Penny says beauty spells are nothing to be ashamed of.)
“My dad wants you to know that of course you’re still welcome at our house for Christmas,” Agatha says.
“Oh,” I say. “Good.”
“But I think we both know how uncomfortable that would be,” she goes on. She looks very uncomfortable, just saying it. “For both of us.”
“Right,” I say. It would be uncomfortable, I guess.
“It would ruin Christmas,” she says.
I stop myself before I can say, “Would it? Would it really, Agatha? It’s a big house, and I’ll stay in the TV room the whole time.”
“Right,” I say instead.
“So I told him that you were probably going to stay with the Bunces.”
Agatha knows I can’t stay with the Bunces. Penelope’s mum can only take about two or three days of me before she starts treating me like a Great Dane who can’t help knocking things over with its tail.
The Bunces’ house isn’t small, but it’s full of people—and stacks and stacks of stuff. Books, papers, toys, dishes. There’s no way not to be underfoot. You’d have to be incorporeal not to knock anything over.
“Right,” I say to Agatha. “Okay.”
She looks at the floor. “I’m sure my parents will still send gifts.”
“I’ll send them a card.”
“That would be nice,” she says. “Thank you.” She pulls her satchel up over her shoulder and takes a step away from me—then stops and flips her hair out of her face. (It’s just a gesture; her hair is never in her face.) “Simon. It was amazing how you beat that dragon. You saved its life.”
I shrug. “Yeah, well, Baz did it, didn’t he? I would’ve slit its throat if I could have figured out how.”
“My dad says the Humdrum sent it.”
I shrug again.
“Merry Christmas, Simon,” Agatha says. Then she walks past me out the door.
50
SIMON
“You should really just let me stay in your room,” Penelope says. “It would make things easier.”
“No,” Baz and I say at once.
“Where would you sleep,” I ask, “the bathtub?”
The chalkboard is still taking up the open area at the end of our beds, and there are stacks of books around it now. Every useful book in the Watford library has made its way to our room, thanks to Baz and Penelope—and not a one of them properly checked out, I’m sure.
We’ve been working here every night, though we don’t have much but a mess to show for it.
“I don’t mind sleeping in the bath,” Penny says. “I could spell it squishy.”
“No,” Baz says. “It’s bad enough sharing a bathroom with Snow.”
“Penny, you have a perfectly good room,” I say, ignoring the jab.
“Simon, a perfectly good room wouldn’t have Trixie in it.”
“That’s your roommate?” Baz asks. “The pixie?”
“Yes,” Penelope says.
He curls his lips up and down at the same time. “Imagine you’re a pixie,” he says. “I know it’s distasteful, but imagine—you’re a pixie, and you have a daughter, and you name her Trixie. Trixie the pixie.”
“I think it’s kind of cute,” I say.
“You think Trixie’s kind of cute,” Penny says.
“Trixie is cute.” I shrug.
“Snow,” Baz says. “I’ve just eaten.”
I roll my eyes. He probably thinks pixies are a lesser species. Half-sentient, like gnomes and Internet trolls.
“It’s like being a fairy named Mary,” he goes on.
“Or a vampire named Gampire,” I say.
“Gampire isn’t even a proper name, Snow. You’re terrible at this game.”
“In Trixie’s defence,” Penelope says, and you can tell it pains her to say it, “the pixies probably don’t go around calling themselves ‘pixies.’ I mean, you could be a human named Newman or a boy named Roy, and no one would think twice.”
“I’ll bet your room is covered in pixie dust,” Baz says, shuddering.
“Don’t get her started,” I say. “Good-night, Penny.”
“Fine,” she says, climbing to her feet and picking up the book she was reading. It’s a bound copy of The Record; we’ve all taken to reading them straight through, looking for clues. We’re becoming experts in decade-old current events.
It’s all so weird.…
Not just to be working with Baz, but to have him around all the time when I’m hanging out with Penny.
He still won’t talk to us outside of the room.
Baz says it would confuse his minions to see him consorting with the enemy. He actually called them that—“my minions.” Maybe he was taking the piss.…
I can’t always tell when Baz is mocking me. He’s got a cruel mouth. It looks like he’s sneering even when he’s happy about something. Actually, I don’t know if he ever is happy. It’s like he’s got two emotions—pissed off and sadistically amused.
(And