Magic Ink

by Steve Cole

  Hang on a second.

  There were no ashes at all in the cavity. I checked through the papers – and my heart felt like a bouncy ball, hurled into my ribcage.

  The portrait of Posho was still there. It hadn’t burned away!

  Did it mean. . . ? Could it mean. . . ?

  I didn’t dare believe it. Maybe the portrait hadn’t burned because it was twenty years old and made with more potent magic than my own drawings.

  Maybe that was it.

  Quietly, I replaced the floorboard, took the parchment and the costume back down to my room. . .

  And almost screamed at the sight of a creepy figure standing by the open window beneath a ghostly sheet.

  A very familiar voice went

  I saw some very solid trotters poking out from beneath the sheet. “No way– I mean, it can’t be– I don’t believe– You can’t be. . . POSHO?!”

  “In the living, breathing, pink-and-naked-’cos-I-lost-all-my-clothes-when-I-mutated-into-a-monster flesh!” Posho whipped away the sheet, did a brief nude can-can on my mattress, then leaped into my arms, snuffling and snorting and trying to hug me. I couldn’t keep my balance, dropped all I was holding, tripped over a box of comics – and then we both fell heavily onto the floor, nearly smashing into the stack of Granddad’s pictures.

  We held our breath for a few seconds, hoping Mum and Dad hadn’t heard and woken up. When there was only silence we filled it with giggles of relief at a happy reunion.

  “You’re not just alive, you’re back to normal,” I gushed. “How? Where have you been?”

  “I suppose that when the magic hour passed, the monster part of me passed too,” said Posho thoughtfully. “Oink! And it was so awfully painful, I’m afraid I passed out, in the bushes.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” I said. “I’ll even forgive you for trying to scare me with that rubbish ghost prank.”

  “I told you, I can’t help my nature.” A familiar crestfallen look crept over his face. “Oink! If I could, I’d be a superhero who saved the day, like War Commander and Harvest Boy and Sonny Siege and Lantern Girl and—”

  I shook my head forlornly.

  “They. . .” Posho swallowed hard. “They didn’t save the day?”

  I brought Posho up to speed on all that had happened. “It’s not fair. It’s terrible!” Posho pouted, resting his snout on his trotters. “Oh, if only I could be a superhero! If only I was good enough. . .” He shivered. “If only it wasn’t so nippy in the nuddy.”

  “I, er. . . have something you could wear.” Kind of awkwardly, I picked up his little costume. “See? You can be a superhero.”

  “You shouldn’t have found out about that, Stewart!” Posho turned puce. “That’s private. I mean. . . Oink! I made it for a joke. A silly wheeze, that’s all. . .”

  “No, you didn’t.” I held it out to him. “I saw your conversation with Merlin. You’ve always wanted to be a superhero – really, really badly. Haven’t you?”

  “Well. . .” Posho nuzzled against his costume like a baby with a blanket. “Yes. I’ve wanted nothing more since the moment I was made. Oink! But I know it’s absurd.”

  “It’s not. Don’t forget, it was Merlin’s magic that brought you to life but Granddad who drew you.” I looked again at Merlin’s sad exchange on the talking parchment with the late, great Garry Penders. “He stopped drawing superheroes, but I don’t think he ever stopped believing in them – even if he stopped believing in himself. He told himself he was no good because of how he’d behaved in the past. . . just like you’re telling yourself now. Maybe he passed those mixed-up feelings on to you through the magic ink, somehow?”

  “Oink!” Posho dropped his costume and looked up at me with watery eyes. “Do you mean to say that’s why I’m longing to be a superhero, though I know I’m not good enough?”

  “Don’t say that!” My voice came out fiercer than I’d intended. “Deep down you know what you were put here to do. You’ve dreamed of being a superhero your whole life. So have I. That’s something Granddad’s given us both, in different ways.”

  Posho half-smiled. “The belief that we can be the heroes in our own stories?”

  “That’s it exactly,” I agreed. “Belief. Belief. . .” I could almost taste the word in my mouth. . .

  And then the flavour suddenly turned sour.

  “Oh, man,” I murmured. “Posho, I. . . I never really believed that Merlin’s superheroes were up to the job, did I?”

  Posho considered. “You displayed a certain lack of enthusiasm, yes.”

  “What if I accidentally passed that lack-of-enthusiasm onto War Commander, Harvest Boy and the others through the magic ink, just as I passed on the idea of a WC?” I sighed. “What if, because I didn’t believe in them when I drew them, they came out kind of. . . half-hearted?”

  “Oink! You think that’s why they didn’t fight so well and were beaten so quickly?” Posho gave a wondering whistle. “Heavens to Betsy! Great Scott!”

  “Lousy Stew, more like!” I felt like crawling under the bed and staying there for ever. I was about to put my head in my hands—

  When I saw something on my thumb and finger. The old magic ink stain. It was back. Faintly, very faintly. Only this time, it seemed twisted into strange spindly shapes. . . almost like. . .

  Letters?

  ALL NOT LOST

  “Look, Posho!” I beamed, my heart doing yet another impression, this time one of a jumpy, bumpy thing steered by an insane mouse. “Merlin’s still alive! He’s got to be – all’s not lost! See?”

  Posho blinked, and pointed to my hand. “The ink’s shifting!”

  PIG SHED PAPER BOARD PIC

  “What the hecking flip does that mean?” I whispered, squinting at the already near-invisible ink.

  “That I’m only fit for a pig shed!” Posho’s eyes started to well up with tears. “With the last of his power, the Big Man confirms his hatred for me. Oink!”

  “No crying,” I warned him sternly, “your mega-tears will wash the ink away. Come on now, think – what does ‘paper board pic’ mean?”

  “A picture drawn on paper on a board?” Posho wiped his snout and shrugged. “We don’t have a board any more – or any paper.”

  “Merlin must be working his magic pretty hard to communicate like this. He wouldn’t bother telling us what we already know.” I looked around the room. “Think, think, think. . . ” Then I noticed a tiny smudge of ink on the picture of Granddad at the table with Grandma. Pages of art were scattered over it. Granddad’s ink and brush were sticking out of a small drawer under the tabletop—

  “Posho!” I grabbed him by the pork belly and he nearly squealed. “That table – it looks just like the table in the shed you were sitting on.”

  “By Jove!” Posho peered more closely. “It’s a lot older now and somewhat mouldier but yes, it could be that very item of furniture.”

  “And if we read the words on my hand from top to bottom instead of across, it says ‘Pig Paper’ and ‘Shed Board Pic’.” My excitement was growing. “In that pic, you can see Granddad’s been illustrating. Maybe that table’s what he used for his work before he got the drawing board!”

  Posho dared to smile as he got what I was driving at. “Meaning some of the old master-artist’s magic could be lingering around that tabletop. But we don’t have any living parchment—”

  “Pig paper!” I held up the portrait of Posho drawn by Granddad all those years ago. “There’s a little bit of room at the side there, look.”

  “But that parchment’s secondhand,” Posho argued. “The moonlight’s already touched it, twenty years ago. And besides, we have no ink.”

  “All’s not lost, remember? Merlin said so! There’s got to be a chance. . .” I scrambled over to my bedside table and checked the inkpot. There really was next to nothing left. “Arrgh! No way is there enough for four characters.” I looked at Posho. “But there may be enough for two small, pretty basic drawings.”

&
nbsp; “Oink! Which of the Big Man’s heroes would you choose?”

  “None of them,” I said. “After what happened before, I wouldn’t take the chance. Instead. . . ” I picked up his raggedy costume and pushed it into his trotters. “I’d choose the two heroes I really believe in. Stupendous Man. . . and you.”

  Posho’s voice shrank to the size of a cat-flea’s earlobe. “Me?”

  “You ate Lib’s Stew-eating monster picture while it was coming to life and it transformed you,” I said, trying not to tremble. “So if I draw a picture of us in superhero mode which we show to the moonlight and then swallow it down. . .”

  “We turn into superheroes for an hour?” Posho gulped. “Oink!”

  “I know it’s not the greatest origin story in the world, but it’s all we’ve got to work with.” I checked the calm silver of the moon through the window, and that strange sense of destiny came over me again. “Tonight, I reckon fate’s giving us one last chance to show the Big Man – and ourselves – that we have what it takes to be real heroes. And to show Granddad, wherever he is, that he didn’t do so badly, passing on his dreams to us.”

  Slowly, very slowly, Posho smiled. “Just imagine if we did manage to save the Big Man’s life. . . Oink!” He soon grew grave again. “But of course, any hopes for success are dependent on a foolproof plan.”

  “Not only foolproof, but dragon-proof, skeleton-warrior-proof, siren-proof, rock-proof and who-knows-whatever-else-proof.” I took hold of the brush, which tingled faintly in my hand. “So, come on, Super-Posho, let’s head to the shed – and get plotting!”

  DO OR DIE

  (OR CRY, LOUDLY)

  That very night, while Mum and Dad slept and snored, and while Lib dreamed peacefully of all the dumb things she loves so much, I was outside with a pig in a superhero costume, gathering together all the items we thought we might need if we were to stand the teenie-weeniest chance of staying alive during the crazy, terrifying ordeal that surely lay ahead of us – or rather, over fifteen hundred years behind us in a dark land of myth and monsters which could only be reached through the last flecks of magic ink and a spell from a wizard who had to be on his last legs. . . or more likely his last toes. . . or even his last toenails. . .

  To say I was scared is an understatement. And I knew too that I was in over my head. In fact, I couldn’t even see my head anymore. Hang on, where the flip was my head? Hello? Head?

  Posho and I – keeping our heads – had planned and plotted and were gathering stuff in case Merlin’s magic couldn’t bring our superhero alter-egos to life with the pulse-poundingly powerful powers we needed. We might well be left with no powers at all – aside from the power to poo ourselves in terror at incredible speed – and so taking along some bits and bobs that might possibly help us stay alive for a few seconds longer couldn’t hurt.

  Luckily, Harvest Boy had buried the contents of an entire supermarket in the woods at the end of the garden, and the police had not yet thought to look there – so our options were wider than they might ordinarily have been. I know technically that was stealing, but I excused it with the knowledge that if we actually did the job and made it back home, we could replace whatever we’d taken with the vast riches Merlin would heap upon us as a reward for saving him.

  Yes, I’m afraid it’s true; the thought of owning my own comic company with myself as star artist was still splashing about in the backwaters of my head. The thought of it had kept me swimming stubbornly against the tide of my every instinct to run away and hide under the bed.

  Actually, while Posho worked on some last-minute preparations of his own, I did go back inside the house. I just wanted to look in on Mum and Dad, and Lib, to say a little goodbye.

  You know. In case I never saw them again.

  Because aside from the risk of death by mythical monster, I knew there was a chance that Merlin might be so weak by now that he’d run out of magical puff before he’d taken us all the way back to 500 AD. Which, while it would mean we’d be spared a hideous battle, would also mean I’d be stranded with Posho in the distant past. We’d turn back to our normal selves when the hour was up, but the Spell of Time Transportation was a one-way trip; I could end up as a Victorian street urchin or a Tudor beggar or a medieval peasant. And whatever the year, Posho could end up as someone’s roast dinner.

  Then again, perhaps things might work out even worse. . .

  What if I accidentally infected the ancient world with modern germs, against which old-time people had no defence? I might destroy the human race and all established history. I guess Posho would argue that would leave things looking up for farm animals, but even so. . .

  “Sweet dreams,” I whispered to Lib. “I guess mermaids and ponies and stuff are as important to you as comics are to me. So. . . enjoy them, OK?”

  Then I opened Mum and Dad’s door. But my throat felt tight again, too tight for me to say anything at all, so I waved kind of pointlessly, trudged downstairs again and went back outside.

  The garden was still and silent (though I thought I caught the occasional anguished sob from the house of the man with the mashed up Mercedes as he filled out an insurance form). The moon was shining brightly.

  The shed door jumped open as Posho pushed his head out, still clad in his not-all-that-super superhero costume. “Well, Stewart old boy, our provisions and equipment are all bagged up and I’ve cleared a space on the old drawing table. . .”

  I looked past him at a glistening mountain of bulging black plastic. Batman had a utility belt – we would have to make do with twenty-two numbered utility bin-bags.

  I crossed to the shed, and as I entered, Posho pulled a brand-new-from-the-cleared-out-supermarket beanie hat down over his head. His ears stuck out through slits in the top, and his eyes gleamed through two crudely-cut holes. He’d added a pair of pants and an extra ‘P’ to his costume.

  “Nice name,” I said approvingly. The portrait of Posho with its precious blank spaces was taped to the wooden table top. The narrow space on the parchment shone ghostly white in the moonbeams. The brush and the hardening ink stood in the half-open desk drawer.

  “Well, old chap. . . I’m ready if you are.” Posho smiled bravely. “And I think you should only draw Stupendous Man. Not me.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “We both know the Big Man’s magic is on the wane. Oink! I’ve had more than my fair share already. I’ve weakened him enough.” Posho blinked out solemnly through his eyeholes. “I insist you save his strength so he can give the maximum to you.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it. I don’t want any more help.” There was a steelier edge to Posho’s voice now, as he pulled up his tights. “I need to know that being me was enough after all. Do you understand?”

  I smiled at him. “Oink,” I said.

  He bowed his head graciously. “In your own time, then.”

  “And into Merlin’s, with any luck,” I agreed.

  Whether that luck would be good or bad, we’d soon find out.

  I picked up the slender brush and started to draw.

  Sharp crackles leapt through the veins on my arms. “Hey! The arty vibes from this old desk are stronger than the ones at the drawing board!” I gasped as my hand jerked the brush in small, superfine strokes. “They’re really taking charge!”

  “Your grandfather was a young man starting out on his career when he drew there.” Posho’s eyes were glinting with excitement. “Full of energy and passion for pen and paper. . . just like you!”

  “Just like me,” I echoed, my resolve hardening like the threads of precious ink embroidering the old paper. I was drawing myself as Stupendous Man and it really did look stupendous, the best ever. And already those smoking hot lines were starting to smoke for real. . .

  “It’s happening!” squealed Posho. “Down the hatch, old bean! Quickly!”

  Hands trembling, I tore my drawing from the paper, trails of magical smoke tickling my fingers, sparkling in my eyes – and
, before my courage could fail me, I stuffed it in my mouth. The taste of must and magic fizzed on my tongue, heated my throat, then sent thousands of volts sparking and jumping through my internal organs, zapping and fwapping and thunderclapping inside me, swelling my muscles, strengthening my spine, beefing me up, up and away as I. . . I. . .

  How can I describe what it was like to be transformed – after years and years of dreaming and longing – into an actual superhero?

  It felt like I was changing into someone bigger, faster, stronger and better than me – and yet I was still the old me inside. Muscles rippled under my skintight costume. Potential pulsed in every cell. For all I knew, I had veins full of ink now, but. . . wow. It sure did feel good.

  I should’ve been scared but I wasn’t. It was as if all the geeky games I was supposed to have grown out of had somehow mingled with the dreams I was supposed to have put away, and made me. . .

  Well, they’d made ordinary Stew into something stupendous.

  “Awesome,” I whispered; to my surprise, my voice was the same; too young and high for my now-manly frame.

  Posho, though, remained pleasingly impressed. “Right-ho, Stupendous Man – Oink! – you’ve got an hour, tops – and counting.”

  “I’d better grab our stuff,” I said, trying to make my voice lower and tougher to match the rest of me. Bounding away to the pile of numbered bin bags, my cape catching in the breeze, I felt my heart spin giddily in my new, super-enhanced ribcage at the ease with which I lifted our haul – a dozen bags clamped in each huge fist.

  “Good work, Stupendous Man,” said Posho. “But the real test is – do you have your absorbing abilities?”

  I felt the smooth, glossy texture of the bin bags in my hands. . . then flicked one finger at a nearby rose bush. There was a shimmer of air like a heat haze in the moonlight, and the bush became a crumpling heap of black PVC. “OMG!” I stared at my fists and fingers. “It works! I did it!”