The Darke Toad (7 page)

“No!” a few uncertain shouts came in reply.

“We want to have fun!” Linda shouted, frantically jumping up and down and grinning so hard that she thought her face might crack. “Hey! And that's what we are going to do. Fun! Yeah?”

It worked.

“Yeah!” yelled the crowd.

This was too much for Daphne. She turned to the crowd and screamed out, “But it's not fun. It's
not
. I hate you, Linda. I hate you
all
!”

Linda—once a supremely accomplished playground bully—recognized an opportunity. “Ooh,” she said. “She
hates
us.
Ooh
.”

“
Ooh,
” those in the crowd who had not been bullied echoed obligingly.

“Perhaps I should turn her into a gribble?”

“Yeah!” someone yelled from the back. “Gribble!”

Linda reckoned she was getting the crowd back on her side. “She'd like that,” she said. “She'd like it in there, wriggling around with her slimy little friends.” Linda pointed to the box at her feet, which was now, to her relief, glowing a bright orange and hissing. She grabbed Daphne by the collar and asked the audience, “So, what do you say—shall I turn this moaning little worm into a gribble?”

The audience sensed some fun was on the way. “Yeah!” more people shouted. “Yeah! Turn her into a gribble!” A chant began to build. “Grib-
ull
, grib-
ull
, grib-
ull
!”

Daphne looked horrified. She wrenched herself away from Linda and ran. The crowd parted to make way for her exit and Daphne cannoned straight into Marcia. There was a roar of laughter.

“Brilliant timing!” said someone. “Absolutely
brilliant
.”

Marcia winced as Daphne's sticky witch cloak brushed against the
Magyk
in her own cloak.

“These witches are very realistic,” Alice shouted to Marcia over the noise.

“They're more than realistic, Alice,” Marcia shouted back. “They're
real
.”

“Real?” Alice yelled. “
Really
real?”

“There's a witchy
Darkenesse
in the air you could cut with a knife,” said Marcia.

“But Marcia, if they're real, then what they are doing is real too,” Alice said.

“I would imagine so,” Marcia said drily. With Alice at her heels, Marcia moved rapidly through the cleared space and headed toward Linda, who was now working her audience into a frenzy.

“What do we want?” Linda was shouting.

“Grib-
ull
, grib-
ull
!” everyone yelled.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

To the delight of the crowd Marcia, backed up by Alice, was now face-to-face with Linda. “Hey, Wizard and witch fight!” someone yelled.

The call was quickly taken up: “Wizard and witch! Fight! Fight! Fight! Wizard and witch! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“Quiet!” Linda yelled—and such was her crowd control that she got it at once. “Gribble first—then fight! Yeah?”

“Yeah!” yelled the crowd. “Gribble
first
! Then
fight
!”

Eyeing the suspiciously glowing box of woodworms, Marcia waited until the noise had died away enough for her to be heard. Then she took a deep breath and yelled, “Port Witch Coven! I command you to
stop
. Now!”

“Spoilsport!” came a shout from the crowd, and it was quickly taken up into a chant. “Spo-il-
sport
! Spo-il-
sport
! Spo-il-
sport
!”

Linda laughed and Marcia felt horribly uncomfortable. She had forgotten how much she had come to rely on the respect people automatically gave her as ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Suddenly she was just another Hallowseeth reveler in a dodgy costume—and it was a shock.

Eager to see what was happening, people began to push past Marcia and Alice, who were quickly edged out of the space around the witches. Marcia lost patience. With the help of a few well-judged
Pushes
, she emerged into the clearing. In front of her sat the box—from which emanated a powerful, crowd-fueled
Magyk
—now alive with writhing woodworms glowing brilliant red. Linda and the Witch Mother were staring into the contents, willing them to
do something fast
.

Veronica saw Marcia coming. “Pigs!” she said. “It's the pigging ExtraOrdinary Wizard!”

“It's only some idiot in a purple nightie, stupid,” snapped Linda.

But the Witch Mother knew Marcia from way back. “No, it's not,” she snapped. “Quick, Linda.
Do it!
”

Linda became flustered. “It's
done
, you stupid old trout,” she hissed. “We just have to wait for it to—”

Marcia was upon them.

“Pig off!” yelled Linda.

Marcia hurled a
Freeze Flash
at them.

It was too late. Its energy was diverted into the witches'
Magyk
and it triggered the spell. There was a deafening
boom
that resonated all around the harborside. The crowd screamed in excitement, Daphne's box erupted in a blaze of light and a stream of brilliant red stars whooshed into the sky. All eyes followed them as they rose up and up, and then with a faint
pfut
broke into myriad pinpoints of light that rained gently down and settled daintily onto the ships. A roar of appreciation came from the crowd, followed by riotous applause.

“Jolly good,” Linda said to the Witch Mother. “The rats will be jumping ship soon. Now, girls, lose yourselves in the crowd before anyone realizes what's going on. Remember, I want a kid small enough to fit up the sewer pipe. It
so
needs unblocking. Ha ha.”

“Stop right there!” said Marcia.

“Oh
stuff off
,” Linda snarled, and pushed past Marcia. Marcia swung around and threw a long, low
Trip-Up
that went curling around Linda's feet, sending the witch sprawling onto the wet cobblestones. Linda burst out laughing. “Too late!” she yelled. “
Too pigging late!
”

A shriek from Alice Nettles took Marcia's attention away from the witches.

“Oh my goodness,” gasped Marcia.
The ships were melting
.

A
horrified silence fell across
the harborside as the crowd watched the masts of the three ships that had been directly beneath the cascade of stars rapidly crumble into nothing. It took many long, shocked seconds for the assorted Specters, Bogle Bugs, mummies, Grula-Grulas, Chimeras and Gragull to understand that this was actually happening
for real
. But as the Quayside reverberated to the hollow
thud
of sails and ropes falling onto decks, then the long, slow crunching sound of decks folding in under their weight like wet paper bags, people at last began to react. They rushed toward the ships and began urging the sailors to jump. Many hurried off to the Chandlery to fetch ropes and life buoys. A party of young Specters bravely leaped into the water and began hauling out anyone they could find.

Screams of “
Abandon ship!
” filled the harbor as the collapse began to spread along the line of ships. Masts fell like ninepins and hulls caved in like eggshells. The Harbor Master, festooned with life buoys, hurried along the Quayside, hurling them into the water, which was now dark with debris and full of struggling sailors, many of whom could not swim.

In the chaos, Daphne sneaked back to retrieve her empty woodworm box. She carefully put it in the wheelbarrow and headed toward Fishguts Twist. Daphne could take no more; she was going home. However, when she reached the stone bench where DomDaniel was slumped with his mouth open, snoring, the sight of the bag of Hallowseeth herrings was too much of a temptation. Daphne sat down and began to crunch her way through the now-cold, but still deliciously salty, little fish—heads and all. Daphne was not a delicate eater, and the noisy sucking of fish bones invaded DomDaniel's dreams and woke him up.

Daphne tipped the remaining herring scales into her mouth, screwed up the bag and threw it angrily at a passing crocodile with an ax in its head. “I
hate
her,” she said.

“The crocodile?” DomDaniel asked blearily.

“No, Linda. She killed all my lovely woodworms. She's a cow.”

For some reason DomDaniel liked Daphne. It was an odd feeling to like someone, and DomDaniel did not intend to encourage it. But he put his hand into his old cloak pocket and took out a miniature silver box inlaid with onyx. “Have you still got Dukey?” he asked.

Daphne looked stunned. “How do you know about Dukey?”

DomDaniel smiled, his lips slipping over his teeth like skin on cold custard. “I make it my business to hear what's going on,” he said.

“Yes, I've still got Dukey,” whispered Daphne.

“Well, then, let's see him.”

Bewildered, Daphne took Dukey out of her pocket. DomDaniel inspected the fat worm covered in fluff. “He'll fit,” he said. Then he flicked the lid off the silver box, revealing a brilliant blue interior that shone like a jewel. “Drop him in there,” he told Daphne.

Dazed at such attention from the great DomDaniel, Daphne dropped her last, precious and very dead woodworm into the box. DomDaniel snapped the lid shut. “Keep it closed for twenty-four hours,” he told Daphne. “Then when you open it you will have an endless supply. You'll soon get your colony back.”

Daphne stared at the little silver box in amazement. “Th-thank you,” she stammered.

“Don't mention it,” said DomDaniel.

Daphne understood. “No,” she said. “I won't.”

Daphne and DomDaniel sat in companionable silence, Daphne smiling with sheer happiness, DomDaniel worrying about why he felt as though his skin was about to fall off.

While peace descended into the shadows at the entrance to Fishguts Twist, pandemonium still reigned in the harbor. The Quayside swarmed with all kinds of creatures carrying ropes and floats and hurling them into the harbor. Some were braving the gribble worms and jumping into their own rowboats in desperate attempts to reach sailors struggling in the water. Not all rowboats made it back safely. Marcia directed her energies to
Reviving
those sailors who were brought out of the water half—or sometimes fully—drowned. If she got to them within three minutes of drowning, she knew she had a chance of saving them.

Simon worked hard too. Unnoticed in the melee he pulled sailors from the water and he even delivered one to Marcia without her recognizing him. Simon was near exhaustion when he caught sight of a young boy clinging on to a spar that was rapidly disappearing under gribble attack. He dived into the sludge floating on the surface of the water and pulled the boy to safety. As he helped the shivering, red-haired boy up the steps, a woman's voice said, “Ah, poor dearie. Let me take him, Simon Heap.” Shattered, he handed the boy over. It was only some minutes later when he had recovered his breath that it occurred to Simon to wonder how the woman had known his name.

From the window in the Customs House, Septimus had watched the unfolding drama—at first with excitement at the beautiful display of lights and then, when he realized that a disaster was taking place, with frustration that he could not be down there,
doing something
. But he remembered what Marcia had told him and he dutifully stayed where he was.

It was when Septimus saw three vicious-looking women in witches' cloaks dragging away a struggling, half-drowned boy, that he could stand it no more. And when the boy saw him in the window and yelled, “
Help me!
” Septimus was off. He threw on his Apprentice cloak, buckled up his Apprentice belt and hurtled down the stairs. But by the time he got outside, the boy and the witches were gone.

Marcia's final
Revive
had worked. The sailor sat up and groaned. “You'll be okay,” she told him, helping him to his feet.

“I'll get him along to the Harbor Master's,” said Alice. “They're opening the emergency bunkhouse out the back.”

Marcia watched Alice help the bedraggled sailor slowly across the Quayside. She turned and looked at the harbor. The water reminded her of one of Aunt Zelda's stews—thick, brown and full of white stringy things. It was, in fact, now more of a rubbish dump than a harbor. The remains of thirteen ships—mainly a tangle of ropes, sails and fishing nets—floated in a thick scum of gribble-digested wood dust. A somber crowd of Port people had gathered and were hugging one another in dismay. Not only were all thirteen ships gone, but the harbor itself was now unusable. Below the watery sludge lay the ironwork from thirteen ships piled onto the harbor bottom, along with, they feared, the remains of more than a few drowned sailors. Marcia joined the onlookers. She felt powerless to do anything to help. No
Magyk
could help the drowned now, or restore the ships. Marcia shook her head in dismay—the Port Witch Coven had done a terrible thing.