by Debi Gliori
“So . . . Mr. Pylum-Haight . . . what exactly are we talking about?” Signora Strega-Borgia folded her calculation-laden envelope into a small parcel and pushed it to one side.
Titus sat at the other end of the kitchen table and waited. Now, he guessed, was not the time to raise the question of an increase in pocket money in line with inflation.
“A rough estimate—ballpark figure, off the top of my head, can’t be too definite about this, not set in stone, but possibly in the region of, give or take a few . . . um . . .”
“How much?” insisted Signora Strega-Borgia.
Pylum-Haight hastily scribbled a figure on the back of a business card and stood up. “Have a wee think,” he advised. “It’s a big job. Expensive business keeping on top of these old houses. I know several clients who would be willing to take it off your hands. Get yourself something more manageable. More modern. Maybe your husband might like to give me a ring to discuss . . .” His voice trailed off as he busied himself with folding and packing the tableful of brochures and papers back into his crocodile-skin attaché case. “Nice to . . . um . . . Thanks for the . . . er . . . We’ll be in touch,” he muttered, sidling in the direction of the kitchen door. “See myself out . . . um . . . Thanks again.” And he tiptoed backward out into the corridor, leaving a trail of aftershave behind him.
Titus listened to the sound of footsteps fade into silence. The front door creaked open and, seconds later, slammed shut. Over the faint ticking of the kitchen clock came the sound of a car engine, a crunch of gravel under tires, and the valedictory honk as Tock the moat-guarding crocodile bid the parting guest farewell.
“Mum?”
“Not right now, Titus,” mumbled Signora Strega-Borgia, waving a hand absently around her head, as if to ward off a fly. She gazed at the business card in front of her as if it might be coated with plague bacteria. “I need to find your dad.” She reluctantly picked up the card and rose to her feet like a sleepwalker.
“He’s upstairs mending my modem,” said Titus. “Mum—what’s the matter? I’m sorry I made that comment about your spells. I didn’t mean it.”
Signora Strega-Borgia turned, her face pale and drawn. “It’s not your attack on my skills as a witch, Titus. No, it’s nothing”—she glanced hastily at the card in her hand—“nothing that six hundred and eighty-six thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five pounds, seventy-two p plus VAT won’t fix.”
The kitchen door closed behind her as Titus was left staring bleakly at the tabletop in front of him. Picking up a discarded brochure and his mother’s pencil, he calculated that, at his current rate of pocket money, it would take him a mere three and a half millennia to acquire that kind of sum. The brochure showed a picture of an ideal family in front of their new home. There were a dog, a cat, a baby, and two grinning children flanked by their smiling parents. The new home behind them was built on a model that a five-year-old might draw: a front door, one window on each side, three windows above, and a perfect leak-free roof on top. The blurb read: “The Buccleuch family at home in Bogginview. Homes to depend on. Homes to raise your family in. BOGGINVIEW. Another quality build from BELLA-VISTA DEVELOPMENTS INC. . . .”
Not even remotely like our house, thought Titus. If they’d decided to make a brochure about StregaSchloss, we’d be scowling on the moth-eaten croquet lawn: “The Strega-Borgias at home with their dragon, their yeti, their griffin, and . . . oh, yes, their moat-guarding crocodile. Behind them, you can just see their modest little STREGASCHLOSS, which looks like a cross between a fairy castle and the film set for Vlad the Vampire Falls on Hard Times. . . .”
Titus threw the brochure back on the table and stalked out of the kitchen. And I just bet that the Buccleuch fridge is full of pizzas and chocolate fudge cake, instead of moldy Brussels sprouts, he decided, skirting an overflowing chamber pot on his way upstairs. No wonder they’re grinning, he concluded.
Beasts in the Bedchamber
Life at StregaSchloss had its drawbacks. For a start, it was three miles to the nearest village, and when you finally cycled there, down rutted lanes and puddles that could have hidden a small submarine, you wondered why you’d bothered. Auchenlochtermuchty boasted three public bars, one hotel, four banks, one shop that called itself a hardware emporium, selling everything from hoof picks to garden forks, and one mini-market that never had what you needed but stocked heaps of things that you didn’t.
No swimming pool, thought Titus, no cinema, no sweetshop. . . . Gloomily, he pushed open his bedroom door. The curtains were drawn and the room was in total darkness. Fumbling his way toward the window, Titus flung open the drapes and gazed out at the nearby sea-loch. Last night’s snow was beginning to melt in the rain. A small cough from behind him alerted Titus to the fact that he was not alone. He spun round and shrieked, “What on earth d’you think you’re playing at? Get out of there! Off my bed, you filthy beasts!”
From underneath Titus’s duvet, the ancient eyes of Sab the griffin, Knot the yeti, and Ffup the teenage dragon regarded him with little interest. Plucking boredly at the pillow with a long black talon, Ffup addressed the wall: “Chill out, Titus,” he drawled.
“WHAAAT?” said Titus.
“The dungeon’s flooded, which means we’re allowed upstairs till it dries out, the kitchen has your mum and a perfumed Suit in it, the library fire’s gone out, and this place seemed like a good idea. You’re supposed to cherish us, right? We’re the low-tech security system at StregaSchloss, remember? You got a problem with that?”
Confronted with the impossibility of forcibly evicting the three massive beasts, Titus backed down. “But my bed,” he moaned. “Look at it. It’s all bent out of shape, and it’s soaking.”
The beasts ignored him. Knot scratched vigorously in his clotted fur, causing the bed to quiver ominously beneath him.
“I’m freezing,” complained Sab. “My paws are like lumps of ice.”
“Consider them thawed.” Ffup sat up, drew back his massive head, and, with a giant snort, fired twin blasts of flame from his nostrils.
“NO! AAAARGH! MY BED!” wailed Titus.
“Whoops, silly me,” the dragon said, as the bedpost caught fire. “Knot, don’t just lie there scratching; do something.”
Silently, the yeti stood up in bed and leaned toward the flaming bedpost. Stretching out his woolly wet arms, he engulfed the burning timber in a damp, hairy embrace. With a loud hiss, the fire went out. Titus’s bedroom filled with the unappetizing smell of burnt, damp old dog. Downstairs, the front doorbell rang.
With the family car out of action, Pandora had retrieved her rusty bicycle from the depths of the potting shed and spent two days attempting to render it roadworthy. Bouncing down the rutted track to Auchenlochtermuchty in the rain had dampened her enthusiasm for shopping, and the combination of discovering that her bicycle had developed a flat tire and that the village shops were devoid of cosmetic cures for erupting pimples had done little to raise Pandora’s spirits. By the time she had pushed her bicycle back to StregaSchloss, she was utterly fed up. She gazed unseeing at the familiar turrets reflected in the moat, and when Tock raised his scaly snout from its icy depths and gave his usual honk by way of hello, she barely responded. Leaning on the doorbell, she watched as Tock levered himself out of the water and waddled toward her, baring his many yellow teeth in a crocodile greeting. This kind of sociable behavior sent postmen and delivery boys running for cover, but Pandora knew the crocodile to be an ardent convert to vegetarianism, and she reached down to pat his head.
“What’re you doing out of your moat? Honestly, sometimes I think we take our policy of cherishing our beasts too far. Other people make their crocodiles into handbags and shoes, while we extend them an unconditional welcome.” Pandora pressed the doorbell again and called through the letterbox, “Come on, open the door, I’m turning into a human icicle out here.”
“Nnnngbrrr,” agreed Tock, adding hopefully, “Hot bath? Steamy tiles? Fluffy towels?”
�
��Yes, but I’m not exactly sure that Mum would approve,” said Pandora. Besides, she decided, if anyone needed the hot bath and fluffy towels, it was her.
The front door opened and Tock bolted inside.
“Oh, not another one,” groaned Titus, stepping aside to let his sister in. “I just found Sab, Knot, and Ffup dripping all over my bed. Where does Tock think he’s going?”
The sound of Schloss plumbing in full bath-pouring din drowned Pandora’s reply.
The Tincture Topples
So close to midwinter, darkness fell at StregaSchloss around three o’clock with an almost audible thud. The wind began to gather momentum, peppering the windows with rain and causing the house’s fifty-six chimneys to resonate in a manner that was both eerie and mournful. Clustered round an enormous log fire in the library, the clan Strega-Borgia were not inclined to be cheerful.
“I’m freezing,” moaned Pandora for the umpteenth time.
“Put another log on, then.” Titus barely glanced up from his laptop.
“For heaven’s sake,” groaned Signora Strega-Borgia, muffled in mohair blankets, pashminas, serapes, sheepskin slippers, and woolly gloves, “we’re supposed to be economizing. D’you think that stuff grows on trees?”
The library door opened and Mrs. McLachlan entered, balancing a tea tray on one hip as she herded Damp into the room. “Careful, dear,” she warned the baby. “Mind the fire. HOT HOT BURRRRRNY.”
“Not,” muttered Pandora, huddling closer to the flames and nudging Tock with her toes. “Move over, you brute, you’re hogging all the heat.”
The crocodile ignored her, inching closer to the fire in a determined search for warmth.
“Now then.” Mrs. McLachlan propped the tea tray on a fireside table and peered into the depths of the teapot. “Bearing in mind that we’re all a bit down in the dumps today, I’ve made some scones, a fruitcake, some lemon drench cake, and a few wee meringues, just to tide you all over till suppertime. . . .”
Damp beamed up at her nanny in absolute adoration. Since Flora Morag Fionn Mhairi ben McLachlan-Morangie-Fiddach’s arrival at StregaSchloss the previous summer, the baby had fallen deeply in love with her baking, her lullabies, and her comforting pillowy chest.
Titus brightened at the thought of all that food and abandoned his laptop in favor of calories.
“What a pig,” muttered Pandora, trampled underfoot by her brother in his haste to be first with the meringues. “Look at him, Dad,” she said disgustedly. “He always grabs the biggest one before anyone else has a chance.”
Signor Strega-Borgia looked up from the pages of his book. “Oh, Lord,” he sighed, gazing up at the ceiling, “was that a drip? On the back of my neck?”
“No, Dad.” Pandora cut herself a modest sliver of fruitcake and put it on a plate. “The drip’s sitting beside you, stuffing its face with meringues.”
“Dripshh don’t haff fashes,” Titus said indistinctly, swallowing hard and helping himself to seconds. “Mind you”—he stared at his sister—“neither do you. You’ve got pimples. Lots of them.”
“That’s ENOUGH!” yelled Signor Strega-Borgia. “Be quiet, both of you, and listen. . . .”
From the room above came a faint percussive sound, a rhythmic plink plunk plink. Signora Strega-Borgia shivered and drew her blanket closer round her shoulders. The tapping grew louder, more insistent, faster . . . plink-plunk, plink-plunk, plinkplinkplink, plunk.
“I’m going upstairs to see what’s going on.” Signor Strega-Borgia stood up and promptly tripped over the slumbering Tock. He fell to the floor with a crash as a large chunk of plaster dropped off the ceiling and embedded itself in the chair he’d recently vacated. The descent of the plaster was followed by a deluge of cold brown water, pouring down through the hole in the cornice and soaking the furniture beneath.
“Oh, NO!” wailed Titus. “My laptop!” And he dived to rescue it from the flood.
“Typical.” Pandora rose to her feet and glared at her brother. “Not ‘Oh-Dad-are-you-all-right-gosh-that-was-a-lucky-escape,’ but ‘Oh-laptop-oh-heavens-what-a-near-miss.’ ”
“I think we ought to continue this discussion somewhere else, don’t you, dear?” said Mrs. McLachlan, hoisting Damp into her arms and handing Titus the dish of meringues. “And perhaps you’d like to carry these to the kitchen?” Her voice brooked no argument. “And, Pandora, could you manage the tea tray with the rest . . . ?”
“QUICK! OUT! NOW!” yelled Signor Strega-Borgia, pushing Mrs. McLachlan and Damp toward the door. “The whole ceiling’s about to come down.”
Signora Strega-Borgia shot to her feet, shook the sleeping crocodile awake, and hurried to the door in a tide of cashmere. Above her head, a vast gray patch spread like ink on blotting paper across the damaged ceiling. Around the newly created hole a bulge began to develop, growing and sagging as if something massive were pressing into the library from the room above. With all his family safe in the hallway, Signor Strega-Borgia shut the library door. From behind it came a rending crash followed by the deafening roar of gallons of pent-up rainwater pouring through a large hole.
Latch, the Schloss butler, appeared on the landing above. He was dressed informally since he’d been enjoying a rare afternoon off duty, and consequently was sporting an alarmingly small green dressing gown, from which his long limbs sprouted like pale potato shoots.
“There appears to be some problem with the roof,” he said redundantly, since the sound of water pouring into the library could clearly be heard through the closed door. “Can I be of some assistance? Phone a plumber? Fetch more buckets? Sandbags? Try to salvage some books from the library . . . ?”
Pandora noticed that water was beginning to seep into the hallway from under the door.
“Phone Pylum-Haight,” said Signor Strega-Borgia.
His wife flinched. “But, Luciano . . . ,” she whimpered. “The expense . . .”
“I’m sure we can come to some arrangement with Mr. Pylum-Haight.” Signor Strega-Borgia wrapped an arm round his wife. “Let’s not worry about that right now, shall we? And, Latch: if you’d give me a hand taking the books down to the kitchen to dry out? Later—when the floods have stopped?”
“Oh, the books—the poor books,” wailed Signora Strega-Borgia, realizing the full extent of the damage. “My magic books, the children’s picture books . . . the family books. . . .” She began to cry, her head buried in her husband’s shoulder.
“Now, dear—don’t you fret about that right now,” Mrs. McLachlan soothed. “A nice cup of tea in the kitchen, with a wee dram for the shock.” She shifted a wide-eyed Damp to her other hip and took her employer by the arm to lead her downstairs.
Their voices faded away as the nanny led Signora Strega-Borgia toward the kitchen. The door closed, muffling any further discussion. Tock gave a mournful honk and waddled off in the direction of his mistress’s bedchamber.
Two hours later, a rusty white van and a sleek black BMW were parked outside the front door, and a tribe of men in yellow oilskins headed by Mr. Pylum-Haight had invaded StregaSchloss. Books adorned every available surface in the kitchen. Soggy paperbacks, drenched calfskin, and pulpy wet hardbacks dripped in every nook and cranny. The family sat round the kitchen table, their spirits lightened somewhat by Mrs. McLachlan’s carrot and ginger soup, roast chicken, potatoes and broccoli, and Sussex Pond Pudding. The room was warm, the children full and sleepy. From overhead came the sound of banging and hammering as Pylum-Haight and his emergency team effected a temporary roof repair.
“The roof appears to be far worse than we’d suspected. Mr. Pylum-Haight was being horribly gloomy about how long he thought the work would take, not to mention how much it would cost. . . .” Signora Strega-Borgia sighed and pushed her plate away.
“He says we can stay here tonight,” said Signor Strega-Borgia, watching in amazement as Titus spooned out a fourth helping of pudding onto his plate, “but tomorrow we have to move out.”
“But Christmas is only
three weeks away,” moaned Pandora, curled up in an armchair by the range.
“And where are we going to move out to?” Titus had paused with his spoon arrested in midair. “We don’t have another house.”
“We don’t even have this one right now,” said Signor Strega-Borgia gloomily.
“We could use my tent,” said Pandora. “Or rent a caravan. . . .”
“NOT!” bawled Ffup. “If you think I’m sleeping under canvas in December, you can think again.” The dragon banged on the table for emphasis and glared at the assembled company.
No one noticed as a small glass vial bounced off the tabletop and smashed on the stone floor below. No one noticed as its contents spilled out and seeped into the cracks in the floor. Oblivious to the appalling chain of events unleashed by his teenage tantrum, Ffup carried on: “And how exactly d’you think I am supposed to cope with being cooped up in a tin box? Caravan? Phtui . . . I spit on it.”
Mrs. McLachlan fixed the dragon with her basilisk stare. “Ffup . . . ,” she warned.
The dragon blushed pink and seemed to shrink inside his scaly carapace. “Um . . . yes,” he bleated. “Caravans . . . mmm, lovely. What fun. Come to think of it, I rather like tinned humans, actually. . . .”
Full-on Vadette
The hour was way past midnight when Mr. Pylum-Haight drove across StregaSchloss’s uninhabited moat and edged his BMW through the open gates and out along the pitted drive that wound back to Auchenlochtermuchty. Pylum-Haight lit a foul-smelling cigarillo and sank back into the black leather of his seat. He pressed a keypad on the dashboard and the display on his car phone promptly lit up. A muted dial tone began to trickle from all eight of the concealed speakers in his car. “Come on, pick up, pick up,” he said, exhaling a mouthful of evil brown smoke that temporarily obliterated the reek of aftershave clinging to his person.