Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

any magic,” he said. “I’ll have nothing like that here. Nothing stupid. This place is in a time apart from any other time, and you must behave yourselves here.” He went out through the door and shut it behind him. They heard a bolt shoot home on the other side of it.
    That door was the only way out of the basement. The only other opening in the stone walls was a high-up window, fast shut and too dirty to see through, which let in a meager gray light. Cat and Tonino stared from the door to the window, and then at one another. “What did he mean,” asked Tonino, “to do no magic? Can you do magic?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Cat. “Can you?”
    “I—I can’t remember,” Tonino said miserably. “I am blank.”
    So was Cat, whenever he thought about it. He was uncertain of everything, including why they were here and whether he ought to be frightened about it or just miserable. He clung to the two things he was certain about: Tonino was younger than he was, and Cat ought to be looking after him.
    Tonino was shivering. “Let’s find the brooms and start sweeping,” Cat said. “It’ll warm us up, and he’ll give us something to eat when we’ve done it.”
    “He might ,” Tonino said. “Do you believe him or trust him?”
    “No,” said Cat. This was something else his fuzzy mind was clear about completely. “We’d better not give him an excuse not to give us any food.”
    They found two worn-down brooms and a long-handled dustpan in the corner by the stairs, along with a heap of amazingly various rubbish—rusty cans, cobwebby planks, rags so old they had turned into piles of dirt, walking sticks, broken jars, butterfly nets, fishing rods, half a carriage wheel, broken umbrellas, works of clocks, and things that had decayed too much for anyone to guess what they had once been—and they set about cleaning the room.
    Without needing to discuss it, they started at the end where the stairs were. It was clearer that end. The rest of the room was filled with a clutter of old splintery workbenches and broken chairs, which got more and more jumbled toward the far end, where the entire wall was completely draped in cobwebs, thicker and dustier than Cat would have thought possible. For another thing, when they were near the stairs, they could hear Master Spiderman creaking and muttering about in the room overhead, and it seemed reasonable to think that he could hear them, too. It was in both their minds that if he heard them truly hard at work, he might decide to bring them something to eat.
    They swept for what seemed hours. They used the least smelly of the old rags for dusters. Cat found an old sack, into which they noisily poured panloads of dust, cobwebs, and broken glass. They thumped with their brooms. Tonino hauled out another load of rubbish from another corner, making a tremendous clatter, and found the mattresses among it. They were filthy, lumpy things, so damp they felt wet.
    Cat slammed about making a heap of the most broken chairs and hung the mattresses over it in a gust of mildew smell, to air. By this time, slightly to Cat’s surprise, more than half the room was clear. Dust hung in the air, making Tonino’s nose and eyes run, filling their clothes and their hair, and streaking their faces with gray. Their hands were black, and their fingernails blacker. They were hungry, thirsty, and tired out.
    “I need a drink,” Tonino croaked.
    Cat swept the stairs a second time, very noisily, but Master Spiderman gave no sign of having heard. Perhaps if he called out. . .? It seemed to take a real effort to muster the courage. And, somehow, Cat could not bring himself to call Master Spiderman Master, try as he would. He knocked politely on the door and called out, “Excuse me, sir! Excuse me, please, we’re terribly thirsty.”
    There was no reply. When Cat put his ear to the door, he could no longer hear any sounds of Master Spiderman moving about. He came gloomily back down the stairs.