Part 8 (2/2)

”Who,” said Mr. Saunders, ”do you imagine won the Battle of Agincourt?” ”The English,” said Janet. This of course was true for her world, but the panic-stricken look on her face as she said it suggested that she suspected the opposite was true in this world. Which, of course, it was.

Mr. Saunders put his hands to his head. ”No, no, no! The French! Don't you know anything, girl?”

Janet looked to be near tears. Cat was terrified. She was going to break down any second and tell Mr.

Saunders she was not Gwendolen. She did not have Cat's reasons for keeping quiet. ”Gwendolen never knows anything,” he remarked loudly, hoping Janet would take the hint. She did. She sighed with relief and relaxed.

”I'm aware of that,” said Mr. Saunders. ”But somewhere, somewhere inside that marble head there must be a little cell of gray matter. So I keep looking.”

Unfortunately, Janet, in her relief, became almost jolly. ”Would you like to take my head apart and look?”she asked.

”Don't tempt me!” cried Mr. Saunders. He hid his eyes with one k.n.o.bby hand and fended at Janet with the other. He looked so funny that Janet laughed. This was so unlike Gwendolen that Mr. Saunders lowered his hand across his nose and stared at her suspiciously over it. ”What have you been up to now?”

”Nothing,” Janet said guiltily.

”Hm,” said Mr. Saunders, in a way which made both Cat and Janet very uncomfortable.

At last-very long last-it was time for Mary to bring the milk and biscuits, which she did, with a very portentous look. Crouched on the tray beside Mr. Saunders' cup of coffee was a large, wet-looking, brown thing. Cat's stomach seemed to leave him and take a plunge into the Castle cellars. From the look of Janet, hers was doing the same.

”What have you got there?” said Mr. Saunders.

”Gwendolen's good deed for today,” Mary said grimly. ”It's Euphemia. Look at its face.”

Mr. Saunders bent and looked. Then he whirled around on Janet so fiercely that Janet half got out of her seat. ”So that's what you were laughing about!”

”I didn't do it!” said Janet.

”Euphemia was in Gwendolen's room, shut in the wardrobe, croaking her poor head off,” said Mary.

”I think this calls for Chrestomanci,” Mr. Saunders said. He strode towards the door.

The door opened before he got there and Chrestomanci himself came in, cheerful and busy, with some papers in one hand. ”Michael,” he said, ”have I caught you at the right-?” He stopped when he saw Mr.

Saunders' face. ”Is something wrong?”

”Will you please to look at this frog, sir,” said Mary. ”It was in Gwendolen's wardrobe.”

Chrestomanci was wearing an exquisite gray suit with faint lilac stripes to it. He held his lilac silk cravat out of the way and bent to inspect the frog. Euphemia lifted her head and croaked at him beseechingly.

There was a moment of ice-cold silence. It was a moment such as Cat hoped never to live through again.

”Bless my soul!” Chrestomanci said, gently as frost freezes a window. ”It's Eugenia.”

”Euphemia, Daddy,” said Julia. ”Euphemia,” said Chrestomanci. ”Of course.

Now who did this?” Cat wondered how such a mild voice could send the hair p.r.i.c.king upright at the back of his head.

”Gwendolen, sir,” said Mary.

But Chrestomanci shook his smooth black head. ”No. Don't give a dog a bad name. It couldn't have been Gwendolen. Michael took her witchcraft away last night.”

”Oh,” said Mr. Saunders, rather red in the face. ”Stupid of me!”

”So who could it have been?” Chrestomanci wondered.

There was another freezing silence. It seemed to Cat about as long as an Ice Age. During it, Julia began to smile. She drummed her fingers on her desk and looked meditatively at Janet. Janet saw her and jumped. She drew in her breath sharply. Cat panicked. He was sure Janet was going to say what Gwendolen had done. He said the only thing he could think of to stop her.

”I did it,” he said loudly.

Cat could hardly bear the way they all looked at him. Julia was disgusted, Roger astonished. Mr.

Saunders was fiercely angry. Mary looked at him as if he was a frog himself. But Chrestomanci was politely incredulous, and he was worst of all. ”I beg your pardon, Eric,” he said. ”This was you?”

Cat stared at him with a strange misty wetness around his eyes. He thought it was due to terror. ”It was a mistake,” he said. ”I was trying a spell. I- I didn't expect it to work. And then-and then Euphemia came in and turned into a frog. Just like that,” he explained.

Chrestomanci said, ”But you were told not to practice magic on your own.”

”I know.” Cat hung his head, without having to pretend. ”But I knew it wouldn't work. Only it did, of course,” he explained.

”Well, you must undo the spell at once,” said Chrestomanci.

Cat swallowed. ”I can't. I don't know how to.”

Chrestomanci treated him to another look so polite, so scathing, and so unbelieving, that Cat would gladly have crawled under his desk had he been able to move at all. ”Very well,” said Chrestomanci.

”Michael, perhaps you could oblige?”

Mary held the tray out. Mr. Saunders took Euphemia and put her on the schoolroom table. Euphemia croaked agitatedly. ”Only a minute now,” Mr. Saunders said soothingly. He held his hands cupped around her. Nothing happened. Looking a little puzzled, Mr. Saunders began to mutter things. Still nothing happened. Euphemia's head bobbed anxiously above his bony fingers, and she was still a frog.

Mr. Saunders went from looking puzzled to looking baffled. ”This is a very strange spell,” he said. ”What did you use, Eric?”

”I can't remember,” said Cat.

”Well, it doesn't respond to anything I can do,” said Mr. Saunders. ”You'll have to do it, Eric. Come over here.”

Cat looked helplessly at Chrestomanci, but Chrestomanci nodded as if he thought Mr. Saunders wasquite right. Cat stood up. His legs had gone thick and weak, and his stomach seemed to have taken up permanent quarters in the Castle cellars. He slunk towards the table. When Euphemia saw him coming, she showed her opinion of the matter by taking a frantic leap off the edge of the table. Mr. Saunders caught her in midair and put her back.

”What do I do?” Cat said, and his voice sounded like Euphemia croaking.

Mr. Saunders took Cat by his left wrist and planted Cat's left hand on Euphemia's clammy back. ”Now take it off her,” he said.

”I-I-” said Cat. He supposed he ought to pretend to try. ”Stop being a frog and turn into Euphemia again,” he said, and wondered miserably what they would do to him when Euphemia didn't.

But, to his astonishment, Euphemia did. The frog turned warm under his fingers and burst into growth.

<script>