The thought of reaching such an exalted height made him dizzy all over again.
With a final whimpering sputter the last randomly dissipated etheretic energies discharged into the staffs he'd plunged into the floor. The benches and staffs still trapped in their conductive cradles disintegrated in a choking cloud of indigo ash.
Despite his exhaustion and his myriad aches and pains, Gerald did a little victory dance. 'Yes! Yes! R and D boys, here I come!'
Then he stopped dancing, because it was that or fall over. Instead he just stood there, eyes closed, heart pounding, revelling in his moment of unexpected triumph.
Breaking the blessed silence, a sound. Thin. Sharp. Dangerous — and escalating. Nervously he opened his eyes. Stared at the militarily upright staffs plunged into the floor. Before he had time to blink, the first one transformed into a narrow blue column of fire. Moments later the second followed suit. Then the rest, one by one, like a row of falling dominoes. The air began to sparkle. The factory floor began to smoke.
He frowned. 'Oh.' Apparently he'd found the thaumaturgical limit of a Stuttley Superior Staff. How clever of me. Research and Development, indeed. 'Right. So this would be a good time to run away, yes?'
His wobbly legs answered for him. He had just enough time and wit to grab up his poor little cherrywood staff and reach the nearest door. The blast wave caught him with his fingers still on the handle, tumbled him through the air like so much leaf litter and dropped him from a great height into the middle of an ornamental rose garden.
The last thing he saw, before darkness claimed him, was the irate face of Harold Stuttley.
'You bastard! You bastard! I'll have your job for this!' Mr Scunthorpe folded his hands on top of his desk and shook his head. 'Gerald… Gerald… Gerald…'
Gerald winced.'I know, Mr Scunthorpe,' he said contritely. 'And I'm very sorry. But it wasn't my fault. Honestly.'
It was much later. The ambulance officers from the district hospital had fished him out of the rose garden then transported him, over his objections, to the emergency room, where an unsympathetic doctor extracted all the rose thorns from various and delicate parts of his anatomy and pronounced him sound in wind and limb, if deficient in intelligence. Which meant he was free to catch a taxi back to Stuttley's and drive at not much above snail's pace home to the Department of Thaumaturgy so he could make his report.
Unfortunately, Harold Stuttley's tongue had travelled a damned sight faster.
'Not your fault, Gerald?' echoed Mr Scunthorpe, and looked down at the paperwork in front of him. 'That's not what the people at Stuttley's are saying. According to them you barged into the middle of a highly sensitive First Grade thaumaturgical transfer, ignored all reasonable warnings and pleas to leave before there was an accident, used your Departmental authority to evict the personnel from their lawful premises and then caused a massive explosion which only by a miracle failed to kill someone, or reduce everything within a radius of three miles to rubble. As it is you totally destroyed the factory, which is going to put back staff production by months. I have to tell you Lord Attaby is profoundly unamused. One of the staffs you blew up had his nephew's name on it.'
It took a moment for Gerald's brain to catch up with his ears. When it did, he almost choked. 'What? But that's rubbish! Yes, all right, the factory did blow up, but I'm telling you, Mr Scunthorpe, that wasn't my fault! Harold Stuttley caused that! The etheretic conductors failed due to a lack of proper maintenance. They were on the brink of inversion when I got there! Ask the technicians! They'll tell you!'
Mr Scunthorpe tapped his fingernails on the open file. 'What I just told you, Gerald, is a summary of their testimony. Theirs and, of course, Mr Harold Stuttley's. He's threatening all kinds of trouble. Lord Attaby is very unhappy'
'But — but — ' He clenched his fingers into fists. 'I went there in the first place because there was a protocol violation. Overdue safety statements. That proves they — '
Mr Scunthorpe's round face was suffused with temper. 'All it proves, Mr Dunwoody, is that even the best of companies can fall behind with their paperwork. You were sent to Stuttley's to deliver a polite reminder to this nation's most valuable and prestigious staff manufacturer that the Department of Thaumaturgy looked forward to their prompt provision of all relevant documentation. You were not sent there to cause international headlines!'
Mr Dunwoody. Gerald leaned forward, feeling desperate. 'But there was a woman! I spoke to her! She said things weren't being done right, she said there was trouble.' He scrabbled around in his post-explosion memory. 'Devree! That was her name! Find her. Ask her. She'll tell you.'
Mr Scunthorpe rifled through the sheets of paper in front of him.'Holly Devree?' He extracted a statement, picked up his glasses on their chain around his neck, placed them on his nose and read out loud: 'I don't know what happened. I was on my tea break. I never saw the man from the Department. This means my job, doesn't it? What am I going to do now? I've got a sick mother to support. Signed: Holly Devree.'
'No,' he whispered. 'That's not how it happened, Mr Scunthorpe. My word as a compliance officer.'
'Probationary compliance officer,' said Mr Scunthorpe, still frowning. 'Very well then, Gerald. What's your version of today's unfortunate events?'
Haltingly, feeling as though he'd wandered into somebody else's insane dream, Gerald told him. When he was finished he sat back in his chair again. 'And that's the truth, sir. I swear it.'
Mr Scunthorpe closed his mouth with a snap. 'The truth?' 'Yes, sir.'
Mr Scunthorpe's face was so red he could have found work as a traffic light. 'You expect me to believe that a Third Grade wizard from Nether Wallop, who got his qualifications from some fourth-rate correspondence course, who got fired from his first job for insubordination and his second for incompetence, not only managed to single-handedly prevent a Level Nine thaumaturgical inversion but did so, moreover, by using the most expensive, the most finely calibrated, the most lethal First Grade staffs in the world? Is that what you expect me to believe?'
'Well,' he said, after a moment. 'When you put it like that…'Then he rallied.'But sir, far-fetched or not that's exactly what happened. I can't explain how, or why, but that's precisely what I did.'
'Dunwoody, what you're saying is impossible!' said Mr Scunthorpe, and pounded a fist on his desk. 'No Third Grade wizard in history has ever used a First Grade staff without frying himself like bacon. To suggest you managed it is to stretch the bounds of credulity across five alternate dimensions!'
The urge to punch Scunthorpe in the nose was almost irresistible. 'Are you calling me a liar?'
'I'm calling you a walking disaster!' Scunthorpe retorted. 'A carbuncle on the arse of this Department! Do you have any idea of the phone calls I've been getting? Lord Attaby! The Wizard General! Seven prime ministers and two presidents! And don't get me started on the press!'
Gerald stopped breathing. Scunthorpe was going to fire him. The intention was in the man's glazed eyes and furious, scarlet face. If he was fired from another job it'd be the end of his wizarding career. No-one would touch him with a forty-foot barge pole after that. He'd have to go home to Nether Wallop. Beg his cousins for a job in the tailor's shop his father had sold them. They'd give him one, he was family after all, but he'd never hear the end of it. I'd rather die.
'Let me prove it, Mr Scunthorpe,' he said. 'Fetch me a First Grade stall' and I'll prove I can use one.'
'Are you madV shouted Scunthorpe. 'After this afternoon's little exhibition do you think there's a wizard anywhere in the world who'd risk letting you even look at his First Grader, let alone touch it? And do you think I'd risk my job to ask them?'
'Then how am I supposed to show you I'm telling the truth?'
It was a fair question and Scunthorpe knew it. He snatched a pencil from his desktop and twisted it between his fingers. 'I'm telling you, Dunwoody, you won't be let anywhere near a First Grade staff. But — ' The pencil snapped. With enormous forbearance, Scunthorpe placed the two pieces on the blotter.'- if you can use a First Grader then a Second Grader shouldn't pose the slightest difficulty.' He stood and crossed to the closet in the corner of his office. From it he withdrew four feet of slender, silver-bound Second Grade staff. Holding it reverently, he turned. 'Lord Attaby gave me this staff with his own hands, Dunwoody. In recognition of my twenty- five years impeccable service to the Department. If I give it to you, here and now, will you promise not to break it?'
Gerald swallowed, feeling ill. 'I can't do that, sir. But I can promise I'll try.'
Pale now, and sweating, Scunthorpe nodded. 'All right then.' 'What do you want me to do?'
