“Have a crumpet, Twinkle,” the King said heartily, holding the plate out.
“Fank you,” Twinkle said devoutly, taking a crumpet.
At this, Morgan held out a fat, imperious hand and boomed, “Me, me, me!” until the King gave him a crumpet too. Mrs. Pendragon sat Morgan on a sofa to eat it. Sim looked around and resourcefully fetched a cloth from the trolley. It became soaked in butter almost at once. Morgan beamed up at Sim, the Princess, the lady-in-waiting, and the Chancellor, with his face all shiny. “Dumpet,” he said. “Dood dumpet.”
While this was going on, Charmain became aware that Mrs. Pendragon had somehow trapped little Twinkle behind the sofa she was sitting on. She could not help but overhear Mrs. Pendragon demanding, “What do you think you’re doing, Howl?” She sounded so fierce that Waif jumped into Charmain’s lap and cowered there.
“They forgot to invite me,” Twinkle’s sweet little voice replied. “That’th thilly. You can’t thort out thith meth on your own, Thophie. You need me.”
“No I do not!” Sophie retorted. “And do you have to lisp like that?”
“Yeth,” said Twinkle.
“Doh!” said Sophie. “It’s not funny, Howl. And you’ve dragged Morgan here—”
“I tell you,” Twinkle interrupted her, “Morgan did not thtop crying from the moment you left. Athk Calthifer if you don’t believe me!”
“Calcifer’s as bad as you are!” Sophie said passionately. “I don’t believe either of you so much as tried to stop him. Did you? You were just looking for an excuse to launch this—this masquerade on poor Princess Hilda!”
“She needth uth, Thophie,” Twinkle said earnestly.
Charmain was quite fascinated by this conversation, but, unfortunately, Morgan looked round for his mother just then and spotted Waif trembling on Charmain’s knee. He gave a loud cry of “Doggie!,” slid off his sofa, trampling the cloth as he went, and rushed at Waif with both buttery hands out. Waif jumped desperately onto the back of the sofa, where she stood and yapped. And yapped, like a shrill version of someone with a hacking cough. Charmain was forced to pick Waif up and back away, out of Morgan’s reach, so that all she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to “jutht try it.”
As Waif quieted down, Twinkle said wistfully, “Don’t you fink I’m pwetty at all?”
There was a strange hollow thump then, as if Mrs. Pendragon had so far forgotten good behavior as to stamp her foot. “Yes,” Charmain heard her say. “Disgustingly pretty!”
“Well,” said Princess Hilda, over near the fire, while Charmain was still backing away from Morgan, “things are certainly lively with children around. Sim, give Morgan a muffin, quickly.”
Morgan at once reversed direction and ran toward Sim and the muffins. Charmain heard her own hair frizzle. She looked round and found the fire demon hovering beside her shoulder, looking at her with flaming orange eyes.
“Who are you?” the demon said.
Charmain’s heart thumped a little, although Waif seemed perfectly calm. If I hadn’t just met a lubbock, Charmain thought, I’d be quite frightened of this Calcifer. “I…er…I’m only the temporary help in the library,” she said.
“Then we’ll need to talk to you later,” Calcifer crackled. “You reek of magic, did you know? You and your dog.”
“She’s not my dog. She belongs to a wizard,” Charmain said.
“This Wizard Norland who seems to have messed things up?” Calcifer asked.
“I don’t think Great-Uncle William messed things up,” Charmain said. “He’s a dear!”
“He seems to have looked in all the wrong places,” Calcifer said. “You don’t need to be nasty to make a mess. Look at Morgan.” And he whisked away. He had this way, Charmain thought, of vanishing in one place and turning up in another, like a dragonfly flicking about over a pond.
The King came across to Charmain, jovially wiping his hands on a large, crisp napkin. “Better get back to work, my dear. We have to tidy up for the night.”
“Yes, of course, Sire,” Charmain said and followed him toward the door.
Before they got there, the angelic Twinkle somehow escaped from th
e angry Mrs. Pendragon and pulled at the sleeve of the lady-in-waiting. “Pleathe,” he asked charmingly, “do you have any toyth?”
The lady looked nonplussed. “I don’t play with toys, dear,” she said.
Morgan caught the word from her. “Doy!” he shouted, waving both arms, with a buttery muffin clutched in one fist. “Doy, doy, doy!”
A jack-in-the-box landed in front of Morgan, bursting its lid open, so that the jack popped out with a boinng. A large dollhouse crashed down beside it, followed by a shower of elderly teddy bears. An instant later, a shabby rocking horse established itself next to the tea trolley. Morgan shouted with delight.