Scatterbungle

by Edrei Cullen

  Max’s shoulders rolled back and he stood up straight as a pole. He was really quite tall! He looked at Ella, slightly embarrassed. Ella smiled reassuringly. He turned to Mrs Howzatful coming out of her enchantment—Salamander to Salamander.

  ‘We need to get into the Library of Memories,’ Max said. ‘Can you help us?’

  Mrs Howzatful hesitated, her graceful body shuddering as it recovered. Ella held her arm.

  ‘My dear Salamander compatriot,’ she said, beginning to tremble as she realised the world around her had been turned upside down, ‘our kind need only point our fingers at the door, tweak our ears and say the incantation and we can walk right through with whomever we wish.’

  ‘But what’s the incantation?’ Max asked, his red curls flaming in unison with hers. Mrs Howzatful looked at Ella holding her elbow, suspiciously. She stepped forward and whispered it into Max’s ear. Even in such disastrous circumstances, Flitterwigs were still a separated species.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Max. The children turned and sped back towards the Library. Max held tightly to Ella to stop her looking back as Mrs Howzatful unravelled once more without her.

  The Library of Memories let Max pass through its majestic oak door at once. He stepped right through, clutching Ella’s hand so she might follow behind him. He was feeling less and less angry at life by the minute.

  But Ella had not quite passed through the wall when the sound of hundreds and hundreds of years of memories hit her ears like a thousand ambulance sirens. It was deafening to her, torturous, intolerable. She had no choice but to pull away from his hand and step back. A faint buzz passed between them as she let go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ella called through the wall to Max, falling to the floor and clutching her heart. She’d never suffered such a multitude of noises like that. ‘You have to do this alone,’ she said.

  Dixon peered up at her, his big eyes bulging.

  She stared out across the room, struggling for breath. Dixon found her inhaler, gave it to her and collapsed back down the front of her dungarees. Whatever was going on inside Ella and outside at Hedgeberry today was terribly confusing!

  Max couldn’t hear a thing. For him, it was dark and quiet inside the Library of Memories. He felt about for a light switch. His hand found a candle on a wrought iron stick by the door. The air felt close and still. Max started to shake. He was going to have to light it.

  Which meant fire.

  Which he was terrified of.

  Or was he?

  Max remembered Ella’s certainty and her confidence in him. The sensation of Ella’s hand pulling away from him passed through his body. What was making him so afraid of fire?

  Max stood up and pulled a rusty hair tentatively from his head. He lifted the candle and touched the hair to the candlewick, tweaking the tip of his left ear as he muttered the words he’d been taught so many times. It lit at once. He tried not to drop the candle in fright. He looked around, his hand shaking.

  The whole Library lit up as tiny candles sparked to life everywhere he looked. The room grew hotter than hot. But Max was okay! He was surrounded by flames, and he was okay!

  There were rows upon rows of small wooden boxes, delicately carved, set into the panelling along the walls of the misty labyrinthine Library. Max’s hair lit up like the flames of the burning candles around him. His heart beat hard but he stood taller than he ever had before. It was BRILLIANT. He felt cool, calm and collected. He felt like a Salamander. His fear was gone!

  He raised the candle to a nearby box. 923 it read. The one next to it was numbered 2. The one next to that 40,009. This could take forever! Max wandered up and down, in and out, around and about, searching for the deposit number in Ella’s mother’s diary.

  The room seemed endless and Max might have searched for hours, had it not been for a vague heat that inflamed in his chest when he passed the far-east corner of the room. He’d never felt such a signal before, but he paced back a few steps, giving it the benefit of the doubt.

  He scoured the wall, reading the numbers of a never-ending array of boxes before he spotted it. His hand shook a little as he reached for the small handle on the box. Number 24138. It slid out easily. He set the candle on the ground and crouching down, put the box on the floor. Another handle was settled into the carving on top of the box. Max unhooked it and pulled, but it wouldn’t give.

  He examined the box more closely, turning it on the carpet underfoot. There was a lock on the back of it. Drat, Max thought to himself.

  Ella’s touch whispered through his senses again and he closed his eyes for a moment. Come on, he told himself.

  When he opened his eyes he realised something was glowing on his chest.

  It was glowing through his shirt!

  The Key!

  He felt for the leather cord around his neck and lifted it out. On it hung a Key that glowed as red as a scorching hot poker! He took it in his hands. It was real! He could see it! He could touch it!

  And he knew in that instant that the Key would open the box.

  He clutched the box and made his way back to the entrance of the chamber. Once or twice, he bravely passed his finger through a flame. Nothing happened to him at all! He was fine!

  Finally he found the door. It was still closed. He tried to walk through it. Ouch. Tried again. Solid as wood.

  Hmmm, he thought to himself. Maybe he wasn’t so omnipotent after all!

  chapter 20

  freezification & fright

  Gloria listened outside the door with increased horror, to the conversation unfolding in her parents’ Ulnus Estate drawing room. Her mother had sent a gasmask to school that she’d been ordered to wear all the time, which was really embarrassing. And just as she began to notice her fellow students behaving strangely, she’d been ordered home. Now she knew why. She wasn’t sure who the monstrous rasping voice in the drawing room belonged to but she shuddered at the thought of what he was proposing to her parents.

  ‘You have unleashed too much Scatterbungle,’ shouted someone Gloria didn’t know. ‘The situation is out of control.’

  ‘He’s right. The trees are whipping up a frenzy to protect themselves, Your Highness,’ she heard her father say. She couldn’t believe he was there—she hadn’t heard a thing from him since he escaped from gaol and now there he was in the drawing room. ‘The Scatterbungle is poisoning them too. It is creating a strange heat and odd pressures that are causing violent magical winds at Hedgeberry. Magical fires are springing up all over the place. As a Dryad Flitterwig I am compelled by my species to protect the trees, as I am to protect all Dryads at the school who are getting increasingly sick.’

  ‘Then go in and remove the Dryads,’ Gloria heard the horrible raspy-voiced creature say.

  ‘And the Gnome Flitterwigs too?’ she heard the other stranger ask.

  ‘Whatever,’ snarled the ugly voice. ‘Just get me to Ella. She will be there, I know it. She is incapable of ignoring her destiny.’

  Gloria cringed at the sound of her nemesis’ name. Of course she had something to do with this.

  ‘But the trees,’ said Gloria’s mother.

  ‘I don’t give a stuff about the trees,’ growled the antagonist.

  Gloria caught her breath. It was unheard of for any Flitterwig of any kind to be unsympathetic to Nature in distress.

  If only she knew how unheard of it was for a pure Magical to be so.

  ‘I don’t care what you’re saying—enough’s enough! I have to go and help them,’ her mother said. Gloria slunk into the shadows of a hanging rug as she heard her mother’s heels click towards the door.

  But her mother didn’t get to the door. There was a slicing, laser sound and then her father cried out.

  ‘You’ve Freezified her!’ he shrieked. ‘What are you thinking?’

  Gloria’s heart stopped. There was another slicing sound and then silence.

  ‘You want some too?’ the Duke’s voice screeched through the walls.

  The other
stranger stammered and stalled. ‘No, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘I will do as you command.’

  ‘Then to Hedgeberry at once! Make sure you have the gasmasks and give me a slug of that Antidote. Being back on land is getting to me already. Let’s go.’

  The door opened and a hideous creature in a black velvet cloak entered the hall, followed by a short, stocky man with flappy ears and bushy hair whom Gloria identified at once as a Gnome Flitterwig. In fact, if she wasn’t much mistaken, he looked very much like the ex-co-chairman of the Flitterwig Rooniun, Saul Bottomly, who had escaped from prison with her father.

  He was followed by a tiny goblin, dragging behind him a bulging sack. As their footsteps disappeared along the corridor, Gloria snuck into the drawing room.

  Her mother and father were FREEZIFIED to the spot! She touched her mother but moved her hand away in an instant. She was so cold. Gloria’s heart pounded. She felt a deep ache in her chest, a mixture of fear and longing. She had to get to the trees. She had to get to Hedgeberry. And she had to find someone who could help her parents!

  She made her way along the corridor to where her parents kept their barrel of water for Portality purposes. Inside the room, the Goblin and the monstrosity in the cloak were talking in hushed tones as they attached gasmasks to their faces. The Gnome Flitterwig, visibly shaken, followed suit.

  The Goblin had left his sack by the open door. Gloria felt inside it. It was full of gasmasks. Thinking quickly, she pulled two out and laid them next to a bookshelf. She looked about her, heart pounding. A beautiful camellia tree grew up through the floorboards beside her. Tweaking her ear she whispered gently to one of its spindly boughs. It disconnected itself at once from its trunk and fell to the floor. Before it had even touched the ground, Gloria was spiralling out of her normal form and becoming a soft, greeny-brown extension of the twig. It rolled across the floor and into the sack a second before the Goblin closed it up and the party in their gasmasks disappeared into her parents’ Portality barrel.

  chapter 21

  visible & visionary

  Suddenly Max tumbled through the door and onto the carpet. Ella rushed over to help him up. Every bit of tension seemed to have left the boy, and his face was light and white and as noble as all the others of his kind.

  ‘I have the box right here,’ he said, leaping to his feet. He pointed to the box clutched under his arm. ‘But I don’t think I’m the “dreamer” in our team you know. I think I’m the “wisher”, the person who has to want things for himself—I only got back through that door when I figured that out. All I’ve ever wished for in my life is to not be afraid of fire and to be able to Catch and Unweave dreams like us Salamanders are supposed to. And when you helped clear my shadows I suddenly believed I could do those things, and now, here I am! And look,’ he said, showing her the red glowing object around his neck. ‘I can see my Key!’

  Dixon’s eyes opened wide with delight. He could see it too! ‘We’re on to it, bit, mitt, sit!’ he said, grinning at Ella proudly.

  Ella heaved a sigh of relief. Her hair flared and the scent of cinnamon and oranges wafted from her powerfully.

  ‘Can I try to Catch and Unweave your dream?’ Max asked tentatively. ‘I think that’s what I’m supposed to do now.’

  ‘Okay, but be quick,’ said Ella, for there wasn’t a minute to lose.

  Max put his hands around her ears gently and began to recite the failed incantation he had tried a billion times before.

  Almost instantly, he could feel Ella’s dreams slipping out of her ears and into his hands, as if by Magic. In fact, precisely by Magic! A translucent string with the hint of a rainbow in it, weaved itself into his fingers. He took his hands away and drew them together in front of him, watching in wonder, as the strings overlapped and threaded themselves together like a cat’s cradle.

  He’d caught his first dream! He couldn’t believe it!

  Ella looked at Max in wonder. ‘Can you Unweave it?’ she asked.

  Max looked at the dream carefully. ‘All I can see are some orange things,’ he said, straining to Unweave more. ‘They look like cocoons.’

  That was it. That was all the dream was telling him. He sighed. The dream unfurled from his hand and, like a charmed thread, floated through the air and back into Ella.

  Charlie and Humphrey and Sam could only applaud when the Flitterwigs got back and showed them the shining red Key around Max’s neck. But Ella wasn’t celebrating.

  ‘It’s a disaster out there,’ she said. ‘We have to move faster.’

  Max put his Key into the lock of the box he had brought from the Library and it opened at once. Inside the box they found a tumble of entwined memories, moving restlessly one between the other.

  ‘Can you Unweave them?’ Ella asked, hopefully.

  ‘I can try,’ he said, gathering them in his fingers.

  When he looked up at her a little while later, his face was soft. He spoke gently. ‘You remember your mum mentioned her Goblin Protector was called Alfie?’ he said.

  Ella nodded. Max looked at Charlie.

  ‘Well his surname was Snoppit.’

  Charlie fell back against the wall.

  Ella rushed over to him and helped him recover his balance. She looked back at Max.

  ‘Who was he?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘I’m not sure, it doesn’t tell me much more.’

  ‘Alfie was my brother,’ said Charlie. He looked at Ella. ‘You know my mum and dad are really old right?’ Ella nodded. ‘Well they had me a long time after my brother died—I think I was a bit of an accident. He was a brilliant gardener apparently. I didn’t think it was possible that he was the Alfie that Protected your mum because I didn’t think anyone else in my family knew they were a Flitterwig. But thinking about it, I remember my parents having a fight when Manna visited and said I had to go to Hedgeberry and that she’d pay the school fees. My mum didn’t think it was safe.’

  Ella gave Charlie a big hug. ‘I bet I know why you’re rubbish with plantlife,’ she whispered in his ear. She stepped back and looked him in the eyes. She took his hands in hers. Her eyes snapped shut.

  Memories spun through her body. Memories that weren’t hers. Then they stopped. Charlie was on his farm, in the potato patch, digging holes, stroking the leaves of embedded carrots, chattering away to them happily. He was no more than five years old. His mother came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. Spotting him there, she yelled out his name, went over and grabbed him, dragged him away.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, crossly, ‘get away from the veggies. Just stop talking to them, would you! Look at the mess you’ve made!’

  Little Charlie snivelled. ‘S-s-s-sorry,’ he stuttered.

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred times not to play in this garden,’ she scolded. ‘This was your brother’s garden. He was the special one. He belonged in here, not you. I don’t want to see you in here messing with Alfie’s plants ever again.’

  Ella’s eyes opened. No wonder Charlie didn’t trust himself when it came to growing stuff.

  ‘It’s okay not to feel uncertain when you’re around plants,’ she said as her hair whirled about her head wildly. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty about that any more.’ Her shoulders itched and her ears burnt. Charlie looked at her, and understood.

  And then they stepped back from one another. ‘Trust Nature!’ they both said at once. Was that how Charlie could help to stem the Scatterbungle, help to raise the fountain? Was that the role he had to play? Was that his lesson to learn in order to draw out the true magic needed to save the day?

  The two children turned and looked at Samantha and Humphrey.

  ‘I bet “love” belongs to me,’ Samantha sang. ‘Well I hope it does,’ she said, a little more pensively.

  Humphrey was silent. He hardly dared to hope what he was thinking. And then he piped up. ‘I guess I’m the forgiver,’ he said, the disappointment in his voice unmissable. ‘Moglins were almost wiped out by the Dryads
in that fight ages ago. I bet I’m meant to forgive all that.’

  chapter 22

  firs & fires

  Ella flew across the grounds. Max sailed on his skateboard beneath her, through the wildly burning magical flames, and Charlie followed closely behind on foot.

  Max had dared to wish for what he wanted, which was to overcome his fear, and now his Key was burning brightly about his neck. Max seemed only to have to approach the flames around him for them to recoil and spread the other way.

  The danger in Hedgeberry was escalating. The wind that had whipped up in the skies made it hard for Ella to stay up.

  But the Flitterwigs felt they had to explore the school grounds, in case the well they were meant to find was here on these very lands.

  The sucking winds pulled Ella out to the boundaries of the school grounds, despite the Clearheart’s best efforts. She was going to have to land.

  Coming to a cluster of elms, whipping wildly, feverish and fraught against the bizarre gaseous flames about them, Ella landed behind a particularly tight group of trunks. She couldn’t bear to see the trees heaving against the fires, battling the flames as if their lives depended on it.

  Max weaved his way after her. ‘They aren’t real flames,’ reminded Max, reassuringly. ‘Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad.’

  A voice wailed out through the bluster.

  ‘Soothe, soothe,’ the voice urged between sobs, its timbre reaching panic. They looked over to a cluster of pines not too far away and saw Gloria, in a gasmask, hugging a tree. Her hands and arms had turned a mossy green colour. She rubbed them across the bark.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Charlie, ‘not her.’ He pulled at Ella to lead her away, through an opening in the field, toward another cluster of trees. They had to keep searching for a well.

  ‘Wait,’ said Ella, her ears burning. ‘She must know something. She’s wearing a gasmask.’

  Charlie hesitated. It was true. How did she know to protect herself from the Scatterbungle?