Wolf Boy grinned. “I’m not a bad housekeeper,” he said. “And I wield a mean duster.”
Aunt Zelda emerged from the cupboard carrying a very battered ancient wooden box on which was written in old script: THE LAST RESORT. She sat down by the fire and handed it to Wolf Boy. “Here, dear. You’re good at opening things.”
Wolf Boy slipped the catch and went to give the box back to Aunt Zelda, but she was reluctant to take it. “No, dear. You take the bag out for me.”
Wolf Boy drew out an old leather pouch.
“Take out the bowls for me, would you, dear?” asked Aunt Zelda.
Wolf Boy took out a bowl and balanced it snugly in the palm of his hand. Jenna and Septimus recognized the small hammered-gold bowl with the blue enamel edging that they had last seen when they and Aunt Zelda had performed the Transubstantiate Triple on the gravely injured Dragon Boat.
Jenna felt relieved. Aunt Zelda’s reluctance to do the Triple had made her wonder whether she had lost the bowls, but all seemed fine.
Wolf Boy plunged his hand back into the pouch and brought out another bowl identical to the first. “Pretty, aren’t they?” he said, balancing a bowl in each hand.
“Yes. And there’s one more,” said Jenna.
Aunt Zelda closed her eyes and began to mutter something under her breath.
Wolf Boy shook his head. “No more,” he said. “That’s it.”
“No more?” asked Jenna.
“No. Sorry. Here, take a look.” Wolf Boy passed the bag across to Jenna. She put her hand inside and felt nothing more than cold, dusty leather. Hoping that maybe the bowl was hiding in some obscure Magykal way, Jenna handed the pouch across to Septimus, who felt inside. He shook his head.
“Sorry, Jen. No bowl.”
“Aunt Zelda,” Jenna said gently. “You know there should be three bowls in the bag? Do you know where the other one is?”
Aunt Zelda sighed. “The Marsh Python ate it,” she said.
9
TRIPLETS
Night was closing in. Wolf Boy got up from the gloomy group by the fire and lit the lanterns in the deep-set windowsills, while Aunt Zelda began to explain.
“It was a lovely sunny day and I’d left the door open. I was organizing the potion cupboard and I thought I would give the bowls a clean, so I put them on the desk over there”—she waved at an odd-looking desk that had feet like a duck—“and I went to get the GoldBright from the top shelf at the back behind the stairs. Well, I couldn’t find it, so then I had to sort through everything. I suppose I took a while looking for it. You see, it was hidden behind the Frog Fusions, which was next to the Marvel Mixture, which I am sure it never used to be, but the Marvel Mixture always shines so much that you can’t see anything unless you almost close your eyes and of course Frog Fusions is a really big bottle as we have so many frogs here and it seems a shame to waste them but the trouble is you can’t see anything through that murky green stuff, but I found it at last wedged behind the bottle in a little crevice thingy and when I went back to the desk I tripped right over it.”
“Over what?” asked Septimus, who had got lost on the Frog Fusions.
“The Marsh Python. Great ugly green thing, thick as a sewer pipe, snaking in through the door all the way to the desk, with its horrible flat head staring around and its long green tongue flicking in and out.” Aunt Zelda shuddered. “The wretched thing stretched all down the path to the Mott; in fact most of it was still in the Mott. I think it had been after Bert, because later I found her under my bed with her feathers in a terrible state.”
“What did you do?” asked Septimus.
“I gave her some milk and Balm Brew. It always calms her down.”
“You gave the python some milk?”
“What?”
“Zelda means she gave Bert some milk and Balm Brew,” said Wolf Boy. He turned to Aunt Zelda. “So what did you do with the python?”
“I swept it out with the BeGone broom,” said Aunt Zelda, shuddering at the memory. “Later I found that a bowl was missing and I realized what had happened. That disgusting snake had swallowed it. So I put the two bowls away with a Return Spell. It’s only a matter of time—the bowl will come back one day; things that belong together always do.”
“It will be too late by then,” said Jenna flatly.
Aunt Zelda looked desolate. “Jenna dear, I am so, so sorry. I know I should have told you, but I hoped the Dragon Boat would recover her strength in her own way and we would never need to use the Triple again.”