Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac

compartment.
    ‘Of
course it’s cold,’ said Cedric.
    Catweazle
opened the door.
    ‘Snow!
In summer!’ he mumbled. ‘More magic!’
    ‘Don’t
keep that open,’ said Cedric crossly, ‘the fish fingers will melt!’
    ‘Fish —
with... fingers!’ said Catweazle with horrors He jumped as the fridge suddenly
switched itself on, and started to throb noisily. Cedric finished cutting the
chicken and put the rest back in the fridge. ‘Why are you so jumpy?’ he asked.
    ‘I fear
the magic of this new world,’ said Catweazle. Cedric eyed him warily. ‘Oh yes,’
he said, ‘I keep forgetting. You’re from the past, aren’t you?’
    ‘Ay,’
replied Catweazle, getting Touchwood from his pocket, ‘nine hundred years. Hast
aught for Touchwood in thy Winter Box?’
    ‘No,’
said Cedric. ‘They don’t do frozen worms.’ He handed Catweazle a leg of chicken
and some bread and opened the kitchen door. ‘Come on,’ he said.
    ‘Where
shall I go?’ said Catweazle.
    ‘How
about back to the Normans?’
    Catweazle
shook his head. ‘Thou hast forgotten the flying spell in thy secret chamber. We
must find the thirteen signs of the Zodiac.’ He opened his sack and brandished
the horns. ‘See!’ he said. ‘The sign of the Ram.’
    ‘So
what?’ said Cedric.
    ‘Now I
seek the Bull.’
    ‘You
find a bull,’ grinned Cedric, ‘and you’ll be flying before you know it.’ He
pushed Catweazle outside.
    ‘But
where shall I live?’
    ‘Haven’t
you really got anywhere?’
    ‘Nay.’
    Cedric
pointed at a distant group of trees. ‘Wait for me there,’ he said. ‘I’ll come
after breakfast.’
    ‘Thou
wilt not fail me?’
    ‘ “See
it wet, see it dry,
    Cut my
throat if I tell a lie,” ’ said Cedric.
    Catweazle
felt the rhyme was sufficient proof of good intentions, and flitted off across
the croquet lawn, gnawing the chicken leg.
    During
breakfast, Lord Collingford suggested that Cedric might help Groome clear the
billiard room. It had been used as a box-room for some years and was full of
things nobody wanted. Now Lord Collingford was planning to use it to display a
collection of cavalry equipment.
    ‘But I
can’t,’ said Cedric hastily, ‘I’m going for a long walk.’
    ‘You
can do that any time,’ said his father. ‘Mr Pickle, the junk man, is coming
this morning to take all the rubbish away and I must have the room cleared by
the time he arrives.’
     

     
    So Cedric helped Groome to
dump the stuff outside the main entrance, eventually managing to slip away when
Eustace Pickle drove his battered lorry up to the house. Groome sighed. Boys
didn’t change, they were all bone idle, he thought bitterly, as he began to
help Pickle load up.
    They
lifted a large yellow tricycle on to the lorry. It was a full-sized one and had
once belonged to Lord Collingford’s grandmother. ‘An early campaigner for
women’s rights, she was,’ Groome explained. ‘No sense of balance though.’
    ‘Oh, a
fanatic was she?’ asked Pickle.
    ‘Not
really,’ said Groome. ‘Just couldn’t ride a two wheeler.’
    Pickle
sneezed. He suffered badly from hay fever.
    ‘Bless
you,’ said Mr Groome gloomily.
    ‘Ta,’
said Pickle, and sneezed again.
    Cedric
found Catweazle sitting on a tree stump and apologized for keeping him waiting.
    ‘Finding
you somewhere to live isn’t going to be easy,’ he said.
    ‘We
must cast the runes,’ said Catweazle. ‘They will tell us.’
    ‘The
runes?’ said Cedric, who didn’t know what they were.
    Catweazle
collected half a dozen twigs and squatted down on his haunches.
    ‘What
are you playing at?’ asked Cedric. ‘Cowboys and Indians?'
    ‘Maggot!’
said Catweazle angrily. ‘Sit thee down!’
    Cedric
sat down and watched the magician carefully.
    ‘Pax!
Sax! Sarax!’ said Catweazle softly, closing his eyes and dropping the twigs in
front of him. Then he began to examine them, poking them with the point of his
magic knife.
    ‘Ah!
Tcha, tcha, tcha!’ he fizzed excitedly. ‘The dragon shall flee!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Behold!
He guards the mighty cave.’
    ‘What
mighty cave?’
    ‘And
look thou there,’ Catweazle went on, pointing at two crossed twigs, ‘an
enchanted house. ’Twill be my home.’
    ‘What
about a few giants?’ said Cedric sarcastically. ‘Or a couple of beanstalks?
Honestly, Catweazle — ’
    ‘Dost
thou not believe, thou twittering turnip?’
    ‘What?
Dragons guarding mighty caves and enchanted houses?’
    ‘Wood
louse!’ said