Magic Ink

by Steve Cole

  “Trying to outshine me, huh?” she was snarling. “I don’t know what you are, tall stone thing, but I’m going to flatten you!”

  I shook my head. “So she knows about toilets but not about street lights?”

  “We were talking about toilets as you drew the pictures, remember, old fruit? Oink! We never mentioned streetlights—” Suddenly Posho was interrupted by a car alarm and a loud metallic SCRUNCH.

  My heart sank. “Uh-oh. Guess we never mentioned cars, either!”

  Hurrying to the end of our drive I saw that War Commander had decided to battle a silver Mercedes parked just up the road – he’d hacked open its bonnet and now its hazard lights were flashing orange, its siren wailing at ear-splitting volume. “What manner of beast are you?” WC cried, swiping the Mercedes again with his sword. “Hold your unnatural tongue!”

  Distracted from the lamppost, Lantern Girl looked over at the rumpus and scowled at the flashing hazards. “Does everything make light in this terrible place?” She ran over to the car and started kicking and punching one of the Merc’s front tyres. “Go dark, metal beast! Mine is the power of light! Mine alone!”

  “Get away from there!” I yelled, already aware that curtains were twitching at the neighbours’ windows; if I ran over, I’d be seen for sure. “Quickly – there’s someone in trouble back here! Someone who really needs a superhero!”

  War Commander and Lantern Girl both turned and ran towards me and Posho, while Posho and I darted back through the gate into the back garden, even as I heard front doors opening along the street. Luckily the car alarm was drowning out any noise we made now – and would draw Mum and Dad’s attention to the front of the house, not the back.

  “Well, boy, what is it?” War Commander demanded. “I understand not this unnatural world, and my sword yearns to taste the blood of a powerful foe.”

  Lantern Girl, stood beside him, raised her glowing fist. “And I shall never stand by while an innocent soul is in danger!”

  “Great!” I nodded enthusiastically. “Because I need you to rescue a table.”

  They stared at me.

  “A table,” WC echoed without enthusiasm.

  “Come on, you’ve got to remember.” I held up my original drawing of them all. “This is where you came from – Magic, Inc.’s magic ink! Merlin, the Big Man, created all of you, and gave me the power to bring you to life just by drawing you.”

  “The wizard,” War Commander murmured. “You know, I think I do remember him. . . My creator. . .” He nodded slowly. “And somehow, I know. . . Merlin needs us.”

  “Right,” I agreed. I guessed the ink-link was getting across some of Merlin’s desperation and despair to these characters, just as it had with Posho – providing magical motivation for their struggles ahead. “If we’re going to save the Big Man, we need to get the special drawing board out of that attic there,” I insisted, as Posho obligingly pointed a trotter towards the boarded-up attic window.

  “I. . . I think I remember too.” Lantern Girl looked indignant. “But you drew us, yes? So, it’s down to you that I’m the size I am? You didn’t like my normal height, I suppose? You didn’t like my nose?”

  “I’m very sorry,” I told her through gritted teeth, “this was only meant to be a practice run. . .”

  Then the car alarm clicked off and the harrowing wail of a neighbour echoed eerily into the night. “My caaaaar. . . Look at my beautiful caaaaaaar. . .!”

  “Hark! A soul in distress!” War Commander raised his sword. “To the rescue!”

  “NO!” I grabbed hold of his sword arm. “You’re the one who caused the distress! Look, I’ll draw you better next time, Lantern Girl, OK? But for now, please. . .?”

  “Very well,” War Commander boomed. “Come, small one. You must light my way while I search for this sacred table we are to rescue.” So saying, he picked up Lantern Girl and hurled her towards the window. Stifling a scream, she just managed to catch hold of the sill – and held on there, huffing and cursing. With a hearty chuckle, the great armoured WC climbed heroically up the ivy to join her. He prised off the boarding and clambered inside, and Lantern Girl quickly followed.

  “Well done, old chap.” Posho took and shook my hand. “First rate superhero management.”

  “Right. It’s all going great,” I agreed. “Apart from the totally trashed car outside. Not to mention the heartbroken neighbour, and. . .”

  I trailed off as a sudden whistling noise filled the air, and glimpsed something massive hurtling groundward. THUMPCH! An enormous impact beside me knocked me off my feet. I fell onto Posho, he fell to the ground and both of us stared in bewildered amazement at the sight of Sonny Siege, the Living Trebuchet, beaming down at us with a terrified Shetland pony clamped under each of his muscular arms.

  I groaned. “. . . and definitely not to mention the stolen horses!”

  “Behold!” said Sonny Siege happily, “these hapless mares from the strange stables suffer from a shrinking sickness! When tossed over a castle wall their disease will surely spread and reduce the enemies of mighty Arthur to the size of fleas!”

  “Let them go, you medieval muppet!” I hissed, trying not to lose it. “The only thing wrong with those horses is that they’re being suffocated by your armpits!”

  “Remember the big man of magic, old boy!” Posho piped up. “Remember your comic-strip creator? He needs you!”

  Sonny Siege’s eyes clouded over. “My creator. . . needs me. . .?”

  But the next moment there came another whistling noise from the sky – and a pumpkin broke open on Sonny’s head. He dropped the Shetland ponies, and they reared up and bolted for somewhere saner as more vegetables rained down from the sky – turnips and parsnips and marrows and potatoes. . . I wished I was riding one of them to freedom. The ponies, I mean. Not the potatoes. “Now what?” I wailed.

  “I’ve just found the harvest to beat all harvests!” cheered Harvest Boy, whizzing down from the sky to land beside Sonny Siege, his magic sack stuffed to overflowing. “What an age this must be. Vegetables! Fruits! Strange boxes and exotic bottles and jars, all growing together in curious bunches in an impossible walled garden of glass and brick. . .”

  “The supermarket in town, you mean?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You stole all this stuff?”

  “I gathered it!” said Harvest Boy defensively. “That’s what I do.”

  “You nicked it! What kind of a superhero are you?” I cried, dodging as one of the panicked Shetland ponies galloped past again. “Think about Merlin! Your creator! You’ve got to save him! How can you do that with half a supermarket in your sack?”

  “Half? Nay, lad, I don’t do things by halves!” Harvest Boy proudly began to upend his magic bag. “I gathered everything!” A humongous jumble of stuff came tumbling out – carrots and strawberries and coffee and bottles of liquid soap and an actual cash till. . .

  “Stop it!” I ran over and shoved Harvest Boy in the chest; with a yelp, he overbalanced and fell down beneath his own magic sack. “Posho, what can we do? This has all gone completely pear-shaped.”

  “And very nice pears they are too,” Sonny Siege observed, studying some of the fallen fruit closely – then throwing it miles into the air.

  Posho pulled on my sleeve. “Look, old boy! Oink! The attic window!”

  I looked up and saw War Commander waving cheerily. “We found the table!” he called. “But alas, I fear it will not fit through this window. Can I chop it up a bit?”

  “Keep your voice down!” I hissed; Mum and Dad – or even Lib, for that matter – would surely be on their way to see what all the noise was. I couldn’t believe they weren’t here already. And what would they find when they looked out? Twenty tons of shoplifted goods, a couple of stray horses, the house-breaking pig in a top hat, a compulsive thing-thrower with most of a pumpkin on his head and. . . a knight trying to jam Granddad’s drawing board through the window.

  “Forsooth,” the knight cried, “the ta
sk is a challenging one. . .”

  I stared up at the precious desk.

  And then, with a chill, I realised there were drawings on the living parchment I’d taped there; pictures of a monster that was part shark, part crocodile, one of which had been clumsily crossed out. Both creatures shared a speech bubble; squinting through my glasses I made out words brushed in childish writing: Stew. . . Stew. . . Yummy Yum!

  I froze. The breath felt punched from my lungs. The artwork was good but the writing was wobbly like a six-year-old’s, like. . .

  “Oh, Lib,” I breathed. “What did you do?”

  My sister had said she’d drawn a Stew-eating monster. She just hadn’t mentioned she’d drawn it on the magic parchment, at the board, with Merlin’s brush, in magic ink.

  Ink that was now steaming in the moonlight, as grotesque, monstrous shapes began to twitch and shimmer into life. . .

  CARNAGE IN THE GARDEN OF DOOM!

  Posho jumped in the air in alarm. “War Commander, quickly,” he oinked, “take the table out of the moonlight!”

  “Light?” Mishearing, Lantern Girl scrambled up onto WC’s shoulders at the window, waving her glowing hand. “Who wants some light? Here you go!”

  “NOOO!” I yelled. “The picture, it’s bad, get it away—”

  But by now, War Commander had seen the sparkling mist-shapes and was reacting in typical style. “Wraiths of evil – TASTE MY STEEL!” he thundered, and with sword in hand took an almighty swing at the ghostly shapes. The blade swept through them harmlessly – and then bit deep into the drawing board.

  With a splintering crunch, the drawing board, and the parchment, split in two.

  “NOOOOOOO!” I yelled again, more loudly, as both halves of the precious drawing board plummeted to the ground, trailing the magical sparkling smoke like exhaust.

  And I realised that Posho was already galloping towards the bits of the board. To my astonishment, he stuffed one half of the steaming parchment into his mouth and then hurled himself on top of the other pic.

  “Posho!” I ran over to join him, Harvest Boy and Sonny Siege close on my heels; however bonkers they might’ve been, they were still superheroes. War Commander and Lantern Girl scrabbled swiftly down from the window to join us. Posho was looking sick and sweaty.

  War Commander was puzzled. “Where are yon wraiths?”

  Lantern Girl preened herself. “My light scared them away!”

  “More likely your nose scared them away,” said WC.

  “Be silent,” said the diminutive damsel, “before I pass water in your armour as your name invites.”

  “Shush!” I hissed. “It was Posho who stopped the monsters. How are you feeling, Posho?”

  “Oink,” the pig said feebly. “Had. . . to stop moonlight. . . reaching your sister’s picture. . . couldn’t sit on both. . .”

  “But you ate it while it was coming to life,” I hissed.

  “I panicked!” Posho admitted. “And I should warn you, I’m ready to panic again at any moment!”

  I couldn’t blame him – his stomach was making ominous rumblings and there was a green sheen to his usually pink skin.

  “The swine is most unwell,” said Sonny Siege cheerily. “My, what a weapon he would make, if I threw him over a—”

  “Will you stop going on about chucking sick animals around? We need to destroy that picture he’s sat on before. . .” I trailed off as a wisp of sparkling mist escaped Posho’s mouth. “Uh-oh.”

  Suddenly, with a belch that sounded like drains unblocking, Posho swelled up like some terrible balloon, becoming five or six times his usual size until he towered above me. I jumped as a huge fin burst through the back of his overstretched jacket, and his top hat went flying as his head inflated and his snout grew longer, greener, bristling with teeth.

  “Lo!” War Commander stared at the creature formerly known as Posho. “Yon pig has become a sinister beast!”

  I didn’t need an overgrown tin of beefsteak to tell me what had happened. Posho had eaten the magic ink while it was coming to life, and now it was concluding the process inside him – changing him with it, just like Bruce Banner changing into the Hulk!

  Only there was nothing superheroic about this transformation. I could’ve cried with fear as the curly tail grew broad and scaly, as the neat little trotters turned to talons at the end of huge arms and legs, as the mischievous eyes turned red and narrowed. . .

  “Posho’s turned into a Stew-eating monster!” I yelled, staring round at my gaggle of superheroes in a panic. Suddenly the beast lurched towards me, jaws opening wide to bite me in two. I jumped backwards. “Help!”

  “I’ll not let this hell-hound make a stew of my harvest,” Harvest Boy declared, grabbing his huge sack of stolen goods. “Whole villages may starve! I must hide it somewhere.”

  “With the lives of countless villagers at stake, I shall light the way for you!” Lantern Girl declared, and they both charged away toward the woodland at the back of the garden. “WC and the Trebuchet will hold off this beast till the foodstuffs are safe.”

  “Not that kind of stew!” I shouted. “I’m Stew – the only thing it wants to eat is ME. Viviane’s tricked my sister, I know it. This is part of her plan to stop us freeing Merlin. Come back!”

  “Have no fear, boy,” boomed War Commander. “I shall slay this vile beast for you.”

  Will you? I thought. Time was ticking by – how much had passed already? But even as I fretted, another monster burst into being behind War Commander, knocking him to the ground with a sweep of its claws. This beast had a face that was horribly mangled – where Lib had tried to cross out her drawing, I guess – and that seemed to make it angrier. It lurched towards War Commander and its mashed-up jaws bit into his armoured leg.

  “Arrrgh!” WC’s shin guard crumpled like an old tin can. He swung his sword at the hideous creature, but missed – it had already spat him out and turned towards me, its sticky nostrils twitching with the succulent scent of fresh Stewart Penders.

  “Eat. . . Stew. . .” it rasped. “YUM.”

  The Posho-monster beside it (from now on to be known as the ‘Ponster’, if that’s OK with you?) joined in, though more haltingly. “Stew. . . eat. . .?” It took a few hesitant steps in my direction.

  “They’re after the boy!” cried Sonny Siege.

  “Yeah, noticed, thanks!” I turned to him as I went on backing away. “If you fancy throwing that thing a mile into the air, don’t let me stop you. . .”

  “Of course!” The Living Trebuchet stepped boldly forward and tried to grip the Ponster round the middle. It didn’t protest – almost as if Posho was resisting its evil urges, somewhere inside.

  But while the Ponster didn’t object, the scribbled-out Stew-eater did. Its jaws opened wide and it sucked Sonny Siege inside like a superheroic strand of spaghetti. With a yelp, he was snatched from sight, tumbling down the monster’s gullet.

  “No!” I yelled helplessly, shocked and horrified. All right, so Sonny wasn’t really real, and would’ve vanished anyway in another forty minutes or so. But to see him get gulped down by an impossible monster. . .

  “Trebuchet, you shall be avenged.” War Commander stood bravely in front of me, his sword raised. “This means WAR!” He started hacking away at the Scribbled-Out Stew-eating monster (from now on to be known as the SOS-monster, as it’s catchier. Clear?), but the disgusting creature hardly seemed to notice.

  Cowering behind WC, I tore at my hair. “If Merlin’s right, it’ll only be here an hour,” I told myself. “If we can just hold if off till then. . .” I groaned. “But the heroes were made first, they’ll vanish sooner! Oh, if only Harvest Boy and Lantern Girl hadn’t gone. I knew Merlin’s lot would be useless!”

  Then, in a rush, I remembered my silly argument with Lib from earlier, and how I’d go about defeating Comic Lady’s bad guys: “I’d draw a Stew-eating-monster-eating-monster to eat your Stew-eating monster. . .”

  “Toilet Knight!” I cried. �
�I mean – War Commander! Up in the attic when you found the table, did you see a bottle of ink and a brush and any more sheets of parchment?”

  “No time to write a will, boy,” cried WC. “I need assistance.”

  “Assistance with the monster?”

  “No, with my hessian underpants. They’re really starting to chafe.” He glanced back at me, eyes murderous. “Yes, assistance with the monster, you young oaf!”

  “Hang in there,” I told him, “I’ll be back!”

  Bunching my fists, I ran towards the back door. But what if I led the monsters into the house? I felt a brain-mangling sense of guilt for all I’d been doing in secret – Mum, Dad and Lib, they were all in danger. I had to warn them, quickly, get them. . .

  “OUT!” I shouted, bursting into the living room where Mum and Dad were sitting in front of the TV. “Get out, quick, there are monsters and they’re going to eat me and maybe trash the house and. . .”

  But Mum and Dad didn’t react. They didn’t even look my way. They just kept staring and smiling at the telly. It was wrong, all wrong.

  Magic, again, I thought with cold certainty. Viviane had done something to them. Stopped them interfering. Taken them out of the picture.

  And speaking of pictures – the only thing I could do was start drawing. But had Lib left the parchment, brush and ink at the drawing board in the attic, or taken it somewhere else? As I got up the stairs I could hear her snoring in her bedroom.

  “Lib! The stuff you drew with, where is it?” I burst into her room, clapping my hands, then jumped up and down on her bed. She didn’t stir. “Come on, Mega-Lib is supposed to save me from Stew-eating monsters, remember?” I scooped up some of her toys and chucked them at her. “Lib, I’m pulling the heads off all your mermaids and ponies – you’d better wake up!”

  It was no good. Not so much as an eyelid flickered. How could she be sleeping so deeply?

  I could guess the answer. Starts with V, ends in E. And I’m not talking about vile vice-president Valerie the vole with a vase in a valise.