Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci Read Free

the seat belt was, but it is amazing what you can do if a mouthful of white fangs are fastened into your shoulder. The Willing Warlock found the seat belt. He did it up. He found a lever that said “forward” and pushed it. He pressed on pedals. The engine roared, but nothing else happened.
    “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him acidly. “Release the hand brake. I cannot pro—”
    The Willing Warlock found a sort of stick in the floor and moved it. It snapped like a crocodile, and the car jerked. “You are wasting petrol,” the car said, boringly. “Release the foot brake. I cannot proceed—”
    Luckily, since Towser was growling even louder than the car, the Willing Warlock took his left foot off a pedal first. They shot off down the road. “You are wasting petrol,” the car told him.
    “Oh, shut up,” the Willing Warlock said. But nothing shut the car up, he discovered, except not pressing so hard on the right-hand pedal.
    Towser, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as soon as the car moved. He let go of the Willing Warlock and loomed behind him on the backseat, while the child sat and chanted, “Go on, go on, go on driving.”
    The Willing Warlock kept on driving. There is nothing else you can do if a child, a dog the size of Towser, and a car all combine to make you. At least the car was easy to drive. All the Willing Warlock had to do was sit there not pressing the pedal too much and keep turning into the emptiest streets. He had time to think. He knew the dog’s name. If he could find out the child’s name, then he could work a spell on them both to make them let him go.
    “What’s your name?” he asked, turning into a wide straight road with room for three cars abreast in it.
    “Jemima Jane,” said the child. “Go on, go on, go on driving.”
    The Willing Warlock drove, muttering a spell. While he did, Towser made a flowing sort of jump and landed in the passenger seat beside him, where he sat in a royal way, staring out at the road. The Willing Warlock cowered away from him and finished the spell in a gabble. The beast was as big as a lion!
    “You are wasting petrol,” remarked the car.
    Perhaps these things caused the Willing Warlock to muddle the spell. All that happened was that Towser turned invisible.
    There was an instant shriek from the backseat. “Where’s Towser?”
    The invisible space on the front passenger seat growled horribly. The Willing Warlock did not know where its teeth were. He hurriedly revoked the spell. Towser loomed beside him, looking reproachful.
    “You’re not to do that again!” said Jemima Jane.
    “I won’t if we all get out and walk,” the Willing Warlock said cunningly.
    A silence met this suggestion, with an undercurrent of snarl to it. The Willing Warlock gave up for the moment and kept on driving. There were no houses by the road anymore, only trees, grass, and a few cows, and the road stretched into the distance, endlessly. The nice gray car, labeled “WW100” in front and “XYZ123” behind, zoomed gently onward for nearly an hour. The sun began setting in gory clouds, behind some low green hills.
    “I want my supper,” announced Jemima Jane. At the word supper , Towser yawned and started to dribble. He turned to look thoughtfully at the Willing Warlock, obviously wondering which bits of him tasted best. “Towser’s hungry, too,” said Jemima Jane.
    The Willing Warlock turned his eyes sideways to look at Towser’s great pink tongue draped over Towser’s large white fangs. “I’ll stop at the first place we see,” he said obligingly. He began turning over schemes for giving both of them—not to speak of the car—the slip the moment they allowed him to stop. If he made himself invisible, so that the dog could not find him—
    He seemed to be in luck. Just then a large blue notice that said HARBURY SERVICES came into view, with a picture of a knife and fork underneath. The Willing Warlock turned into it with a squeal of tires.