Magicalamity Read Free Page A

shock—but your cat has been two-timing you with the Atkinsons on the next street. They think they own him.”
    “Well, of all the—that little furry—wait a sec, how do you know? Can you talk to animals?”
    Lorna fanned out her long wings behind her. “Yes, fairies can understand all mammals.”
    The ability to talk to animals, like Dr. Dolittle, was another superpower Tom had always secretly wanted, and thinking about it distracted him from Elvis’s dreadful disloyalty. “Could a demisprite learn to do that?”
    “Questions later! Grab the holding loop on my back—it’s designed for passengers—and we’ll jump out of the window.” She jerked open the window behind the sink.
    “Hang on.…” Tom took a step back. They were up on the second floor, and though he was convinced Lorna was genuinely on his side, he was not quite sure about her magic. “Aren’t you going to practice first?”
    “Practice? My dear Tom, this is the most ordinary magic! I don’t need to practice!”
    “But if you haven’t done it for a while …”
    She sighed loudly. “All right! Just to convince you, I’ll give you a quick demo of basic flying. First, I climb out of the window and perch, ready for takeoff.” She scrambled over the sink and crouched on the sill. “Now I say these simple words:
bish, bash, bosh, borum
—two magic finger-snaps—jump … OW!”
    Lorna toppled off the windowsill and dropped straight down into the rosebush below.
    “Lorna?” Tom gasped, stretching over the sink to look out of the window. “Are you OK?”
    “Drat and double drat!” She was thrashing aboutfuriously in a tangle of spiky branches and useless white wings. “I could’ve SWORN … How could I forget that stupid spell?”
    Tom dashed downstairs and out into the garden, very worried that his fairy godmother had hurt herself—should he call an ordinary ambulance? She was a sturdy woman, however, and falling out of an upstairs window had only given her a few bruises.
    “OW! These thorns are sticking right in my—I’m sorry, Tom, you were quite right—I certainly do need to practice! I’ll start indoors next time.”
    They went back upstairs to the flat. Lorna decided to try for a short test flight in the sitting room, which was bigger than the kitchen. She stood in the middle of the carpet and muttered spell after spell—and still nothing happened.
    It took such a long time that Tom forgot they were in a hurry. He got himself a Coke from the deli fridge and sat down on the sofa to watch comfortably. Some magic was coming back to his fairy godmother, but it was always the wrong magic. One spell closed the curtains, another set off every single car alarm in the street—it was very entertaining. The nearest she came to flying was when her left wing suddenly started flapping all by itself, and she started to whiz round in midair like a Catherine wheel.
    “This is very embarrassing,” Lorna said breathlesslywhen she had managed to stop spinning. “I thought flying would be just like riding a bicycle. OK—
flitch, flatch, flotch, flarum
—two stamps of the foot—AARGH!”
    There was a flash of bright light. Tom nearly dropped his drink. Lorna’s empty clothes collapsed, and a little brown mouse ran out of the heap. He knelt down on the rug beside it. “Lorna? Is that you?”
    The mouse looked at him with beady little eyes and squeaked, “Knickers!”
    Tom burst out laughing, and so did the mouse—which looked and sounded so funny that he laughed even harder.
    He was still giggling when Lorna reversed the spell and leapt back into her clothes, but she was downcast. “I’m sorry about this, boy—a fine fairy godmother I turned out to be!”
    “You’re OK.” She looked so miserable that Tom wanted to cheer her up. “The other two didn’t even come.”
    “That’s very decent of you, but it doesn’t solve the problem. How on earth am I going to get you to my place if we can’t fly?”
    “Where is your