Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

Sophie declared, fetching them down in bundles.
    “Then get them down and leave the spiders,” said Howl.
    Probably he had a wicked affinity with spiders, Sophie thought. “They’ll only make more webs,” she said.
    “And kill flies, which is very useful,” said Howl. “Keep that broom still while I cross my own room, please.”
    Sophie leaned on the broom and watched Howl cross the room and pick up his guitar. As he put his hand on the door latch, she said, “If the red blob leads to Kingsbury and the blue blob goes to Porthaven, where does the black blob take you?”
    “What a nosy old woman you are!” said Howl. “That leads to my private bolt hole and you are not being told where it is.” He opened the door onto the wide, moving moorland and the hills.
    “When will you be back, Howl?” Michael asked a little despairingly.
    Howl pretended not to hear. He said to Sophie, “You’re not to kill a single spider while I’m away.” And the door slammed behind him. Michael looked meaningly at Calcifer and sighed. Calcifer crackled with malicious laughter.
    Since nobody explained where Howl had gone, Sophie concluded he was off to hunt young girls again and got down to work with more righteous vigor than ever. She did not dare harm any spiders after what Howl had said. So she banged at the beams with the broom, screaming, “Out, spiders! Out of my way!” Spiders scrambled for their lives every which way, and webs fell in swathes. Then of course she had to sweep the floor yet again. After that, she got down on her knees and scrubbed it.
    “I wish you’d stop!” Michael said, sitting on the stairs out of her way.
    Calcifer, cowering at the back of the grate, muttered, “I wish I’d never made that bargain with you now!”
    Sophie scrubbed on vigorously. “You’ll be much happier when it’s all nice and clean,” she said.
    “But I’m miserable now !” Michael protested.
    Howl did not come back again until late that night. By that time Sophie had swept and scrubbed herself into a state when she could hardly move. She was sitting hunched up in the chair, aching all over. Michael took hold of Howl by a trailing sleeve and towed him over to the bathroom, where Sophie could hear him pouring out complaints in a passionate mutter. Phrases like “terrible old biddy” and “won’t listen to a word !” were quite easy to hear, even though Calcifer was roaring, “Howl, stop her! She’s killing us both!”
    But all Howl said, when Michael let go of him, was “Did you kill any spiders?”
    “Of course not!” Sophie snapped. Her aches made her irritable. “They look at me and run for their lives. What are they? All the girls whose hearts you ate?”
    Howl laughed. “No, just simple spiders,” he said and went dreamily away upstairs.
    Michael sighed. He went into the broom cupboard and hunted until he found an old folding bed, a straw mattress, and some rugs, which he put into the arched space under the stairs. “You’d better sleep here tonight,” he told Sophie.
    “Does that mean Howl’s going to let me stay?” Sophie asked.
    “I don’t know!” Michael said irritably. “Howl never commits himself to anything. I was here six months before he seemed to notice I was living here and made me his apprentice. I just thought a bed would be better than the chair.”
    “Then thank you very much,” Sophie said gratefully. The bed was indeed more comfortable than a chair, and when Calcifer complained he was hungry in the night, it was an easy matter for Sophie to creak her way out and give him another log.
    In the days that followed, Sophie cleaned her way remorselessly through the castle. She really enjoyed herself. Telling herself she was looking for clues, she washed the window, she cleaned out the oozing sink, and she made Michael clear everything off the workbench and the shelves so that she could scrub them. She had everything out of the cupboards and down from the beams and cleaned those too.