Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones [46]
The bulge of Angelica’s forehead was wavy with frown lines. “No you don’t. Montanas always eat disgustingly because of the way Old Ricardo Petrocchi made them eat their words.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Tonino. “Anyway, it was Old Francesco Montana who made the Petrocchis eat their words.”
“It was not!” Angelica said heatedly. “It was the first story I ever learned. The Petrocchis made the Montanas eat their spells disguised as spaghetti.”
“No they didn’t. It was the other way around!” said Tonino. “It was the first story I ever learned too.”
Somehow, neither of them felt like finishing their spaghetti. They laid their forks down and went on arguing.
“And because of eating those spells,” said Angelica, “the Montanas went quite disgusting and started eating their uncles and aunts when they died.”
“We do not!” said Tonino. “You eat babies.”
“How dare you!” said Angelica. “You eat cowpats for pizzas, and you can smell the Casa Montana right on the Corso.”
“The Casa Petrocchi smells all down the Via Sant’ Angelo,” said Tonino, “and you can hear the flies buzzing from the New Bridge. You have babies like kittens and—”
“That’s a lie!” shrieked Angelica. “You just put that about because you don’t want people to know that the Montanas never get married properly!”
“Yes we do!” bawled Tonino. “It’s you who don’t!”
“I like that!” yelled Angelica. “I’ll have you know, my brother got married, in church, just after Christmas. So there!”
“I don’t believe you,” said Tonino. “And my sister’s going to get married in Spring, so—”
“I was a bridesmaid!” screamed Angelica.
While they argued, the tray quietly floated off the table and vanished somewhere near the windows. Tonino and Angelica looked irritably around for it, extremely annoyed that they had once again missed noticing how it got in and out.
“Now look what you’ve done!” said Angelica.
“It’s your fault for telling lies about my family,” said Tonino.
Chapter 9
“If you’re not careful,” said Angelica, glowering under the bulge of her forehead, “I shall sing the first spell that comes into my head. And I hope it turns you into a slug.”
That was a threat indeed. Tonino quailed a little. But the honor of the Montanas was at stake. “Take back what you said about my family,” he said.
“Only if you take back what you said about mine,” said Angelica. “Swear by the Angel of Caprona that none of those dreadful lies are true. Look. I’ve got the Angel here. Come and swear.” Her pink finger jabbed down at the tabletop. She reminded Tonino of his school teacher on a bad day.
He left his creaking chair and leaned over to see what she was pointing at. Angelica fussily dusted away a shower of yellow varnish to show him that she indeed had the Angel, scratched with the useless tap into the top of the table. It was quite a good drawing, considering that the tap was not a good gouge and had shown a tendency to slip about. But Tonino was not prepared to admire it. “You’ve forgotten the scroll,” he said.
Angelica jumped up, and her flimsy chair crashed over backwards. “That does it! You’ve asked for it!” She marched over to the empty space by the windows and took up a position of power. From there, with her hands raised, she looked at Tonino to see if he was going to relent. Tonino would have liked to relent. He did not want to be a slug. He sought about in his mind for some way of giving in which did not look like simple cowardice. But, as with everything, he was too slow. Angelica flounced around, so that her arms were no longer at quite the right angle.
“Right,” she said. “I shall make it a cancel-spell, to cancel you out.” And she began to sing.
Angelica’s voice was horrible, sharp and flat by turns, and wandering from key to key. Tonino would have liked to interrupt her, or at least distract her by making noises, but he did not quite dare. That might only make things worse. He waited while Angelica squawked out a couple of verses of a spell which seemed to center around the words turn the spell around, break the spell off. Since he was a boy and not a spell,