Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [51]
“But what about doubles outside a series?” Mr. Saunders said. “I have at least one double in Series Three, and I suspect the existence of another in—”
Janet sat up sharply, gasping. “Cat, help! It’s like sitting on pins!”
Cat looked at Julia. He saw the little smile on her face, and the tail end of her handkerchief above the table. “Change places,” he whispered, feeling rather tired. He stood up. Everyone stared.
“All of which makes me feel that a satisfactory classification has not yet been found,” Mr. Saunders said, as he turned Cat’s way.
“Do you think,” said Cat, “that I could change places with J-Gwendolen, please? She can’t quite hear what Mr. Saunders is saying from there.”
“Yes, and it’s rivetingly interesting,” Janet gasped, shooting from her chair.
“If you find it essential,” Chrestomanci said, a little annoyed.
Cat sat in Janet’s chair. He could feel nothing wrong with it. Julia put her head down and gave him a long, unpleasant look, and her elbows worked as she crossly untied her handkerchief. Cat saw that she was going to hate him too, now. He sighed. It was one thing after another.
Nevertheless, when Cat fell asleep that night, he was not feeling hopeless. He could not believe things could get any worse—so they had to get better. Perhaps Miss Bessemer would give them something very valuable, and they could sell it. Or, better still, perhaps Gwendolen would be back when he woke up, and already solving all his problems.
But when he went to Gwendolen’s room in the morning, it was still Janet, struggling to tie her garters and saying over her shoulder, “These things are probably very bad for people. Do you wear them too? Or are they a female torture? And one useful thing magic could do would be to hold one’s stockings up. It makes you think that witches can’t be very practical.”
She did talk a lot, Cat thought. But it was better than having no one in Gwendolen’s place.
At breakfast, neither Mary nor Euphemia were at all friendly and, as soon as they left the room, one of the curtains wrapped itself around Janet’s neck and tried to strangle her. Cat took it away. It fought him like a live thing because Julia was holding both ends of her handkerchief and pulling hard on the knot.
“Oh, do stop it, Julia!” he begged her.
“Yes, do,” Roger agreed. “It’s silly and it’s boring. I need to enjoy my food in peace.”
“I’m quite willing to be friends,” Janet offered.
“That makes one of us,” said Julia. “No.”
“Then be enemies!” Janet snapped, almost in Gwendolen’s manner. “I thought at first that you might be nice, but I can see now that you’re just a tedious, pigheaded, cold-hearted, horny-handed, cross-eyed hag!”
That, of course, was calculated to make Julia adore her.
Luckily, Mr. Saunders appeared earlier than usual. There had only been time for Janet’s marmalade to turn to orange worms, and change back again when Cat gave her his instead, and for Janet’s coffee to become rich brown gravy, and turn to coffee again when Cat drank it, before Mr. Saunders stuck his head around the door. At least, Cat thought it was lucky, until Mr. Saunders said, “Eric, Chrestomanci wants to see you now, in his study.”
Cat stood up. His stomach, full of charmed marmalade as it was, made an unusually rapid descent to the Castle cellars. Chrestomanci’s found out, he thought. He knows about the dragons’ blood and about Janet, and he’s going to look at me politely and— Oh, I do hope he isn’t an enchanter!
“Where—where do I go?” he managed to say.
“Take him, Roger,” said Mr. Saunders.
“And—and why?” Cat asked.
Mr. Saunders smiled. “You’ll find out. Off you go.”
12
C HRESTOMANCI’S STUDY was a large, sun-filled room with