Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci (2 page)

“Out,” he said. “Both of you. Get out and wait, and your daddy will find you.”

Dog and child turned and stared at the open door. Their faces, puzzled and slightly indignant, turned back to the Willing Warlock. It was their car, after all.

The Willing Warlock tried a bit of coaxing. “Get out. Nice dog. Good boy.”

“Grrrr,” said the dog, and the child said, “I’m not a boy.”

“I meant the dog,” the Willing Warlock said hastily. The dog’s growl enlarged to a rumble that shook the car. Perhaps the dog was not a boy either. The Willing Warlock knew when he was beaten. It was a pity, when it was such a nice car, but this world was full of cars. Provided he made sure the next one was empty, he could steal one anytime he liked. He slammed the rear door shut and started to open his own.

The dog was too quick for him. Before he had reached the handle, its great teeth were fastened into the shoulder of his jacket, right through the cloth. He could feel them digging into his skin underneath. And it growled harder than ever. “Let go,” the Willing Warlock said, without hope, and sat very still.

“Go on driving,” commanded the child.

“Why?” said the Willing Warlock.

“Because I like driving in cars,” said the child. “Towser will let you go when you drive.”

“I don’t know how to make the car go,” the Willing Warlock said sullenly.

“Stupid,” said the child. “Daddy uses those keys there, and he pushes on the pedals with his feet.”

Towser backed this up with another growl and dug his teeth in a little. Towser clearly knew his job, and his job seemed to be to back up anything the child said. The Willing Warlock sighed, thinking of years in prison, but he found the keys and located the pedals. He turned the keys. He pushed on the pedals. The engine started with a roar.

Then another voice spoke. “You have forgotten to fasten your seat belt,” it said. “I cannot proceed until you do so.”

It was here that the Willing Warlock realized that his troubles had only just begun. The car was bullying him now. He had no idea where the seat belt was, but it is amazing what you can do if a mouthful of white fangs are fastened into your shoulder. The Willing Warlock found the seat belt. He did it up. He found a lever that said “forward” and pushed it. He pressed on pedals. The engine roared, but nothing else happened.

“You are wasting petrol,” the car told him acidly. “Release the hand brake. I cannot pro—”

The Willing Warlock found a sort of stick in the floor and moved it. It snapped like a crocodile, and the car jerked. “You are wasting petrol,” the car said, boringly. “Release the foot brake. I cannot proceed—”

Luckily, since Towser was growling even louder than the car, the Willing Warlock took his left foot off a pedal first. They shot off down the road. “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him.

“Oh, shut up,” the Willing Warlock said. But nothing shut the car up, he discovered, except not pressing so hard on the right-hand pedal.

Towser, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as soon as the car moved. He let go of the Willing Warlock and loomed behind him on the backseat, while the child sat and chanted, “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

The Willing Warlock kept on driving. There is nothing else you can do if a child, a dog the size of Towser, and a car all combine to make you. At least the car was easy to drive. All the Willing Warlock had to do was sit there not pressing the pedal too much and keep turning into the emptiest streets. He had time to think. He knew the dog’s name. If he could find out the child’s name, then he could work a spell on them both to make them let him go.

“What’s your name?” he asked, turning into a wide straight road with room for three cars abreast in it.

“Jemima Jane,” said the child. “Go on, go on, go on driving.”

The Willing Warlock drove, muttering a spell. While he did, Towser made a flowing sort of jump and landed in the passenger seat beside him, where he sat in a royal way, staring out at the road. The Willing Warlock cowered away from him and finished the spell in a gabble. The beast was as big as a lion!

“You are wasting petrol,” remarked the car.

Perhaps these things caused the Willing Warlock to muddle the spell. All that happened was that Towser turned invisible.

There was an instant shriek from the backseat. “Where’s Towser?”

The invisible space on the front passenger seat growled horribly. The Willing Warlock did not know where its teeth were. He hurriedly revoked the spell. Towser loomed beside him, looking reproachful.

“You’re not to do that again!” said Jemima Jane.

“I won’t if we all get out and walk,” the Willing Warlock said cunningly.

A silence met this suggestion, with an undercurrent of snarl to it. The Willing Warlock gave up for the moment and kept on driving. There were no houses by the road anymore, only trees, grass, and a few cows, and the road stretched into the distance, endlessly. The nice gray car, labeled “WW100” in front and “XYZ123” behind, zoomed gently onward for nearly an hour. The sun began setting in gory clouds, behind some low green hills.

“I want my supper,” announced Jemima Jane. At the word
supper
, Towser yawned and started to dribble. He turned to look thoughtfully at the Willing Warlock, obviously wondering which bits of him tasted best. “Towser’s hungry, too,” said Jemima Jane.

The Willing Warlock turned his eyes sideways to look at Towser’s great pink tongue draped over Towser’s large white fangs. “I’ll stop at the first place we see,” he said obligingly. He began turning over schemes for giving both of them—not to speak of the car—the slip the moment they allowed him to stop. If he made himself invisible, so that the dog could not find him—

He seemed to be in luck. Just then a large blue notice that said
HARBURY SERVICES
came into view, with a picture of a knife and fork underneath. The Willing Warlock turned into it with a squeal of tires. “You are wasting petrol,” the car protested.

The Willing Warlock took no notice. He stopped with a jolt among a lot of other cars, turned himself invisible, and tried to jump out. But he had forgotten the seat belt. It held him in place long enough for Towser to fix his fangs in the sleeve of his coat, and that seemed to be enough to make Towser turn invisible, too. “You have forgotten to set the hand brake,” said the car.

“Doh!” snarled the Willing Warlock miserably, and put the hand brake on. It was not easy, with Towser’s invisible fangs grating his arm.

“You’re to fetch me lots and lots,” Jemima Jane said. It did not seem to trouble her that both of them had vanished. “Towser, make sure he brings me an ice cream.”

The Willing Warlock climbed out of the car, lugging the invisible Towser. He tried some more cunning. “Come with me and show me which ice cream you want,” he called back. Several people in the car park looked around to see where the invisible voice was coming from.

“I want to stay in the car. I’m tired,” whined Jemima Jane.

The invisible teeth fastened in the Willing Warlock’s sleeve rumbled a little. Invisible dribble ran on his hand. “Oh, all right,” he said, and set off for the restaurant, accompanied by four invisible heavy paws.

Maybe it was a good thing they were both invisible. There was a big sign on the door:
NO DOGS
. And the Willing Warlock still had no money. He went to the long counter and picked up pies and scones with the hand Towser left him free. He stuffed them into his pocket so that they would become invisible, too.

Someone pointed to the Danish pastry he picked up next and screamed, “Look! A ghost!” Then there were screams further down the counter. The Willing Warlock looked. A very large chocolate gâteau, with a snout-shaped piece missing from it, was trotting at chest level across the dining area. Towser was helping himself, too. People backed away, yelling. The gâteau broke into a gallop and barged out through the glass doors with a splat. At the same moment, someone grabbed the Danish pastry from the Willing Warlock’s hand.

It was the girl behind the cash desk, who was not afraid of ghosts. “You’re the Invisible Man or something,” she said. “Give that back.”

The Willing Warlock panicked again and ran after the gâteau. He meant to go on running, as fast as he could, in the opposite direction from the nice car. But as soon as he barged through the door, he found the gâteau waiting for him, lying on the ground. A warning growl and hot breath on his hand suggested that he pick the gâteau up and come along. Teeth in his trouser leg backed up this suggestion. Dismally, the Willing Warlock obeyed.

“Where’s my ice cream?” Jemima Jane asked ungratefully.

“There wasn’t any,” said the Willing Warlock as Towser herded him into the car. He threw the gâteau, the scones, and a pork pie onto the backseat. “Be thankful for what you’ve got.”

“Why?” asked Jemima Jane.

The Willing Warlock gave up. He turned himself visible again and sat in the driving seat to eat the other pork pie. He could feel Towser snuffing him from time to time make sure he stayed there. In between, he could hear Towser eating. Towser made such a noise that the Willing Warlock was glad he was invisible. He looked to make sure. And there was Towser, visible again in all his hugeness, sitting in the backseat licking his vast chops. As for Jemima Jane, the Willing Warlock had to look away quickly. She was chocolate all over. There was a river of chocolate down her front and more plastered into her red curls like mud.

“Why aren’t you going on driving for?” Jemima Jane demanded. Towser at once surged to his huge feet to back up the demand.

“I am, I am!” the Willing Warlock said, hastily starting the engine.

“You have forgotten to fasten your seat belt,” the car reminded him priggishly. And as the car moved forward, it added, “It is now lighting-up time. You require headlights.”

The Willing Warlock started the wipers, rolled down the windows, played music, and finally managed to turn on the lights. He drove back onto the big road, hating all three of them. And drove. Jemima Jane stood up on the backseat behind him. The gâteau had made her distressingly lively. She wanted to talk. She grabbed one of the Willing Warlock’s ears in a sticky chocolate hand for balance and breathed gâteau fumes and questions into his other ear.

“Why did you take our car for? What are all those prickles on your chin for? Why don’t you like me holding your nose for? Why don’t you smell nice? Where are we going to? Shall we drive in the car all night?” and many more such questions.

The Willing Warlock was forced to answer all these questions in the right way. If he did not answer, Jemima Jane dragged at his hair, or twisted his ear, or took hold of his nose. If the answer he gave did not please Jemima Jane, Towser rose up growling, and the Willing Warlock had quickly to think of a better answer. It was not long before he was as plastered with chocolate as Jemima Jane was. He thought that it was not possible for a person to be more unhappy.

He was wrong. Towser suddenly stood up and staggered about the backseat, making odd noises.

“Towser’s going to go sick,” Jemima Jane said.

The Willing Warlock squealed to a halt on the hard shoulder and threw all four doors open wide. Towser would have to get out, he thought. Then he could drive straight off again and leave Towser by the roadside.

As he thought that, Towser landed heavily on top of him. Sitting on the Willing Warlock, he got rid of the gâteau onto the edge of the motorway. It took him some time. Meanwhile the Willing Warlock wondered if Towser was actually as heavy as a cow, or whether he only felt that way.

“Now go on, go on driving,” Jemima Jane said when Towser at last had finished.

The Willing Warlock obeyed. He drove on. Then it was the car’s turn. It flashed a red light at him. “You are running out of petrol,” it remarked.

“Good,” said the Willing Warlock feelingly.

“Go on driving,” said Jemima Jane, and Towser, as usual, backed her up.

The Willing Warlock drove on through the night. A new and unpleasant smell now filled the car. It did not mix well with chocolate. The Willing Warlock supposed it must be Towser. He drove and the car boringly repeated its remark about petrol until, as they passed a sign saying
BENTWELL SERVICES
, the car suddenly changed its tune and said, “You have started on the reserve tank.” Then it became quite talkative and added, “You have petrol for ten more miles only. You are running out of petrol—”

“I heard you,” said the Willing Warlock. “I shall have to stop,” he told Jemima Jane and Towser, with great relief. Then, to stop Jemima Jane telling him to drive on, and because the new smell was mixing with the chocolate worse than ever, he said, “And what is this smell in here?”

“Me,” Jemima Jane said, rather defiantly. “I went in my pants. It’s your fault. You didn’t take me to the Ladies’.”

At which Towser at once sprang up, growling, and the car added, “You are running out of petrol.”

The Willing Warlock groaned aloud and went squealing into
BENTWELL SERVICES
. The car told him reproachfully that he was wasting petrol and then added that he was running out of it, but the Willing Warlock was too far gone to attend to it. He sprang out of the car and once more tried to run away. Towser sprang out after him and fastened his teeth in the Willing Warlock’s now tattered trouser leg. And Jemima Jane scrambled out after Towser.

“Take me to the Ladies’,” she said. “You have to change my pants. My clean ones are in the bag at the back.”

“I can’t take you to the Ladies’!” the Willing Warlock said. He had no idea what to do. What
did
one do? You have one grown-up male Warlock, one female child, and one dog fastened to the Warlock’s trouser leg that might be male or female. Did you go to the Gents’ or the Ladies’? The Willing Warlock just did not know.

He had to settle for doing it publicly in the car park. It made him ill. It was the last straw. Jemima Jane gave him loud directions in a ringing bossy voice. Towser growled steadily. As he struggled with the gruesome task, the Willing Warlock heard people gathering around, sniggering. He hardly cared. He was a broken Warlock by then. When he looked up to find himself in a ring of policemen and the small man in the pin-striped suit standing just beside him, he felt nothing but extreme relief. “I’ll come quietly,” he said.