Flitterwig Read online

  It was true, she did find breathing difficult, and her hair grew far too fast, and her eyes were far too green, and her feet were massive, and her ears – well, too embarrassing for words – but wasn’t that just because she was a weirdo?

  How could she be a Flitter-whatever? A human being with magical powers? The whole idea was preposterous. She stared up at her father’s London residence, its brick walls solid against the night sky, and thought of Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet sleeping inside. The same Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet who’d made her clean the toilet with her toothbrush this morning, as a punishment, because Ella had sniffed the peanut butter on her toast before she ate it. (Her governess hated it when she smelled things.) The same Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet who pushed her head into the sink and chopped off clumps of hair every day with kitchen scissors. The very Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet who’d locked her in the broom cupboard under the stairs this afternoon when the plumber came to call. That sort of stuff didn’t happen to humans with magical powers. It just didn’t. If she had any sort of powers at all, why couldn’t she make Granny let her go to school? Why couldn’t she stop her governess despising her? Why couldn’t she make her father love her?

  The spectacles in her hands twitched, pulling her back to the here and now. She put them on and was startled by Dixon bouncing up and down in front of her like a jack-in-a-box on a spring, grinning wildly, yelling, ‘We don’t have much time! Time! Rhymes with slime!’ Seeing him suddenly like that, taller than she was in her shrunken state, gave her such a shock that she fell over.

  Dixon knelt down and helped her sit up, his eyes full of warmth.

  ‘You okay, hey, play?’ he said.

  Wrinkles appeared. ‘Oh Ella, dear Ella, there is such an awful lot to take in, and I’m sure it isn’t making much sense,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid Dixon is right. We don’t have much time.’

  The heat in Ella’s ears had subsided, but her shoulderblades still felt warm. She thought of the way her hair billowed out when she felt threatened. She thought of how Granny and Grandpa were kind to her but tried to keep her hidden from the rest of the world, as if she had something really wrong with her. She thought of the last time she’d gone into the village near Willow Farm, about a year ago. Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet had been sick, and Granny had no choice but to take her along when she went shopping. The fishmonger’s four sons had come out to look at her. They’d poked at her pointy ears and made jokes about how her skin was like a squid’s, and then she’d felt her ears itch and her hair billow and she hadn’t been able to stop herself staring at the boys. She’d fixed them with her gaze and they’d got scared and grabbed a garbage bag full of old fish from the laneway and put it over her head. Granny had found her dripping in scales and fishy eyeballs, and never took her into the village again.

  Suddenly Ella saw everything clearly. If nothing in her life made much sense, then maybe what Wrinkles had told her was true. Maybe she wasn’t a freak. Maybe she was special. She didn’t want to be lonely anymore, that much she was sure of; and if a pixie, a goblin and a whole lot of gnomes, imps and elves were the best she could do for company, then so be it. And anyway, the smell that surrounded these funny creatures just filled her with a good feeling.

  She swallowed hard and turned back to face Dixon and Wrinkles with renewed strength. ‘So what else do I need to know?’ she asked.

  Wrinkles winked at her, and Dixon did a somersault on the spot.

  ‘We came here through one of the central Mirrors of Foreverness,’ said Wrinkles, shooing away a grass imp. ‘Mirrors of Foreverness, it’s handy to know, are found in certain lakes and ponds, and they let Magicals go back and forth from Earth to Magus. The gnomes and I didn’t want the Queen to come to Earth, of course, but she insisted, so now the entire Royal Court is here.

  ‘Because none of the fundamental Magicals are left in Magus to protect it (the Queen, the Duke and the Dewdrops, that is), the Mirrors have frozen. This means that none of us can get into or out of Magus until we get the Dewdrops back.’ He raised his eyebrows, and his eyes went very round. ‘Frankly, Magic in general is in a right pickle at the moment. That’s why we had to break the Ban, and we’ve come seeking you.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ella, completely lost. ‘So Royal Magicals are all elves, right? Which are basically the same as faeries, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Wrinkles. ‘But we don’t like to use the word “faeries”.’

  ‘And they’re the most powerful Magicals, right?’

  ‘Right, light, might,’ interrupted Dixon. ‘But we pixies can use elf dust even though we can’t make it. Oh, and tears. Yes, yes. If an elf gives us some elf dust or elf tears, we can use them to do so many wonderful Magics. Yes we can. Rhymes with fan. Although it does take a lot of practice. And the other Magicals can all do their own thingamabobs. Goblins run zoom zoom so fast, and they understand Animumble the best of all, which is animal talk, in case you don’t know. Oh, and they are the most in tune with the elves. It’s almost like they can read their minds! That’s why all Royal elves have their very own Goblin Protector, see, knee, pee. Like the Queen and Wrinkles, or the Duke and Ragwald. You will have to find yours too. Poo. It’s part of the Prophecy. I heard the gnomes say so. And gnomes, well, they are very grumpy but very clever, and they are best at seeing things in water. Rhymes with mortar.’

  Ella put a finger over Dixon’s mouth. The pixie blushed and fell over in a swoon.

  How cool if this was all true? Ella thought to herself. How totally excellent! She dared to imagine, for a moment, a life where sniffing things and having wild hair and odd feet and pointy ears might be a benefit rather than an embarrassment.

  ‘And what is the thing you mentioned a moment ago, the Ban?’ she asked Wrinkles.

  Dixon, recovering from his faint, slapped his hands across his face and squished his mouth shut as hard as he could so that he wouldn’t interrupt. Ella was beginning to feel rather fond of the pixie, unbalanced as he was.

  ‘Well,’ said Wrinkles, ‘the Ban is a law imposed by the Queen forbidding Magicals and Flitterwigs to have anything to do with one another. Until now, of course. You see, there was a time long, long ago (right up until the Industrial Revolution, which started in the eighteenth century), when we Magicals spent a lot more time with human beings.’ He stared hard at Ella to make sure she was concentrating.

  Ella smiled politely.

  ‘In those days,’ he continued, ‘some human beings, especially ones who lived in the countryside, could actually see Magicals. Others could speak to them. Sometimes Magicals and humans even fell in love and wanted to get married. Now, Magicals live forever, while, as you know, humans don’t. The Queen, in all her kindness, agreed to let certain Magicals marry their human beloveds, but to do this, they had to give up their immortality. She Stretchified them so they would be the same size as humans, took away their right to eternal life, and sent them on their way.’

  Ella was having a bit of trouble believing this story, but it wasn’t as if anything had been terribly believable this evening, so she decided to say nothing and just pay attention.

  ‘The descendants of these mortal Magicals were called Flitterwigs,’ Wrinkles continued. ‘For quite a while everything was fine. Until…’ He paused dramatically. ‘Until some of the Flitterwigs decided they wanted to cross over to Magus. Well, this was just not all right. Only pure Magicals had ever been in Magus, and a Flitterwig just didn’t count as a pure Magical. There was a serious breach of security one day, and a number of Flitterwigs almost managed to Shrinkify themselves and get through one of the Mirrors of Foreverness.

  ‘To cut a long story short, the Queen and the International High Court of Magus decided that something had to be done. So about two hundred years ago a decree was passed, and, from that day forth, it was strictly forbidden for Magicals to have contact in any form with human beings or Flitterwigs. This decree was called the Ban.’

  Wrinkles reached over and licked some dew from a blade of grass. ‘Meanwhile,’ he we
nt on, ‘the Flitterwigs had kept a secret underground network alive. In an effort to protect their Magical heritage and pass on its secrets and wisdom to younger generations, they collected their memories of Magusian ways and history, as well as a record of their Flitterwig experiences and discoveries, in a collection of texts called the Flitterwig Files. A secret society called the Rooniun was formed to protect this knowledge and administer its teachings.’

  ‘If I could just get this clear for a minute,’ Ella said to Wrinkles. ‘Are you saying that I am a descendant of one of these Flitterwigs, and that you want me to help you find the Sacred Dewdrops so you can get back to Magus?’

  Wrinkles nodded.

  Dixon nodded too, his hands still gripping his mouth tightly.

  ‘But why am I the Flitterwig you have chosen to help you do that?’

  ‘Because you are a direct descendant of the Royal Elven line, a distant cousin of the Queen’s, if you like,’ said Wrinkles. He enunciated each word with exaggerated clarity. ‘And you are young enough to be pure of thought. The Magusian Tomes say that this is the essential quality possessed by the Clearheart. There are other qualities too, like courage, goodwill and determination. Oh, and the ability to perform magic no other part-human Magical can, as I mentioned earlier.’

  Ella looked up at the starless sky of the London night. A police siren wailed. A dog barked. A faint smell of city smog filtered through the orange and cinnamon smell of magic in the garden. What Wrinkles had told her was all pretty exciting stuff, but it was a bit too much for Ella to absorb in one go. In fact, she felt really dizzy with information. So dizzy, indeed, that all of a sudden the sky began to spin and turn and swirl, and then everything went blank.

  chapter 6

  dribbles & departures

  Mrs Dribbleton-Faucet (or Dribbles, as she was known to those who didn’t much like her, which was everyone, due to her unfortunate problem with saliva) shuffled on her walking stick back and forth through the house, closing it up in preparation for her return with Ella to Willow Farm. Mr Phossilworth (or Mr P, as he was known to those who liked him, which was everyone), the gardener, chauffeur and general caretaker of all the Montgomery family homes, followed her about nimbly despite his age, shy kindness written all over his pale, freckled face.

  ‘You simply cannot appreciate how unnerving that sickly child is,’ Dribbles boomed, wiping spittle off the kitchen bench for the third time that morning, ‘or what a terrible cross I have to bear teaching and caring for her.’

  Mr P had heard this spiel a thousand times. He answered as he always did. ‘I still say it’s a great honour that the Montgomerys have chosen you to keep their granddaughter safe after losing both their grandsons and their daughter-in-law in that terrible accident. Lord knows, the success of Mr Montgomery Senior’s lollipop empire means they can pay you well. And Ella isn’t sickly,’ he added defensively. ‘She’s just sensitive to the elements and a little different.’

  ‘Oh, spare me,’ said Dribbles. ‘A little different!’ Spit rolled over her lip. ‘You remember the accident. Her grandparents are ashamed of her, that’s what it is. Embarrassed and fearful. Oh, if you’d only been through what I have! No wonder her father banished her to Willow Farm to live with her grandparents and lives here in London alone. She’s a smear on the fine Montgomery name. I was a young maid in her grandmother’s home, I was nanny to her dear father when he was a child, I was nanny to her and the two boys before they were lost to us. And now, for my sins, I’m left with just her and a bad leg. It’s because of her that I have this limp, as you well know. I was always uncertain about her, but the boys made her so much easier to ignore. Her and her mad watery eyes like her mother’s, and that sickly pale skin. And the hair that won’t stop growing, flaring up around her whenever it feels like it.’

  Dribbles shuddered.

  Mr P looked at Dribbles, with her dumpy nose, tiny eyes and large chin, and wondered if she was really qualified to give an opinion on looks.

  ‘Her father has good reason to refuse to see her or speak to her,’ Dribbles continued, pausing only to wipe her mouth with a sodden hanky. ‘If anyone knows, I do. The girl should be sent far away, or quietly removed, although I would never suggest such a thing, of course, or I’d be out of a job. Blood is thicker than common sense, clearly.’ She slurped on some saliva and then changed the subject. ‘Ten o’clock departure, Phossilworth,’ she said, limping off down the corridor.

  Mr P headed outside to put the luggage in the car. On the pavement he paused, sighed deeply, and shook his head.

  Upstairs, Ella woke with absolutely no idea how she’d got back to bed. She was still wearing the spectacles and was back to her normal size, but her bones ached dreadfully. She made her way to the bathroom and was just closing the door when she heard a faint sound of splashing. She padded over to the sink to investigate.

  It was becoming increasingly hard to believe she was imagining things, for there was Dixon, spitting a spray of water into the air as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He wore nothing but his hat and his boots and a red-and-white striped body stocking.

  Ella slipped the spectacles off. Dixon disappeared.

  She put them on. There he was, accompanied by that now familiar smell of cinnamon and rain. She poked him gently with her forefinger to check that he was real.

  ‘Oh, good, good, good morning Ella,’ he called up to her. ‘Wanted to freshen up. Got my leg stuck down the plug hole. Holey moley. Roly poly.’ The pixie grinned from ear to ear, literally.

  Ella handed him a face washer so that he could dry himself off. ‘How did I get big again?’ she asked, slipping her spectacles on and off to make Dixon appear and disappear at will.

  ‘The Queen did it,’ Dixon said hurriedly. ‘After you fainted. She had to be brought all the way up to your room by the butterflies. It was very exhausting for her. Only a pure Magical Royal can do Stretchification, you know. I can Shrinkify you with the Queen’s dust, but I can’t Stretchify you. Oh no, toe, blow. Stretchification is the biggest magic of all, wall, tall.’

  ‘How is she?’ Ella asked. She felt she really should ask after the Queen now she knew that they were distant cousins ten thousand times removed, or something like that.

  ‘Well, the pollufimication is very hard on Her Majesty. Very hard indeed. The more Royal you are,’ he sighed, ‘or the more powerful you are,’ he added, scratching his head, ‘or maybe it’s a combination of the two?’ he wondered, scrunching up his nose. ‘Well, the more whatever-it-is you are, the more all the stuff in the air on Earth gets to you. See, normally, Royals don’t come to Earth to clean it up. It’s just us secondary Magicals who do that. That’s what we do, as you know. We protect the planet, Janet.’ Dixon smiled proudly at Ella. ‘We are Earth cleaner-uppers! But normally after a few days or so we go home to Magus so our bodies can get clear of the pollufimication. Magus is so clean, gleam, pristine, you see.’

  Dixon’s eyes turned misty as he thought of his beloved home. ‘Oh, it’s so gorgeoulicious there, Ella. Did you know all our houses are made out of water? Not runny water like you have. Oh no, show, blow. Special water, like ice, but not icy. And not see-through either, but just like mirrors, all reflections and light. There aren’t any roads because most of us fly or run super fast or travel by animal (all our animals fly). And there’s no cough-splutter air because there aren’t any noisy, roaring, blaring machines. We pixies can only last a month outside Magus before the pollumification kills us. So, oh magical me, who knows how long the Queen has? What was the Duke thinking, blinking, stinking?’ Dixon burst into tears.

  Ella patted the pixie reassuringly on the arm with one finger. She was getting used to his emotional outbursts. But her mind was elsewhere. It was beginning to dawn on her that she had rather a lot of Magicals waiting for her in the garden. How exactly she was supposed to get them in the car and deliver them to Willow Farm was anybody’s guess. She tried to come up with some sort of plan, but other than that of just marching
them straight through the house and out the front door, her mind was blank. So much for being Miss Super-Special-Clearheart-pants.

  Dixon was holding the tap in a tight embrace, and wailing hysterically.

  ‘Um,’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Dixon, throwing himself off the tap, wiping his eyes and recovering instantly.

  ‘Um, how are we going to get the Magicals into the car?’ Ella asked, hoping that the pixie was smarter than he seemed.

  Dixon’s eyes twinkled. ‘Good question,’ he whooped, pulling his pants on and hoicking on his backpack before running across the washbasin top and somersaulting up onto her shoulder. ‘Utterly gorgeous ears you’ve got, Ella,’ he said, his voice suddenly serious.

  ‘How about I hide everyone in my skateboard bag?’ Ella said hopefully.

  ‘Why not?’ said Dixon. ‘Though I don’t think anyone’s going to see them. Humans can’t see Magicals – remember?’ he chortled, and Ella could feel his breath against her face. ‘What’s important, Ella-Bella,’ he said in a more kindly tone, ‘is that we are with you. Because as long as you are safe, there’s hope, pope, dope. See, that’s why we came to London rather than going straight to Willow Farm and waiting for you there. We had to get to you before the Duke did in order to ensure your safety. It’s all terribly complicated, don’t you know, hoe, big fat toe.’

  But Ella wasn’t listening anymore. She was on her way to the garden with her skateboard bag.

  While Ella and Dixon concealed at least thirty Magicals in her skateboard bag, her dungaree pockets, her sweatshirt hood and even under her hair, four Troggles hiding behind a couple of parking cones watched Number 26, Chester Row from across the road.

  At exactly five to ten, Ella appeared with her governess at the front door. ‘Not much of a threat there,’ chuckled one Troggle, seeing nothing more worrisome than a little girl with long wild hair jumping into the car. The others nodded, knocking their heads together in a disorderly fashion. Then, noticing that the boot of the car was still open, they sneaked across the road one by one and hopped in.