Suzy had also started singing again. One night Rose, Kris, Shakia and Dion went to see her at the Frog and Bucket in town. She sang like a goddess, and had several record companies trying to sign her. She turned them all down. Rose assumed she’d taken Merdyn’s singing spell. But all the while she sang, Suzy had Merdyn’s singing spell in her back pocket, the lid untouched. She didn’t need it, but it was nice to have it, just in case.
Dion drove them home afterwards. On the way he turned to Suzy and said awkwardly, “That was … I was … erm. You’re … er …”
Rose couldn’t take it any longer. She grabbed the enchanted pinecone from around Bubbles’s neck and pressed it against Dion’s head. Suddenly ALL his inner thoughts came spilling out in a stream of consciousness.
“I think you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met I love you from the tip of your head to the toes in your feet the only reason I stand outside polishing my car all day is to get to see or talk to you but I never do talk to you because I once asked a girl out and she laughed at me but if you want me to I’ll love you until we’re both old and grey.”
Rose removed the pinecone. Dion looked embarrassed. Then he pulled himself together and declared, “By which I mean to say, would you like to go to dinner tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Suzy said, glowing red. “I’d love to.”
The whole family had a holiday too, in Corfu. How did they afford it? It was the strangest thing. One day Kris was mowing the lawn when the rotor blade hit a bunch of dirty-looking stones. When he went to pick them up, he noticed one of them glinting in the sunlight. He rubbed it on his jeans – and what do you know? It wasn’t a dirty pebble at all, but pure gold. ALL the dirty pebbles were.
When Kris showed them to Rose, she knew instantly what they were. “So Merdyn did have money all along.” She laughed.
And somewhere in the Cotswolds, two pigs turned back into the security guards Jim and Alan. The farmer, who had been rather pleased that he’d somehow acquired two new pigs without paying for them, looked at them quizzically as they walked away from their sty.
“I rather liked being a pig actually,” said a dazed Alan, covered in mud.
“Easier than being a security guard,” agreed Jim.
And so, as you may have guessed from the lack of pages left to turn in this book, we are almost at the end of our remarkable tale. I have just one more thing to tell you though, before I go. One night, Rose was emptying the Poover beneath Bubbles’s cage, listening, as usual, to the guinea pig wittering away.
“I want to try this thing called an aubergine,” he said. “Do you know aubergine? I’ve heard people talking about aubergines. Can I have an aubergine?”
“Sure,” said Rose, lifting some books on to her shelf. “But I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“How do you know?” Bubbles retorted. “You don’t know me. You think you do, but you don’t.”
Rose tutted and shoved the books to one side of the bookshelf. But as she did so, one of them fell off. “Oh drat!”
“You deserved that,” said Bubbles, and went back to nibbling on a carrot.
As Rose picked up the book, she glimpsed the title. It rang a loud bell in her memory box. Wizards, Witches and Warlocks of Auld. It was the book she and Merdyn had looked at in the library. Rose chuckled at the memory.
For old times’ sake, she flicked through it. There was the illustration of Vanheldon the Vandal in all his evil glory. And there was the picture of Merlin that had so driven Merdyn crazy. But when Rose looked at the illustration again, something caught her attention.
The drawing was exactly the same as when she’d previously looked at it. But now, somehow, she saw it in a different light. There was something very familiar about Merlin’s eyes … They were bright blue, just like Merdyn’s. And Merlin’s hair? Why, if Merdyn were a little older and combed and washed his own hair, wouldn’t it look just like this? Even his purple robes were very similar, just cleaner. In fact, if you’d taken the Merdyn Rose knew and given him a complete makeover, say, by the hand of a loving wife, wouldn’t he look exactly like Merlin?
Rose’s heart was racing. What else hadn’t she noticed about the picture? Well, she hadn’t noticed that standing in the background of the illustration, so distant you could almost miss her, was a beautiful woman with red hair and freckles very much like Rose’s. Could this be Evanhart? It must be! Her great great great etcetera grandmother!
It was all becoming clear. Merdyn must have gone home, become good and wise, and used his powers for the benefit of others as he’d promised. In fact, he had become, perhaps through some misspelling over time, the man we now know as … Merlin.
“Good for you, Merdyn!” Rose cried out loud, bursting with pride.
“Just remember. Au-ber-gine,” said Bubbles, never one to miss an opportunity to misjudge an occasion.
Rose grabbed a magnifying glass and studied the illustration before her even more closely. There was one more thing, the Latin inscription on the sword Merdyn was holding – she’d noticed it in the library but hadn’t had time to translate it. it read: Gratium Autem Rosa Est.
Rose scrambled for her phone and carefully tapped in the Latin words inscribed on the sword, before pressing “translate to English”. As the translation popped up on her screen her heart leaped and a feeling of great joy spread from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
For the inscription on the sword read:
THANKS BE TO ROSE
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Hodder and Stoughton
This eBook edition published in 2020
Text copyright © Simon Farnaby, 2020
Illustrations copyright © Claire Powell, 2020
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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ISBN 978 1 444 95460 9
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The Wizard In My Shed Page 20