A long pause.
‘WE STILL HAVE TO TRY.’ Me again.
‘You probably will have to bake,’ Anita put in, reaching up to pat my ankle. ‘Most Faery elixirs have cake crumbs and flower petals in them. The key thing is sewing the magic around it.’
‘Don’t sew either,’ the twins said.
Another, more powerful moment of uncertainty.
I took in a deep breath ready to shout again.
Aunt Rebecca stood up. ‘I’ll teach you to bake,’ she declared.
Glim said, ‘I’ll show you how to sew.’
A sound like a distant foghorn. It was Honey Bee. She had grabbed her knees and was clutching them to her chest, groaning. Her face was mottled and swollen. Her hair was clammy with sweat.
‘We haven’t got long at all,’ Carabella whispered.
‘Go to the kitchens at once!’ the Queen commanded. ‘Rebecca, you take the children. The rest of us will stay here and watch over Honey Bee and Carlos.’
Another moan from Honey Bee.
‘Go! Your Queen commands you!’
FINLAY
Hamish and Victor found the instructions for Faery elixir.
The twins made cupcakes. Those would bake faster than a big cake, Aunt Rebecca said.
‘But will it still work?’
Aunt Rebecca’s voice trembled. ‘We have no choice. Measure the flour into this,’ she told them. ‘Up to—no, no, up to this line. Quickly! Oh no, but don’t spill it!’
You could tell she wanted to grab the ingredients out of the twins’ hands and do it herself. Her neck muscles were standing straight up. Her fists were clenched.
Eggs cracked, spilled to the floor. Aunt Rebecca tapped her foot at a high speed, tap-tap-tap. ‘Cut that out,’ Eli said, studying the milk bottle. ‘You’re distracting me.’
‘You open it from that end! The lid!’ Aunt Rebecca cried.
‘Steady on,’ Taya told her.
Mixture flew every which way.
Eventually, cakes went in the oven.
‘Now you two have to sew the magic,’ Glim said, reading the instructions. ‘You have to imagine silvery-blue thread. Got it?’
‘Yep,’ said the twins.
‘Seriously? Close your eyes!’
The twins closed their eyes. ‘Okay. Got it. Silvery-blue thread.’
‘Now open your eyes again and I’ll show you how to move your hands, as if you’re stitching the spell into the air.’
‘You just told us to close them.’
‘Well, now you need to open!’
‘THIS IS NO TIME FOR ARGUING!’ That was me. Very loud that day, I was.
Aunt Rebecca checked the elixir instructions again. ‘Quick, run outside and start gathering the flowers, Finlay,’ she told me. ‘And someone get the honey! We’ll need a rose, a daffodil, a daisy, a chrysanthemum and wisteria.’
‘The school has a greenhouse with most of those in it,’ Victor declared. ‘Fin and Hamish, let’s fetch them.’
By the time we got back from the gardens, our hands filled with flowers, the cupcakes were ready.
‘We’ve got everything,’ I said.
‘Hurry!’ Aunt Rebecca grabbed the flowers from us and thrust them at the twins. ‘Peel off the petals! Into the honey! Then crumble in the cake crumbs!’
‘Take it easy,’ Taya said.
The twins have always done things in a slow and steady way. Every one of us wanted to grab them by the shoulders and shake them.
‘There,’ said Eli. ‘Wait. Where’s the wisteria?’
‘The wisteria! How’d we forget that?’ I demanded.
‘There wasn’t any,’ Hamish said.
‘There must be wisteria!’ Aunt Rebecca wailed.
Wisteria.
Whispers like wisteria.
‘In the Spindrift Gardens,’ I said slowly. ‘Hanging over trellises.’
Aunt Rebecca was blinking madly.
‘Those Gardens are just down the street from here, aren’t they?’ she asked.
We nodded.
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry! No, you twins, stay here and keep sewing the magic. The rest of you, get going! We’ll meet you in the green common room! Bring the wisteria there! Hurry and order the carriage around!’
‘Quicker,’ I said, ‘if we run.’
FINLAY
Still raining outside, but only lightly. Just a mist of rain.
The moon was out.
Trees shook raindrops in the wind.
And we pelted down the rain-dark road.
Faster than we’d ever run before.
Victor, Hamish, Glim and I, sometimes side by side, sometimes one or the other of us pulled out ahead.
We reached the Gardens.
‘Which is it? Which is the wisteria?’
‘It’s over here!’
Panting, we all reached up and pulled handfuls of wisteria, got splattered with raindrops, turned around and ran back even faster.
A race, but we were all in this one together.
Racing against Shadow Magic.
It’s a killer poison. Works at high speed. We had to be faster.
I never knew I could run that fast. Never knew they could run that fast.
The four of us sprinting, but a runner was missing. Honey Bee should’ve been running with us.
A blank space on the road where she should be.
She’s a beautiful runner with those stupidly long legs of hers.
So our feet pounded.
Our hearts thundered.
Our breath rasped.
We burst through the front doors of the school. Lunged up the staircase.
Skidded down the hallway.
Into the green common room.
The twins reached out their hands and we all thrust wisteria at them.
They tore off petals, added them to a glass jar filled with a sticky honey mix.
Then the twins were on their knees, sliding across to Honey Bee. She was curled up tight, and her face had turned into these hideous charcoal-coloured welts.
The twins’ faces were dead serious.
They took a spoonful of the elixir. Touched it to Honey Bee’s lips.
Another spoonful. Pushed it into her mouth.
‘That’s enough,’ Anita told them. ‘Now we wait.’
‘Keep sewing the magic,’ Aunt Rebecca begged the twins.
They sat on their knees, watching Honey Bee’s face, and sewing tiny stitches in the air.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come on, Honey Bee.’
She lay still.
‘Give her more!’ Victor pleaded.
Anita shook her head. ‘Wait.’
We waited.
The clock ticked.
The Queen made a little sound like a groan.
Rain picked up again outside.
‘Honey Bee?’ her Aunt Rebecca whispered. ‘Honey Bee?’
But it was too late.
We were too late.
Maybe the twins weren’t Faeries after all?
Or maybe we’d got the recipe wrong?
Maybe cupcakes were wrong—it had to be a real cake.
All that mattered was—
We’d lost her.
She was gone.
Honey Bee
OH, FINLAY!!! CUT IT OUT!
I HAD NOT GONE!
FINLAY
Ha. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
It suddenly seemed funny to me, to say that.
No, we waited, holding our breaths.
The twins sewed their tiny stitches.
Aunt Rebecca held both of Honey Bee’s hands—
And Honey Bee opened her eyes.
There was a bit of dribble on the side of her mouth, but luckily first thing she did was wipe that away.
Blinked around like a frightened rabbit.
‘Oh my,’ she said.
Everybody shouted, ‘Honey Bee!’ and Aunt Rebecca sort of slumped down like she couldn’t hold herself up anymore. You could tell
by the faces of the adults that it had been a very close thing.
Honey Bee
am certain there was no dribble on my face.
And that I did not blink like a frightened rabbit. My blinks are very dignified.
I think what Finlay meant to say was this: Honey Bee woke like a graceful princess.
But yes, I did wake up! I am still pretty cross with Victor, of course, for almost killing me—he says it’s my fault for taking the wrong cup—but at least he owned up in time. That was rather brave.
And I’m very thankful to the twins. Faery twins! It is funny that the twins are Faeries.
And I feel so honoured that Faery twins once threatened to break me into a thousand pieces!
And ended up saving my life. Along with Aunt Rebecca and my speedy friends, of course.
This will be the last chapter. Honestly.
It is now one month later. And guess what?
Today we saw the future children again!
This happened on the Beach with the Yellow Sand.
The Queen decreed a Party Day today, to celebrate the defeat of those pirate invaders. It took a while, but at last the ships of the invading fleet have sunk or surrendered.
Of course, there are plenty more pirates battling the K&E Alliance and the Anti-Pirate League on oceans throughout the Kingdoms and Empires. And the war still bristles away in both near and far-flung lands. But, for the moment at least, Spindrift seems to be having a short break.
Today, the twins baked Faery-healing cakes for everyone—many people are still rundown after that Witch-made flu, or wrung out by the war, and need a little boost, and the twins have been practising their baking with my Aunt Rebecca. Motoko-the-Chocolatier provided stacks of chocolate, including some Maywish Chocolate of the Riddle Empire that she somehow managed to bring into town. Snatty-Ra-Ra and the other fortune-tellers gave free predictions. The town band played, but (luckily) the Siren sisters sang so loudly that the sounds of the violin (and all the other instruments, in fact) were entirely drowned out.
Everybody came! Including all our Shadow Mage and Whisperer friends! The Queen did release them, and they have forgiven her. Or they pretend they’ve forgiven her—I did see a couple of Radish Gnomes kick sand onto her beach-towel.
We were having a picnic together—Finlay, Glim, the twins, Hamish, Victor and me—when we spotted the future children. They were standing by the door of our Beach Hut. It was a warm day and they were carrying their coats over their arms.
‘Who’s that?’ Finlay asked, pointing.
‘Where?’ Victor asked politely. It’s very funny to hear Victor being polite. He is generally much quieter, although he can’t help reminding people that he is a duke now and then. The Queen pardoned him for his wickedness, as he was being controlled by Sir Brathelthwaite’s Whispers. I think he is so relieved that she didn’t notice his own nastiness that he is determined to be better from now on.
‘Over there,’ Finlay replied. ‘I think it’s the future children!’
‘Bronte and Alejandro!’ I cried, and we all hopped up and hurried over to them. We were very keen to tell them the whole story of how we had rescued the children from the Whispering Kingdom! And how Glim had flown dragons! We all talked at once.
But they seemed to have no trouble understanding us.
‘Congratulations,’ Alejandro said. ‘It is true that we already know all this as it is in history books. But this is good. I think you have fixed history. I am proud of you.’ It is strange to hear another child say that he is proud of you, but Alejandro can carry it off. It’s his accent, I think, and the handsomeness.
Bronte said, ‘The genie asked you to finish up the story tonight, if that’s all right, and to leave it on a table in the Town Square. She will use the hedge to collect it herself.’
Finlay and I agreed to this.
‘We also have something from the future to give you,’ Bronte said.
We hoped it would be a magic futuristic machine that would do our homework and make us milkshakes, but it was only a torn piece of paper. We tried to be polite about it anyway.
‘It’s from a book called The History of the Whispering Wars,’ Bronte explained. ‘Written by my Uncle Nigel. Some bits have faded because of the Detection Magic but most of it’s all right since it’s already happened by now.’
Oh, I have an idea! Finlay and I have been writing these last few chapters in the Town Square as the sun sets on Party Day. Now and then, we stop to squabble about who will get the last word. We both want it. I mean, he wrote the first chapter and he’s just added some Opening Words. (By the way, he says, he knows that plenty worse things happened than his missing out on a laundry-chute ride on his birthday, but it really did bother him hugely. So he’s keeping that line the way it is.) Anyhow, by rights, I should get the last word. But Finlay says that the story will sink like an off-balance boat if he doesn’t finish it up.
Now I think the solution is for neither of us to have the last word! We will finish up with the page Bronte gave us from the history book! Like a message from the future! The page stops halfway through a sentence so readers will have to imagine what the missing words say, which seem to me to be perfect Closing Words. Anyway, on with the story—
Bronte and Alejandro joined us at our picnic blanket and we pressed cake, chocolate and fruit on them.
‘Maywish Chocolate!’ Bronte said. ‘My favourite!’
Finlay was happy to hear this, as it’s his favourite also. They argued in a friendly way about the best flavours.
‘Have I got this wrong?’ Hamish asked suddenly. ‘I mean to say, we did rescue the children from the Whispering Kingdom, didn’t we? But you still haven’t found out who Alejandro’s parents are! I’m awfully sorry about that. Or have I got that wrong?’
‘That’s why we’ve come back,’ Bronte said.
‘And because we wanted to see you all again,’ Alejandro put in.
‘That too,’ Bronte agreed. ‘The moment we find out who Alejandro’s parents are, we’ll disappear back to the future and the Time Travel Hedge will leave our garden, the genie says. We’ll never be able to see you again—except in our own time, I suppose.’
‘But we’ll be grown-ups then,’ I complained, but I was interrupted by a little kerfuffle on the sand.
Ronnie-the-Artist who generally paints pictures in the Town Square had set himself up on the sand, and was offering free Party Day portraits.
‘Oh my! I am sorry!’ cried a voice—and it was Carabella. She’d been passing his blanket, carrying a plate of treats from the banquet table, and had tripped on Ronnie’s water pot, knocking it over. Water trickled into the sand. Then, as she leaned down to pick up the pot for him, her treats slid from her plate.
‘I’ll refill your water pot for you,’ Carabella promised, but Ronnie was on his feet, collecting Carabella’s dropped treats.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you some new treats instead. These are all sandy. Or do you enjoy crunchy food?’
‘I do like a bit of crunch,’ Carabella agreed, ‘in life generally. But look at you! What a marvellously big man you are! A bear of a man!’
Ronnie laughed, and they carried on together to the banquet table, chatting.
Bronte, I realised, had crouched low behind me as they passed. ‘That’s my aunt!’ she whispered. ‘She looks so young! And that’s Bear she’s with! In my time, he’s her husband!’
‘Oh my!’ I whispered back. ‘That’s your aunt? But she—’ I stopped. I’d been going to say that Carabella was Director of Spellbinders, but of course that is top secret. Even if Bronte was her niece, she might not know about it.
‘Director of Spellbinders?’ Bronte murmured. ‘I know. She’s a very powerful Spellbinder.’ Then she lowered her voice further and added: ‘As are you, Honey Bee.’
I blinked. ‘Oh? How did you—know?’
‘I’m part Spellbinder myself,’ Bronte explained quickly. ‘The astonishing way you saved the people
of Vanquishing Cove is legendary amongst the Spellbinding community in my time, Honey Bee—it’s not in history books, of course, because you are still alive and your Spellbinding is a secret, obviously.’ Her voice rose a little, as she noticed the others sending quizzical looks our way. ‘Guess what else? Mayor Franny is also my aunt. It’s funny how she doesn’t recognise me but of course she wouldn’t. I haven’t even been born yet. My mother is still a young teenager here—she’s actually the Princess of the Whispering Kingdom, but that’s another story. Don’t look at me like that, I can’t talk about it. There’s Aunt Franny now, eating a carrot. Who are those people with her?’
Obediently, I peered through the crowds and there, on another blanket, was Mayor Franny. She was laughing with a group of friends. I squinted and recognised Lili-Daisy from the Orphanage, my Aunt Rebecca, the Queen, the Prince, Anita and Carlos.
Did you notice I just mentioned Carlos?
For yes, Carlos is quite well again! Fully recovered! Thanks to the twins and their healing cakes! And he is spending a great deal of time catching up with his long-lost sister, Anita.
‘Would you like to come and meet the Queen?’ I asked Bronte now.
‘Why not?’ Bronte agreed, so we all stood up, brushing crumbs away. Alejandro tidied his hair, pushing it behind his ears. A bit nervous about meeting a Queen, I think.
It took a few minutes to weave between picnic blankets, towels and sandcastles, laughing people, spilling drinks and children running in and out of the ocean. Eventually, we drew close enough to the gathering that we could hear their conversation.
Anita was speaking to the others.
‘The Kingdom of Joya Amarillo!’ she laughed. ‘It doesn’t exist, of course. It was a story I invented when I was little, before I even came to Spindrift. I used to tell my baby brother Carlos all about it. He was Prince Carlos in the Kingdom, of course, and there was a Queen Maria, named after my mother, and a King Alejandro—my father’s name.’
‘King Alejandro,’ Mayor Franny smiled. ‘Sounds a fine King.’
‘Yes,’ Anita said shyly. ‘If I ever have a son, I will name him Alejandro.’
The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars Page 31