means to an end, when his lifelong ambition would finally come to fruition. Cupping them in his wrinkly old hands, he laughed and he laughed.
Nodding towards Tumbledown, Box whispered, “He’s barking mad, as barmy as Laughing Larry!”
“Even more so,” Miocene added nervously.
Supporting the marbles in his upturned and open hands, Tumbledown casually counted them. And when he had finished, his face dropped. “What is this?” he bellowed. “There are only twenty-one marbles here! TWO OF THEM ARE MISSING!”
“That’s all we ever saw,” Miocene insisted. “We never saw any more, we really didn’t!”
“Two of them are missing!” Tumbledown growled, unwilling to listen, let alone believe her.
“She’s telling you the truth,” said Box, backing her up. “And if you don’t believe us, you can ask Harry when she returns.”
“Ask Harry when she returns?” said Tumbledown, chewing over these words, “I think that rather unlikely…” Standing up, holding the marbles in his cupped hands, Tumbledown said, “The time for talking is over, the time for action is here…” Then gazing almost fondly at Miocene and Box, he said, “I am sorry that it has come to this… It’s nothing personal, you know, but loose ends must be tidied.”
“Loose ends?” Box hollered. “Is that all we are to you, loose ends?”
“Of course,” he replied arrogantly. “You are as nothing in the bigger picture.”
“The ‘bigger picture?’” Box continued, his anger growing exponentially. “The ‘bigger picture’, as far as I can see, is somewhat flawed.”
“And why might you say that?” Tumbledown asked. Then realising what the Muddle child was up to, distracting him from his objective, he said, “No, I’m not going down that road.” And he gazed at the marbles and began chanting…
In the toilets, the apparition of the nurse, having completed her task, began to vanish. “Thanks,” said the mad ghost.
“Yeh, thanks,” said Harry who, although recovered from her injury, was unfortunately still suffering from concussion. “Who was that woman, anyhow?” she asked.
“A nurse – you summoned her,” Larry replied.
“I did?” said Harry, quite surprised to be hearing this. “I thought she was nurse Winterbottom...”
“No, she wasn’t,” said the ghost. “Now come on, you must go.”
“Go where?”
“To help your friends, of course.”
“Friends – what friends?” Harry asked. “I don’t have any friends. I prefer my own company – everyone at school knows that.”
“I think that nurse left a tad early,” Larry bemoaned, wondering what he should do next.
Lifting her top, inspecting it, Harry asked, “And how did my clothes get so clean? I am sure there was blood all over them – and my hair – a minute ago!”
Searching for her wand, Harry rummaged through her pockets, but finding nothing, she said, “Have you seen my wand? I can’t seem to find it.”
“Tumbledown took it,” the ghost told her in passing, worried for Miocene and Box.
“Tumbledown, the school Principal?” Harry asked. “Why would he take it?”
Having no intention of continuing with such a nonsensical conversation, Larry said, “If you want your wand, to get it back, you must go save your friends, despite what you think.”
For a minute Harry stared glaringly, unblinkingly at the ghost, then without as much as a ‘by your leave’, she said, “Okay, but only if you come with me.”
“Me!” Larry shrieked in fear. “I can’t possibly do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because – what?”
Because…I was banished here, to the toilets, by Holdavort?” the ghost whimpered.
Little by little, Harry felt the after effects of the concussion diminishing, and her usual personality returning. Opening the door to the room, she said, “Larry, YOU ARE COMING WITH ME.”
Although he was so frightened of what might happen, when he broke Holdavort’s banishing order, the ghost nodded in agreement, and he followed her out from the toilets. “Where are we going, anyhow?” he asked.
“To the Great Hall, of course,” she replied. “The old coot’s consistent beyond belief. He’ll be there.”
Chanting in Arcanum, the old man, Tumbledown, holding twenty-one Philosopher’s Marbles in his outstretched hands, said, “Crionow, the time in now. Crionere, for the time is here. Crionarbles, for the Philosopher’s Marbles – when the marbles and I will be as one. Criomalldark, criomalldark, criomalldark – it’s done.”
Instead of finding themselves on the receiving end of the terrible, promised vengeance, the two children, Miocene and Box, were astonished to see that nothing happened.
Nudging Miocene, Box asked, “What was all that about?”
“Beats me,” she replied.
Although so very relieved that nothing had happened to them, Box scratched his head in bewilderment, wondering what Tumbledown could have be up to. “For the life of me,” he whispered, “I can’t see anything different...”
And it was true nothing was different. However, that didn’t mean it was going to stay that way…
An Appointment with Destiny
Bursting in through the open doorway, like bulls a china shop, Harry and the mad ghost entered the Great Hall. “Where are they,” Harry asked.
“Over there,” Larry replied, pointing to Miocene and Box with one of his ghostly hands.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, we’re fine, Harry” said Miocene. “But are you? We were so worried!”
“I’ll survive,” she replied, without explaining any further.
“She did have some help from a nurse, though” said Larry.
“A nurse?” said Box, quite in surprise.
“Yes,” said the ghost, “and a fine one at that.”
Cutting him short, Harry cautioned, “There’ll be time for cosy chitchats, later on. The old coot,” she pointed at Tumbledown, “is up to something…”
He was. Tumbledown, standing deathly still, like he was frozen in time, had more of the appearance of a statue than a living person.
“Is he sick?”
“The likes of him don’t get sick, Box” Harry grumbled.
“Then what is he doing,” said Miocene. “What’s happening to him?”
“Look!” the ghost, Larry, suddenly cried out. “LOOK!”
The three children and the mad ghost watched, as the old man, Tumbledown, the Alchemist and would-be Philosopher, began to grow – wings, and red ones at that.
“That’s weird,” said Box, “that’s really weird.”
“Weird? Perhaps it is,” Harry whispered, “but it’s still happening.” It certainly was, and it continued apace, as the red hued wings grew larger and larger.
Speaking again, showing a rare glimpse to a side of her personality that all too often lay hidden, Harry said, “Well, there’s one thing we can be sure of… he’s certainly not turning into an angel.” An angel? – Tumbledown was most definitely not turning in to an angel – but a winged devil?
Taking this opportunity, the brief breathing space the transformation offered, Harry set about retrieving their wands, and after just a few chants in Arcanum she was proudly displaying all three.
“How did you do that?” Box asked in utter amazement at the ease with which she had done it.
“The girl mystic does it again,” said Miocene, inspecting her brightly coloured wand, like crazy.
“Well, how did you do it?” Box asked Harry again.
Winking at him, she replied, “Now wouldn’t you like to know?”
Despite having the stumpy wand back in his possession, and despite holding on to it ever so tightly, Box once again found himself wishing that he had a Philosopher’s Marble or two at his disposal.
As if she had been reading his mind, Harry said, “What happened to the marbles?”
“Tumbledown was holding them, before he turned into that statue,” Box explained, “and began growing wings.”
Approaching the old man, Harry searched for the marbles, and although Tumbledown’s hands were in the same upturned position, there was no sign of them – anywhere.
“No luck?”
“No, I can’t see what the old coot has done with them,” she replied.
Adding to her concerns, Box said, “Oh, by the way, he said two of them are missing…”
Tumbledown’s eyes suddenly opened, revealing their glowing red interiors. Lurching away, scared, Miocene and Box feared for their lives. Standing her ground, Harry shuffled that bit closer.
“What’s she doing?” asked Miocene, thinking the girl mystic had lost her own marbles.
“She’s my cousin,” Box whispered. “She could be up to anything.”
“Oh.”
And she was up to something; in spite of the fact that Tumbledown was growing in size and turning a sickly red colour, Harry’s mind, having notched up a gear, began working like mad, trying, hoping to solve their dilemma before it got any further out of hand.
Unfortunately, Tumbledown, who had meanwhile regained consciousness, had ideas of his own, and being the subject of scrutiny was certainly no part of it. “You should have stayed down, when you had the chance,” he said quietly, calmly, menacingly to Harry. “You should have accepted defeat.” Flapping hard, his huge wings lifted him clear of the floor.
“What’s happening, Harry?” said Box, hoping she might have at least some idea what he was up to.
“Can he hear us?” asked Miocene. “Because he looks so dreadfully off-colour.”
“Off colour?” Harry replied sardonically. “The man’s turned blood red! That’s about as ‘off colour’ as he could possible