Clearheart (6 page)

Ella could feel Dixon flipping about in her pocket. She unzipped it. The pixie leapt up and backwards over her plate, winking to her playfully on his way. He was truly nutty tonight. Ella hoped he hadn't found any sugar anywhere, for his behaviour almost suggested slight Trogglification. Though it wasn't that unusual for Dixon to be overexcited. Perhaps she was reading too much into things.

‘Oh, Flitterwigs are cool! Cool. Rhymes with school! That's all I have to say,' Dixon sang as he sat cross-legged. He looked up at Samantha gooily, his chin resting in his hands. Ella hushed him urgently. ‘You don't want to get caught, do you?' she said.

Dixon slapped his hand over his mouth and stared up at her obediently.

Samantha squealed with delight. ‘Now we're allowed to fraternise with Magicals legally, maybe I can find one of you to hang out with me!' she said.

‘You know that is not allowed,' said Humphrey shaking his head.

Charlie contemplated taking his specs off so he didn't have to watch Dixon make such a fool of himself, but he thought better of it, realising he wouldn't be able to see his dinner if he did. Charlie still couldn't see or sense magic very well without his magical spectacles. Spectacles that had been found in his attic by his father, who, too shy to take his son to the optometrist to treat Charlie's short-sightedness, had hoped these would do the trick. Well they had, plus some! Poor Charlie. Even Ella, who had needed her magical spectacles at first, didn't anymore. The only other Flitterwigs at Hedgeberry who still needed magical spectacles were the kids in kindergarten.

‘Hey, can I be your partner in Environmental Science tomorrow?' Samantha asked Ella. ‘You're ever so good at it.'

‘Sure,' said Ella, shaking all dark thoughts from her mind. For after eleven years of not having friends, it was pretty pleasant to finally have some.

Charlie grinned a gap-toothed grin at Humphrey. Humphrey shrugged back and flicked his hair out of his eyes. He managed
a miserable nod.

‘Oh goody,' said Dixon, smiling adoringly at Ella. Pulling himself out of Samantha's clutches, he hopped back into the top pocket of Ella's dungarees. ‘Glad you'll have someone who adores me to learn with tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, rhymes with hollow,' he said. Ella shook her head and patted her feather-headed friend lovingly. Dixon was simply revelling in Samantha's attentions.

From her place at the front of the dining hall Gloria watched Ella closely. She tapped a finger rhythmically on the underside of the table. Olive Pumpernickle leaned over the table and nudged Gloria on the shoulder.

‘Are you all right?' she asked.

Gloria looked at Olive Pumpernickle, and Olive Pumpernickle, who was terribly brown, turned perfectly white. For Gloria's eyes had become black and empty. They glinted with a disturbing hunger that made Olive Pumpernickle go quite cold inside. It was as if Gloria wasn't herself anymore.

‘I'm fine,' said Gloria. But to Olive Pumpernickle, Gloria didn't sound fine at all. Indeed, to Olive Pumpernickle it sounded as if Gloria had eaten a whole bush of holly, her voice was such a shallow rasp.

Gloria stood up from the table and slunk out of the dining
hall. Olive Pumpernickle couldn't be sure, but if she was not much mistaken, Gloria was wearing a tail tonight. Olive Pumpernickle shivered. She shook her head and banished the thought from her mind. ‘Tail indeed,' she thought to herself. ‘Odd things might happen here at Hedgeberry, but who wears a tail, for Magic's sake!'

After dinner, Ella encouraged Dixon and Charlie to return to their rabbit interviews. Slipping out a back door, Ella sailed off across the grounds on her skateboard, grateful for the release its speed brought her and the distraction the act of concentrating on bends and hills and slopes gave her. She came to rest at the foot of the oak tree Gloria Ulnus was so protective of. She knew she should stay away from it, if only to keep Gloria off her back, but there was something so soothing about the rustling of its leaves and the swaying of its branches. She almost felt drawn to it, as if by some unknowable force.

‘Asquemi, asquemi,'
the Spirit Tree whispered. Ella closed her eyes and let the sound still the sense of foreboding in her tummy.

‘Blasted Clearheartedness,' yelled the Duke as he flew up out of a great bowl of water. ‘I can't get to her.' Shaking his body fiercely as it dried instantly, he pulled his velvet cloak about him and pointed his finger at a huddle of Troggles eating liquorice sticks in the corner of his richly decorated new hideaway. Elf dust flew from his fingertip. He zapped one, then another, then another, just to clear the frustration. Ragwald sighed. He wished the Duke wouldn't do that. Such a depletion of his minions contradicted everything that a Magical should stand for.

But the Duke was becoming less and less like a Magical every day. For he was learning more and more about the ways of the human world, and how little loyalty they had to their own. He had read of wars, but he had never really been able to believe that a human would blow up others of their kind just to be in charge, just because they thought themself to be right. Now that he had been on Earth for a number of months, however, he understood that human ambition knew no limits. Why should
this ruthlessness not extend to Magicals, and any other kind of creature too?

Something was happening to him. Something darker than his hunger for progress and power. Something even he could not explain. For the Duke was no longer content to simply introduce mechanical progress to Magus, as he had been when he first came to Earth. Forget introducing cars and planes. Now he wanted guns, tanks, bombs. He wanted domination. He wanted control. Oh yes. For the Queen had humiliated him too much by outsmarting him with the Clearheart months ago.

And to succeed in his mission, he needed that Clearheart. Primarily because her tears were the most powerful antipollutant known to magicals. But also because, without her the Dewdrops would never do his bidding on Earth, and while he could Shrinkify and Stretchify both objects and living creatures, he could not do so with anywhere near the speed and efficiency of the Dewdrops. Not in the quantities required. The Sacred Dewdrops of Magus contained the most potent magic of all. There was no magic more powerful than theirs. If the Duke was to overtake Magus soon, he needed many weapons and an army. Only the Dewdrops could perform such extensive Shrinkification on Earth and
Magic knows, they would never do so without the Clearheart's blessing.

The Duke tapped on the top of the Waters in his wooden bowl. Saul appeared there at once.

‘The Clearheart is too resistant to me, I can't take her,' the Duke said furiously. ‘She seems to have some sort of inbuilt defence against me, or my evil intent. Or something of that sort. We will have to take your approach.' The Duke scowled like a spoilt child who hasn't got his way.

‘I have it covered,' said Saul gruffly. He was not at all surprised at this turn of events. The Duke had failed before when he had tried to overwhelm Ella through Possessification of another. (Possessification of the Clearheart herself was out of the question. The idea was ludicrous. The child's heart, her intentions, were far too pure for the possibility to even be entertained.)

‘How are you going with the procurement of arms and weapons?' the Duke asked.

‘It is slow,' said Saul. ‘We have some supplies, but negotiations are not going as quickly as I had hoped. We will need the Clearheart anyway, to fulfil our plan. So until we have her, there is time. Be patient.' The Duke growled and stamped his foot. He drew his face close to Saul's in the Waters.

‘
I
must be patient?
I
must be patient!' he yelled, splintering the reflection in the Waters with his words. ‘I have waited hundreds of years for this moment.
I
have all the patience in the world!'

Saul held his tongue. The Elf Duke was the Elf Duke, after all. The most powerful Magical being of all, save his wife, the Elf Queen. It would not do to anger him.

‘Just bring me the Clearheart,' said the Duke, turning his back on Saul and reaching out his hand to Ragwald for a goblet of Antidote to clear the pollution that still coursed through his veins from his short spell in Gloria's body in England.

It was a risky ploy, granted. So much could go wrong. He was confident, however, that Saul's predictions were probably correct. He would use Ella's Clearhearted qualities—love and goodness and care and foolish traits like that—to lure her into his trap.

And this time he would not fail.

In the Duke's former kingdom of Magus, four white elves departed from the diminutive halls of the Magusian Palace. They had been granted an audience with an aide of Mr Elton Wrinkles, the Queen's Goblin Protector, as Wrinkles was sick
with the flu. The magnificent citadel, home to the Queen and, formerly, the Duke, soared up above them, its turrets and spires wrought of an unimaginable water—a water that bonded like molten diamond melded with mercury, both liquid and solid at once.

It sat upon a hill of such brilliant green that it veritably sparkled. The blue of the sky and the green of the pastures reflected off the walls of the citadel, casting sprays of shining natural colour through the crisp, clean air. Beyond the hill, the kingdom spread out, a patchwork of tiny crystal homes surrounded by nature. Not a road, not a telegraph pole, not a bulging, burping factory in sight.

More white elves were to be sent to Hedgeberry, to keep watch over the Clearheart. The incident in the loggia, which they had recounted to Wrinkles' aide, was something of note, the aide had told them, but hardly a matter for panic. What a pity that the aide never remembered to pass the information on.

‘Something's up with you and I'm going to find out what it is,' Gloria hissed at Ella, who found herself, most unfortunately, sitting next to her nemesis in Transmogrification. Ella chose to ignore the girl. There was nothing about her today that made
Ella feel threatened. Best to say nothing, her instincts told her.

Dixon's instincts were clearly not so well primed. She felt him struggling to get out of her pocket. Avoiding eye contact with Gloria, Ella moved discreetly to the back of the class in order to settle the pixie. She asked Humphrey if he would be so good as to swap places with her today. Humphrey harrumphed, but found Ella's request to be so sweetly asked, he felt compelled to say yes. There was just something about the girl.

Ella tucked her hand into her pocket and pulled Dixon out.

‘I'm going to get that girl and put a pixie spell on her so she can never rhyme anything ever again!' Dixon yelled, standing on her lap, hands on hips, his face crumpled up in such a tight grimace that he was pretty much all eyes. ‘Spell. Spell. Rhymes with bell. Tell. Smell!'

‘Shhhh,' said Ella, looking up to make sure Professor Patchouli hadn't heard him. She stifled a chuckle, pretty certain that Gloria Ulnus couldn't care less whether she could rhyme words or not. Luckily, the rotund and ruddy-cheeked teacher was busy helping Charlie refill his glass of water, which had spilled all over his desk. ‘Just settle down, Dixon,' said Ella. ‘You don't want us to get in trouble, do you?'

The pixie's face uncrumpled at once and his watery eyes
opened wide with horror. ‘I do not! You are quite right,' he said, smacking a hand across his mouth and pulling at the bell on the end of his cap so that his legs snapped straight to attention. ‘Am going to be so good. Knew I would. Always should. Won't say a peep. Rhymes with sheep.'

Ella tried not to giggle. She looked at the glass of water on her desk and took a deep breath. ‘Let's get this right today then, shall we?' she said to the pixie.

‘Absamoloutely,' said Dixon, very seriously. His face took on a look of extreme concentration, which made him go completely cross-eyed.

Ella hadn't quite managed to Transmogrify anything yet (without the use of her tears, that is) in class. First, she had to be able to make the glass move across the table without spilling any water. Basic Transmogrification. Once she managed that, she would be allowed to enchant the object into growing wings and arms and legs, and one day even a face and a personality. Personification. But not until she had harnessed her concentration enough to make the glass move so surely that nothing spilled out. She looked over at Samantha, whose glass was hovering delicately if facelessly in the air, its wings flapping gently. She scrunched up her nose and tried not to feel inadequate.

Dixon peered up over the desk from his place on her lap, his tiny hands clasping the edge, and looked the glass square on. ‘Right,' he said. ‘Tight, might, light,' he added, flipping backwards and scurrying up her dungarees so that he could balance near her ear in the shadows of her hair. ‘So first, my dear Ella,' he whispered in her ear, ‘say the spell.' Ella did as she was told, reading the words off the board. ‘Now you have to tweak your ear like so,' the pixie said, grabbing the tip of Ella's ear and giving it a firm yank. The glass flipped wildly to the left, water splashing everywhere. ‘Ah, maybe not so hard! Yard,' said the pixie, reaching to tweak her ear again. Ella grabbed the pixie's hand before he could touch it.

‘Maybe I should try by myself,' Ella whispered out of the side of her mouth.

‘But I want to help!' said Dixon, raising his voice. Ella found the pixie's face and stuck her finger in his mouth to keep him quiet. The pixie bit it!

‘OUCH!' Ella cried. Professor Patchouli looked up from the front of class. Charlie swivelled round on his chair in time to see Ella swing the pixie out of the confines of her hair, his teeth firmly embedded in her finger. Charlie zipped across the room before Professor Patchouli could stand up on her swollen feet.
He was going to be there to protect Ella today. Yes he was.

Before Ella could get her bearings, Charlie was pulling her hair violently, to draw attention to himself and away from the pixie.

‘OUCH!' she yelled again, and then ‘OUCH' once more, as Charlie tore the pixie off her finger, making her eyes water.

‘Detention, Snoppit!' roared Professor Patchouli, pointing at Charlie and sending him from the room. Charlie squashed the deranged pixie into the pocket of his jeans and did as he was bid. Ella looked on, not sure whether to feel grateful or irritated.

She had no choice but to rub her finger and the part of her neck that stung where Charlie had pulled her hair, and do nothing. She wiped her eyes. A perfect, round tear, the size of a pea and sparkling as a diamond, fell gently into her lap.

‘Back to work, Ella,' said Professor Patchouli sternly.

Ella returned to her task. Quietly. Carefully. With no distractions. She would ask Samantha to heal the tiny bite on her finger later. Although there was really no point. It was more of a dent. Whispering the spell on the board and tweaking her ear slowly, she stared at the glass. Nothing. She stared harder, drawing on the magic within her.

Nothing. Harder. Then, magically, the glass moved gently
across her desk and settled at the other side. Ella almost whooped out loud with delight. She'd made the glass move! She had. All by herself. Basic Transmogrification finally conquered! She looked about the class. Almost every other student had at least Personified their glasses to some degree. One or two were chatting away with their animated objects, as if Personification was the easiest skill in the world. Olive Pumpernickle, the class brainiac, was even sending her glass across the classroom to run errands for her, not a drip of water spilling. And that was very advanced Transmogrification indeed. Professor Patchouli stood with her hands on her hips, watching her proudly. There were only five minutes of class left and Ella had not managed to Personify a single part of her glass. She didn't want to be the most useless Flitterwig in class again, however much the teachers told her that it was quite normal that she was behind.