The Chrestomanci Series: Entire Collection Books 1-7. Diana Wynne Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ squeeze past the ends of the show, into a large room lit by moonlight falling in strong silver blocks across its shiny floor.

      It was the same room where the court had watched the Punch and Judy show. The puppet show had not been put away. Tonino thought of the time he and Angelica had tottered on the edge of the stage, looking into nothingness. They could have been killed. That seemed another miracle. Then, they must have been in some kind of storeroom. But, when the Duchess was so mysteriously taken ill, no one had bothered to put them back there.

      The moonlight glittered on the polished face of the Angel, high up on the other side of the room, leaning out over some big double doors. There were other doors, but Tonino and Angelica set out, without hesitation, towards the Angel. Both of them took it for a guide.

      “Oh bother!” said Angelica, before they reached the first block of moonlight. “We’re still small. I thought we’d be the right size as soon as we got out, didn’t you?”

      Tonino’s one idea was to get out, whatever his size. “It’ll be easier to hide like this,” he said. “Someone in your Casa can easily turn you back.” He pulled the Hangman’s cloak round him and shivered. It was colder out in the big room. He could see the moon through the big windows, riding high and cold in a wintry dark blue sky. It was not going to be fun running through the streets in a red nightgown.

      “But I hate being this small!” Angelica complained. “We’ll never be able to get down stairs.”

      She was right to complain, as Tonino soon discovered. It seemed a mile across the polished floor. When they reached the double doors, they were tired out. High above them, the carved Angel dangled a scroll they could not possibly read, and no longer looked so friendly. But the doors were open a crack. They managed to push the crack wider by leaning their backs against the edge of both doors. It was maddening to think they could have opened them with one hand if only they had been the proper size.

      Beyond was an even bigger room. This one was full of chairs and small tables. The only advantage of being doll-sized was that they could walk under every piece of furniture in a straight line to the far-too-distant door. It was like trudging through a golden moonlit forest, where every tree had an elegant swan-bend to its trunk. The floor seemed to be marble.

      Before they reached the door, they were quarrelling again from sheer tiredness.

      “It’s going to take all night to get out of here!” Angelica grumbled.

      “Oh shut up!” said Tonino. “You make more fuss about things than my Aunt Gina!”

      “Is your Aunt Gina bruised all over because you hit her?” Angelica demanded.

      When they came to the half-open door at last, there was only another room, slightly smaller. This one had a carpet. Gilded sofas stood about like Dutch barns, and large frilly armchairs. Angelica gave a wail of despair.

      Tonino stood on tiptoe. There seemed to be cushions on some of the seats. “Suppose we hid under a cushion for the night?” he suggested, trying to make peace.

      Angelica turned on him furiously. “Stupid! No wonder you’re slow at spells! We may be small, but they’ll find us because of that. We must stink of magic. Even my baby brother could find us, and he may be a baby but he’s cleverer than you!”

      Tonino was too angry to answer. He simply marched away into the carpet. At first it was a relief to his sore feet, but it soon became another trial. It was like walking through long, tufty grass – and anyone who has done that for a mile or so will know how tiring that can be. On top of that, they had to keep going round puffy armchairs that seemed as big as houses, frilly footstools and screens as big as hoardings. Some of these things would have made good hiding-places, but they were both too angry and frightened to suggest it.

      Then, when they reached the door at last, it was shut. They threw themselves against the hard wood. It did not even shake.

      “Now what?” said Tonino, leaning his back against it. The moon was going down by now. The carpet was in darkness. The bars of moonlight from the far-off windows only touched the tops of armchairs, or picked out the gold on the sofa backs, or the glitter from a shelf of coloured glass vases. It would be quite dark soon.

      “There’s an Angel over there,” Angelica said wearily.

      She was right. Tonino could just see it, as coloured flickers on wood, lit by moonlight reflected off the shelf of glass vases. There was another door under the Angel, or rather a dark space, because that door was wide open. Too tired even to speak, Tonino set off again, across another mile of tufty carpet, past beetling cliffs of furniture, to the other side of the room.

      By the time they reached that open door, they were so tired that nothing seemed real any more. There were four steps down beyond the door. Very well. They went down them somehow. At the bottom was an even more brutally tufted carpet. It was quite dark.

      Angelica sniffed the darkness. “Cigars.”

      It could have been scillas for all Tonino cared. All he wanted was the next door. He set off, feeling round the walls for it, with Angelica stumbling after. They bumped into one huge piece of furniture, felt their way round it, and banged into another, which stuck even further into the room. And so they went, stumbling and banging, climbing across two rounded metal bars, wading in carpet, until they arrived at the four steps again. It was quite a small room – for the Palace – and it had only one door. Tonino felt for the first step, as high as his head, and did not think he had the strength to get up them again. The Angel had not been a guide after all.

      “That part that stuck out,” said Angelica. “I don’t know what it was, but it was hollow, like a box. Shall we risk hiding in it?”

      “Let’s find it,” said Tonino.

      They found it, or something like it, by walking into it. It was a steep-sided box which came up to their armpits. There was a large piece of metal, like a very wide doorknocker, hung on the front of it. When they felt inside, they felt sheets of stiff leather, and crisper stuff that was possibly paper.

      “I think it’s an open drawer,” said Tonino.

      Angelica did not answer. She simply climbed in. Tonino heard her flapping and crackling among the paper – if it was paper. Well! he thought. And it was Angelica who said they smelt of magic. But he was so tired that he climbed in too, and fell into a warm crumply nest where Angelica was already asleep. Tonino was almost too tired by now to care if they were found or not. But he had the sense to drag a piece of parchment over them both before he went to sleep too.

      

      Tonino woke up feeling chilly and puzzled. The light was pale and yellow because his sheet seemed to be over his face. Tonino gazed up at it, thinking it was a surprisingly flat, stiff sheet. It had large black letters on it too. His eyes travelled along the letters. DECLARATION OF WAR (Duplicate Copy), he read.

      Then he knew, with a jump, that he was nine inches high and lying in a drawer in the Palace. And it was light! Someone would find them. In fact, someone nearly had. That was what had woken him. He could hear someone moving about the room, making obscure thumps and shuffles, and occasionally whistling a snatch of the Angel of Caprona.

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