Pure Dead Magic (18 page)

“I hoped you’d say that.” Pandora smirked. “Come on, then, this way.”

Together they scrabbled up the tunnel toward the light. Tarantella pushed Pandora onward when the tunnel climbed steeply. Damp rocked from side to side, swaying under the spider’s abdomen, rocked in a hairy cradle.

“It’s getting hotter,” Pandora said, stating the obvious. The sides of the tunnel were no longer hard and cool. Each step they took sank into warm rubbery stickiness. “It’s like wading through molasses,” she moaned.

“Nearly there,” gasped Tarantella.

At last they arrived in a challenged version of the modem at StregaSchloss. Puddles of plastic oozed from the ceiling, melting giant lentils swayed on red-hot legs, giant wires glowed white beneath their feet, and they ran in the direction of the light.

The squeaking grew louder. Signor Strega-Borgia slumped in front of the screen. To the smell of melting plastic would soon be added the odor of crispy rat. It was unbearable. He buried his face in his hands and wept.

Through his tears, he saw something tiny move by the modem. Something small, growing bigger … and bigger … and bigger … with each blink of his unbelieving eyes. It yelled. It wailed. It groaned. “DAD!”

“Bwaaaaaaa …”

“Oh Lord, here we go again, pat pat, rock rock, soothe, pat.”

“PanDORA!” screamed Signor Strega-Borgia, automatically brushing the spider off his desk. “DAMP!”

“Don’t mind me,” muttered Tarantella, “I’m just the substitute nanny. What’s the odd broken leg when one has so many.… OUCH! This floor’s
roasting!
”

She sprang onto an unmelted chair and glared at the tender reunion taking place in front of her.

“Oh, DAD.”

“Oh, DARLINGS, oh, my little
girls,
Pandora, Damp.”

Not so little, Pandora thought with relief. In fact, normal size, thank heavens.

“Great,” said the spider, “now that we’ve established who we all are, can we leave? Please? I, for one, am not equipped for such a heat wave.”

“We have to get
out
of here,” said Pandora, looking doubtfully at her wand.

Tarantella began a slow handclap.

Six uses only,
it had said. In a panic, Pandora counted: One—Pronto/Wormwood, Two—herself (huge), three—herself (normal), four—herself (microscopic), five—Damp, Tarantella, and herself (normal). She needed to use it two more times. Once to shrink them all for the journey home, and one last time to return them to life-sized once they arrived safely at StregaSchloss. That made seven. She bit her lip and decided.

“We have to risk it. Hold Damp, grab on to me, and …”

Tarantella jumped into Pandora’s arms. Signor Strega-Borgia grabbed Damp. The door to the computer room burst into flames.

“QUICK!” screamed Pandora. “Hold on TIGHT!”

She spun the wand, round and round, faster and faster. Damp opened her mouth wide and screamed. Blinding smoke poured into the room. Tarantella choked and spluttered, and in her panic, wrapped all eight of her legs tightly round Pandora’s nose.

Faster and faster. In the computer room, the lights flickered and went out.

“RUN!” yelled Pandora.

Coughing and sobbing, they waded through the melting modem, fell down the tunnel and out onto the ledge. With a final howl from the terrified Damp, they threw themselves off the ledge, and fell screaming, down into the stream of traffic.

A Bit of a Mix-up

S
ignora Strega-Borgia sat chewing her fingernails, peering at the screen on Titus’s computer. For the tenth time, she asked, “How long now? D’you think they’ll be all right? Can’t you send me too?”

Titus groaned.

“I can’t stand this. Waiting, just waiting. Doing nothing. It’s unbearable.…” She trailed off, hiccuped twice, and devoured another fingernail. Mrs. McLachlan silently refilled her employer’s coffee cup.

Across the room, Latch tied a final knot in the rope binding the transformed Pronto. “And
that
’ll put a bend in your chanter,” he muttered to his captive.

Signora Strega-Borgia wiped her nose on her sleeve and began again. “Titus? How long now? D’you think—”

“MUM!”

“Sorry. I just can’t stand this.…” She gulped another mouthful of coffee.

“Yes. You’ve told me. Ten times. Waiting. Just waiting. Doing nothing.”

“Titus, just because you
once
found me rolling around in a hot toddy–induced stupor, doesn’t mean that you can treat me like an imbecile for the rest of time.…”

Titus glared at his mother.

“It was a
mistake,
Titus. People make mistakes. Your father and I made a mistake when we split up. Mrs. McLachlan made a mistake and turned that … that creature into a set of bagpipes.…”

“Sab made a mistake,” added Latch helpfully.

Mrs. McLachlan glared at him. Not
now,
she mouthed.

“Um, er, no, he didn’t,” amended Latch. “
I’m
mistaken.”

“I made a mistake,” admitted Titus. “I sneezed my baby sister into the modem and sent her … sent her …” He burst into tears.

“Oh, Titus.” Signora Strega-Borgia wrapped her arms round her son’s shaking shoulders. “Oh, my dear, it was all a big mistake.… What’s
that?
”

“What?” sniffed Titus.

“On your computer television thingy.” She flapped vaguely at the screen.
YOU HAVE MAIL
.

“Pandora!” yelled Titus. “She’s
BACK!
” His fingers flew over the keys, downloading the incoming mail and opening it as far as he could. “Stand back,” he warned. “Don’t
breathe.
”

Signora Strega-Borgia sneezed carefully over her left shoulder. A large gobbet of goo flew across the room and landed on the fallen Pronto.

“Perfect,” said Latch, with deep satisfaction.

“Oh
my,
” breathed Titus, backing away from the footstool on which the modem sat. “Oh
MY.
”

Appearing in front of him was an odd assortment of tiny shapes.

“Mum … it’s
them,
” he said in an awed voice. “They’re back, but they’re the wrong size. They’re too
wee.
”

The tiny shapes waved and squeaked.

“Let me deal with this,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, producing a wand from her pocket. “I’ll soon have them back to life-sized.” She began to mutter under her breath in Latin, passing her wand in careful circles and loops over the heads of her miniaturized family. The tiny shapes grew bigger and bigger.

“Um … Mum, something’s gone wrong,” said Titus in alarm. “Remember what you were saying about mistakes?”

The tiny shapes were now life-sized. Behind Titus, Mrs. McLachlan buried her head in her hands. Signora Strega-Borgia’s face turned an unhealthy shade of gray.

“Oh,
Pandora,
” said Titus sadly.

“What?”
she yelled. “What now?” She followed Titus’s gaze downward to where her feet should have been. “Aaaargh! What are
those?
”

“Legs,” said Titus helpfully. “Eight of them.”

“Oh NO,” wailed Pandora. “Look at
Dad
!”

“What’s wrong with me?” said Signor Strega-Borgia.

“Shall I tell him, or will you?” said Titus to his sister.

“Darling,” breathed Signora Strega-Borgia, “your bottom half appears to have been confused with that of our littlest daughter.…”

“My bottom half …,” Signor Strega-Borgia repeated, looking down. “Oh yeuuchh, excuse
me,
I need a diaper change.”

“And Dad, um … while you’re about it,” said Titus, blushing deep crimson, “you’re wearing lipstick.…”

“Somehow, I don’t think I’m exactly cutting a dashing figure, what with a soggy bum and fuchsia-pink lips.…”

“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” said Signora Strega-Borgia loyally. “I’m just so glad to have you home.”

“Oh,
baby,
” cooed Mrs. McLachlan. “My little … 
no,
my
large
Damp … come to Nanny, pet.”

Blissfully unaware that she’d been transformed into an adult-sized infant, Damp stopped in mid-whimper and crawled toward her beloved nanny.

“Poor wee mite,” said Mrs. McLachlan irrelevantly. “Let’s see if we can find you something to eat.”

“Better make that an adult portion,” suggested Titus as the huge baby crawled slowly across the room.

“What about meEEEEE?” moaned Tarantella, crashing to the floor with a squawk. “How you bipeds manage with only two legs, I cannot imagine.”

“Those are
my
legs,” said Pandora, in a voice that indicated they were only out on a temporary loan.

“And all eight of those fine furry ones that you’re wearing are
mine.
”

“I’d better see if I can find some spells in one of my textbooks to undo this muddle,” said Signora Strega-Borgia.

“Later,” said her husband, wrapping his arms around her and their two older children. “Magic can wait. Right now, we have all the magic we need.…”

Amen to
that,
Mrs. McLachlan silently avowed, leading the enormous Damp through the door and closing it behind her.

Husband and wife hugged each other long and hard, squeezing tight, not ever wanting to let go. Titus found his eyes watering alarmingly.

Latch hoisted the ex-Pronto onto his shoulders and coughed tactfully. “Sir … modom … shall I put this in the attic for now? I imagine we shan’t be needing it for some time?”

“I’m determined to get the hang of this,” Tarantella muttered under her breath as, using the wall for support, she followed Latch out of the bedroom.

“Such an unflattering shade of pink,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, tenderly wiping lipstick off her husband’s mouth.

I haven’t seen her look this happy for … oh,
ages,
thought Pandora.

“Come on,” muttered Titus, pulling his sister out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him. “They don’t need us right now.”

“But, but … 
I
need Mum,” wailed Pandora, waving a hairy leg for emphasis. “She’s the only one who can sort me out. Look, six surplus legs.…”

“Later,” said Titus firmly, dragging her down the corridor. “Meanwhile,
we
have a few small matters to sort out.”

“Like what?” Pandora’s voice came from the ceiling. “Hey … being half spider, half human isn’t all bad, you know. Look at MEEEEE.”

She scuttled along the cornice and with a nimble leap, hung upside down from a chandelier. Titus refused to be impressed.

“Like what happened to our wager?” he insisted. “Remember? Tock? The ratlets?”

Pandora abruptly let herself down to the floor on a rope of spider silk. “Suddenly,” she said, “I’ve got an overwhelming desire for a nice crunchy bluebottle … or a sun-dried daddy longlegs.”

“Stop trying to change the subject.”

“Titus, I can’t swim the moat right now, can I? Think about it. Spiders
hate
water. All that Itsy-Bitsy up the waterspout is nonsense. Show me a swimming spider and I’ll show you a little bedraggled ball of ex-arachnid.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Tarantella, dropping into the conversation from the floor above. “What are we talking about? Remind me—why does she have to swim the moat?”

Titus shuddered. As if his transformed sister wasn’t bad enough, here was that revolting tarantula again. He took a deep breath and began, “We had a bet. She had five days to find Multitudina’s babies, or else she had to swim one lap of the moat.”

“Them,”
spat Tarantella, “those vile rodentettes? Those squeaky pink nastinesses? Well … that’s
easy.
She has found them.”

“She
has?
” said Titus.

“I have?” said Pandora.

“You
have,
” Tarantella said firmly. “Think back. While we were enjoying the delights of exceeding the speed limit on the Web, we had a near collision. D’you recall? Coming toward us? Faster than a sneeze? Speed of light and all that stuff?”

Pandora’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, that was
them.
I wondered why they seemed so familiar.…”

Tarantella dangled from the ceiling, her twin legs tightly folded round her body. “So let’s have no more talk of moats”—she shivered—”or spiders in baths”—she shuddered—”and especially not that verminous baggage and her unspeakable offspring.”

“So I
did
find them,” said Pandora wonderingly. She felt … oh, light, airy. Her body appeared to be filling up with millions
of tiny bubbles. No bet, no moat, no CROCODILE! She extruded several feet of spider silk and launched herself off the banister into the lofty heights of the stairwell. “FREEEEEEEeeeeee!” she yelled as she vanished from sight.

Tarantella sighed. Still such a drama queen. Noise and theatrics. And, she decided, the girl has a lot to learn about spinning silk. She gazed at Titus. His mouth opened and shut and opened again.

“All I want to know is what happened to them? Where did they go?”

“I neither know, nor do I care,” said the spider. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.” Lurching inexpertly on her two new legs, Tarantella headed for her attic.

A Simple Twist of Fate