The Song of the Quarkbeast

rulebook.’ I looked at my watch. ‘I hope they actually do turn up,’ I added, for as Kazam’s acting manager in the Great Zambini’s absence, I was the one who did the grovelling apologies to any disgruntled clients – something I did more than I would have liked.

‘Even so,’ said Perkins, ‘I’ve passed my Finding Module IV, and always found the practice hiding slipper, even when it was hidden under Mysterious X’s bed.’

This was true, and while finding something random like a slipper was good practice if you wanted to learn to find stuff, there was more to it than that. In the Mystical Arts, there always is. The only thing you really get to figure out after a lifetime of study is that there’s more stuff to figure out. Frustrating and enlightening, all in one.

‘The slipper had no issues with being found,’ I said in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. ‘If something doesn’t want to be found, then it’s harder. The Mighty Shandar could hide things in plain sight by simply occluding them from view. He demonstrated the technique most famously with an unseen elephant in the room during the 1826 World Magic Expo.’

‘Is that where the “elephant in the room” expression comes from?’

‘Yes; his name was Daniel.’

‘You should be taking the Magic Test on my behalf,’ remarked Perkins gloomily. ‘You know a lot more than I do; there are whole tracts of the Codex Magicalis[3] I haven’t even read.’

‘I’ve been here three years longer than you,’ I pointed out, ‘so I’m bound to know more. But having me take your test would be like asking a person with no hands to sit your piano exam.’

No one knew why some people could do magic and others couldn’t. I’m not good on the theory behind magic, other than knowing it’s a fusion between science and faith, but the practical way of looking at it is this: magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of energy which can be tapped by those gifted enough using a variety of techniques that centre around layered spelling, mumbled incantations and a channelled burst of concentrated thought from the index fingers. The technical name for this energy was ‘the variable electro-gravitational mutable subatomic force,’ which doesn’t mean anything at all – confused scientists just gave it an important-sounding name so as not to lose face. The more usual term was ‘wizidrical energy’, or, more simply, ‘the crackle’.

‘By the way,’ said Perkins in a breezy manner, ‘I’ve got two tickets to see Jimmy ‘Daredevil’ Nuttjob have himself fired from a cannon through a brick wall.’

Jimmy Nuttjob was the Ununited Kingdom’s most celebrated travelling daredevil, and tickets to see his madcap stunts were much in demand. He had eaten a car tyre to live orchestral accompaniment the year before; it had been a great show until he nearly choked on the valve.

‘Who are you taking?’ I asked, glancing at Tiger. The ‘will Perkins gather up the courage to ask me out?’ issue had been going on for a while.

Perkins cleared his throat as he built up the courage.

‘You, if you want to come.’

I stared at the road for a moment, then said: ‘Who, me?’

‘Yes, of course you,’ said Perkins.

‘You might have been talking to Tiger.’

‘Why would I ask Tiger to watch a lunatic fire himself through a brick wall?’

‘Why wouldn’t you ask me?’ asked Tiger in a mock-aggrieved tone. ‘Watching some idiot damage themselves might be just my thing.’

‘That’s entirely possible,’ agreed Perkins, ‘but while there’s a prettier alternative, you’ll always remain ninth or tenth on my list.’

We all fell silent.

‘Pretty?’ I said, swivelling in the driver’s seat to face him, ‘you want to ask me out because I’m pretty?’

‘Is there a problem with asking you out because you’re pretty?’

‘I think you blew it,’ said Tiger with a grin. ‘You should be asking her out because she’s smart, witty, mature beyond her years and every moment in her company makes you want to be a better person – pretty of face should be at the bottom of the list.’

‘Oh, blast,’ said Perkins despondently. ‘It should, shouldn’t it?’

‘At last!’ I muttered as we heard the distinctive dugadugadugaduga of Lady Mawgon’s motorcycle, and we climbed out of the car as she came to a stop. I caught her eye almost immediately, but wished I hadn’t as she was wearing her ‘I’m about to harangue Jennifer’ sort of look. Of course, being harangued by Lady Mawgon was nothing new; in fact, I was often harangued by her at lunch, dinner and teatime – and at random times in between. She was our most powerful sorcerer, and also the crabbiest. She was so crabby, in fact, that even really crabby people put their crabbiness aside for a few minutes to write gushing yet mildly sarcastic fan letters.

‘Lady Mawgon,’ I said in a bright voice, bowing low as protocol dictated, ‘I trust the day finds you well?’

‘An idiotic expression made acceptable only because it is adrift in a sea of equally idiotic expressions,’ she muttered grumpily, stepping from the motorcycle that she rode side-saddle. ‘Is that little twerp attempting to hide behind what you jokingly refer to as a car?’

‘Good morning,’ said Tiger in his best ‘gosh, didn’t see you there, I wasn’t really hiding’ voice, ‘you are looking most well this morning.’

Tiger was lying. Lady Mawgon looked terrible, with lank hair, a complexion like dented bells and a sour, pinched face. Her lips had never seen a smile, and rarely passed an intentional friendly word. She was dressed in a long black bell-shaped crinoline dress that was buttoned up to her throat in one direction, and swept the floor in the other. When she moved it was as if on roller skates; she didn’t so much walk as glide across the ground in a very disturbing manner. Tiger had bet me half a moolah that she actually did wear roller skates. Trouble was, neither of us could think of a good, safe or respectful method of finding out.

She greeted Perkins more politely as he was, like her, of the wizidrical calling, and talked briefly about his Magic Test and how important it was he passed. She didn’t waste a salutation on either of us as Tiger and I were foundlings and thus of little social rank or regard. Despite our low status, our presence aggravated Lady Mawgon badly as Tiger and I were crucial to the smooth running of the company. It was how Kazam’s founder the Great Zambini liked it. He always felt that foundlings were better equipped to deal with the somewhat bizarre world of Mystical Arts Management. ‘Pampered civilians,’ as he put it, ‘would panic at the weirdness or think they knew better, or try to improve things, or get greedy and try to cash in.’ He was probably right.

‘While you’re here,’ announced Lady Mawgon, breaking into my thoughts, ‘I need to run a test spell later this morning.’

‘How many Shandars, ma’am?’

The ‘Shandar’ was the unit of wizidrical power, named after the Mighty Shandar himself, a mage so powerful his footsteps spontaneously caught fire when he walked. The practical use of flaming footprints was questionable and most likely just for dramatic effect – the Mighty Shandar was not only the most powerful wizard who had ever lived, but also something of a showman.

‘About ten MegaShandars,’[4] said Lady Mawgon sullenly, annoyed at having to suffer the ignominy of having to run her test spells past me first.

‘That’s a considerable amount of crackle,’ I said as I wondered what she was up to, and hoped she wouldn’t attempt to bring her pet cat Pusskins back to some sort of semi-life, an act not only seriously creepy, but highly frowned upon. ‘May I enquire as to what you are planning to do?’

‘I’m going to try and hack into the Dibble Storage Coils. It may help us with the bridge job.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. This changed matters considerably, and she was right. We had agreed to rebuild Hereford’s medieval bridge on Friday, and we needed all the help we could get, which was why Perkins was taking his Magic Test today rather than next week. He’d still be a novice, but six sorcerers would be better than five – magic always worked better with the wizards in use divisible by three.[5]

‘Let me see,’ I said, consulting my pocketbook to check we had no clashes. Two sorcerers spelling at the same time could deplete the crackle, and there is nothing worse than running out of steam when only two-thirds of the way through the spell – a bit like having a power cut just when you get to the good bit in a book.

‘At eleven the Price Brothers are moving Snamoo,[6] so any time after