Muddle and Win (19 page)

‘Er  . . . talking to you?’ simpered Muddlespot.

Corozin’s arm joined his face in the cat’s inner chamber. In his fist he held his huge brass hammer. ‘Prepare to be horribly smashed into horrible little pieces!’ he hissed.

‘Look behind you,’ said Muddlespot, grinning.

And Windleberry, bonds loosed, flew from his chair. ‘FIEND!’ he roared. ‘FACE THE WRATH OF HEAVEN!’

IT WAS COLD
in the kitchen. Especially around her neck and wrists and ankles.

Still holding the cat to her shoulder, Sally opened the fridge door with her foot. With one hand, she slid the tray of muffins back where they belonged. She wasn’t really thinking about it. It was just her body doing what it always did – putting things back where they should be.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen, feeling the empty, dazed wrongness of being upright in the middle of the night.

Somehow it was hard to think.

DOWN CAME THE
hammer again. Windleberry back-flipped, picked up the statue of Trufe and flung it at his oncoming foe.

‘
Hey!
’ said the Inner Sally.

Brass and crystal exploded together in a cloud of shimmering dust. Corozin stumbled forward, wiping his eyes. Fragments of crystal smouldered, embedded in his skin like thorns. ‘You will pay for this!’ he snarled.

‘Hey,’ said the Inner Sally. ‘I said no—’

Windleberry vaulted – hands-feet-hands-and-
fly
forward – feet first, like a missile at the Enemy’s face. But the Enemy was no longer there. He hit the far wall, gathered himself and looked up – into the falling hammer!

He flung himself aside. Brass crashed into the crystal floor, and the floor crumbled. Windleberry fell through and his enemy fell with him. They grappled in midair.

‘Hey, guys!’ called Sally through the hole. ‘I’m getting a
headache
here!’

Windleberry tumbled down the broad stairs. He had his hands on the hammer. It burned. With a mighty heave, he tore it from his enemy’s grasp. He bent it into a pretzel-shape and threw it at the fiend’s head.

The Enemy screamed in rage.

‘Is anyone listening to me?’ said Sally.

‘Forget it,’ said Sally. ‘I’m going to bed.’

SLOWLY SHE CLIMBED
the stairs. She felt very out of place. She was wandering around the house in her pyjamas when she should be in bed. And as for the muffins – hadn’t she been going to put them in the oven? But she had put them in the fridge instead.

It was just that her subtle, clever bid for freedom hadn’t actually seemed so subtle or clever after all. Not when she had got there and looked at it. It had seemed the sort of thing a four-year-old would do.

Except four-year-olds were too sensible, she thought wearily. You had to wait to reach fourteen before you got this dumb.

What a choice:

Cat / Burn Muffins

Cat / Burn Muffins

Somehow she had ended up with ‘cat’.

So what was she going to do now? Sleep? How was she going to sleep, feeling the way she did?

None of it made sense. Only the cat, warm and purring in her arms, seemed real. And if she let him spend the night in her room, he wouldn’t just settle down quietly. He’d be poking his face into hers whenever he thought things were getting boring.

‘You’re a fat slob, Shades,’ she murmured.

‘Grrr,’ replied Shades happily.

She got them both to her room. She found her way to the bed and turned back the duvet. She lay down and put her head on her pillow. Shades settled beside her, pushed her nose with his and sneezed over her face.

‘Stop it,’ groaned Sally. ‘I’m trying to think.’

She had been going to do something. She hadn’t exactly decided
not
to do it, but she hadn’t done it.

Sometimes, not deciding something is a decision in itself.

Poot!
went something very small in her ear. So small she did not notice it. And then something very small tumbled through the air and landed
Plop!
on her pillow. She didn’t notice that either.

*

Muddlespot did.

He came sliding down the cat’s hairy haunch at speed and scuttled over to where the thing had landed. It was  . . .

‘Corozin?’ he gasped.

Stunned, battered and very much the worse for wear, the figure of Corozin lay full length upon the pillow and did not stir.

Muddlespot looked up, up the cliff face that was the side of Sally’s head, to the ear from which Corozin had fallen. ‘He did it! That Fluffy did it! Amazing!’

He looked at his prostrate master. He turned away. He took three paces and turned again.

Then he ran up
one-two-three
and kicked the fiend smartly on the butt. Corozin twitched, gratifyingly. Muddlespot danced away, snapping his fingers, to the fall of Sally’s hair. Eagerly, he began to climb.

The mind of Sally Jones that night was like the scene of some disaster. Smoke hung in the corridors. Piles of crystal rubble were scattered everywhere. In the chambers, small crowds of ideas huddled together for comfort, clinging to each other and sobbing out their
stories
. The lights flickered on and off. Alarms were wailing in the distance and no one knew how to stop them.

‘Windleberry did it,’ breathed Muddlespot. He could hardly believe it was true.