Diana Jones - Mixed Magics

As he thought that, Towser landed heavily on top of him. Sitting on the Willing Warlock, he got rid of the gateau on to the edge of the motorway. It took him some time. Meanwhile, the Willing Warlock wondered if Towser was actually as heavy as a cow, or whether he only felt that way.

“Now go on, go on driving,” Jemima Jane said, when Towser at last had finished.

The Willing Warlock obeyed. He drove on. Then it was the car’s turn. It flashed a red light at him. “You are running out of petrol,” it remarked.

“Good,” said the Willing Warlock feelingly.

“Go on driving,” said Jemima Jane, and Towser, as usual, backed her up.

The Willing Warlock drove on through the night. A new and unpleasant smell now filled the car. It did not mix well with chocolate. The Willing Warlock supposed it must be Towser. He drove, and the car boringly repeated its remark about petrol, until, as they passed a sign saying BENTWELL SERVICES, the car suddenly changed its tune and said, “You have started on the reserve tank.” Then it became quite talkative and added, “You have petrol for ten more miles only. You are running out of petrol…”

“I heard you,” said the Willing Warlock. “I shall have to stop,” he told Jemima Jane and Towser, with great relief. Then, to stop Jemima Jane telling him to drive on, and because the new smell was mixing with the chocolate worse than ever, he said, “And what is this smell in here?”

“Me,” Jemima Jane said, rather defiantly. “I went in my pants. It’s your fault. You didn’t take me to the Ladies.”

At which Towser at once sprang up, growling, and the car added, “You are running out of petrol.”

The Willing Warlock groaned aloud and went squealing into BENTWELL SERVICES. The car told him reproachfully that he was wasting petrol and then added that he was running out of it, but the Willing Warlock was too far gone to attend to it. He sprang out of the car and once more tried to run away. Towser sprang out after him and fastened his teeth in the Willing Warlock’s now tattered trouser-leg. And Jemima Jane scrambled out after Towser.

“Take me to the Ladies,” she said. “You have to change my knickers. My clean ones are in the bag at the back.”

“I can’t take you to the Ladies!” the Willing Warlock said. He had no idea what to do. What did one do? You have one grown-up male Warlock, one female child and one dog fastened to the Warlock’s trouser-leg that might be male or female. Did you go to the Gents or the Ladies? The Willing Warlock just did not know.

He had to settle for doing it publicly in the car park. It made him ill. It was the last straw. Jemima Jane gave him loud directions in a ringing bossy voice. Towser growled steadily. As he struggled with the gruesome task, the Willing Warlock heard people gathering round, sniggering. He hardly cared. He was a broken Warlock by then. When he looked up to find himself in a ring of policemen, and the small man in the pin-striped suit standing just beside him, he felt nothing but extreme relief. “I’ll come quietly,” he said.

“Hello, Daddy!” Jemima Jane shouted. She suddenly looked enchanting, in spite of the chocolate. And Towser changed character too and fawned and gambolled round the small man, squeaking like a puppy.

The small man picked up Jemima Jane, chocolate and all, and looked forbiddingly at the Willing Warlock. “If you’ve harmed Prudence, or the dog either,” he said, “you’re for it, you know.”

“Harmed!” the Willing Warlock said hysterically. “That child’s the biggest bully in the world – bar that car or that dog! And the dog’s a thief too! I’m the one that’s harmed! Anyway, she said her name was Jemima Jane.”

“That’s just a jingle I taught her, to prevent people trying name-magic,” the small man said, laughing rather. “The dog has a secret name anyway. All Kathayack Demon Dogs do. Do you know who I am, Warlock?”

“No,” said the Willing Warlock, trying not to look respectfully at the fawning Towser. He had heard of Demon Dogs. The beast probably had more magic than he did.

“Kathusa,” said the man. “Financial wizard. I’m Chrestomanci’s agent in this world. That crook Jean-Pierre keeps sending people here and they all get into trouble. It’s my job to pick them up. I was coming into the bank to help you, Warlock, and you go and pinch my car.”

“Oh,” said the Willing Warlock. The policemen coughed and began to close in. He resigned himself to a long time in prison.

But Kathusa held up a hand to stop the policemen. “See here, Warlock,” he said, “you have a choice. I need a man to look after my cars and exercise Towser. You can do that and go straight, or you can go to prison. Which is it to be?”

It was a terrible choice. Towser met the Willing Warlock’s eye and licked his lips. The Willing Warlock decided he preferred prison. But Jemima Jane – or rather Prudence – turned to the policemen, beaming. “He’s going to look after me and Towser,” she announced. “He likes his nose being pulled.”

The Willing Warlock tried not to groan.

C at Chant was not altogether happy, either with himself or with other people. The reason was the Italian boy that Chrestomanci had unexpectedly brought back to Chrestomanci Castle after his trip to Italy.

“Cat,” said Chrestomanci, who was looking rather tired after his travels, “this is Antonio Montana. You’ll find he has some very interesting magic.”

Cat looked at the Italian boy, and the Italian boy held out his hand and said, “How do you do. Please call me Tonino,” in excellent English, but with a slight halt at the end of each word, as if he was used to words that mostly ended in ‘o’. Cat knew at that instant that he was going to count the days until someone took Tonino back to Italy again. And he hoped someone would do it soon.

It was not just the beautiful English and the good manners. Tonino had fair hair – that almost greyish fair hair people usually call ash blond – which Cat had never imagined an Italian could have. It looked very sophisticated and it made Cat’s hair look a crude straw colour by comparison. As if this was not enough, Tonino had trusting brown eyes and a nervous expression, and he was evidently younger than Cat. He looked so sweet that Cat shook hands as quickly as he could without being rude, knowing at once that everyone would expect him to look after Tonino.

“Pleased to meet you,” he lied.

Sure enough, Chrestomanci said, “Cat, I’m sure I can trust you to show Tonino the ropes here and keep an eye on him until he finds his feet in England.”

Cat sighed. He knew he was going to be very bored.

But it was worse than that. The other children in the castle thought Tonino was lovely. They all did their best to be friends with him. Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia patiently taught Tonino all the games you played in England, including cricket. Chrestomanci’s son Roger joined in the cricket lessons and then spent hours gravely comparing spells with Tonino. Chrestomanci’s ward Janet spent further hours enthusiastically asking Tonino about Italy. Janet came from another world where Italy was quite different, and she was interested in the differences.

And yet, despite all this attention, Tonino went around with a lost, lonely look which made Cat avoid him. He could tell Tonino was acutely homesick. In fact, Cat was fairly sure Tonino was feeling just like Cat had felt himself when he first came to Chrestomanci Castle, and Cat could not get over the annoyance of having someone have feelings that were his . He knew this was stupid – this was partly why he was not happy with himself – but he was not happy with Julia, Roger and Janet either. He considered that they were making a stupid fuss over Tonino. The fact was that Julia and Roger normally looked after Cat. He had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle, until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder. Cat knew all this perfectly well, but it did not make the slightest difference to the way he felt.