The Royal Family Read online

  ‘Maybe it will give us ideas on the best way to deal with Mother,’ said Betty.

  Ffiona wasn’t so sure, but the Inspiration Rock was one of the places her mother had banned her from visiting. Mordonna had tried to ban Betty too, which made her think it must have some awesome powers her mother couldn’t control.

  The Inspiration Rock did possess some magical powers, because if anyone pressed their bottom against it and kept their knickers on, they would break out in dozens of big, purple, throbbing pimples. You also had to keep your eyes wide open, otherwise all your hair would fall out. If you walked round Dreary any day of the week, you would be sure to see at least one bald person hobbling around with an obviously painful pimply bottom.

  Whether the Inspiration Rock actually did have magical powers that could help you, no one was really sure. Some people swore by it. Some people swore at it. There was no doubt, though, that nothing concentrated your thoughts like pushing your bare bottom against a big rock worn smooth by thousands of other bottoms, while keeping your eyes wide open and trying to avoid the stares of complete strangers.55

  Amazingly, for the first time in years, the rock was absolutely deserted by the time Betty and Ffiona got there. This was such a rare occurrence that Betty was instantly suspicious.

  Although neither girl had ever been to the Inspiration Rock, like everyone in Transylvania Waters, they knew all about it.

  ‘I thought it was supposed to be constantly busy, even in the middle of the night,’ Ffiona said.

  ‘It is,’ said Betty. ‘Something’s not right.’

  ‘So are you going to do it or not?’ said Ffiona.

  Betty wasn’t sure. Her first thought was that her mother had been up to something. It was the sort of thing Mordonna would do and she was certainly powerful enough. Betty’s second thought was that the rock they were looking at wasn’t the real, genuine, actual Inspiration Rock and that they had been misled. Of course, that could be a trick of Mordonna’s too. Or it could simply be that the girls had taken a wrong turn in the forest.

  ‘I suppose the only thing we can do,’ said Betty, ‘is try it out.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Ffiona, more out of shyness than anything else.

  So Betty turned around and cautiously stepped backwards until her bare bottom was a few millimetres from the rock. As she touched it, there was a flash of light. It seemed to come from everywhere and was followed by a loud crash as the Inspiration Rock split right in two.

  Betty, unharmed but shaken, jumped forward and pulled her undies back up.

  ‘So, you’re finally here,’ said a voice from the bushes. ‘I knew you would come.’

  The voice was followed by a person or, to be precise, a bundle of rags shedding bits of itself as it moved. There was a smell that seemed even more desperate than the rags and which shed itself everywhere, especially up Betty’s and Ffiona’s noses.

  It was Gertrude Flood. Fortunately, her magic had begun to work a bit better and she’d managed to change herself back into something that was close to a human-witch-sort-of-person, apart from the two small cauliflowers where her ears should have been. The cauliflowers were a small price to pay for not having to spend the future as Mrs Magpie.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, shaking off the last bits of rag.

  As the figure straightened up, the two girls could see someone that looked remarkably like Betty’s father, Nerlin.

  ‘Dad? What on earth’s happened to you?’ Betty cried.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gertrude. ‘And I am not your father. In fact, I haven’t seen him for years.’

  She explained that she was not some really ancient distant relative of the Floods – as the cats and others had thought – but something much closer. She was Betty’s aunt, Nerlin’s twin sister. All the rags and smells had merely been a disguise.

  ‘When your mother fell into the drain all those years ago and landed on your father, the rest of us hid in the deepest drains, as far away from your mother’s father as possible,’ Gertrude explained. ‘He was livid with rage and spent months dropping bombs and deadly gas cylinders into our tunnels. A lot of us didn’t survive.

  ‘And then, a few years later,’ she continued, ‘when you all came back and reclaimed the throne, most of us were overjoyed and left the drains for the world above. There were only two of us who thought it might be a trap and refused to leave.’

  ‘Two?’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes. Me and Mad Boggit,’ said Gertrude. ‘As far as I know, she’s still down there. She found a doorway in one of the deepest tunnels and went through it and down some stairs into total darkness. I dared not follow her and she never came back, so we have no way of knowing if she is dead or alive, or both, or something else completely. I used to hear strange wailing noises that sounded like they came from a whale, but they stopped a few years ago.’

  ‘So what made you finally leave the drains?’ said Betty.

  She wanted to say ‘auntie’, but was too shy. Betty had never said it before and it seemed like a nice thing to do. And if Gertrude could read Betty’s mind – which she could – she would tell her that it would be quite nice to be called auntie.

  ‘My spies told me there was no longer any danger. The damp was also beginning to seep into my bones,’ Gertrude explained. ‘It took a long time to re-adjust here. The last time I came up, the light was so bright it blinded me, but I gradually got used to it and now I’m up here for good.’

  ‘Does my mother know about you?’ Betty asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gertrude. ‘That depends on whether your father ever told her.’

  ‘Neither of them has ever mentioned you,’ said Betty.

  And this was true. Mordonna didn’t even know that Gertrude existed due to it being a Deep Dark Secret, which meant that Nerlin had NEVER told her.56

  As mentioned before, kings and queens in the world of wizards are not the same in the world of humans. Witches and wizards are much fairer. It is always the oldest child who becomes the next ruler, and whether they are a witch or a wizard makes no difference at all.

  And so Betty discovered Nerlin’s Deep Dark Secret: Gertrude was older than her twin brother – seven hours, seven minutes and seven seconds older. Which meant that:

  Gertrude was the rightful ruler of Transylvania Waters, NOT Nerlin.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Betty with a smile. ‘This is brilliant news.’

  ‘Why?’ said Ffiona and Gertrude.

  ‘Because I will go and tell my mother, and if she ever tries to do anything I don’t like, I will tell the whole world and get Mother and Father thrown into the dungeons,’ Betty explained.

  ‘But I don’t want to be Queen of Transylvania Waters,’ said Gertrude. ‘I just want a nice quiet life in a nice little cottage by a nice peaceful stream in some nice faraway valley high up in the mountains.’

  ‘Mother doesn’t know that,’ said Betty. ‘And as for the cottage, I think I know the perfect place for you. Provided, of course, we can come to an arrangement …’

  Betty would pretend that Gertrude had returned to claim the throne from Nerlin, which would drive Mordonna crazy. Initially Mordonna would assume that Gertrude’s magic was as low-grade and useless as her twin brother’s, so Mordonna would think dealing with Gertrude wouldn’t be a problem.

  Now, although Gertrude’s magic was rusty, as she had shown when she had tried to help Tristram, hers was the most powerful magic in the whole of Transylvania Waters. There were spells that she alone could do, spells that had vanished into legend, where they had become mythical and hardly anyone actually believed they were real. All Gertrude needed to do was practise a bit to get her magic working correctly again.

  ‘I just need to concentrate and focus, and concentrate, and probably concentrate and focus,’ she said. ‘And practise.’

  ‘Right,’ said Betty, wondering if her aunt really was the ultimate-power witch or just as useless as her dad.

  ‘First of all,’ Gertrude said
, ‘I’ll mend the Inspiration Rock.’

  She put a hand on each of the two broken halves of the rock and concentrated. There was a little flash of light and …

  ‘A bowl of raspberries,’ said Betty. ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said Gertrude. ‘Fortunately, I do have one fantastic thing that no other wizard has got – an Undo Button.’

  She explained that when Great, Great, Great plus twenty-seven more Greats Grandfather Flood, the last of the Ultimate Super-Wizards, had decided to pass his massive magical powers to one of his descendants before he died, he had chosen Gertrude. And because the magic was so powerful, he had given her an Undo Button, just in case she accidentally destroyed an entire planet or turned the whole population of the world into Belgian cabbage farmers. This invisible secret button was located in the middle of her forehead and was about the size of a ten-cent piece.

  So Gertrude put one hand on the bowl of fruit, the middle finger of her other hand in the middle of her forehead and whispered a strange incantation until the bowl turned into something else.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ffiona, ‘they’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Betty. ‘A basket of puppies.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Gertrude, and changed the basket of puppies into an enormous pair of beige knickers. ‘Wait, wait, I got the words muddled up. It’s been a very long time since I’ve used them. I’ve got it now.’

  Finally, the two halves of the Inspiration Rock reappeared. After one more try, the two halves became one.

  The Inspiration Rock was restored.

  ‘I think I need a bit more practice,’ said Gertrude. ‘Follow me.’

  She led the two girls deep into the forest until they came to an ancient castle in ruins. In the middle of the castle, almost but not quite completely buried under a tangle of vines and tree roots, was a small cave. The perfect hiding place.

  ‘This is a secret tunnel that goes down into the drains where your father and I grew up,’ Gertrude said. ‘I only discovered it a few months ago and you two are the only other people who know about it.’

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about that, auntie,’ said Betty. ‘I’m pretty sure neither of us has the slightest desire to go down there.’

  It was agreed that the two girls would go back to Castle Twilight and Betty would tell Mordonna about Gertrude’s plans to claim the kingdom, and while they were gone Gertrude would practise her magic until it was restored to its full power and glory.

  ‘So I’ll see you back here tomorrow,’ Gertrude said, turning her shoes into two bowls of porridge.

  ‘You don’t think maybe one day’s not quite long enough?’ said Betty.

  ‘Mmm, you’re probably right,’ said Gertrude, turning the two bowls of porridge into two buckets of eels, which she eventually managed to turn back into a pair of shoes, even though they were on the wrong feet.

  ‘Have you got a minute, Mother?’ said Betty.

  Mordonna was packing for her and Nerlin’s first weekend at the retirement cottage.

  ‘Not now, dear,’ Mordonna replied. ‘You know we’re just about to leave.’

  ‘I do, Mother,’ Betty said as sweetly as she could.

  ‘And I’ve got a word that you can take with you.’

  ‘A word? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve got a word, a single little eight-letter word I’d like you to put in your head for you and Daddy to talk about while you’re away,’ said Betty.

  ‘One word?’ said Mordonna. ‘Well, that’s hardly going to take up the whole weekend, is it?’

  ‘Oh, I think it will,’ said Betty.

  ‘OK, I give up,’ said Mordonna. ‘Tell me the word.’

  ‘Gertrude.’

  ‘Gertrude? What’s so special about that?’ said Mordonna. ‘It’s just an old-lady name.’

  So Daddy obviously hasn’t told her, Betty thought.

  ‘Just ask Daddy,’ Betty said. ‘He will tell you who the old-lady name belongs to, and do make sure you tell him that I said “belongs to” and not “belonged to”.’

  ‘What on earth are you playing at, young lady?’ Mordonna snapped.

  ‘Just ask Daddy about Gertrude,’ said Betty, and made a hasty retreat as Mordonna shouted after her to come back and explain.

  Mordonna told herself it was just Betty playing her usual power games like all teenage daughters do, but an uneasy feeling began to poke her in the back of the brain. She finished packing and followed the servant down to the courtyard, where Nerlin was waiting, jumping up and down with excitement like a little boy. Mordonna tried to forget the word, but it kept tickling her thoughts and wouldn’t go away.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re finally going up to the Enchanted Valley to our beautiful cottage,’ Nerlin said.

  As Mordonna and Nerlin climbed into their brand new Going-Away-For-The-Weekend carriage – which Nerlin himself had designed with the Magic Hat Winchflat had given him – Bacstairs, Nerlin’s devoted manservant, guided the horses out of the castle and along the road towards the track leading into the mountains. They could have got up there in a few seconds using Winchflat’s transporter – which they decided they would reserve for days of bad weather – but seeing as today was rather beautiful, damp and smelling nicely of fungus, travelling by horse added to the anticipation and general enjoyment.

  Nerlin could not remember when he had last felt as happy as he did then. The sun was shining through a delicate cloud of pure white mist. The leaves looked greener than they had ever been before and the air was filled with skylarks singing their hearts out.57

  Yes, they were only going away for the weekend, but it would be every weekend and surely it would only be a matter of time until one of his children decided they would like to be the ruler of this beautiful country.

  Life was perfect.

  ‘Who is Gertrude?’ said a voice, breaking into his daydreams.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, who is Gertrude?’ said Mordonna.

  The entire world suddenly went dark, darker than the darkest thunderclouds. This didn’t just happen inside Nerlin’s head – it happened for real. Nerlin may not have been much use at magic, but hearing his sister’s name, the name he had spent his entire adult life trying to forget, sent his brain into hyper-space-overdrive-total-overload-freak-out-city.

  Mordonna reeled back in horror. Then Nerlin fainted, and the darkness faded away as the world returned to normal.

  ‘Pull over,’ Mordonna shouted to Bacstairs.

  They lifted the unconscious King of Transylvania Waters out of the carriage and laid him down on the grass beside the track.

  ‘What was that about?’ Mordonna exclaimed.

  ‘Everything went black,’ said Bacstairs, who hadn’t been able to hear the ‘G’ word from where he had been sitting.

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ Mordonna replied. ‘My husband did it. He has always been so useless at magic and yet he did the Total Darkness Spell, one of the most powerful spells in the universe. It’s so powerful that most people don’t even believe it exists. I certainly didn’t, and yet I saw it with my own eyes.’

  ‘I am speechless, my lady,’ Bacstairs said, showing that he wasn’t speechless at all.

  ‘All I said was, “Who is Gertrude?”’ Mordonna said.

  ‘Gertrude, my lady?’ said Bacstairs. ‘That’s just a funny old-lady name, isn’t it? I’ve never met or even heard of anyone called Gertrude.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mordonna. ‘But the name has an unbelievably powerful effect on your master. No matter what you do, you must never, ever say it in front of him.’

  The name drifted through the air and into the ears of the still unconscious Nerlin, and the Total Darkness Spell returned, except the total darkness was not as totally dark as it had been when Nerlin had been conscious. It was more a sort of Quite Dark Shade of Grey Spell, which no one had ever done before and was rather attractive, though it could have been just a touch brighter.

  Even
tually the darkness faded and the late afternoon colour returned, which was exactly the same as the Quite Dark Shade of Grey Spell, but with a bit of colour and yellow stars in the sky. Nerlin slowly regained consciousness and for a while was unable to remember who or where he was.

  Mordonna was very careful not to mention the ‘G’ name, but was desperate to find out exactly who this woman was and why she had such an unimaginable effect on Nerlin.

  Had he fallen in love with someone else? Did he have a secret girlfriend? Nerlin had never once given the slightest sign of it and he didn’t seem like the type to ever think of something like that, but then maybe Mordonna hadn’t been giving him as much attention as she used to. She hadn’t noticed any signs of restlessness or unhappiness, apart from the wanting-to-retire thing, and she thought they had sorted that out, at least for now. Or maybe a witch had cast a spell over him to lure him away from her. It wouldn’t be the first time.58

  But, try as she might, Mordonna couldn’t think of any other reason for one woman’s name to affect Nerlin so dramatically.

  ‘What happened?’ said Nerlin, as his head cleared and he sat up. ‘Did I slip out of the coach?’

  ‘Yes, my darling,’ Mordonna lied. ‘I think you must have fallen asleep with all the excitement of going to the cottage.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Nerlin. ‘I never knew you could fall asleep from being excited about something.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mordonna. ‘It happens a lot. Surely you’re not telling me it’s never happened to you before?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Not that I can remember.’

  ‘That’s probably one of its side effects,’ Mordonna explained. ‘So when you wake up, you automatically forget that you fell asleep. It’s a sort of natural defence mechanism to protect you.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Umm …’

  ‘Falling asleep again,’ said Bacstairs.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mordonna.

  ‘Oh.’

  One of the two royal horses pulling the carriage looked at its mate and whispered, ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

  The other horse nodded and whispered back, ‘Yeah. It’s a good job you don’t have to pass an intelligence test to be King.’