The Five Fakirs of Faizabad (17 page)

“Yes, I think you’d better,” said Moo.

“Mostly we just went around and secretly sabotaged things so as to create an impression of enormous bad luck. I was working at a local Indian restaurant so it was very easy for us to add dangerously hot chilies to the curries.”

“And I was working at the local chemical factory so it was easy to let a large quantity of pink dye escape into the local river.”

“But we also came equipped with a Jinx, the phrase book with incorrect translations, and a supply of stink bugs.”

Miss Shoebottom tutted loudly. “So that was you.” She picked up a copy of the
Radio Times,
rolled it quickly, and struck each mendicant fakir on the head several times. “Blasted nuisance, the pair of you. You want locking up, really you do.”

“I was behind the two accidents at the circus,” said the other unhappily. “When the Magnificent Mikhail managed to saw a lady in half for real and Leonid the Lion Tamer got eaten by a tigress.”

“Murderer,” said Moo.

“And I created the computer virus, the Bumby Bacteria,” said the other fakir.

“And it was me who salted the deep caves with gold nuggets so as to make everyone think there was a gold mine.”

Miss Shoebottom hit him again with the
Radio Times.
“Blast you, man, if you knew the trouble you’ve both caused.”

“They know,” said Moo. “They know.”

“I hope they send you both to prison for a very long time,” said Miss Shoebottom.

“Most probably they’d enjoy that,” said Moo. “We saw three of their colleagues on Her Majesty’s prison ship
Archer
and they gave every impression of being in a holiday camp. Didn’t they, Philippa?”

“Yes,” admitted Philippa.

“You ask me, prison’s too good for ’em,” Moo said fiercely. “Plus the taxpayer has to pick up the tab for looking after them.”

“So what should we do with them?” said Philippa. “We can’t let them go. There’s no telling what they might do. Create more havoc. Report back to this emir. Hurt Mr. Swaraswati.”

“We should execute them,” said Moo, taking the gun from her handbag. “Shoot them. I’ll do it.”

“Not in here, you won’t,” said Miss Shoebottom. “This is a new carpet.”

“In the garden then. On the lawn. People will just think a car backfired. Twice.”

“Aiee!” squealed the first mendicant fakir. “You can’t mean that. Please.”

“No,” said Philippa. “She doesn’t mean it.”

“I do mean it,” Moo said fiercely.

“What’s your favorite animal?” Philippa asked Miss Shoebottom.

“Well, it’s not ferrets, love.” Miss Shoebottom laughed bitterly. “Can’t stand them. They’re just like emaciated rats, so they are. I can never understand why people put them down their trousers.”

“They do?” Philippa was horrified.

“Poachers do it,” explained Moo. “To hide them from gamekeepers when they go hunting rabbits.”

Philippa looked at the ferret still attached to the ball of the first mendicant fakir’s thumb and winced. “That looks kind of hazardous, to me.”

She shook her head. Sometimes it was hard to believe that so many Americans could be descended from people in Great Britain. The people here were so totally weird.

“What’s your favorite animal?” she said again.

Miss Shoebottom shrugged. “Budgies,” she said. “I always liked budgies. I used to have one when I were a little girl. Cheeky, he was called. I loved that budgie.”

“What color was he?”

“The budgie? Blue. Powder blue. Why?”

Philippa looked at the two mendicant fakirs. She’d never before turned people into animals. John had been obliged to turn Finlay McCreeby into a peregrine falcon once and had felt guilty about it for months, almost until the very moment when he’d found an opportunity to turn the falcon back into Finlay McCreeby. Of course, her mother had done it all the time, until she’d renounced her djinn power completely. For a long time her two uncles had lived with the Gaunts as the family pet dogs. And even the family cat, Monty, was a former contract killer called Montana Retch. And according to her father, it was thanks to Layla that New York’s Central Park Zoo had a Cuban solenodon, a hairy-nosed wombat, and an American red wolf, because these were all that remained of the three men who had kidnapped him the previous year.

Philippa thought there was something terrible about turning a man into a hairy-nosed wombat. Maybe it was better just to send these men to prison like the others, after all.

“FABULONGOSHOOMARVELISHLYWONDERPIPICAL!”

As Philippa spoke her focus word, the two ferrets finally let go of their prey and disappeared under the sofa, while the two mendicant fakirs sank onto their knees holding their hands. But instead of being grateful, one of them looked at her with hate in his eyes.

“You demon,” he said. “Now you’re in for it.” He stood up menacingly. “I’m going to clock you one, you devil. Just see if I don’t.”

Philippa felt something harden inside her. A little iron in her soul. In truth, this iron in the soul was something she had inherited from her mother, although she did not know it. Anger took hold of her, which is never a good way to use djinn power. For one thing, it creates a strong smell of sulfur and often makes a loud bang.

The fakir raised his fist to Philippa. “Demon,” he said.

“FABULONGOSHOOMARVELISHLYWONDERPIPICAL!”

There was a loud bang and a cloud of smoke and a strong smell of sulfur. Miss Shoebottom screamed and then reached for the air freshener.

Two blue budgies were hopping on the carpet, with one of them still chirping the budgie word for “demon,” which sounds a lot like “cheep.” Philippa was just about to bend down and pick up the two budgies when the two ferrets beat her to it.

“Darn it,” said Philippa, who’d quite forgotten about the two ferrets.

Miss Shoebottom screamed again, grabbed a broom, and then shooed the greedy ferrets out the door. Still holding the budgies, they ran away along Muckhole Terrace to enjoy their unexpected meals.

Miss Shoebottom dropped onto her sofa and closed her eyes. “What a morning!” she exclaimed.

“Sorry about that,” said Philippa. “I sort of meant those birds to be pets for you.”

“Don’t apologize. A pet’s the last thing I need right now,
luvvy. A holiday’s what I really need. I have to get away from here, and soon.”

“What about Mr. Swaraswati?” asked Moo.

“What about him?”

“After all these years of being buried alive, he’s keen to meet you,” said Philippa.

“Is he now?” Miss Shoebottom’s mouth turned down. “Well, I’m not sure I want to meet him. Not anymore. Stuck here in this crummy little town all these years, like me dad and his dad before him, for generations, I tell you it’s me that feels buried alive. Not him. So. Now that he’s come back and he’s not in any danger, I’ve decided. I’m going on vacation in Spain and then I’m going to live my life.”

“But what shall we tell Mr. Swaraswati?”

“You can tell him what you like, love, but I’ve had enough,” said Miss Shoebottom. “My family’s been waiting here for centuries for that old man to turn up and I reckon I’ve done my bit by not leading those two characters to where he was staying. Of course, I knew where he was all the time. There’s not much that happens in Bumby I don’t know about, luvvy.”

Miss Shoebottom sighed, kicked off her shoes, and rubbed her stockinged feet painfully.

Philippa looked at Moo and shrugged, hardly knowing what to do next.

“She makes a fair point, Philippa,” said Moo.

“Look,” said Miss Shoebottom. “Philippa, is it?”

Philippa nodded.

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” said Miss Shoebottom. “You look after him. All this Indian stuff is a complete mystery to me. I don’t even like curry. Hundreds of years ago, when my family first moved here, it probably meant something, but not anymore. Now it means zip. And I certainly wouldn’t know what to do with one of the great secrets of the universe. Not if I lived next door to Professor Stephen Hawking.”

“You have no wish at all to meet him?” Moo sounded a little disappointed.

“Stephen Hawking?”

“No, Mr. Swaraswati.”

Miss Shoebottom thought for a moment. “No.” She shook her head. “It’s been too much for me and my family, all these years. I just wish — I wish I was on holiday right now.”

“Very well,” said Philippa.

“You mean —?”

“I do mean. If that’s really what you want. There ought to be some sort of reward for keeping faith with the fakir all these centuries.”

“I’m glad you understand,” said Miss Shoebottom.

“Spain, you say?”

“Majorca’d be nice.”

Philippa nodded. “FABULONGOSHOOMARVELISHLYWONDERPIPICAL!”

And Miss Shoebottom disappeared.

Philippa sat down on the sofa where Miss Shoebottom had been sitting and let out a sigh.

“What are you thinking?” asked Moo.

“I’m thinking we’ll have to take Mr. Swaraswati with us,” said Philippa. “And I’m also thinking I need a new focus word. That one is getting a little too easy to say.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“I’ve realized something important. Something I never knew before. If your focus word is too easy to say, it’s too easy to turn people into budgies. And that is a heck of a thing to do to anyone. When you turn a man into a budgie you take away all he had and all he’s ever going to be.” She smiled thinly. “As a man, that is. Not as a budgie.”

G
roanin had two things going for him as he ran away from the grizzly bear. One thing was that he’d been attacked by a large and fierce animal before — a white tiger — and, hardly wanting to repeat the experience, this helped to make him run much faster.

On that previous occasion, the tiger had torn off his arm and eaten it and for a long time Groanin had lived his life as a butler with one arm. But then John and Philippa and their friend Dybbuk had been obliged to create a new arm for him so that he might more easily wind them up and down a well in an old British fortress in India. And, of course, being djinn they had endowed him with not just any old new arm but an arm that was much, much stronger than his previous one.

That was the other thing he had going for him.

The new, stronger arm was handy when removing very tight lids from those little pots of marmalade you got in hotels and showing off to young ladies who were struggling
with heavy suitcases; it meant he could carry two bags of coal up from the cellar instead of one; and in Italy once, he’d had to fight an angel named Sam who fancied himself as a bit of an all-in wrestler. But apart from that, Groanin had not had much use for a significantly stronger arm. At least he hadn’t until now and, turning around to face the bear — for Groanin realized he could run no farther — Groanin punched it hard on the nose.

The blow would certainly have rendered a grown man unconscious, but grizzlies can weigh up to a thousand pounds, which makes them a lot harder to knock out in a fistfight. Groanin punched the bear again, which hardly encouraged the bear to feel any more kindly disposed toward him. The huge grizzly roared with pain and backed away, lashing out with its huge claws at Groanin. Fortunately, it missed. The bear was not, however, inclined to give up on a promising-looking meal — even one that packed a good right hand. Contrary to what most people believe about bears, they like meat, especially when late snow on the ground makes it harder to forage for the other things they like to eat.

The bear rose up on its thick hind legs, lifting its vulnerable and already bloody nose clear of Groanin’s lightning right hook, and calculating that, in this way, the man wouldn’t have the reach of arm to hurt it again. It was a shrewd calculation. The man would have to come in close to land a blow in the bear’s belly, and risk getting mauled in the clinch.

Shuffling around in a circle, the two combatants faced each other off. The bear threw a couple of clumsy haymakers.
Groanin kept his right hand up high, ready to throw it if the bear dropped down on all fours again. The Englishman figured he had the speed of his arm on his side while the bear’s raw power was its greatest strength. Now if he could only stay out of the clinch. There was little point in trying to take the fight to the bear. That would have been fatal. All he could do was shoot straight punches to the bear’s nose whenever it dropped on all fours.

They did this for more than two hours.

“Come on, tough guy,” said Groanin, taunting the bear. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The bear roared back in the butler’s face — so loud it almost blew the fur hat off his head. And when the bear roared, Groanin had a perfect and unnerving sight of all of its teeth, which looked very large indeed.
A white tiger looked like a little kitten next to this beast,
he told himself.

“My God, your breath doesn’t half stink, you stupid great fur rug,” yelled Groanin, who was trying desperately to keep his spirits up in the face of the grizzly’s obvious grizzliness.

The bear was tiring now, knocked off balance by Groanin’s punches, which had taken a toll on the creature’s nose. Every time the bear dropped its head, blood dripped into the snow and if the fight had been fought according to the rules of the Marquess of Queensberry, the referee — assuming there had been one on hand — would have stopped the contest and given the decision to Groanin. And feeling its appetite for the fight beginning to drain away, and sensing it was now or never, the bear dropped onto all fours
again and rushed the butler, ignoring the hard right that flashed in from nowhere straight onto the point of its wet black nose.

Groanin let out a yell of terror as the bear knocked him flying with one sweep of its mighty paw. He flew through the cold air and landed ten yards away. Groanin turned on his belly and tried to crawl away, but the bear was on him in a second. He felt the heat of the animal’s breath on his neck and heard the low rasp of its angry growl in his ear. Something sharp against his shoulder made him cry out with pain and he felt himself lifted high in the air. Like a dog worrying a toy, the bear shook him in its mouth for almost half a minute, dropped him on the snow, and then pounded him with the full weight of its front feet.

Feeling himself mortally wounded, Groanin turned to meet his fate, hoping to land one last good punch on the bear’s nose, and was just in time to see something gray and furry fly through the air and attach itself to the bear’s throat. For a moment his eyes, which were filled with blood from a cut on his head, struggled to separate the fur of the bear from whatever it was that had attacked it.

And it was only when the bear flung off the attacking creature and finally ran away that Groanin realized he had been saved from being eaten by a bear by a wolf. And the question that now occupied him was why. Why had a wolf saved his life?

The wolf picked itself up off the snow and limped toward him. Groanin found he could not move and laughed at the irony of his own situation.

“I suppose you’re going to eat me now,” he said as the gray timber wolf got nearer. “My — what — big teeth — you have.” Groanin sighed and closed his eyes in resignation to his fate. “All the better to — eat you with, little Red Riding Hood.”

But instead of eating him, the wolf bent down and started to lick his face. One of Groanin’s eyes blinked open, met the blue one of the wolf’s, and seemed to find a flicker of something he half recognized.

“Don’t tell me,” he whispered. “Don’t tell me that’s you, Rakshasas. That really would be a coincidence. And a great blessing, old friend. Feel tired now. Like I was reading
David Copperfield.
One of the classic English novels. Great book for bedtime. Good night, old friend.”

Then he closed his eyes again and this time he did not open them.

Rakshasas, for it was he, sat down on his haunches. He licked his injured paw for a moment. Then he pointed his thin muzzle up at the breaking dawn and began to sing the lonely song of the wolf into the cold air.