by Robin Jarvis
The old man regarded her through his spectacles.
“You may well ask, young woman,” he said tersely. “I don’t know why you and the rest are not deemed fit to join us at Court, but there you are. Now I suggest you enjoy what remains of the festivities today. Tomorrow’s an early start; the transport will be here first thing.”
He made some ticks on his clipboard then walked off the stage.
“Oi!” Charm cried out. “This ain’t the end, is it? It can’t be! That ain’t fair! All I got were this bleedin’ headache. There’s no one more wanting to go there than me! Please, gimme more time, another go! I’ll do whatever!”
But Jangler wasn’t listening. He headed for his cabin and entered with a respectful bowing of the head.
“My Lord?” he addressed the figure lying on his bed. “It is done.”
“How many?”
“Only eight, I fear.”
The Ismus reared his head. “Is that all?” he growled.
“Young people are so very stubborn,” Jangler said apologetically. “And this group appear more so than most. But I shall whip that out of them, you’ll see. And at least, this way, enough remain to power the bridging devices.”
The Ismus rested his head on the pillow. “Yes,” he sighed. “That is certainly important; until more centres are established in other countries, the transfers must continue here.”
Jangler nodded then wondered why the Holy Enchanter was laughing softly.
“My Lord?” he asked.
“The manifestation of the Castle Creeper is nearly wholly complete now,” the Ismus said. “Even as I battled Haxxentrot, I felt that trespass more sharply than ever.”
“We must discover the identity of that person with all speed!”
“There may be a way of deducing that more quickly than you think, dear Lockpick,” the Ismus told him. He reached out his hand, which, up till then, had been clenched in a fist, and opened it. A pair of earphones fell out.
“From Mooncaster,” he said. “The Creeper was careless and left those behind. Organise a rigorous search and see which of those remaining aberrants is missing such a pair.”
Jangler rubbed his hands together and chuckled.
“At once!” he promised. He pulled the door open, but was startled to find a burly man in a tight costume of caramel-coloured leather blocking the way. Jangler took a nervous but irritated step back.
“Haw haw haw!” the Jockey sniggered, tiptoeing inside. “What a game you have played this day, Most Holy One. How you set every head to thunder and thump as if the very castle walls were tumbling down about our ears. I was having such a merry time with a serving maid before you did that! How unthinkably boorish of you to spoil the Jockey’s sport.”
“Why are you here today?” the Ismus asked suspiciously “I did not request or desire it.”
The Jockey looked surprised. “I would be failing my obligations if I were not close by, to sprinkle your hours with discord and levity in equal measure,” he replied. “Besides, it was the height of bad manners on your part not to invite me to this pet project of yours. You know how I hate being left out of things – however squalid. Naughty of you!”
Jangler tried to get past him, but the Jockey caught his hands and danced him around the room.
“Your feet are so leaden!” he mocked. “Do you wear iron socks?”
The old man wrenched himself free and pushed the Jockey away. He had no time for his nonsense.
“Let me be about my Lord’s business!” he demanded.
“Oh, take your grisly visage away,” the Jockey dismissed him. “’Tis true – your scowls turn milk to cheese in the udder. But first I want you to see the gift I’ve brought our dear Ismus, to cheer him and his poor, crispy back.”
Chortling, he reached into his pocket.
“I’ve just skipped through each one of these beastly shacks,” he bragged. “And weaved in and out of those witless children out there, dipping with such dexterous, nimble fingers and brought you these. I know they’ll amuse you – hoo hoo hoo!”
With a flourish, he presented a bundle of wires. Every pair of earphones in the camp was there. Jangler uttered a cry of frustration and the Ismus stared at them angrily, which made the Jockey titter all the more.
“You can’t have it too easy,” he snickered, wagging a stout finger at them as he swept out of the cabin. “Haw haw haw – I hampered you, I thwarted you, I spoiled it, I puzzled it. Keep the dance a-twirling, keep the pieces spinning, keep the Lord a-guessing.”
Jangler pulled at his neat little beard. “What shall I do, my Lord?” he asked.
“Send them home!” the Ismus snarled in a temper. “Send everyone home, the mummers, the choristers, the cooks, the stilt-walkers, the Jacks and Jills. Empty this camp of everyone but those children. Do it!”
Jangler hurried out and the Ismus called to his bodyguards to bring his car. “Get me away from this place!” he commanded. “I’ve other pressing matters to attend to. And see that the Jockey climbs aboard no vehicle. He may ride us at Court, but he won’t be riding with us today. Let him tittup all the way back to London in that squeaky costume.”
The Black Face Dames bowed and hastened to obey. The Ismus glared at the tangled ball of earphones in his hands and threw it against the wall.
Within an hour, the camp was deserted. Jangler had shooed everyone away. The place looked a wreck. Bunting and ribbons had come loose from the poles and were straggling over the ground and snagged on forsaken stalls. Discarded goblets, pewter plates covered in crumbs and chicken bones littered the lawn. Here and there were odd articles of clothing, a shoe, a headdress, a forgotten cloak. A desolate sense of abandonment and profound disappointment sat heavy over the place.
Jody and Maggie sat on the deserted stage, gazing at the untidy camp. They and the others were still trying to come to terms with everything they had experienced that day. It seemed so unreal, so impossible.
“So that’s that then,” Maggie muttered with a morose air of finality. “All a bit of a waste of time, wasn’t it?”
The other girl pulled her hands inside the sleeves of her cardigan and nodded.
“What were it for?” she asked. “What were any of it for? I can’t get my head round it. What happened today, the way he just burst into flames and lifted up, that was mental, mad – it just can’t happen… but it did. And then the way everyone passed out – it don’t make sense, none of it.”
“It’s what the Ismus does in the book though,” Maggie said. “He flies.”
“But that’s only a book! People, real people, can’t fly.”
“There’s nothing ‘only’ about it. You should know that by now, babes.”
Jody shook her head. If she allowed herself to believe in the smallest aspect of the world of Dancing Jax then that door might swing wide open and she was too afraid to let that happen. She had to keep a tight grip on what little reality she was still able to understand. Taking a sobering breath, she looked over at the chalets. Christina and most of the others were lying down inside, with pounding headaches. A bitterly unhappy, disillusioned Charm was packing her suitcases in readiness for the journey back the next morning.
“What are you going home to?” Jody asked Maggie.
“Don’t call it home no more, but then it’s not been good there since Janice the stepmother from hell moved in, back when I was twelve. Wasn’t no love lost there, manipulative cow she is – or was before all this.”
“My mum and dad were great.”
“So was my dad till she got her hooks in him. I hated the way she treated him, but he couldn’t see it, starting rows just cos she was bored, turning on the waterworks to get her way, criticising everything I ever did, like it were a competition between us for his attention.”
“She sounds… choice.”
“She was. That’s why I got so big.”
“Eh?”
“A martyr in Marigolds she was. Loved having her snotty friends round and whining
to them about how hard done to she were; by me, by my dad – by not having new scatter cushions, or by whatever small thing happened to her that week. Suffering in public is what pushed Janice’s buttons. Squeezing out sympathy was an Olympic event to her and she won gold every time – the warped harpy.”
“So how did that make you big?”
“Control freak, wasn’t she? Thought she was subtle about it, but I knew what she was up to, even if Dad didn’t. Kept dropping hints; someone on the telly was a bit full in the face and wasn’t it ugly, my school uniform was looking a bit tight, leaving diet magazines around the house, disapproving looks at the dinner table, asking when my puppy fat was going to go. She worked and worked to give me a complex. Oh, she’d have loved a stepdaughter with an eating disorder – she was salivating at the prospect of those pitying looks, being right in the centre of a tragedy like that. ‘There goes Mrs Blessing, poor woman, her girl’s anorexic you know, just skin and bone, how does she cope? Must be such a worry…’.”
Maggie stroked her stomach with a victorious smile.
“I got myself an eating disorder all right,” she snorted. “But not the one she wanted. I managed to put on sixty-five kilos in three and a bit years. And I did it just to spite her. There’s no pity to be milked having a stepdaughter who’s morbidly obese. Shame, blame and ridicule is what she got instead, cos the neighbours, my teachers, the doctors, my poor dad, all believed it was her fault. And you know, seeing her more and more mortified every day was worth every forced mouthful, every painful cramp, every jeer, every snub – even the risk of diabetes.”
Jody didn’t know what to say. Her life experience hadn’t prepared her for anything like that. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what would possess someone to do that to themselves. More than ever she realised just how lucky she had been until that book came along.
“So that’s me,” Maggie said, filling the silence. “That’s what I’ll be going back to tomorrow, though it’s all changed now obviously, but she’s still a cow, just a brainwashed one. How about you? Bristol, yeah?”
“I’ve nowhere else,” Jody answered simply.
“None of us has, babes.”
Jim Parker was standing at the top of the helter-skelter, looking out over the camp. He could see everything from up there. The late afternoon breeze ruffled through his hair and caused the cloak to flap behind him. He gazed longingly at the encircling trees and imagined himself flying over them. The Ismus had proven such a thing was possible, just as Jim knew it would be. Since coming round that afternoon, the twelve-year-old had felt different. Over the recent months, he had developed a habit of testing himself, pinching or pricking his skin to see if the invulnerability had started to take effect. Since the black-out, his right arm had been numb. When he pushed a fork into it, he had felt nothing.
The boy didn’t hear Lee discussing the same lack of sensation with Alasdair. They concluded it was some sort of nerve damage brought on by whatever had made their heads bleed and they hoped it was temporary. Jim, however, was certain his transformation was beginning.
Jumping on to the slide, he rushed down and around the helter-skelter, cheering and jubilant.
“He’s got the right idea,” Maggie remarked, watching him come scooting off at the bottom then go running round the camp, waving his arms in the air. “We should have a last-night party, really go for it big style.”
Jody considered her a moment. “You know,” she murmured, “you’re bloody right.”
“Let’s rock this dump!” Maggie shouted.
Later that evening, the children Maggie had managed to enthuse with her idea, and who were feeling up to it, took over the lecture room in the main block. Drew and Nicholas, two of the video-gamers from Spencer’s cabin, worked out how to connect an MP3 player through the AV equipment there. Music thumped through the camp. Maggie threw herself into the dancing, dragging Jody and Christina on to the floor.
Marcus stayed well clear. He remained in his cabin, sitting quietly on his bed. ‘Hiding’ was too strong a word. ‘Avoiding’ was more accurate. He didn’t want any embarrassing scenes with Lardzilla. She might throw herself at him in a desperate attempt for one final snog. He shuddered at the thought and continued folding his clothes and packing them away.
“Not going out?” a voice asked.
Marcus looked up. He had thought he was quite alone. Jim’s head appeared on the stairs.
“Nah,” Marcus said. “I’m too old to dance with kids. I’m more of a stand at the bar, eyeing up the totty type anyway – and this well is bone dry.”
“Can I come up?” Jim asked.
“Sure, I’m just putting my gear away. Never got to wear these Hollister shorts. And the Ralph Lauren shirts never saw the light of day. Why aren’t you over there jigging about?”
“Not my thing,” Jim said. “I wanted to race instead.”
“Race?”
“Yes, I asked the other lads, but they weren’t interested.”
“Funny time to want to race.”
Jim started running on the spot. “I’m full of energy!” he said. “Like I’m about to burst.”
“Why don’t you jog round the camp then? Take your cloak off first though – you’d look like Batman running for a bus.”
Jim smiled to himself and touched the centre of his T-shirt. Was it really so obvious? Could people tell he was changing?
“Aren’t you going to do your exercises?” he asked. “I saw you the other night. We could train together.”
Marcus shook his head. “Nah,” he said flatly. “Not with that racket going on out there. Early to bed for me, then straight on that coach first thing. Be glad to leave this hole. Been a waste of my time; can’t wait to get back to Manc.”
“You must still have lots of friends there then?”
Marcus looked away. “Course I have,” he bluffed. “Even DJ can’t stop the Marcus magnetism. Got loads of mates, me. Loads!”
Jim viewed the older boy’s bruised and beaten face.
“I tried to stop him you know,” he said. “Tried to stop that fight.”
Marcus put the last of his clothes away.
“I wasn’t strong enough then,” Jim continued. “I’m sorry. I know I’m stronger now.”
Marcus said nothing. He regretted he hadn’t made an effort to be nicer to this kid. He regretted a lot of things.
“Know what,” he said, “pull that bedside table out and I’ll give you an arm-wrestle.”
Jim obeyed hurriedly and Marcus proceeded to let him win every contest. His defeats were loud and convincing. He thought he was being kind, but it was the worst thing he had ever done. It was the final proof Jim needed. He believed his powers had arrived.
Lee was outside on the step, wishing for the hundredth time he’d brought more cigarettes with him. It was really getting to him now and he’d resorted to chewing a pencil end. He had no intention of joining that lame party – he was ready to snap. Besides, there was nothing to celebrate. Wrapped in thought, he stared at the camp gates.
“Not in the mood neither?” Charm asked as she sat beside him. “I can’t even listen to my own tunes now to get away from that din. Why’d they go and rob our headphones? I had a lovely baby pink pair.”
Lee said nothing. She straightened her back, correcting her posture, always conscious of how she looked. The music continued to pound.
“I’m surprised old whassisface hasn’t put the kybosh on that already,” she said, looking past Lee to the end chalet. “Not seen him since tea. Thought he’d be in there the minute they turned it right up. Funny little fussy bloke, ain’t he? Proper rude to me he was earlier, totally ignored me when I tried to ask him stuff.”
She paused to allow the boy to respond. He didn’t. Charm returned her attention to the main block.
“I dunno how they can,” she complained. “I’m gutted, totally gutted. I was so sure it were gonna happen for me this weekend, so was me ma. It ain’t fair. I want it more than they do, know w
hat I mean? Them lucky kids, the ones who got there, all they’ve been doin’ since is read togevver. They got all the cameras on ’em before. I couldn’t get a look-in. Makes you sick it does.”
Lee made no answer. The girl carried on.
“It were goin’ so well,” she said, clasping her hands round one knee and leaning back. “The Plan were all worked out. I was goin’ to be dead famous, get meself papped outside clubs, be seen wiv footballers or pop stars, though they don’t last long nowadays, so a footballer’s the best bet, providin’ he don’t get injured nor regulated nor nofink. You got to be so careful see; the public can turn on you in a minute. If summink like that happened, I was gonna get tropical ill, like Foreign Legion disease, cos malaria’s been done, to get them back on side. Then I’d have my own product ranges and I’d go to America and then…”
She gave a sad, wistful sigh. “I worked so ’ard. Now what am I gonna do? No one’s interested in this country no more, if you ain’t part of the book fing. Heat magazine’s full of knights and queens, but they’re just nobodies, ordinary nobodies wiv bad hair and faces like old chip pans. What sort of a future I got now wiv that going on? There’s nofink at home, ’cept me ma – an’ Uncle Frank.”
“You got a hell of a lot more than the rest of us,” Lee grunted.
Charm thought for a moment. “S’pose,” she said. “But I’ve not been able to get through to me ma all weekend. I’ve rang but no answer, sent her texts but had nofink back. That ain’t like her. Maybe she was told it was part of the fing here. That we shouldn’t have no contact, like in Big Bruvver. That’d make sense. We used to luurve BB, me an’ her.”
She brightened. “Yeah,” she said, the smile returning to her face. “That’d be it. An’ there’s always a chance I really could wake up in the castle tomorrow – or the day after.”
Lee shook his head and spat on the ground. The girl bit her lip.
“About what you said yesterday,” she began carefully. “Wiv your family and mates and stuff. I didn’t know none of that kind of fing were ’appening. I’m sorry. That’s like well wrong. My mouth runs off sometimes wivout finkin’, but I got me a good heart, honest. I really wouldn’t want to go that place if it is all white. That’s just wicked – and not wicked in the good way. That little Indian lad… well, I says he’s Indian, he might not be – I dunno, I didn’t speak to him before it worked on him, and it’s too late now. I saw him and them other turned kids, laughing at his colour during tea. That’s plain evil, ain’t it?”