Flitterwig Page 11

  pigeons & ponkaluckas

  In bed that night Ella lay on her front, propped on her elbows. Dixon lay under her chin, propped on his elbows too. They were looking at the two silver notes, which lay on the pillow, twinkling in the light of the night lamp. Even without her specs on, Ella could see them shudder a little as though they were alive.

  ‘How are we going to get to Don Whateverhisnameis? That’s what I’d like to know,’ Ella said, tucking the notes into her hand and rolling over to sleep.

  She was woken in the morning by quite a commotion. Putting on the spectacles and looking down at the floor, sleepy-eyed, she saw Dixon and a group of six other pixies, who were dressed in combat gear. They had collected around a map and were chattering to one another in Spanish.

  ‘Dixon?’ Ella asked, surprised to hear her friend speaking so fluently in a language that only hours ago he couldn’t understand.

  ‘The one and only, pony,’ Dixon replied, skipping over to her. ‘I stayed up all night, fight, light, reading the book Dribbles gave you, poo, yoohoo.’ He pointed to Spanish for Beginners, which was lying on a table in the corner of the room.

  ‘But…’ she began.

  ‘I know,’ said Dixon. ‘I can hardly believe it myself. Elf, wealth, stealth. I thought I’d just take a little look, and I was hooked. It seems I have a real aptitude for languages. Yes I do. Rhymes with poo.’

  One of the pixies sitting around the map raised his hand and yelled something to Dixon.

  Dixon frowned, poking his tongue out to help him concentrate. ‘He says there’s an orange in a road block,’ he translated, nodding at Ella. ‘I’m not sure what that has to do with finding our way to Don Posiblemente’s. But I have to say there’s a lot these Spanish pixies tell me that doesn’t make much sense, tense, fence.’

  Ella looked at him, a smile on her lips, and shoved her head in the pillow.

  Dixon scrambled up over Ella’s shoulder and balanced on her head, bending over precariously to try to look her in the eyes. ‘I heard these guys out in the corridor at dawn, yawn. The elves sent them to help us. Us, us. Rhymes with pus. They’re Geograpixies. Ever so good at directions.’

  Ella glanced at the pixies, whose semblance of orderly study had collapsed into a battle over who should stand on which part of the map.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, getting out of bed. Dixon swung off her hair and onto the floor.

  Ella’s appearance beside the map startled the squabbling Geograpixies, who ran for cover under the bed. ‘Okay,’ she repeated. ‘So you know where we’re going, Dixon. But how are we going to get there?’

  ‘I was hoping you could figure that bit out, lout, shout,’ said Dixon, yawning. ‘I’m going to have a little snooze while you do.’

  As Ella dressed, she wondered what her chances were of somehow managing to enchant Dribbles. After all, she’d enchanted the wine glass at the tapas bar last night, and she’d driven away the creature (which she suspected was the Duke) that was Possessing Charlie Snoppit’s body. Although, she had to admit, she had no idea how she’d done it.

  On the way to breakfast in the plaza café with Dribbles, Dixon fast asleep in the front pocket of her dungarees, she revved herself up for a morning of magic.

  As soon as she sat down at the café table, she twiddled her ears and tried to think magic thoughts. She leaned across the table and, tempting fate itself, stared hard at Dribbles, mumbling words that Manna had taught her.

  ‘Hush!’ Dribbles spat. ‘Stop looking at me like that, child.’ But she was using a tone more nervous than hate-filled this morning.

  The magic wasn’t working.

  Ella sat back and frowned. She tweaked her ear one more time, leaned forward, and stared so hard that she looked like a startled owl.

  ‘Please contain your strange behaviour,’ Dribbles warned her, wiping her damp chin with yesterday’s snotty hanky. She placed her walking stick protectively on the table between them.

  Ella felt a familiar sense of powerlessness slipping over her. She sighed deeply, disappointed at her inability to call on her magical resources at will. Then she saw Dixon, like a knight in shining armour, galloping off across the table. He must have woken up and escaped from her pocket without her realising. Her ears and her shoulderblades tingled responsively. He was hurtling towards Dribbles, throwing a long white swirl of elf dust at her.

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ Ella said aloud, reaching out to knock the pixie out of the way. Wrinkles had told Dixon that he wasn’t meant to use elf dust except in emergencies. And as far as she could tell, this wasn’t one.

  The dust flew over Dribbles’ head, missing her by a millimetre. It paused, hesitated in mid-air, and then zoomed upward.

  Seconds later, a pigeon fell out of the blue and landed smack bang on Dribbles’ head. It landed with such force that she fell right off her chair.

  Ella scrambled up from the table and ran to the pigeon, her hair floating out about her, heat pulsing in her back. She picked it up in her hands. The dazed bird shook its head. Shuddering, it ruffled its wings and then, winking at her, flew back up into the sky. A waiter rushed from another table, but stopped suddenly when he saw the strange-looking child with the whirlwind hair and piercing eyes.

  Dixon, seeing that his enchantment had gone awry, flung himself face first on the table.

  Ignoring the frightened waiter and the dramatic pixie, Ella crouched down and leaned in close to her governess’s face. Dribbles opened her eyes, and a trickle of saliva slid over her cheek. Ella closed her own eyes, drawing strength from the tingling feeling in her shoulders, the ache in her neck, the itch in her ears. She squeezed and squeezed her eyes shut until she could see golden dots against her eyelids. Suddenly the incantation Manna had taught her ran clear as crystal from her lips. She opened one eye. Out popped a Ponkalucka, followed by another one. Then another, and another! Ella was amazed. She could do it! She could make Ponkaluckas appear! She was making magic, and this time it wasn’t happening to her, she was happening to it!

  The Ponkalucka bubbles spun for a moment in mid-air. Over and over again, gripping her ears tightly, Ella whispered the incantation. One by one, in tight formation, the Ponkaluckas spun high up into the air and shot themselves, as though fired from a sling, up Dribbles’ nose, into her ears, through her open mouth.

  Dribbles sat straight up, much faster than her hefty bulk should have allowed her, knocking Ella backwards.

  ‘Well, I…’ she said, confused and fuzzy. Then, ‘Help me up,’ she demanded in her usual bossy tone. ‘Immediately.’

  It hadn’t worked.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ella, disappointed.

  ‘Don’t give up, pup,’ Dixon called out to her as the waiter, giving Ella a wide berth, helped Dribbles to her feet.

  Ella had nothing to lose now. In the most commanding voice she could muster, she said, ‘Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet, follow me.’ She stood back, her eyes scrunched up in anticipation of the telling-off that was sure to follow.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Dribbles, swaying unsteadily. Ella opened her eyes, and they nearly popped out of their sockets. Dribbles was smiling at her! Quickly she handed the woman her walking stick.

  ‘Oh you are the cleverest, everest, neverest girl,’ Dixon babbled in Ella’s ear, twirling himself up in a loose strand of hair.

  But Ponkalucka enchantments don’t last very long, and Dixon knew this. ‘Oh, oh. We need something more powerful. We need tears, dears, peers,’ he yelled. ‘Quick smart, tart, fart,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘It’s going to wear off, cough. You have to think of something sad. Sad? Rhymes with mad.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s working,’ Ella hissed, pointing at Dribbles, who waited for her next instruction like a loyal pet dog.

  ‘Not for the rest of the day it won’t,’ Dixon hissed back, flinging himself at Ella’s face and poking her in the eye.

  ‘Oooow!’ Ella yelled, swiping at him. Dixon dodged her hands and swung back and forth on her hair, collecting tears from
her streaming eyes.

  Dribbles shook her head. She was coming to. With a holler worthy of Tarzan, Dixon launched himself from Ella’s hair onto Dribbles’ shoulder and tossed the tears into her eyes. Instantly Dribbles fell into a trance and began to topple towards Ella.

  Ella put her hand up protectively. Hypnotised by the gesture, Dribbles steadied herself. Ella tried beckoning Dribbles with her finger. Miraculously, or, to be more precise, magically, Dribbles followed the finger.

  Ella heard Dixon call out to her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him and the Geograpixies jumping up and down on the roof of a waiting taxi.

  The taxi driver took one look at Dribbles and Ella piling into his cab, and began to babble at them in Spanish. Ella handed him the address the Spanish elves had given her. He shook his head, motioning wildly for them to get out of the cab.

  ‘No way!’ said Ella, incredulous. ‘Doesn’t he know where to go?’

  She needn’t have worried. The Geograpixies, who had positioned themselves on the taxi driver’s lap with the street map, began yelling instructions to Dixon, who had smeared into the driver’s eyes a paste made from a couple of leftover teardrops mixed with a little elf dust from his backpack, and who in turn yelled almost incomprehensible instructions to Ella. Staring the driver square in the eyes, she ordered him to move on. And so it was that, as Dribbles stared inanely out the car window, Ella Montgomery, Flitterwig-in-training, led an entranced taxi driver on a most circuitous route, navigated by a band of Geograpixies, all the way to Guadalajara Alta and the home of the legendary Don Filosofico Posiblemente.

  chapter 18

  legacies & literditties

  A high, ornate wooden gate lay at the end of a winding drive. Beyond it, a path bordered on each side by olive trees led to a building that looked like a huge ark. The gate swung open, which was lucky, for there was no bell to ring. Ella, Dixon and Dribbles passed through and made their way along the pathway to the front door. A drifting scent of cinnamon and orange blossom mingled with that of sweet jasmine. Olive trees stretched their arms across the path in greeting.

  Ella took a deep breath and knocked on the old oak door. She looked nervously up at the windows.

  The door opened.

  Ella looked down.

  A dwarf wearing a flowing tie-dyed bathrobe smiled up at them beatifically.

  ‘Señorita Ella,’ she said, her hands floating about in time to a silent song. ‘Señora Dribbleton-Faucet, Señor Dixon. Bienvenidos.’

  The lady was expecting them! Ella loved this about magic: things happened in ways she could never predict. She gave Dixon an affectionate squeeze.

  ‘Un vaso de bolitas porfavor,’ Dixon said politely to the lady. ‘Just letting her know we are on very Serious Elf Business,’ he explained to Ella.

  ‘Actually,’ the lady said, ‘you asked for a glass of little balls.’

  Dixon rolled his eyes. Ella stifled a chuckle by coughing into her hand.

  Following the dwarf lady through the door, they found themselves in a vast entrance hall. A grand staircase at its centre spiralled up and up and up, right through the ceiling into the wide blue sky, although the sky didn’t seem like sky at all. It rippled like water.

  The dwarf pointed towards a door with stained-glass panels. It swung open. Dribbles, Dixon and Ella (whose heart was suddenly beating so hard it sounded as if it was in her ears) crossed the chessboard floor and entered the room beyond, followed by the little lady.

  Almost immediately, Dribbles fell flat on the floor. The dwarf hovered nearby, tucking her hand into her pocket, a gleam in her eye. Some specks of white dust floated in the air. Ella faced her accusingly, but the dwarf, with an innocent smile, was already backing out of the room. Dribbles began to snore.

  The room was warm and inviting, bathed in gentle lights – flames from the fireplace, sparkles from a magnificent chandelier, flickers from the wick in an oil lamp set upon a finely carved teak desk. Even though it was daytime, it felt like night in here.

  A very large gentleman with a bushy beard sat at the desk, engrossed in reading the words on a leaf of parchment. His hand rested on a thick file, bound in leather. A golden labrador slept at his feet.

  The dog raised his head, stood up, stretched, and padded over to Ella’s outstretched hand. He sniffed about for a few moments and gave Dixon a slurpy lick before settling again at his master’s feet.

  ‘Give me a moment if you would,’ the man said. Without turning his face from the parchment, he pulled another leaf from the file and inspected this in turn.

  Dixon had pulled himself up Ella’s leg and squashed himself down the front of her dungarees, so only his head poked out. ‘The dog’s name is Pedro,’ he whispered up to her. ‘He just told me so,’ he said, when he saw the confusion in Ella’s eyes. ‘I speak Animumble as well as Spanish, you know, a lot better than you elven lot do,’ he added with a chortle.

  Behind the gentleman stood a grand piano, its rosewood paws set upon a rich Persian rug. The walls were lined with books. Deep, comfy chairs in grape-coloured velvet crouched on thickset haunches before them.

  The gentleman pushed his chair away from the desk, took a large gulp from a tumbler of golden liquid, and smiled at Ella and Dixon. His eyes twinkled.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said, and Ella was soothed by the sound of his ancient voice, as smooth as mahogany.

  ‘Don Posiblemente,’ said the dwarf, reappearing. With the faintest Spanish accent she continued, ‘Professor of the Unaccountable, Philosopher of Flitterwiggery, direct descendant of the Great Gnome Gangletron, Keeper of the Flitterwig Files, seventy-seven years old next birthday.’

  Don Posiblemente tipped his head graciously.

  ‘Ella Montgomery,’ the dwarf continued in a solemn voice. ‘Ten years old this birthday, daughter of the lollipop heir Señor Harold Montgomery and Rosemary Manna Montgomery, lost Flitterwig of Highest Elven descent. Granddaughter of Manna Mallallooka Chetwode, the one who gave up magic.’ She swirled and pointed at Ella. ‘The Clearheart,’ she announced dramatically.

  Ella raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Oh,’ said the dwarf as a dreamy afterthought. ‘Also in the room, Dixon. A little pixie man. And, oh yes’ (disdainfully now), ‘Señora Dribbleton-Faucet, there, on the floor.’

  With that, she sashayed out of the room.

  ‘A little bit airy, poor bean,’ said Don Posiblemente in perfect English, standing up and nodding after the dwarf. ‘But an utterly splendid woman all the same. Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to meet you, Ella,’ he continued. His large hand engulfed Ella’s small, translucent one. ‘Would you mind if I had a look at your ears?’ Towering over her in a manner that sent Dixon diving for cover, he carefully folded the hair away from her ears with a thick finger, and nodded with satisfaction.

  ‘And hello Mr Ever So Slightly,’ he said to the bump down the front of Ella’s dungarees. Blushing, Dixon poked his head out and extended his forefinger. Don Posiblemente touched it gently with his own forefinger and blinked twice. Dixon blinked twice back.

  Don Posiblemente stood back and put his hands on his hips. ‘Well I never,’ he said. ‘This really is rather an honour.’ He settled himself in an armchair and motioned to Ella to follow suit. ‘You don’t happen to have the spectacles on you by any chance?’ he asked. ‘I’m assuming, if the Prophecy is playing out as it should, that this is the pair kept in the Treasury at Magus. They are the first pair ever made (by my great, great, great, great-grandfather Gangletron, as it happens), so it would be quite something to actually see them.’ And then, checking himself, he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m quite forgetting my manners. It’s just that it’s so… Well, to discover that the memories of the Magusian Tomes recorded in the Files by our Flitterwig ancestors actually are accurate… and that the Clearheart and the original spectacles really do exist. Well. It is the culmination of much of my research. May I offer you a drink? Or a cheese sandwich, maybe? With gherkins?’

  He clapped his han
ds. The labrador stirred.

  Ella looked at Don Posiblemente, and felt a great sense of trust. And then words came tumbling out of her, one after another, fighting for space.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you too. Although I’m not exactly sure why I’m here. I have to save my grandparents, you see, and the Sacred Dewdrops of course, and…’ Ella reached into her backpack and pulled out the two silver notes.

  Don Posiblemente’s eyes sparkled with gentle interest.

  ‘… And I’m not terribly sure what the riddles mean, but there was a classroom I wished up, and this dream before of shrinking and growing… and… well…’

  Don Posiblemente smiled calmly.

  ‘It would be my pleasure to help you, Clearheart,’ he said, ‘if it is within my power to do so. Come, let’s sit down and have some luncheon. Tell me everything you know.’

  The door swung open and the dreamy dwarf popped her head in. ‘Did I hear you mention food, Señor?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be lovely, my dear, thank you.’

  ‘I actually do have the spectacles,’ said Ella, remembering the gentleman’s request. She felt for them in her pocket. ‘Here,’ she said, holding them up.

  Don Posiblemente took the spectacles and turned them over in his hands. ‘My, my,’ he said.

  Ella smiled politely and sat herself down on the edge of a sofa. As she did so, she looked rather guiltily at Dribbles, who was still snoozing on the floor.

  Don Posiblemente winked. ‘She’s fine,’ he said, and then, holding out the spectacles, ‘Would you mind if I tried them out?’

  ‘Um. They might not fit you,’ said Ella. ‘But feel free.’

  Don Posiblemente chuckled. ‘Not on myself, my dear, on a pure-breed human. I am a Flitterwig, of Gnome descent, nothing as powerful as yourself. Of course they will work for me, not that I need them.’

  Crossing the room, he knelt beside Dribbles. He tweaked his ear, took from his pocket a pinch of white dust, and sprinkled it on Dribbles’ large forehead, muttering under his breath.