The Wizard In My Shed

by Simon Farnaby

  Suddenly two more security men rushed on from the other side of the stage, but were stopped in their tracks as Merdyn unleashed TWO ENORMOUS, GLOWING FIREBALLS from his fingertips. ** POW! POW! * The guards ducked behind a props table, which the fireballs then hit, incinerating a top hat, a dozen packs of cards and a bunch of fake plastic flowers. Kris and Shakia, who had stayed in their seats, were having the time of their lives.

  “I told you he could do fireballs!” enthused Kris.

  Finding himself alone and with his security guards out of action, Jerabo the Great abandoned his karate charade and decided to make a run for it. He figured diving into the audience was the wisest thing to do, as he could get lost in the crowd and Merdyn might accidentally hit a member of the public instead of him.

  He ran full pelt toward the front of the stage. But Merdyn was too quick for him. He pointed Thundarian and shouted, “ANIMA CHICKATIS!”

  Electricity crackled through the air and in the blink of an eye Jerabo turned into …

  A chicken. CLUCK CLUCK CLUUUUUCK!

  Not known for its flying abilities, the chicken flapped and squawked at the stage front, trapped by the footlights. The audience went ballistic. They’d never seen anything like this before.

  The chicken flapped for the side curtains. Merdyn quickly cast another spell.

  “ANIMA CHELONOIDIS TORTILLA!”

  The squawking chicken turned into a giant tortoise and thudded on to the stage. THUMP! You could tell it was still trying to get away from Merdyn as its little scaly feet scrabbled desperately for traction against the smooth stage floor, but of course it was too slow – which was exactly why Merdyn had chosen that particular animal.

  The enraged warlock strode up to the tortoise and placed his staff upon its shell. “ANIMA HOMINUM!” he chanted and **WHUMPH!* the tortoise changed back into (a very discombobulated) Jerabo the Great, now sprawled on the floor.

  “Where is thy spellbook?” Merdyn demanded.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jerabo squirmed in terror.

  “Thy spellbook with the Rivers of Time spell. ’Tis where?”

  “I don’t have a spellbook!”

  Merdyn pulled a little brown bottle out of the pouch on his belt. “Thou might have made a Rivers of Time spell, but I have made something even more impressive! This is a disenchantment potion. It will take away thy magic powers for ever. I will give thee one chance to tell me where thy spellbook is before I make thee drinketh it!”

  The audience were on the edge of their seats. They had come out for a night of magic, but were instead being treated to the best conjuring show ever, combined with a medieval soap opera.

  “I’ll be happy to drink that!” said Jerabo the Great. “If it means you’ll leave me alone. I’m just a stage magician, mate. I’d never have auditioned for Britain’s Got Talented People if I’d know it was going to get me into THIS much trouble! This is all fake, phoney trickery!”

  The audience all looked at each other. Then why was he charging fifty quid a head?

  Merdyn was surprised by Jerabo’s tactic too, for very different reasons. The man he knew would never admit to being a fake. It must be a trick.

  “Thou lieth! Thy spellbook. Last chance. Tell me or DIE!”

  He thrust his hand towards Jerabo. Lightning bolts crackled from the end of his fingers. The electric tendrils licked at the stage magician’s cheeks, ready to strike him dead.

  Suddenly the audience felt the show had become a bit TOO REAL. Some of them started screaming to get out of the theatre. Others cowered behind their red velvet seats. All was chaos, when a voice cut through the noise.

  “He’s telling the truth, Merdyn!”

  The crazed warlock let his lightning bolts fizzle out. He turned to see Rose, now standing next to him onstage, with her mum and Sergeant Murray.

  “This does not concerneth thee, Rose,” said Merdyn angrily, and he turned his attention back to Jerabo, summoning the lightning from his fingers once again.

  “We were wrong,” Rose persisted. “He’s not Jerabo. At least, not the Jerabo you remember. Believe me, I wish he was. But he just isn’t.”

  “He must be! The spellbook. I needeth it …”

  Rose reached out with both hands and grabbed the black drapes at the back of the stage. They quickly tore from the scaffold and fell to the stage floor, revealing, to Merdyn’s astonishment …

  A network of pulleys, ropes, wires and levers.

  A couple of stagehands stared guiltily out at the crowd and waved. The actor who had played the gamekeeper was in the middle of getting changed into his next costume. He covered his bare bottom with a Roman centurion’s helmet.

  “I told you!” said the magician, almost relieved to have been exposed. “It’s just tricks. I can’t really fly! I can’t catch a bullet in my teeth! I didn’t even want to be a magician. I wanted to be an actor!”

  Merdyn’s lightning bolts fizzled out all together. He felt light-headed. To Rose, he suddenly looked old, frail even, as his eyes darted around the stage in confusion. “But … thou did summoneth me. The Magic Circle …?”

  “The Magic Circle’s just a club for magicians!” said Jerabo desperately. “Anyone can join! As long as they don’t reveal their secrets. Which I don’t … usually.”

  Merdyn’s head spun. “Then thou art not Jeremiah Jerabo of Albion, who did sendeth me through the Rivers of Time?”

  “No! My real name’s Julian Smith! And I don’t know where Albion is, but I’m from Winchester!” cried the stage magician, sensing for the first time that he might not die today after all. “Jerabo’s just an old family name I thought sounded good!”

  Merdyn sank to his knees. Tears filled his sad, bright blue eyes. “But if thou art not Jerabo of Albion, then … how do I getteth home? How do I returneth to Evanhart?”

  Rose suddenly saw that Merdyn held the rock with Evanhart’s face carved into it. He’d been holding it like a comfort blanket the whole time.

  She walked up to him and patted the back of his cloak. “I’m so sorry, Merdyn,” she said gently.

  Sensing that the drama had finally ended, the riveted audience (those who hadn’t run out screaming already, that is) rose up from behind their seats and gave the players a standing ovation.

  And Suzy fixed her daughter with a hostile glower. “This isn’t Uncle Martin, is it, Rose?”

  Oh, Mum, they spun

  you a load of rot,

  for Uncle Martin

  this is not…

  Note

  1 Well, it means poo, what more can I say?

  They all flew home in silence. The helicopter landed in Daffodil Close and Suzy asked if Sergeant Murray could drop Shakia at home in a police car which, of course, he sorted immediately. Rose’s mum was so angry, she didn’t even let Kris blow Shakia a kiss goodbye.

  “I could arrest this Merdyn gentleman,” offered Sergeant Murray as Shakia climbed into his squad car. “I could charge him for Impersonating a Relative. It’s not strictly speaking a crime, but then neither is turning people into zoo animals, and he should be arrested for that an’ all, if you ask me.”

  Suzy thanked Sergeant Murray but declined the offer. She would deal with this situation in her own way. He kissed her hand and bid her farewell.

  Inside the house, Mum told Merdyn that he couldn’t live in the shed any more. He would have to find somewhere else tomorrow. Merdyn simply nodded.

  “As thee wish, mistress,” he said.

  The evening’s events had taken their toll on the ancient warlock, and he opened the back door and trudged silently to the shed. Rose was less muted. She tried to explain that Merdyn had travelled forward in time and she was just trying to help him get home, but her protestations fell on deaf ears.

  “You can’t just kick him out, Mum!” Rose cried.

  “Yeah! Where’s he going to live?” complained Kris, supporting his sister for a change.

  “Not my problem,” replied their mum ste
rnly. “You both lied to me. You knew he wasn’t your dad’s brother all this time, and you let me keep thinking he was. I can’t have a complete stranger living in the shed. And that’s that!”

  “But he’s not a stranger to me,” said Rose sadly. “He’s my friend. He can be selfish and a little rude sometimes, but I think he has a good heart.”

  “And look at all the things he can do!” said Kris.

  “Like throwing fireballs and freezing people into blocks of ice?” Suzy countered. “By the time they were defrosted, those men had frostbite. Not to mention the damage to the theatre! I won’t have my children put in danger. No thank you!”

  “He did get a bit fast and loose with the fireballs, but he thought he was battling his arch-enemy! He can do nice things too, Mum,” said Rose. “Like he made us all invisible and made us float and made Bubbles talk and—”

  “And he made Sergeant Murray fall in love with you, with a love potion!” said Kris impulsively.

  As soon as these words left his mouth, he wished he could hoover them back up again. He even did a sharp little intake of breath to see if it was possible. But alas – as any sensible reader knows – once words are said, they cannot be unsaid.

  Suzy looked at the pair of them. If Merdyn could have made a spell to make her eyes speak, they would have screamed “DISAPPOINTMENT!” After letting her children squirm with guilt for fully seven seconds (which is a long time in guilt-world) she said only, “Go to your rooms. Merdyn will be leaving tomorrow.”

  After they’d gone, Suzy went to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled it open. Inside were a dozen framed photos of Barry, Rose’s dad. She picked one out. It was her favourite photo from their honeymoon in Corfu. They had taken a selfie. It was in the days before camera phones, so it was a bit wonky. But there they were, love’s young dream, their cheeks pressed together, eyes wide and happy, huge toothy grins spread across their faces, their young ‘just married’ hair blowing in the breeze against the bright blue sky.

  It wasn’t the discovery that Sergeant Murray didn’t REALLY love her that upset her. It wasn’t even the fact that her children had lied to her. It was that in Merdyn, she thought she’d found a connection to the kind, curly-brown-haired dreamer in the photo. Merdyn’s eyes were bright blue, just like Barry’s. Bright blue like sapphires. While she had thought Merdyn was Barry’s brother, a little piece of him was close to her again. But Merdyn wasn’t Barry’s brother. He wasn’t even born within a thousand years of Barry, if her children were to be believed.

  Suzy put the dusty framed photo back in the drawer with the others, dropped on to the sofa and reached for a box of chocolate Congratulations. Outside in the hall, peering through the crack between the door and the wall, Rose swallowed a sob and ran up the stairs.

  Back in her room, Rose gave Bubbles his food and water and filled him in sadly on the evening’s drama.

  “I did try to tell you that magic shows were rubbish,” said Bubbles.

  “You were right. Remind me to listen to you more in the future.” Rose went to shut her bedroom curtains when – OH MY GOD! She jumped out of her skin.

  “Is it a fox?” squealed Bubbles.

  It wasn’t a fox. It was Merdyn, hovering outside the window like something out of a horror film.

  “May I come in?” he asked politely, his voice muffled by the double glazing.

  Rose opened the window and Merdyn climbed in. Although it was easier said than done. The window was really too small for him, and he had to squeeze, turn, squirm – and eventually ask Rose to pull him in. She tugged at his arms until he popped through the frame like a champagne cork, tumbling over Rose’s bed into her bookcase, sending a pile of books and her lamp crashing on to his head.

  “OW!”

  Rose looked at the saddened warlock lying on her floor. “You OK, Merdyn?”

  “Rose. If I am to be in this land for ever, there’s something I wanteth thee to know.” Merdyn scrabbled through the books that had fallen around him until he found what he was looking for: Witches, Wizards and Warlocks of Auld, the book Rose had taken from the library that day.

  “Thou once did asketh me why I chose the path of darkness,” he said, leafing through the book.

  “Merdyn, you’ve had a tough day, you don’t have to—”

  “No!” Merdyn interrupted. “I wanteth to show thee. The great war I did telleth thee about. It was against this fellow, Vanheldon.”

  He pointed to a drawing in the book. To Rose, the man looked like the lead singer of a death metal band. He wore black animal skins and leather. He had a necklace adorned with bears’ teeth, a big black beard and a studded bull-horn helmet on his head. He grinned viciously out at her. She shuddered.

  “A Viking?” she said, before remembering her history class. “Wait, Vikings didn’t come ’til the ninth century or something, did they?”

  “I have never heard of these Vi-kings,” said Merdyn. “Vanheldon was King of the Vandals.”

  “Ooh,” said Rose, excited. “We have that word. A vandal is someone who destroys something for no good reason.”

  Merdyn laughed darkly. “Could not be a more accurate description. They did cometh from Germania and cutteth a swathe through all of Albion. They did killeth men, women, children, horses, dogs, cats; anything that got in their way – and plenty that didn’t. I fought hard for my King and country, but alas, I was captured in the battle of Alderly Forest.

  “As I was W-blood, the Vandals did keepeth me as their slave, putting me in a cage for months and feeding me nought but scraps. Then one day I did overheareth Vanheldon talking. They were close to victory. They had the castle surrounded and were to attack in the morning. Vanheldon did taketh particular delight in describing how they would kill the King. But first he said they would …”

  Merdyn faltered. Rose took his hand and squeezed it, nodding for him to carry on.

  “… but first they would kill the King’s daughter, Evanhart. For nought but larks. Well, an anger did groweth inside me that was so hot it could have burned the forests of the earth. The Vandals had taken Thundarian from me, so I could not destroy them that way. However, I realised suddenly that beneath my cage did groweth wild grasses. I gathered five varieties: bearded darnel, cocksfoot, clover, pendulous sedge and witches grass. Vanheldon had a watchful eye on me at all times, but that night he had left for town to stock up on supplies. ’Twas then I did chanteth the stone spell … Holcus stonerata!

  “I did casteth the spell through the whole battalion of Vandals. Every single one of them turned to stone that night. There it should have ended – but it did not.” The warlock lowered his head woefully. “My anger was still burning so bright that next I did breaketh from my now unguarded cage to trigger … an oblivion spell.”

  “What’s an oblivion spell?” asked Rose cautiously.

  “It turneth stone to ash, and sendeth it into the clouds for ever,” said Merdyn forlornly. “Vanheldon came back to findeth his entire army turned to dust and blown away in the wind. He did runneth back to Germania before I could do the same to him.”

  Merdyn paused.

  “I did destroy them all, Rose,” he said. “Some of those soldiers were not much older than thee. Once I had calmed down and realised the true horror of what I had done, I decided that I would care for no one but myself henceforth. For look what happened when I did careth. When I did tryeth to do good.”

  The warlock stared into the distance, as if reliving the horror. Even Bubbles stopped chewing for a moment, caught up in the tale.

  “Listen, Merdyn,” said Rose at last. “What you did back then? You were angry. They were going to hurt Evanhart, who you clearly love, FYI. I can understand how terrible you feel but I don’t think that was the real you.”

  “Was it not?” Merdyn groaned, not even bothering to mention that he hadn’t a clue what FYI meant. “Look what I did this night! I did nearly roasteth that poor charlatan like a chicken!”

  “But you didn’t,” Rose reminde
d him. “Don’t give up on the idea of doing good with your powers. Imagine how you could help people! It’s not too late to make it into the history books.”

  Merdyn smiled at her. “Bless thee for saying so, child. But that sort of thing changeth a man. Maketh a man an island.”

  “Or a woman,” Rose pointed out sadly. “That’s what I did when my dad died, too. Shut people out. Life is very lonely that way, but at least you can’t get hurt.”

  “Or hurt anyone else,” added Merdyn thoughtfully. “Rose, I’ve been meaning to ask thee. What did happeneth to thy father?”

  Rose wasn’t expecting this question. But as Merdyn had been straight with her, she thought it only polite to answer, even though it made her feel uncomfortable.

  “He … he had a rare heart condition,” she stuttered. “It’s complicated but, basically, his heart was kind of too big for him and one day it just … stopped.”

  “I am so sorry, Rose,” said Merdyn. He meant it too.

  “Anyway …” Rose continued, adopting an upbeat tone, “when he was alive, he was an inventor and he made some pretty cool stuff! He invented this in fact.”

  She took Bubbles out of his cage.

  “What, guinea pigs?” yelped Bubbles, incredulously.

  “Not you.” Rose removed a tray from underneath the cage floor and showed Merdyn. The tray was full of poos. “Anyone who has a guinea pig knows their sawdust gets covered in poos mega quickly,” she said. “So Dad invented a sub air system that pulls the poos through the bedding and safely into a tray below, leaving the sawdust above nice and clean. He called it a Poover.” Rose smiled. “Get it? Poo hoover?”

  “What be a hoover?” asked the warlock.

  “I don’t get it,” said Bubbles.