I knew a wizard many years ago who’d trained herself to see them with her naked eye. Amazing she was—a true visual.’ He tousled Charlie’s head. ‘Who knows, you might have a few gifts like that up your sleeve. What an adventure for you, eh? If only I were fourteen again.’
Soon the wizards had gathered at the table and commenced their meeting. This time it was a drab affair with two older wizards squabbling over some changed by-law in their constitution.
‘One owl licence per household is more than enough,’ Sister Fairstar said in an officious voice. ‘It isn’t healthy for the household or the owls themselves to crowd them in.’
