Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (20 page)

“These must be Ernie’s notes,” I muttered. I
also spotted a list of people written by Tina, with the pros and
cons to each person and whether they can be trusted or not.

There was a big question mark next to my
name. A little stone dropped in my stomach.

“I think someone’s coming,” said Robin.

That night, after me and Robin had our fill
of some kind of meat hotpot, we sat under an improved fire created
by Robin that supplied enough light to sort through the papers and
put them in order. I put all Ernie’s notes into a relatively
organised pile. Then we did the same with Tina’s. Afterwards we sat
and read them through together.

Ernie’s notes went into detail about Malakai
and his past. It said that he was bullied at school and that
initially, after school, he set out to avenge those bullies. The
power he felt from quashing those people led him to finding a taste
for it. He wasn’t particularly clever or special in school, he kept
to himself and got by as best an average Outsider would. When he
left school he became a loner, hiring a shack from an old woman in
a remote part of snowy Slackerdown, the fifth and most forgetful
Magical Kingdom. It was here, where he descended into some kind of
Magical madness, working all hours of the night and day, developing
new Magic and plotting his revenge against those who had crossed
him in the past. Ten years later he was very well-known to the
Magical community. He built strong networks with evil people, with
a string of rich old women leaving him money in their wills.

There was a page of Ernie’s notes dedicated
to acquiring a key. He noted down several shape-shifting Spells,
and what to tell the caretaker, noted as “
Parker
” that would
make him hand over the key. Ernie also talked in long passages
about possible ways to conquer Malakai - “
read all the books
Malakai read, so as to learn counters to his Spells”
But when
he came to list those books, there was a big angry question
mark.

“Ah!” said Robin. “This is what Tina was
talking about the other night!” He showed me the piece of
parchment, which had a complicated drawing on it of the
AstroMagical Star Chart.

“Look,” I said. “She’s mapped out when the
Book of Names must have arrived, and when it leaves.”

Robin gulped. “She was right. End of
April…”

Me and Robin read until the chickens began
clucking and dew settled on the school grounds. During lessons the
next day I tried to do all the ghost Magisteer asked but couldn’t
help falling asleep on my desk by midday. Some of the others did
too; Hunter, Dennis and Dawn were all sound asleep, less due to
tiredness and more down boredom. Robin was a machine when it came
to work and took the time during these boring lessons to pour over
notes which he kept hidden under the table. I was too tired to
think and dozed in and out of consciousness until dinner.

That night, we took the notes tucked inside
Robin’s bag to the Healer’s room and read over every note by Tina’s
bed. Robin was amazed at the wonderful feeling of clarity he got
from the room and wondered why the sun was not in the middle of the
school for everyone to benefit. Tina looked a lot better now, still
pale, but I could see improvement. I was hoping Ernie would pass
by, he was the one we needed to see. Even looking over the notes
now, with the helpful green light, none of the connections were
making much sense. For instance, a lot of what Ernie wrote only he
would understand. This included random Spells, strange cryptic
phrases and question marks over everything.

A few weeks later, nothing had changed, Tina
was still in the Healer’s room unconscious. But I grew accustomed
to having Robin around. He was bloody clever and made connections I
never would have on my own. Although we had all these notes, I had
a plan that had been festering in my head for some time now, and I
couldn’t seem to get rid of it, no matter how hard I tried -
something that increased every time Robin would remind me how long
we had left.

“Only three weeks left until the end of April
mate…”

“I
know
.”

The thing was, I knew that in stopping
Malakai, I could save Tina. So, to fail in stopping Malakai was to
fail saving Tina. My mind jumped around all over the place for days
at a time. The revelation that Tina was a Partington was still hard
to digest. Why hadn’t she told me that her Dad was my form
tutor?

Each night, me and Robin would sneak off to
the Library and see if we could find a new book. Robin would
suggest revisions to Spells, changing them into Spells that were
harder to counter. Obviously it would be more dangerous, but it was
worth the risk. For an Outsider, Robin sure was clever.

But I still didn’t tell him what my plan was,
or anyone in fact, because I knew what he would say. All I knew was
I had to do something. I could plan and plan and plan, but it would
never feel like the right moment to challenge Malakai. I was twelve
years old, knew barely enough Magic to pass the first year and the
majority of the school hated me, so I wouldn’t exactly be held up
as a hero. But sometimes, I thought, you have to do things for
others that might not benefit yourself.

Half term came out of nowhere and Robin,
rather apologetically, went home for a week. Just before everyone
went home, the ghost that was taking our lessons told us that
Partington would be back to teach us again when we all got back,
everyone cheered, much to the annoyance of the ghost. It would be
good to get back to learning interesting things again.

I missed Robin the first couple of days, we’d
spent so much time together - deciphering all those notes - that
now, I felt very alone again.

In the mean time, I was collecting my own
very nice stash of notes. I had worked on changing three Spells,
which we were told from day one, to never ever do. If you change
the content of a Spell, without knowing what you’re doing, you
could blow yourself up. I had to take a risk though and find
something that Malakai would not be expecting. To counter a Spell,
you need to know the name of the Counter Spell, which is pretty
easy. But if you’ve invented your own Spell, then its a whole lot
harder to counter, or block. Now, I’m not so arrogant as to assume
Malakai would not know how to block my Spells, but it could buy me
some time.

In the proceeding days of half term, I kept
to myself. I took my notes with me to the Chamber and ate while
reading. I still received scorning glances from around the room,
but I’d learnt to ignore it quite well now. Anyway, I had bigger
things to think about.

Hunter decided against going home this half
term as he had too much work to do. Strangely, he seemed a lot
happier now, after his accident. He liked Straker’s lessons, as he
was now trusting them to perform practical Magic. I sighed and
wondered when Straker would let me back in his class, he knew I was
innocent.

“Yeah, he’s a stubborn, strange man…” said
Hunter leaning in. “And a bit weird,” he laughed biting into a
large belgian bun. “So what you doing Avis? I see you walking
around and going to places but I have no idea what you’re doing.
It’s not anything…
evil
is it?” He raised his eyebrow as
icing dripped down his chin.

“No, ha, very funny.” I was only really used
to speaking to Robin and Tina, so now my social skills were pretty
terrible. I found it awkward and clumsy holding even a normal
conversation.

I saw Ross walking around looking stressed as
he revised hard for his exams. Sometimes I would catch his eye and
he would look away smiling. Perhaps he left me alone now because he
thought I was evil? I had a sneaking suspicion that David Starlight
and the rest of the Eagles form were avoiding me too. I’d seen
David, on his own looking glum, walking towards me in the corridor
the day before, when he saw me he turned down an opposite corridor
and hurried away. Maybe my evil plan had the desired effect after
all.

After a long boring week of sitting on my own
in the Chamber, deciphering old notes and brainstorming my plan —
Robin finally returned. I heard his voice in the main hall and ran
out to greet him. He had his suitcase floating behind him and I
noticed that he looked a little more fattened up, rosy cheeked and
cheerful. I needed to have whatever he’d eaten. My belt hardly
fitted and I kept having to make new holes.

“God I’d missed that place,” he said. “I love
Yorkshire.”

The next day we were back in lessons with
Partington. He was cheery, but I could tell it was forced. Deep
worry lines covered his face and his clothes looked unwashed. To
start, he was quite dreamy and asked vaguely what we’d learnt with
the ghost.

“Not a lot!” called Dennis and the class
laughed.

“Why were you away Sir?” said Dawn, the big
blabber mouth.

Partington swallowed. “Oh just… family stuff.
Never mind that.” I wondered if they knew that his daughter was
Tina?

After a few minutes Partington returned, in
some part, to his old self. He cracked a few jokes about the ghost
and launched into an interesting lessons about Hexes. I think it
was doing him good, teaching us, it took his mind off Tina. Now I
looked at him, I saw the resemblance.

Wednesday morning I woke up early, wrapped
tight in a hundred blankets. The wooden floor hard and cold beneath
me. The sun had just poked over the horizon and through the rays
that trickled in through the clock face I saw a small rat scurrying
through a crack in the wall. I sighed and sat up.

Today was my Birthday. I was thirteen. This
year, I wouldn’t be chased around the castle by my siblings and
forced to open booby-trapped presents. This year I wouldn’t have to
cut an exploding cake. This year, I wouldn’t have to hide in the
dungeon all day because Rory thought it would be a good idea to
give me a baby Wolf-Raptor.

Invariably, I ended up at some point on my
birthday, crying. This year, would be different. I wondered if my
parents were going to send me some presents? Or a present? Or maybe
even a card? Anything would be nice.

If Tina was here, she would have got me a
card.

I had noticed around the school that on
someones Birthday their friends got them a big badge to parade
around with, letting everyone know it was their friends Birthday.
Then in the Chamber, a big cake would come out and everyone would
sing
Happy Birthday
. But only for the popular ones, or
people with friends, or people who weren’t suspected of attempted
murder. So my hopes weren’t high.

In fact the day was pleasant. Partington
taught us all about enchanted furniture, which I found fascinating.
I contributed to the class in fact, because my Great Uncle
Farrybold, who lived with us until a year ago when he passed over,
was an eccentric antique dealer and was always bringing home huge
bits of furniture, like sofa’s that sprouted unlimited seats,
wardrobes that chose your outfit for the day and even a hairbrush
that grew back hair on bald men (it didn’t work on him).

He was killed by an antique billiards table
in the end, which collapsed on him when he said a trigger word. It
was a shame, he was always nice to me, when he remembered who I
was.

Partington stopped me just as I went to leave
that lesson and asked if he could have word. He sat down on his
desk and shut the door by flicking his hand. He looked at me and
suddenly the thing we both shared came to the front of our minds.
Tina.

“I know that you are up to something,” said
Partington pointedly. “I don’t know what, but I know that you need
to be careful. I’ve seen you walking around the school with that
look on your face. And I know that you’re good friends with Tina.”
I shifted uncomfortably, unable to look at him directly. “You know
something, and I don’t expect you to tell me. I had warned her many
times that actions have consequences. It was no one’s fault except
hers. Also, I’ve been reading some of your notes…” Partington held
up my Main Book, which allowed him to see my writing. I shuddered.
I think I had accidentally wrote on the parchment that Partington
could check. I swallowed, not wanting to know what he had read.

“Don’t worry, wasn’t anything bad. Just some
Spells that I don’t think you should be doing.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You do know,” said Partington. “That you can
come to me with anything, don’t you?”

I nodded politely. “I do, Sir.” I wanted to
tell him about Malakai, the Book Of Name’s and my plan. But, I just
couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth, that I
knew his dead son Ernest and planned to follow through and complete
his quest.

“She’s under a curse…” said Partington
looking up at the ceiling. “
He
put her under. To make sure
she won’t wake.”

I was sure that he was talking about Malakai,
but I frowned, unsure. “A
curse
, Sir?”

“Yes. He’s a nasty individual is
Malakai
,” he looked at me now. His red, blotchy face gazing
at mine, trying to spot any giveaways. I matched his red and
bloodshot eyes with my blankest expression. “And your not to get
involved with him either. Not as revenge or anything, you hear
me?”

I had to look at my feet, I didn’t want to
lie to him. I shrugged. “What do you mean - a
curse
? Like,
she won’t wake up?”

He looked away from me, sighing. “No, not
unless it’s broken.”

“How? What I mean is,
why
did he curse
her?”

Partington stood and began shuffling papers.
“Don’t know.”

Before I knew what I was doing, words began
tumbling out of my mouth. “She was doing what Ernie told her
to…”

His eyes moved slowly down to me.
“Impossible…”

I felt a trickle of sweat down my back. “No
Sir. Ernest sent her the plans, she told me.”