Jinx On The Divide (2 page)

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all his favorite things -- charcoal-grilled beef, slices of blue cheese, pickled gherkins, tomatoes, mayonnaise, onions ... Even so, he hesitated before biting into it.
How
had it appeared there? Had he shut his eyes for a moment? He lifted the lid of the sesame-seed bun, and a wisp of fragrant steam drifted upward. The smell was too much -- he picked up the whole thing and crammed as much as he could into his mouth. The hamburger was just as delicious as it looked, and when he'd finished it, another one appeared on the plate.

"What would you like to drink?" inquired the brandee.

"Cola."

A tall blue glass appeared next to the plate and gradually filled with sparkling liquid. Rhino drank deeply. It was the nicest fizzy drink he'd ever tasted --- not quite cola, and not quite cream soda. Things were looking up. "There's just one other thing ..." he said. "Where's the bathroom?"

"I don't need one of those, either," said the brandee. "I suggest you go behind a bush in the greenhouse. Or you could use your third wish to install some bathroom furniture, in the color of your choice."

"Waste a wish on a toilet?" said Rhino. "Get real," and he told the brandee what he really wanted. It was only afterward that it occurred to him he could have asked to go home instead.

That night, Rhino had another couple of hamburgers for supper. Then he curled up on the cushions and slept like a hibernating bear that was particularly good at hibernating.

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In the morning, he had yet another hamburger for breakfast, and complained bitterly about the lack of a television to entertain him while he ate. He usually watched cartoons, but he told the brandee he watched the news. After that, they ran out of things to talk about fairly quickly -- once the brandee realized that Rhino knew very little about science, he seemed to lose interest -- and since Rhino refused to believe in magic, they rapidly reached a stalemate. Rhino tried to impress him with his cigarette lighter, but setting fire to things was obviously not very high on the brandee's agenda -- he seemed to be able to light the lanterns with a wave of his hand. The only entertainment was books, and Rhino was not a great reader.

The following day, when he went into the greenhouse again to pee, the layout seemed to have changed. There were a lot of dwarf trees where the compost heap had been, and their branches were laden with luscious purple fruit. He picked one and sniffed it. Then he broke it open, and the most delicious smell of custard wafted out. The inside was creamy white and fluffy and smelled so good that he tasted it. After he'd eaten five of the things, he decided to explore -- the greenhouse seemed a lot bigger today. He must have missed part of it last time. He strolled along the little paths that wound between the trees and bushes, surprised at how much more of it there seemed to be. Unrecognizable insects flitted to and fro, and once he could have sworn he heard a couple of them giggling.

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He ducked beneath an overhanging branch of white blossoms, and cracked his knee on an ornamental marble pedestal. Annoyed, he aimed a kick at it but stopped just in time. It wasn't a marble pedestal at all; it was a cardboard box. And
what
a cardboard box! He instantly recognized the midnight blue of the background and the gold lettering -- it was an X303/D49 Battle-Monger, the games console to end all games consoles. There was a picture of it on the outside. It had more knobs than a space capsule. It also had a note pinned to it: private property, keep out.

Yeah, right,
thought Rhino, hooking his thumbs inside the lid and forcing it open. To his intense disappointment, the box appeared to be empty -- and then it spoke.

"Hello," it said. "Who are you?"

Rhino swore in surprise.

"Pardon me?" said the box. "Could you repeat that?" Rhino swore again.

"I think you're making a joke," said the box. "That's not a real name."

"No, it's Stephen Rheinhart," said Rhino faintly. "Rhino for short."

"Now, that's style," said the box admiringly. "Being named after a mythical beast."

"A rhinoceros isn't a mythical beast."

"I think you'll find that it is. Over here, anyway."

Rhino decided to ignore this, and said, "Where's the way out?"

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"There isn't one. Unless ..."

"Unless what?" The box hesitated.

"Unless
what?"
repeated Rhino, deciding to disregard the fact that he was talking to reconstituted wood pulp.

"Unless you annoyed the brandee so much that he decided to get rid of you."

Why hadn't Rhino thought of that one himself? "How?"

"What have you got in your pockets?"

Rhino went through them. A few coins, a handkerchief, his remaining firecrackers, a penknife, a cigarette lighter, a candy bar, his cell phone ... His phone! He'd forgotten about it. Feverishly, he turned it on. There was no signal whatsoever. The suspicion that he was underground returned.

"Well?" said the box.

Rhino listed the contents of his pockets.

"What's a firecracker?" asked the box.

Rhino explained.

"It's scientific?"

"Well ... yes," said Rhino. "We make things like that in chemistry class." He grinned. "When the teacher's not looking."

"How
excellent,"
said the box. "And it makes a very, very loud noise indeed?"

"Yes."

"And in a confined space ... You'll need to make yourself some earplugs."

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Rhino looked blank.

"Vamolin seeds," said the box. "You ate several of the fruits, I believe?"

How nuts is that?
thought Rhino.
Seeds as earplugs?
But he collected a couple of them as instructed and went back to the brandee, who didn't even look up.

"I want out," said Rhino.

The brandee took no notice.

"And I want out
now."

The brandee continued to read.

"All right, then," said Rhino, who hated being ignored. He had enough of that at home. He stuffed the vamolin seeds in his ears, lit the fuse with the cigarette lighter, and threw the firecracker across the room. The bang was deafening, even with the earplugs.

The brandee didn't seem upset by the noise at all -- he must have had eardrums made of leather.

Rhino removed his earplugs, and wondered how to irritate him next. The solution wasn't that obvious.

The brandee smiled, nonchalantly picked up the empty firecracker case, and read the writing on the side of it. Then something seemed suddenly to occur to him because, for some unaccountable reason, he leaped to his feet and rushed off into his greenhouse. He returned grim-faced, muttering something about no one knowing precisely what effect explosives have on a jinx box.

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"Splinters?" suggested Rhino, assuming he was referring to the wooden crate full of seedlings.

The brandee turned to him in a fury. "Magic and science, you fool! They don't mix. They're worse than oil and water."

Magic again. Rhino curled his lip into a sneer, and went back to the greenhouse to see if he could discover some other fruits that were as nice as his earplugs.

"Wow! That's what I call a bang," said the Battle-Monger box appreciatively as soon as Rhino came within range.

"Oh, hello," said Rhino. What on earth was he doing, talking to a box? Had
he
gone bonkers as well? Or was it simply some ingenious little electronic device with artificial intelligence?

"Do you have any more of those scientific firecracker things?" asked the box. "Yes."

"Lots?"

"A few."

"Terrific," said the box enthusiastically. "I've just remembered something. Well, lots of things, actually. But most important -- for you, anyway -- I have remembered a way for you to get out of the lamp. And once you're out
there,
those firecrackers will be ... oh, invaluable...."

Rhino decided not to argue about whether he was inside a lamp or a cellar. "How?" he asked.

"All you need to do is say
abracadabra."

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Rhino remembered how overexcited the brandee had become when he'd said the word before: He'd grabbed Rhino by the throat and slammed him up against the wall. Rhino didn't want
that
to happen again. And just why was that box thing being so helpful, anyway? What did it have to gain? He decided to do nothing for a while, and doing nothing on a stone wall with a talking box for company was less attractive than doing nothing on a silk cushion next to something vaguely human. But as he went back into the main room, a wisp of golden gas was disappearing up the spout, and the brandee was nowhere to be seen.

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***

2

***

The day after school closed for the Christmas holidays, Felix was on the lookout through the kitchen window for Betony -- and every so often he ducked outside and scanned the skies. The first snowflake fell mid-afternoon, big and white and wet, and it melted as soon as it touched the ground. A lot more followed. Visibility wasn't very good, and Felix wondered how Nimby -- Betony's magic carpet -- would cope. With his blue-and-cream design and cherry-red trim, he wouldn't be hard to spot.

"You can't go out bird-watching in this weather," said Felix's mother, as he headed for the back door again.

Bird-watching?
Felix looked stupidly at the binoculars in his hand, his mind elsewhere.

"I'll put some seed in the bird feeder, and you can watch from the window."

Felix edged another couple of steps toward the door. "I'll be perfectly all right. Don't worry."

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Felix's mother folded her arms, pursed her lips, and looked determined. Her back was toward the kitchen window.

Something strange was going on outside, in the garden. A shadow of no fixed shape was moving behind the veil of snowflakes, undulating as it descended. Felix blinked, and looked again. This time he caught a glimpse of a face -- a girl's face, with slanting eyes and a turned-up nose.

Betony.
At last.

A gust of wind cleared the snowflakes for a few seconds -- just long enough for Felix to watch the carpet land rather elegantly on the lawn. "I'll go and play on my computer instead," he said, heading for the hallway.

Once out of the kitchen, he broke into a run, opened the front door, and dashed out into the snow. He sprinted around the side of the house and into the back garden, where Betony was rolling up Nimby.

"Hi," she said, looking up and smiling through the wisps of blond hair that had escaped her hood.

"Hi." He was grinning like a lunatic; it was so good to see her. She got to her feet and they hugged, hard. He had grown more than she had, yet again -- his body had been making up for lost time. "You'd better come around to the front," he said, "so it looks as though you've arrived in a taxi."

"What's a taxi?"

"A scientific self-propelled vehicle. Listen, Betony, I've got a problem. Remember the brandee? Nearly throttled me in an alleyway last summer? He's kidnapped a boy from

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my school at knifepoint, and he's holding him prisoner inside his lamp. Come on, before my mom realizes I'm in the backyard."

"Give me time to catch my breath." Betony laughed, but Felix had rushed on ahead. Betony followed him around to the front door. Once inside, he ushered her upstairs to the spare room and hid Nimby under the bed. Then he hurried Betony downstairs again, and into the kitchen.

"Goodness!" said Felix's mother. "I didn't hear you arrive, Betony. Did your parents bring you?"

"Um ..." said Betony, glancing at Felix. It wouldn't be a good idea to explain that her parents had been temporarily turned to stone by a spell that had misfired, and were currently garden statues in the yard below the family treehouse.

"She came in a taxi," said Felix. "From the station."

"I imagine a hot drink is in order," said Felix's mother. "What would you like?"

Betony looked at Felix. What did they drink in this world? She glanced around the kitchen and spotted a bottle of something by the stove. "Sherry," she said.

Felix's mother laughed, clearly thinking Betony had made a joke.

"Hot chocolate," said Felix quickly. "For both of us."

It was only after they'd taken their drinks upstairs that they were really able to talk.

"You want me to
what?"
Betony gulped.
"Blazing feathers,
Felix, I just got here!"

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"It won't take long. Remember last time there was a magical invasion from your world? It could have been the end of all life on Earth."

"That was Snakeweed's doing. It was deliberate."

"How do we know what the brandee might be prepared to do?" said Felix. "Magic and science don't mix, and accidents happen. He's
got
to go back to where he came from."

"Let me get this straight," said Betony. "You want me to take a magic lamp containing an enraged brandee
and
a human back to my world. Then you want me to find a way of leaving the brandee behind and bringing the boy back here?"

Felix nodded. "I could come, too, and help."

"Big of you," said Betony huffily.

"Please?" said Felix. "You're so good at this kind of thing." Betony wavered.

"Remember that alleyway in Kaflabad, when the brandee nearly strangled me? You talked him into letting me go. You were brilliant."

Betony grinned. "Yeah, I
was
pretty good, wasn't I? What's this boy's name?"

"Rhino."