A Head Full of Magic, page 7
Sir Barclay’s flapping made such a fuss it was a wonder he hadn’t disturbed the dead. It was lucky Nan couldn’t understand what he was saying although the squawks would still be deafening.
“Shh,” I said. “Just give us a minute, will you? Nan’s trying to tell me something.”
“Did you say something?” Nan asked. “I didn’t quite catch you. It’s all these tubes. Either that or your mum’s right about my hearing after all.” She let out a little chortle, which quickly turned into a chesty cough.
Sir Barclay continued to flap furiously until he changed tack, repeatedly pecking on the window instead to make his point fully known.
“Squawk! Hurry up, Fleur! Go and get a nurse or a doctor! Squawk!”
“I will, just give us a minute!” He was beginning to wind me up now.
“Fleur?” Nan frowned. “Who are you talking to? Listen to me, baby.”
“Sorry Nan.”
Her fragile eyelids bobbed up and down. They were paper-thin, like butterfly wings.
Sir Barclay was now strutting along the window-ledge, pecking the window and thin air. Could he have been any more annoying? I got the message!
“Shall I nip out, Nan, and get Mum or one of the nurses? I won’t be long.”
I stood up, but Nan tightly clutched my hand, making me wince.
“Fleur, baby, wait. This is serious.”
So was keeping Sir Barclay quiet but I couldn’t tell Nan that. I felt as though I was fizzing, as panic filled my entire body. Was Nan about to share her dying wishes with me? I didn’t know what to do. I glanced at the window and saw the irate parrot flapping, strutting and squawking outside.
“I’m not going to cark it yet, if that’s why you’re looking so worried,” Nan said reassuringly, which helped to reduce the fizzy feeling. “But I’m exhausted so you need to listen to me. Quickly, before your mum gets here and puts me on a three-bean bouyon diet.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I glanced at the window. Sir Barclay had finally disappeared too, so I could at least give Nan my full attention. I sat on the bed, and Nan held my hand even tighter than her hair bun, which appeared to have loosened against the stiff pillows. Nan pulled off her face mask and knocked it to the floor. It was the first time I noticed three, spiky whiskers growing out of her chin. Really long ones.
“Secrets are exciting, Fleur,” Nan said, her eyes repeatedly flickering open and shut. “But the minute they make you feel worried and uneasy, that’s when you realise they’re not actually secrets anymore—they’re problems, and believe me, problems don’t disappear—not until you’ve dealt with them properly.”
I tried to swallow the boulder-sized lump in my throat, because I immediately thought of Celeste and how she treated me. Was this Nan’s way of warning me that she knew about it? Or that I had read her book? That I knew about magic? She suddenly opened her eyes fully and placed her bony hand on my face. It was freezing cold.
“Promise me that you won’t bottle things up, Fleur. Can you do that for me? It’ll only make things worse in the end.” She tapped my temple gently with the tip of her finger. It was like ice. “I’m talking about what’s in here. Don’t ignore what’s going on. Because your true gifts will—”
SMACK!
Sir Barclay faceplanted the window, making me jump up in fright. He was annoyingly persistent.
“Squawk! What are you two jibber-jabbering about?” Sir Barclay didn’t appear to have hurt himself as he continued to grow more furious and more flap-some outside Nan’s window. “Fleur Marie Bottom don’t ignore me! Squawk! Tell me what’s going on!”
Two sparrows and an overweight pigeon flew down onto the same ledge.
“Can’t you keep the noise down?” one of the sparrows asked. “You’re giving us a headache!”
“Sounds like there’s a party going on outside that we’re not invited to.” Nan smiled. “Such a lovely sound, though, isn’t it? The chirping of birds.” She closed her eyes.
I couldn’t think straight with Sir Barclay tapping and flapping outside along with the other disgruntled hospital birds. Nan was trying to tell me something important. I sprang up from the bed and yanked the window shut to hear Nan properly, silencing Sir Barclay in the process.
“Sorry, Nan. What were you saying?”
“I said, don’t ignore what’s going on in your mind because your true gifts will only shine through when you face your biggest fears. Bottling up your worries won’t do anyone any favours; believe me, I know all too well what happens when—”
“Nell!” Mum squealed, sloshing hot coffee all over the mint-green floor. “Oh, thank goodness, we thought we’d lost you!”
Nan remained silent, unable to finish what she was trying to tell me, as Mum was already covering her face with kisses before calling the doctors and nurses to join us.
Nan opened her eyes again. They were still full of sparkle and glistened away.
“I’m not going anywhere just yet, my dear—believe me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zimmer Somersault
It was strange sitting in Nan’s bedroom without her, especially in the dark. We had reluctantly left her in hospital overnight on doctors’ orders—something about final checks and observations.
Mum had been asleep on the sofa for almost an hour since we got back. I decided not to wake her, opting instead to tiptoe up to Nan’s attic-room and read the rest of her book. It was still in my bag, along with her chess piece, both of which I would put back where they belonged before Nan twigged they were missing. I also wanted to see if Sir Barclay needed anything.
He wasn’t there, but the window was wide open for his return. The balmy scent of takeaway pizza and exhaust fumes wafted around Nan’s room as I peered out to see if he was nearby. He wasn’t, but I stayed anyway to watch life going on around me because Nan had the best view of the street from her little window.
You could see the hustle and bustle from the shops. Cars to-ing and fro-ing along the main road and in contrast, the tranquillity of Farrow Park opposite. I liked watching it unfold. I felt involved yet hassle free, which was a million miles from how I felt on a hockey pitch.
As I sat on the window seat, which was scattered with bright yellow, white, and blue patchwork cushions, it occurred to me that this could be the spot where Nan watched everyone below and wrote all the timed entries in her book.
“Ow!” I said as I wriggled to get comfy.
Something hard poked into my hip from underneath the cushions. I dug about to see what it was and pulled out two items. First there was a pen that had bite marks around the red lid, followed by a weird telescope thing. Bingo! This was the spot where Nan did her spying.
The smooth, metal telescope felt cool in my warm palm as I inspected it. I already knew Nan had ridiculously strong hands after she squeezed mine at the hospital. The weight of the telescope confirmed it fully because mine quickly started to ache. It didn’t look very startling. It was short and chunky, like an old piece of pipe, and the only distinctive feature was a raised button halfway down the middle. I pressed it firmly, and the short telescope quickly grew to the size of a flute. I moved it close to my eye and peered through the lens. I couldn’t believe it! I could see for miles. Naughty Nan! This wasn’t some shoddy piece of kit, this was a serious telescope used by a serious spy, perhaps even to undertake a secret mission.
Its reach was incredible. I could literally see the tiny teeth of a tabby cat chomping on a discarded kebab up the road. The seemingly black tiles on the roof of St. Joseph’s church, which were in fact green, thanks to an eruption of ivy and moss around its chimney. The white ‘smalls’ hanging from Mrs Ball’s washing line and (according to Nan’s supersonic lens) turned out to be a pink floral pattern and not so small after all.
I moved Nan’s powerful telescope to the right of Farrow Park and towards the row of terraced houses across the street which looked exactly like ours. My gaze immediately glued to Elsie Steaddington who was creeping through Farrow Park using her three-wheeled walking frame for extra support. It was called a Zimmer Ultraweight Plus. I wouldn’t have spotted it in a million years without the telescope.
Elsie was wearing a poppy-red, knitted dress and yellow cardigan, which had two buttons missing from the bottom. According to Mum, Elsie Steaddington has always lived around here since Mum was a little girl at least, and she is famously known by everyone for being incredibly S. . . L. . . O. . . W.
I mean, it was great that she got out and about so much at her age, but it was bad luck if you got stuck behind her on the walk home from school. Even the snails overtook her! I watched her painfully make the trip through Farrow Park towards her house, all scrunched and hunched over her Zimmer frame, taking care with every step, pausing frequently to catch her breath. To you or me, she was about thirty seconds away from her front door. At Elsie Steaddington speed however, she was at least another twenty minutes off.
Then something strange happened which made me sit bolt upright. Instead of walking out of Farrow Park and along the busy road to her front door, she paused against the row of tall conker trees behind her back garden. She edged herself a little closer—checking first that nobody else was around and then—PING!
Elsie Steaddington sprang from her knees, into the air, and somersaulted over the large trees. Not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES! Still clutching her Zimmer frame. I couldn’t believe it! The slow, old lady who was even smaller and frailer than Nan, had mounted a twenty-five-foot tree and landed neatly in her own back garden on the opposite side of her fence.
Nan was right! She knew Elsie Steaddington had a special gift; she just hadn’t fathomed out what it was yet, but I had. I bit the skin around my fingernail to distract me from missing Nan and the amazement of what I had witnessed. It didn’t feel right though. Nan should’ve been here with me. She should’ve been the one witnessing Elsie’s amazing twenty-five-foot tree somersault, not me. This was all becoming too much, but what should I do now? What would Nan do?
I nervously clicked the bottom of Nan’s pen, replaying in my head what Nan had said to me at the hospital. “Believe me, my dear.”
Of all the things she could have said to me, why did she choose that? What was so important that she wanted to tell me in secret and out of everyone else’s range? There had to be more to it.
I racked my brain trying to recall our whole conversation, missing out the bits where Sir Barclay had acted like a spoilt, squawking loon. I knew he wanted to make sure Nan was okay, but she hadn’t asked to talk to him first, had she? She had wanted to talk to me.
It was upsetting to flash back to Nan’s hospital room seeing her looking old and weak. It brought back all the sadness that had happened over the last year, like losing Grandpa Willie, and saying goodbye to Dad. I put my hands over my face and rubbed my eyes. Yes, things could’ve turned out differently, but they hadn’t, and I was beyond grateful that we still had Nan. I slapped my cheeks to snap me out of my lull and get back to remembering what Nan had said before she was smothered by Mum’s coffee-breath kisses.
That was it. She had started telling me not to bottle things up. About not ignoring my feelings so that my true gifts could shine through. True gifts! That was it! I jumped down from the window seat and found my schoolbag, where I had safely left the chess piece and Nan’s book earlier. It was obvious. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Nan would write down what she had seen using her special gifts—whether that be invisibly flying or telescope detective work—in her book. I knew what I had to do for her. I had to write down exactly what had just happened like all the other stuff she had captured.
I fumbled around in my schoolbag desperately trying to find Nan’s book, which I was sure I had put back. My frustration quickly turned to tears as I realised Nan’s book and the chess piece were nowhere to be seen. I must have dropped them earlier.
In desperation I looked through Nan’s telescope to see if Sir Barclay was around. He could help me. He was the only one who could, but disappointingly, he was nowhere to be seen. I scoured the sky, the lampposts, the tiled roofs, but nothing. He had completely disappeared.
I zoomed the lens to the bench where Sir Barclay and I had sat before Mum told us about Nan, and my whole body grew hot. Hotter and sweatier than Nan’s stuffy hospital ward, because I knew exactly what had happened to Nan’s book.
I watched a girl bend down to pick something up from underneath the bench. She stood, glancing around furtively, clutching Nan’s chess piece and notebook. I recognised the smirk instantly. Of all the people to find Nan’s missing things, why did it have to be Celeste?
I crunched my teeth together fiercely. I didn’t know who I was most cross with—Celeste for finding Nan’s book, or me for dropping it in such a hurry. What if she had already uncovered Nan’s strange entries in the middle and put two and two together? It might’ve sounded like a stretch too far, but it wasn’t entirely impossible.
This was a disaster, and for the first time, I wished I had opened up to Nan and told her everything that had been going on at school recently. If I had, then she would be snuggled up in her armchair right now instead of lying in a horrible hospital bed.
I followed Celeste with Nan’s telescope as she dashed back to the main path then stopped abruptly. Up ahead, Ruby and Anais were energetically waving to get her attention. She quickly hid Nan’s book behind her back, then stuffed it down into her waistband, and pulled her T-shirt over the top, obscuring it from view. The three of them then waltzed off without a care in the world, and all I could do was watch.
From Nan’s bedroom, I continued to hunt high and low along our street. Celeste, Ruby and Anais had disappeared, and to make matters worse, I still couldn’t find Sir Barclay anywhere. The only observation of mild interest was next door’s cocker spaniel, Freddie, jumping up and down at his gate. I whistled down to the wagging ball of excitement to see if he could hear me. What was I thinking? Of course, he would hear me. It was a whistle, and he was a dog.
But then, I thought, what if he could actually hear me? As in, hear and understand me talking to him, like the other creatures and animals I had heard the last couple of days. I still thought the idea of me being an Animalator was staggering, but my heart also fluttered crazily, because as staggering as it was, I knew it could happen.
“Freddie! Freddie!” I called out. Freddie looked up, confused, unsure where the high-pitched voice had come from. “Up here, Freddie! There’s a good boy!”
He clocked me the second time around and seemed to get even more excited although he didn’t talk back. This was unusual. Did this mean not all animals could hear me after all? I rubbed my forehead and contemplated my next move. I decided to give it one more try.
“Freddie! Hi, Freddie! You haven’t seen our pet parrot lately, have you? Small, feathered thing with a big attitude!” Sir Barclay would be most disgruntled with the ‘pet’ reference, but he wasn’t around to comment.
Freddie jumped up and down again, his tongue flapping in the evening breeze. “Afraid not.” He panted. “Sorry, I’ve only just been let out.” I bent my knees and clapped. It had worked! I had done it! It still felt bonkers, and it was going to take a long time to get used to being an Animalator, but that’s what I was. Now I needed to find Sir Barclay, fast, to help me figure out what to do next.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For Nan
“Squawk! Heads up, nosey!” Sir Barclay swooped in through the window. His sharp talons narrowly missed my eye and Nan’s telescope.
“Sir Barclay, thank goodness! Where have you been? I was worried about you; you’ve been gone ages.” I sniffed. Relief at seeing him and knowing animals could properly understand me had turned me into an emotional wreck. “Oh, Sir Barclay. I’ve got tons to tell you, please, you’ve got to help me. I’m in such a mess.”
“Squawk! Oh, now you want my help! Squawk! Shame you didn’t think of this at the hospital earlier when you shut me out!”
“Look, I’m really sorry about that, but Nan was trying to tell me something important.”
He wasn’t interested and had already settled his claws on the middle perch in the Birdrobe that Nan had made for him. “Squawk! Poppycock! There’s nothing more important than your nan’s health, Fleur. You were just being selfish. Wanting to keep her all to yourself. Squawk!”
“What?! No, I wasn’t. I was trying to do what she asked only you kept twittering on! She only wanted a minute with me,” I protested. “And she was fine. They’ve said she’ll make a full recovery and might even be home by Sunday.”
Sir Barclay pointed his pompous beak towards the ceiling and pretended not to hear me, but the way he flinched his head to clear his eardrums was a dead giveaway. I could tell he’d heard me perfectly.
His rudeness was starting to irritate me like it had the night we first spoke when Nan nipped downstairs to the toilet. I clenched my fists and could feel my neck growing hot. Why had he been so insistent on stopping Nan from talking to me at the hospital? We had literally just agreed to work together as a team to figure out a book, wife, and chess piece plan.
“Aren’t you pleased?” I asked. He twitched his head once more and continued to ignore me. “Given you were so worried about Nan and her health, I thought you might be a little more relieved.” Finally, he looked at me. “Why were you so persistent at the hospital? Are you sure it was only Nan you were concerned about?”
“Squawk! And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” My neck felt hotter than ever. “Maybe you were more worried I was going to tell Nan about us and Dame Genevieve.”
“What? No! Certainly not!”
Boom! I had caught him out.
“Oh, come on, Sir Barclay! If you really care for Nan as much as you say you do, then now’s the time to be honest.”
“Oh, alright! I admit it. Squawk! I’m sorry, Fleur! I was worried that you’d tell her everything and that she’d feel betrayed, because where would that leave me? If it’s not your secret hospital chats, it’s your cosy little chess games where I get ignored in the corner, watching the pair of you have all the fun. It’s not like you genuinely need me, is it? You could quite easily ask your nan or any other animal to help you figure out your special gift.”
