The Wizard In My Shed

by Simon Farnaby

  Rose trudged across the playground to the school gates. “Please don’t let Merdyn be there, please,” she whispered to herself. “Oh boy …”

  Alas. There he was.

  “Youngling! Over here!” Merdyn cried out when he saw her, as if she could miss him. “I did waiteth by the church but thou did not cometh.”

  “I said three-thirty!”

  “We did sayeth when the sun climbs over the yardarm,” Merdyn pointed out. “’Tis well over by now. ’Tis nearly at the tree tops. Come! I wanteth to see how my fame has endured through the years!”

  Merdyn seemed to have no other setting than “extremely loud” when he was in full flow. The mums and dads at the school gates hurried their children into the waiting Volkswagens and Minis and drove away as fast as they could.

  Then the CATs appeared.

  “Who’s this then, Rose?” hissed Catrina. Her make-up was even more garish than usual today. “Your dad finally made an appearance?”

  The others high-fived Catrina and howled with laughter. Rose had never told anyone that her father had died. She didn’t like people feeling sorry for her. So the CATs weren’t to know, but their words cut even deeper than usual.

  “Like father like daughter, going by the smell!” said Andie, waving a meaty hand under her oversized nose.

  Rose had to admit, Merdyn did stink to high heaven. But so would you if you were from the sixth century. Also, he’d washed himself in the toilet the night before, which never helps.

  “Let’s get out of here, he’s giving me the skeeves!” said Tamsin.

  Merdyn had watched all this like a hawk, including Rose’s face as she tried to steady her bottom lip.

  “I am pitch-kettled2. Why do these hens vexeth thee so?” he asked as the CATs disappeared round the corner, hissing and cackling to themselves.

  Rose looked up from the ground. Merdyn had managed to clear the entire school playground of parents and pupils in record time. “Look,” she said. “Maybe magic made the world go around in your day, but it doesn’t any more. Now it’s all about how cool or famous you are,how much money you’ve got—”

  “I told thee, I have monies,” said Merdyn, once again dipping his hand into his purse and throwing some dirty-looking stones at Rose.

  “Stop throwing pebbles at me!” she cried, losing her temper. “It’s about how pretty your nose is and where you get your clothes from and how many followers you’ve got on Instagram and … I don’t have any of those things. This world is for winners and I’m not a winner. I’m a loser.”

  Rose’s voice cracked. Her belief in herself had collapsed like a giant Jenga tower, and lay scattered about the floor in tiny wooden bricks. Her dad was wrong. She wasn’t ever going to be any good at anything. Her eyes filled with tears and she sobbed.

  Just then she felt something cold press against her cheek. She looked down. It was an old cup. A sixth-century cup, to be precise. And it was being pressed against her cheek by Merdyn the Wild.

  “What the heck are you doing?” said Rose, almost forgetting, for a second, the unimaginable pain she was in.

  The warlock looked surprised. “Hm? Oh, just collecting thy tears,” he explained casually. “A child’s tears be one of the most precious ingredients for spells. They may be of use to me in my quest to get back to my time.”

  Rose stepped backwards, leaving Merdyn holding the cup in mid-air.

  “Oh. Have thou finished crying?” he said in disappointment. “I was hoping for a few more drops.”

  “You’re such a selfish, horrible man!” Rose yelled. “Don’t you care about anyone but yourself?”

  “Well,” Merdyn began, “I understandeth how it might look that way, but—”

  “Yes, it does look that way! Very much so!”

  “But thou art forgetting something,” said Merdyn. “I have promised to fulfil thy heart’s desires. The singing spell? Will not that help thee get monies or followers on ‘instantgrannies’ or whatever thy currency be? Hm? Yes? But first, thou must help me find a way home. That was the deal. Therefore, I AM helping thee by THEE helping ME. See? Now, more tears please.”

  He went to press his cup on to her cheek once more. Rose batted his hand away.

  “I don’t feel like crying any more. I’m too angry!” she said, before taking a deep breath. This warlock was going to drive her crazy, but he was right. She had to help him in order to help herself. For all her dad had stood for, she’d put up with Merdyn a little longer.

  Poor Rose, poor Rose –

  her temper ran hot.

  Today this warlock

  she enjoyeth not.

  Notes

  1 That’s around three hours, in case you were wondering, measured by how many thumb lengths the sun moves across the sky.

  2 Pitch-kettled means deriving from pitch or glue, meaning Merdyn was stuck and confused – just in case YOU were pitch-kettled too.

  Rose sensed trouble as soon as they entered the usually silent library. Merdyn walked straight up to the very stern-looking librarian and shouted in his loudest speaking voice, “A COLLECTION OF THY FINEST BOOKS UPON THE SO-CALLED DARK AGES, PLEASE! ALTHOUGH I CAN INFORM THEE THAT IT WAS QUITE SUNNY MOST OF THE TIME!”

  The poor librarian nearly fainted. She’d never heard anyone raise their voice above a whisper in her precious library before, and now here was someone shattering her eardrums without a care in the world. She recovered her senses and looked daggers at Rose, who quickly marched Merdyn to a table and sat him down.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be quiet from now on, I promise,” she told the librarian as she did so.

  “Why must I shusheth?” Merdyn complained.

  “Because you have to be quiet in libraries.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you just do!”

  Merdyn finally brought his voice to a whisper. “Fine. But ’tis a nonsense.”

  “I’ll get you some books on the Dark Ages while I find out about these Rivers of Time,” said Rose. “Just sit there and be quiet.”

  A few minutes later she plonked a pile of books in front of Merdyn. He attacked them hungrily as Rose tried to find out what she could about advances in time travel. Unsurprisingly, very little.

  This was the quietest Rose had ever known Merdyn, as his eyes darted from page to page, sentence to sentence, scouring for some mention of himself or anyone he knew. How odd to be in the future looking back to see if anyone mentioned your name. Did you make your mark? Or did you disappear without a trace?

  After an hour, Merdyn lifted his head from the pile of books. He had his answer.

  “Bah!” he shouted and banged his fist on the table. A move which got a nasty look from the librarian. “Not one mention of me. Not a shrew of King Paul or Evanhart either. Nothing until this King Arthur fellow in 535!”

  “Well, I suppose that’s why we call it the Dark Ages. We don’t know that much about it,” Rose whispered comfortingly, giving the librarian another apologetic look.

  “How did thou fare?” asked Merdyn, calming for a second. “Any clues how to get me back in time?”

  “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

  The great warlock’s head dropped. “I must return to rectify this tragedy. The only magical figure the history books speaketh of is this Merlin character.”

  He pointed to a book called Wizards, Witches and Warlocks of Auld. There was an illustration of Merlin inside, in his classic look of grand flowing robes, long silky beard and pointy hat. He was holding a sword – most likely Excalibur, Rose decided. She looked closer. There were some Latin words inscribed on the sword blade. She tried to make them out, but Merdyn slammed the book shut.

  “It’s all Merlin hither, Merlin thither! Merlin was the best wizard who ever liveth, blah, blah, blah!” he whinged.

  “I guess he is the most famous wizard we have,” said Rose. “Apart from Harry Potter.”

  This was too much for Merdyn.

  “HARRY POTTER? WHAT KIND OF NAME FOR A WIZARD I
S HARRY POTTER?”

  In an instant, the librarian was at their table.

  “Will you PLEASE keep your voice down,” she hissed. “Or I will have to call security.”

  Before Rose could stop him, Merdyn was on his feet. “I will not, madam!

  I AM MERDYN THE WILD! THE GREATEST WARLOCK WHO EVER LIVETH!

  Silence indeed! Books should be celebrated with laughter and tears! It is not I that should be silenced, but YOU!”

  To Rose’s horror, Merdyn thrust his hand into his herb pouch and launched a cloud of greenery in the librarian’s direction.

  “FINCANTUS! SILENCIO! LIPSEALUS!”

  In a flash – *ZZIPP!** – the librarian had NO MOUTH. It just … disappeared.

  The poor lady immediately began to freak out.

  “Merdyn, give this woman her mouth back! Right now!” shrieked Rose.

  The librarian launched herself in a frenzy at Merdyn, hitting him with the nearest weapon to hand: a large Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  Merdyn was so shocked by the attack that he fell backwards into a shelf of books. WHUMP. The shelf toppled backwards, hitting another shelf. WHUMP WHUMP. That shelf hit another, and before Rose could utter the words, “Here we go again” … shelf after shelf toppled like dominos the whole length of the library.

  WHUMP

  WHUMP

  WHUMP

  WHUMP

  WHUMP

  (You get the idea.)

  I will spare you the unseemly events that followed immediately after Merdyn destroyed the entire library. Suffice to say that a few minutes later, Merdyn the Wild was forcibly ejected from Bashingford Library by (yet another) angry security guard.

  “And don’t come back!” shouted the librarian, her mouth now fully restored.

  Merdyn lay in a crumpled pile on the pavement as Rose ran out of the library behind him, a copy of Wizards, Witches and Warlocks of Auld under her arm. She helped the luckless sorcerer up.

  “Ye gods,” he said, painfully clambering to his feet. “The hedge-borns here have no respect for their betters. So much for the library. We have gained nothing from it! What a pair of saddle gooses1!”

  But no sooner had Merdyn dusted himself down from one drama, did he fling himself straight into another as something caught his eye on the road in front of him. He grabbed Rose and pulled her down behind a parked car.

  “What are you doing now?” Rose asked crossly.

  “Shhh! It is him!”

  “Who?”

  “My arch-enemy!” hissed Merdyn. “Jeremiah Jerabo himself. He is here!”

  How many shocks

  can poor Rose handle?

  For drama, no other

  could light a candle!

  (To Merdyn the Wild, that is)

  Note

  1 Someone who is wasting one’s time, like by putting a horse’s saddle on a goose. Which IS a total waste of time – unless you’re tiny like, say, a leprechaun, in which case it could be a good way of getting around.

  “Where?” Rose’s eyes darted around for a sign of another Dark Ages person. From experience, they didn’t exactly blend in.

  “Right there!” insisted Merdyn. “Just beyond this horseless carriage! He has come to do battle with me and finish what he did starteth. Damnation. I cannot face him without Thundarian!”

  “I can’t see him!” Rose complained.

  Merdyn was breathing heavily, his eyes as wide as hula hoops. He raised his head above the car roof to look into the road. “Ah,” he said more calmly. “He’s gone.”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Then can we get off the floor now, please?” She was beginning to think that, however magical he was, Merdyn was also completely bonkers.

  Right on cue, Merdyn flew into a panic once more. “There he be again! He’s flying!”

  This time Rose saw what he was looking at. It was an advert on the side of a bus for the magician who had just won Britain’s Got Talented People. Rose let out a giggle.

  “Thou mocketh me, Rose?” Merdyn roared. “This be my arch-enemy!”

  But Merdyn realised his mistake as he watched the bus drive away, revealing yet another poster for the magician stuck to the bus stop. Rose marched him over the road to show him the picture at close range.

  “It’s an advertisement. For a show.”

  Merdyn felt a twinge of embarrassment. However, had Rose read the first chapter of this book, as you have, it would have been she who felt embarrassed. For she would have recognised the face that beamed out from the poster. The blond hair, the sly, narrow eyes, the air of arrogance. She would have been even more red-faced when she read the name emblazoned across the front of the poster: Jerabo the Great. But alas, Rose hadn’t read the first chapter of this book. How could she? She was IN the book. She didn’t come into the story until chapter two. But if she had read it, she would have seen that the two faces were identical in every way.

  As it was, she just said, “Merdyn, that guy isn’t a sixth-century wizard. He’s just some cheesy magician. He was on TV weeks before you arrived.”

  “Never underestimate Jerabo!” exclaimed Merdyn. “Is he a rakefire1? Yes. A smell-feast2? Yes. A hufty tufty3? Yes, thank you, sir!” Rose hoped he would stop using words she didn’t understand very soon. “But a piece of cheese? No. Look here.” Merdyn pointed to a tag line for the show: Are you brave enough to enter the Magic Circle?

  Rose shook her head. “The Magic Circle is just a weird members’ club for magicians.”

  “Nay. The Magic Circle is where we settleth our disagreements. Where we do battle!” replied Merdyn, his blue eyes ablaze like sapphires. “Believe me, Rose, these adverts – they are a sign that he wanteth to settle this with a duel! He is telling me he is here. The Rivers of Time are imperfect. He could have set out after me, but arrivethed several months ahead. What more do you know of this man?”

  “He has sort of come from nowhere in the last month,” Rose admitted.

  “Aye! That maketh sense,” enthused Merdyn. “He hopeth that I shall come to him! I knoweth it! Tell me, this magic show – it playeth soon?”

  Rose looked at the date on the poster. “This Saturday night, in London.”

  “Pah! London?” Merdyn spat the word out. “Who would want to go to that sewer?”

  “It’s not that bad. I love London, actually.”

  “Love London?” echoed Merdyn. “’T’is not possible. ’Tis a place for peasants who cannot afford to live elsewhere.”

  “Errr,” said Rose, doubtfully. “London might have changed a bit since you were last there.”

  “Fine!” proclaimed Merdyn. “I will do battle with Jerabo in London and make him return me home with his spellbook. But first I needeth to restore my full powers, or else I standeth not a chance. I needeth my staff, Thundarian.”

  Rose thought seriously for a second. Jeremiah Jerabo WAS an unusual name. She supposed it was possible that this guy was from the sixth century too. And if this was Merdyn’s rival, this could be a genuine way home for him, and a way to Rose’s promised singing spell.

  “OK. I’m in. So where is your wand?” asked Rose.

  “Staff,” Merdyn corrected. “It was broken in two and thrown down a well. I can only hope that the well is still intact. ’Twas situated where Crondike Wood meets Alderly Forest. Thou knoweth of these places?”

  “I know Alderly Forest but there is no Crondike Wood … wait.” Rose stopped. “A well? You mean the old well?”

  “No,” said Merdyn. “’Twas a new well …” He paused to correct himself. “But I supposeth by now it would be considered old. Fifteen hundred years have passed, after all.”

  “Then I know where it is,” said Rose, “it’s in the Oldwell Shopping Centre.”

  “Let us go at once!”

  “It’ll be closed by the time we get there,” said Rose. “The show is on Saturday, right? Which means we’ve got tomorrow to get your wand …”

  “Staff,” corrected Merdyn again, even more emphatically this tim
e. “And he has a name. Thundarian.”

  “Well, we’ll get … er, Thundarian tomorrow. After school. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  Now they had a plan, this would all be over soon, Rose reflected as they headed home, and she would be a singing sensation with a happy family at last.

  When they got home, Rose saw something she hadn’t seen in a long time. Her mum was cooking. Suzy had made roast chicken with roast potatoes, peas and carrots and a jugful of gravy. Merdyn was ecstatic and gobbled it up in no time. It was all Rose’s mum could do to stop him eating the bones as well.

  “Fine bellytimber, Mistress Susan, fine bellytimber,” he said with a beam when he’d finished.

  After dinner, Rose decided to show Merdyn the first Harry Potter film. It turned out not to be such a good idea. First of all, he kept trying to climb into the television to talk to the characters. Then he kept leaping off the sofa every ten seconds to complain about how inaccurate a depiction of W-blood life it was. Here are a few examples of his outbursts.

  “Is this ‘Hogwarts’ supposed to be a School of Alchemy? ’Tis nothing like it!”

  “Quidditch? A W-blood has no time for sport!”

  “They can all fly already, can they? Ten years! It taketh ten years to master the flying spell!”

  “Call that a staff? ’Tis tiny! A staff must touch the ground, find its power from Mother Nature.”

  “This Harry Potter is piffle. It won’t catch on.”

  Rose’s mum and brother found his interruptions and leaping about very amusing, though Suzy kept asking Rose where Uncle Martin had gathered his knowledge of wizards and warlocks.

  About halfway through the film, Merdyn kicked the TV over out of sheer anger and it stopped working. Suzy found this LESS amusing. Then he dragged everyone into the shed, lit a candle and demanded they each told a story from their lives.

  “Where I am from, we didn’t watch TeeVee,” he said. “Of an evening, we would sing songs around the hearth. Pluck chickens. Tell stories.”