A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,24

Footsteps and laughter coming closer.

“Here,” said Kitty, her hand appearing out of a dark cloud.

They ran and stumbled, turned a corner, and found themselves in a clearing of fresh air. The young men appeared through the fog behind them. The broomstick shook violently in Annabel’s hands.

“There’s no good running,” one of them said. “You’ve got your pretty selves into a dead end here.”

It was true. They stood at the end of a tiny bricked lane.

“We only want to stop and say hello,” said another.

“We is only being polite,” said a third.

Now! the broomstick said, not in words but in the way it bucked in Annabel’s hands and yanked her half off her feet. Annabel knew that now was what it meant.

“Quick,” said Kitty, ripping the burlap bag from its head as the young men gathered in a circle around them.

When the bag was off, the broomstick jolted in Annabel’s hands, lifting her feet clear off the ground.

“Get on!” shouted Kitty. “You must.”

The broomstick was already going up. It dragged Annabel and Kitty, and they clawed themselves onto its back as they plowed through the circle of young men. Annabel kicked out at one who was trying to grab her foot, but the men’s sneering faces soon turned to astonished. Annabel screamed as the broomstick shot straight up.

The broomstick rose so fast Annabel was sure they were heading to the moon. It flew through the sky at such tremendous speed that her bonnet blew off. She felt Kitty’s arms around her waist, and they both looked down to catch one last glimpse of the men before the fog covered them over.

The broomstick flew them up until they were over the rooftops, above the clouds, into clean air. They flew above London into a strange purplish afternoon light. Annabel thought she heard Kitty scream, not a terrified scream but a wild whoop of delight, but the wind took all noise and threw it far behind.

Annabel clutched the broomstick hard, hoping she wouldn’t fall. They could see glimpses of London through the fog: tiny snatches of the great parks and giant trees, a sliver of the glassy Thames, the glimmer of lights on grand roads.

“I need to deliver you to Finsbury!” shouted Annabel over the wind.

She had no idea how to stop the broomstick. No idea how to make it go up or down. She tried to lean backward to see if that would help, but it almost performed a somersault. She pulled the letter from her sash and nearly lost it to the wind. She turned to the map that Miss Henrietta had drawn and read out the address neatly printed there, as though it might help.

“Number Three Sun Street!” she cried to the broomstick, although she wasn’t sure it understood such things.

She felt the broomstick slow. “I really have to take you there,” she said as gently as she could.

The thing stopped in midair and began to plummet.

“Help!” screamed Annabel.

“Do something!” cried Kitty.

They went straight down.

They fell through the clouds.

They fell through the fog.

They fell past the chimney tops.

Then the broomstick stopped. It stopped with a lurch so sudden that their bottoms lifted clean into the air. Then it shot forward at great speed. It sped down roads and streets and laneways until they disappeared in a blur. It hurtled through a church nave door and careered back out again. It skidded beneath a bridge. It fishtailed between factory smokestacks. It flew through parks and along avenues until it set its heart on a street and a lighted window at the very end.

The broomstick raced toward the lighted window. There was no time to think. It raced toward the glass, not stopping or slowing. It hit the window, and the glass fell apart in great shards around them, and they scooted across the floor, rolling up rugs as they went, crying out in fright, right into the middle of a group of ancient men—all of them stooped and bowed—who were at that very moment taking biscuits and tea.

It wasn’t how Annabel thought a wizard’s house might be, dark and gloomy and filled with cobwebs and cauldrons. She and Kitty lay in a tangle in an ordinary sitting room. All around, on chesterfields, were very old men with astonished expressions on their faces.

The Finsbury Wizards didn’t wear cloaks or hats but, instead, dark morning coats. The coats were dusty on the shoulders, as though the wizards had sat in the same place for a very long time. Most of them held a