Catweazle

tripped one of them and, breaking away, headed
down an overgrown track, his brown robe flapping round him. Too late he
realized he was heading straight for a lake and that he was trapped.
    As he ran out of the trees at the water’s edge, he looked wildly round,
but there was no escape. The Normans fanned out behind him and advanced slowly
with their swords at the ready.

    Catweazle dithered, not knowing what to do. He wished he hadn’t fooled with
them. They were angry now and might beat him or, what was worse, lock him up.
He looked at the lake and shuddered.
    A tall pine had fallen with its topmost branches nearly a hundred feet
out in the water. As the Normans closed in, Catweazle scrambled on the fallen
tree and, balancing precariously, walked out over the lake.
    He stood on the tree and looked back at the Normans watching him from
the bank. A swallow darted over the lake, almost touching the water. If only he
could fly, he thought desperately.
    ‘Let me fly, O Spirits! Bear me hence,’ he implored flapping his arms
wildly, as he saw one of the Normans beginning to climb on to the fallen tree.
    ‘Nothing works,’ moaned Catweazle, and then, putting everything into a
final plea, he called for his magic to help him.
    ‘Sunandum! Hurandos! Let me fly! Salmay! Dalmay! Adonay!’ and, still
flapping his arms, Catweazle jumped into the air, and with a tremendous splash,
fell into the lake.

HEXWOOD FARM
     
    Catweazle spluttered to the surface.
His bedraggled hair, streaming with water, was crowned with a piece of slimy
weed. Standing up and blinking the drops from his eyes, he was very surprised
to find that the water only came up to his waist.
    He was standing in a small pond. The lake had vanished. So had the
Normans. A duck swam round him quacking angrily, while, nearby, several cows
looked at him with mild surprise. One of them mooed at him.
    He had flown! That was it, he had flown!
    He waded out of the pond, anxious to leave the water behind him. The
duck stuck its tail in the air and dived for food as Catweazle felt in his
dripping robe for Touchwood, but the pocket was empty.
    ‘Touchwood, where art thou?’ called Catweazle, but there was no answer.
The toad had vanished.
    Catweazle was very upset. Perhaps Touchwood had fallen out while they
had been flying. It was an awful thought, and Catweazle tried to console
himself by imagining Touchwood falling into a tree, perhaps even a bird’s nest.
    A dog barked in the distance, making Catweazle jump. He wondered how far
he had flown and if there were Normans near. He looked around for somewhere to
hide. At the other side of the field was an old barn, and still dripping with
water, he stumbled across to it.
    He peered in, sniffing suspiciously, and reassured that the barn was
empty, crept inside. It was large and smelt of straw, a warm, comforting smell.
Catweazle stood carefully looking in every corner while a puddle formed at his
feet, and a faint rumbling began somewhere outside the barn. It was like no sound
he had ever heard before and as it approached it became louder and louder,
until it was a great roaring, shaking the earth. It was coming nearer, it was
coming into the barn! The noise was deafening, as Catweazle, blowing
frantically on his magic thumb-ring, backed in horror from the barn doors.
    It was the monster from his dream! Its great red head poked its way into
the barn. With a cry, Catweazle dived behind a pile of straw bales and buried
his face in his hands.
    A large tractor with a front loader attached to it drove into the barn
and came to a stop. Sam Woodyard, a big, raw-boned farm-worker, switched off
the engine and turned to the boy sitting beside him.
    ‘Von Trips, his name was. Great driver he was an’ all. Drove for Ferrari
mostly. They don’t make racing drivers like him any more.’
    Edward Bennet, nicknamed Carrot because of his red hair, jumped down
from the tractor and began to unload turkey boxes.
    ‘What time’s the programme?’
    ‘Half nine. Should be a good ’un.’
    ‘Your telly’s working again then?’ asked Carrot, dumping the boxes near
Catweazle’s hiding-place.
    ‘Yes, but I’m cornin’ back here to watch it - yer Dad said I could. Mum
always watches “Memory Lane” you see, and that’s on the other channel.’
    Catweazle peered through a gap in the bales. Who were these strange
sorcerers, he wondered. He eyed their magic chariot with fear and tried to
understand the gibberish they were talking.
    Sam