A Hero at the End of the World (11 page)

He held his hand up to the door—and then dropped it, suddenly nervous; Britain’s hero, scared of what his best friend’s parents would think of him.

But then he thought of Archibald Gardener Hobbes ringing this exact same bell only the day before last, and, squaring his shoulders, he pressed the doorbell.

A muffled, “Just a mo’!” came from the other side of the door. A handful of seconds later, it screeched open. At first he couldn’t see anything, but then it jerked open further and a familiar round face peered up at him.

“Oliver?” Georgia, Ewan’s mum, asked in disbelief.

It was startling how much she had aged in the past five years. The lines around her eyes had deepened into wrinkles, and her long hair, formerly black, had gone completely gray. He remembered now that the Maos were old enough to have retired from their jobs; Ewan, though the youngest in their class, had always had the oldest parents.

He didn’t have to fake his smile. “Hi.”

Georgia pulled him into a warm hug, excitedly rocking him from side to side. “Oh, Oliver, it’s so wonderful to see you,” she gushed. She pulled back to look at him. “You’re so grown up! Well, come in, come in,” she instructed, waving him inside.

“Ta,” he replied. Once inside, he toed off his shoes and slipped into a pair of guest slippers without thinking about it, a reflex from when he used to spend weeks at a time at the Mao house.

“I saw in the papers that you’re working for the Government now. You must be so busy.”

“I am,” he replied guiltily.

Georgia led him through the warm house and into the long, narrow kitchen in back. Nothing had changed in the five years since he’d been there last. The family photos were still hung on the bright yellow wall along the stairwell, the newest ones disappearing upstairs. The handprint scorch mark, memento of a spell gone wrong that had kept them both out of lessons for three days, was still burned into the wall by the toilet door. The furniture was the same, the smell the same, even the teakettle was the same bog-standard one that they’d always had. Oliver’s gut twisted.

“Look who showed up at our door,” Georgia announced.

Ewan’s dad, Edgar, sat at the table with tea and toast. He looked shocked. “My goodness, if it isn’t Oliver Abrams!”

He lurched to his feet—it was his father from whom Ewan had gotten both his height and his clumsiness—but Oliver waved him back. “Don’t get up, I won’t be long. I’m looking for Ewan, actually. Is he here?”

Georgia’s face lit up. “No, he’s at his new job. He’s an administrative assistant at a charity.”

A sense of dread washed over Oliver.

“Now, I know it’s not as nice as working for the Government,” Georgia continued, “but, well, you know Ewan.”

“At least he’s doing something,” Edgar grumbled.

The muscles in Oliver’s face strained from the effort to keep up his smile. “Oh, yeah, I think he mentioned that. Which charity is he working for again?”

“He says it’s some new magical practice from Germany,” Edgar said, rolling his eyes. “How that’s a charity I’ll never know.”

Georgia gestured to the kettle. “Cuppa tea, love?”

“No, thanks,” Oliver replied.

He glanced quickly around the kitchen, thinking. If Ewan and Archibald Gardener Hobbes had discussed their plan to attack him, they wouldn’t have done it in front of the Maos. There was only one room in the house where Ewan had ever had any true privacy.

“Do you mind if I nip up to Ewan’s room?” he asked in his most charming voice. “He has something of mine, and I really need it back.”

“Not at all, hun.”

Oliver remembered exactly where Ewan’s room was, upstairs and the first door on the left. It was the same and yet completely different than it had been five years ago. The walls were the same shade of sky blue and his duvet the same green and navy tartan; even the single bookshelf over the bed had the same old books on it. But the old football posters had been taken down and replaced with framed art reproductions, and the corner table was now sporting a telly and video game console. The box of action figures that had been on top of the wardrobe was now gone.

Behind the door hung a large photo of Oliver—the same one he gave out when people asked for his autograph. A few dozen darts arrayed his face like a lethal halo. Some of them were actually stuck into his face, and there was one for each eyeball.

“He’s kept up with me,” he said to himself, touched.

Maybe, he thought uncertainly, it was all a coincidence. He raked his eyes over the room a second time, lingering on the matchbox cars dotting the bookshelf and a wall calendar of the English rugby team. Ewan and Archibald could have become friends the normal way, by meeting a game shop or... whatever it was Ewan liked to do. Ewan could be working in a completely different, normal charity. He could have called Oliver because he had been thinking about him.

It was entirely possible that, for once in his life, Oliver was in the wrong.

And that was when he spotted a blue and gold brochure on Ewan’s desk. On the front cover were the words
How Zaubernegativum Can Change Your Life
!

He gingerly picked it up. An attractive white couple smiled up at him from the page. The first inside panel claimed that free seminars were held weekly in Sazzy headquarters, which would help determine whether or not a person was using magic to his or her full potential, and that after joining the organization (and, of course, paying a membership fee) new Sazzies would eventually learn the secrets to the universe. This came with enhanced powers, including better focus, increased vitality, and total invulnerability.

“What bollocks,” Oliver murmured in disgust.

He flung the brochure away from him, watching as it disappeared into the crack between the wall and the desk. He was gutted. His chest burned as though it had a hole in it, and acid bubbled up in his stomach. How could Ewan have done this to him? Hadn’t they been best friends?

In a blind rage, he grabbed an old shoebox off the desk and threw it, not caring in the slightest if it meant that Ewan would know that he had been there. It crashed loudly against the wall, spewing odds and ends across the carpet. Out rolled an ancient portable cassette player that Ewan’s dad had handed down to him—mostly as punishment—after he had lost his mobile phone while they had bunked off in sixth form. It clattered to the floor, and the empty tape deck popped open.

Oliver had an idea.

The bed seemed a lot smaller and closer to the ground than he remembered, but it was still where Ewan stored his old bits and pieces. Reaching underneath, Oliver pulled out a large plastic tub. Its lid was covered in a layer of dust, and it probably hadn’t been opened in years. He brushed off the top before opening it and rummaging around inside; he dug in between toys they had played with as kids, old school diaries, scarves and mittens that no longer fit, and an odd assortment of other rubbish.

Finally, he found what was looking for: Ewan’s collection of cassette tapes.

He grabbed the first recordable cassette that he could see. Inexplicably, “Becks” was scrawled on the label in Ewan’s familiar handwriting.

“Gotcha,” he whispered.

Oliver did a quick enchantment on the tape and player that would make them undetectable, a conjuration so basic that even Ewan could do it. He tucked the bulky cassette player into the pocket of his trousers and gave himself a critical look in the full-length mirror propped up against the side of the wardrobe. Like that, it was immediately obvious what he was doing, but once he had moved his wallet from his back pocket to his front, he simply looked like a fashion victim instead of a nutter carrying a portable tape player to a meeting with an old friend.

An old friend, now an enemy.

After a hug and a promise to return later, Oliver said goodbye to the Maos. Once outside, he swung toward the Overground station at Walthamstow Queen’s Road for a train that would take him to Hampstead Heath and whatever it was that Ewan had planned for him. He was ready.

Chapter 11

E
wan followed Archie up the Gardener Hobbeses’ winding staircase. They moved past rows and rows of portraits of various blond-haired, blue-eyed people, the kind of paintings whose crumbling, gold-leafed frames had names engraved on them. His trainers made embarrassingly clunky footfalls on the steps.

“Where are we going?” he asked, his stomach filling with butterflies. Archie tossed him a pointed look over his shoulder. “We’re getting you ready for your mission. Obviously.”

Ewan was disappointed to find that he had not been led to Archie’s room but instead to a luxurious sitting room in the rear of the house. The walls were lined with dark cupboards, and glass-top curio cabinets had been placed strategically around the room; behind the glass were bits and bobs ranging from tiny ivory figures to very old, very dear-looking books. A massive globe sat in one corner, and a statue of what may have been Apollo was in another. Ewan lingered by the door, unsure if he was allowed to touch anything; the whole setup reminded

him of the Enlightenment gallery in the British Museum.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“The Lord Ravager’s collection,” Archie replied without so much as a second glance at the riches around them.

Archie immediately pulled a drawer out of one of the curio cabinets and began rummaging through it, but after a moment closed that one and bent down to search the drawer below it. Ewan eyed his narrow, cardigan-clad back and looked away quickly, feeling flustered.

He was distracted when he spotted something unusual on a bottom shelf. “Is that a disco ball?” he asked, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Archie said absently, picking up a compass and inspecting it. “Knowing the Lord Ravager, it’s probably made out of solid white gold or something.”

“
Really
,” Ewan replied with interest.

“Here we go,” Archie exclaimed. The drawer slammed shut, and Archie was straightening back up, holding up two white lumps and a heavy-looking pin. He looked chuffed.

Ewan took a step back. “What are those for?” he asked nervously.

“Where’s your scarf?” Archie demanded. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a scarf.”

Ewan crossed his arms over his chest. “Why, am I not dressed properly for murder?”

Archie made a frustrated sound. “It’s
essential
that you have one. Wait here,” he called as he dashed out of the room.

It was far from ideal, being left alone in a room where it was likely that anything he touched would break, costing Ralph the Ravager thousands of pounds. He glanced back at the disco ball again and then up at the objects on display in the cupboards: the curio case nearest to him held an Egyptian cat mummy, several butterflies pinned to a board, and a torn page of a book. If Ewan pocketed a few of those items, he would be set for the rest of his life.

Moments later, Archie returned, carrying his blue and white school scarf. The small golden-yellow crest on one end was of a griffin.

“Oliver’s going to wonder why I’m wearing a scarf from a different school,” Ewan pointed out.

“Then tell him you bought it at a charity shop,” Archie replied. He dropped one of the lumps in Ewan’s palm; it felt light and springy, like a sponge. “Put this in your ear. And come here.”

Much to Ewan’s amazement, Archie wound the scarf around his neck, sticking the pin through the knot. He readjusted the way Ewan’s parka fell across his shoulders, frowning at it as if it had personally done him harm. Ewan wasn’t sure where to put his hands; he squeezed his fingers into a fist, trying not to fidget too much.

“Hmm,” Archie said, stepping back to appraise his work. He gazed at Ewan critically. “I suppose this will have to do.”

“I feel so attractive right now,” Ewan replied flatly, but he glanced down at the pin. It had faint runes etched into either side, with Thor’s hammer carved into the flat top. He assumed it was enchanted; he wished, not for the first time, that he were strong enough to sense whether or not something was magical.

“Now I’ll be able to see and hear everything round you in case he decides to attack,” Archie informed him, confirming what he’d been thinking. “It’s highly unlikely, seeing as how this is goody-goody Oliver Abrams, but one can never be too careful.”

Personally, Ewan doubted that Oliver would use magic on him. He figured Oliver would bludgeon him with his fists without any need to break out the aggro spells.

“Are you worried about me?” he asked.

“Of course not,” said Archie, his gaze fixed on something over his shoulder, “I’m worried you’ll fail and Lord Ravager will discover my mum was plotting against him and I’ll get shipped off somewhere unspeakable.”

“Like where?” Ewan asked curiously.

“I can’t tell you, obviously. It’s unspeakable.”

About a dozen emotions swirled inside Ewan all at once. “Will you miss when I’m in jail and/or Oliver beats me to death?”

“Neither of those things will happen,” Archie said, finally meeting his eyes. “Even if everything goes pear-shaped, you’ll come out of this all right.”

“Cheers, I guess,” he muttered. He pushed his glasses back up his nose, trying to hide how embarrassed he was.

“Go knock ‘im dead,” Archie said.

“That was a terrible joke,” said Ewan.

¤

Ewan sat outside the café at Parliament Hill, just inside Hampstead Heath, nibbling on a biscuit and watching the world pass by. It was a shockingly nice evening. In front of him was a group of American tourists arguing over where Hampstead Station was, and at the next table over two young women in tea dresses and heavy scarves were discussing work. Someone else’s dog sniffed at his feet, drooling all over his trainers.

He shouldn’t have felt nervous, he knew, because Oliver had been an arrogant git and it wasn’t like they were mates anymore or anything. But he hadn’t seen Oliver in nearly five years now. Had he changed? Did he miss Ewan? Did he ever feel sorry about what he had done?

Both Ralph the Ravager and Louise believed that Oliver would come merrily with Ewan to wherever he wanted, walking right into their trap. He wished he had their confidence.