Part 24 (2/2)

”What do they put in sausages these days?” Papa remarked. ”These taste of strawberry.”

Then came a morning when Dr. Pawson shouted from his chair in the hall, ”Right, Chant, from now on you finish the mending in the afternoons. In the mornings we teach you some control.”

”Control?” Christopher said blankly. By this time the house was nearly finished and he was hoping that Dr. Pawson would soon have finished with him too.

”That's right,” Dr. Pawson bawled. ”You didn't think I'd let you loose on the world without teaching you to control your power, did you? As you are now, you're a menace to everyone. And don't tell me you haven't been trying to see what you can do, because I won't believe you.”

Christopher looked at his feet and thought of what he had just been doing with the trees in the Trumpington Road. ”I've hardly done anything, sir.” ”Hardly anything! What do boys know of restraint?” said Dr. Pawson. ”Into the garden. We're going to raise a wind, and you're going to learn to do it without moving so much as a blade of gra.s.s.”

They went into the garden, where Christopher raised a whirlwind. He thought it rather expressed his feelings. Luckily it was quite small and only destroyed one rose bed. Dr. Pawson canceled it with one flap of his purple banana hand. ”Do it again, Chant.”

Learning control was boring, but it was a good deal more restful. Dr. Pawson obviously knew this. He began setting Christopher homework to do in the evenings. All the same, even after disentangling the interlacing spells in the problems he had been set, Christopher began to feel for the first time that he had some brain left over to think with. He thought about silver first. Keeping Uncle Ralph's silver sixpence in his pocket had stopped him doing such a lot. And that beastly tooth-brace had stopped him doing even more. What a waste! No wonder he had not been able to take the books to the G.o.ddess until Matron made him take the brace out.

He must have been using magic to get to the Anywheres all these years without knowing it- except that he had known it, in an underneath sort of way. Tacroy had known, and he had been impressed. And the G.o.ddess must have realized, too, when her silver bracelet turned Christopher into a ghost. Here Christopher tried to go on thinking about the G.o.ddess, but he found he kept thinking of Tacroy instead.

Tacroy would now have gone into a trance uselessly for three weeks running. Tacroy made light of it, but Christopher suspected that going into a trance took a lot out of a person. He really would have to let Uncle Ralph know what had happened.

Glancing over at Papa, who was hard at work with a special pen marking special symbols on horoscopes under the big oil lamp, Christopher started writing a letter to Uncle Ralph, pretending it was part of his homework. The oil lamp cast shadows on Papa's face, removing the threadbare look and making him look unusually kind and stern. Christopher told himself uneasily that Papa and Uncle Ralph just did not like one another. Besides, Papa had not actually forbidden him to write to Uncle Ralph.

All the same, it took several nights to write the letter. Christopher did not want to seem disloyal to Papa.

In the end, he simply wrote that Papa had taken him away from school to be taught by Dr. Pawson. It was a lot of effort for such a short letter. He posted it next day on his way up the Trumping-ton Road with a sense of relief and virtue.

Three days later, Papa had a letter from Mama. Christopher could tell at once from Papa's face that Uncle Ralph had told Mama where they were. Papa threw the letter on the fire and fetched his hat.

”Christopher,” he said, ”I shall be coming with you to Dr. Pawson's today.”

This made Christopher certain that Mama was in Cambridge too. As he walked up the Trumpington Road beside Papa, he tried to work out what his feelings were about that. But he did not have much time to think. A strong wind, scented with roses, swept around the pair of them, hurling Christopher sideways and s.n.a.t.c.hing Papa's hat from his head. Papa made a movement to chase his hat-which was just rolling under a brewer's dray-and then dived around and seized Christopher's arm instead.

”Hats are expendable,” he said. ”Keep walking, son.”

They kept walking, with the wind hurling and buffeting around them. Christopher could actually feel it trying to curl around him in order to pull him away. But for Papa's grip on his arm, he would have been carried across the road. He was impressed. He had not known Mama's magic was this strong.

”I can control it if you want,” he called to Papa above the noise. ”Dr. Pawson taught me wind control.”

”No, Christopher,” Papa panted sternly, looking strange and most undignified, with his coat flapping andhis hair blowing in all directions. ”A gentleman never works magic against a woman, particularly his own mama.”

Gentlemen, it seemed to Christopher, made things unreasonably difficult for themselves in that case. The wind grew stronger and stronger, the nearer they got to the gate of Dr. Pawson's house. Christopher thought they would never cover the last yard or so. Papa was forced to seize the gatepost to hold them both in place while he tried to undo the latch. Whereupon the wind made a last, savage s.n.a.t.c.h.

Christopher felt his feet leave the ground, and knew he was about to soar away. He made himself very heavy just in time. He did it because it was a contest, really, because he did not like being on the losing side. He would not at all have minded seeing Mama. But he very much hoped Papa would not notice the rather large dents his feet had made in the ground just outside the gate.

Inside the gate there was no more wind. Papa smoothed his hair and rang the doorbell.

”Aha!” shouted Dr. Pawson from his armchair while Mary-Ellen was opening the door. ”The expected trouble has come to pa.s.s,. I see. Chant;, oblige me by going upstairs and reading aloud to my mother while I talk to your father.”

Christopher went up the stairs as slowly as he dared, hoping to hear what was being said. All he caught was Dr. Pawson's voice, hardly shouting at all. ”I've been in touch almost daily for a week, but they still can't-” After that the door shut. Christopher went on up the stairs and knocked at the door of old Mrs.

Pawson's room.

She was sitting up in bed, still knitting. ”Come and sit on that chair so that I can hear you,” she said in her gentle voice, and gave him a gentle but piercing smile. ”The Bible is here on the bedside table. You may start from the beginning of Genesis, child, and see how far you can get. I expect the negotiations will take time. Such things always do.”

Christopher sat down and began to read. He was stumbling among the people who begat other people when Mary-Ellen came in with coffee and biscuits and gave him a welcome break. Ten minutes later, old Mrs. Pawson took up her knitting and said, ”Continue, child.” Christopher had got well into Sodom and Gomorrah and was beginning to run out of voice, when old Mrs. Pawson c.o.c.ked her white head on one side and said, ”Stop now, child. They want you downstairs in the study.”

Much relieved and very curious, Christopher put the Bible down and shot to the ground floor. Papa and Dr. Pawson were sitting facing one another in Dr. Pawson's crowded room. It had become more cluttered than ever over the last weeks, since it was stacked with pieces of clocks and ornaments from all over the house, waiting for Christopher to mend. Now it looked more disorganized still. Tables and carpets had been pushed to the walls to leave a large stretch of bare floorboards, and a design had been chalked on the boards. Christopher looked at it with interest, wondering what it had to do with Mama. It was a five-pointed star inside a circle. He looked at Papa, who was obviously delighted about something, and then at Dr. Pawson, who was just as usual.

”News for you, Chant,” said Dr. Pawson. ”I've run a lot of tests on you these last weeks-don't stare, boy, you didn't know I was doing it-and every one of those tests gives you nine lives. Nine lives and some of the strongest magic I've met. Naturally I got in touch with Gabriel de Witt. I happen to know he's been looking for a successor for years. Naturally all I got was a lot of guff about the way they'd already tested you and drawn a blank. That's Civil Servants for you. They need a bomb under them before they'll change their minds. So today, after the bother with your mama had given me the excuse we needed, I had a good old shout at them. They caved in, Chant. They're sending a man to fetch you to Chrestomanci Castle now.” Here Papa broke in as if he could not stop himself. ”It's just what I've been hoping for, my son! Gabriel de Witt is to become your legal guardian, and in due course you will be the next Chrestomanci.”

”Next Chrestomanci?” Christopher echoed. He stared at Papa, knowing there was no chance of deciding on a career for himself now. It was all settled. His visions of himself as a famous cricketer faded and fell and turned to ashes. ”But I don't want-”

Papa thought Christopher did not understand. ”You will become a very important man,” he said. ”You will watch over all the magic in this world and prevent any harm being done with it.”

”But-” Christopher began angrily.

It was too late. The misty shape of a person was forming inside the five-pointed star. It solidified into a pale plump young man with a long face, very soberly dressed in a gray suit and a wide starched collar that looked much too tight for him. He was carrying a thing like a telescope. Christopher remembered him. The young man was one of the people who had been in the hospital room after everyone had thought Christopher was dead.

”Good morning,” the young man said, stepping out of the star. ”My name is Flavian Temple. Monsignor de Witt has sent me to examine your candidate.”

”EXAMINE HIM!” shouted Dr. Pawson. ”I've already DONE that! What do you people take me for?”

He rolled his angry eyes at Papa. ”Civil Servants!”

Flavian Temple obviously found Dr. Pawson quite as alarming as Christopher did. He flinched a bit.

”Yes, doctor, we know you have. But my instructions are to verify your findings before proceeding. If this lad could just step into the pentagram.”

”Go on, son,” said Papa. ”Stand inside the star.”

With a furious, helpless feeling, Christopher stepped into the chalked pattern and stood there while Flavian Temple sighted down the telescope-thing at him. There must be a way of making yourself look as if you only had one life, he thought. There had to be! But he had no idea what it was you did.

Flavian Temple frowned. ”I can only make it seven lives.”

”He's already lost TWO, you fat young fool!” Dr. Pawson bellowed. ”Didn't they tell you anything? Tell him, Chant.”

”I've lost two lives already,” Christopher found himself saying. There was some kind of spell on the pattern. Otherwise he would have denied everything.

”SEE?” howled Dr. Pawson.

Flavian Temple managed to turn a wince into a polite bow. ”I do see, doctor. That being the case, I will of course take the boy to be interviewed by Monsignor de Witt. Any final decision has to be Monsignor de Witt's.”

Christopher perked up at this. Perhaps it was not settled after all. But Papa seemed to think it was. He came and laid an arm around Christopher's shoulders. ”Good-bye, my son. This makes me a very proud and happy man. Say good-bye to Dr. Pawson.”

Dr. Pawson behaved as if it were settled too. His chair trundled forward and he held out a big purple banana finger to Christopher. ”Bye, Chant. Take no notice of the official way they go on. This Flavian's afool Civil Servant like the rest of them.”

As Christopher shook the purple finger, old Mrs. Pawson materialized, sitting on the arm of Dr.

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