Helen Speaks

Lucy Skylark Entry 25, 1^st September.

Dear Vera,

What a week. I’m pleased to say I’m back in my room at Dune House.

It was kind of Kim and Tanya to let me stay. The bed didn’t entirely last the night – I woke at 5am feeling like I was lying on a slab of rock. I tried to get some sleep but a few minutes later the door rattled open downstairs and I heard Kim humming to herself as she came up.

I do wonder what she does all night. The Encyclopaedia did not make it obvious. I wonder if I can ask Kim or Tanya in a way that doesn’t sound like I think she’s preying on innocent people and sucking their blood.

I heard Kim moving about for a while and then I think she must have gone to bed – just as the sun was coming up. I could hear the gulls calling… And my back ached.

I tapped Teddy’s case. He wisped out of it, swirled around a few times and then said, “Aw yeah, the pixies.”

“Yup.”

“How’s the bed?”

“Rock hard. I need to post a letter to Vera if you want to come?”

I didn’t know that end of town quite so well so we wandered for a little while before I found a postbox. The walk did help ease out the aches and pains.

I wonder if Kim has other accidental vampire friends? It felt so still and quiet, and that must get lonely sometimes.

“I’m glad I’ve got you, Teddy,” I said.

“Aw that’s sweet,” he said.

I must have been feeling maudlin, Vera, because that warm feeling of gratitude trickled away and I started to worry. Teddy is a loyal friend but he surely wasn’t meant to spend his afterlife helping a witch in a small English town – or was he? I wanted to ask him but I don’t think I can yet.

When we got back, I went back up to the upper floor and made a cup of tea in the kitchenette. Tanya came out a little later. I heard a snoring from her bedroom.

“Is that Kim?”

Tanya made her own cup of tea blearily. “You’d think she wouldn’t snore,” she said. “She doesn’t use the bathroom. She doesn’t eat much. She never gets a cold. But she snores like a thunderstorm. I’m convinced she does it on purpose. Breakfast?”

She made me some toast, then we went down to the café to eat. I sent Suniya a message – Pixie infestation in my room at Dune House. I’m staying at Dessert Island with Kim and Tanya – want to come over later? Then I helped Tanya get the café ready for the day – just the sound of the radio made me hope Suniya would come, but I occupied myself with cleaning and tidying, wiping tables, vacuuming the rugs and even the sofa (Tanya said it was the best way to clear the crumbs).

The café doesn’t open until 10am but there was a polite knock on the door at 9.30. Tanya had let me use her laptop to look up solutions for pixie infestations, and I didn’t notice until Kim ambled in, looking somehow dishevelled yet perfectly composed, said, “Friend of yours, Lucy?”

I scrambled out of my seat ready to greet Suniya – but it was Olive!

She looked a lot more like her old self that when I saw her a couple of weeks ago. She cast a slightly skeptical look around the shop – and then a skeptical look at me, wearing the mismatching clothes I’d managed to gather before escaping the infestation the day before. My t-shirt had a hole in it and the joggers had a stain near the knee that I hadn’t noticed… One look from Olive would make a fashion model feel scruffy.

I felt slightly better when Kim glided back in, wearing a ratty old dressing gown and a pair of flip-flops but glamorous as ever. Olive stared at her a moment clearly trying to figure this out, but eventually shook her head.

“It’s good to see you Lucy,” she said. “Though I didn’t expect to find you here. Have you fallen out with Aunty E?”

“No,” I said, feeling my face go hot. But maybe Olive could help. “Are you all right? Last time I saw you…”

She winced. “Could we… talk somewhere private?”

Oh. With Tanya’s permission I took her upstairs, made us drinks in the kitchenette, and invited her into the box room. Teddy took the hint and floated through down to the ground floor.

“You’re staying here?”

“It’s temporary.”

“I should hope so.”

She sat on the bed. “You slept on this? Feels like the beds in the san at my boarding school.”

“It’s not so bad with a little charm,” I said, taking out the mint and lavender bundle I’d made the night before and casting the spell to soften it again.

“Oh,” Olive said, relaxing back abruptly, and looking almost impressed until a box of ice cream cones fell off a high shelf onto her head seconds later.

“I’d better help you get back home,” she said. “But first… there were some things I wanted tell you.”

Sometimes it seemed like Olive breezed into Barkmouth and everything is easy for her. I’m still a little jealous of her at times. But she told me everything that had been going on and I honestly felt sorry for her. Despite the fact that I was temporarily lodged in a room smaller than – as she pointed out – her familiar Firenze’s enclosure.

At least I found out why she has a cat now – Pompom belongs to Maksym, my young miracle friend. She’s been training Maksym on the sly – well now it seems that his father has found out and she’ll be tutoring him at their home instead.

“Although I’m not sure what to teach him,” she said, “It seems I’m always starting again.”

“I’ve no idea what that’s like,” I said, looking pointedly around the room we were in and she laughed.

“Lucy?” Tanya called up. “Seems you’re popular today!”

I opened the door – Olive had to pull her legs out of the way, which she did as gracefully as she could manage – to find Suniya outside on the landing.

“Wow, you should have said you were staying here, I think I’ve got a more spacious wardrobe you could have slept in.”

“Hey!”

She laughed, and hugged me. And spotted Olive, perched on the end of the bed like an elegant owl.

“Oh – hello.”

The two of them considered each other for a moment. Of course they’d never met. I had a nervous, butterflies feeling though I wasn’t sure who for or why.

Olive straightened out as much as she could and offered a hand.

“Olive Framley.”

“Ah, palms read and fortunes told,” Suniya said, shaking her hand a little more than necessary, her lips twitching.

Olive remained serious – then raised her eyebrows and looked at me, until I looked back and she turned away. I thought I’d better show some decorum.

“Yes – Olive’s a friend and a colleague.”

“Niece of Lord Whatsit?”

“Lord Campbell,” Olive said. “But here I’d rather you know I’m the niece of Ermingarde Webfoot. And I’m not doing palm reading anymore…”

“Suniya’s a friend,” I said. “We do gardening together.”

“But not for your aunt,” she added.

“Ah, yes, I remember,” Olive said. Then she patted Suniya’s shoulder more chummily than I would expect from her. “We witches do make mistakes… But Lucy is one the best witches I know.”

Suniya’s cheeks reddened like Olive had just complimented her.

Olive gave me a smile that I can only describe as sly.

I didn’t know where all this was going. “Thanks for coming, both of you, but Teddy and I have a pixie infestation to solve…”

“That’s why we’re here, silly,” Suniya said. “You wouldn’t be camped out in Kim and Tanya’s storage cupboard if you could fix it alone, would you? Let’s make a plan – after we’ve had ice cream.”

After a round of large sundaes which Suniya relished, Olive pretended not to relish, and I managed about three mouthfuls of, Suniya took out a notebook and made a plan. She made a note of all of my potential resources and spells – she was fascinated but confused by the magical barrier. She also grilled Olive who grudgingly admitted that she could make heavy objects light, and could make people’s eye flash purple when they lie. Then Olive mentioned that she has a freezing rune – one that traps things in place, the one she used to catch the summer sprite.

Suniya put down her pen in a satisfied fashion. “Well, there you are. We need a box, Olive’s rune, Lucy’s barrier, and a safe place to drop these little pests. Is there a zoo for pixies?”

“We might be able to return them through the gateway at the cinema.”

“I knew there was something creepy about that place,” Suniya said. “And we need something to tempt them into the box. Ice cream?”

“I don’t think pixies eat human food,” I said – at least I’d found something in my internet research!

“Chaos,” Olive said. “You put all kinds of chaos in the box. Glitter and slime…”

“Tiny bricks of Lego – eggs!” Suniya said, giving a witch-like cackle.

“I’d still like to live in the room when we’re done,” I said.

I went to see if Teddy wanted to come with us – he was in the kitchen with Kim. He’d helped her make some salted caramel peanut ice cream. He looked overjoyed – smiling over his creation like a little boy.

Kim smiled. “We cold ones are pretty good at this dessert business.”

“We’ll have to try some to celebrate – when we’ve gotten rid of the pests. Suniya has a plan.”

What is it about a crisis, Vera, that sometimes makes the day fun? Suniya was delighted to have directed the solution of a magical predicament, and Olive was frankly gleeful about the tempting chaotic mess we were going to bait the pixies with, obscuring the rune she had drawn at the bottom of the box. She and Suniya even had a conversation about how freezing runes were used as a humane ecological trapping method in the wild, which I only understood every third word of. And she – Olive – kept looking at me with that sly smile.

At last, we were ready to set the trap. Teddy stayed back – I couldn’t bear to tear him from the joy of making ice cream.

I unstitched the barrier warily and we heard a blast of noise, laughter and clattering, squeaks and cheers, which hushed as soon as we turned the door handle.

The room looked terrible, Vera. Suki’s old nesting box was turned over, my drawings scattered, crumpled or torn. My bed clothes were on the floor and covered in ink, my lovely pens that you sent me were all out, open with the lids lost or broken.

Suniya put her arm around me, as I tried to hold it together. It had been fun, but now I felt dangerously on the verge of tears. I was glad Teddy hadn’t come – his wildflower garden had been knocked onto the floor, soil ground into the carpets.

I reached for the flowers, and those that still could crept up into my hands.

“Take them outside,” Suniya said. “And we’ll…”

Olive put her hand up suddenly. “Well they seem to have gone,” she said theatrically. “Why don’t we all leave, just after leaving this box of glitter here?”

She placed the box down, and asked with a movement of her eyebrows if I was ready.

Ready to catch these little vandals? Oh, I was very much ready.

Casually, we went back out to the landing, closed the door again – Olive took the flowers and their pot. We waited. More cheers, more noise and chaos – then a squeaking, a few yelps… Suniya made me wait a moment more for one last squeak to die down – and I went in and wrapped that box in a magical barrier net so strong that Titania herself couldn’t escape it. It gleamed, soft and silvery but stronger than steel over the box.

We did a few false exits, just to check if we had caught them all – and in a few minutes the effects of the rune wore off and a rambunctious party started in the box. The box knocked back and forth a little in my arms – but the pixies didn’t escape.

We dropped the box off at the cinema where the bored girl at the counter curled a lip at them but said it was “probably all Gary’s fault” and put it in a cupboard.

Olive left us then – mentioning needing to clean her oven of all things – but Suniya and I went to collect Teddy, give him lots of compliments on his ice cream, and to go back to Dune House. I’m so glad she came back with me. I knew Mrs Webfoot wouldn’t be happy with the mess. I salvaged some of the pens. And Suniya found some stain-remover for the sheets.

Suniya was amazing, wasn’t she? It’s the job of a witch to deal with these things – but she even dealt with the witches!

And maybe it’s all right that Teddy, an American ghost from the prohibition era, can help an English witch in a small town. Maybe he just needs to have the childhood he didn’t get.

Your friend,

Lucy.