Floods 11 Read online

  It’s a good job I am not a high enough developed life-form to think, the kangaroo thought, otherwise I would be totally confused.

  Betty laid out various strange talismans on top of the grave, poured a whole bottle of Myrrh and Cider Elixir around its perimeter and closed her eyes.18

  ‘OK,’ said Betty. ‘Here goes.’

  Ffiona went and hid behind a very big gravestone.

  ‘Oooomli ongo, ongo, ongo,’ Betty moaned.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ said Ffiona. ‘Can we go home now?’

  ‘I’ve only just started and stop interrupting me,’ Betty snapped. ‘Oooomli ongo, ongo, ongo, piecrust, damn, I mean piechart, oooobli ingo, ingo, ingo.’

  The grave quivered.

  ‘Ooeer,’ said Ffiona.

  ‘No. It’s oooourr, upgo, upgo, upgo,’ said Betty.

  The quivering got stronger, making the ground around it shake and begin to split.

  ‘Two cream teas, please,’ Betty chanted, ‘four lumps of sugar, five lumps of sugar, six lumps of sugar and a fridge in a pear tree.’

  There was a very loud crack. The grave split wide open and a little old lady somewhat the worse for wear floated up out of the ground, which, naturally, made Ffiona faint again.

  ‘Strawberry jam or raspberry jam?’ she said. ‘No, hold on. I’m dead, so I’m afraid there aren’t any cream teas today.’

  She began to sink back into the ground, but Betty was ready.

  ‘Teashop Lady, Teashop Lady, we have come to learn your wisdom. We wish to bring the teashop back to life,’ she chanted.

  The old lady came right out of her grave.

  ‘I need to sit down,’ she said. ‘My back is killing me.’

  ‘I wish to buy your old shop and restore it to its former glory,’ said Betty.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, and we will serve fine dinners, not just cream teas,’ Betty explained.

  ‘But there will be cream teas, won’t there?’

  ‘Absolutely. Cream teas that will be world famous.’

  ‘How lovely,’ said the old lady.

  ‘So, will you sell me the shop?’

  ‘I will indeed, but on one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘You have to give me a job there,’ said the Teashop Lady.

  ‘But, you’re dead,’ said Ffiona, who had just woken up but was thinking that fainting again might be a good plan.

  ‘And your point is?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Betty. ‘My friend is a human. She doesn’t understand these things.’

  She was about to explain how it worked with dead witches, using her own grandmother, the lovely Queen Mother, as an example, but Ffiona had fainted again.

  ‘Has she become dead too?’ said the Teashop Lady. ‘No, she just fainted. She keeps doing it,’ Betty explained.

  ‘It looks fun,’ said the old lady. ‘I wonder if she’d teach me how to do it.’

  ‘I’m not sure witches and wizards can do it,’ said Betty. ‘From what I can work out, you have to get very scared to make it happen and we don’t get very scared, do we?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Anyway, to business,’ said Betty, unfolding the sale document. ‘If you’ll sign this, we can get things started.’

  ‘You might have to help me hold the pen,’ said the old lady, wrapping her long dead and by now mostly skinless fingers round Betty’s wrist.

  Ffiona, who had just come round, fainted again.

  ‘No problem. First of all, we need your name,’ said Betty. ‘I only know you as the Teashop Lady.’

  ‘My name is Letitia Puddle,’ said Letitia Puddle.

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Betty. ‘My family’s called the Floods and yours is the Puddles.’

  ‘That, my dear, is because we are distantly related,’ said Letitia Puddle.

  ‘Really? How distant?’

  ‘Yes, about twelve thousand miles,’ said Letitia. ‘My family moved to Patagonia several centuries ago.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what “distantly related” means,’ said Ffiona, who had just come round again and was very slowly getting used to seeing a very decomposed corpse talking, though when she thought of it like that, she realised she wasn’t getting used to it and fainted again.

  ‘Oh,’ said Letitia Puddle. ‘Your grandmother and I went to school together and we were best friends. Does that count?’

  ‘Well, if you think about it,’ said Betty. ‘I’m pretty sure all witches and wizards are distantly related, so I’m sure that’s fine.’

  With Betty guiding her shaky hand, Letitia Puddle signed the deed of sale and the old teashop belonged to Betty.

  ‘It could take a while before we can get everything up and running,’ Betty explained. ‘Quite apart from all the work involved, I have to persuade my mother to actually let me open a restaurant.’

  ‘Go on, tell me. Your whole family thinks your food is terrible, don’t they?’ said Letitia.

  ‘Yes, how do you know?’

  ‘It was the same when I opened the teashop,’ the old lady explained. ‘Just because three of my cousins died from my cooking, everyone was against it. I mean, tell me, people are forever banging on about recycling. So what on earth is wrong with Sewage Croquettes?’

  Betty thought they sounded wonderful and asked Letitia if she still had the recipe.

  ‘That and many more,’ she replied. ‘My recipe book is buried in the old teashop. I’ll tell you where to find it.’

  She whispered the directions in Betty’s ear and said that until the restaurant was ready to open she would go back down into her grave to rest and wait and dream up more wonderful recipes. The earth closed back over her. Betty collected up her talismans and the two girls went back to the castle.

  ‘What a wonderful old lady,’ said Betty. ‘Such charm and talent. I reckon once we get going and have exhumed her properly, she could have her own cooking show on TV.’

  Ffiona went white.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Betty. ‘You’ve fainted at least three times today. Any more would be selfish.’

  ‘It’s all just a bit too much,’ said Ffiona, but she didn’t faint again.

  As they walked back to the castle through the streets of Dreary an hour before dawn, Betty wondered if there were any spells she could do to make Ffiona more witch-like. Though, of course, if there were any and she did them, everyone would immediately suspect she had been up to something, and as Merlin had said, she had to keep her head down and hide her increasingly powerful magic talents.

  The two girls paused at the castle gates, looked across the street at the old cafe and grinned.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ said Betty.

  ‘On your way where?’ said Mordonna, who was waiting just inside the gates.

  ‘On our way to bed, of course,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you are, but where have you been?’

  ‘Birdwatching,’ said Betty.

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘Yes, owls.’

  ‘You are such a liar, my girl,’ said Mordonna, ‘but I’m sure you’ll tell me the truth, won’t you, Ffiona?’

  ‘Um, er, what she said,’ said Ffiona.

  ‘You’ve been out with boys, haven’t you?’ said Mordonna.

  The two girls hung their heads. Ffiona, because she was embarrassed, and Betty, to hide her smile.

  Brilliant, thought Betty and nodded. I can’t believe we got away with it that easily.

  ‘Someone saw you going towards the graveyard and everyone knows that’s where girls and boys go to meet each other,’ Mordonna said.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Betty in her most I-am-such-a-sweet-little-blonde-angel expression.

  ‘Never mind the sweet-little-blonde-angel expression,’ said Mordonna. ‘What I want to know is, who was that old lady you exhumed?’

  Damn, thought Betty.

&
nbsp; ‘Old lady, what old lady?’

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ said Mordonna. ‘It’s too late to talk about it now, but I’ll go and check out the grave tomorrow to see who’s in it, then we’ll have another little chat. Now go to bed.’

  ‘OK, Mother. Sorry,’ said Betty.

  ‘Oh, and there’s one more thing,’ said Mordonna as the girls walked off. ‘You’re grounded.’

  Betty stood at her bedroom window and watched the dawn come up. Her room was high up in one of the towers and from it she could look out across the whole town. She could see over the castle walls and see her wonderful new teashop. Except it wasn’t new. It was a falling-down wreck with a huge hole in the roof.

  I suppose if I did a little spell and fixed the roof to keep the rain out, no one would realise, she thought. It’s not like anyone takes any notice of the old place, and all the doors and windows are boarded up so no one can see inside.

  OMG, she said to herself, of course no one can see inside! I could do all sorts of improvements and fix it up and no one would know.

  She locked the title deeds in her secret safe and got into bed, but she was too excited to sleep. She tried counting sheep, but she just kept coming up with endless recipes for cooking them. So then she had to sit up, put the light on, and write them down in case she couldn’t remember the next morning.

  ‘I mean, I’d be really upset if I woke up and couldn’t remember the Sheep’s Intestines stuffed with a Ratatouille of Milk-fed Sporran and Pigeon’s Feet,’ she said. ‘Or the Lamb Brûlée in a Sea Slug Nasal Sauce.’

  This has really got all my creative juices flowing, she thought as she dropped off to sleep.

  Wow, I am so on a roll, she added.

  I wonder if it’s a ham and scab roll or a cheese and grommits roll?

  ‘That girl is definitely up to something,’ said Mordonna when she got back into bed.

  Nerlin was snoring happily to himself, deep in the middle of his favourite dream, the one with the custard.19

  ‘I said, that girl is definitely up to something,’ said Mordonna, nudging Nerlin awake.

  ‘More custard …’ Nerlin mumbled. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, that girl is definitely up to something.’

  ‘Not that again,’ said Nerlin. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘What does it matter what time it is?’ Mordonna snapped. ‘Our daughter with her sweet-little-blonde-angel face is up to no good.’

  ‘They’re just selling lemonade,’ said Nerlin.

  ‘Not that, you idiot. She has just got you wrapped round her little finger, hasn’t she?’

  ‘So what is it this time? I suppose you’re going to tell me she’s been out in the middle of the night meeting boys at the cemetery?’ said Nerlin.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Nerlin. ‘It just seemed the most likely thing she might have been doing.’

  ‘You would think that and that’s exactly what she wants us to believe,’ said Mordonna, ‘but I’m sure it’s not true. I think she is up to something more than that.’

  ‘What you mean? Running away with a boy?’ said Nerlin. ‘Come on, she’s only, um, er, um …’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Fourteen? Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, it could be thirteen,’ said Mordonna. ‘I can’t remember. Kids grow up so fast nowadays, she could be twenty-seven for all I know.’

  They both felt so embarrassed at not knowing their daughter’s exact age, they didn’t say anything else and both went back to sleep.

  ‘Being grounded is so not fair,’ said Betty the next morning.

  ‘Yes, and your mum told my mum, so I’m grounded too,’ said Ffiona. ‘Two weeks, she said.’

  ‘It’s imprisonment, that’s what it is,’ said Betty. ‘It’s against the United Nations Human Rights wossname thing. I bet if we complained to the right people, they’d put my mum in prison for cruelty.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Ffiona.

  Betty wasn’t sure and the more she thought about it, the more she thought that no one would be very sympathetic. It wasn’t like the two girls were locked up in a tiny room with no TV or PlayStations or mobiles or whatever. They were confined to a castle with hundreds of rooms and a huge garden and a swimming pool and pretty well everything they could ever want.

  ‘But we are confined, though,’ said Betty. ‘I’ll go and talk to my dad. I bet he’ll let us go out.’

  ‘What, behind your mother’s back?’ said Ffiona.

  ‘So? I’m not afraid of her.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Ffiona. ‘And anyway, two weeks isn’t very long.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Betty, but it wasn’t the time that was bothering her. It was her mother. It seemed as if everything had sort of changed. Until a few months ago Betty had worshipped her mother. All she wanted to do was grow up to be just like her. The trouble was that was exactly what was happening – she was growing up to be like her mother and there was only room for one top witch in the family.

  Betty knew that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better, and even when they did, life would never be the same again. Most of these thoughts were quite vague. They were all new to her and confusing.

  Mordonna knew that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better, and even when they did, life would never be the same again. She admitted to herself that she had always known this time would come just as it had when she had been a teenager and fought with her own mother, the Queen Mother. She knew that in the end Betty would be the female head of the family, but she couldn’t just roll over and let her daughter take charge.

  Mordonna went out to the Dead Patch, as they called the small enclosed lawn right at the back of the castle where they had re-buried all the relatives they had brought back with them from Acacia Avenue. She banged on her mother’s grave and the dead queen rose up from her coffin.

  ‘Is this important?’ the Queen Mother said. ‘There’s a good gardening programme about maggots that’s just about start.’

  ‘I really need to talk, Mother,’ said Mordonna. ‘It’s Betty.’

  ‘Ah, got to that age already, has she? I bet you thought it was years away yet, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, of course. She’s much too young,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘She’s about the same age you were when we started our fights,’ said the old woman.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Mordonna. ‘She’s much younger than I was. I mean, I was about, um, er …’

  ‘Thirteen,’ said the Queen Mother.

  ‘Exactly. Betty’s nowhere near, oh, mmm. My goodness, where does the time go?’ said Mordonna. ‘It seems like only yesterday that I was spoon-feeding her mashed-up cockroaches in snail slime.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said,’ said the old Queen. ‘And even now there are times when it still seems like yesterday.’

  ‘So what should I do, Mother?’

  ‘You’ll do exactly the same as I did. You’ll try and make time stand still so she can stay your little girl forever. You know it won’t work and you know you can’t win, but you’ll try and argue and fight and cry, and eventually you will be sleeping here in a coffin and Betty will be sitting where you are now asking what to do about her rebellious daughter.’

  ‘But …’ Mordonna began.

  ‘There is no but and you know it,’ said the Queen Mother. ‘She is growing up and you are growing older.’

  Mordonna felt very depressed. The getting older bit was terrible. She realised that she didn’t look as closely in the mirror as she had used to, but being told why was awful.

  ‘Maybe Winchflat could make me a Dewrinkling Machine?’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure he could,’ said the Queen Mother. ‘But when you iron a wrinkled old bed sheet that has worn thin with age and you make it flat again, it’s still old and thin. Just be glad you are a witch and not a human.

  ‘After all,’ the Queen Mother continued, ‘when humans die, that’s it.
When us witches die, for a lot of us it’s the best time of our lives. I’m down here in my double coffin with my beloved Vessel and I have never been happier. So, as far as getting older and Betty rebelling and you wanting time to stand still, there’s nothing you can do about it.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m coming,’ she added as Vessel tugged one of her ankles from inside their coffin. ‘Careful now, my darling, or you’ll pull my foot off again.’

  When everyone else had gone to bed, Betty went over to the window, climbed onto the sill and said THE FLYING SPELL.20

  ‘I’ve been grounded,’ she said as she and Merlin sat by the lake drinking her latest smoothie variety, during the making of which quite a lot of maggots were seriously harmed.

  ‘Bit ironic, that.’ Merlin laughed. ‘Seeing as how you’re the only other person in the whole of Transylvania Waters who can leave the ground and fly!’

  ‘The other person?’ said Betty. ‘You don’t mean my mother can fly, do you? Please tell me it’s not her.’

  Merlin shook his head and rose slowly in the air.

  ‘Of course,’ said Betty. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘We could have a little outing,’ said Merlin. ‘Fly off somewhere interesting. There are so many millions of interesting things to see in this world. If we went somewhere every night for the next hundred years, there would still be much, much more to see.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Betty. ‘How far could we go in one night? I mean, if I wasn’t back home by dawn my mother would totally freak out.’

  ‘Well, if we used the Speed of Light Spell, we could go anywhere on earth we wanted,’ said Merlin. ‘But I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet. I remember my father telling me about a young wizard who tried it before he was ready and he went everywhere in the entire world at once.’