Yes! That was exactly what I’d hoped would happen. For a brief moment Mum looked as if she’d discovered a live frog in her mouth. Then she smiled.
“Yes, why don’t we do that one day,” she said. “When we’re both free.”
That was Mum-speak for forget-it-it’s-never-going-to-happen. But I pretended not to understand.
“Brilliant!” I said. “I’d just love that. How about my birthday? I really want Aunt Isa to come and, like you said, it’s difficult for her to leave the animals, so if we have it there…”
Mum shot me a look across the dinner table. A look that said I-know-exactly-what-you’re-up-to.
“We can’t just invite ourselves…” she began.
“But Aunt Isa said she’d be happy to have my party at her house…” I said.
“Did she?” Dad said. “How nice of her.”
Mum had that frog-in-her-mouth expression again.
“I’m not convinced it’s a good idea…” she said.
“Milla…” My dad placed his hand on top of one of hers, the one which was holding a fork. It looked a little bit as if he was trying to stop her from stabbing someone with it, but I think he just meant well. “Clara’s not a little girl any more. Perhaps it’s time she gets to decide how to celebrate her birthday.”
Yes, yes, yes. Dad, I love you. On the inside I was dancing for joy, but I took great care not to look triumphant.
“It doesn’t have to be a big, expensive party,” I said, looking at Mum and hoping she would pick up the hint. “Just nice and quiet, and completely normal…”
“At your Aunt Isa’s?” Mum sounded unconvinced. “I’m not sure how normal that’s going to be…”
“Not everything has to be so conventional,” Dad said. “I’m looking forward to meeting your sister. Come to think of it, it’s odd that we’ve never met before…”
“Isa and I haven’t seen a lot of each other since we drifted apart,” Mum said, and heaved a sigh so deep that I knew that she’d backed down. I’d won! And yet the conditions were quite clear: no wildwitch tricks, in fact, nothing too bizarre could happen, and Dad must never know just how different Aunt Isa really was. It meant that The Nothing would have to move to the stable and promise to stay out of sight while Dad was around, and that was really sad because The Nothing loved parties and presents and cakes; but no one who saw The Nothing’s ruffled, grey-brown bird’s body and sad little girl’s face could ever believe there was anything normal about her.
A pang of guilt made me get up.
“I’ll take Hoot-Hoot to the stable,” I offered.
“Thank you,” Aunt Isa said. “And why don’t you take a few scones for… eh, for Star and the goats.”
I nodded, and grabbed a couple of freshly baked, just-buttered scones from the plate – not for Star, although Star was a cute little horse, but for The Nothing. Aunt Isa eased Hoot-Hoot onto my shoulder. Dad watched us and the owl with great interest.
“I can see why Clara likes coming here,” he said. “I can think of few places where you get to befriend a great horned owl. And she’s always been so fond of animals. Haven’t you, munchkin?”
“Yes. I really… really like animals.”
“More coffee?” Mum asked. “You won’t be long, will you, Clara Mouse? We want to sing happy birthday to you.”
The Nothing was sitting on a bale of hay, sniffling. Probably because it was a bit dusty here, which wasn’t good for her allergy, but also because she was sad. Really sad, as it turned out.
“I brought you some scones,” I said to cheer her up.
She made no reply.
“Go on,” I tempted her. “They’re fresh out of the oven. Come get them while they’re still hot.”
She turned her head and looked at me with moist eyes. Her eyelids were thick and swollen, and the tears had left greasy trails down her cheeks and on her grey chest feathers. She sneezed.
“Happy birthday,” she said in a forlorn voice.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to act as if everything was fine. After all, this was the way it had to be. If Dad saw her – no, it didn’t bear thinking about.
I put the plate down next to her.
“I have to go back to the house,” I said. “They’re waiting for me.”
“Yes,” The Nothing said. “I guess they are. All your friends.” Her nose was almost blocked – when she said “friends”, it sounded like “frebs”.
“They’re not all here yet.”
“Aren’t they? But they’re bound to turn up. All the ones you like.”
I couldn’t help feeling a touch irritated, although I also felt bad for her, obviously.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m really sorry you can’t be there. I really am.”
She just sniffed – a protracted, slurping snivel. It wasn’t until I was halfway out of the stable door that she said something that must have been on her mind all along.
“You once told me that a friend is someone you’re happy to see,” she sniffed. “Now no one is allowed to see me. Does that mean you’re not my friend any more?”
“No. Of course I’m still your friend!”
She sneezed again and a small grey-brown feather from one of her wings floated down to the stable floor.
“It doesn’t feel like it…” she said.
CHAPTER FOUR
StarPhone
Mrs Pommerans arrived at three o’clock on the dot and greeted my dad warmly. Water was dripping from her floral raincoat and she wore one of those transparent plastic hoods you normally only see on very old ladies. There was something simultaneously good-natured and secretive about her, which made her resemble Cinderella’s fairy god mother to a T.
“Happy birthday, Clara!” She kissed my cheek and gave me a present that turned out to be a small book about herbs.
“Is it time for presents?” Oscar asked.
“It looks as if we’ve already started,” Aunt Isa said.
Oscar’s present wasn’t very big, but I could tell from his face that it wasn’t just something his mum had bought – this was special. I squeezed it through the paper, but I couldn’t work out what it was.
“Can I open it?”
“Of course,” he said. “That’s why I wrapped it up…”
It was a small, folding penknife, the length of my forefinger when closed and twice that when opened. The handle was pearly white with three shiny studs and the blade was slim and very sharp. It was an old knife that had once belonged to Oscar’s grandfather. It was the knife we’d used many years ago when we mixed our blood for a blood oath.
“Oscar. But this is your knife,” I couldn’t understand why he’d want to part with it.
“I know. But Mum says… Mum says I’m not allowed it any more. It’s not actually illegal, but she says that it…” He changed his voice to mimic his mum: “… sends out the wrong message. I was dumb enough to bring it into school to show it to Alex, and Ruler-Rita spotted it, had a fit and called Mum…”
Oscar’s mother was tough. And she was a lawyer. Probably a bad combination if you were a twelve-year-old boy who wanted to hang onto his knife.
“And then I thought… it’s better that you have it than it ending up in a skip. And I wouldn’t have thought anyone out here worried about sending out the wrong message…”
I mulled it over.
“Thank you,” I then said. “I really like it. But… I’m only borrowing it. If you want it back one day, all you have to do is ask.”
Then my present from Mum and Dad was put on the table, and I forgot about everything else.
“Happy birthday, Clara Mouse!”
Even before I touched it, I knew what it was. I recognized the paper from the shop and the size of the box because I’d been there many times with Oscar, just to admire the wonder gadget and dream unrealistic dreams about presents. Or as Oscar would casually say when the shop assistant eyed us suspiciously and asked if he “could help us with anything”, “Oh, we’re just browsing
.”
Because it was way too expensive, the new StarPhone 3. There was nothing it couldn’t do. It had GPS, mega games capacity, a subscription to StarMusic included in the price, memory like an elephant, it was superfast at everything and – thanks to StarSat’s own global satellite network – you could get a signal anywhere. Star’s ads showed mountaineers, polar explorers and people sailing around the world calling home to share their experiences from the remotest parts of the Earth. It had global coverage. “No more dark spots on the map” was the slogan they showed when the StarPhone’s own catchy jingle played in the background.
The StarPhone 3 had only one minor flaw. It cost a fortune. And though I’d desperately wanted one, I’d never seriously expected to actually get it.
I heard a sharp whistle from across the table. A wide-eyed Oscar was staring at my present; he too had recognized the wrapping paper.
“Wooooooowwww…” he whispered in awe, and clearly had to restrain himself in order not to tear off the paper himself.
“Mum!” I exclaimed, as I demolished the wrapping. “You got it. You got it!”
Mum smiled.
“Yes. Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
Aunt Isa put a steaming pot of birthday hot chocolate on the table.
“What was your present?” she asked.
“A StarPhone 3!”
“A mobile? How nice.”
It was quite obvious that Aunt Isa hadn’t a clue that a miracle had just occurred. A mobile… well, all right, I guess you could call it that. You could also say that a Ferrari was just “a car”.
I clutched the wonder gadget and inhaled the sharp smell of new plastic and electronic circuits. My. Very. Own. StarPhone. And it wasn’t the model 1 or 2. It was the one true, the only, the 3.
Cat jumped up on the table. The table wobbled underneath him. Cat is no lightweight; he’s about the size of a labrador. First he sniffed the box suspiciously, then the phone and then he swatted my hand with a heavy paw. There was something… almost jealous about the way he did it. He swatted me again, this time with a hint of claw.
“Cat!”
Why do you need that, he said. When you have me.
The two couldn’t be compared, I thought. Cat was… Cat. A wildfriend. Almost a part of me. I believed that I could hear some of his thoughts, and he had absolutely no problem reading all of mine. He guided me around the wildways, he looked after me – or he did when it suited him – and had taught me at least as much about being a wildwitch as Aunt Isa had. He had no reason to be jealous of a phone. Not even a StarPhone 3.
After being paralysed by shocks of joy and technological ecstasy, my normal brain activity kicked in.
“Mum, it’s… please don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but… can we afford it?”
Mum ruffled my hair. “It’s a joint present from Dad and me. But, yes, it knocked a big hole in the budget,” she admitted. “On the other hand, you’re only thirteen once and… well, this way we can at least keep in touch. Even when… you’re here.”
Then the penny dropped. This wasn’t just a snazzy gadget that people from my school would envy.
“I really like it,” I whispered. “And I promise to call you… all the time.”
While I was still admiring my new phone, there was a knock on the door. Kahla and her dad were outside.
“Sorry we’re late,” Master Millaconda said.
Kahla was standing behind him, smiling cautiously, as if she had to remind herself how to do it. As usual she was wrapped in several layers of winter clothing in all the colours of the rainbow, and I knew that although the fire was crackling in the wood burner, and the rest of us were sitting around with glowing cheeks, she would keep at least one coat on. She’d never really grown used to what she called “the blasted cold” out here at Aunt Isa’s.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Shanaia’s not here, either. I don’t suppose you saw her?”
“No,” Kahla said. “Happy birthday!”
“It’s strange that she’s not here,” Aunt Isa said. “Because she sent Kitti with a message saying that she would be…”
“Kitti?” my dad said. “Is that another one of your friends out here, Clara?”
“Erm… you could say that. Though she’s more a friend of Shanaia’s.” Also she was a kestrel, and my dad had actually met her once before, but there was no need to tell him that. Slowly but surely my neck and my jaw were starting to seize up from all the things I couldn’t say.
Kahla gave me a book as well, and from Aunt Isa I got an amazing picture of Cat that she’d drawn herself. She’s actually famous for her wildlife pictures, that’s how she makes her money. But there was still no sign of Shanaia, and eventually Oscar, Kahla and I went outside “to check on the animals” – though what we were really doing was visiting The Nothing and bringing her some birthday cake.
“Oscar, be careful!”
It was Kahla calling out, and I spun around to see what Oscar was doing.
He was making his way up to the roof of the stable. He must have jumped up onto the dry stone wall at the end of the stable, and now he was climbing up the uneven stones to the roof. He dug his fingers into the cracks where the mortar had crumbled and put his feet where the stones stuck out, so he looked like a smaller and more ordinary version of Spider-Man.
“Don’t worry,” he said, only slightly out of breath. “Everything’s under control. After all, I am the school wall-climbing champion…”
Which indeed he was. He had the fastest time out of everyone at school on the climbing wall behind the sports hall. But that wall was made specifically for climbing, and you needed a rope and a harness before you were allowed to go on it.
“Get down,” I said. “Before you break your neck.”
He just flashed me a quick grin and carried on regardless.
“Boys…” I muttered.
“He’s not bad, though,” said Kahla, whose eyes were following Oscar’s supple body.
“You know he’s only doing it to show off, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, never once taking her eyes off him. And it was at that moment I realized that Oscar was mostly interested in showing off in front of Kahla – and that she didn’t mind at all.
I looked from Oscar to Kahla and back again. I felt a childish urge to cry: “But it’s my birthday!” As if it were somehow unfair that not everything was about me. I got a very strange feeling in my tummy when I saw my best boy friend (not boyfriend!) trying to impress my best girl friend. Or my best and only wildwitch friend, at any rate.
He was high up now. So high that he would hurt himself really badly if he fell. But he didn’t. He swung up his right hand and got hold of the ridge, and a few seconds later he was straddling the roof and flinging out his arms.
“I’m the master of the universe!” he shouted. “Kneel, peasants! Kneel or you’ll feel the full force of my power!”
I couldn’t help laughing. You’d have to look long and hard to find anything less world-dominating than Oscar’s freckled face. Even now when he was trying to look dictatorial and menacing, he still looked like someone who’d just remembered a great joke. He just didn’t do serious.
Kahla, however, looked deadly serious, I realized. Almost… frightened. She was clasping her mouth with both hands and seemed hunched somehow, as if she was expecting someone to hit her.
“He’s just messing about,” I whispered. “He doesn’t mean it.”
“I know that,” she said. “Do you think I’m dumb or something?”
Now it was my turn to take a step backwards. The look she gave me was just as dark and angry as the very first time I met her. Back then, she used to look down on me because I couldn’t do much in the way of wildwitch tricks. Back then, she was annoyed and jealous because Aunt Isa chose to spend time teaching me how to be a wildwitch rather than devoting all her time to Kahla, the star pupil.
“What is it?” I asked. “Why are you so annoyed?”
B
ut she just shook her head. “I’m not annoyed,” she said. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it.”
And she was probably right about that. I certainly didn’t understand why she was acting like this. And on my birthday, too.
I put down the cake plate on the dry stone wall. Suddenly I had no wish to see The Nothing’s sad, reproachful face, and even less of an urge to stand here arguing with Kahla.
“Where are you going?” Oscar called out from the ridge.
“Back inside.”
“Wait. Why?”
“No reason. Why do I always have to have a reason? The two of you are free to come back in when you’ve finished playing…”
When I said the bit about playing, I wanted to make Kahla feel childish and maybe Oscar too, only a little bit. Unfortunately all it did was make me sound five years old, rather than thirteen and practically a grown-up.
“Aren’t Kahla and Oscar coming?” Mum asked.
“They’ll be back in a moment,” I said and made an effort to look casual.
And in a way they were. Five minutes later Oscar did come rushing in, ashen-faced.
“Kahla’s been bitten,” he said.
“By what?” Aunt Isa asked.
“A leech, she thinks!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mr Malkin’s Present
Kahla was sitting on the dry stone wall and she wasn’t looking at all well. Usually her skin was the colour of honey, but right now she was so white she could out-pale a corpse.
“I didn’t feel anything at all,” she said. “Not until now.”
She had pulled up her trouser leg and on her calf there were five round, red marks. Something that looked like a black “Y” was at the centre of each.
“It does look like a leech bite,” Aunt Isa conceded. “But you surely can’t have got it here?”
“Don’t you have leeches here?” Kahla said.
“Yes, but… not many that would bite humans. And certainly not on dry land. Because I don’t suppose you’ve been wading up and down the brook, have you?”