Glubbslyme (10 page)

The little black bundle of baby clothing by the greenhouse did not even acknowledge Rebecca’s message.

‘All right. Stay sulking. See if I care,’ said Rebecca, and she ran off to Sarah’s house.

Mandy wasn’t there! Sarah’s mother had gone out shopping with Sarah’s sisters so they had the house to themselves.

‘What have you been doing in the holidays then?’ Sarah asked.

Rebecca opened her mouth to start telling her – but then she remembered Glubbslyme’s warning. She didn’t want him to lose his magical powers. She wondered if she could try hinting – talking in a
general
sort of way about flying and slugs and storms – but Sarah had got started on what she’d been doing now.

‘And I’ve got a new Barbie doll, come and see,’ she finished.

So they went up to Sarah’s bedroom and admired the new Barbie while the old shabby Barbie sulked in a corner. Sarah wanted to dress up the new Barbie and let her take part in a fashion parade. She lent the old Barbie to Rebecca and said she could join in the fashion parade too. Rebecca got bored with the fashion parade (Sarah bagged all the best clothes for the New Barbie) so she stripped Old Barbie naked and made her prance around being a nudist. Then she dressed her up in one of Sarah’s fur gloves and said she was a Cave Woman. She gave her a pencil spear and made her have a very exciting fight with a ferocious mammoth (a blue plush elephant) and a sabre-toothed tiger (a toy dog with two toothpicks stuck into his fur).

Sarah decided that New Barbie might like to be a Cave Woman too and dressed her up in the other fur glove. They were trekking through the deep snows of the Ice Age (Rebecca had nipped down to the kitchen and found a bag of flour. She had tipped it out on a newspaper so as not to make a mess of the carpet, but it had spread rather a lot, and Sarah was looking a bit worried) when the doorbell rang.

‘Oh help, I hope that’s not my Mum,’ said Sarah.

But it wasn’t Sarah’s Mum, it was Mandy.

‘Hi!’

‘I thought you said you were going into town to get some new shoes,’ said Sarah.

‘Well, I did. And now I’m back. So we can play after all,’ said Mandy.

Rebecca didn’t say anything. She clenched her floury fists. So Sarah had only invited her round because Mandy couldn’t come.

‘What’s she doing here?’ said Mandy.

‘She’s come to play,’ said Sarah.

‘I’ve got to go now,’ said Rebecca.

‘Good,’ said Mandy. ‘What’s that white stuff you’ve got all over you?’

‘We were just messing around,’ said Sarah quickly. ‘Are those your new shoes?’

‘Yes, do you like them? Look, they’ve got real heels, see?’

‘Oh you lucky
thing.
I wanted ones like that but Mum wouldn’t let me. Look, Becky, aren’t they lovely?’

Rebecca shrugged. They were wonderful grown-up shoes with pointy toes and elegant heels. They were the sort of shoes she longed to wear, but Dad always made her have clumpy old things for school and baby sandals for play. He said that fashionable shoes with real heels were very bad for growing feet.

‘My Dad says—’ she began, and then wanted to bite her tongue out.

‘My Dad says!’ Mandy shrieked, and even Sarah burst out laughing.

‘What does your Dad say, Parrot Face?’ sneered Mandy.

‘Never you mind,’ Rebecca mumbled. ‘I’m going now, Sarah. Bye.’

‘Don’t go, Becky,’ said Sarah. ‘We can all three play together.’

‘I don’t want to,’ said Rebecca.

‘I don’t want to play with Parrot-Face,’ said Mandy. ‘Here Sarah, try on my shoes?’

Rebecca watched as Sarah undid her old trainers and stepped into the shiny black shoes. They looked a bit odd with her stripy socks but Sarah squealed in delight.

‘Aren’t they fantastic! Hey, look, I can walk in them – watch me.’ She wiggled backwards and forwards, her ankles wobbling.

‘Let’s have a go,’ said Rebecca.

‘Okay,’ said Sarah, taking off one of the shoes.

But Mandy snatched it away.

‘
You’re
not trying them on, Parrot Face. I don’t want them stretched right out of shape.’

‘See if I care,’ said Rebecca, although it was obvious to everyone that she did. ‘I’m going home.’

‘You keep saying that, but you don’t go,’ said Mandy, her hand on one hip.

So Rebecca really had to go. She stamped home in her sandals and went straight up to her room and lay on her bed. She lay for about five minutes but it began to be boring and she was starting to feel hungry, so she decided to go down and make some lunch. She cheered herself up concocting a new kind of savoury Jumbo sandwich (with layers of peanut butter, cheese, and cold baked beans) and then she made a sweet Jumbo sandwich (with layers of demerara sugar, honey, and syrup) and went in search of Glubbslyme.

She spotted him sunbathing in the greenhouse, snapping up flies with a smile on his face, but when she opened the door he immediately huddled into a corner and did his best to look dejected.

‘Lunch-time, Glubbslyme,’ she said brightly.

‘It has been such a long day that I did think it
supper
-time,’ said Glubbslyme mournfully. ‘I trust you had a delightful meeting with your special friend?’

‘You’re my special friend, Glubbslyme. Come and see the treat I’ve made you for lunch. Come on, there’s a good boy.’

‘I am not a boy, I am an extremely elderly amphibian, and I am not good, I am very bad indeed – or I did
used
to be,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘How can I practise the Black Arts under your puny protection? I have not caused any disease, death or serious damage since I emerged from the pond. I may as well return to its murky deeps. You do not appreciate me – or my powers. You prefer to play with your little friend. Therefore return me to my pond, if you please – though I will lunch first, before the journey. A
treat
for lunch, you said?’

‘Come and see,’ said Rebecca.

Glubbslyme wasn’t in a mood to enthuse, and he simply sniffed when he saw the sweet Jumbo sandwich carefully cut up into toad-size triangles. But he ate it up eagerly, smacking his lips, and even licked the plate when he thought Rebecca wasn’t watching.

‘I suppose I’d better take you back to your pond now,’ Rebecca teased.

Glubbslyme looked alarmed.

‘I ought not embark on a long journey with a full stomach.’

‘So when shall I take you?’

‘I did not state categorically that I must be returned,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘I merely stated that my powers are wasted with you. I feel them withering within me. I shall lack the power to put a simple hex on someone soon. Come along, child, have you
no
enemies?’

‘I do,’ said Rebecca darkly.

‘Then let us hex them forthwith,’ said Glubbslyme, flexing his four limbs in preparation. ‘Name all the persons.’

‘There’s only one person actually,’ said Rebecca. ‘Her name’s Mandy.’

‘Her other names?’

‘I don’t know.’

Glubbslyme sighed. ‘We must endeavour to be specific lest we hex all Mandys within fifty miles. What are this particular Mandy’s characteristics?’

‘She’s pretty and she’s very nasty and she’s got new black shoes with high heels.’

‘That will suffice. Halt, hapless child, so winsome, wicked, and well-shod. We are about to put a hex upon you.’

‘Just a little jokey hex Glubbslyme. Give her the hiccups or a boil on her bottom. Nothing serious,’ said Rebecca.

She started the chant of seven Glubbslymes but she felt a bit anxious. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. That was the trouble. It was a bad idea. Bad magic.

‘Stop it, Glubbslyme. Stop your eyes revolving. I’ve changed my mind!’ Rebecca shouted.

But it was too late.

The slugs were crawling all over Mandy. They wriggled up her arms and down her legs into her new shiny shoes. They spiralled up her neck and glided across her glossy pink lips. Rebecca screamed and tried to pick them off Mandy but she was whirled away by a sudden tempest. She floated helplessly up in the air while she watched poor Mandy writhing down below. She ran to the pond to try to wash the slugs away but someone had tied Mandy’s thumbs to the heels of her new shoes. She hurled herself into the pond but she didn’t come up.

‘Help!
Help
! Mandy’s drowning and it’s all my fault!’ Rebecca screamed.

‘Hey, hey! Wake up, poppet, you’re having a nasty dream. It’s all right, Dad’s here.’

Rebecca woke up and found herself sobbing in Dad’s arms. He sat on the edge of her bed and rocked her as if she were a baby.

‘Oh Dad, what am I going to do? Poor Mandy,’ Rebecca sobbed.

‘There now. It was just a dream,’ said Dad.

‘I let him put a hex on her,’ Rebecca wailed.

‘Come on, pet, you’re still half asleep,’ said Dad.

‘No I’m not. Oh Dad, you don’t understand,’ said Rebecca in despair.

She had tried so hard to get Glubbslyme to remove the hex but he insisted it was impossible.

‘What is done cannot be undone,’ he had snapped. ‘What ails you, child? I thought you detested this girl? Have a little resolution if you please.’

Glubbslyme had retired to the greenhouse, sulking. Rebecca had spent a very miserable afternoon and evening, worrying.

‘What’s up, pet? Can’t you tell me?’ Dad said now, tucking her up. ‘You’ve been very quiet and odd today. It’s not because I got cross with you about that old shopping bag, is it?’

Rebecca had washed it out as best she could but it was still in a pretty disgusting condition when Dad came across it in the cupboard. (She had had to throw her pillow straight in the dustbin). Dad had got very angry when Rebecca failed to give him an adequate explanation for the state of the shopping bag.

‘No Dad,’ Rebecca mumbled, hoping he wouldn’t notice she no longer had a pillow.

‘Then what is it? What was all that about a hex? Have you been making up some imaginary game and it’s started to get too real and scary?’ said Dad.

‘Sort of,’ said Rebecca unhappily.

‘I suppose it’s because you’re left on your own such a lot,’ said Dad, sighing. ‘I don’t know what to do about these silly old holidays. I can’t get any more time off work. I wonder about advertising for some nice lady to look after you?’

‘A babysitter?’ said Rebecca indignantly. ‘I’m not a baby! I’m all right, Dad. I like being by myself.’

‘Why don’t you play with Sarah more?’

‘She doesn’t want to play with me,’ Rebecca mumbled.

‘Of course she does! You two are best friends, aren’t you?’

‘She’s got another friend now. Mandy,’ said Rebecca, and she started crying again.

‘Ah!’ said Dad, thinking he’d got to the bottom of things at last. ‘You were mumbling Mandy when you were still dreaming. I
see.
I don’t suppose you hit it off with this Mandy, right?’

Rebecca nodded and cried harder.

‘You girls! Why can’t you all be friends together? How about inviting Sarah
and
Mandy over to play tomorrow? Do something that’s really fun together. Why don’t you buy a cake mix and make fairy cakes, you like doing that?’

‘Mandy won’t want to come, Dad.’

‘Of course she will. You try asking her.’

‘I’m not sure she’ll be
able
to come.’

‘Why?’

‘Because – because . . . I’m scared she might be ill,’ wailed Rebecca. ‘She might be covered in warts or worse – and it’s all my fault.’

Dad didn’t seem to think this likely. He told Rebecca she was still half asleep. He yawned, because he felt half asleep himself, gave her a kiss goodnight and went back to his own bed.

Rebecca was not half asleep. She was wide awake. She lay tossing and turning, unable to rest her head, unable to rest at all. When it started to get light at long last, she thought she heard a croak from the bottom of the garden. Rebecca couldn’t wait any longer. She crept downstairs and out into the garden. The dew was so thick she had to paddle through the grass. Her bedroom slippers were never going to be the same again.

She found Glubbslyme just curling up at the bottom of his pot for a dawn snooze, after a night’s sluggorging. (The last of the Baker plague). He was not very pleased to be disturbed.

‘I’m sorry, Glubbslyme, but I’m desperate,’ said Rebecca, and she started to cry.

‘Desperate?’ said Glubbslyme drily. ‘Is the house aflame? Have cut-throats seized your father? Are soldiers running amok through the streets? If so, I will assist. If not,
de
sist.’

‘I can’t,’ said Rebecca, and she cried harder.

Glubbslyme sighed irritably, but when she went on crying he emerged from his pot.

‘Desist,’ he said, but much more gently.

‘I’m so worried about Mandy,’ Rebecca howled. ‘I keep having nightmares about her.’

‘What is done cannot be undone,’ Glubbslyme repeated, but he sounded as if he might be wavering. ‘Unless . . .’