A Head Full of Magic, page 5
“Goal!” Celeste cheered. “That’s 1-0 for the yellows! Good work, girls.”
This was outrageous! Where was Mr Augustus when we needed him? I scoured the pitch for evidence of his wig and spotted him smiling and waving in the direction of the staffroom. Ugh. Miss Patsy again. Everyone knew he fancied her.
“What do you mean, good work, girls?” Leena said, holding her foot and rubbing mud from her knees. She slowly hobbled to her feet. “You cheated! You hit me because you knew I was about to score.”
“I’m sorry you slipped, Leena, but there aren’t any rules against taking the ball from someone who got stuck in the mud.”
“I didn’t get stuck in the mud! You knocked me down with your stick! Just like you do every single week to Fleur, or someone else from our team.”
Mr Augustus finally spotted the commotion and blew his whistle to stop the heated bickering. “Come on, girls!” he said firmly, jogging across the field clutching his clipboard. “What’s going on?”
“She hit my foot to trip me up on purpose and she knows it. That goal should’ve been ours!”
“Right, come on, settle down. It’s just a game.”
Was he for real? This hockey tournament was fast becoming more important than the school Christmas performance rehearsals, and they rehearsed for an entire year.
“Everything alright, Celeste?”
“Yes, Mr Augustus! My hand just sort of felt a bit funny, almost numb-ish. It came on ever so suddenly, so I wiggled it a bit to stop the pins and needles, and I don’t know. I suppose, perhaps, my stick might’ve accidentally strayed into Leena’s path, but I didn’t mean it. It was a total accident.”
Mr Augustus watched Celeste, unconvinced, and then scratched his head. “Leena, you swap with Suki for a bit to make sure you’ve not twisted anything. Celeste, please be more careful. We’re building up to the Farrow Park Cup tournament not the Olympics.”
“Right you are, Mr A. Yes, of course. Sorry.”
Celeste skipped back to the centre of the field, leaving Leena to dejectedly limp over to the benches and recover. How did he keep missing Celeste’s devious tactics?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Telling Tales
The whistle blew and I made a point of sticking tight to my normal place, which is always at least three paces behind everyone else. It doesn’t make any difference. She still finds me. Technically, I’m supposed to be a midfielder, but I’m terrible at it. It doesn’t matter how hard I try; I never seem able to overcome my fear of getting belted by Celeste, which means I focus too much on defending my ankles than I do the actual game. I wish things could be different.
The ball was heading towards me, along with a stampede of classmates wielding sticks, and wearing red and yellow bibs which ballooned at speed. They looked like a human game of Connect 4, only less neat, and led by Celeste’s sweaty face which was morphing into the colour of a beetroot. No wonder really. It was baking hot without a cloud in the sky, which made the game more brutal than ever.
WHOOSH!
A fierce gust of wind slapped our faces, forcing my plaits to whip the opposite sides of my cheeks. A large, empty packet of prawn cocktail crisps had somehow glued itself to Celeste’s forehead with the force of the wind and covered her eyes. She couldn’t see a thing, and the packet refused to budge, despite her attempts to pull it off.
Suki seized Celeste’s sudden sight impairment as the perfect opportunity to effortlessly slog the ball back towards our goal at the opposite end of the field. Within seconds, Suki had passed to Jasmine, Jasmine passed to Emi, and before we knew it, Beau had tapped the ball between Ruby’s legs to secure an even point.
“One-all!” Mr Augustus shouted. “Great teamwork, girls, keep it up!”
Celeste finally managed to yank the crisp packet from her eyes and angrily threw it to the ground before marching up to the centre of the pitch where she waited for the whistle.
Mr Augustus didn’t hang about, and Celeste was off. She wasted no time in getting stuck in. Within seconds, she had elbowed Lydia, stamped on Rudi’s toe, and was about to hook my ankle, all without Mr Augustus noticing a thing—he was far too busy chatting up Miss Patsy through the staffroom window.
I could feel Celeste getting closer and closer behind me. My heart was beating so fast I didn’t know which one would escape first—my legs from her stick or my heart from my chest, but my efforts were futile. There was no way I could outrun her.
It was as if she blamed me for our team scoring against hers, even though I wasn’t anywhere near Beau when she scored the equalising goal. I’d been hovering several paces behind, as usual.
WHOOSH!
There it went again. Another strong gust of wind, this time blowing twigs from the willow trees and a couple of broken pinecones straight onto the pitch. Most of us managed to dodge the spikey foliage but Celeste was too busy stalking my ankles, and the ball, so she didn’t see a large pinecone on its side in the grass. She tripped right over it and fell heavily to the ground losing her hockey stick in the process.
Beau quickly passed the ball to Emi, who passed the ball to Rudi, who passed the ball to Suki, who passed the ball to me. I froze. I had never had my teammates pass me the ball before. I was always too busy fretting over my own ankles, so scoring an actual goal had never occurred to me, and now the team were counting on me to not let them down.
“Shoot, Fleur, shoot!” Suki yelled. “You can do it!”
Yes, I could.
I would.
Fleur Marie Bottom could do this.
WHACK!
My right ankle was on fire. Pain shot through my bones forcing me to collapse on the grass like a newly felled tree. I don’t know how she did it, but Celeste had somehow recovered from her pinecone calamity and reached my ankles before I even touched the ball.
My ears went all muffled, and the pain was excruciating as I struggled to regain composure. I looked up at the sky and could’ve sworn I saw Nan’s green slipper. Then her lavender cardigan seemed to flap ferociously above my head. Was I suffering from concussion?
Distant sounds slowly became clearer as I recognised cheers from the yellows (mainly Celeste), who had scored a second goal for her team in the last sixty seconds of the match.
The final whistle blew.
“2-1 to the yellows,” Mr Augustus said. “Well done, everyone. Don’t worry, reds, that was a great effort, and we’ve still got another two practices to enjoy before the deciding match on Friday. It’s your last day of Primary School too, so let’s make it one to remember. Then one of you lucky teams will be playing for the Farrow Park Cup during the summer holidays!”
“Enjoy?” muttered a voice somewhere close to me. “Who’s he kidding? They were terrible, weren’t they?”
I peered around to see who was talking but could only spot two mischievous squirrels, perched on a skinny branch of a crab-apple tree. Whoever had said it was right. I was terrible! Beau and Lydia helped me up. I vigorously shook my head in the hopes that it might take away some of my ankle pain.
“We’ve got you, Fleur. Are you okay?” Lydia asked.
I nodded.
“You’ve got to say something, Fleur. This has gone on long enough. You won’t have any ankles left at this rate,” Beau whispered.
“It’s okay, it’s not that bad,” I said. “Don’t say anything. Please. You know she’ll only start on you or one of the others if you do.”
What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stand up to Celeste and tell her that the way she treated people, the way she treated me, was unkind and wrong? Beau nervously bit her bottom lip as Mr Augustus came bounding over.
“Doing okay, Fleur?” he asked, concerned.
Beau and Lydia raised their eyebrows hopefully.
“You two go on ahead with the others. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said to them. They nodded and caught up with the reds to walk back to class.
The yellows had already skipped off the pitch to a chorus of ‘whoops’, ‘yesses’, and ‘get-ins’, although Celeste had strangely held back. She hovered near me, folding bibs into equipment bags.
“Fleur? Anything you want to tell me?” Mr Augustus asked. This was it. This was my moment to come clean and tell him all the horrible things Celeste had said or done since she’d arrived at our school. My chest tightened at the opportunity to finally shift the heavy weight of worry that I had been carrying around with me for months.
“Well, it’s Celeste,” I muttered. “She keeps tripping me up on purpose and doing other mean things too.”
There! I had finally plucked up the courage to be honest. My chest felt lighter at once. Perhaps I should have confessed sooner.
“What do you mean, tripping you up? I didn’t see anything. Did Leena put you up to this?”
“What? No, of course not.” I said, horrified.
“Look, I know she was cross that I took her out of the match to recover, but it’s not your place to get involved. You’ll have seen matches on the telly where other players interfere with a ref’s decision, and it never ends well, does it?”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s not just that; there are other things too—”
Mr Augustus raised a hand to stop me talking. “Come on, Fleur. I’m not about to give you a yellow card so don’t worry. You’re wanting to stick up for your friend, and that’s admirable, but let’s play by the rules, shall we? Cut Celeste a bit of slack. It’s not nice to have people gang up on you, telling tales. Plus, she’s still new, and desperate to fit in, and we want to make her feel welcome, don’t we?”
Celeste grinned behind Mr Augustus’s back, making an ‘L’ shape with her finger and thumb, silently calling me a loser.
“That settles it then. Let’s get back to class.”
Celeste quickly ran ahead to catch the others before Mr Augustus caught her. He trudged along too with bags full of equipment. I stayed where I was and fizzed at being told off for telling the truth. How could Mr Augustus have got things so wrong? He was useless!
WHOOSH!
A swirl of cold air blew a scent toward me that smelled strangely familiar like rose petals and peppermints. It reminded me of Nan.
I looked down to check if the bruise on my ankle had surfaced yet, as last week’s injuries went black straight away. There was zero evidence of anything so far, but a chess piece slumped in the grass diverted my attention. It was a black rook with hand-carved bricks, climbing ivy, and a castle door etched into the soft wood. Upon closer inspection, it looked exactly like the one from our chess set at home. Wait a minute, it was the one from our chess set at home.
Further along the pitch where the grass met the tarmac playground, I spotted something else. A scuffed and shabby, reddy-orangey notebook lay face down, almost as if it had been dropped from a great height. There was no mistaking it—it was Nan’s book but what on earth was it doing here?
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Book
The walk home from school took me slightly longer than usual, thanks to a throbbing ankle and bruised pride. I waited until I was alone before I found a free bench near the pond in Farrow Park, I needed space to read Nan’s book. It was nice to be momentarily free from the burden of Celeste and Ruby and Anais—even though I knew it would be tomorrow soon enough. At least the ducks appeared fearless. They glided along the water’s surface, making gentle ripples with their silky wings, and gathered in front of me.
“I haven’t got any bread, you know!” I jibed.
Ducks might look graceful, but I don’t trust them anymore than any other type of bird. Not after they joined in with the mass mobbing of my head the other week.
There were eight ducks in total. The largest one scuttled in front of the smaller ones and steered them sharply away from me. I wasn’t wearing a onesie made of barbed wire! I might not like them, but I wouldn’t hurt them. The lead duck looked on with indignation as he floated past.
“We actually prefer peas, pea-brain! Don’t you know anything?” he said, before whizzing further across the pond.
I gasped loudly. I saw that duck move his beak and talk to me, and this time there was no denying it.
I stood, scrutinising the area around me to make sure nobody was watching. These voices were becoming too much of a coincidence now. Part of me didn’t want to believe it was true, but I couldn’t keep ignoring it.
Yes, this was all totally, mind-blowingly petrifying, but on the other hand, how incredibly cool! My excitement got the better of me because by the time I had thought of something else to say to the stroppy duck to test out my talking abilities, they had disappeared behind an island in the middle of the pond.
I finally reached inside my school cardigan and unclenched my armpit, which is where I had kept Nan’s book since the end of hockey. I didn’t want to risk anyone getting hold of it or reading it before me. Celeste had been watching me like a hawk all afternoon, like she could sense something was out of place, although I was pretty confident that she hadn’t suspected a thing.
I had to find out what was so important to Nan that meant she never strayed far without it. I did one final sweep around the park to make sure I was alone—apart from the ducks bobbing back into view occasionally—the coast was clear. I quickly opened the first page, which read:
If found, please return to:
Nellie Prudence Bottom
673 West Everitt Road
North Fincham
London
NNE1 0ZE
I didn’t know Nan’s middle name was Prudence! It made her sound ancient. I know she’s old at nearly ninety, but she doesn’t act it. Not with me anyway.
I turned the page to the first double-spread, hoping to find something revealing. My tummy flipped at the thought of what Nan might have written. Something that might be of assistance to me, for example, ‘What to do if you suddenly find out you can talk to, and understand, an African Grey parrot, and possibly a shed-load of other animals.’ That kind of thing.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read:
Crackers
Peppermints
Prawn Cocktail Crisps
It was Nan’s shopping list! I sighed, there must be something in her book worth reading. I looked through the first few pages and there was nothing exciting to see at all. It was just full of shopping lists and addresses.
I skipped ahead a few more pages which, disappointingly, included more of the same. List after list, more addresses, worst shops to buy wool.
Nan’s book was fast turning into a bore-fest. Until I reached three pages from the middle and things started to get interesting.
10:52am: Elsie Steaddington arrives home.
11:15am: Stanley Burrows leaves Klassy Kutz.
12:20pm: Raymond Anderson catches the number 32 bus (double-decker).
Row upon row of timed entries stared me in the face. They went on and on, page after page. I flicked further forward: two, four, eight, twelve pages and it was all similar stuff. Line upon line of recorded movements of people I didn’t know, apart from Elsie Steaddington who has lived around here since, well, forever. Why would Nan be spying on other people she barely knew?
I tried searching for clues elsewhere in her book and eventually, six pages from the back, I found a page entitled ‘Special Gifts’. It didn’t look like your average list of birthday present ideas. For a start, Nan had included herself at the top. Something didn’t add up as I forensically examined every word that followed:
Special Gifts
Nell Bottom: Invisible Flyer and Gift Spotter (Aerolator and Spylator)
Elsie Steaddington: Unknown
Stanley Burrows: Sticky Hands (Gripalator)
Raymond Anderson: Magnetic Skin (Magnalator)
Evan Quayle: Disappears (Disalator)
Sol Durston: Speed (Boltalator)
Fleur Marie Bottom: Talks to Animals? (Animalator)
I dropped Nan’s book in shock. It landed in a dried-up puddle, which covered my feet in dust. There was too much to take in. Was any of it true? Flying? Magnetic skin? Nan?! Why would she have written that stuff down? It was baffling. Unthinkable.
Suddenly, Nan’s age struck me. I felt terrible for thinking it, but what if she was losing her marbles? I mean, come on, there was no way she could fly. It was ridiculous. Nobody could fly. Not properly. Not unless you were a movie star supported by a million special effects. Besides, if one of my family members announced they could fly, I was pretty sure I’d have known about it beforehand. You couldn’t live that close to someone without knowing, could you?
I was left with only two possibilities for Nan’s silly book entries: age-related dementia or a lively imagination. As her mind was still sharper than mine and Mum’s put together, I settled on the second option.
I restlessly tapped the bench and jiggled my feet, because, what if there was an option three that should’ve been option one in the first place? That Nan might actually have written the truth all along because it sure had looked like her slipper and cardigan in the sky this morning. And I definitely could hear Sir Barclay and some other animals talking. I took a deep breath. What if magic was an actual thing and I really was an Animalator?
I picked up Nan’s book and held it against my chest. Nan had a lot of explaining to do. I closed my eyes towards the sun trying to process it all, but there was so much to take in. Nan, Sir Barclay, animals, magic. Where did it begin? Had Nan known all this forever? It upset me to think that she had kept humongous secrets from me. Why didn’t she tell me? She could trust me. I wouldn’t say a word. Not if she didn’t want me to.
Startled by loud quacks, I spotted the same group of ducks coming back towards me. It felt like as good a time as ever.
“Excuse me!” I said to the lead duck who still looked cranky. “I know I can hear you and I think you can hear me, but can you understand everything I say?”
The duck said nothing.
Aaagh! What was I thinking? I should’ve stuck with option two and a lively imagination. Perhaps I was the one losing my marbles.
