Catweazle by Richard Carpenter Read Free Book Online

farm was cursed, could you uncurse it?’
    ‘Ay, if I knew the curse.’
    ‘Like poisons and antidotes you mean?’
    There was silence while Carrot thought hard. Finding the curse was not
going to be easy, especially as he had no idea where to start.
    ‘Stuffy!’ he cried suddenly. Catweazle jumped and then crossed his
fingers in case the boy was beginning a spell. ‘Stuffy Gladstone,’ Carrot
explained. ‘He runs the museum; he’s the curate or something. He came to the
school and bored us stiff about local history.’ Catweazle kept his fingers
firmly crossed. What was the young sorcerer talking about?
    ‘If Hexwood’s got a curse on it, Stuffy’ll know about it. Anyway I bet
he can look it up. That place is full of old books. Look after Beelzy, I’ll be
back.’
    Climbing down the water tower, Carrot set off across the Forestry Estate
towards Old Westbourne House, an ugly Jacobean mansion, part of which contained
the Westbourne and District Folk Museum. What he didn’t know was that Catweazle
was following some way behind him, drawn by the mention of old books.
    As Carrot disappeared round a sharp bend, Catweazle stopped to examine
the huge magic letters that some sorcerer had painted on the road. He had never
seen a ‘Slow’ sign before, and he couldn’t read it anyway. He knelt down on the
road and traced the shape of the giant ‘S’. ‘’Tis a serpent,’ he muttered and
then as he became aware of a threatening noise behind him he glanced round. His
eyes widened with fear. Racing down the road was a snarling, scarlet monster.
It bore down on him, hooting and roaring, and he dived into the ditch as the
red sports car shot past and skidded round the bend.
     

     
    Catweazle waited some time before he crawled shakily from the muddy
ditch, and as he did so he heard another car coming. ‘It hath my scent,’ he
muttered, ‘I cannot escape,’ and once more he dived into the ditch.
    Apollo Twelve, with Sam Woodyard driving it, came rattling round the
bend. Clouds of black smoke poured from the exhaust pipe as the old car shook
its way along the road. In his imagination, Sam was battling his way round the
tricky bends of the Zandvoort circuit in Holland, with a tenacious Italian
driver on his tail. In reality he was going to get some chicken wire to repair
the fence.
    Catweazle watched his enemy drive past. ‘Faster than the wild boar,’ he
muttered, ‘and men sit inside!’ He was in a world peopled with sorcerers. Now
all men followed the magic path.
    He rose from the ditch as a third car came by. The driver hooted at him,
thinking he was about to cross.
    ‘Blow your trumpets, my brothers!’ he called after the car as he set off
to catch up with the boy.
    Carrot had reached Westbourne House by now. Inside the main hall an
arrow pointed the way to the Folk Museum. As he went in, Carrot saw the small
weedy figure of Mr Gladstone, standing in front of a party of straw-hatted
schoolgirls.
    ‘Cernunnos, the Romans called him,’ droned Stuffy, pointing to a
primitive little stone statue on a plinth beside him. ‘Incomplete, I’m afraid.
Originally he had two heads, like Janus, you know.’
    ‘Who’s Janus, Miss Arthur?’ orie of the girls asked the teacher in
charge of the party. ‘Ssh, Daphne,’ said Miss Arthur, who was the games
mistress.
    ‘We’re lucky to see Cernunnos at all,’ Stuffy ploughed on. ‘Although he
was originally found near here, he lives at the British Museum. Professor
Honnerton arranged the loan and he’s coming today to collect our friend.’
    ‘Well, thank you, Mr Gladstone,’ Miss Arthur interrupted neatly. ‘May we
...?’ and she indicated the other rooms.
    ‘Do, do,’ said Stuffy. ‘If there’s anything else I can illuminate ...’
    Miss Arthur and the girls began wandering off as Carrot came up to
Stuffy. ‘Excuse me, Mr Gladstone,’ he said.
    Tes?’
    ‘I wonder if you can help me. I’m Edward Bennet and I live at Hexwood
Turkey Farm -