“Not at the moment,” Graeme admitted. “But it’s only temporary—only till Christmas—after all.”
But was it only temporary? If Jethro had had any worry to spare from the tests, he thought he would have been quite worried about this. There were ten new chairs round the kitchen table—which seemed much bigger than it ought to be, somehow—and here Mrs Gladd served succulent meals for fourteen. Jethro ate with his head down, avoiding elbows, and his hearing filled with screams of laughter at jokes he didn’t understand. All eleven ladies seemed to be living here now, not only Mrs Gladd. There were sleeping bags everywhere, in the airing cupboard, behind the sofa and bundled to the sides of the upstairs corridor. On Friday, when Jethro had done a test on everything possible from spelling to cookery, the ladies turned the living room and Graeme’s study into hairdressing salons and did one another’s hair. The booming of vacuum cleaners was replaced by the roaring of hair dryers. The house filled with strong perfumes.
Almost the only place that was empty of ladies was Annabelle’s deserted study. Jethro took to sitting there beside Mum’s blank turned-off computer, worrying about the results of the tests and wishing he knew the password to get into that computer. He thought he might feel better if he could read some of the things Annabelle had been writing before she left. But when Annabelle rang that Sunday from Sydney in Australia, Jethro had not the heart to tell her about the tests or the ladies either. He was sure he had failed all the tests and there was nothing he could do about the ladies. Graeme, beaming all over his newly plump face, said they were getting along marvellously. Jeremy said, “Hypno-therapeutic distilled amnesia. In blue bottles.” At which Mum laughed and said, “Oh really, Jeremy!”
Jethro came home from school the next day in a worse worry than ever. None of the results of the tests were ready. Every teacher he asked told him to be patient: it took time to mark them all, they said. He made for Annabelle’s study, tripping over sleeping bags on the way, longing for some peace and quiet to worry in, only to find Jeremy in there. Jeremy was sitting at the computer, playing a computer game.
“How did you find the password?” Jethro demanded.
Jeremy turned to him, angelically egg-shaped. “Imperfect clandestine logistics,” he said.
Jethro stumped away to consult a dictionary, which was not easy. Mrs Gladd pushed him aside when he tried to reach the one in the kitchen, and Delphine and Rosie said, “Not in here, please!” when he tried Dad’s study. When he took down one of the dictionaries in the living room, Josephine moved the small table away in order to do her toenails on it and he was forced to spread the heavy book out on the floor. The sofa was filled with Tracy, one of the Kylies and Josephine, who were all laughing about something. Jethro had to push away a heap of sleeping bags to make room for the dictionary, from which he discovered that logistics meant the science of moving, supplying and maintaining of military forces in the field. It had nothing to do with logging on, as Jethro had supposed. He went back to Annabelle’s study. “I want to use the computer after you,” he told Jeremy. “Or it’s not fair.”
“Fulminating lohan,” Jeremy said.
Jethro tried to do without a dictionary, this time by going and asking Graeme when lohan meant. But Graeme simply crouched at his corner table and tapped with his pencil. “Don’t bother me now,” he said. “I have to find a proper clue for stethoscope.”
Sighing, Jethro collected all the dictionaries the ladies would let him get near and took them up to the little room he was forced to share with Jeremy. It was really annoying, he thought, turning pages, the way he and Jeremy and Graeme were getting pushed away into the corners of their own house. The ladies seemed to feel it belonged to them now. A lohan, he discovered, was a rather good Buddhist—something he himself would never be, Jethro knew. He was too worried about those tests. He sat on his bed and worried.
It was an awful week. None of the tests got marked and Jethro began to fear that he was not going to be allowed to go to Seniors. When he got home, the house was always full of vacuum cleaners and shrieks of laughter, and however early he arrived, Jeremy had somehow managed to get to Mum’s computer before Jethro did. He tried complaining to Graeme, but Graeme simply tapped his pencil on his teeth and said, “I can’t find a decent clue for stethoscope.” After five days of this, Jethro said to Jeremy, “Dad isn’t listening to a word I say.”
Jeremy astonished him by saying, “Yes, I know,” before turning back to his game.
“No long words?” Jethro asked.
“Not yet,” Jeremy said, and killed a swathe of aliens with one burst of gunfire.
“Supper! Hurry up!” Mrs Gladd called from the kitchen.
Jeremy left the computer running, and as they both went down to the kitchen, Jethro was determined to get back to that computer before Jeremy did or die in the attempt.
Supper seemed to be over very quickly. Graeme went straight to his corner then. Jethro and Jeremy edged through the bustle of clearing up, each with an eye on the other, each ready to make a dash for the computer as soon as the other did. They had only just reached the door when someone rang the doorbell at the front door. Josephine and one of the Kylies pushed them aside, right up against Graeme’s table, rushing to answer it.
Jeremy looked at Jethro. “Penultimate epiphany,” he said. They stayed to see who it was.
It was Miss Blythe. She came striding in, all owl face and purple bosom, and rapped on the kitchen table. “Everybody gather round,” she said. As Mrs Gladd turned from the fridge and Kate from the sink and the nine other ladies came back into the kitchen, most of them carrying hair dryers, Jethro had one of those horrible moments when you realise you have been worrying about quite the wrong thing. He had spent all the last fortnight worrying about tests at school, when he should have been looking at what was going on in his own house. He stared at Miss Blythe, feeling empty.
“Now, my flowers,” Miss Blythe said, when everyone was gathered by the table, “most of you have been here a full two weeks. I want full reports on progress made and objectives achieved. Mrs Gladd?”
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Mrs Gladd said. “I’ve cooked up three spells daily and four at weekends. All three of them should be well under by now.”
“So I see,” Miss Blythe said. Her glasses flashed towards Graeme sitting chewing his pencil in his corner, and then travelled quickly, with evident dislike, across Jethro and Jeremy. “Well done,” she said. “Kylie, Kylie and Tracy?”
One of the car-cleaners, the one who wore glasses, said, “We’ve made absolutely sure that none of their neighbours even see us, Miss Blythe, and we’ve stopped all communication from outside.”
“So have we,” said Rosie, stroking her blond hairdo. “Not a soul has been able to consult Occult Security since we came here. The only phone calls we allow in are from Mrs Hall.”
“We’re working on making everyone forget the Halls exist,” Josephine added. She giggled. “Mr Hall’s forgotten already.”
They all looked over at Graeme, who frowned at his crossword and did not seem to notice.
“Good,” said Miss Blythe. “Occult Security isn’t going to bother us any more then—none of them are going to bother us much longer. We’ll be able to sell this house soon. Have you worked out how much we’ll get for it?”
“We priced it up,” Kate said. “A quarter of a million seems about right.”
A very satisfied expression came across Miss Blythe’s face at this. “Then we’re in business,” she said, “except for one little matter.” Her satisfaction faded rather. “Have any of you worked out what we do about getting rid of Mrs Hall? Coven Head will be here any minute, and he’ll want to know what we’re doing about her.”
Mrs Gladd said, “She’s leaving Australia later today and flying to Rome.”
“Lots of nice deep ocean on the way,” said Doreen.
Iris added, “What say we simply bring the plane down while it’s over the water?”
The doorbell rang again.
“Here he is now,” Miss Blythe said. “One of you let him in.”
As Josephine scudded away to the front door, Jethro stood next to Jeremy thinking, What are we going to do? They’re behaving as if we don’t exist. Do we exist any more?
Just as if thinking that was a signal, Miss Blythe’s big owl spectacles turned Jethro’s way. She pursed her lips irritably as if he were something offensive like a very dirty sock someone had dropped on the floor. Then she turned with an effusive smile as Josephine ushered Jack Smith into the kitchen. “Oh, Coven Head,” she said. “Good to see you!”
Jack Smith was fatter and more tightly packed into his expensive suit than ever. He beamed round at the ladies and nodded happily at Graeme in his corner. “Good, good, all going to plan, I see,” he said. Looking very humorous, he reached into his waistcoat and then into his pockets and fetched out hundreds of charms, protections and wires, which he threw into a heap on the table. “No need to carry these silly things about any more,” he said, tossing a couple of batteries onto the heap. “I see the Hall family is pretty well obliterated.”
“Not quite,” Miss Blythe said, pointing at Jethro and Jeremy. “Those two don’t seen to me to be quite under yet.”
“Oh, we’ll soon settle that.” Jack Smith rubbed his hands together and came to stand over Jethro and Jeremy, smiling down at them, exuding such good cheer that he could have been Santa Claus in a dark suit. “Boys,” he said, “this is very important. I need you both to give me your solemn word that you will never, ever say one thing about any of us here—about me, or Miss Blythe, or any of these charming ladies. You.” He beamed at Jethro. “Give me your word. Now.”
Jethro felt some sort of huge numbness spreading his brain out, squashing it flat, combing away all feelings until there was nearly nothing but a blank white space where all his thoughts usually were. Almost the only thing left was frantic worry. This is awful! he thought. If I give him my word I shall be like this for ever!
“I’ll give you my word,” Jeremy said from beside Jethro. He stared up towards Jack Smith, past Jack Smith and into empty space deep beyond Jack Smith, and his face was more egg-shaped and angelic than Jethro had ever seen it before. “I’ll give you my word,” Jeremy said, “and my word is FLOCCIPAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION!”
Jethro suddenly felt much better. Jack Smith said, “What?”
“Take no notice,” said Miss Blythe. “He’s a naughty little boy. He’s always doing this.”
“All right,” Jack Smith agreed. “Forget the kids. Fill me in. What have we decided to do about dispensing with Annabelle Hall?”
“Bring down her plane between Australia and Italy,” Miss Blythe told him. “Over the sea if we can. Does that seem good to you?”
Jack Smith said, “Perfect. Let’s get on and set the spell then.” He strode over to the table and sat himself in the chair next to the sink, rubbing his hands together gladly. Miss Blythe and the other ladies hurried to pull out chairs and sit round the table too. Amid the squawking of chair legs on floor, Jethro bent down to his brother and whispered, “What does floccipaucinihilipilification mean?”
Jeremy shrugged, egg-shaped and innocent. “I don’t know.”
Jethro snatched a look at everyone sitting at the table and staring respectfully at Jack Smith and whirled round to Graeme, smiling vaguely at his table just behind them. “Dad!” he said urgently. “Dad, what does floccipaucinihilipilification mean?”
“Eh?” Graeme said. “Floccipaucinihilipilification? Supposed to be the longest word in the language. It means—” Jethro held his breath and watched the smile drain from his father’s face into the pinched, grumpy and attentive look he was much more used to. “It means, Jethro, the act of regarding something as worthless,” Graeme said. Now he looked almost his usual self. He seemed to have gone thinner, with lines where he had had smooth fat cheeks before. He stared silently at the twelve ladies seated at the table and at Jack Smith sitting by the sink, facing them. “My God!” he said. “A full coven! What are they doing?”
“Casting a spell to make Mum’s plane crash,” Jethro said.
“Right,” said Graeme. None of the coven had even noticed him. He leapt up from his corner and went with long, noiseless steps, through the kitchen doorway and round into his study, where he kicked aside three sleeping bags and dived into the chair in front of his Occult Security computer. “Exorcism programme,” he muttered as the machine hummed and flickered, “spell cancellation, expulsion of alien magics programmes, all of them I think, block and destroy magics…what else am I going to need?”
Jeremy’s voice rose up from the kitchen. “Wanton aquamarine steroids. Epigrammatic yellow persiflage with semiotic substitution.”
“Oh yes, personal protection for both you boys,” Graeme said. “Go and get Jeremy out of there, Jethro!” The exorcism programme came up and he began stabbing at keys, furiously and at speed.
Hendiadys! Jethro thought. Instead of with furious speed. He sped back to the kitchen to find everyone sitting in a fixed, spell-making, concentrating silence, except for Jeremy. Jeremy was marching up and down beside the cooker, chanting. “Haloes and holograms, ubiquitous embargoes, zygotes and rhizomes in the diachronic ciabatta.” Miss Blythe kept turning her spectacles towards him venomously, but she did not seem to be able to interrupt the spell-making in order to stop Jeremy.
Jethro seized his arm. “Come away. It’s dangerous!”
“No, I’ve got to stay. Gladiolus!” Jeremy shrieked, bracing both feet. “Rosacea! Dahlias and debutante begonias. Recycled stringent peonies. Pockmarked pineapples, tormented turnips, artichokes with acne. Let go, Jethro! Cuneiform cauliflowers. It’s working!”
Right in front of Jethro, Mrs Gladd shrank to nothing in her chair. Where she had been sitting there was now a fat clod of earth with a small spiked shoot sticking out of it.
“See!” Jeremy shouted. Rosie winked out downwards as he yelled, into a smaller clod with two green leaves glimmering on top of it. “Monocotyledenous, dicotyledenous, myrtle and twitch!”
Almost at once—blink, blink, blink—Kate, Doreen, Josephine and both Kylies shrank likewise and became clumps of earth with tiny seedlings growing in them. Though Jethro had no doubt that Graeme’s programmes were now running, he was also equally sure that Jeremy was somehow directing what these programmes did. Blink, blink, blink, all round the table. Gertie, Iris, Delphine and Tracy shrank into seedlings too, until only Jack Smith and Miss Blythe were left. Jack Smith was staring around in bewilderment, but Miss Blythe flopped forward with her face in her hands, looking tired and defeated.
“It’s Miss Blythe’s magic, see,” Jeremy explained out of the corner of his mouth, and turned back to shriek at Jack Smith, “Defenestration!”
Jack Smith sailed up out of his chair and hurtled backwards towards the window.
“Oleaginous defenestration, I meant,” Jeremy said quickly, just as Jack Smith’s fat back met the glass.
Jethro watched, fascinated, as the glass went soft and stretched like elastic to let Jack Smith shoot through into the flower bed outside. Then it snapped back into unbroken glass again. Through it, Jethro watched Jack Smith pick himself up and shamble off, looking puzzled, to the big car parked in their driveway.
“You appalling little boy!” Miss Blythe said faintly. “How did you know all my girls were flowers from my garden? And just look at what you’ve done to that poor dear man, Jack Smith! He was going to be Prime Minister with our coven for a Cabinet.”
“Questionable offal,” Jeremy retorted. “You were going to kill my mum.”
“Well, we had to neutralise your parents,” Miss Blythe said, in a tired, reasonable way, “or they would have spoilt all his plans, poor man. They are far too good at their job.”
Jethro felt he h
ad had enough of Miss Blythe. He went up to her and took hold of her by one purple arm. “The front door’s this way,” he said. “You’d better go now.”
Graeme’s programmes were obviously running sweetly by then. Miss Blythe stood up quite meekly and let Jethro lead her out of the kitchen and through the hall. “He was going to let me be his private secretary,” she said sadly as they went.
Jethro felt the school could probably do without Miss Blythe too. “Why don’t you give up teaching and be his secretary anyway?” he suggested, opening the front door and giving her a push.
“What a good idea!” Miss Blythe exclaimed. “I think I will.” She turned round on the doorstep. “Jethro Hall, you’re a very understanding boy.”
Jethro shut the door on her, wondering if he really wanted to be called understanding by someone like Miss Blythe, and scooted to Graeme’s study to check on his father.
Graeme, looking lean and irritable and entirely his usual self, was bending over the computer, where programme after programme was racing downwards on the screen. “I don’t know which flight your mother’s going to be on,” he told Jethro. “I’m having to put protection round every plane that comes into Rome for the next twenty-four hours. Go and shut Jeremy up. He’s distracting me.”
In the kitchen, Jeremy was still chanting words, although they now seemed to have become a song of triumph. “Highly benevolent botulism,” he howled as Jethro came in. “Crusading gumbo extirpated by chocolate pelmanism. Transcendent aureate thaumaturgy!” Jeremy’s eyes blazed and his cheeks were flushed. He had worked himself into quite a state.
“Stop it!” Jethro told him. “It’s over now.”
“Creosote,” Jeremy said, the way other people might use a swear word. “Ginseng. Garibaldi biscuits.” His cheeks faded to a normal colour and he looked humorously up at Jethro. “I’ve never done real magic before,” he said. “Has Dad made Mum’s plane safe?”
“He’s just fixing it now, “ said Jethro. “What do we do with all these seedlings? Throw them away?”
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