Cauldrons and Kittens Read online

  Percy shrugged. “Mum stopped bringing me, and it didn’t seem like it would be fun on my own so I never came.”

  Nan looked upset.

  “Cheer up, sulky face,” said Percy. “I know what you’ll like!”

  She began marching determinedly towards what had once been Nan’s favorite pet shop, The Batty Budgie, which had seen almost every animal imaginable, magic and non-magical alike.

  It was no easy task battling through the witching crowd on a weekend, and Percy fairly had to elbow people out of her way.

  As she went, she pulled out her photograph and started asking people, "Excuse me, do you know this man?”

  Harried witches and wizards cast fleeting glances at the photograph and said, “No,” before hurrying on. A few of them cast disapproving looks at Percy as they went.

  They arrived at The Batty Budgie, which looked small on the outside, but had a magically enormous interior that sprang out of nowhere the moment you opened the door.

  Inside, the proprietor was frantically pleading with his orange fuzzball of a tiny monkey to come down off the top of an enormous birdcage. Inside the cage, several blue macaws were eyeing the monkey up angrily.

  “Please Pumpkin,” begged the man, “They’ll peck your toes and you won’t like that. Come down and I’ll make you one of your lovely special berry ice creams. How would you like that?”

  The little orange monkey reached through the bars of the cage and grabbed a macaw by the tail. The bird nipped at the monkey with its enormous beak, but the monkey cackled and sprang out of reach.

  “Mad,” whispered Percy. “He must be why they call this place The Batty Budgie. He's the budgie.”

  Nan glared for Percy to shut up.

  “Oh c’mon! It was funny.”

  “I give up!” cried the man, throwing his hands into the air in frustration. “When one of them gets you, then you’ll learn your lesson, because I won’t be healing you with magic either this time!”

  He hurried towards Percy and Nan, and gave Nan a warm smile when he recognized her.

  “Nanette Gooding!” he cried with pleasure. “Back to inspect my kittens? We have a new litter, and there’s one in there that I’m sure you’ll like!”

  “Hi, Mr Laurie,” said Nan chirpily. She took Percy’s photo to show to him. “Actually we wanted to ask if you’ve ever met this man? The photo’s a bit old, but maybe you’ve seen him?”

  Mr Laurie inspected the picture carefully before handing it back with a regretful shake of his head. “Can’t say I have, dear. And you let me know if you finally want one of those kittens.”

  He went off to tend to an elderly couple over by the amphibian tanks who seemed in need of his attention.

  Percy and Nan made their way over to the cat section, where Nan cooed in delight at the new kittens. There were six in all, some white, some orange, but one of them was grey with bright lime-colored ears.

  “Oh, isn’t she a darling!” cried Nan, reaching out until the frisky lime-eared kitten ran over to her. It scrambled up the wooden sides of the pen until it’s efforts were frustrated by the glass panel at the top.

  Nan reached in to scoop the kitten out and cradled it in her arms, almost moaning in delight when the purring kitten nuzzled her face.

  “Not sure about that one,” said Percy doubtfully. “I mean, you wouldn’t want a cat with lime ears running around Central London, would you? Green hair on a human is one thing, but green hair on a cat? The Humbles would think you’d been torturing the poor thing with dye!”

  “But I love her,” Nan moaned, now tickling the kitten’s chin.

  “Then why don’t you get it? I would have thought you’d have got a familiar well before now.”

  “Mum’s been encouraging me to get one,” said Nan. “So she can begin my lessons on training familiars, but I simply can’t decide. I really, really want a kitten, but with a kitten, how do I know if I’ll pick the right one?”

  “What do you mean, the right one?” demanded Percy. “You get what you get. You can’t choose.”

  “But if I bought a grown cat,” Nan explained, “Mr Laurie might already have some inkling of what its magical power was so that I could pick a good one. It’s not fair. Picking a familiar shouldn’t be such a lottery.”

  “I bet Mr Laurie doesn’t have a clue even with the grown cats,” said Percy. “Imagine if cats revealed their powers to everyone. There’d be cat-nappings all over the place! There’s a reason why cats only reveal their powers to their witching partners.”

  Nan carefully dropped the kitten back into the pen where it gamboled off to attack one of its siblings. She reached down to scoop up a lean, skinny cat that had slunk over and seemed to be waiting for her.

  It was an entirely black cat except for a white patch around one eye and another on the tip of its tail.

  “Hey there, Patch,” said Nan. Patch was restless, and had climbed from her arms up onto Nan’s shoulders. “How’ve you been doing buddy? Have you not chosen to go home with anyone yet?”

  Patch decided he liked the very edge of Nan’s shoulder and proceeded to nimbly balance there so that Nan could no longer move without a danger of him slipping off.

  “You should just take that one,” said Percy. “I think he wants to go home with you.”

  “No,” said Nan, carefully lifting Patch off and putting him back in the pen. “I definitely want a kitten.”

  Patch didn’t seem to care, and slunk off with his white-tipped tail jauntily up in the air.

  Leaving the pet shop behind, the girls spent the next hour or so wandering into various shops and stalls to ask owners and customers alike about the man in the photograph.

  Percy got particularly excited whenever any shopkeeper had been working at their shop for over twenty years, sure that the man must have passed through their establishment during that time. But everyone from Old Petey at Old Petey’s tavern to Wanda Ash at Wandrous Delights said they had never met him and would certainly have remembered his hair.

  Wanda was a little too young to have known him anyway. She must have been a girl when that picture was taken, but even so she said with a gleam in her eye, “Handsome fellow. You send him my way if you find him.”

  “Find who?” demanded a voice behind Percy’s shoulder.

  Percy jumped in surprise. She turned, and saw Lucifer Darkwing behind her. With a cry of delight, she threw her arms around him in a hug.

  Lucifer tolerated being squeezed for a few seconds before determinedly reaching for the photograph. Percy grabbed for it too late. He had already taken it from Wanda.

  “Who’s this?” he demanded, one eyebrow arched in a manner that made him ridiculously more handsome than he already was.

  His lean, tall figure was snugly adorned by a snazzy, fitted navy suit, waistcoat, crisp shirt, and narrow tie. He looked very dapper indeed.

  “Handsome enough I suppose,” he drawled, and then quirked his eyebrow at Wanda and said flirtatiously, “But you, my lovely, could do much better.”

  Wanda laughed and flipped his tie. “Perhaps. I do like an adventurous man, but you seem a little… hmmm… too wild for my tastes. I can always tell.” She tapped the tip of her nose.

  Percy and Nan each grabbed one of Lucifer’s elbows. Thanking Wanda over their shoulders, they hustled Lucifer out of her shop as fast as they could.

  Once they were outside, Nan rounded at Lucifer and demanded, “What do you think you are doing? Going into a wand shop of all places? Wandmakers are extremely sensitive to magic. Did it not occur to you she might sense that… you are what you are?” The last part came out in a hissed whisper.

  Lucifer was gazing at Nan agog. He straightened his waistcoat, then leaned in close to peer at her face. “Hell’s bells,” he murmured. “Cherub, is that you?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Nan grumpily.

  “And doesn’t she still look like one?” said Percy happily, pinching Nan’s cheek.

  “Well, I never. Trust Glorious Gl
ory to put you in an appropriately cherubic little package,” he said. His eyes narrowed as he saw the tip of Nan’s wand sticking out of her pocket. “And did she make you a witch?” he looked both outraged and woebegone at this realization.

  “Yes, I am,” said Nan huffily. “And whether she made me that or not, I don’t care. I’m not her minion anymore, and neither am I yours, so don’t be getting ideas into your head!”

  “Ideas? Me?” He widened his eyes innocently, and yet he was still thoughtfully eyeing up her wand.

  “How did you get in here?” Nan demanded. “Magicwild Market is only for witches and wizards, and Percy tells me that you’re a Humble.”

  He looked mildly annoyed at the word Humble. “Hopefully not for long,” he muttered.

  Nan ignored this. “Well?” she demanded.

  “I charmed a lovely witch, of course,” said Lucifer, now beaming again. He waved vaguely. “She’s around here somewhere. Very pretty, but turned out to be quite boring in the end. I had to give her the old slip. Can’t let them get too clingy you know. They all flock to the Lord of Hell in me.”

  “You wish,” said Percy, annoyed.

  “Where is she?” demanded Nan, looking around for the witch. “Letting a Humble in the marketplace? The sheer irresponsibility. That’s breaking the International Magical Secrecy Pact if I ever heard it!”

  “Relax, Cherub,” said Lucifer airily. “Enjoy the lovely sunny day. Have some ice cream or something.”

  He suddenly gasped, and then frolicked like a puppy over to the stalls outside Flaffiness Emporium, one of which was now releasing enormous chocolate bubbles into the air. He leapt up and seized one with a great yelp of delight.

  Watching him, Percy said, “See, he’s just a big kid really! Isn’t he adorable?”

  “Hmm…” said Nan, sounding unconvinced. “If only he would stay that way. But you can’t forget what Headmistress Glory told you. He was a Lord of Hell once. Trouble attracts him and he attracts trouble, and the more of it he gets, the stronger his evil side gets. He’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “I’m not going to let it happen,” Percy said determinedly.

  Lucifer had succeeded in catching three enormous chocolate bubbles, having practically snatched them from the arms of leaping children. He was now trying to keep them from flying away as he hurried back towards Percy and Nan.

  The bubbles, it turned out, were made of delicious liquid chocolate and were filled with magical air. Percy sucked on hers, and the sweet-scented air inside wafted into her lungs. A blissful delight spread through her, running in tingles all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes, making her shudder in glee.

  “Hell’s bells,” said Lucifer. “It’s so good it’s bad.”

  Having finished her chocolate bubble, Nan was now gazing hungrily at some chocolate crepes.

  “I’ll get us some,” said Percy.

  “No,” said Nan, grabbing her arm to stop her. “You already got us the candy swirls.”

  “I want them,” Percy insisted. “Let me get them.”

  “No,” said Nan stubbornly, her cheeks turning a little pink.

  Percy scowled. Nan’s family lived mainly off the earnings from her dad’s Humble job, which left precious little after the bills had been paid. Nan’s mum had started earning money from a small love-potion business recently, but Nan had said most of that money was going towards a new car and house repairs.

  Percy on the other hand had a heaving purse full of witching gold. She had pretty much free reign over how to spend a very generous allowance, which was probably Gwendolyn’s way of making up for leaving Percy alone all the time.

  Percy had an idea.

  “Lucy!” she demanded. “We’re hungry. And what good are you if you’re not going to buy us lunch? We want those pancakes. Chocolate and banana for me with extra cream, and chocolate and strawberry for nan with butterscotch ice cream and nut sprinkles.”

  Lucifer’s eyes lit up as if Percy had given him a gift. “What wonderful food these mortals have,” he said in an overly loud voice that made more than a few people look his way curiously. “Chocolate and banana and ice cream and strawberries and everything for me!”

  He hurried towards the pancake cart, and the girls followed.

  Percy shrugged at Nan who was frowning at her. “What? she said. “If your dad was here, he’d have bought it for me. You know he would.”

  Looking mollified, Nan accepted the little cardboard tray that the vendor handed her, and then hurried to help Lucifer who looked alarmed when the woman asked him to pay, “A piddlo and a mummy.”

  They found a table to sit at to eat their pancakes, and Nan asked him, “Where did you get the witching gold by the way?”

  “Out of Percy’s pocket,” said Lucifer nonchalantly

  Percy glared and patted her pocket.

  Lucifer chuckled, looking very pleased with himself, and said, “I’ll pay you back in Humble money.” He looked around hopefully. “Unless there is somewhere here where I can exchange currencies?”

  “Like a bank?” said Percy. “Witches do have banks you know.”

  “Better make it Elfpotts,” said Nan hurriedly. “Not the Draekvault. The draekins in there are walking talking lie detectors.”

  She shivered, and threw a wary glance in the direction of the magnificent towering old building that was the Draekvault, as if the draekins inside might have heard her.

  “Ooh draekins,” said Lucifer. “They sound interesting. What are they?”

  Nan explained to him that draekins were the human-like distant kin of dragons — yes, real dragons. But before she could finish her spiel on their history, Lucifer had already finished off his pancake and marched away to inspect a cage full of colorful flutterbys at a nearby stall.

  “Remember what you said about him being like a child?” said Nan darkly. “Children are always getting into trouble.”

  “He’ll be fine!” said Percy airily, still navigating a mouthful off hot pancake, oozing with cream and chocolate sauce.

  Percy closed her eyes in bliss. When she opened them, Lucifer was having a wand pointed at him by an angry witch who had apparently tripped over his toes.

  Rather than apologizing to her, he laughed, which only made the witch wave her wand even more menacingly. Lucifer roared with mirth. He did not back off. Instead, he plucked the witch’s wand out of her hand quick as a flash and ran away with it.

  “Told you so,” muttered Nan darkly.

  2. The English Teacher

  When the angry witch failed to chase Lucifer, for she was too portly and too full of her dignity to do so, he looked disappointed and returned to her, but only so he could run in circles all around her.

  It fell to Percy and Nan to chase him and wrestle the wand out of his hands, which they handed back to the witch with profuse apologies.

  The witch was not mollified, especially when Lucifer said, “Lighten up, old thing. Ain’t life grand?”

  Percy and Nan hustled Lucifer out of Magicwild Market with haste. They made him promise to not reenter it that day at least, before they let him go. He agreed grudgingly, saying he had rather hoped to purchase something snazzy for his hot date that night.

  Nan patiently explained to him the concept of the International Magical Secrecy Pact, which he huffed about as if it was some trifling matter.

  “Pish-tosh. That is for the likes of you,” he said. “I am a mere Humble remember?”

  “You won’t think it is pish-tosh if the Conclave of Magic come to find you to erase your memory,” Percy warned him. “And it’ll be worse if they find out you are not what you are supposed to be.”

  Even this thought did not seem to bother him much. She was relieved when he finally agreed to not reveal the existence of magic to his Humble date.

  “Does he seem alright to you?” said Nan, frowning, as Lucifer strolled off to find himself a cab. “Is he a bit… giddy?”

  Lucifer was humming to himself as he meande
red down the street.

  “He’s always that way,” Percy insisted.

  Later that night, Lucifer turned up at her house sometime past midnight to tell her that he had kept his promise. He was forced to shout it up to her window, since Percy had refused to come downstairs and open the door for him.

  “Shut up!” she hissed as soon as the word magic had come out of his mouth.

  “But I kept my promise,” he said.

  “Good for you. Now go away. I’m sleeping.”

  He giggled merrily to himself, and jaunted in a wobbly manner towards the main road, where she hoped he would do the sensible thing of catching a cab rather than driving his own car, which she hoped he didn’t have since he surely could not have learned to drive yet.

  On Monday morning Percy awoke to discover that to her horror she had forgotten to take in her clothes from the washing line and it had rained overnight.

  With a cry of dismay, she rushed out to the garden, and was astonished to see that her clothes were all completely dry.

  As she wondered if Mr Bramble was somehow responsible for this, he emerged from behind the bramble patch at the back of the garden, and tottered up the path towards her, crying out, “Oh isn’t it a wonderful morning? The rain has washed the air clean and I can smell the world again.”

  “Mr Bramble? Did you dry my clothes? It would have been a nightmare to go to school without my uniform today. Thanks!”

  Mr Bramble was a short, stout man who only came up to Percy’s elbow. Like all hegs, his twinkly black eyes were completely dark and had no whites. Hegs could pass for human, and mostly were, and yet there was something about them that also was not. Something that made most people in the witching world dislike them intensely. Percy disapproved of this prejudice. She had known Mr Bramble since she was a baby, and liked him very much.

  Eyeing up the clothing on the washing line, Mr Bramble’s bushy eyebrows drew together, and he said a little darkly, “No, it wasn’t me. It must have been him!”

  The last word was full of unusual venom for the little heg, who was usually overly polite and friendly.