‘I was once plunged head first into a bin,’ he said, ‘by a boy called Leopold Splattercash.’ He shuddered. ‘Dreadful human being. Used to chew his own toenails.’ The man tucked the duster into his apron. ‘So, what can I do for you two then? Bearing in mind that I don’t, regrettably, stock any bins in this shop.’
‘You should do,’ Fox mumbled. ‘You’ve got enough rubbish in here to fill hundreds.’
The old man picked his way through the antiques towards the twins.
‘Don’t even try to sell us any of this junk,’ Fox said haughtily. Then she kicked the old-fashioned writing desk beside the old man, which sent the inkpot that had been resting on top clattering to the floor, and added: ‘Petty-Squabbles never buy second-hand; we don’t need to when we can afford the best of the best.’
She glanced at her brother, expecting him to say something equally rude, but he was too busy rooting through the antiques for his briefcase.
The old man picked up the inkpot, set it back on the writing desk and blinked at the twins. He didn’t often come across children. His customers tended to be adults and he and his wife had never had a family. But he had remained optimistic about them nonetheless, because he knew, from personal experience, that when worlds and kingdoms needed saving it was children who stepped in to sort things out. But the two in front of him now didn’t seem the world-saving types. At all.
And so it was with a great deal of surprise that the old man noticed the blue glow coming from the half-open drawer of the writing desk the girl had just kicked. He bustled towards it and drew out a small velvet bag.
‘Impossible,’ he murmured, tipping a marble into his palm.
The sun had dipped behind the street now and in the gloom of the cluttered antiques shop the marble was sparkling with a fierce little light all of its own.
Fox plucked idly at her plait. ‘I suppose you’re going to try and claim that this marble is one of a kind and worth stupid amounts of money.’
Even Fibber, who was still worried about finding his briefcase, couldn’t help but look up at the glowing marble. ‘What’s it got inside it? Batteries? Miniature lights?’
‘Magic,’ the old man whispered.
Fibber plucked the marble from his wrinkled hand, turned it over in his palm, then rolled his eyes. He was too old to believe in magic. But, just as he was about to hand the marble back, the man reached out and grabbed Fibber’s wrist.
‘The world is not as you know it. But if I was to tell you the truth – that we only survive because of four unseen, unmapped, magical kingdoms that conjure weather for our world – you would laugh at me, just as I laughed years ago when I was told the same thing.’
Fibber tugged his arm free, but the old man kept talking, his voice low and urgent as if, perhaps, he had been waiting for this conversation for a very long time.
‘You’ll have learnt, of course, about the terrible hurricanes seventy years ago, which almost tore our world apart. Scientists have never understood why those hurricanes stopped as quickly as they started, but that’s because it had nothing to do with science… It was because of magic.’
Fibber shook his head. ‘This is madness.’
Fox, for once, was in agreement with her brother. ‘I detest old people,’ she muttered. ‘The cardigans and the slippers and the non-stop knitting are bad enough, but the nonsense that comes out of their mouths is unbearable. If I was Prime Minister, I’d pass a law saying that anyone over the age of fifty should have their mouth Sellotaped shut whenever they leave the house.’
The old man ignored the twins’ comments. ‘When I was a child,’ he said, ‘I stumbled across a magical phoenix tear. And that tear transported me to Rumblestar, one of the four Unmapped Kingdoms, where a harpy called Morg was wreaking havoc with the magical winds that grew there.’ He shuddered as he recalled it. ‘But, with the help of some friends, I, Casper Tock, banished Morg and her followers from Rumblestar which, in turn, restored calm to our world’s weather.’
Fibber looked the antiques collector up and down. ‘You really think that you stopped the hurricanes because of something you did in a magical kingdom?’
Casper nodded. ‘Along with a girl called Utterly Thankless and a small dragon called Arlo, yes. Though I suppose we did have a bit of help from snow trolls and sun scamps, too. And Zip, a magical hot air balloon.’ He looked from Fox to Fibber. ‘I knew that one day Morg would hatch another plan to steal the Unmapped magic. She only needs to gain control of one of the four kingdoms for the rest to fall, so she won’t stop trying.’
Fox glanced round the shop. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any Sellotape kicking around in here?’
The old man ignored her again. ‘My wife, Sophie, and I have spent our lives trawling antiques fairs across the world, looking for another phoenix tear. Then we came across this shop for sale and I felt the pull of something familiar.’ Casper’s eyes shone. ‘It was the pull of magic. Tucked inside the drawer of this writing desk was that marble – a phoenix tear. I’ve been sure of it all along because, if you’ve encountered magic before, you know when it’s sitting in front of you again.’
The twins stared at the marble. The glow flickered mischievously in Fibber’s palm and for a second all thoughts about the briefcase, the Petty-Squabble fortune and Antarctica were forgotten.
‘Our planet is on its knees once again. If the rains don’t come soon, who knows what will happen? All of us are to blame for global warming. We could have done more sooner and stopped ignoring the signs around us. But it’s my bet there’s dark magic afoot, too.’ Casper paused. ‘It
