Well, Andrew thought, this is your own fault for living here so long!
Mr Brown turned, slowly, and searched the crowd for Andrew. He found him and raised an elegant white finger. Andrew had to brace himself against a charge of electric magic. The world turned grey and dizzy for him and he had to hold himself up on Stashe and Tarquin.
Mr Brown then turned the finger towards Ronnie Stock. Ronnie had no defence against magic. He swayed for an instant and then went down on the platform with a hollow crash, like a tree falling.
There was consternation all over. Ladies in hats bent over Ronnie. People began pushing through the crowd, shouting, “Let me through, I’m a nurse!” or, “Make way! St John’s Ambulance!” or, “I know First Aid!” while Mr Brown simply stood where he was, angry but otherwise unconcerned.
In the confusion, the horse got away from Titania.
Aidan felt somebody nudge him. The Puck stood beside him giggling. “Think you’re safe, don’t you?” he said to Aidan. He made a little wriggling gesture with one plump hand.
To Aidan’s horror, the silver charm flew off his neck and landed some yards off in the grass.
Rolf dived for the charm, picked it up in his mouth and dropped it at once with a scream. Silver is poison for weres. Aidan dived for the charm too, scrambling after it on his knees in the grass. He had almost reached it when a gap somehow opened up in the crowd and he saw Mr Brown standing on the platform staring at him. It was a merciless and contemptuous stare. Aidan knelt where he was, staring back and feeling utterly worthless, small, foolish and stupid. He knew at once who Mr Brown was and he knew that Mr Brown had no value for him whatsoever.
“Well, too bad!” he said to Rolf. “As if I cared!” He looked round for the charm and found that it had disappeared.
Across the field, Titania stopped chasing the horse and pointed at Aidan. Over the other way, the policewoman looking after the Fancy Dress children was pointing at Aidan too and yelling. Strange beings rose up from all parts of the field and advanced on Aidan. He was suddenly alone with Rolf in a wide circle of grass, with Securities and tall, helmeted people coming at him from one direction, smaller folk with antennae rushing at him from another, and stranger creatures with cobweb wings flowing towards him from all around. It was worse than anything that had happened in London. The mad, nightmare part of it was that the band was still playing and clashing with the mechanical music from the roundabout. And it was all in bright daylight.
Andrew, still swaying and dizzy, saw Aidan kneeling in the distance and the creatures converging on him. “Got to help him!” he said. He thought he said it to Stashe, but only Tarquin was there. Stashe had said, “I must catch poor Snowy!” and gone dashing away.
Before Andrew managed to move, there was queer wailing and dim screaming that grew louder and louder. Groil came crashing through the hedge behind the platform, with his army of pursuers close behind him. It was obvious that Groil had had no idea that the Fete was going on here. He vaulted up on to the platform —which swayed and creaked under his weight —got mixed up in a line of bunting, and stared round in amazement as he struggled free of the little flags. Then, as his pursuers came streaming up on to the platform behind him, Groil hurdled Ronnie Stock and leaped to the ground, knocking two ladies in hats sideways and strewing bunting across the band as he went. He sped across the field in great strides and went to ground somewhere near the beer tent. His pursuers lost him. They went rushing this way and that, searching for Groil, getting in the way of the creatures advancing on Aidan and overturning the bakery stall. Some swarmed on to the bouncy castle and others invaded the roundabout, which stopped with a loud steamy squeal.
In seconds, the Fete had dissolved into confusion. In the roped enclosures, the dogs and most of the ponies went mad, while the Fancy Dress children huddled together screaming and Mabel Brown ran back and forth shouting orders that no one attended to. From the beer tent came yells, crashes and the sound of drinks being spilt. Mrs Stock, slipping and sliding on buns and chocolate cake, darted out from behind her clothes stall and went for Groil’s pursuers with her umbrella. “Get out of it, you beastly things!” she shrieked, poking and bashing and swiping, and broke several sets of antennae.
Nearby, Shaun dragged one of the pillows out of his mother’s vast dress and beat on any creature that dared to come near. Trixie followed him with another pillow. Feathers flew. Creatures winced and wailed and ran about.
Mr Stock came out of the competition tent carrying his zeppelin marrow on one shoulder and demanding to know what was going on. When he saw the hordes advancing on Aidan, he charged off that way, whirling the great vegetable. The Puck, who was rushing behind the horde, yelling at them to grab Aidan and kill Rolf, was Mr Stock’s first victim. The marrow caught him THOCK! on the side of the head. It laid the Puck out cold on the grass, but the mighty vegetable remained intact, mottled and glossy.
Meanwhile other people came out of the competition tent and hurled Prize Potatoes into the confusion.
The whole crowd, including Mr Stock, was scattered by the galloping Snowy, hotly pursued by Stashe. Snowy was now in a panic. He could not seem to shake off the tattered cloth trailing off him and he kept finding strange beings among his legs. Everyone, human or immortal, kept having to dodge Snowy’s violent back legs and his iron plunging front hooves. The advance on Aidan slowed and spread a little.
I must do something! Aidan thought. With the talisman gone, he was quite unprotected among scrambling clawed feet. He remembered Andrew telling him that the name Aidan meant “new fire” or something like that. It was all hazy with panic. But he thought, That’s it! Fire!
On the platform, the vicar pulled himself together and, draped in torn bunting, took the microphone and tried to appeal for calm. “PEOPLE, PEOPLE!” his voice boomed out. “PLEASE PULL YOURSELVES TOGETHER!” As his voice boomed on and on and nobody listened to it, Aidan put both arms round Rolf and tried to surround both of them in impenetrable flames. The clawing arms and the vicar’s booming distracted him. He panicked. I can’t do it! he thought, and tried harder.
He was suddenly in the middle of a bonfire. A mistake! he thought as Rolf’s coat sizzled and his own hair started to burn. “Help!” he screamed, surrounded in tall orange flames.
Tarquin and Mr Stock tried to push their way towards Aidan. “Though what we do when we get there, I don’t know!” Tarquin said to Mr Stock.
“Lay about us,” Mr Stock said grimly. “Beat it all down.”
Andrew shook his head to clear at least some of the muzziness away and began to push the other way, towards the platform. He knew what he needed to do, if only he could think properly. He could see Mr Brown standing on the platform with his arms folded, quite unmoved by the confusion. In fact, he seemed faintly amused by it and not at all troubled by the way Aidan seemed likely to burn himself to death. Andrew pushed through the crowd in great strides and took his glasses off as he went. This transformed Mr Brown into a strange, wavery, tall being with a face that was not really a person’s. Andrew looked away from him and tried to fix his dizzy mind instead on the window in his own back door. Green for Stashe, blue for Shaun, orange for Mrs Stock, yellow for Rolf, red for Mr Stock. No, the pane he really needed was the purple one with the face in it that might have been Tarquin’s. And he needed the other window in the shed too…
Groil must have seen the trouble Aidan was in. He surged into sight near the beer tent and marched towards Aidan’s bonfire, towering above everyone else in the field. He burst in among the creatures crowding outside the flames and trampled on through. The first Aidan knew of it was Groil’s feet sizzling as Groil seized Aidan and lifted him up into his arms. It was the strangest feeling. It took Aidan right back to the time when he was small enough for Gran to carry him about. But he did his best to put the fire out before Groil was badly burnt. He knew Groil’s feet were like leather, but all the same…! And there was poor Rolf leaping and yelping.
Aidan felt Groil’s
chest buzz as Groil shouted, “Leave him alone! He’s my friend!” He swung Aidan this way and that to avoid the Securities reaching for him and the clawing fingers of the cobwebby people.
How do I put the fire out? Aidan wondered frantically. Do it backwards, or what?
Andrew, at the same time, with his mind firmly fixed on the two windows, shoved past the edge of the crowd and marched up the steps to the platform. Mr Brown turned to watch him, consideringly, as Andrew stepped over the scarlet figure of Ronnie Stock —who was starting to roll about and groan a little —past the ladies in hats and up to the vicar. “Excuse me,” he said politely and took the microphone out of the vicar’s hand. “I need to speak,” he explained as he fumbled in the back pocket of his jeans for the scrap of paper he had torn off the old comic Aidan had been reading. The trouble was he had to put his glasses on again to read it. As soon as he did, he saw Tarquin now standing at the bottom of the steps, staring up at him anxiously, and Mr Brown starting to edge towards him.
Hoping very much that this would work, Andrew ignored them both. He held the microphone up to his mouth and the scrap of paper to his eyes and read out the strange words he had written there long ago when he was Aidan’s age.
The words did not boom like the vicar’s voice. They came out of the loudspeakers like rolls of thunder and like long trumpet calls. Every other noise was drowned in them. All round the field people and creatures were forced to stand still with their hands over their ears. When Andrew had finished speaking, there was utter silence. Total stillness.
During that silent time Andrew felt the magic streaming inwards from eternity to focus on the two purple panes of glass, in the door and in the roof of the shed. It took effect. The great oak tree behind Melstone House seemed to Andrew to stir and then lift its branches. Its crowded twigs filled with zigzags of lightning. Thunder rolled around it. Bearing the thunderstorm in its boughs, the huge tree advanced upon the field and the Fete. It seemed an age on the way. Andrew stood for what felt like an hour, feeling the thunder tree coming, with the storm swirling in its canopy and energy flashing through its roots. But it seemed to be there in instants too.
It advanced across the field, passing through Groil, Aidan and Rolf, leaving scorched grass behind it and a ring of creatures terrified and kneeling. It strode through the crowd and made straight for Tarquin. Tarquin’s mouth opened in a scream of silent pain.
“Oh no,” Andrew said. “He’s not big enough. He’s had a lot of pain already.” His voice in the microphone added to the thunder already pealing round the field.
But the great oak had merely paused at Tarquin. It swept on through the crowd and on to the platform and became part of Andrew himself. NOW SPEAK, it said.
Andrew felt himself towering taller than Groil. He was a mighty trunk, huge twisted branches, twigs of lightning and a thousand leaves crackling with force. His mind thundered. He fought to find a voice people would understand. He fought to find his own brain. It was a frail human twist of a mind, but he found it and he clung on to it. He pointed a finger, or perhaps a branch at Mr Brown, now nearly beside him on the platform.
“Errant king,” he thundered, “you have fed in this field too long. Take your followers and your wives and the followers of your wives and return to your own country and live there in peace. Do not try to take this field for your own.” He found Mabel Brown in the roped enclosure and Titania somewhere near the bouncy castle and swung his foliage to point at them too. “Now go!”
They went. They had no choice. With a strange hollow moaning, all the creatures swept up into the air in three smokelike swirls. Titania went with them, and Mabel Brown and, last of all, with a contemptuous shout of pure annoyance, went Mr Brown. Like dead leaves in a wind they went spiralling away, and away, crying out their sorrow and their protest as they went. Andrew thought he saw all three swirls of them plunge into the side of Mel Tump and disappear.
Now that’s odd, he thought. I can’t even see Mel Tump from here!
This made him realise that the great oak presence had left him. It had left him charged up and enlarged. He knew he would never be quite the same again.
To everyone else it seemed as if a tremendous blue-purple flash of lightning struck down near Aidan and Rolf, followed almost instantly by a bellow of thunder. Then the rain came down, in heavy white rods, mixed with what seemed to be hail. Nearly everyone ran for shelter in the tents. Mrs Stock put up her big umbrella. The field emptied except for those in the enclosures or on the platform.
Then it stopped. Yellow sunlight blazed on wet grass and on wet, steaming ponies and bedraggled fancy dress. The hats on the platform dripped. Out on the field, Aidan shook his singed and soaking hair and tried to clean his glasses. He was kneeling in a ring of sooty-smelling burnt grass. There was no sign of Groil. Aidan was miserable about that. It stood to reason that when Andrew sent all the creatures away he would have to send Groil off too, and Aidan had lost a friend. But Rolf was still there, burnt brown down one side and trying to limp on all four paws. Rolf was, very cautiously, hobbling to sniff at a melted silvery lump nearby.
“Leave it, Rolf,” Aidan said sadly. “It’s only my charm. The lightning struck it, but I suppose I don’t need it now.”
On the platform, Andrew handed the microphone politely back to the vicar and bent to help Ronnie Stock to his feet. Apart from being soaking wet, Ronnie seemed none the worse. “That was a storm and a half!” he said to Andrew. “Thanks. You’re that Hope fellow from Melstone House, aren’t you? Pleased to meet you.”
As Ronnie stood up, he and Andrew both stumbled on things that crunched. The platform was covered with fallen acorns. Andrew bent again and gathered up a handful, but no one else seemed to notice. The vicar was irritably tapping at the microphone and getting no sound at all. It seemed to be broken.
Like my computer when it gets a charge of magic, Andrew thought, putting the acorns in his pocket.
“Never mind,” Ronnie Stock said cheerfully. “I’m used to yelling at riders on my gallops.” He strutted into the centre of the platform and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen!” When enough people had emerged from tents, he shouted again, “Ladies and gentlemen, I was going to make a speech, but in view of the weather, I think I’ll just declare this Fete well and truly open. Thank you.”
The band, in a shaken way, emerged from the beer tent and started to play. Ronnie looked past them across the field, to where Snowy was now rolling on the ground, tangled in wet blue cloth. “Somebody rescue my horse!” he bellowed.
Stashe was trying to. The trouble was Snowy was not being in the least helpful. Stashe would never have got the horse on his feet if somebody had not come up and helped her heave. “Thanks, Dad,” she panted, thinking it was Tarquin. But when she looked, it was somebody very like Tarquin, but without the beard. “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. Thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome,” said the Puck and vanished beside the roundabout.
Andrew quietly jumped down from the side of the platform and made his way to Tarquin, who looked white as a sheet. “Come back to my house,” Andrew said. “I’m leaving now. You look as if you could use a drink.”
“I could use a cup of tea,” Tarquin admitted. “I’ve the devil’s own headache, so I have. What was that thing?”
“Best not to ask,” Andrew said, as they both went over to Aidan. “Do you want to stay?” Andrew asked.
“No,” said Aidan. “Groil’s gone. But I think I’ll have to stay. Rolf can’t walk.”
Luckily, Mr Stock came up just then, trundling his barrow, in which reposed the vegetable zeppelin. “I’ll give the dog a ride,” he said. “You hold this.” He picked up the great marrow and seemed about to hand it to Andrew. Then it clearly struck him that Andrew was too importantly powerful now to carry produce about. He turned and dumped the mighty vegetable into Aidan’s arms instead. It was very heavy and still quite undamaged.
Rolf scrambled into the wheelbarrow in the greatest relief, w
here he lay and licked his paws, and they all set off home. They passed Mrs Stock, shaking out her umbrella. “Trixie and Shaun between them burst both her pillows,” she said to them. “And a good thing too! See you Monday, Professor.”
They came to Stashe, fiercely ripping blue cloth off Snowy. “Leaving?” she said. “I’ll be along when I’ve led Snowy back to the stables. I think he’s pulled a muscle. Ronnie can just walk back, and serve him right! Honestly, what an ass he made of himself!” She stopped, with the blue spiked visor in her hands. “Do you think anyone else here knows what really happened?”
“I doubt it,” Tarquin said. “I can’t see anyone believing they saw a giant, let alone all the other creatures. My guess is they’ll just remember that the Fete got interrupted by the father and mother of a thunderstorm. Or so I hope. I don’t want to spend the next ten years explaining to people like Mrs Blanchard-Stock. Do you?”
Whatever people believed, the Fete was in full swing as they left. The roundabout was turning and the bouncy castle was full. Cracks rang out from the rifle range and singing from the beer tent. In the distance, the scarlet figure of Ronnie Stock was to be seen, solemnly choosing the tube of toothpaste as the winner of the Fancy Dress, before moving on to judge the dogs and the ponies.
And the sun shone.
Chapter Seventeen
Aidan continued to be miserable about Groil, although Andrew kept telling him that he was sure he had not sent Groil away with the rest. “I know I didn’t include him,” he said.
“Then why did he go?” Aidan protested. “I think he had to go because he was Shaun’s counterpart.”
Andrew tried to set Aidan’s mind at rest by heaving the giant marrow up on to the woodshed roof that night. But it was still there, untouched, on Sunday morning. “Well,” Andrew said, “the thing’s practically indestructible. Maybe even Groil couldn’t get his teeth into it.”