Scatterbungle

by Edrei Cullen

  ‘Stop it!’ gasped Ella, rushing over to him and scooping him into her palm. She wiped the poor little man down. He was soaking and muddy and terribly bruised!

  She looked at Charlie. If Dixon couldn’t get home to Magus, what did that mean? Charlie’s fast mind flipped through the possibilities. They didn’t look good.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Ella said to the pixie gently. ‘That means you get to be with me, right?’ She swallowed down the panic inside her.

  Dixon did a backflip out of her hand and spun through the air, landing up on her shoulder. When he stood up he was completely restored to normal. Not a bruise or a dollop of mud anywhere. ‘So I do!’ he squealed excitedly. ‘We get to do Serious Magical Business together, my darling feather!’ He clutched firmly to the pointy tip of her ear and thrust a tiny striped arm into the air, like a steely knight heading into battle.

  Ella frowned at Charlie. ‘And as for you…’

  ‘I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU SHRINKIFIED ME!’ Charlie gurgled furiously at Ella, popping his head up out of the front pocket of her dungarees and spitting out a mouthful of water. Ella tipped herself out of the barrel of water in Ms Wheelbarrow’s office.

  ‘I’m sorry Charlie but I really don’t know any better way to keep you protected from the Scatterbungle!’ she said, tapping his head. ‘You can stay really close to me this way.’

  Charle swatted at her finger angrily. He was meant to be Protecting her. Not the other way around! How was he supposed to look after her if he was the size of a pepper pot! And quite apart from that, being Shrinkified was really blinking sore!

  Dixon’s head appeared too. He gave Charlie a nudge in the side and then burst into a fit of giggles! Charlie was the same size as him!

  ‘You’ve been shrunk, spunk, punk, monk! Look! Your nose is the same size as mine. Fine, fine, funny time!’

  But his hilarity didn’t last for long. No sooner had Ella dried herself down than she had to cover her nose. The stench of burnt liquorice and rotten bananas was overwhelming. She looked down at Dixon and Charlie. They clearly couldn’t smell it. She dried herself off and turned to the window. All three of them were sobered at once.

  For out the window they could see that the situation at school had deteriorated much faster than any of them could have imagined. The small flames that had flipped up out of the tips of the blades of grass yesterday, had ravaged the lawn by now. In fact, the lawn had become a carpet of flickering magical flames, lighting up the night sky like a great red landing pad. The flames also licked up the sides of Hedgeberry’s walls and consumed the glorious ivy creeping about them. Ella gulped, guilty and sorry that she had been away for the few hours she had. Thankful too, though, that Samantha and Humphrey were safe back at Willow Farm.

  She opened her skateboard bag, pulled out the glass case and rested it on her knees. Opening it, she tried to reach for the Keys.

  ‘I still can’t get hold of them,’ she said, grimacing.

  ‘What?’ said Charlie and Dixon at the same time, peering over the lapel of her dungarees. Dixon kept looking over at Charlie, with his tiny freckled face and shrunken spiky hair. He shook his head in amazement.

  ‘The Keys,’ said Ella, blowing out of her mouth with frustration.

  ‘I still can’t see anything,’ said Charlie frowning.

  ‘Because there’s nothing there, hair, scare, bear,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Yes there is,’ said Ella. ‘And you know it’s important, Dixon, as well as we do, because Wheelbarrow and Posiblemente and Samuel were freaked out when I could see them.’

  Dixon smacked himself in the forehead, nearly knocking himself out of Ella’s front pocket altogether.

  ‘Oh it’s true, blue.’ Dixon dangled backwards and battered himself about a bit, pummelling either side of his head with his fists. ‘Bad pixie,’ he hollered.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Charlie, leaning over and swatting at the pixie to get him to calm down. Gosh it felt weird to be the same size as him. ‘Ella, we have to get to the library.’

  Dixon looked at miniature Charlie, trying to tell Ella what to do, and burst out laughing again.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about things,’ said Charlie, as Ella made her way along the empty corridors of the school. She shuddered as memories of Hedgeberry broken and burnt from her dreams echoed inside her. They had to hurry. ‘We have to find out more about what the Keys actually mean,’ said Charlie, pulling himself up the lapel of her dungarees and wobbling onto her shoulder uncertainly. Ella felt a tug at her hair as he used it to keep his balance. This was much harder than Dixon made it look. ‘If we understand them, we’ll have a better chance of finding the missing one and figuring out how we’re meant to be able to see and use them ourselves.’

  Ella wasn’t sure that the school library would contain classified information like that but she didn’t have any better ideas right now, so she let her Shrinkified Protector take charge.

  It seemed that every student at Hedgeberry was at the school infirmary. As they passed by it, the queue outside nearly broke Ella’s heart. The head of Medicology, a Sprite Flitterwig, along with a team of senior Sprite Flitterwigs, was doing his very best to try to reduce the fevers of the poor creatures waiting in line to see the matron. Every few seconds the healers stopped to scratch their heads and try to remember what in fact they were supposed to be doing in the first place. But even when they remembered, nothing they did was having any effect whatsoever. They seemed to have lost all power to heal anyone. Even themselves, it would seem, from the sickly pallor on their faces and their racking coughs. Ella reached out for them but Charlie wouldn’t let her linger. ‘You can’t just touch people all day,’ he hissed in her ear. ‘We have the future of Flitterwiggery to save!’

  Ella looked down at him. Now that disaster was upon them, Charlie was all action. She nodded fondly. He wasn’t her Protector for nothing!

  As soon as the children entered the library they heard a CLUNK CLUNKING behind a long shelf at the far end of the room.

  They approached the sound carefully, hearts in their mouths. There was a rustling coming from behind a huge pile of Magical Encyclopaedia on the floor. They peered around the pile.

  ‘Yaaaaaaaaa,’ yelled Charlie, jumping up and karate-chopping the air. Losing his balance, he fell backwards into the hood of her hoodie. Dixon scrambled after him.

  Imagine Ella’s surprise to find Max Pepper sitting there, flipping through the pages of a large tome. He looked up, his red hair flickering and his face whiter than ever.

  He looked a little as if he’d been caught doing something naughty. He stared hard at Ella. ‘Why don’t you have a fever?’ he demanded.

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Ella replied indignantly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Max. He was about to say something else when a dreadful wailing came from outside the window. He leapt up and looked out. Ella looked too.

  They spotted Mr Frollick jumping about the courtyard, dodging flames from the grass whipping at his legs.

  But he wasn’t the one crying.

  The wailing began again. They looked up in unison. It was Mrs Howzatful, leaning out of the Instinctamology tower.

  ‘I can’t feeeeel anything!’ the teacher was crying, over and over again. ‘Oh what has become of me? I can’t even remember what feeeeling means!’

  Max pulled Ella down, out of sight.

  ‘You have no idea how weird everything’s getting,’ Max said. ‘Or do you?’ he said. ‘Oh I don’t know anymore. Just stay down.’ Ella thrust herself out of his grasp. How dare Max tell her what to do! She had to go and comfort poor Mrs Howzatful and dear Mr Frollick. But Dixon had helped Charlie out of her hood and her Protector was already wobbling about on her shoulder and whispering urgently in her ear.

  ‘Don’t you move, Ella. We have no idea what’s really going on. Hedgeberry might be being watched. It’s not safe to be in open spaces. Stay down.’

  Ella looked at Max. ‘What do you mean you don’t know why you aren’t
sick?’ she asked, remembering where their conversation had left off. Max stared at her intensely. Ella almost blushed. Gosh the boy made her uncomfortable! But this was hardly the time for being shy! Ella stood up tall. Her mind raced and her hair flared, whipping Charlie under its honey-coloured blanket as it fell free.

  What was Max looking for in the library?

  ‘Do you know something about the Scatterbungle?’ she demanded, listening to the magic inside her well up protectively as her wings burst free and churned up the air about her. ‘What do you know about the attack?’

  ‘How do you know about Scatterbungle?’ Max said, blanching. And then he added hurriedly, because Ella looked a little threatening, ‘No I blinking well don’t know why this has happened.’

  ‘What the?’ Ella gasped, her eyes flashing. He’d recognised the word! He’d even said it himself! Ella’s ears burned. Her hair twirled. If Max was part of this terrible infection, she was going to have to fight him. She hoped she had the powers to. She knew she did. She had to.

  ‘I’ve been hearing the word in my dreams for weeks,’ said Max urgently, planting both feet firmly on the floor and putting his hands up like he was about to have a boxing match. ‘But I swear I don’t know what the heck it means! None of the other Salamanders are hearing it and I’m so terrible at Dream Catching and Unweaving that I can’t figure out what it means on my own and—’

  ‘Not another dream, squeam!’ Dixon squealed, appearing from under her hair.

  Max did a double take. He moved closer to Ella and Ella stepped back. He emanated a freaky heat. Ella remembered feeling it from skateboarding races they’d done together.

  ‘I knew it!’ said Max. ‘That’s a pure Magical!’

  ‘Er. Yes I am,’ said Dixon. ‘A pixie to be precise. Feel free to address me in person, thanks,’ he said, raising himself up to his full height on Ella’s shoulder. ‘Dixon Delightly Ever So Slightly,’ he said, bowing and then flipping himself into a sitting position.

  ‘And is that Charlie Snoppit?’ Max asked, incredulous now, looking over at Ella’s other shoulder. Charlie sat forward, balancing precariously.

  ‘So what if it is?’ said Charlie, trying to sound large and tall and in charge. Dixon peered over at Charlie and chuckled.

  Ella stared at Max, her eyes glowing a brighter green with every second. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Explain yourself, Max,’ ordered Ella as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. Dixon sat staunchly on one shoulder, Charlie wobbled about a bit on the other, his feet dancing about beneath him to help him balance.

  Max just stood and stared at the three of them, completely lost for words.

  chapter 15

  repetitions & revelations

  ‘Why aren’t you affected?!’ Ella asked again.

  ‘I don’t KNOW!’ yelled Max. ‘I’ve already told you that. Why aren’t YOU affected?’

  Max shook his head. They weren’t going to get anywhere throwing the same question back at one another like this. He tried to settle his temper.

  ‘Look,’ he growled. ‘We have bigger problems to sort out right now. I tried to call my parents but none of the Waterways are working. I tried to get out of the school grounds, too, but every way out seems to be ablaze in…’ Max paused, trembling. ‘In magical fires.’

  Charlie closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought Max might be helpful. The boy was a blinking Salamander and he was afraid of fire!

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ insisted Ella.

  ‘I guess being a Salamander, I have a pretty good resistance to a lot of things,’ Max continued, frowning.

  ‘Um, not fire,’ said Charlie sarcastically. ‘And anyway, if that’s true, why are the other Salamanders affected? I saw one of your lot just a minute ago and his curly hair has gone completely straight and turned brown!’

  ‘I really DON’T know,’ said Max, tugging at his curls. Then he hesitated, for this wasn’t quite true. He did know something. ‘Look,’ he said again, taking a deep breath and staring at Ella, intensely, in the way that made her squirm. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  Ella was quite taken aback by the question. How did he know he could trust them? She weighed up the boy before her. Even though he was slouched he was clearly ready to fight her if he had to. His bad temper gave him some pluck!

  Ella closed her eyes and listened to her deeper wisdom. Her clear heart told her she didn’t have a lot of options right now.

  She opened her eyes decisively. ‘Because you have to trust us,’ Ella answered carefully. ‘And we have to trust you. Listen, I have certain powers other Flitterwigs don’t seem to have, and they seem to be protecting me from the Scatterbungle poison right now.’ Disclosing this kind of information made her feel rather uncertain, but she forged on. ‘As long as Dixon and Charlie are in close contact with me, they seem to be unaffected too, which is why I’ve Shrinkified him,’ she said, pointing at Charlie.

  Max’s mouth fell open. No-one could Shrinkify a person! It was unheard of!

  ‘I think I might be okay because I’m wearing this,’ Max blurted. He loosened the top button of his white shirt to reveal a leather strap around his neck, similar to the one Samuel had worn around his ankle. That must have been what he was always fiddling with, thought Ella.

  Dixon chuckled.

  ‘I know, weird, right?’ said Max, noticing Dixon’s amusement. It was hard to be cross with someone so little and so cute. ‘A piece of leather. But my father has made me wear it since I was born. It’s been passed from father to son through heaps of generations in our family. “To protect and for protection” is our family motto.’

  Charlie wasn’t chuckling. He was looking at Ella (or her cheek, at least), who was staring at Max’s chest, her mouth agog.

  ‘The fifth Key! You’re wearing one of the Keys!’ she said. She could see it, clear as a star, glowing against his white skin. ‘Charlie, Dixon, it’s the fifth Key!’

  ‘It’s really there?!’ said Max, completely taken aback. ‘I was told it held a key, but I can’t see it myself!’ He peered at Ella quizzically.

  Dixon made a swirly sign with his finger near his temple. ‘She’s seeing things,’ he whispered, so loudly he might as well have yelled it.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Charlie. ‘Ella is seeing things. Seeing things we can’t.’

  ‘I’ve been dreaming of a key,’ Max admitted, gulping. ‘And of these cocoon things, made of amber. For weeks. My father says my grandfather gave him this leather when he was a baby as his father did before him, and legend has it that it holds an invisible key and that its purpose wouldn’t visit us except in our dreams, when the times required it. But I have no idea what my dreams are supposed to be telling me, and I haven’t wanted to tell my dad about them ‘cause… oh, it’s hard to explain. Salamanders can usually Unweave a dream… but if you are a Salamander and you can’t do that… then dads don’t really understand… and… well… anyway.’

  Ella gulped. She’d been having her bad dreams for weeks now, too.

  ‘The key’s like crystal, old-fashioned, right, but it glows white?’ said Max, interrupting her thoughts.

  Ella nodded. Max’s permanent frown loosened a little. Something about the way Ella was staring, mesmerised, at the leather strap around his neck, made him stand up a little straighter. He’d seen something in his dream that was real for someone else! That was sort of like Unweaving something, wasn’t it?

  Charlie shivered. Who the bleeding blinkers was Max Pepper? And what the bleeding blinkers did he have to do with all this?

  ‘What the blinking Magic is going on?’ said Charlie, looking at Ella’s hair flying up above her head in a wild fan around him. A scent of cinnamon and rain wafted from her. Dixon sat on her shoulder and covered his eyes.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Ella solidly, squeezing the reddening tips of both pointy ears to soothe them. She looked at Max. She’d found the final Key and clearly, another member of her tea
m.

  A burst of magical flames flew up past the library windows and the children heard a creaking in the beams in the ceiling. A window shattered and the flames licked at the sills, like silk. They were hot but it was clear they weren’t real. They almost seemed alive, like slippering snakes of colour. But they fizzed and hissed and one long tentacle stole into the library, glowering red and orange and yellow and blue in search of magic to destroy. Ella watched in horror as it folded itself around the pile of books Max had been searching through only moments ago, and sealed them in an enchanted blaze.

  Dixon peered through his fingers. He could feel Ella sparkling with energy beneath him. She felt abuzz! He squeezed his eyes shut and held his mouth closed with both hands. This was no time for theatrics.

  Ella looked at Max. He was a Salamander. He should be able to tame the magical fire. But he was frozen, terrified by it!

  ‘The Key is what’s protecting him from the Scatterbungle, isn’t it?’ said Charlie, pulling himself together. This was it. They were in it, it was real, the Prophecy was unfolding and there was no turning back.

  Ella nodded. Charlie pulled out the papers Don Posiblemente had copied for him from the files. ‘Forget looking for something in the library,’ he said, examining the Prophecy. ‘The diaries will have to do.’ His fingers traced the words on the spiral paper as he kept one eye on the long intrepid flame that had snuck in. ‘Quick, Ella, get us out of here.’

  Ella nodded, understanding. She looked out the door of the library. Every window in the hall outside had shattered. Magical flames licked at the sills of all but one.

  ‘We’re going to have to fly through there,’ she said. Her wings were strong but she wasn’t sure they’d be able to carry a fully grown boy—Max. But there really wasn’t much option. ‘I’m going to have to give you a piggyback,’ she called out to him, uncertainly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Dixon, winking at Max, who really was totally lost for words. ‘Remember I’m a pixie, dixie. I have the strength of ten men, hen. I’m with you. It’s magic remember. Rhymes with September.’