She lowered Bubbles to the ground and set off in what she hoped was the direction of home. But Merdyn blocked her path.
“Youngling, please. I have other things to trade with,” he said. “I could help thee with thy ‘problems’.”
“How can you possibly help me?” asked Rose. “You look like you can barely help yourself.”
Merdyn pulled a highly offended face. “How DARE thee? I am Merdyn the Wild, destroyer of enemies. The greatest warlock who ever liveth!
ALL THOSE WHO KNOWETH ME, KNEEL BEFORE ME!” he finished with gusto.
“What’s a warlock?” asked Rose.
“A warlock, I ought not to have to tell thee, is capable of great and powerful magic.”
“Oh,” said Rose. “Like a wizard?”
“Pah!” spat Merdyn. “Wizards be woolly-hearted fools. A warlock serveth only the powers of darkness.”
“Like a bad witch?” offered Rose sensibly.
“Nay!” cursed Merdyn, even more annoyed at this suggestion than the wizard one. “Bad witches be ugly, smelly, uncouth hags!”
“You don’t smell so great yourself,” said Rose, wafting her hand under her nose to illustrate. “And why do you speak in that weird way?”
“What meaneth thou?”
“That for example. What’s with the thous and thys? Are you an actor?”
“An actor?” Merdyn was stunned at the insolence of this child. (Actors were considered the lowest of the low in the Dark Ages, quite rightly in my opinion. But I digress …) Did the child not know the dangers that could befall a person who insulted a warlock? Then Merdyn realised something terrible.
“Thou believeth me not,” he said quietly. In his land, EVERYBODY knew Merdyn the Wild. Everybody feared him. But now, here, he was … a nobody.
Rose shrugged. “Of course I don’t believe you.” Then she had an idea. “Tell you what. If you’re some kind of magician or whatever, then show me something.”
Merdyn looked downcast. Without his lovingly crafted magical staff, Thundarian, he could not perform his most spectacular spells.
“Thought so,” said Rose, reading his body language. “Come on, Bubbles.” She tugged on Bubbles’s lead and they set off.
“Wait!” cried Merdyn, suddenly remembering that he didn’t need his staff for basic magic. All he had to do was recall his first year at the School of Alchemy. “There is something I can show thee. A morsel. A crumb. A shrew1.”
And with that, he grabbed what looked to Rose like some leaves or herbs from pockets around his belt. Then he began scurrying around the wood collecting bits of shrub, mushrooms and spiders’ webs and crushing them in his hand. To Rose, he looked like a complete lunatic, crawling around on his hands and knees, getting excited about grass and rubbish.
Finally, he stood upright, held a pinecone in the air and whispered a bizarre incantation.
“PRIMULA VERIS, SPEAKINSIDEOUTSIDE VIBERNUM OPULUS!”
Bubbles looked at Rose as if to say, “Who is this nut job?”
“SAMBUCA NIGRA FRUCTUS!”
Merdyn continued much louder. Then with great fanfare he threw the crushed mixture over the pinecone and held it proudly aloft.
“Well, thanks for that,” said Rose, thinking that was the end of the trick. “Very, er, impressive.”
But Merdyn wasn’t finished. He snatched Bubbles from her once again.
Rose lashed out with her fists. “What are you going to do? Try and eat him again?”
But Merdyn simply held her back by her forehead while she flailed wildly. “Cease thy protestations, girl. And listen …”
Merdyn pressed the pinecone gently against the guinea pig’s head.
A strange sound began to emerge. At first, it sounded like someone talking on a distant radio. Then it became louder. Intrigued, Rose leaned into the pinecone. And when she did, she could hardly believe her ears.
“What’s happening?” said a tiny voice. “Hang on. Why is my voice sounding outside my head? Ooh, I’m freaking out. I knew this was a mistake! I wanna be home in my cage! I wanna be home in my cage!”
Rose’s mouth fell open like a goldfish. “Whose voice is that?” she asked.
“Why, thy rat’s. ’Tis his inner voice,” said Merdyn.
“‘Rat’? Who are you calling a rat?” complained Bubbles’s inner voice. “Oh, I’m so confused. I feel a poo coming on. I’m-gonna-poo-I’m-gonna-poo-I’m-gonna poo-I’m-gonna …” Then, of course, Bubbles did a poo.
Rose was astonished! It was Bubbles’s voice all right. This was exactly what she imagined he’d sound like. She looked at the strange, smelly, scruffy man with the bright blue eyes standing in front of her. “OK. So … you’re a wizard,” she said slowly.
“Warlock!” snapped Merdyn. “Now, listen to me. I must get back to my world. Thou art from this hellish place, thou can help me navigate it. What I have just shown thee is but the pips of an apple. If thou helpeth me, I have the power to give thee thy heart’s desire. Believe me, I can do it. I am no hufty tufty2.”
“Hm. Could you make me a great singer?” Rose asked, excited suddenly.
“Of course,” replied Merdyn. “If that really is what thou wanteth.”
“Being a singer is what I wanteth! I mean, want.”
“So be it. If thou helpeth me, I shall make thee a singing spell. Thou shall sing like an angel. No one will ever have heard the like!”
“Then we have a deal,” said Rose. She grasped Merdyn’s outstretched, dirty hand – albeit reluctantly – and shook.
“Just to be clear,” Bubbles jabbered as they set off home, “nobody’s going to eat me?”
“No, rat,” Merdyn replied. “Not yet anyway.”
And at that, Rose suddenly remembered why her mum had sent her out in the first place.
“Oh blimey!” spoke poor Rose’s lips:
“I forgot the fish and chips!”
Notes
1 Not literally, reader, he just means a small thing.
2 A person who likes to talk up his or her abilities: a show-off. Next time you feel like someone is bragging, try calling them a hufty tufty and see what happens. Although don’t be surprised if he or she calls YOU a hufty tufty back, for being so clever as to have read this book!
It was slow going on the main road, because every time a car went past, Merdyn jumped into the hedgerow or behind a bin.
“What be these foul beasts?” he wailed as he picked himself up from the floor for the tenth time.
“Beasts?”
“Aye.” Another car roared past, making Merdyn leap behind a lamp post. “There be another. They have wheels instead of legs and emitteth a rancid stench from their back pipes.”
Rose looked at him. Now what was he on about? “Don’t you have cars where you come from?” she asked.
“Caaars?” said Merdyn, stressing the word weirdly again.
“Yes. People use them to travel around.”
“Ah. ’Tis a carriage!” Merdyn deduced. “But has no horses?”
“Horses?” Rose laughed. “Well, no. It has an engine though, you know … you start it. With a key?”
“Huh,” said Merdyn quietly to himself. “Purgatory gets stranger and stranger …”
A moment later, Rose’s smartphone went off in her bag, playing Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” as usual.
“Ye gods!” cried Merdyn, slamming his hands over his ears. “What be that caterwauling?”
Rose stopped walking and pulled out her phone. Her mum’s face appeared on the screen.
“Where’s the fish and chips, love?” Suzy complained immediately.
Merdyn could not believe his eyes. He stared at the tiny woman, trapped in the little black square before him. “What black magic be this?” he whispered in horror.
“Yeah. Sorry, Mum, I got a bit … er … delayed,” said Rose, blissfully unaware of Merdyn’s mounting terror.
“Well, hurry up, will you? I’m starving here!”
“OK, I’ll—”
Rose had barely begun her sentence when Merdyn GRABBED the phone from her hand and THREW it on to the pavement with great force. The screen smashed instantly. CRACK!
“Wha—? Stop!” Rose screamed.
But the wizard-warlock wasn’t finished yet. He JUMPED and STAMPED on the phone for all he was worth, breaking it into tiny pieces. Then he threw himself to the ground and sifted frantically through the shattered glass and plastic with his fingers.
He looked up at Rose, bemused. “Where did she go?”
“Where did WHO GO?” yelled Rose. She couldn’t remember a time she had been angrier. That phone was expensive! She NEVER took it to school in case something happened to it, and now this IDIOT had smashed it to smithereens.
“Why, the wicked witch in the box?”
“That was my mum! She was just at home!”
“Thy mother liveth in that tiny box?” said Merdyn, aghast. “What happened? A hex? A curse? Did she fall foul of another wicked witch?”
“What? No! Stop talking about witches!” said Rose. “She wasn’t IN the box, you idiot. It’s a smartphone.”
“Even I knew that,” Bubbles chimed in squeakishly. “And I’m a guinea pig.”
Merdyn looked at Rose, dumbfounded. “A … startfoam?”
“Smartphone,” Rose repeated.
“Startfoam,” he said again, stubbornly.
“Smartphone,” Rose tried again. “And it cost a LOT of money.”
“I told you. I have monies.”
Merdyn threw some more dirty pebbles at the livid Rose, which did NOT help. Rose threw the stones right back at him. Merdyn couldn’t help pondering how odd it was that he had fought marauding murderers and crusading conjurors, but that was nothing compared to the wrath of this twelve-year-old girl. She must have really liked that startfoam.
“This singing spell had better make me REALLY famous!” Rose yelled, before picking up the broken phone pieces and putting them in her bag.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the fish and chip shop. Rose got some for herself, her mum and Kris and, her anger finally subsiding, for Merdyn too.
She wondered how she was going to explain her new companion. It would be OK, she figured. As long as Merdyn didn’t smash Mum’s phone, or hog the TV, or eat her chocolates, she imagined she’d be fine with a warlock staying in the shed for a while. Though I won’t say warlock, thought Rose. I’d best say wizard. Sounds less, erm . . . kill-y.
When they arrived back at Daffodil Close, Rose tiptoed down the little path between her house and Dion’s garage, with Merdyn behind her.
“Now listen. I need to persuade my mum to let you stay for a while,” she whispered. “Are you happy to sleep in there?”
She pointed at the little shed in the Falveys’ garden. It was a basic affair with a peeling green roof, small door and window.
“It is a paltry abode but, being in Hell, I suppose I cannot expect a castle,” said Merdyn.
“Er … exactly,” said Rose. “So, just wait here.”
Inside the house Rose found her mum exactly where she had left her. The talent show had finished and now she was watching a documentary about Marilyn Monroe.
“You took your time,” Suzy said, barely looking up.
“I bumped into someone,” said Rose.
NOW Suzy looked up. “I thought I heard another voice when I called you! Who was it? Not a stranger? What did I tell you about talking to strangers?”
“He’s not a stranger,” said Rose. “Well, he is quite strange. And kind of full of himself. But he’s nice at heart, I think. Well, I’m not sure about that but … the thing is, he’s … he’s a …”
“Spit it out, Rose,” said her mum, impatiently.
“He’s a … he’s a wizard,” Rose managed, finally.
Suzy was so shocked she even paused the documentary about Marilyn Monroe.
Outside, Merdyn saw Rose’s next-door neighbour, Dion, emerging from the side door of his garage, having finished tinkering with his beloved car for the night. Dion jumped out of his skin when he saw Merdyn, but he didn’t want to get into a conversation with an extra from The Lord of the Rings, so he just nodded and dashed into his house.
As he did so, Merdyn saw something drop from his pocket and lie among the paving stones, shining in the moonlight. Merdyn liked shiny things, so he bent down to pick it up.
It was a small black box. As Merdyn studied it, pressing and prodding, he heard a muffled noise from inside the garage.BOOP BOOP!
The clever reader, which I think we have already established you are, will recognise this sound as the noise made when unlocking a car remotely. But to Merdyn it sounded like a bird call.
Being a curious type, the warlock opened the little side door of the garage and went in. Once inside, he could see that it wasn’t a bird at all, but a caaar. Since Rose had explained that they were just horseless carriages, Merdyn wasn’t scared of them any more. In fact, he found this carriage rather beautiful. It had a picture of a huge eagle on its front, and the moonlight streaming through a window made it gleam like a giant gemstone.
Merdyn ran his hand down its side. So shiny, so smooth, so cold. He noticed a handle and instinctively pulled it. A door popped open. The leather seat inside looked very inviting, so he sat in it.
There was a round thing in front of him. Weirdeth. Why have a wheel inside the carriage? Then he remembered Rose saying something about a key. Could the silver shard chained to the little black box be a key? Merdyn held it up in front of his face.
’Tis a small and dainty key, but a key nonetheless, he thought. Now where does it go . . .?
In the lounge, Rose was still fending off questions from her irate mum.
“You met a vagrant in the woods? And you want him to live in the shed? Have you gone completely potty?”
“But Mum, he can do magic! He made Bubbles talk! Listen …”
Rose pressed the pinecone against her guinea pig’s head. There was a long silence.
“Come on, Bubbles. I couldn’t shut you up five minutes ago!” Rose begged. Bubbles just stared at her with vacant eyes. “He was talking earlier,” Rose told her mum, smiling desperately. This was going even worse than she had expected. Suddenly the possibility that she would soon have a magic singing spell and transform everyone’s lives for the better seemed very remote.
Rose’s mum had seen Rose do some eccentric things in her time, but this behaviour was on another level. “I knew this would happen,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve gone mad. I’ve read about it. This can happen to children who’ve suffered sudden changes …”
Rose was about to interject when they were interrupted by the sound of a revving car engine.
It was an odd noise. Dion never revved the engine of the Pontiac Firebird so loudly. He knew that such high revs per minute would damage the pistons. Was this … something to do with Merdyn?
No sooner had this worrying thought entered Rose’s head than it was confirmed. She heard a crank of gears, followed by a loud explosion that sounded not unlike a car crashing through a garage door.SMASH!
Rose and her mum rushed to the front window just in time to see Dion’s beloved $100,000 Pontiac Firebird hurtling backwards across the road, swerving and snaking and screeching as it went.
As it whizzed past, Rose glimpsed Merdyn at the wheel looking sick and screaming at the top of his lungs. The car swerved one last time, then thumped into a lamp post. CRUNCH!
The boot (or ‘trunk’ as they call it in America) crumpled up like an accordion.
Two seconds later, Dion’s front door flew open. The postie had bare feet, and he was wearing nothing but a dressing gown. He’d been in the bath watching Titanic on his iPad when he’d heard his car fire up. Now he was pelting across the road leaving foamy bubbles in his wake, screaming, “My car! My beautiful car!”
He reached the car-wrapped lamp post and yanked open the driver’s door. Merdyn, who looked very green, was instantly sick all over
poor Dion’s naked legs.
“What the … Oh my GOD!!! That’s it! I’m calling the police!” Dion screamed.
Rose and her mum watched the whole thing unfold like a – well, like a car crash, from behind the window of their front room. Eventually, Suzy turned to Rose.
“Is that your wizard, by any chance?” she said.
“Actually, he’s more of a warlock,” replied Rose, meekly.
A phone and now a car,
crushed like a toy.
How many more things
could Merdyn destroy?
By the time Sergeant Murray arrived, Rose was outside and trying to coax Merdyn out of the driver’s seat. The warlock was gripping the steering wheel tightly and had yet to let go. Her mum was comforting a near hysterical Dion.
Sergeant Murray took one look at Merdyn and his moustache formed a big, upturned, banana-shaped smile. “Well, well, well,” he said, with no effort to avoid clichés. “If it isn’t my doughnut-throwing friend.” He clicked his handcuffs on to a still shell-shocked Merdyn’s wrists and dragged him out of the crumpled car.
“Where are you taking him?” Rose wailed. She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure she hadn’t imagined the whole magic pinecone incident, but she wasn’t yet ready to let go of her dreams completely. And if Merdyn was thrown in jail, there was NO chance he’d be whipping her up a singing spell any time soon.
“What’s it to you? You know this man?” the policeman asked.
“Yes,” replied Rose. “Sort of. And I don’t think he meant to steal the car. I think he was just … curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Sergeant Murray with a smirk, as if he was the first person ever to say that line. “And this cat has already pelted me with assorted doughnuts in the shopping centre.” He licked his top lip. “I still haven’t got all the icing off my moustache. This cat’s going to prison for a loooong time!” And he started marching Merdyn towards his squad car.
The Wizard In My Shed Page 4