The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (35 page)

She shot her face forward to within an inch of Miss Pursey, who looked somewhat discomposed.

"What about my pyramid that you stole just before final examinations? What did you do with it?” hissed Alicia.

"Pyramid? What pyramid?” riposted Miss Pursey loftily. “My good girl, I haven't the least idea what you are maundering on about. Just because you did badly in your finals is no excuse for trying to put the blame on others—it's not my fault if you came bottom."

"No? I've come on quite a bit since then, though,” said Alicia with menace, and she pointed her pale, skinny finger at Miss Pursey. A blue flash wriggled along it, and suddenly a blaze of cobalt fire enveloped Miss Pursey, who emerged from it quite bald and very angry indeed. Her spectacles had melted in the heat and fallen off. She glared at Alicia short-sightedly and extended all her fingers, which spurted white fire.

"Hussy!"

"Jade!"

"Minx!"

"Doxy!"

"Strumpet!"

They lunged at each other, feinting and sidestepping like fencers. Alicia's cardigan burst into flame, and she tossed it off. A black bat, dislodged from Miss Pursey's handbag, fluttered off with indignant, high-pitched squeaks. Absorbed in their dispute, the two sorceresses, flaming, sparking, making serpentine darts at each other, kept moving toward the big roundabout, which was now whirling around again, high above them with its tremendous music, noise, and light.

Harriet watched riveted with suspense as the pair, slashing at each other with their white and blue fire, shouting inaudible insults at one another, edged closer and closer under the side of the roundabout. And then finally there came a prodigious blinding flash and crash. The whole merry-go-round keeled over—amid bangs, bumps, sounds of splitting wood, and shrieks of consternation.

Mark, Dr. Cappodoccio, and Mr. Johansen dashed out of the van; people came rushing from all over the fairground.

And just to add to the general hurly-burly, Walrus and Dr. Cappodoccio's wolf, Lupus, had discovered one another and were at each other's throats, snarling, biting, and rolling over and over.

"Walrus! Stop that at
once!
I'm
surprised
at you!” exclaimed Harriet and dragged him away from Lupus, getting considerably scratched in the process. She shut him in the van.

Mark and the two men had rushed to the scene of the accident, and she joined them. Already ambulances, police cars, fire engines, and breakdown trucks were converging from all sides.

Luckily, though there were plenty of black eyes, scrapes, and bruises, nobody seemed to be seriously hurt. The injured were given first aid and allowed to go. But, oddly enough, there seemed to be no trace of either Miss Pursey or Alicia.

When all was quiet again, Harriet, Mark, and Mr. Johansen returned to the magician's van.

The little garden scene was still quietly there on the wall, as if none of this tremendous excitement had been taking place outside. But Princess Sophie and the dog, Lotta, were gone. The garden was empty. The only intimation that any dog had been present was Walrus on the floor below, restored to cat form, hissing angrily, with his tail swelled up like a chimney sweep's brush, as it did when he met any dog.

"I sing ze song,” said Mr. Johansen. “Zey wvill come back, I hope."

Trembling a little, very carefully, he hummed his tune.

But nothing happened. Nobody came. The garden stayed the same size.

Mr. Johansen sang the song again. Still nothing happened.

"I'm afraid,” said Dr. Cappodoccio compassionately, “all that black magic going on outside must have left a concentration of poison in the atmosphere and some destructive vibrations which have upset your spell.
What
a pity!"

"Oh, curse that Miss Pursey!” said Mark furiously. “It's all her fault. I hope the roundabout squashed her flat."

"
Poor
Mr. Johansen,” said Harriet.

Mr. Johansen looked so utterly white, tired, and defeated that Dr. Cappodoccio, evidently a kindhearted man, suggested, “Why don't you spend the night with me, sir? You can have my assistant's bunk (a most disagreeable, unhelpful girl; I am not at all sorry that she is gone). By tomorrow, when the vibrations have settled, perhaps your spell will work once more."

Mr. Johansen allowed himself to be persuaded. Mark and Harriet went rather dismally home, taking turns carrying Walrus, who was still uttering frightful threats against the Wisest Wolf in Christendom.

"I've never known him so aggressive,” Harriet remarked.

"The whole evening was a mess,” Mark muttered bitterly, as they went up to bed.

However, the next morning showed that the evening had not been a total disaster.

It was plain that Miss Pursey had never come home, and in her absence, her house was rapidly collapsing, melting, decaying, and sinking into the ground, like a very old mushroom. Already most of it was gone. Many of the plants in her garden had died; the only thing that still seemed living and healthy was the little tree on the footpath.

And Walrus, after all, was once more their old familiar outsized monster of a fat black cat.

"Though, in a way, we shall rather miss having a wolf,” Harriet said, hugging him. Walrus turned and bit her, quite hard. She gazed at him in astonished reproach.

Halfway through the morning, Dr. Cappodoccio's van drew up outside the front door. Mr. Johansen climbed out of it and rang the front doorbell.

"Hasn't the spell worked yet, Mr. Johansen?” Harriet asked him anxiously as she opened the door.

"
Ach
, no! Not yet!” he sighed. “And zso ziss Dr. Cappodoccio has very kindly inwited me to go wizz him on his woyages and be his assistant. Zen, wven ze spell comes out clear once more, I wvill be on ze spot."

"Oh dear,” Mark said sadly. “We shall miss you, Mr. Johansen!"

"Shall you know how to be a magician's assistant?” Harriet asked doubtfully.

"He wvill teach me; is not difficult, he tell me."

"You'll find it a bit different from giving piano lessons."

Mark and Harriet accompanied Mr. Johansen to the gate. Both were rather dismayed at the thought of the gentle old man abandoning his house and gypsying off in this unexpected manner.

Dr. Cappodoccio had left the van and was standing by their garden hedge, gazing at the little tree that Miss Pursey had been so keen to protect. He seemed quite excited about it.

"Do you know that you have a great treasure here?” he said, his brown eyes shining with enthusiasm. “In three years’ time that will be a full-grown Looking-glass Tree."

"What's a Looking-glass Tree?” asked Harriet.

"Oh, my dear young lady! The Looking-glass Tree is the ninth wonder of the world! It grows but once in a hundred years, takes four years to come to full growth, is found only on waste or common land, has leaves that reflect the sun in unrivaled splendor, flowers of incomparable beauty, fruits that will cure any disease from Bell's Palsy to Housemaid's Knee, its bark is unequaled as an ingredient for distilling spells, potions, simples, and compounds. It breathes out a scent that cures deafness and phlebitis for eighty miles around—"

"Really?” said Mark, turning to look at the humble little tree; it might have been an apple or a quince; it seemed to have nothing particularly special about it.

"So
that
was why Miss Pursey bought this bit of land!"

"But if the tree can do all these things in three years’ time—will it be able to help Mr. Johansen find his princess?"

"Dear me, yes! One leaf—a
third
of a leaf—will give anyone the thing he loves most."

"What a shame that it can't do it
now!
"

"Never mind—in zree years time we come back,” said Mr. Johansen with his gentle smile, and the two old gentlemen got into their gaily painted van and drove off, with Lupus, the wise wolf, sitting between them. Dr. Cappodoccio turned his head to shout, “Mind you look after the tree!"

Miss Pursey never reappeared. Strangely enough, two skeletons were found under the wreckage of the roundabout, but they could not have been those of Miss Pursey and Alicia, Queen of Sorceresses, for they were many thousands of years old; local archaeologists became quite excited about them.

Mr. Armitage said: “I told you that roundabout was unsafe. I always said so."

The fat cat, Walrus, was never so placid again. Into extreme old age he retained several old habits that he had acquired during the time that he was a wolf.

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For weeks before cousin Elspeth's visit, Mrs. Armitage was, as her son Mark put it, “flapping about like a wet sheet in a bramble bush."

"What shall we do about the unicorn? Cousin Elspeth doesn't approve of keeping pets."

"But she can't disapprove of him. He's got an angelic nature—haven't you, Candleberry?"

Harriet patted the unicorn and gave him a lump of sugar. It was a hot day in early October, and the family were having tea in the garden.

"He'll have to board out for a month or two at Coldharbor Farm.” Mrs. Armitage made a note on her list. “And you,” she said to her husband, “must lay in five cases of Glensporran. Cousin Elspeth will only drink iced tea with whisky in it."

"Merciful powers! What this visit is going to cost us! How long is the woman going to stay?"

"Why does she have to come?” growled Mark, who had been told to dismantle his home-made nuclear turbine, which was just outside the guest-room window.

"Because she's a poor old thing, and her sister's just died, and she's lonely. Also she's very rich, and if she felt like it, she could easily pay for you and Harriet to go to college, or art school, or something of that sort."

"But that's
years
ahead!"

"
Someone
has to think ahead in this family,” said Mrs. Armitage, writing down
Earl Grey tea, new face-towels
on her list. “And, Harriet, you are not to encourage the cat to come upstairs and sleep on your bed. It would be awful if he got into Cousin Elspeth's room. She writes that she is a very light sleeper—"

"Oh, poor Walrus. Where
can
he sleep, then?"

"In his basket, in the kitchen. And, Mark, will you ask Mr. Peake to stay out of the guest bathroom for a few months? He's very obliging, but it always takes a long time to get an idea into his head."

"Well, he
is
three hundred years old, after all,” said Harriet. “You can't expect a ghost to respond quite as quickly as ordinary people."

"Darling,” said Mrs. Armitage to her husband, “sometime this week, could you find a few minutes to hang up the new mirror I found at Dowbridges'? It's been down in the cellar for the last two months—"

"Hang it, where?” said Mr. Armitage, reluctantly coming out of his evening paper.

"In the guest-room, to replace the one that Mark broke when his turbine exploded—"

"I'll do it, if you like,” said Mark, who loved banging in nails. “After all, it was my fault the other one got broken."

"And I'll help,” said Harriet, who wanted another look at the new mirror.

She had accompanied her mother to the furniture sale, a couple of months ago, when three linen tablecloths, one wall mirror, ten flowerpots, and a rusty pressure cooker had been knocked down to Mrs. Armitage for 12 pounds in the teeth of spirited and urgent bidding from old Miss Hooting, who lived at the other end of the village. For some reason the old lady seemed particularly keen to acquire this lot, though there were several other mirrors in the sale. At 11.99 pounds, however, she ceased to wave her umbrella and limped out of the sale hall, scowling, muttering, and casting angry glances at Mrs. Armitage. Since then she had twice dropped notes, in black spidery handwriting, through the Armitage letterbox, offering to buy the mirror, first for 12.50 pounds, then for 13 pounds, but Mrs. Armitage, who did not much like Miss Hooting, politely declined to sell.

"I wonder
why
the old girl was so keen to get hold of the glass?” remarked Harriet, holding the jam jar full of nails while Mark tapped exploringly on the wall, hunting for reliable spots. The mirror was quite a big heavy one, about two metres long by one metre wide, and required careful positioning.

"It seems ordinary enough.” Mark glanced at it casually. The glass, plainly quite old, had a faint silvery sheen; the frame, wooden and very worn, was carved with vine leaves and little grinning creatures.

"It doesn't give a very good reflection.” Harriet peered in. “Makes me look frightful."

"Oh, I dunno; about the same as usual, I'd say,” remarked her brother. He selected his spot, pressed a nail into the plaster, and gave it one or two quick bangs. “There. Now another here. Now pass us the glass."

They heard the doorbell ring as Mark hung up the mirror, and a few minutes later, when they came clattering downstairs with the hammer and nails and the stepladder, they saw their mother on the doorstep, engrossed in a long, earnest conversation with old Mrs. Lomax, Miss Hooting's neighbour. Mrs. Lomax was not a close friend of the Armitage family, but she had once obliglingly restored the Armitage parents to their proper shape when Miss Hooting, in a fit of temper, had changed them into ladybirds.