The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (3 page)

Lily kept glancing at it while she worked. Great-Great-Uncle Pierre looked very kind, she thought; he was smiling, and his black mustache twirled up at the ends like another smile. And Demerara looked as sweet as the golden-brown sugar she was named after.

By the time Mum (and then Dad) had told her to go to bed, the room was a little less strange and chaotic. Lily put on her pajamas, moved the bed toys and switched off the glaring overhead light and bedside lamp. The glow of the six strings of fairy lights went nowhere in
this big space—but at least she couldn’t see the nasty roses.

She lay awake for a long time, eventually drifting into a kind of half-sleep—and then jolted awake to the sound of whispering.

“Great lump of a girl!”

“Doesn’t she look stupid?”

“I can’t stand those pajamas.”

“They look awful with that hair.”

“If that was MY hair I’d cut it off.”

The spiteful yellow roses were saying mean things about her, like the mean girls at school who tittered at her when she didn’t understand things. Lily lay very still under her duvet, rigid with terror, unable to scream.

Suddenly, a long shadow fell across the floor.

“Demerara!” choked Lily. She sat up and switched on her bedside lamp. There, standing in the middle of the rug, was the mysterious golden-brown cat. And of course it was the original Demerara—she was identical to the cat in the photograph.

Lily was so captivated by the sight of her that it took her a moment to notice the whispering had stopped.

Demerara gazed around scornfully. Quick as lightning, she pounced at the wall near Lily’s bed. Her long claws gleamed like razor blades. She scratched at one of the yellow roses; to Lily’s amazement, it seemed to lift
right off the wall, leaving a blank white space where it had been. The yellow petals hung in rags from Demerara’s claws, and then she tossed them into her mouth.

“Wow,” Lily said. “Now I know this is a dream.”

“Hmmm—musty,” said Demerara.

This was a brilliant dream. The cat was talking to her. Lily nearly laughed aloud. “Hello.”

“Oh, you can hear me, can you? Thank goodness—I thought I’d never get it right. I tried jumping into your dream, but I got caught in that awful net thing. Welcome to Skittle Street.”

Lily sat up properly and got out of bed. “Are you a ghost?”

“Certainly not,” said Demerara. “Don’t worry about those roses, by the way—they won’t be giving you any more trouble.”

“How do you know?”

“It was merely a question of finding and eating the ringleader. This room has been empty for too long, and the roses started to turn bad. That’s the trouble with leftover magic.”

Lily was so entranced by the sight and sound of a cat talking that she could hardly pay attention to what Demerara was saying. It was fascinating to watch a cat’s mouth moving in speech, and her voice was an extraordinary sort of breathy yowling. Lily looked at the wallpaper. The roses were just the same, yet she sensed the
change in the atmosphere, like a garden after a storm. This was a really five-star, big-budget dream.

“How does your wallpaper feel now?” Demerara asked.

“Sulky,” said Lily.

“That won’t last.” The cat raised her golden head. “I love what you’ve done with this room, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“You have such gorgeous things—may I have a little peek?”

“Go ahead.”

In two graceful leaps, Demerara jumped onto the small chest of drawers, where Lily kept her collection of makeup. Though she never wore makeup, she loved her lipsticks and blushers and pots of body glitter.

Demerara delicately touched the neat row of lipsticks with her little paw. “Lily, I know this is pushy—but could I have one of your lipsticks? I’ve always wanted one.”

“Well—OK.” Lily didn’t think cats had lips but wanted to be generous. “Help yourself.”

“Oh, thank you! And could you read the names?”

“I can’t actually read them, because I’m dyslexic and the writing’s too tiny,” Lily said. “But I got Oz to read them for me and now I know them by heart.”

“And could you open them so I can see the colors?”

Lily went over to the chest of drawers and began
the strange process of showing lipsticks to a cat. “This one’s called Cheeky Plum—this is Apricot Sunset—Red Rascal—”

Demerara took a while to make up her mind, but eventually chose Pink Limit.

“Thank you, Lily, it’s divine. I do like bright colors.”

“Er—what shall I do with it?” Cats didn’t have handbags, after all.

Demerara smiled and said purrily, “I’ll leave it here and collect it later. We really should be getting on.”

“Getting on with what?”

“We have to wake up Oz.”

“What—really?”

“Lily, dear,” Demerara said patiently, “I thought you’d gotten it by now—this isn’t a dream.”

In the warm, dark depths of his deep sleep, someone was shaking his shoulder.

“Oz—wake up!”

“Go away.”

“Oz, you have to wake up NOW,” Lily hissed in his ear. “This is an emergency!”

Oz shook the fog out of his head. “Why don’t you wake Mum and Dad?”

“It’s not that sort of emergency,” Lily whispered. “Keep your voice down—Demerara’s here, and she can talk and she wants us to come down to the workshop—”

“You woke me up because of that imaginary cat?”

A strange, shivery voice said, “I am NOT imaginary.”

There she was on his floor, the golden-brown cat with narrow green eyes, exactly like the cat in the photograph. He sat up quickly, his heart hammering.

“Do calm down,” said Demerara. “You’ll only hold me up if you refuse to believe your senses, and I have a lot of business to get through.”

“Wh-what?” said Oz.

“I called you to this house for a reason.”

It was amazingly odd to be talking to a cat. “You didn’t call us here,” Oz said feebly. “It was a lawyer, Mr. Spike.”

“Oh, yes—Mr. Spike!” Demerara’s green eyes narrowed and Oz realized she was laughing. “You could say he works for me. Now put some slippers on and come downstairs.”

Oz was scared, but also incredibly curious. He had no idea where his slippers were, so he stuffed his feet into his sneakers. As quietly as possible, he and Lily crept out of the room after the silent cat. The stairs creaked, and it was hard to be quiet in a new house when you didn’t know where to put your feet, but they managed to get to the workshop without waking their parents.

“Put the light on, please,” Demerara’s peculiar voice said, in the shadows. “Let’s take a proper look at each other.”

Oz switched on the light. He’d been assuming that this cat would look misty and spooky, but she was solid and stout, and if she hadn’t been able to talk, she would have looked completely normal. “Are you a ghost?”

“No, I’m not a ghost,” Demerara said. “Come into my flat and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

“Er—your flat?”

“I don’t have much company—forgive the mess.”
Demerara walked over to the metal cylinder in the corner, squeezing herself in behind it.

Oz and Lily looked at each other doubtfully and hurried after her. In the wall behind the cylinder was a small door, about a meter high.

“I never noticed that,” said Oz.

The door swung open. “You’ll have to crawl, but it’s not far,” said Demerara as she slipped through it.

“I’ll go first.” Oz dropped down on his hands and knees and crawled after the golden-brown tail.

He found himself in a small space, with such a low ceiling that he could only just sit upright. There was a big metal flashlight hanging from a piece of string, and this lit the clutter of rotting cushions, dog-eared women’s magazines and assorted heaps of rubbish, impossible to see in the shadows.

“Move over, I can’t get in,” Lily said behind him.

“Sorry” said Oz, shifting himself along the bare brick wall so Lily could squeeze in beside him. “What a lovely flat.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really!” Demerara purred. “I decorated it myself, with whatever I could find.”

“I like the cushions.”

“They belonged to Pierre. The big one used to be in my basket.”

“Excuse me,” said Oz, “but if you’re not a ghost, what are you?”

“I’m immortal,” Demerara said. “I took part in a certain experiment, and now I can’t die.”

“Wow—what experiment?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We shouldn’t stay here too long—our parents might notice we’re gone.”

“Oh, they won’t notice a thing,” Demerara said breezily. “Let’s face it, they never do notice anything—such as the fact that they’ve just moved into the most magical house in London.”

“I knew it!” Lily cried joyfully.

Something near Oz smelled awful. Demerara saw him making a face.

“Oh dear, my food cupboard does smell a bit—Oz, would you pass it over here? It’s beside your foot.”

Oz’s foot was nudging an old cardboard shoe box. He picked it up, and the stink that wafted out of it was terrible.

“Put it behind me,” said Demerara. “I’m so sorry, but immortal cats still need to eat, and I don’t have any humans to buy me tins of food.”

“Poor you,” Lily said. “What do you eat?”

“Mice, birds, the bigger insects, anything I can find in people’s garbage—that’s a beef and chili pizza you can smell. I’m waiting till it’s really ripe.”

The apparently immortal cat was rolling something metal between her front paws. It was a can of air
freshener without a lid. The twins watched in astonishment as she slammed a paw down on the nozzle and squirted out a jet of pine-scented Glade; where did cats buy air freshener?

“How long have you lived in here?” Lily asked.

Demerara’s furry golden face creased into a scowl. “Since 1938, when Pierre was MURDERED!”

“He wasn’t murdered,” Oz said. “He died in the tram accident.”

“Well, what do you think that was? He knew his life was in danger. He told me that if he didn’t come back, I must hide here in the safe.” Demerara patted something in the corner. “This room was the safe he built, to keep his recipes out of enemy hands. These are his books.”

In the shadows Oz made out a pile of notebooks with leather covers. “Are you saying he was a wizard or something?”

“Pierre was a genius,” said Demerara.

“AAARGH!” Lily shrieked suddenly. “A rat!”

“AAAARGH!” screamed a high, whining voice. “Humans!”

In the light of the torch was a skinny rat with a dirty tail, clutching a small plastic bag.

Oz recognized him at once. “You’re the smoking rat!”

“Who—me?”

Demerara let out a furious hiss. “You swore you’d given it up!”

“But I have given it up, I was only having the one!” The rat dropped the plastic bag, and a heap of revolting cigarette ends fell out. His whiskers quivered at Oz. “Thanks for getting me into trouble.”

“Throw them away at once,” said Demerara. “I won’t have such nasty things in my flat. Lily, you’re trembling—what’s the matter?”

“I—I don’t like rats—”

“My dear, I feel just the same. Believe me, I’d love to kill him.”

“But she can’t,” the rat said, with a whiskery chuckle. “Because I’m as immortal as she is—she’s stuck with me.”

“Yes, he’s quite right,” said Demerara. “This is Spike, by the way. I’ve been trying to civilize him since 1938, and I still haven’t succeeded.”

“Ha ha, bad luck, old girl!” said Spike. “Oi—where’s the food cupboard gone? You’ve nicked the pigeon bum I was saving!”

“I haven’t ‘nicked’ anything,” Demerara said crushingly. “Please try to remember we have guests.”

“Is he the Mr. Spike who sent the parcel?” Oz asked.

“No, that was from me; I was just using his name.”

“But how on earth did you write the letter?”

The furry golden face was shifty. “Oh, I have certain … contacts. There’s a witch in the area.”

“A witch?” Oz nearly laughed, but did not want to
offend the dignified cat. He didn’t want to stop her from talking, either—it was the most entertaining thing he had ever seen.

“I’m not allowed to say anything else,” Demerara said grandly. “Let me explain why I summoned you—Spike, kindly don’t interrupt.”

“Wait till I get myself a snack.” The rat scuttled across the heaps of rubbish to the food cupboard and took out an unspeakable something that made Oz and Lily cry, “Yeucch!”

“Spike!” snapped Demerara. “How do you expect them to concentrate with that stink? Put it away and shut up.”

“Righto—keep your fur on.”

Demerara settled more comfortably on her old cushion. “I might as well start traditionally. Once upon a time, there were three brothers—Isadore, Marcel and Pierre Spoffard. They were triplets, born ten minutes apart. Their father was a French chocolate maker and their mother came from a long line of witches. On their tenth birthday—”

“We have a real witch in the family?” Lily interrupted, her eyes shining.

“Yes, and a very good one. When the boys were ten, their father began to teach them the art of chocolate making and their mother began to teach them magic. They were all very gifted, and most people thought
Isadore was the cleverest of the family, but though Pierre was more modest, he was the real genius.”

“You just think that because he worshipped you,” Spike said.

Demerara ignored him. “And I don’t care what anyone says, it was definitely Pierre who first thought of combining the two—chocolate AND magic! And it was Pierre who came up with their first success, the Wavio bar. This was made of delicious milk chocolate and it curled your hair; Pierre ate a bar of it every morning.”

Oz and Lily glanced at each other and had to look away quickly, in case they laughed and stopped Demerara from finishing her story.

“After that,” she went on, “they made all kinds of harmless magic chocolate products. For instance, Cherry Growlers made the voice deeper, and were very popular with reedy-voiced politicians. Charm Drops made shy people sparkle at parties, and when the king bought some, Spoffard chocolates became the toast of fashionable London. Oh, those were glorious days! Pierre bought me this sweet little tartan collar and real silver bell.”

“Get on with it,” said Spike.