Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac

astonished Catweazle. ‘Come on!’
    Before
Cedric could stop him, Catweazle nervously climbed on the banister rail, shut
his eyes in terror and whizzed down the staircase with a great wail of fear. He
cannoned into a hat stand at the bottom and crashed to the floor. The noise
echoed round the main hall.
    Lord
and Lady Collingford heard the crash in the sitting-room where Mrs Gowdie was
busily putting buckets under the dripping ceiling. They went quickly towards
the main hall but Catweazle had already hidden.
    ‘What
on earth happened?’ said Lord Collingford, surveying the wreckage and wishing
that the holidays were over.
    ‘I sort
of fell,’ said Cedric lamely.
    ‘You’ve
ruined this hat stand!’
    ‘Well
it wasn’t very pretty, Charles,’ said Lady Collingford, trying to calm him.
    ‘You’re
doing very well for your first day home,’ Lord Collingford continued angrily.
    ‘Are
you all right?’ asked Lady Collingford, trying to calm him
    ‘Oh
yes,’ said Cedric unhappily.
    ‘That
hat stand belonged to my father,’ said Lord Collingford.
    ‘Now
come on everybody,’ said Lady Collingford over-brightly, ‘Let’s all have a
really tough game of croquet shall we?’
    Lord
Collingford could never resist croquet and secretly he knew that the hat stand,
one of those monstrosities with ram’s horns for hooks, was no great loss.
    ‘Oh all
right,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll take on both of you.’
    When
they had gone, the door of the grandfather clock opened and Catweazle, his
beard and whiskers quivering with excitement, climbed out and helped himself to
a pair of ram’s horns from the shattered hat stand.
    ‘ ’Tis
the sign of the Ram,’ he whispered with wonder. ‘The first sign of the Zodiac!
Truly, the great quest has begun!’ and he scuttled out of Kings Farthing and
into the trees still brandishing the precious horns.

TAURUS
     
    The next morning, as the
clock in the tower of Kings Farthing struck five, Catweazle pushed his way out
of the hedge he’d slept in and crept up towards the house, burning to have
another look at the sorcerer’s secret room. He found a half-open window,
climbed in silently, and crept up the stairs, carrying a little sack with his
magic book and the ram’s horns. Cedric was a very light sleeper and woke when
he heard Catweazle open his bedroom door. He kept very still and watched the
magician trying to open the secret panel. Then he jumped out of bed.
    ‘I’m
getting very fed up with you,’ he hissed.
    Catweazle
nearly died of fright. ‘Mercy! Mercy, my master,’ he implored, sinking to his
knees.
    ‘You
can’t keep coming in here,’ whispered Cedric angrily.
    ‘Show
me thy secret chamber,’ Catweazle begged. ‘Look at the time!’ Cedric brandished
his alarm clock in Catweazle’s face. ‘Five o’clock! I don’t get up until
eight!’ Catweazle took the clock from him gingerly and examined it. He held it
to his ear. ‘Tack, tack, tack, tack,’ he mimicked, ‘why doth it say tack,
tack?’
    ‘Well
it wouldn’t be much good if it didn’t,’ said Cedric. ‘Don’t you know what a
clock is?’
    ‘Nay.
’Tis magic?’
    Cedric
sighed. ‘It tells you the time.’
    ‘Ah!
Time.’
    ‘That’s
right. The time to get up, the time to eat, and the time to go to bed.’
    Catweazle
looked at him with amazement. ‘This thing tells thee?’
    ‘Yes,’
said Cedric, taking it from him.
    ‘Dost
thou obey?’
    ‘Of
course.’
    Catweazle
was puzzled. ‘Why dost thou?’ he asked. ‘I rise when I wake, eat when I hunger,
sleep when I am weary.’ He snapped his fingers contemptuously at the alarm
clock. ‘I fear thee not, thou ticking tyrant.’
    ‘You
slay me,’ grinned Cedric.
    ‘Nay, I
am thy friend,’ said Catweazle anxiously. ‘Hast thou food?’
    ‘This
isn’t a hotel you know. Look, either you go or I’m going to fetch my father.’
    ‘What
of thy secret chamber?’ asked Catweazle with a crooked smile.
    ‘You
wouldn’t tell him would you?’ gasped Cedric. Catweazle nodded evilly.
    ‘All
right,’ said Cedric, giving in, ‘I’ll get you something to eat.’ He put on his
dressing-gown. ‘Come on,’ he sighed, ‘the grub’s downstairs.’
    Catweazle,
who thought grubs were very tasty, followed Cedric to the kitchen. He snapped
his fingers again at the old-fashioned wall clock and then became very
interested when Cedric opened the fridge and took out a cold chicken.
    ‘ ’Tis
cold,’ he said, touching the freezing