House of Many Ways

A hot drink was something Charmain had been yearning for ever since she fell off the mountainside.

She shivered and hugged her sweater round herself. “What a good idea,” she said. “Do make one if you can find out how.”

Peter waved bubbles aside to look at the teapots on the table. “Someone must have made all these pots of tea,” he said.

“Great Uncle William must have made them,” Charmain said. “It wasn’t me.”

“But it shows it can be done,” Peter said. “Stop standing there looking feeble and find a saucepan or something.”

“You find one,” Charmain said.

Peter shot her a scornful look and strode across the room, waving bubbles aside as he went, until he reached the crowded sink. There he naturally made the discoveries that Charmain had made earlier. “There are no taps!” he said incredulously. “And all these saucepans are dirty. Where does he get water from?”

“There’s a pump out in the yard,” Charmain said unkindly.

Peter looked among the bubbles at the window, where rain was still streaming across the panes. “Isn’t there a bathroom?” he said. And before Charmain could explain how you got to it, he waved and stumbled his way across the kitchen to the other door and arrived in the living room. Bubbles stormed in there around him as he dived angrily back into the kitchen. “Is this a joke?” he said incredulously. “He can’t have only these two rooms!”

Charmain sighed, huddled her sweater further around herself, and went to show him. “You open the door again and turn left,” she explained, and then had to grab Peter as he turned right. “No. That way goes to somewhere very strange. This is left. Can’t you tell?”

“No,” Peter said. “I never can. I usually have to tie a piece of string round my thumb.”

Charmain rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and pushed him left. They both arrived in the corridor, which was loud with the rain pelting across the window at the end. Light slowly flooded the place as Peter stood looking around.

“Now you can turn right,” Charmain said, pushing him that way. “The bathroom’s this door here. That row of doors leads to bedrooms.”

“Ah!” Peter said admiringly. “He’s been bending space. That’s something I can’t wait to learn how to do. Thanks,” he added, and plunged into the bathroom. His voice floated back to Charmain as she tiptoed towards the study. “Oh, good! Taps! Water!”

Charmain whisked herself into Great Uncle William’s study and closed the door, while the funny twisted lamp on the desk lit up and grew brighter. By the time she reached the desk, it was almost bright as daylight in there. Charmain shoved aside Das Zauberbuch and picked up the bundle of letters underneath. She had to check. If Peter was telling the truth, one of the letters asking to be Great Uncle William’s apprentice had to be from him. Because she had only skimmed through them before, she had no memory of seeing one, and if there wasn’t one, she was dealing with an imposter, possibly another lubbock. She had to know.

Ah! Here it was, halfway down the pile. She put her glasses on and read:

Esteemed Wizard Norland,

With regard to my becoming your apprentice, will it be convenient for me to arrive with you in a week’s time, instead of in the autumn as arranged? My mother has to journey into Ingary and prefers to have me settled before she leaves. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall present myself at your house on the thirteenth of this month.

Hoping this is convenient, Yours faithfully, Peter Regis

So that seems to be all right! Charmain thought, half relieved and half annoyed. When she had skimmed the letters earlier, her eye must have caught the word apprentice near the top and the word hoping near the bottom, and those words were in all the letters. So she had assumed it was just another begging letter. And it looked as if Great Uncle William had done the same. Or perhaps he had been too ill to reply. Whatever had happened, she seemed to be stuck with Peter. Bother! At least he’s not sinister, she thought.

Here she was interrupted by dismayed yelling from Peter in the distance. Charmain hastily stuffed the letters back under Das Zauberbuch, snatched off her glasses, and dived out into the corridor.

Steam was blasting out of the bathroom, mixing with the bubbles that had strayed in there. It almost concealed something vast and white that was looming towards Charmain.

“What have you d—,” she began.

This was all she had time to say before the vast white something put out a gigantic pink tongue and licked her face. It also gave out a huge trumpeting sound. Charmain reeled backwards. It was like being licked by a wet bath towel and whined at by an elephant. She leaned against the wall and stared up into the creature’s enormous, pleading eyes.

“I know those eyes,” Charmain said. “What has he done to you, Waif?”

Peter surged out of the bathroom, gasping. “I don’t know what went wrong,” he gasped. “The water didn’t come out hot enough to make tea, so I thought I’d make it hotter with a Spell of Enlargement.”

“Well, do it backwards at once,” Charmain said. “Waif’s the size of an elephant.”

Peter shot the huge Waif a distracted look. “Only the size of a carthorse. But the pipes in here are red hot,” he said. “What do you think I should do?”

“Oh, honestly!” Charmain said. She pushed the enormous Waif gently aside and went to the bathroom. As far as she could see through the steam, boiling water was gushing out of all four taps and flushing into the toilet, and the pipes along the walls were indeed glowing red. “Great Uncle William!” she shouted. “How do I make the bathroom water cold?”

Great Uncle William’s kindly voice spoke among the hissing and gushing. “You will find further instructions somewhere in the suitcase, my dear.”

“That’s no good!” Charmain said. She knew there was no time to go searching through suitcases. Something was going to explode soon. “Go cold!” she shouted into the steam. “Freeze! All you pipes, go cold at once!” she screamed, waving both arms. “I order you to cool down!” It worked, to her astonishment. The steam died away to mere puffs and then vanished altogether. The toilet stopped flushing. Three of the taps gurgled and stopped running. Frost almost instantly formed on the tap that was running – the cold tap over the washbasin – and an icicle grew from the end of it. Another icicle appeared on the pipes that ran across the wall and slid, hissing, down into the bath.

“That’s better,” Charmain said, and turned round to look at Waif. Waif looked sadly back. She was as big as ever. “Waif,” Charmain said, “go small. Now. I order you.”

Waif sadly wagged the tip of her monstrous tail and stayed the same size.

“If she’s magic,” Peter said, “she can probably turn herself back if she wants to.”

“Oh, shut up!” Charmain snapped at him. “What did you think you were trying to do anyway? No one can drink scalding water.”

Peter glowered at her from under the twisted, dripping ends of his hair. “I wanted a cup of tea,” he said. “You make tea with boiling water.”

Charmain had never made tea in her life. She shrugged. “Do you really?” She raised her face to the ceiling. “Great Uncle William,” she said, “how do we get a hot drink in this place?”

The kindly voice spoke again. “In the kitchen, you tap the table and say ‘Tea’, my dear. In the living room, tap the trolley in the corner and say ‘Afternoon tea’. In your bedroom—”

Neither Peter nor Charmain waited to hear about the bedroom. They dived forward and slammed the bathroom door, opened it again – Charmain giving Peter a stern push to the left – and jammed themselves through it into the kitchen, turned round, shut the door, opened it again and finally arrived in the living room, where they looked eagerly around for the trolley. Peter spotted it over in the corner and reached it ahead of Charmain. “Afternoon tea!” he shouted, hammering mightily upon its empty, glass covered surface. “Afternoon tea! Afternoon tea! Aftern—”

By the time Charmain got to him and seized his flailing arm, the trolley was crowded with pots of tea, milk jugs, sugar bowls, cups, scones, dishes of cream, dishes of jam, plates of hot buttered toast, piles of muffins and a chocolate cake. A drawer slid out of the end of it, full of knives, spoons and forks. Charmain and Peter, with one accord, dragged the trolley over to the musty sofa and settled down to eat and drink. After a minute, Waif put her huge head round the door, sniffing. Seeing the trolley, she shoved a bit and arrived in the living room too, where she crawled wistfully and mountainously over to the sofa and put her enormous hairy chin on the back of it behind Charmain. Peter gave her a distracted look and passed her several muffins, which she ate in one mouthful, with huge politeness.

A good half hour later, Peter lay back and stretched. “That was great,” he said. “At least we won’t starve. Wizard Norland,” he added experimentally, “how do we get lunch in this house?”

There was no reply.

“He only answers me,” Charmain said, a trifle smugly. “And I’m not going to ask now. I had to deal with a lubbock before you came and I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

“What are lubbocks?” Peter asked. “I think one killed my father.”

Charmain did not feel up to answering him. She got up and went to the door.

“Wait,” Peter said. “How do we get rid of the stuff on this trolley?”

“No idea,” said Charmain. She opened the door.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Peter said, hurrying after her. “Show me my bedroom first.”

I suppose I’ll have to, Charmain thought. He can’t tell left from right. She sighed. Unwillingly, she shoved Peter in among the bubbles that were still storming into the kitchen, thicker than ever, so that he could collect his knapsack, and then steered him left, back through the door to where the bedrooms were. “Take the third one along,” she said. “That one’s mine and the first one’s Great Uncle William’s. But there’s miles of them, if you want a different one. Good night,” she added and went into the bathroom.

Everything in there was frozen.