With little else to do except keep an eye on the three sorcerers, I sat down in the car and read Wizard Moobin’s newspaper. The text that he had moved around the paper was still fixed, and I frowned. Tuning spells like these were usually temporary and I would have expected the text to drift back to its original position. It takes almost twice as much energy to fix something as it does to change it, so most wizards saved their energy and the spell would unravel in time, like an unsecured plait. Sorcery was like running a marathon – you needed to pace yourself. Sprint too early and you could find yourself in trouble near the finishing line. Moobin must have been feeling confident to tie off the end of the spell. I leaned over and tapped the fuel gauge of the Volkswagen, which stayed resolutely at ‘full’. Looked like Lady Mawgon was having a good day too.

‘Quark.’

‘Where?’

The Quarkbeast pointed one of his razor-sharp claws towards the east as Prince Nasil streaked past a good deal faster than he should have. He banked steeply, circled the house twice and came in for a perfect landing just next to me. He like to carpet standing up, a little like a surfer, much to the disdain of our only other carpeteer, Owen of Rhayder, who sat in the more traditional cross-legged position at the rear. Nasil wore baggy shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, too, which didn’t go down with Lady Mawgon.

‘Hi, Jenny,’ said Nasil with a grin as he handed me a flight log to sign, ‘delivery for you.’

On the front of the carpet was a large Yummy-Flakes cardboard box, and it opened to reveal an eleven-year-old boy who seemed tall and gangly for his age. He had close-curled sandy-coloured hair and freckles that danced around a snub nose. He was wearing what were very obviously hand-me-down clothes and stared at me with the air of someone recently displaced, and still confused over how they should feel about it.

Tiger Prawns

Tiger Prawns

‘Hello,’ I said, holding out a hand, ‘I’m Jennifer Strange.’

‘Hello,’ he replied cautiously, shaking my hand as he climbed from the box, ‘I’m Tiger Prawns. Mother Zenobia told me to give this to the Great Zambini.’

He held up an envelope.

‘I’m the acting manager,’ I told him, ‘you’d better give it to me.’

But Tiger wasn’t so easily swung.

‘Mother Zenobia told me to hand it only to the Great Zambini.’

‘He disappeared,’ I replied, ‘and I don’t know when he’s coming back.’

‘Then I’ll wait.’

‘You’ll give the envelope to me.’

‘No, I’m—’