The Pinhoe Egg

“Well, get this table out of here at least,” Aunt Joy said. She turned her back and stalked away into the Post Office.

Everyone looked at the vast table, half buried in rubble and earth. “Should we take it down to the Dell?” a cousin asked doubtfully.

“How do you want it when it’s there?” Uncle Charles asked. “Half outside in the duck pond, or on one end sticking up through the roof? That house is small. And they say this table was built inside Woods House. It couldn’t have got in any other way.”

“In that case,” asked Great Aunt Sue, “how did it get out?”

Dad and the other uncles exchanged alarmed looks. The bed dipped as Uncle Simeon dropped his part of it and raced off up the hill to see if Woods House was still standing. Marianne was fairly sure that Gammer grinned.

“Let’s get on,” Dad said.

They arrived at the Dell to find Dolly, still harnessed to the cart, standing in the duck pond shaking all over, while angry ducks honked at her from the bank. Uncle Richard, who was Dolly’s adoring friend, dropped his part of the bed and galloped into the water to comfort her. Aunt Dinah, Mum, Nicola, Joe and a crowd of other people rushed anxiously out of the little house to meet the rest of them.

Everyone gratefully lowered the bed to the grass. As soon as it was down, Gammer sat up and held a queenly hand out to Aunt Dinah. “Welcome,” she said, “to your humble abode. And a cup of hot marmalade would be very welcome too.”

“Come inside then, dear,” Aunt Dinah said. “We’ve got your tea all ready for you.” She took hold of Gammer’s arm and, briskly and kindly, led Gammer away indoors.

“Lord!” said someone. “Did you know it’s four o’clock already?”

“Table?” suggested Uncle Charles. Marianne could tell he was anxious not to annoy Aunt Joy any further.

“In one moment,” Dad said. He stood staring at the little house, breathing heavily. Marianne could feel him building something around it in the same slow, careful way he made his furniture.

“Dear me,” said the Reverend Pinhoe. “Strong measures, Harry.”

Mum said, “You’ve stopped her from ever coming outside. Are you sure that’s necessary?”

“Yes,” said Dad. “She’ll be out of here as soon as my back’s turned, otherwise. And you all know what she can do when she’s riled. We got her here, and here she’ll stay – I’ve made sure of that. Now let’s take that dratted table back.”

They went back in a crowd to the Post Office, where everyone exclaimed at the damage. Joe said, “I wish I’d seen that happen!”

“You’d have run for your life like Dolly did,” Dad snapped, tired and cross. “Everybody levitate.”

With most of the spring cleaning party to help, the table came loose from the Post Office wall quite quickly, in a cloud of brick dust, grass, earth and broken bricks. But getting it back up the hill was not quick at all. It was heavy. People kept having to totter away and sit on doorsteps, exhausted. But Dad kept them all at it, until they were level with the Pinhoe Arms. Uncle Simeon met them there, looking mightily relieved.

“Nothing I can’t rebuild,” he said cheerfully. “It took out half the kitchen wall, along with some cabinets and the back door. I’ll get them on it next Monday. It’ll be a doddle compared with the wall down there. That’s going to take time, and money.”

“Ah well,” said Dad.

Uncle Arthur came limping out of the yard, leaning on a stick, with one eye bright purple black. “There you all are!” he said. “Helen’s going mad in here about her lunch spoiling. Come in and eat, for heaven’s sake!”

They left the table blocking the entrance to the yard, under the swinging sign of the unicorn and griffin, and flocked into the inn. There, although Aunt Helen looked unhappy, no one found anything wrong with the food. Even elegant Great Aunt Clarice was seen to have two helpings of roast and four veg. Most people had three. And there was beer, mulled wine and iced fruit drink – just what everyone felt was needed. Here at last Marianne managed to get a word with Joe.

“How are you getting on in That Castle?”

“Boring,” said Joe. “I clean things and run errands. Mind you,” he added, with a cautious look at Joss Callow’s back, bulking at the next table, “I’ve never known anywhere easier to duck out from work in. I’ve been all over the Castle by now.”

“Don’t the Family mind?” Marianne asked.

“The main ones are not there,” Joe said. “They come back tomorrow. Housekeeper was really hacked off with me and Joss for taking today off. We told her it was our grandmother’s funeral – or Joss did.”

With a bit of a shudder, hoping this was not an omen for poor Gammer, Marianne went on to the question she really wanted to ask. “And the children? They’re all enchanters too, aren’t they?”

“One of them is,” Joe said. “Staff don’t like it. They say it’s not natural in a young lad. But the rest of them are just plain witches like us, from what they say. Are you going for more roast? Fetch me another lot too, will you.”

Eating and drinking went on a long time, until nearly sunset. It was quite late when a cheery party of uncles and cousins took the table back to Woods House, to shove it in through the broken kitchen wall and patch up the damage until Monday. A second party roistered off down the hill to tidy the bricks up there.

Everyone clean forgot about the attics.

Chapter Four (#ulink_ff2d258c-e63a-590a-9b8c-304dd617ae24)

On the way back from the south of France, Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia bought a book to read on the train, called A Pony of My Own. Halfway through France, Chrestomanci’s ward, Janet, snatched the book off Julia and read it too. After that, neither of them could talk about anything but horses. Julia’s brother Roger yawned. Cat, who was younger than any of them, tried not to listen and hoped they would get tired of the subject soon.

But the horse fever grew. By the time they were on the cross-Channel ferry, Julia and Janet had decided that both of them would die unless they had a horse each the moment they got home to Chrestomanci Castle.

“We’ve only got six weeks until we start lessons again,” Julia sighed. “It has to be at once, or we’ll miss all the gymkhanas.”

“It would be a complete waste of the summer,” Janet agreed. “But suppose your father says no?”

“You go and ask him now,” Julia said.

“Why me?” Janet asked.

“Because he’s always worried about the way he had to take you away from your own world,” Julia explained. “He doesn’t want you to be unhappy. Besides, you have blue eyes and golden hair —”

“So has Cat,” Janet said quickly.

“But you can flutter your eyelashes at him,” Julia said. “My eyelashes are too short.”

But Janet, who was still very much in awe of Chrestomanci – who was, after all, the most powerful enchanter in the world – refused to talk to Chrestomanci unless Julia was there to hold her hand. Julia, now that owning a horse had stopped being just a lovely idea and become almost real, found she was quite frightened of her father too. She said she would go with Janet if the boys would come and back them up.

Neither Roger nor Cat was in the least anxious to help. They argued most of the way across the Channel. At last, when the white cliffs of Dover were well in sight, Julia said, “But if you do come and Daddy does agree, you won’t have to listen to us talking about it any more.”

This made it seem worth it. Cat and Roger duly crowded into the cabin with the girls, where Chrestomanci lay, apparently fast asleep.

“Go away,” Chrestomanci said, without seeming to wake up.

Chrestomanci’s wife, Millie, was sitting on a bunk darning Julia’s stockings. This must have been for something to pass the time with, because Millie, being an enchantress, could have mended most things just with a thought. “He’s very tired, my loves,” she said. “Remember he had to take a travel-sick Italian boy all the way back to Italy before we came home.”

“Yes, but he’s been resting ever since,” Julia pointed out. “And this is urgent.”

“All right,” Chrestomanci said, half opening his bright black eyes. “What is it then?”

Janet bravely cleared her throat. “Er, we need a horse each.”

Chrestomanci groaned softly.

This was not promising, but, having started, both Janet and Julia suddenly became very eloquent about their desperate, urgent, crying need for horses, or at least ponies, and followed this up with a detailed description of the horse each of them would like to own. Chrestomanci kept groaning.