The Pinhoe Egg (15 page)

 

Meanwhile, Joss Callow arrived at the Pinhoe Arms, ready to report to Marianne's father. As he was parking his bike in the yard, little blue flames broke out all over the front of him, hissing and fizzing and sending out small white sparks. They squirted from under his boots and even sizzled for a moment on the front wheel of his bicycle. Joss beat at them, but they were gone by then.

“Have to do better than that, girls,” he said, naturally thinking it was a revenge from Margot Farleigh and her friends.

Then he forgot about it and went into the Snug, where Harry Pinhoe was waiting for him and Arthur Pinhoe leaning through the hatch. “Search me what the Big Man's up to just now,” he said, when he was comfortably settled with beer and pickled eggs. “He's very busy with something, but I don't know what. They've got all the old maps and documents out in their library and you can feel the magic they're using on them, but that's all I can tell you.”

“Can't Joe tell you?” asked Joe's father, puffing at the pipe he allowed himself at these times.

“That Joe,” said Joss, “is bloody useless, excuse my French. He's never
there
. I don't know what he does with his time, but I'm not the only one to complain. Mr. Frazier was about ready to blow his top yesterday when Joe went missing. And Mr. Stubbs was fit to kill, because he wanted an order taken to the butcher and Joe had vanished off the face of the earth.”

Harry Pinhoe and Joe's uncle Arthur exchanged sad shrugs. Joe was always going to be a disappointment.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Joss said. “Young Cat Chant—Eric, the nine-lifer, you know—has
hatched an abomination somehow. Griffin, I think. I saw it this morning. I hardly knew what it was at first. It was all fluff and big feet, but it's got wings and a beak, so that's what it must be.”

Uncle Arthur shook his head. “Bad. That's bad. We don't want one of those out.”

“Not much we can do, if it's living in the Castle,” Harry Pinhoe observed, puffing placidly. “We'd have to wait to catch it in the open.”

“And when I asked him, this young Eric said your Marianne gave him the egg,” Joss added.

“
What?!
” Harry Pinhoe was disturbed enough to let his pipe drop on the floor. Groping for it, red in the face, he said, “That egg was stored safe in the attic. It should have been safe there till Kingdom Come. I put the workings on it myself. I don't know what's got into Marianne lately. First she goes round telling everyone that poor Gammer's setting spells on the Farleighs, and now she does
this
!”

“She said that about Gammer to me too,” said Joss. “She was in a hen fight with some Farleigh girls about it, out on the Helm road just now.”

“Let her just wait!” Harry said. His face was still bright red. “I'll give her what for!”

 

All unknowing, Marianne free-wheeled down past the Pinhoe Arms, more or less at that moment. At the bottom of the hill, she braked, put one foot down, and stared. The expensive taxi from Uphelm was standing throbbing outside the house where Nicola lived. As Marianne stopped, Nicola's dad, who ought to have been working on the Post Office wall, hurried out of the house carrying Nicola wrapped in a mass of blankets and got into the taxi with her. Marianne could hear the wretched, whooping, choking breathing of Nicola from where she stood.

“Taking her to the hospital in Hopton,” old Miss Callow said, standing watching. “Doctor says she'll die if they don't.”

Nicola's mother, looking desperately anxious, hurried out of the house in her best hat, calling instructions over her shoulder to Nicola's eldest sister as she left. She climbed into the taxi too, and it drove away at once, faster than Marianne had ever seen it go.

Marianne rode on to Furze Cottage, almost crying again. It might have been the Farleighs who sent the whooping cough, but it was
Gammer who had provoked them. As she wheeled her bike into the shed, she decided she would
have
to have another talk with Mum.

But that all went out of her mind when Dad—red faced and furious—burst in through the front door as Marianne came through the back and began shouting at her at once. He began with, “What do you mean, giving away that egg?” and went on to say that Marianne was a worse disappointment than Joe was and, having torn her personality to shreds, accused her of spreading evil talk about Gammer. Finally he sent her to her room in disgrace.

Marianne sat there with Nutcase, doing her best to stop the tears trickling off her face onto Nutcase. “I was only trying to be brave and truthful,” she said to Nutcase. “Does this happen to everyone who tries to do the right thing? Why does no one believe me?” She knew she would have to talk to Joe. He seemed to be the only person in the world who might listen to her.

T
he griffin became very lively that day. He was also growing an odd small tuft of feathers on his head, like an untidy topknot.

“I think that is going to be his crest,” Chrestomanci said when Janet asked. “I believe all griffins have one.” Chrestomanci seemed to be taking as much interest in Klartch as everyone else. He came into the playroom—in a more than usually embroidered dressing gown—while Janet, Julia, and Cat were finishing breakfast, and kneeled down to inspect Klartch all over. “Accelerated growth,” he said to Klartch. “You have a lot of magic, don't you? You've been held up in your egg for years, and you're trying to make
up for lost time, I imagine. Don't overdo it, old fellow. By the way, where is Roger?”

Cat knew Roger was in that shed with Joe by now. Roger had snatched a piece of toast and raced away eating it, to get on with rebuilding the flying machine. But he had not
said
that was what he was going to do. Cat held his tongue and let Julia and Janet tell Chrestomanci that they had no idea where Roger had gone. Luckily Chrestomanci seemed satisfied with this.

As soon as Chrestomanci had sailed away again, Klartch invited everyone for a romp. Cat was not sure how Klartch did this, but it was not long before all four of them were rolling about on the floor and leaping from the sofa to the chairs in a mad game of chase. This was when they discovered that griffins could laugh. Klartch laughed in small, chuckling giggles when Julia caught him, rolled him over, and tickled him, and he laughed in long hoots when Cat and Janet chased him round the sofa. Then Janet jumped on him and Klartch dodged. His long front claws caught in the carpet and tore three large strips out of it.

“Oh—oh!” they all said, Klartch included.

“And just look what that creature's done!”

Mary the maid said, coming in to clear away the breakfast. “That's what comes of having a wild beast indoors.”

Cat guiltily put the carpet back together. They collected three balls and a rubber ring from the cupboards and took Klartch out into the gardens instead. As soon as they came out onto the great smooth lawn, gardeners appeared from all directions and hurried toward them.

“Oh, they're not going to let us play!” Janet said.

But it was not so. They all wanted to see Klartch. “We heard no end about him,” they explained. “Odd-looking beast, isn't he? Does he play?”

When Julia explained that playing was what they had come out to do, a gardener's boy ran and fetched a football.

Klartch pounced on it. All six of his front claws sank into it. The football gave out a sad hiss and went flat. Klartch and the gardener's boy both looked so miserable about it that Cat picked up the football and, after thinking hard, managed to mend it, blow it up again, and make it griffin-proof in future.

Then everyone, even the head gardener, joined
in a game that Janet called Klartchball. The rules were a little vague and mostly involved everyone running about, while Klartch galloped and rolled and tripped other players up. It was such fun that Roger and Joe emerged from their shed and joined in for a while. The game only stopped when Klartch suddenly stood still, hunched himself, and rolled over on his side in the middle of the lawn.

“He's dead!” Julia said, appalled. “Daddy
told
him not to overdo things!”

They all raced over to Klartch, fearing Julia was right. But when they reached him, Klartch was breathing steadily and his eyes were shut. “He's asleep!” Cat said, hugely relieved.

“We forgot how young he really is,” Janet said.

The gardeners put Klartch in a wheelbarrow and trundled him to the kitchen door. Klartch did not stir the entire time. They trundled him indoors and parked him in a pantry, where he slept until Mr. Stubbs had his lunch ready. Then he woke up eagerly and, instead of opening his beak and going “Weep!” he said, “Me!” and tried to eat the mince by himself.

“You
are
coming on well,” Millie said to him
admiringly. “Cat, at this rate, he won't be needing you to feed him in the night for much longer.”

Cat did hope so. He was so sleepy most of the time that he was sure he would never manage to stay awake during lessons, when lessons started again.

The holidays were indeed almost over. The children's tutor, Michael Saunders, arrived back in the Castle that evening, keen and talkative as ever. He talked so much over supper that even Jason could hardly get a word in, let alone anyone else. Jason wanted to tell everyone about the changes they were making to Woods House, but Michael Saunders had been to the worlds in Series Eight to take the young dragon he had been rearing back into the wild, and he had a longer tale to tell.

“I had to take the wretched creature to Eight G in the end,” he said. “We tried Eight B, where he came from, and all he would do was shiver and say the cold would kill him. Eight A's colder, so we went to C, D, and E, and C was too wet for him, D was too empty, and it was snowing when we got to E. I skipped F. There are more people there, and I could see he was itching for the
chance to eat a few. So we went on to G, and he didn't like it there either. It began to dawn on me that the wretch was so pampered that nothing less than tropical was going to suit him. But G has equatorial forests, and I took him down there. He liked the climate all right, but he refused to catch his own food. All he would say was ‘You do it.' I thought about it a bit, and then I trapped him one of the large beasts they call lumpen in that Series, and as soon as he was eating it, I left him to it and came away. If he wants to eat again, he'll have to hunt now—”

Here Michael Saunders noticed the way Roger, Janet, Julia, and Cat were all looking at him. He laughed. “Never fear,” he said. “I don't intend to start giving you lessons until next Monday. I need a rest first. Nursemaiding a teenage dragon has worn me ragged.”

In Cat's opinion, nursemaiding a baby griffin was quite as bad. He gave Klartch a large meal before he went to bed that night and fell asleep seriously hoping that Klartch would not wake up until the morning. It seemed a reasonable hope. When Cat put the light out, Klartch was lying on his back in his basket, with his tight, round
stomach upward, snoring like a hive of bees.

But no. Around one o'clock in the morning, Mopsa's dabbing nose and treading paws woke Cat up. When he groaned and put the light on, there was Klartch, thin as a rake again, standing on his hind legs to look into Cat's face. “Food,” he told Cat mournfully.

“All right.” Cat sighed and got up.

It was a very messy business. Klartch insisted on feeding himself. Cat's main job seemed to be to scoop up dropped dinner and dump it back into Klartch's bowl for Klartch to spill again. Cat was sleepily scraping meat up from the carpet for the thirtieth time, when he heard a sharp tapping on the window. This was followed by a thump.

What have Roger and Joe done with their flying machine
this
time? he thought. Mad. They are quite
mad!
He went and opened the window.

A broomstick swooped inside with Marianne riding sidesaddle on it. Cat dodged it and stared at her. Seeing Cat, Marianne gave a cry of dismay, slipped off the broom, and sat down hard on the carpet. “Oh, I'm
sorry
!” she said. “I thought this was the attic!”

Cat caught the broomstick as it tried to fly
away through the window again. “It's a tower room, really,” he said as he shut the window to stop the broom escaping.

“But your light was on, and I thought it was bound to be Joe in here!” Marianne protested. “Which is Joe's attic, then? He's my brother, and I need to talk to him.”

“Joe has one of the little rooms down by the kitchen,” Cat told her.

“What—downstairs?” Marianne asked. Cat nodded. “I thought they always put servants in the attics,” Marianne said. “
All
the way down?”

Cat nodded again. By this time he was awake enough to be quite shocked at how pale and miserable Marianne looked. One side of her face was bruised and she had a big, sore-looking scrape across her mouth, as if someone had beaten her up recently.

“So I'd have to go down past all your wizards and enchanters to get to Joe?” she said dismally.

“I'm afraid so,” Cat said.

“And I'm not sure I
dare
,” Marianne said. “Oh, dear, why do I keep doing everything
wrong
just lately?”

Cat thought she was going to cry then. He could see her trying not to, and he had no idea
what to say. Fortunately Klartch finished his meal just then—all of it that was in the bowl anyway—and came bumbling across the room to see why this new human was sitting dejectedly on the floor. Marianne stared, and stared more when Klartch caught one of his front talons on the carpet and fell on his beak beside her knees.

“Oh, I thought you were a dog! But you're
not
, are you?” Marianne put her hands under Klartch's face and helped him struggle to his feet. Then she helped him unhook his claw from the carpet. “You've got a beak,” she said, “and I think you're growing wings.”

“He's a griffin,” Cat told her, glad of the interruption. “He's called Klartch. He hatched from that egg you gave me.”

“Then it really
was
an egg!” Marianne was distracted from her troubles enough to kneel up and stroke Klartch's soft fluffy coat. “I wonder if they had that egg because we've got a griffin on the Pinhoe Arms. And a unicorn. My uncle Charles painted both of them on the inn sign when he was young. Mind you,” she told Klartch, “you've got a long way to go before you look like
our
griffin. You need some feathers, for a start.”

“Growing some,” Klartch said, rather offended.

At this Marianne said, just like Millie, “I didn't know they
talked
!”

“Learning,” said Klartch.

“So perhaps it was worth it, giving the egg away,” Marianne said sadly. “I don't think you were going to hatch where you were.” She looked up at Cat, and a tear leaked its way down the swollen side of her face. “I got into terrible trouble for giving you his egg,” she said. “And for trying to do what you said and tell the truth. Be confident, you know, how you said to me. No one in Ulverscote is speaking to me now.”

Cat began to feel a slow, guilty responsibility. “I was saying it to myself too,” he confessed. “What did I make you do?”

Marianne put her face up and pressed her scratched lips together, trying not to cry again. Then she burst into tears anyway. “Oh, drat it!” she sobbed. “I hate crying! It wasn't my fault, or yours. It was Gammer. But no one will believe me when I say it was her. Gammer's lost her mind, you see, and she keeps sending the Farleighs frogs and nits and things, and dirtying their washing and flooding their houses. So the Farleighs are
furious. And
they
sent
us
bad luck and whooping cough. My distant cousin Nicola's been taken to hospital with it and they think she'll
die
! But Gammer's cast this spell on everyone so that no one will blame
her
for any of it.”

Marianne was sobbing in such earnest now that Cat conjured her a pile of his handkerchiefs.

“Oh,
thanks
!” Marianne wept, pressing at least three of them to her wet face. She went on to describe the fight with the Farleigh girls and the way she had gotten rid of the white powder. “And that was silly of me,” she sobbed, “but it was really
strong
and I had to do something about it. But Joss Callow had told Dad about the fight, and Dad shouted at me for insulting the Farleighs, and I
didn't
! I told Dad about the powder they were bringing, and he went up there this evening to see it and of course there wasn't any, because I'd burned it all, and he came back and shouted at me again for trying to stir up trouble—”

“What
was
the powder?” Cat asked.

“A bad disease with spots and sores,” Marianne said, sniffing. “I think it may have been smallpox.”

Ouch! Cat thought. He did not know much about diseases, but he knew
that
one. If it didn't
kill you, it disfigured you for life. Those Farleigh girls had not been joking. “But wouldn't they have caught it too?”

“They must have made some immunity spells, I suppose,” Marianne said. “But those wouldn't have stopped it spreading all over the county to people who haven't done a thing to the Farleighs. Oh, I don't know what to
do
! I want to ask Joe if he can think of a way to stop Gammer, or at least take off the spell she's got on everyone. I want
someone
to believe me!”

Cat thought about Joe, who had rather impressed him on the whole. Joe had brains. Marianne was probably right to think Joe would know what to do, except—there was this mad flying machine. Joe's head was, at the moment, literally in the clouds. “Joe's pretty busy just now,” he said. “But I believe you. My sister was a witch who got out of hand like your Gammer. If you like, I could go and tell Chrestomanci.”

Marianne looked up at him in horror. Klartch yelped as her hand closed on a fistful of his fluff. “Sorry,” Marianne said, letting go of Klartch. “No! No, you can't tell the Big Man! Please! They'd all go
spare
! Pinhoes, Farleighs, Callows,
everyone! You don't understand—we all keep hidden from him so he won't boss us about!”

“Oh,” said Cat. “I didn't know.” It seemed a bit silly to him. This was the kind of problem Chrestomanci could solve by more or less simply snapping his fingers. “He doesn't boss people unless they misuse witchcraft.”

“Well, we
are
doing,” Marianne said. “Or Gammer is. Think of something else.”