The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (9 page)

Just as she reached the other side, a man walked past with a big dog on a leash.

The dog barked loudly at Demerara, who gave a shriek of fright—followed by a shriek of annoyance.

Lily and Caydon crossed the road to join her.

“Slight change of plan,” Demerara said crossly. “I’ve
SWALLOWED the dratted thing! It was all that dog’s fault.”

Lily’s heart sank. “Does that mean we can’t do the spell?”

“Not now, I’m afraid. We’ll have to wait until it comes out of me. What a nuisance.”

“But—we don’t have time! We have to help Oz!”

“I’m sorry, dear,” Demerara said. “At least we know the bean is safe.” She sat down on the pavement. “I feel slightly faint with hunger—someone get me a can of Whiskas!”

“I don’t have any money,” said Lily.

“I do,” Caydon said. “I’ll get it.” Though he teased the uppity cat, he was fond of her. “What flavor would you like?”

“Chicken—or salmon, if they don’t have that—goodness, how queer this feels!”

“Demerara?” Lily bent down to stroke her head. “Are you OK?”

The words died in her throat as she watched, transfixed.

The cat was growing. First she was the size of a panther, then a lion—and still her paws and claws grew, and her sharp teeth grew, and her mighty hindquarters swelled, until she towered over them, the size of a full-grown elephant.

“Good gracious!” Demerara cried. “I’m GIGANTIC—I don’t look fat, do I?”

Caydon found his voice. “What’ve you done? What’s happened?”

“It must be something to do with that magic bean. Let’s hope I shrink back soon.”

A young man stepped out of the supermarket. He gaped at Demerara, the color draining from his face. A moment later a woman with a baby buggy walked round the corner and let out a loud scream.

“She’s VISIBLE!” groaned Caydon. “Now what do we do?”

Lily was still stunned by the sight of the giant cat—beautiful as ever, but suddenly more like a dangerous wild animal.

The dumbfounded young man dashed back into the shop. “Call the police!”

The woman with the baby kept screaming.

“Oh, what a silly fuss!” said Demerara. She had started to enjoy herself. “This is rather fun—I can see so much!” She stretched her head to peek into an upstairs window—a shout of terror came from inside.

“Look, what are we going to do?” Caydon asked again. “She can’t stay here!”

Lily grabbed a handful of Demerara’s fur. “Come and hide inside—I’m sure you can squeeze into the workshop—”

“She’s too fat,” Caydon interrupted. “She’ll just get stuck!”

“I don’t want to hide,” said Demerara. “Why should I hide?”

A small crowd had gathered round them now. The woman with the baby had stopped screaming and was talking to the police on her phone.

“No, I am NOT seeing things! There’s a giant cat on the loose!”

The young man was taking pictures with his phone.

After all her years in obscurity, the attention went to Demerara’s head like wine. Her enormous furry face lifted into a smirk as she sauntered along the middle of Skittle Street. Every moment cars were stopping, and more people were appearing to stare at the elephant-sized cat.

“Come back!” Lily called.

“I’m just taking a little stroll, dear.”

“It’s a hologram!” someone yelled.

“It’s a special effect from a movie!” yelled someone else.

The baby in the buggy laughed and cried out, “PITTY!”

“What a charming child,” Demerara said graciously.

Lily broke into a trot to keep beside her. “Demerara, you can’t show yourself in public—there’ll be cameras and television and the police—”

“Television—really?”

“What’ll J think?”

The monstrous cat stopped, crossly flicking her huge tail (it accidentally swept a traffic warden into the gutter). Her square green eyes narrowed. “He’s such a spoilsport! But I daresay you’re right—I’ll try to squeeze myself back into the workshop.”

“Good girl,” said Caydon.

Demerara crouched down on the pavement. “Would you two like a little ride on my back? There’s plenty of room for both of you.”

“Oh, I’d love to—I’ll feel just like Susan and Lucy in Narnia, when they rode on Aslan!” Delighted, Lily scrambled up the mountain of golden-brown fur onto the cat’s broad back. It felt beautifully soft.

Caydon couldn’t resist either. He climbed up behind Lily, and they both giggled when Demerara stood up.

“She’s like a furry sofa,” Caydon said.

“Are you comfortable, children?” Demerara purred.

“Yes,” said Lily. “If you don’t go too fast.”

The cat’s loud purring made her throb underneath them like an engine. She suddenly let out a cackle—and dashed out of Skittle Street.

Lily screamed, clutching handfuls of golden-brown fur to keep from falling off; Demerara’s running was not as smooth as Aslan’s.

“Stop!” Caydon shouted.

“This is very interesting,” Demerara called over her
shoulder. “I can move so fast!” She smartened her pace until Lily and Caydon had to cling on for dear life.

The vast cat ran happily through the streets of Holloway. Cars screeched to a halt—a pale policeman tried to stutter into his radio—a group of skateboarding boys pelted after them with whoops of delight.

“Hey—it’s CAYDON!” one of them shouted.

“Oh, do you know them, dear?” Demerara asked.

“Yes, they’re from my old school.”

She stopped suddenly and turned round. “Hello, boys—how nice to meet Caydon’s friends.”

The boys all roared with terror and dashed away as fast as they could.

“Now you’ve done it,” said Caydon. “I’ll never be able to explain this.”

Demerara set off again, this time at a smooth trot. More people were gathering around them—at a safe distance. Loving the attention, the cat purred and smiled, and often slowed down for someone taking a picture.

It was like being part of a traveling circus, Lily thought; the traffic on busy Holloway Road stopped as the enormous cat made her stately progress, attended by a crowd that now included two police cars and a fire engine.

“Demerara, we really should go home—or at least get off the main road—”

“But I’m still very peckish, dear; I’ll stop for a snack first.”

“What kind of snack?” Caydon’s voice behind her was alarmed. “You’re not going to kill something, are you?”

“Oh, don’t be silly—I’m not an ORDINARY cat.”

“Come home and we’ll get you something to eat,” Lily said (frantically wondering how much cat food was in stock at the supermarket next door, and how she would pay for it).

“Hmm, I smell something tasty!” They had reached Archway, and the cat paused to sniff over the chaos of traffic, seething crowds and police cars. She trotted purposefully across the road.

“Where are you going?” Lily asked.

“Oh, no!” moaned Caydon. “Stop—you can’t go in there!”

Demerara stopped again outside the Archway branch of McDonald’s. She pressed her huge furry face against the window. The customers inside gasped and screamed, flinging their half-eaten burgers into the air and scattering fries.

“The door’s too small for you!” Lily shouted desperately.

“Pooh,” said Demerara.

Her furry back heaved and rolled, and Lily and Caydon were flung to the pavement.

More sirens were wailing now, and a helicopter clattered above them. Lily scrambled to her feet, rubbing her elbow.

Demerara held up one mighty paw and smashed a great hole in the window. She stepped through it and made for the counter, scornfully brushing aside tables and chairs. At the counter she stuck her head into the piles of waiting burgers and gobbled them down, paper and all. Right at the back, where the food was being cooked, she gulped down the raw and half-cooked burgers so fast that she almost bit the arm of a terrified employee.

Most of the customers inside McDonald’s had escaped, and several were giving interviews to television news channels.

“Demerara!” Lily called. “Oh, this is a disaster! They’ll shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and shut her up in a zoo—and we’ll never find Oz!”

“Keep calm, everyone!” a voice shouted. “The situation is under control!”

A young policeman in full riot gear pushed his way through the crowd.

“Alan!” Lily was incredibly glad to see him. “What’re the river police doing here?”

“The department’s borrowing me from the river police,” Alan said cheerfully. “I’m working on this case now—though I didn’t expect it to get this interesting so quickly!”

“You’re too late,” Caydon said. “That cat’s going to be all over the news.”

“No she won’t—that’s why the SMU sent an emergency response unit.” Alan pointed to a large black truck backing up against the curb. “We’ll soon sort her out.”

“What are you going to do?” Lily cried out. “Don’t hurt her!”

“Don’t you worry,” Alan said kindly. He was carrying a megaphone, which he raised to his mouth. “DEMERARA—COME OUT!”

“No!” the huge cat shouted, with her mouth full. “Go away!”

“Lily, you have a go,” Alan pushed the megaphone into her hands. “She might listen to you.”

“DEMERARA!” Lily jumped with shock at the sound of her own voice ringing out across Archway. “PLEASE BE GOOD AND COME OUT!”

“Oh well,” said Demerara, “I’ve eaten it all now.” She let out a loud hiccup that rang out like a gunshot.

The mass of golden-brown fur turned, slowly lumbering back through the broken window to the pavement.

The SMU emergency response unit swung impressively into action while police in riot gear pushed the crowd back.

“Hello, Alan,” Demerara said, her mouth full of
burger. “How nice to see you—what’ve you got there? OW!”

What Alan had was a syringe filled with blue liquid. He jabbed it into her fat golden-brown bottom, and the oversized cat slowly collapsed onto the pavement.

“You’ve killed her!” Lily gasped.

Demerara let out a loud snore as Alan and the other policemen threw a huge net across her and hoisted her into the truck with a special lift. With amazing efficiency and speed, she was packed up and whisked away. At the same time, the pavement under their feet began to vibrate, and their brains were invaded by a deep buzzing sound that gradually got louder and louder.

Gradually—and eerily—the excited mob of people subsided into silence, and a deep stillness fell across Archway. When the buzzing sound faded, they seemed to shake themselves awake. The people nearest to Lily and Caydon blinked in bewilderment and slowly began to move off. The television crews hurried back to their vans while the staff of McDonald’s started to sweep up the broken glass as if nothing at all surprising had happened.

Lily grabbed Alan’s sleeve. “Where have they taken her?”

“To be turned back into a little cat again,” said Alan cheerfully. “A little cat—in very BIG trouble!”

“Do you have ANY idea how much you’ve cost the department today?” the man known as J said sternly. “Do you know how expensive it is to scramble the memories of hundreds—thousands—of people? Not to mention wiping the pictures off their phones! What were you THINKING?”

“I wanted to find Oz without all the red tape,” Demerara said sulkily. “I didn’t mean to swallow the wretched bean—and I didn’t know it would turn me into a giant. It’s not my fault.”

Lily wanted to stick up for her cat friend, but couldn’t help thinking quite a lot of it had been Demerara’s fault; nobody had forced her to parade through the streets in broad daylight and smash into McDonald’s.

On the way to J’s unofficial office in the MI6 building, Alan had driven Lily and Caydon to Muswell Hill. He had taken them into what appeared to be ordinary kennels, for dogs whose owners had to go away without them. Underneath the kennels, however, they had
found a hidden network of huge cellars, filled with cages. Alan had explained that this was where the SMU kept all unexplained animals, and where they had brought Demerara to be shrunk back to her normal size.

There had been a reception desk, where Alan had to fill out a complicated form. While Lily and Caydon waited, they listened to the extraordinary noises around them—hoots, grunts and shrieks that didn’t seem to come from any recognizable animal. The big cage nearest to them was empty, but something heavy could be heard trampling and shifting inside it. The sign on the door said EDWIN; the woman at the desk had told them he was a ghost elephant. Seeing Lily’s face light up, she had kindly added, “Put your hand through the bars and he’ll brush it with the end of his trunk—he’s ever so friendly.” And Lily had felt the soft, leathery touch of the ghostly Edwin; her mind was still full of him.

Demerara had been returned to them as a normal-sized cat, and she was in such a monumental sulk that she’d hardly spoken a word until they were shown into J’s office for the official debriefing.

“Some guys from school saw me,” said Caydon.

“They’ll have forgotten all about it,” J said. “I had to scramble the memories of every single person from Highgate to Islington, at hideous expense.” He glared down at Demerara, perched on his desk. “You’ve been a very bad little cat.”

Demerara’s eyes narrowed to slits. “All right, I got a bit carried away.”

“It mustn’t happen again, do you understand? We’re here to protect the public—not terrify them! Now get off my desk.”

She dropped sullenly to the floor.

“We did try to stop her,” said Caydon.

“You two did very well,” J said. “And I wish I had more news to give you.”

“Haven’t you heard anything about Oz?” Lily asked.

“Nothing so far—we’re combing every single SMU report for clues, and following up anything unexplained.”

“But what if Isadore killed him?” Lily couldn’t stop her voice from wobbling. “What will you say to our parents if he’s dead?”

“Do you think he’s dead?”

She thought about this—would she know? Deep inside she had always carried an awareness of Oz and his feelings, and this was still present, along with the other voice they had heard when they were little.

“No.”

“Trust your instincts,” J said kindly.

“Excuse me, sir.” B62 put her head round the door. “Our agent from the London Transport Police has reported something odd—should I tell the desk to send her up?”