The Last Dragonslayer Read Free Page B

harp.’
    ‘We call it harping because the hand movements that precede the firing of a spell look like someone trying to play an invisible harp.’
    ‘I’d never have guessed. Don’t they use wands or something?’
    ‘Wands, broomsticks and pointy hats are for the storybooks. Can you feel that?’
    The faint buzz of a spell was in the air. A mild tingling sensation, not unlike static electricity. As we watched, Price let fly. There was a crackle like scrunched Cellophane, and with a tremor, the entire internal wiring of Mr Digby’s house, complete with all light switches, sockets, fuse boxes and light fittings, swung out of the house as a single entity – a three-dimensional framework of worn wiring, cracked Bakelite and blackened cables. It hung there in midair over the lawn, rocking gently. After a moment, Full Price nodded to Lady Mawgon and then relaxed. The network of wires – which closely resembled the shape of the house – simply hovered a couple of feet above the ground. Price had managed to do something in an hour that trained electricians would have taken a week to do – and he hadn’t even touched the wallpaper or plasterwork.
    ‘Well held, Daphne,’ said Price.
    ‘I’m not holding it,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘I wasn’t ready. Moobin?’
    ‘Not I,’ he replied, and they looked around to see who else might be involved. And that’s when they saw Tiger.
    ‘Who’s this little twerp?’ asked Lady Mawgon as she strode up.
    ‘The seventh foundling,’ I explained, ‘Tiger Prawns. Tiger, this is Full Price, Wizard Moobin and Lady Mawgon.’
    Price and Moobin gave him a cheery ‘hello’ but Lady Mawgon was less welcoming.
    ‘I shall call you F7 until you prove yourself worthy,’ she remarked imperiously. ‘Show me your tongue, boy.’
    Tiger, who to my relief was quite able to be polite if required, bowed politely and stuck out his tongue. Lady Mawgon touched the tip of his tongue with her little finger, and frowned.
    ‘It’s not him. Mr Price, I think you’ve just surged .’
    ‘You do?’
    And they then fell into one of those very long and complex conversations that enchanters have when they want to discuss the arts. And since it was in Aramaic, Latin, Greek and English, I could understand only one word in four – to be honest, they probably did too.
    ‘Tongue in, Tiger.’
    When they had decided that it might indeed have been a surge of wizidrical power, such as happens from time to time, they drank some tea out of a thermos, nibbled a doughnut and talked some more, then began the delicate work of replicating the worn-out wiring with an identical model hanging in the air next to it, only from new wires, switches and fuse boxes. They would then reinsert the new wiring into the old house, separate out the copper from the waste for recycling – and then do it all again for the plumbing, both domestic water and central heating.
    ‘I have to go back to Zambini Towers,’ I said. ‘Will you be okay here on your own?’
    They said they would, and after nodding to the Quarkbeast, who jumped in the back of my Volkswagen, we left them to get on with it.

Zambini Towers
    ----
    ‘So what are my duties?’ asked Tiger as soon as we were on our way.
    ‘Did you do any laundry at the Sisterhood?’
    He groaned audibly.
    ‘There’s that, and answering phones and general running around, but not any cooking. We have Unstable Mabel to do that for us. Stay out of her kitchen, by the way, she has a nasty temper and is a demon shot with a soup ladle.’
    ‘Can’t the sorcerers do their own laundry?’
    ‘They could, but they won’t. Their power has to be conserved to be useful.’
    ‘I’m not sure I want to be called F7 by the grumpy one.’
    ‘You’ll get used to it. She called me F6 until only a month ago.’
    ‘I’m not you. And besides, you still haven’t told me what happened to Mr Zambini.’
    ‘Ooh,’ I said, turning up the radio to listen to the Yogi Baird Radio Show . I liked the