The Chrestomanci series: 3 Book Collection. Diana Wynne Jones

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      Chrestomanci’s study was a large sun-filled room with books in shelves all round it. There was a desk, but Chrestomanci was not sitting at it. He was sprawled on a sofa in the sun, reading a newspaper and wearing a green dressing-gown with golden dragons on it. The gold embroidery of the dragons winked and glittered in the sun. Cat could not take his eyes off them. He stood just inside the door, not daring to go any further, and he thought: He has found out about the dragon’s blood.

      Chrestomanci looked up and smiled. “Don’t look so frightened,” he said, laying down his newspaper. “Come and sit down.”

      He pointed to a large leather armchair. It was all in his friendliest way, but, these days, Cat was sure this meant precisely nothing. He was sure that the friendlier Chrestomanci seemed, the angrier this meant he was. He stole over to the armchair and sat in it. It proved to be one of those deep, sloping kind of chairs. Cat slid backwards down the slippery leather slope of its seat until he found he was having to look at Chrestomanci from between his knees. He felt quite defenceless. He thought he ought to say something, so he whispered, “Good morning.”

      “You don’t look as if you thought so,” observed Chrestomanci. “No doubt you have your reasons. But don’t worry. This isn’t exactly about the frog again. You see, I’ve been thinking about you—”

      “Oh, you needn’t!” Cat said from his half-lying position. He felt that if Chrestomanci were to fix his thoughts on something on the other side of the universe, it would hardly be too far away.

      “It didn’t hurt much,” said Chrestomanci. “Thank you all the same. As I was saying, the frog affair set me thinking. And though I fear you probably have as little moral sense as your wretched sister, I wonder if I could trust you. Do you think I can trust you?”

      Cat had no idea where this could be leading, except that from the way Chrestomanci put it he did not seem to trust Cat very much. “Nobody’s ever trusted me before,” Cat said cautiously – except Janet, he thought, and only because she had no choice.

      “But it might be worth trying, don’t you think?” suggested Chrestomanci. “I ask because I’m going to start you on witchcraft lessons.”

      Cat had simply not expected this. He was horrified. His legs waved about in the chair with the shock. He managed to stop them, but he was still horrified. The moment Mr Saunders started trying to teach him magic, it would be obvious that Cat had no witchcraft at all. Then Chrestomanci would start to think about the frog all over again.

      Cat cursed the chance that had made Janet draw in her breath and caused him to confess. “Oh you mustn’t do that!” he said. “It would be quite fatal. I mean, you can’t trust me at all. I’m black-hearted. I’m evil. It was living with Mrs Sharp that did it. If I learnt witchcraft, there’s no knowing what I’d do. Look what I did to Euphemia.”

      “That,” said Chrestomanci, “is just the kind of accident I’m anxious to prevent. If you learn how and what to do, you’re far less likely to make that kind of mistake again.”

      “Yes, but I’d probably do it on purpose,” Cat assured him. “You’ll be putting the means in my hands.”

      “You have it there anyway,” Chrestomanci said. “And witchcraft will out, you know. No one who has it can resist using it for ever. What exactly makes you think you’re so wicked?”

      That question rather stumped Cat. “I steal apples,” he said. “And,” he suggested, “I was quite keen on some of the things Gwendolen did.”

      “Oh, me too,” Chrestomanci agreed. “One wondered what she would think of next. How about her procession of nasties? Or those four apparitions?”

      Cat shivered. He felt sick to think of them.

      “Precisely,” said Chrestomanci, and to Cat’s dismay, he smiled warmly at him. “Right. We’ll let Michael start you on elementary witchcraft on Monday.”

      “Oh, please don’t!” Cat struggled out of the slippery chair in order to plead better. “I’ll bring a plague of locusts. I’ll be worse than Moses and Aaron.”

      Chrestomanci said musingly, “It might be quite useful if you parted the waters of the English Channel. Think of all the sea-sickness you’d save. Don’t be so alarmed. We’ve no intention of teaching you to do things the way Gwendolen did.”

      Cat trailed forlornly back to the schoolroom to find them having Geography. Mr Saunders was raging at Janet for not knowing where Atlantis was.

      “How was I to know it’s what I call America?” Janet asked Cat at lunch-time. “Though, mind you, that was a lucky guess when I said it was ruled by the Incas. What’s the matter, Cat? You look ready to cry. He’s not found out about Mr Biswas, has he?”

      “No, but it’s quite as bad,” said Cat, and he explained.

      “This was all we needed!” said Janet. “Discovery threatens on all sides. But it may not be quite as bad as it seems, when I think. You might be able to work up a little magic if you practised first. Let’s see what we can do after school with Gwendolen’s books that the dear kind girl so obligingly left us.”

      Cat was quite glad when lessons started again. He was sick of changing plates with Janet, and Julia’s handkerchief must have been worn to rags with the number of knots tied in it.

      After lessons, he and Janet collected the two magic books and took them up to Cat’s room. Janet looked round it with admiration.

      “I like this room much better than mine. It’s cheerful. Mine makes me feel like the Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, and they were both such sickeningly sweet girls. Now let’s get down to work. What’s a really simple spell?”

      They knelt on the floor, leafing through a book each. “I wish I could find how to turn buttons into sovereigns,” said Cat. “We could pay Mr Baslam then.”

      “Don’t talk about it,” said Janet. “I’m at our wits’ end. How about this? Simple flotation exercise. Take a small mirror and lay it so that your face is visible in it. Keeping face visible, move round widdershins three times, twice silently willing, the third time saying: Rise little mirror, rise in air, rise to my head and then stay there. Mirror СКАЧАТЬ