Potions and Pageants Page 10

  Interesting, thought Percy, that succubus Delphine would date a Humble. Even more interesting was whether the boy knew what Delphine was. It was against the Eldritch Secrecy Act to tell Humbles about the existence of eldritch beings.

  When the first bell rang, Percy cursed and hurried into the school building. There had been no sign of Nan, and it only now occurred to Percy that this probably meant Nan had come to school extra early to do beauty pageant related things. Percy should have checked for her in the assembly hall.

  Morning lessons were an unpleasant shock. It turned out the adequacy of her home schooling was to be severely questioned. Percy had never been taught algebra, and nor did she want to be taught algebra ever again.

  Her English Language class hadn’t been too bad and break came right after it. Percy paused outside the classroom, trying to get her bearings. She wanted to go to the assembly hall to see Nan.

  Just then Mrs Delancey, the English teacher, came out behind her, and ushered her towards the exit, saying that Percy needed a hall pass to be inside the school building during the break.

  To Percy’s annoyance, Mrs Delancey walked with her, saying she was going in that direction anyway.

  “How are you finding things at school?” Mrs Delancey asked her kindly.

  “Fine,” said Percy.

  She would be finding it better if Mrs Delancey hadn’t just ruined her attempts to go and find Nan.

  “Have you made any friends yet?” Mrs Delancey asked.

  Percy shrugged. “Sort of.”

  She didn’t feel like telling the teacher that she had no friends, and was not looking forward to hanging out all by herself outside during break. The morning classes had showed her that everyone had their little groups, and everyone seemed quite suspicious about letting girls with green hair and stompy boots join theirs.

  “I’m new to this school myself,” said Mrs Delancey, clearly intent on being friendly. “Settling in can always take some time. You’ll get there in the end.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  Percy couldn’t remember if Mrs Delancey’s name had been on the list of eldritch teachers that the school had provided her with. She was probably a Humble, and couldn’t understand why she was finding it so hard to fit in with half the teachers in this place.

  As Percy navigated the maze of the many corridors inside the school, she kept a look out for a bathroom. She would tell Mrs Delancey she needed to use it, and get rid of her that way. However, Mrs Delancey had paused outside some double doors which had a sign above them saying it was the library.

  “That way,” she said, pointing Percy down the corridor to where the exit door was in sight. “Off you pop. I’ll be watching. We don’t want anyone giving you detention for dallying.”

  “Sure,” said Percy glumly. There was no chance of escape now.

  But at that moment Lucifer Darkwing emerged from the library. “Percy!” he said brightly, grabbing her arm and dragging her into it.

  “Mr Darkwing,” said Mrs Delancey, her face lighting up. “I was just coming to find you.”

  “It’ll have to wait, I’m afraid,” said Lucifer. “I’m a little busy just now.”

  “Oh!” Mrs Delancey looked crestfallen, and seemed embarrassed when he insisted on ushering her out.

  He shooed out all of the other students from the library too, some of whom were quite irate about this. A craggy faced boy who had been waiting patiently by the front desk to speak to Lucifer looked very disappointed indeed, and shot Percy an envious glance as he left.

  Percy sort of knew how he felt. She was ridiculously pleased to have been saved from a terribly lonesome break by Lucifer, and was glad she didn’t have to spend it outside feeling shunned.

  When the library was empty, Lucifer proceeded to give Percy a tour of his new domain. She was surprised by how large it was. It was a cavernous old-fashioned space, with many towering dark wooden shelves of books and many shadowy corners with tables tucked into them. Some of the shelves were so high that their tops could only be accessed by sliding ladders. There was even an upper level, accessible by a rickety staircase and fragile old walkways that looked like you had to be quite brave to navigate them.

  As they walked, Lucifer picked books out of the shelves here and there and read the titles out loud before flinging them aside contemptuously.

  “The trash these mortals fill their minds with,” he moaned. “Who cares about these silly tales? Even the romances are insipid. Where is the—”

  “It’s a school library,” said Percy loudly, cutting him off. “For kids. I hardly think it’s going to contain the sorts of things you’d like to read.”

  “And they call this educating young minds?” he complained. “You know, I think she made me the librarian to torture me. I’d have done much better as a school counsellor. Shaping all those malleable young minds…”

  “…towards your dastardly ends,” Percy finished.

  “Only completing the work that they’ve already begun,” he said defensively. “If they weren’t already on the not-so-righteous path, they wouldn’t be needing a counsellor, would they?”

  “If you say so, pops.”

  “Don’t call me that!” he complained. “I have a reputation to keep up. I can’t be anybody’s pops. Certainly not anyone of your age.”

  “Discovered this last night, did you?” said Percy dryly. “Where did you go after leaving my house yesterday?”

  He tweaked her nose. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies to feed your Mother.”

  “Glory,” she said. “Let’s call her Glory from now on please.”

  “Only because she won’t like it. I went to a fabulous club, if you must know. At least the Eldritch know how to party. But it turned out they’re rather stronger than mere Humble humans, and things did not end well for me. Fortunately I managed to run off before he did any real damage. A werewolf I think he was. Not very clean either. I could smell the wolfishness on him. Daily baths should be mandatory. Either that, or I’ll have to do something about this nose of mine.”

  “I’m surprised you turned up to work after all that,” said Percy. “I thought you might have skipped.”

  “If only,” he lamented as he led the way into his office, where he put the kettle on.

  Percy, who was only used to electrical things due to a childhood spent with Nan, was impressed by the ease with which he handled the device. She had never seen Lucifer do anything that resembled work before. He appeared to be faring surprisingly well without minions.

  “Tea is rather good. Took me quite by surprise,” he observed. “And I couldn’t not turn up to work today. My eyes popped open at an ungodly hour of the morning, scratchy and horrible they were. And I felt this tremendously overpowering urge to get ready and come here, and I couldn’t drag my feet even when I tried. It was impossible to resist. And so here I am.”

  “At least you got dressed for it,” Percy said cheekily. “You could have turned up in your birthday suit as a form of protest. She wouldn’t have liked that.”

  “Believe me, I tried,” he said. “It turns out wearing clothing was mandatory too. I couldn’t leave my house until I’d put an acceptable amount of covering on. The urge to wear clothes was positively painful. Do you think she might be a witch, after all? How is she doing it, if not magic?”

  “I don’t know,” said Percy glumly. “It’s a bit unfair if she gets to have magic and I have to suffer being a Meek.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  But before she could do so, he swiftly launched into complaining about all the other terrible parts of his day so far, which included every interaction he’d had with students.

  “Horrible little gits,” he said. “I can’t wait to be rid of them. Or turn them into my minions. Yes, that might be fun.”

  Lucifer, it turned out, was very particular about his tea. It took quite a while until he was satisfied that it had been brewed right. Just as he poured her a cup and opened a pa
cket of chocolate biscuits the bell rang and the break ended. Percy sprang up from her chair, and Lucifer wished her a morose farewell, and stuffed a biscuit into his mouth.

  The next chance Percy got to speak with Nan was during the lunch break. Nan had not been in any of Percy’s lessons that morning, which Percy found disappointing.

  In the dining room, Percy spotted Nan in the food queue. But to her annoyance, Nan was with Bella and her little posse, chatting excitedly with them.

  It suddenly occurred to Percy that Nan might not want to hang out with her at school. They had not discussed this matter the previous day.

  As Percy joined the back of the queue, she was more than a little irritated to see Nan follow Bella out of the queue and put her meal tray down at Bella’s table, clearly intending on eating with the Three Bees. Nan was looking very pleased about it too.

  Percy lingered in the queue, glumly contemplating the sandwich options. They all seemed full of suspiciously limp salads. Deciding against them, she slid her tray over to the hot food section instead, and immediately regretted having refused the packed lunch that Jeeves had tried to thrust into her backpack this morning.

  She was sure that whatever Jeeves had cooked would have been far tastier than the dry looking pizza slices or the suspicious-looking meat casserole on offer.

  “I’ll just have a jacket potato with some cheese and coleslaw,” she told the man who was impatiently waiting for her to place an order.

  She put the plate he gave her onto her tray, carried it over to Bella’s table and plonked it down in the spare place next to Nan.

  The Three Bees and Eleanor and Nan had been chatting animatedly about something, the beauty pageant no doubt, but shut up the moment that they saw Percy.

  Four of the girls at the table glowered at Percy, but the fifth, Nan, had an expression in her eyes that was slightly horror stricken. In fact, Percy was sure there was a plea in it for Percy to go away.

  “What do you want?” demanded Bella.

  “There’s no room for you,” said Blanche quickly. “I was saving that seat for a friend.”

  “Delphine?” said Percy. “Delphine’s over in that corner snuggling with her boyfriend.” She pointed.

  “Another friend,” said Blanche.

  “I guess your friend is going to have to sit elsewhere,” said Percy, plonking herself down on the empty seat.

  Bella, Blanche and Barbie all got identical expressions of shock on their faces. Clearly they had not expected Percy, a lowly nobody, to disobey them.

  “Didn’t you hear what Bella said?” demanded Eleanor with a look of resentment on her face. “You’re not allowed to sit with us!”

  “And yet here I am,” said Percy mildly.

  “Don’t you know anything?” hissed Blanche. “People like you don’t get to sit with people like us. It’s the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “The unspoken rules of school and society, you moron!”

  The four girls glared at her. Lifting their trays, they stood up all at once.

  Bella turned expectantly to Nan. “Are you coming? Or are you staying with her?”

  Percy raised her eyebrows at Nan. Nan looked from Percy to Bella and back again. Clearly she wanted to go with Bella, but she did not have the heart to abandon Percy. She drooped a little.

  Bella snorted with contempt. Without waiting for Nan’s response, she marched away. All of her friends followed her, tutting in disapproval at Nan.

  Percy heard Eleanor say, “Well that’s what we get for inviting goody two shoes Gooding to sit with us. She’s always trying to please everyone. So stupid!”

  “Why couldn’t you just be nice to them?” said Nan to Percy, sounding half full of despair.

  “Didn’t you hear what she said about you?” said Percy.

  “Only because you upset them!”

  “Was I mean to them first or were they mean to me?” Percy asked.

  “They’re mean to everyone. If you want to sit at their table then you have to swallow your pride.”

  “That sucks. And anyway, I didn’t want to sit at their table.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Percy raised her eyebrows. “Stuff is going on and I needed to speak with you urgently.”

  “If it is about your stupid voicemail that you left me yesterday, then you can forget about it!” said Nan.

  “So you did get my voicemail!” accused Percy.

  “So what?” said Nan, crossing her arms defensively.

  “If you didn’t want to talk about it, why didn’t you go off with Bella and her crew?” said Percy.

  “Because… Because—” Nan’s outrage seemed to seep away and she heaved a big sigh. “Because I can never say no to you is why, and you know it!”

  “Aw!” Percy threw her arm around Nan’s shoulders. “Demonling and Cherub all over again,” she said in a soppy voice.

  “Don’t call us that,” whispered Nan, subtly looking around to check if anyone had heard.

  “So anyway,” said Percy. “Lucy says he can’t remember why he’s been put on the mortal realm. It’s all some sort of big punishment apparently.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Lucifer Darkwing. That’s his name now. He’s the school’s new librarian.”

  “No!” Nan gasped. “This is… this is… unbelievable!”

  She looked like she couldn’t think of a bad enough word for whatever it was she had been trying to say.

  “Chill, he’s a Humble now. Can you believe it? So it’s not like he can get up to anything too bad. You should be happy.”

  Nan did not look happy. She was looking around to make sure nobody else was listening to their conversation.

  “But he’s a Lord of Hell,” she whispered. “He can’t be at a school. Bad things will happen wherever he goes.”

  “That’s what he said too,” said Percy. “And it got me thinking… Do you reckon he’s already bringing out the worst in people? Because I was thinking that what happened to Nilgun had to be sabotage.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Nan. She picked up a potato chip and stabbed the air with it to emphasize her words. “Just because you don’t like Bella, doesn’t mean that she’s up to no good.”

  “I never said anything about Bella,” said Percy.

  “But you were thinking it! There was no sabotage. You have no proof.”

  “Gosh, you sound just like Councilor Strickt. I was only floating a possibility. I thought you might be interested since it is your beauty pageant.”

  “Do you think if Councilor Strickt got wind of your horrid display at the talent segment yesterday that he would be impressed?” demanded Nan.

  “I don’t give two hoots what Councilor Strickt wants.”

  “You should. That man is not nice. I asked my mum about him. She said that if he threatened to have you removed from your parent’s care then he really meant it. It wasn’t an empty threat.”

  “They can’t do that without making my mum come home first. She might love her travels more than she loves me, but she’ll come home if the Eldritch Council scolds her. She might not be happy about it, but she will.”

  A little voice inside Percy wasn’t so sure about this, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Nan.

  It gave her a horrid feeling inside, but Percy shrugged it away. So what if her mum wouldn’t come. She had always been fine without her. And she currently had enough parental trouble to be going on with.

  “Do you really want your mortal mum coming home in the middle of all this drama?” said Nan.

  “Wouldn’t be the worst thing,” said Percy.

  “Do you remember what living with your mum was like?” said Nan, raising her eyebrows. “How many dinner parties and cocktail parties and fancy dress balls did your mum like to have every week? And how many of those did she insist that you get dressed up for in crazy new clothing that she specifically designed for you that you hated? And do you even remember what she was like in betw
een her parties?”

  A flood of memories came back to Percy that she had happily boxed into a corner of her mind. Percy groaned. Every single night of the week was how often Gwendolyn Prince liked to socialize. And since her own house was a fabulous and enormous mansion, that was where she chose to invite her many strange and loud and energetic friends.

  The pounding music and the cackling laughter and the crashes and bangs from whatever magical entertainments they were indulging in had often continued late into the nights.

  And the next day her mum would be like a bear with a sore head, grouchy for every moment until guests began to arrive again.

  Percy’s mum loved to be around people. Her friends would flock to visit her from all over the world, coming to live in the house for weeks on end, with their exotic stories and their exotic belongings and their exotic servants and pets. Inevitably they were all magical friends or eldritch friends, which meant they always looked at Percy with a particular look of pity in their eyes, as if unable to fathom how such a mundane and uninteresting daughter could have possibly been born to the wild and fabulous Gwendolyn Prince.

  Some of them would even poke her with their wands, as if they could prod a spark of magic into her.

  “Tell us all about your day darling,” they would say. “Surely you’ve got something interesting and secretive going on. What sort of teenager doesn’t?” And they would crackle as if they had said something very funny.

  The worst were the ones who would say, “Take my wand. Just try swishing it around. Perhaps you just haven’t tried hard enough.” And force their wands into her hands, and insist that she try incantation after incantation, as if by some miracle one of them would suddenly work. They never did.

  “Oh hell,” said Percy, dropping face first onto the table and letting her head hit it with a bang. “Why did you have to remind me?”

  Nan was not finished. “Now imagine your mortal mum and naughty old Lucy getting to know each other,” she said.

  The resulting scene in Percy’s mind filled her with horror. Seeing it on her face, Nan looked satisfied.

  “Good. I’m glad you’re seeing the full picture. Because that is what is going to happen to you if you don’t do what Councilor Strickt wants.” Nan looked like she was trying not to laugh.