"Nothing else?"
"No! Yes, yes - go away, go away!" Merrin threw himself on the ground and had his first tantrum since the last time his nurse had locked him in the closet. The jinnee could not believe its luck. What a turnaround! Heady with celebration, the jinnee took on human form in a more extravagant manner than it might have done had it been less euphoric. Soon the secret chamber was no longer full of an amorphous yellow blob but occupied by an exotic figure wearing a yellow cloak, jerkin and breeches, all topped off by a hat - the jinnee liked hats - that looked remarkably like a pile of ever-shrinking bright yellow doughnuts balanced on its head. The outfit was set off by what the jinnee considered to be a most becoming mustache - it had always fancied a bit of facial hair - and a set of long, curling fingernails. It had a slight squint, but some things could not be helped.
The jinnee could hardly believe his luck (it had decided to be a him - with a name like Jim Knee, what else could it be?). He had gone from the very brink of being forced back into his bottle to total - or almost total - freedom in one minute flat. As long as he steered clear of the old witch who had Awakened him for the next year and a day he would be fine, and he certainly had no intention of going anywhere near the pestilential marshes where he had been Awakened, no intention at all.
The jinnee looked at Merrin lying facedown on the floor, drumming his feet and wailing. He shook his head in bemusement. Even though in the dim, distant past he had been one himself, humans were a weird bunch - there was no denying it. With an overwhelming desire to smell some fresh air at long last, the jinnee rushed out of the secret chamber, causing a great draft of air to slam the door with a bang. Inside the secret chamber Merrin's tantrum abruptly ceased - just as it always did as soon as the nurse slammed the closet door on him. In the sudden silence, with his ears still ringing, Merrin slowly got up and tried to open the panel. It did not move. An hour later Merrin was slumped on his cushions, hoarse from yelling, and Sarah Heap was sitting in the Palace kitchen talking to the cook.
"I'm hearing things behind the wainscoting," she said. "It's those poor little princesses Jenna told me about. Poor little trapped ghosties. It's so sad."
The cook was matter-of-fact. "Don't you go worrying about it, Mistress Heap," she said. "You hear all kinds of things in the Palace. Terrible things 'as 'appened here over the years. You just got to put it out of your mind. It'll soon go away, you'll see."
Sarah Heap tried, but the yelling continued all that evening. Even Silas heard it. They both went to bed with cotton stuffed in their ears.
Merrin did not go to bed at all.
Chapter 7 The Pie Shop
F rom the shadows of a dank and smelly street, Wolf Boy saw Septimus and Spit Fyre rise above the rooftops and fly off into the sun. He Watched until they were no more than a small black speck in the sky, or possibly just a piece of soot on the end of his eyelash - it was hard to tell. And then he set off, following the last of Aunt Zelda's maps. Like Septimus, Wolf Boy felt elated by a new sense of freedom mixed with responsibility. He was on his own but not alone, for he knew that Aunt Zelda was thinking about him and that the job he had to do was important to her - very important. He did not know why; he was just happy to be trusted to do it. Wolf Boy had spent years living in the Forest and was unused to seeing so many people at once. But as he made his way toward the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop - which he had been looking forward to for days - he felt excited by the streets and the strange mixture of people walking past him. It was, he thought, much like the Forest, only with houses instead of trees and people instead of Forest creatures - although he thought that the Port people were much weirder than any Forest creatures. As the lanky boy with the straggly dreadlocks, grubby brown tunic and loping wolflike gait wound his way along the cobblestone streets that snaked between the dilapidated warehouses, he drew no attention from the mongrel inhabitants and visitors to the Port. And that was the way that Wolf Boy liked it.
Aunt Zelda's map was good. Soon he emerged from a narrow cut between two warehouses into the breezy sunlight of the old fishing harbor. Before him, bobbing in the choppy water, was a motley collection of boats tended by fishermen and sailors. Some were being unloaded onto waiting carts and others were being made ready for venturing out into the wide blue expanse of sea that filled the horizon. Wolf Boy shivered and pulled his brown woolen cloak around himself. Give him the Marsh or the Forest any day, he thought; the vast emptiness of the sea scared him. Wolf Boy breathed in deeply. He liked the faint salty tang of the air, but even better he liked the mouthwatering aroma of hot pies that told him he had come to the right place. His stomach gave a loud gurgle and he headed for the Harbor and Dock Pie Shop. The pie shop was quiet. It was just before the lunchtime rush, and a plump young woman behind the counter was busying herself getting another batch of pies out of the oven. Wolf Boy stood in front of the biggest variety of pies that he had ever seen in his life, trying to decide what to buy. He wanted to try them all. Unlike Septimus, Wolf Boy had not taken to Aunt Zelda's distinctive style of cooking and immediately decided against any pie with cabbage in it - which only cut out three. Finally he bought five different pies.
As he turned to go, the door to the shop burst open and a young, fair-haired man strode in. The young woman behind the counter glanced up and Wolf Boy saw an anxious look cross her face. "Simon," she said, "any luck?"
"Nope," the young man replied.
Wolf Boy froze. He recognized that voice. From underneath his dreadlocks he stole a look at the new arrival. Surely it wasn't...it couldn't be. But yes, there was a scar across the young man's right eye exactly where the stone from his catapult had caught him. It must be him. It was - it was Simon Heap.
Wolf Boy knew that Simon had not recognized him. Indeed, Simon had barely even glanced at him. He was deep in a murmured conversation with the woman. Wolf Boy hesitated. Should he sidle out and risk Simon noticing him or should he stay put and feign a continuing interest in the pies? With the hot pies just begging to be eaten, Wolf Boy favored getting out fast before he was noticed, but something in Simon's voice - a kind of desperation - stopped him.
"I can't find her anywhere, Maureen. It's like she's vanished into thin air," Simon was saying.
"She can't have," was Maureen's sensible reply.
Simon - who knew more about these things than Maureen realized - was not so sure.
"It's my fault," he said miserably. "I should have gone with her to the market."
Maureen tried to comfort him. "Now, you can't go blaming yourself, Simon," she said. "Lucy has a temper on her. We both know that." She smiled. "She's probably just gone off in a huff. You'll see. She did that for a whole week once when she was here."
Simon was not to be comforted. He shook his head. "But she wasn't in a temper. She was fine. I have a bad feeling about this, Maureen. Oh, if only I had Sleuth."
"Had who? - ohmygoodnessthey'reburning!" Maureen rushed off to rescue the next batch of pies.
Simon watched Maureen flap away the smoke with a dishcloth. "I'll try and Trace her steps once more, Maureen, then that's it. I'm going to go and get Sleuth."
"What's Sleuth, some new detective agency?" Maureen asked, inspecting a blackened sausage-and-tomato pie. "Rather them than me. The last one around here got burned down. Looked even worse than this bunch of pies."
"No, Sleuth's my Tracker Ball," said Simon. "Marcia Overstrand stole it."
Shocked, Maureen looked up from her pies. "The ExtraOrdinary Wizard stole a ball?"
"Well...she didn't exactly steal it," said Simon, trying his best to stick to his new resolution to tell the truth at all times. "I suppose she kind of confiscated it, really. But Sleuth's not just any old ball, Maureen. It's Magyk. It can locate people. If I can get Marcia to give Sleuth back I could make it find Lucy, I'm sure I could."
Maureen tipped the entire contents of the tray into the garbage with a regretful sigh.
"Look, Simon, don't you go worrying too much. Lucy will turn up, I'm sure she will. If I were you, I'd forget any thoughts about all that Magyk stuff and keep looking around here. You know what they say - if you wait on the old quayside long enough, everyone you have ever met will pass by. You could do worse."
"Yeah...I suppose you're right," muttered Simon.