Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [45]
Tonino sat with his chin in his hands and thought. He had read enough books, for goodness sake. People were always being kidnapped in books. And in his favorite books—this was like a bad joke—they escaped without using magic of any kind. But there was no door. That was what made it seem impossible. Wait a moment! The vast voice had promised them food. “If they think we’re be having,” he said, “they’ll bring us supper prob ably. And they’ve got to bring the food in somehow. If we watch where it comes in, we ought to be able to get out the same way.”
“There’s bound to be a spell on the entrance,” Angelica said gloomily.
“Do stop bleating away about spells!” said Tonino. “Don’t you Petrocchis ever talk about anything else?”
Angelica did not reply, but simply scraped away with her tap. Tonino sat wanly in his creaking chair thinking over the few spells he really knew. The most useful seemed to be a simple cancel-spell.
“A cancel-spell,” Angelica said irritatingly, scratching carefully with the tap. The floor around her feet was heaped with yellow curls of varnish. “That might hold the entrance open. Or isn’t a cancel-spell one of the ones you know?”
“I know a cancel-spell,” said Tonino.
“So does my baby brother,” said Angelica. “He’d probably be more use.”
Their supper arrived. It appeared, without warning, on a tray, floating towards them from the windows. It took Tonino completely by surprise.
“Spell!” Angelica squawked at him. “Don’t just stare!”
Tonino sang the spell. Hurried and surprised though he was, he was sure he got it right. But it was the tray the spell worked on. The tray, and the food on it, began to grow. Within seconds, it was bigger than the tabletop. And it still floated towards the table, growing as it came. Tonino found himself backing away from two steaming bath-sized bowls of soup and two great orange thickets of spaghetti, all of which were getting steadily vaster the nearer they came. By now, there was not much room around the edges of the tray. Tonino backed against the end wall, wondering if Angelica’s trouble with spells was catching. Angelica herself was squashed against the bathroom door. Both of them were in danger of being cut in two.
“Get down on the floor!” Tonino shouted.
They slithered hurriedly down the wall, underneath the tray, which hung over them like a too low ceiling. The huge odor of spaghetti was quite oppressive.
“What have you done?” Angelica said, coming towards Tonino on hands and knees. “You didn’t get it right.”
“Yes, but if it gets much bigger, it might break the room open,” said Tonino.
Angela sank back on her knees and looked at him with what was nearly respect. “That’s almost a good idea.”
But it was only almost. The tray certainly met all four walls. They heard it thump against them. There was a deal of swaying, creaking and squeezing, from the tray and from the walls, but the walls did not give. After a moment it was clear that the tray was not being allowed to get any bigger.
“There is a spell on this room,” Angelica said. It was not meant to be I-told-you-so. She was miserable.
Tonino gave up and sang the cancel-spell, carefully and correctly. The tray shrank at once. They were left kneeling on the floor looking at a reasonable-sized supper laid neatly in the center of the table. “We might as well eat it,” he said.
Angelica annoyed him thoroughly again by saying, as she picked up her spoon, “Well, I’m glad to know I’m not the only person who gets my spells wrong.”
“I know I got it right,” Tonino muttered into his spoon, but Angelica chose not to hear.
After a while, he was even more annoyed to find, every time he looked up, that Angelica was staring at him curiously. “What’s the matter now?” he said at last, quite exasperated.
“I was waiting to see your filthy eating habits,” she said. “But I think you must be on your best behavior.”
“I always eat like this!” Tonino saw that he had wound far too much spaghetti on his fork. He hurriedly