Flitterwig Read online

They did, of course. They were too big for his face, but they allowed the boy to see – more than he had ever wanted to see, as it happened. How good it was to know that he only had to take them off to give himself a break from all the oddness. He was almost completely blind without them, but he was left in peace.

  Charlie had no idea that it might be the spectacles that had made all the problematic stuff begin in the first place. He only took them off in bed at night, and there were no animals in his room, so there was nothing there to bother him anyway.

  Right now, holding the last frog that he had not yet enchanted, he pulled the spectacles on and off his face, enjoying how he could choose to hear or ignore the creature begging him for mercy.

  His parents had never listened to him, ever, when he tried to explain the scary stuff that happened to him. In fact, he had always felt he scared them. So it was really no wonder that it came as a relief to find someone, anyone, indeed anything who believed him and could help him – slimy crocodile tail or not.

  Charlie’s attention was drawn from the contemplation of a future full of wonderful possibilities by the sight of Ella Montgomery on a skateboard, flying along the path that led down the hill from the Willow Farm house in hot pursuit of two labradors.

  Snoppit Farm and Willow Farm were remarkable in the fact that the homesteads of both were built, for no sensible reason, at the top of a pair of gentle hills that sat side by side like a dromedary’s humps. The hills were separated by a hawthorn hedge that cut right through the valley between them. On the Willow side, the hedge was perfectly groomed to match a perfectly mowed lawn. On the Snoppit side, it grew in wild and spiky abandon.

  Charlie often looked from his dilapidated home on the top of one hill to the stately Georgian home on the other, and wondered why the houses were built so foolishly exposed to the elements instead of being tucked away in the shelter of the valley, but rarely, if ever, did Ella come into view when he did so. So he was more than curious to see her approaching the boundary hedge of their properties at such speed.

  He stared at Ella, wondering what it was that made the Duke so eager to capture her. There was something about her that was quite fascinating, certainly. On the few times he had seen her, even though they had never met, Charlie had felt a strange pull towards her, as if he were a pin and she a powerful magnet.

  Ella was travelling so fast that she could have been flying, and Charlie was marvelling at her fine balance when the dogs stopped abruptly right in the middle of the path and started barking up an oak tree near the hedge. Charlie looked up and saw four of those stupid, fat, bulbous things he’d seen in the barn clambering up the tree as fast as their hobnailed boots would carry them. Ella tried to stop, but she couldn’t. To avoid colliding with the dogs, she turned her skateboard off the path. The board hit a clump of grass and came to a sudden standstill.

  Ella flew into the air and over the hedge. She landed with a splash, face down in the muddy pond, centimetres away from Charlie.

  She stood up, spitting mud, and stared at him, while Dixon hid himself deep inside her dungarees. Her gaze was hypnotising, and Charlie couldn’t look away or do anything other than stare back.

  Ella backed away from the boy very, very slowly. Memories of the fishmonger’s sons flickered through her mind. Even though she knew another child lived at Snoppit Farm, she’d never met him, and she didn’t trust the outcome at all.

  ‘Hello,’ said Charlie, deeply grateful not to be stuttering.

  Ella froze.

  Charlie didn’t know what else to say, so he didn’t say anything.

  And then Ella was off – squashing herself backwards through the hedge she’d flown over, grabbing her skateboard, and running across the lawn as fast as her feet would carry her towards the hidden shelter of the Dell.

  Feeling light-headed from the encounter, Charlie was examining a strange warmth welling up in his body when – THWACK! – something smacked him across the back of the head.

  A branch hovered in the air above him. It seemed to be gearing up to come at him again! Charlie ducked.

  ‘Halt!’ the Duke called out. Obediently, the branch froze. ‘So sorry, Charlie,’ the Duke said, not very convincingly. ‘Did the branch hit you? Well, fancy that. What a pity. Quelle dommage. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact you LET THE GIRL GET AWAY now, could it? No, no. Magic forbid such a thought.’

  Charlie looked at the Duke, his face uncertain. Sarcasm was not a form of humour he understood.

  On the other side of the hedge, high in the oak tree, the Troggles clung on for dear life as Noughts and Crosses barked themselves hoarse.

  Ella was nowhere to be seen.

  chapter 9

  willows & woodpeckers

  At the entrance to the Dell, safely out of sight, Ella stood still for a moment to catch her breath. Gently she touched her face, tender from the fall. The rising shame of losing the entire Royal Court and making a fool of herself in front of that Snoppit boy caught in her throat. Hoping that the dogs hadn’t been chasing the Magicals after all, she headed towards the willow tree by the pond to see if they might have made their way down there.

  When she reached the tree, her heart fell. No Dixon, no Wrinkles. Not so much as a solitary sprite. Only a woodpecker knocking away at the bottom of the tree trunk, surrounded by a multitude of spiders weaving webs. She was about to turn back for home when she felt something in her pocket. She reached in and her hand grazed the familiar smoothness of the spectacles.

  ‘Oh you total idiot,’ she said out loud, amazed at her own stupidity. Of course, she couldn’t see the Magicals without the spectacles! She put them on, and the world lit up. Dixon, visible to her now, stood on the ground in front of her, hands on hips. She crouched down to him.

  ‘At last, fast, past! Goodness me! That’s what the spectacles are for! For you to see us, you silly donker!’ he hollered hoarsely.

  Ella grinned, completely embarrassed.

  ‘I’ve been yelling at you for ages,’ Dixon said, still yelling. ‘I’ve got quite a sore throat now, don’t you know, po, throw!’

  A flurry of activity unfolded behind him. The woodpecker moved aside to let white elves pull bracken up against the hole it had drilled. When Ella looked closely, she could see that the spiders were weaving their webs around the tree in a kind of safety net. In a small alcove to one side, the three gnomes sat at a log table with a bowl shape carved into the middle. Two sylphs flitted this way and that, planting tiny seeds handed to them by Wrinkles. As they did so, spotted mushrooms sprouted. In the branches of the willow tree, sprites used leaves curled into funnels to pour a clear liquid into chestnut shells. Ella hoped they had managed to brew a potion that would help the Queen.

  ‘Nothing’s working yet, bet,’ Dixon said, leaping across her knee, up her dungarees, on to her shoulder, and reading her mind in that way he had. It felt oddly reassuring to have a pixie perched on her shoulder. He planted a small, wet kiss on her cheek.

  ‘I thought you were all…’ Ella said softly, very moved by his affection, so foreign to her. To her shame and mortification, a tear slipped from her eye. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, but the tear felt like a warm liquid marble exploding from her tear duct.

  Dixon grabbed his backpack and opened it to catch the pearly droplet. ‘Whaaayhaaaay,’ he said. ‘Very powerful, Clearheart tears. Mustn’t go to waste. Rhymes with haste. No, no. Rhymes with glow.’

  The Queen’s physician sprites, a couple of long, pointy creatures with shimmering wings, heard what he said and flew up to Ella. They touched her cheeks, stroked her eyelashes and peered right into her eyes.

  ‘So sorry to bother,’ said one, hovering close and whispering in her ear, ‘but it is written that the Clearheart’s tears can help protect a Magical from many ills.’

  ‘It is possible that your tears could soothe the Queen greatly,’ said the other, trying to prise Dixon’s backpack from his fingers.

  ‘Please cry more,’
said another.

  ‘Stop it!’ Dixon admonished them, swatting the curious physicians away before Ella could respond. ‘You know that’s naughty, forty. Wanting someone to cry for your own selfish purposes! Let’s go over there, Ella-Bella,’ he said protectively, relinquishing his backpack to the sprites nonetheless. ‘The gnomes have updates for you.’

  Ella followed Dixon past the evolving campsite and over to where the gnomes sat at their log table. A smoky-silver elf nodded up at her, respectfully. Ella smiled back. Everybody in the whole camp seemed to be looking at her, wide-eyed and wondering.

  ‘If you would be good enough to sit, Miss Montgomery,’ a gnome said in a deferential voice. Obediently Ella crouched down beside the table. Dixon danced across her lap.

  ‘You too!’ snapped the gnome. Dixon put one hand over his face and pushed at the top of his head with the other to sit himself down. Ella gave him an affectionate pat, noticing as she did so that there was water in the bowl carved into the middle of the log table.

  Wrinkles joined them. He sat down in a flurry, clearing his throat. ‘I’m sure this is all happening very fast for you,’ he said, leaning over to Ella, his kindly eyes sparkling, ‘and there is a lot to take in, but we need you to listen very carefully.’ He inhaled rather dramatically and had a short coughing fit. ‘We have made contact with Manna,’ he announced, pursing his lips for effect.

  Ella looked blank.

  ‘Your maternal grandmother, of whom we spoke earlier,’ Wrinkles reminded her. ‘We sent a robin redbreast to give her a message. Far more reliable than a carrier pigeon. The message says you are in grave danger because, well, frankly, you are.’ He paused a moment to let Ella digest this fact. ‘And if that doesn’t make Manna get in touch, she’s far more stubborn than we expected. She may have renounced Flitterwiggery, but if we know anything about grandmothers, human or otherwise, she’ll break her vow to avoid magic if she thinks you might come to harm.

  ‘The gnomes have consulted the Waters,’ Wrinkles went on, motioning to the brimming bowl before them. ‘As suspected, the Duke is nearby, Stretchified, and for some unfathomable reason disguised as a sort of reptile. You must beware of him, Ella. He has broken the Ban himself and made contact with Saul of the Flitterwigs and another young Flitterwig we don’t know much about. A number of our own have defected with him to create an army against Magus. Lowly types. Lured by sugar, of course, so they all have Trogglitis.’

  ‘Trogglitis?’ asked Ella, mystified.

  One of the gnomes explained. ‘Magicals love sugar, and can become addicted to it,’ he said. ‘If they eat too much of it, they begin to rot. They rot much faster than humans. Because they are sensitive to anything that isn’t left in its natural state, they are in particular danger when it comes to highly processed sugar, especially if it is full of chemicals. Trogglitis is a horrible condition. First of all, it makes them talk nonsense and lose their balance. Then they become forgetful. Then they grow jittery and impatient and stressed out. Then they start to rot and smell revolting. Then they turn black and their eyes turn red. Then they swell up. Then their extremities melt into nasty pincer-like contraptions, and they become mean and angry and dangerous. Until, ultimately, they disintegrate altogether.’ The gnome raised his bushy eyebrows significantly.

  The idea of a lust for sugar turning a Magical into a dark, rotting, mean Troggle didn’t seem very appealing to Ella, but there were all sorts of things she couldn’t quite grasp at the moment. And she had to admit that she had a particularly sweet tooth herself, so it would be unfair to judge.

  Wrinkles continued: ‘And I’m sorry to say that things have gone from bad to worse. The Sacred Dewdrops have vanished and hidden themselves. The Duke, silly fool, went to the wrong farm when he arrived on Earth. That, coupled with the Queen’s presence here on Earth when she should be protecting Magus, must have alerted the Dewdrops to the fact that all is not well. They’ll be in a state of complete uncertainty now, unable to trust the Royal Magicals anymore. Because they are so pure, you see, they aren’t very good at spotting a lie. Having discovered that they can’t trust the Duke, how will they know if they can trust his wife? And if you can’t trust the Supreme Rulers of Magus, who can you trust, for Magic’s sake?’

  Wrinkles’ voice was rising to a squeaky, distressed pitch, and his freckles began to flare through his face powder. A gnome patted him reassuringly on the arm. ‘Suffice to say,’ he said, recovering himself, ‘the Dewdrops aren’t answering the Queen’s call, and her vulnerability to Earthly pollution means that her powers are failing by the hour. Without access to Magus, she will grow steadily weaker. Remember, Ella, the Mirrors to Magus froze within hours of the Queen’s departure. Every Magical on Earth is trapped here.’ He took a long drink from a gourd strapped around his waist.

  Ella rubbed her forehead and straightened her back, trying to look serious and responsible and just a little bit as if any of this was making sense to her.

  ‘Why would the Duke do such a thing as steal the Dewdrops from Magus in the first place, you might wonder?’ said Wrinkles.

  Ella had wondered no such thing. She was far too busy trying to keep up.

  ‘Well,’ said Wrinkles, ‘the Duke wants to take over the Kingdom.’ His voice was conspiratorial. ‘He’s tired of being subordinate to the Queen and has become obsessed with the concept of Progress, particularly the forbidden use of engine-driven machinery. The Queen outlaws anything in the Kingdom that can harm its environment, you see. But the Duke wants to form an alliance with the Flitterwigs so that he can change this natural balance and bring machines to Magus.’

  Wrinkles paused, gazing at the bowl carved into the log table. A gnome to his left grunted. Wrinkles looked at him, and then stared more intently into the bowl. ‘I could tell you so much more, Ella,’ he said, ‘but you’d better get going now. Your grandmother’s starting to worry.’

  Wrinkles pointed to the bowl, and sure enough, when Ella looked closely at the water, she saw in its depths a teensy-weensy Granny pacing up and down the drive, looking terribly preoccupied.

  Ella walked back up to the house, light-headed and breathless. At the door she sucked on her inhaler. She could hear Granny talking to Grandpa in the kitchen. She was about to go in when she was stopped in her tracks by Granny’s raised voice.

  ‘But why would that woman call me? After all these years?’ she was saying, sounding cross and worried all at once.

  ‘Manna is the child’s grandmother, for heaven’s sake,’ Grandpa insisted. Ella had never heard him sound cross. ‘Who cares why she called? It’s been seven years, and the child has a right to know her own family.’

  ‘But what about the peculiar behaviour?’ said Granny. ‘I won’t put up with all that again. I really won’t.’

  Ella crept out of the house and sat on a bench near the back porch, her head pounding with the secret knowledge of her own new discoveries. Things were moving fast.

  Something nudged at her head. When she reached up to push it away, her hand touched a velvety object. She spun around to see what it was. Truffles, startled, backed into the wall of the house.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Ella. The giraffe’s eyes bulged under their long black lashes. She saw that he was nervous, and spoke softly. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I just got a fright, that’s all.’ The giraffe edged forwards again. Ella could smell his hot, grassy breath, and it calmed her nerves.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Truffles.’ Grandpa’s voice startled them both. The giraffe scrambled over to him and tried to stick his nose in Grandpa’s pocket.

  ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Grandpa said.

  ‘Yes, he really is,’ said Ella, sitting back down on the bench. She tucked a hand deep in her pocket and felt the spectacles resting there.

  ‘Notoriously hard to train, giraffes,’ Grandpa said. He scratched behind Truffles’ ears, and the giraffe snorted and stretched his neck up, nearly lifting him off the ground. Grandpa let his hand fall f
ree. Gently shooing the giraffe away, he sat down on the bench next to his granddaughter.

  ‘Now, Ella,’ he said, ‘we got a call from your other grandmother, Manna, today. I know you haven’t seen her for years but, well, um – I’m going to take you to see her tomorrow.’

  chapter 10

  manna & magic

  Ella didn’t see Granny the next morning. Grandpa made breakfast for her, which was highly unusual, and told her to pack an overnight bag. Ella ran upstairs and got ready, wondering why Granny didn’t want to see her. First her father, now her grandmother. Soon there’d be no one human left to talk to! She grabbed the spectacles and put them on.

  ‘About time too!’ Dixon hollered in her ear, making her jump. She could feel his hands resting against her head and his legs hanging over her shoulders.

  ‘You’re really very light, aren’t you?’ Ella remarked, her spirit buoyed up at once by the pixie’s friendly voice.

  ‘Magicals have very light bones, zones, drones,’ Dixon said matter-of-factly. ‘And we’re full of hot air!’ he added, puffing out his chest. ‘So what’s the plan, man, pan, fan?’

  ‘We’re going to Manna’s,’ said Ella.

  ‘Not another Flitterwig!’ Dixon exclaimed, falling off her shoulder onto the floor.

  In the car Grandpa tried to explain why Granny was reluctant to talk about Manna. Granny had always been very protective of Ella since the accident, he told her. Manna was a bit odd (‘eccentric’ was the word he used) and somewhat reckless. But Manna had reached out by telephoning yesterday and insisting that she see Ella, and Grandpa felt it was as good a time as any for Ella and Manna to reconnect.

  Ella sat in silence, listening to Grandpa talking and the hum of the engine vibrating through her feet. There was something about travelling in cars, the smell of it, all plastic and burning, that made her so woozy she had to concentrate hard not to throw up.