The Magicians of Caprona (13 page)

He remembered going down near the New Bridge. He had been full of excitement. He had read a book which he thought was telling him how to save Caprona. He knew he had to find an alleyway with a peeling blue house at the end of it. It seemed a bit silly now. Tonino knew things never happened the way they did in books. Even then, he had been rather amazed to find that there
was
an alleyway with, really and truly, a peeling blue house at the end of it. And, to his huge excitement, there was a scrap of paper fluttering down at his feet. The book was coming true. Tonino had bent down and picked up the paper.

And, after that, he had known nothing till this moment.

That was really true. Tonino took himself through what had happened several times, but each time his memories stopped in exactly the same place—with himself picking up the scrap of paper. After that, it was all a vague sense of nightmare. By this time, he was fairly sure he had been the victim of a spell. He began to feel ashamed of himself. So he sat up.

He saw at once why he had seemed to dream he was shut up in a cardboard box. The room he was in was long and low, almost exactly the shape of a shoebox. The walls and ceiling were painted cream-color—a sort of whitish cardboard-color, in fact—but they seemed to be wood, because there were carvings picked out in gold paint on them. There was a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, although the light came from four long windows in one of the longer walls; a rich carpet on the floor, and a very elegant dining table and chairs by the wall opposite the windows. There were two silver candlesticks on the table. Altogether the place was extremely elegant—and wrong, somehow.

Tonino sat trying to puzzle out just what was wrong. The room was awfully bare. But that was not quite it. There was something strange about the daylight coming through the four long windows, as if the sun was somehow further away than it should be. But that was not quite it either. Tonino’s eyes went to the four bands of too-faded sunlight falling through the windows onto the carpet, and then traveled along the carpet. At the end, he came to the person leaning up against the wall. It was Angelica Petrocchi, who had been at the Palace. Her eyes were closed beneath her bulge of forehead, and she looked ill. So she had been caught too.

Tonino looked back at the carpet. That was an odd thing. It was not really a carpet. It had been painted on the slightly furry substance of the floor. Tonino could see the brush strokes in the sprawling pattern.
And the reason he had thought the pattern was too big was because it
was
too big. It was the wrong size for the rest of the room.

More puzzled than ever, Tonino struggled to his feet. He felt a little wobbly, so he put a hand on the gilded panels of the wall to steady himself. That felt furry too, except where it was gold. The gold was flat, but not quite hard, like—Tonino thought, but no other likeness came to him—like paint. He ran his hand over the apparently carved panel. It was a total cheat. It was not even wood, and the carving was painted on, in lines of brown, blue and gold. Whoever had caught him was trying to seem richer than they were, but doing it very badly.

There were movements at the other end of the room. Angelica Petrocchi was wavering to her feet, and she too was running her hand over the painted carving. Very anxiously and cautiously, she turned and looked at Tonino.

“Will you let me go now, please?” she said.

There was a little wobble in her voice that showed Tonino she was very frightened. So was he, now he came to think of it. “I can’t let you go,” he said. “I didn’t catch you. Neither of us can go. There isn’t a door.”

That was the wrong thing he had been trying not to notice. And as soon as he said it, he wished he had kept his mouth shut. Angelica screamed. And the sound sent Tonino into a panic too. There was no door! He was shut into a cardboard box with a Petrocchi child!

Tonino may have screamed as well—he was not sure. When he caught up with himself, he had one of the elegant chairs in his hands and was battering at the nearest window with it. That was more frightening than ever. The glass did not break. It was made of some slightly rubbery stuff, and the chair bounced off. Beyond him, the Petrocchi girl was banging away at another window with one of the silver candlesticks, screaming all the time. Outside the window, Tonino could
clearly see the smug spire-shape of a little cypress tree, lit by afternoon sun. So they were in one of those rich villas near the Palace, were they? Just let him get
out
! He lifted the chair and smashed it against the window with all his strength.

He made no impression on the window, but the chair came to pieces. Two ill-glued legs fell off it, and the rest crumpled to splintery matchwood. Tonino thought it was disgustingly badly made. He threw it to the painted carpet and fetched another chair. This time, for variety, he attacked the wall beside the window. Pieces of that chair came away and flew about, and Tonino was left with its painted seat—painted to look like embroidery, just as the floor was painted to look like carpet. He drove it into the wall, again and again. It made large brown dents. Better still, the wall shook and leaped about, sounding muffled and hollow, as if it were made of something very cheap. Tonino beat at it and yelled. Angelica beat at the wall and the window impartially with her candlestick, and went on screaming.

They were stopped by a terrible hammering. Someone seemed to be dealing hundreds of thunderous blows on the ceiling. The room was like the inside of a drum. It was too loud to bear. The Petrocchi girl dropped her candlestick and rolled on the floor. Tonino found himself crouching down, with his hands to his ears, looking up at the chandelier jiggling overhead. He thought his head would burst.

The pounding stopped. There was no sound except a whimper, which Tonino rather thought came from him.

A great huge voice spoke through the ceiling. “That’s better. Now be quiet, or you won’t get any food. And if you try any more tricks, you’ll be punished. Understand?”

Tonino and Angelica both sat up.
“Let us out!”
they screamed.

There was no answer, only a distant shuffling. The owner of the huge voice seemed to be going away.

“A mean trick with an amplifying spell,” Angelica said. She picked up the candlestick and looked at it with disgust. The branched part was bent at right angles to the base. “What
is
this place?” she said. “Everything’s so shoddy.”

They got up and went to the windows again, in hopes of a clue. Several little spire-shaped trees were clearly to be seen, just outside, and a sort of terrace beyond that. But, peer as they might, all they could make out further off was queer blue distance, with one or two square-shaped mountains catching the sun on a glossy corner or so. There seemed to be no sky.

“It’s a spell,” said Angelica. Her voice suggested she might be going to panic again. “A spell to stop us knowing where we are.”

Tonino supposed it must be. There was no other way of accounting for the strange absence of view. “But I’m sure I know,” he said, “by those trees. We’re in one of those rich villas by the Palace.”

“You’re right,” agreed Angelica. The panic had left her voice. “I shall never envy those people again. Their lives are all show.”

They turned from the windows and discovered that the vast banging had dislodged one of the wall panels behind the dining table. It hung open like a door. They shoved one another out of the way to reach it first. But there was only a cupboard-sized bathroom, without a window.

“Good,” said Angelica. “I was wondering what we’d do. And at least we’ll have water.” She reached out to one of the taps over the small washbasin. It came away in her hand. Under it was a blob of glue on white china. It was clear the tap had never been meant to be used. Angelica stared at it with such a ridiculous look of bewilderment that Tonino laughed. She drew herself up at that. “Don’t you laugh at me, you beastly Montana!” She stalked out into the main room and threw the useless tap on to the table with a clump. Then she sat in one of the
two remaining chairs and rested her elbows gloomily on the table.

After a while, Tonino did the same. The chair creaked under him. So did the table. Though its surface was painted to look like smooth mahogany, close to, it was all blobs of varnish and huge splinters. “There’s nothing that’s not shoddy,” he said.

“Including you, Whatyoumecall Montana!” Angelica said. She was still angry.

“My name’s Tonino,” Tonino said.

“It’s the last twist of the knife, being shut up with a Montana!” Angelica said. “Whatever your name is. I shall have to put up with all your filthy habits.”

“Well, I’ve got to put up with yours,” Tonino said irritably. It suddenly struck him that he was all alone, far from the friendly bustle of the Casa Montana. Even when he was hidden in a corner of the Casa with a book, he knew the rest of the family was all around him. And Benvenuto would be purring and pricking him, to remind him he was not alone. Dear old Benvenuto. Tonino was afraid he was going to cry—in front of a Petrocchi too. “How did they catch you?” he said, to take his mind off it.

“With a book.” A slight, woeful smile appeared on Angelica’s tight white face. “It was called
The Girl Who Saved Her Country
, and I thought it was from Great-Uncle Luigi. I still think it was a good story.” She looked defiantly at Tonino.

Tonino was annoyed. It was not pleasant to think he had been caught by the same spell as a Petrocchi. “Me too,” he said gruffly.

“And
I
haven’t got any filthy habits!” snapped Angelica.

“Yes you have. All the Petrocchis have,” said Tonino. “But I expect you don’t realize because they’re normal to you.”

“I like that!” Angelica picked up the broken tap, as if she had half a mind to throw it.

“I don’t care about your habits,” said Tonino. Nor did he. All he wanted to do was find some way out of this nightmare room and go home. “How shall we get out of here?”

“Through the ceiling,” Angelica said sarcastically.

Tonino looked upwards. There was that chandelier. If they could give it a pull, it might well rip a hole in the shoddy ceiling.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Angelica. “If there’s a spell out in front, there’s bound to be one up there to stop us getting out.”

Tonino feared she was right, but it was worth a try. He climbed from his chair onto the table. He thought he could reach the chandelier from there if he stood up. There was a violent creaking. Before Tonino could begin to stand up, the table swayed away sideways, as if all four of its legs were loose.

“Get down!” said Angelica.

Tonino got down. It was clear the table would fall to pieces if he stayed on it. Gloomily he pushed the crooked legs straight again. “So that’s no good,” he said.

“Unless,” said Angelica, suddenly bright and pert, “we steady it with a spell.”

Tonino transferred his miserable look from the table legs to her sharp little face. He sighed. The subject had been bound to come up. “You’ll have to do the spell,” he said. Angelica stared at him. He could feel his face heating up. “I hardly know any spells,” he said. “I—I’m slow.”

He had expected Angelica to laugh, and she did. But he thought she need not have laughed in such a mean, exultant way, nor keep saying, “Oh that’s good!” like that.

“What’s so funny?” he said. “You can laugh! I know all about you turning your father green. You’re no better than me!”

“Want to bet?” said Angelica, still laughing.

“No,” said Tonino. “Just make the spell.”

“I can’t,” said Angelica. It was Tonino’s turn to stare, and Angelica’s turn to blush. A thin bright pink spread right up the bulge of her forehead, and she put her chin up defiantly. “I’m hopeless at spells,” she said. “I’ve never got a spell right in my life.” Seeing Tonino still staring, she said, “It’s a pity you didn’t bet. I’m
much
worse than you are.”

Tonino could not credit it. “How?” he said. “Why? Can’t you learn spells either, then?”

“Oh, I can
learn
them all right.” Angelica took up the broken tap again and scribbled angrily with it, great yellow scratches in the varnished top of the table. “I know hundreds of spells,” she said, “but I always get them wrong. For a start, I’m tone-deaf. I can’t sing a tune right to save my life. Like now.” Carefully, as if she was a craftsman doing a fine carving, she peeled up a long yellow curl of varnish from the table, using the tap as a gouge. “But it’s not only that,” she said angrily, following her work intently. “I get words wrong too—everything wrong. And my spells always work, that’s the worst of it. I’ve turned all my family all colors of the rainbow. I’ve turned the baby’s bath into wine, and the wine into gravy. I turned my own head back to front once. I’m much worse than you. I
daren’t
do spells. About all I’m good for is under standing cats. And I even turned my cat purple too.”

Tonino watched her working away with the tap, with rather mixed feelings. If you looked at it practically, this was the worst possible news. Neither of them had a hope against the powerful spell-maker who had caught them. On the other hand, he had never met anyone who was worse at spells than he was. He thought, a little smugly, that at least he had never made a mistake in a spell, and that made him feel good. He wondered how the Casa Montana would feel if he kept turning them all colors of the rainbow. He imagined the stern Petrocchis must hate it. “Doesn’t your family mind?” he asked.

“Not much,” Angelica said, surprisingly. “They don’t mind it half as much as I do. Everyone has a good laugh every time I make a new mistake—but they don’t let anyone talk about it outside the Casa. Papa says I’m notorious enough for turning him green, and he doesn’t like me to be even
seen
anywhere until I’ve grown out of it.”

“But you went to the Palace,” said Tonino. He thought Angelica must be exaggerating.

“Only because Cousin Monica was having her baby and everyone was so busy on the Old Bridge,” said Angelica. “He had to take Renata off her shift and get my brother out of bed to drive the coach, in order to have enough of us.”