Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [72]
“Bother,” said Marcia. “These are a bit unstable.” She fished out another Charm and quickly dropped it into the jar, forgetting to Imprint it.
“Hurry up, do,” said Marcia irritably. “The Preserve is wearing off fast. Come on.”
She reached over and deftly flicked the millipede off Nicko’s sleeve, straight into the jar. It was quickly covered in sticky green Preserve by Boy 412. Jenna screwed the lid on tight, plonked the jar down on the table with a flourish, and everyone watched the last Preserve Pot transform.
The millipede lay in the Preserve Pot in a state of shock. It had been asleep under its favorite rock when Something Huge with a Red Head had picked up the rock and lifted it into Space. The worst was yet to come: the millipede, who was a solitary creature, had been thrown into a pile of noisy, dirty and downright rude bugs who jostled it and pushed it and even tried to bite its legs. The millipede didn’t like anything messing with its legs. It had a lot of legs, and each one needed to be kept in perfect working order; otherwise the millipede was in trouble. One dodgy leg and that was it—a bug could be forever running around in circles. So the millipede had headed for the bottom of the pile of low-life bugs and sulked, until it suddenly realized that all the bugs had gone and there was nowhere to hide. Every millipede knew that nowhere to hide meant the end of the world, and now the millipede knew that that was indeed true because sure enough, here it was, floating in a thick green goo and something terrible was happening to it. One by one it was losing its legs.
Not only that, but now its long, sleek body was getting shorter and fatter, and the millipede was now shaped like a stubby triangle with a little pointy head. On its back it had a stout pair of armored green wings, and its front was covered in heavy green scales. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the millipede now had only four legs. Four thick green legs. If you could call them legs. They certainly weren’t what it would call legs. There were two at the top and two at the bottom. The top two legs were shorter than the two bottom legs. They had five pointy things on the ends of each of them, which the millipede could move about, and one of the top legs was holding a small sharp metal stick. The bottom two legs had big flat green things on the ends of them, and each one of those had five more little pointy green things on it. It was a complete disaster. How could anything live with only four fat legs ending in pointy bits? What kind of creature was that?
That kind of creature, although the millipede didn’t know it, was a Shield Bug.
The ex-millipede, now a completed Shield Bug, lay suspended in the thick green Preserve. The bug moved slowly, as if testing out its new shape. It wore a surprised expression as it stared out at the world through its green haze, waiting for the moment when it would be released.
“The perfect Shield Bug,” said Marcia proudly, holding up the jam jar to the light and admiring the ex-millipede. “That’s the best one we’ve done. Well done, everyone.”
Soon, the fifty-seven jam jars were lined up along the windowsills, guarding the cottage. They were an eerie sight, their bright green occupants dreamily floating in the green goo, sleeping the time away until someone unscrewed the lids of their jars and released them. When Jenna asked Marcia what happened when you unscrewed the lid, Marcia told her that the Shield Bug would leap out and defend you until its last breath, or until you managed to catch it and put it back in the jar, which did not usually happen. A released Shield Bug had no intention of getting back into any jar ever again.
While Aunt Zelda and Marcia cleared up the pots and pans, Jenna sat by the door, listening to the clatter from the kitchen. As the twilight fell, she watched the fifty-seven