Emily Feather and the Chest of Charms (2 page)

“Different sort of remembering. I don't like maths.” Emily shrugged. “Except when it's useful. I don't think tables are useful at all. But recipe maths is.”

“So if you know the recipe, what else do you think about?” Sasha rolled her eyes, and handed a small chunk of brownie to Robin. “Now stop looking at me as though you're half-starved.”

Emily stared out across the garden, past the pond where Sasha was living, to the thicket of trees that hid the fence and made their garden look as though it went on for ever. “I suppose I think about what the different ingredients taste like. And what they'll be like mixed together. And who's going to eat it. If there's anything I'm trying that's new, I'll be hoping it works.”

“Mmmm.” Sasha nodded. “Wishing, then.”

“Is that what I do?” Emily asked doubtfully.

“Wishing is some of the most powerful magic there is,” Sasha told her, smiling. She crumbled the last little piece of the chocolate brownie in her hand, ignoring Robin's moan of protest, and held the crumbs out to Emily, tipping a little shower of them into her hand.

Emily gazed back at her worriedly. “What do I do with them?” she asked.

Sasha smiled. “Whatever you like… You made them for us, didn't you? So they're already mixed with your magic. Now turn them into something else. Anything you like.”

Emily frowned down at the handful of crumbs, wondering how on earth she was supposed to do this. For Sasha and Robin it would be easy – they had so much power, and they knew what to do with it. She didn't feel like she had any.

“And be careful, Emily,” Sasha added gently. “Don't use too much magic. You know your parents have forbidden Lark and Lory and Robin to use theirs. There are watchers on the other side of the doors, too. Don't show them what you can do.”

Robin snorted. “I shouldn't think it's much of a risk. I mean, it's only Emily. She's hardly going to make enough magic for anyone to notice.”

He wasn't being deliberately cruel, but his words stung, and Emily stared down at the crumbs in her hand furiously. She would show him! She was sick of being the feeble human sister who couldn't do anything except make cakes.

But what should she do? It was just a handful of chocolatey crumbs. How was she supposed to turn them into something else? And what should the something else be? Her mind had gone blank.

Robin was yawning. He wasn't even bothering to
watch
.

Emily glared at her hand and decided to turn the crumbs back into a huge and particularly delicious cake, which she wouldn't give Robin any of. Unless he begged.

She gritted her teeth, and her nose scrunched up, and she tried desperately to focus every last bit of energy and power and herself that she could. She could
feel
it working. But so slowly, and so little. She needed more crumbs – there was only enough there to make a feast for a mouse. Emily smiled to herself, as the little mouse wandered into her head, sniffing hopefully for chocolatey crumbs – a little chocolate-brown mouse, with a dusty cocoa-coloured coat. His fur was like the cocoa powder that covered Mum's favourite expensive truffles, the ones she said were only for grown-ups.

Something tickled her fingers, and Emily twitched in surprise. She stretched her fingers out star-like in front of her, and a mouse froze on her palm, his whiskers waving. Then he seemed to decide that Emily was safe, and he went on eating the few crumbs that were left in her hand. The rest of them had turned into his dark-chocolate fur, and beady little chocolate-chip eyes.

Emily sighed. It wasn't an enormous cake. It wasn't an enormous anything. In fact he was a particularly tiny mouse. She had got distracted in the midst of her magic-working, and this was what had happened.

“I didn't mean for it to be a mouse,” she told Sasha sadly. “I was trying to make a cake.”

But Robin was staring at the mouse, fascinated and envious. “You made him! I didn't know you could do that! He's perfect…” He reached out one thin forefinger and gently stroked the top of the mouse's head.

“But I didn't mean to!” Emily tried to explain again.

Sasha put an arm around her shoulders, wrapping Emily in water-coolness. “Emily, I wasn't really expecting you to make anything at all. I thought the crumbs might change colour perhaps. I had no idea you could do so much.”

“It was mostly because I was annoyed that Robin thought I couldn't,” Emily admitted.

“Sorry,” Robin murmured. “But even Lark or Lory would find it hard to conjure up a living creature, you know … out of almost nothing, Emily,” he looked at her hopefully. “Do you like mice much?”

“Not that much.” Emily looked down at the tiny mouse. “I mean, he's sweet… But I don't really want him in my room. Do you think he could live in the garden?”

“Can I have him? Please?” Robin begged. “I really, really want him, and I'll look after him. He likes cake. I'll share with him.”

Emily giggled, gently tipping her fingers so that the chocolate brownie crumbs and the chocolate brownie mouse, slid into Robin's hand.

“Maybe you need to make a cake,” Robin told her seriously. “He still looks hungry to me.” He slipped the tiny mouse into the pocket on the front of his T-shirt. “We're both hungry.” He looked at his sister hopefully, and Emily got up, glancing at Sasha.

“So, it's just about wishing?” Emily asked.

Sasha nodded, as she wandered back through the long grass to the pond. “Wishing, and practice. I think you should practise on Robin…”

“That boy's here again!” Robin hissed to Emily, as he leaned over to look at what she was mixing up.

Emily swirled raspberries through the lemony cake mixture and admired the sharp pink streaks they made, then she glanced round at Robin. “What, that one Lory keeps complaining about?”

Robin sniffed. “She complains about him, but she isn't making him go away. She likes him following her about. He's like a puppy.”

“Don't let Lory hear you say that.” Lark had wandered in, hauling Gruff along behind her by his collar. The huge dog's claws were practically digging grooves in the floorboards, and he was growling – one long, low growl that went on and on. “You can't stand that slimy boy either, can you?” Lark murmured to him, rubbing his ears sympathetically. “I wish I could growl too. But we'd get in trouble if I let you bite him.”

Gruff slumped crossly under the kitchen table and went on growling – just a grumpy, thundery rumble that echoed up around their feet every so often. Lark sat down next to Emily, stuck a finger into the cake mixture, and licked it.

Emily batted at her with the wooden spoon. “Stop it. It's not done.”

“I like it not cooked. Can I scrape out the bowl afterwards?” Lark flopped into a chair at the table, licking her fingers.

“Where's Lory?” Robin muttered.

“Still at the front door talking to Dan. I got bored.” Lark shrugged.

Emily eyed her sideways. She wondered if Lark was jealous that Dan was following Lory round like a love-struck spaniel, and not her. It was the first time that either Lark or Lory had had a boyfriend – they'd just never bothered before. Lory had always said that the boys at school were all too stupid even to talk to, let alone spend any time with. Lark had just snorted when Emily asked her if she liked any of the boys in her year.

It wasn't as if Lory had actually said this Dan was her boyfriend. But he kept coming round and leaning elegantly against the door frame, talking to her and fluttering his long eyelashes. Emily really envied him those eyelashes. He had dark blond hair and really green eyes, and a fan of dark eyelashes – which were really unnatural-looking, come to think of it – so much darker than his hair.

Emily swept her cake mixture into the tin, leaving some in the bowl, and handed Robin and Lark each a spoon. She took one as well and put the bowl on the table between the three of them.

“Do you think his eyelashes are real?” she asked, chasing a smidge of raspberry round the side of the bowl. “They're even longer than yours and Lory's. And not blond like his hair.”

Lark blinked. “Oooh. I don't know. Maybe…” She smiled, her eyes glinting wickedly. “Probably he wears mascara. Or he dyes them. Well done, Emily … I'll have to ask Lory.”

So she did mind, then. Just a little. Enough to want to tease her twin about the boy who was keeping them apart.

The smell of lemony-raspberry cake began to fill the kitchen as they sat round the table companionably, clearing the bowl. The kitchen door was open and they could hear a soft whisper of voices from down the hallway, where Lory and the boy were still leaning together in the doorway.

Dan had started hanging around at the end of the summer term. At first it had been funny – a joke between Lark and Lory – that this gormless boy always seemed to pop up whenever they were sitting chatting at school, or even if they went shopping in town at the weekends.

Emily and Robin had first seen him when they all met up on the way home from school one afternoon. Lark and Lory's school finished a bit later than their primary school did, but it was closer to the house, so Lark and Lory quite often caught up with Emily and Robin, and Emily's best friend Rachel.

That day, Lark had been giggling, but Lory was pink-cheeked and cross-looking. Even the tips of her ears had gone red where they showed through her feathery blonde hair.

“What's the matter?” Emily had asked, wondering if Lory had been told off at school. She looked as though she wanted to kick somebody, and she was always complaining about how unfair their teachers were. Some of them still called Lark and Lory by the wrong names, even after two years at the school. It drove them mad.

“Did Mrs Harris think that you were Lark, like she did last week?” Emily suggested, ready to sympathize, and trying to think of some good insults for the biology teacher.

“No. Stupid Dan Hargreaves. Again!”

“Who's he?” Robin asked. He'd been running ahead, like he always did – he got bored with Emily and Rachel gossiping about school. But he'd trotted back to run in circles round Lark and Lory. Now that Emily knew they were fairies, she'd realized that Robin missed the company of his own people during the day at school. He always wanted to be close to his big sisters when they first met up again.

“No one you know,” Lory growled crossly.

“A boy in our year,” Lark explained. “He fancies Lory.”

“Oh. Poor him.” Robin smirked.

“And what's that supposed to mean?” Lory snapped.

“Nothing!” Robin danced backwards away from her. “Just that he'll be getting shouted at like that all the time, that's all!”

Lory muttered something furious and stomped on ahead, scowling.

“She sounds really upset,” Emily said, watching Lory stalking up the road and kicking at the brownish grass on the edge of the pavement.

“Mmmm. He's been hanging around for a while, trying to chat to her, and stuff. He gave her some chocolate the other day. We just thought he was funny. He keeps staring at her with these great big puppy-dog eyes – like he's adoring her from a distance. Which is good, because I might kick him if he got much closer. But now he's written a song about her.” Lark rolled her eyes. “He's in a band, apparently.”

“A song?” Emily squeaked. That sounded quite cool. “Is it any good?”

Lark shrugged. “Look it up. He put it on YouTube.”

Emily and Robin had raced home after that, desperate to see. They'd played the song on the laptop they shared for homework, hunched over the screen and giggling. Even though they had the volume down low, Lory had still heard, and thundered down the stairs and grabbed the laptop, slamming it shut after they'd heard just a few bars.

“Oi! That's ours!” Robin complained. “You can't stop us watching it. We'll just wait till you go out. Anyone who wants to can see it. Loads of people have already. It's got more than a thousand views. So I don't see why we can't look at it too.”

“Because this is my house and I live here, and that song's about me, and he never asked if he could write me a stupid song!” Lory snarled, marching back upstairs with the laptop under her arm.

“It sounded all right!” Emily called after her. “I quite liked it, that first bit. Why's it such a problem, anyway? You could be famous!”

“I don't want to be famous for having some floppy-haired fourteen-year-old write a song about me!” Lory yelled, flinging her arms out and then staring in horror as the laptop slid from her fingers.

Emily gasped, stretching out one hand in a hopeless catching sort of gesture. But Robin was suddenly,
magically
, there next to Lory, grabbing the computer in the split-second before it bounced fatally down the stairs.

“Be careful!” Emily cried.

Lory shuffled her feet on the stairs, and muttered, “Sorry.” Then she gulped, and ran off up to her room.

“Just because you're cross it doesn't mean you get to break our stuff!” Robin yelled after her. “And you can't stop us listening to that song either!”

Lory's bedroom door slammed shut so hard the stairs shook, and Robin went straight back to the table, opened the laptop and turned the volume up as high as he could.

“Are you trying to annoy her on purpose?” Lark had asked, wandering in from the kitchen, nibbling on a banana and shuddering as she heard the voice float out from the laptop, syrupy-sweet. “Ugh, turn it down. That song makes me feel sick.”

Emily nodded. “I can see why Lory's cross. The first bit sounded OK, but now I can hear it properly and he sounds like he's singing through about six spoonfuls of sugar. And the words aren't much better.”

“I know.” Lark sighed. “But that's not why she's cross.”

Emily and Robin frowned at her.

“Why is she, then? She
said
it was a stupid song…” Robin asked, shrugging.

“She likes it.” Lark slumped down on the sofa next to them. “She doesn't want to like it, but she's flattered, and sort of embarrassed at the same time. Loads of the girls at school were asking her about it today. They were all really jealous.” She took a vicious bite of banana.

“Do you think she'll go out with him?” Emily asked, her eyes widening.

“I hope not,” Lark muttered. “He makes my skin crawl.” And she had stomped off upstairs and slammed her bedroom door even harder than Lory had.

Emily's room was on the floor above Lory's and she'd heard the song what felt like a few million times since then. Lory played it a lot. A few times Lark had come up Emily's rickety little staircase and curled up on Emily's window seat, staring gloomily out of the windows. She seemed a bit lost and in need of company. Emily loved it, having Lark to talk to. It made her feel older, and special. But at the same time it worried her, seeing her older sisters growing apart. And all because of a boy that none of them liked very much.

Now Emily leaned towards the kitchen door and watched Lory flick her hair around and laugh as Dan said something funny. There was another rumbling growl from under the table.

Lark heard her twin giggling and hunched her shoulders irritably.

Emily sucked at her spoonful of cake scrapings and eyed Lark sideways. “Why does she suddenly like him now? She hated him a couple of weeks ago – when he wrote that song. She had a go at me and Robin for playing it.”

Lark shivered. “I don't know. I really don't see why she lets him hang around. She used to say he made her feel sick. But now he's sitting with us every lunchtime out on the field. Him and his mates, who don't even say anything. They just laugh at his dumb jokes.” Lark let her spoon clatter into the bowl and put her chin in her hands.

Robin eagerly snatched the rest of the mixture for himself, but Lark didn't even seem to notice. Robin shot a worried glance at Emily.

“She does tell him to get lost sometimes, but she never sounds as if she means it all that much,” Lark added. “And now he's coming to the house as well.” She shivered again, shaking her soft brown hair forward so it covered her face as she hunched over. “I don't like him being here…”