Magicalamity by Kate Saunders Page B

stupid.
    “Of course,” Iris went on, “they might have sent Pindar to check up on you because they didn’t think it was an important job. I mean—who takes godmothering seriously nowadays?”
    “I do.”
    “You’re old-fashioned. Nobody else bothers.”
    “Please,” Tom burst out, “you keep talking as if it’s all hopeless—there must be something we can do!”
    His two godmothers looked at him in silence.
    “It’s a challenge,” Iris said coldly, “but as I tell my girls, we must see challenges as opportunities. The Realm is ruled by a set of very old laws, and even Falconers must obey them. The first thing we should do is get some really expert legal advice—there has to be some kind of loophole.”
    Lorna knocked backed the rest of her tea. “I bet Dahlia would know—don’t you remember how brilliant she was in college?”
    “Of course,” Iris mused, “she
is
the demisprite’s third godmother. And her subject
was
fairy law. She’d be a judge by now, if she hadn’t been so shallow. Have you consulted her?”
    “We haven’t found her yet,” Tom said. “Do you know where she lives?”
    Iris’s eyes were like little cold gray pebbles. “Not exactly—but I know where to find her.”
    “Tell us, and we can go and look for her,” said Lorna.
    “You can’t do it without me,” Iris said. “Can the demisprite fly?”
    Tom was sick of being ignored. “You can ask me, you know. I do understand English. Yes, I can fly.”
    “Oh.”
    “And we’ve still got twenty minutes of the invisibility you gave me for my christening.”
    “Hmm.” Iris’s expression did not change, but she said, “I’m glad it was useful. For the time being, however, I’ll provide invisibility. It’s fiendishly expensive—but one of my sixth-formers just made me several million with her math project, which was a stock-market scam. I’ll use it to fund the expedition.” Her cold face softened, though it might have been a trick of the light. “I owe that much to Jonas.”
    Lorna was grinning. “You’re not such a bad old bat after all, Iris Moth. Where are we headed?”
    “Harrods,” said Iris.
    “Really, Lorna! What frightful wings,” Iris complained. “And do you have to festoon yourself with all those bags?”
    “What does it matter, if I’m invisible?”
    “You’re still visible to me.”
    Tom wished his two godmothers would stop bickering. It hadn’t boiled over into a real argument yet, but he could tell they were getting increasingly irritated with each other—Iris produced a pair of sleek, streamlined wings of a dazzling white, and Lorna muttered “La-di-da!” under her breath. The three of them were on the roof of the school, getting ready for takeoff.
    Iris saw Tom looking at the wings, and another ghostof a smile crossed her wintry dinosaur face. “The latest model,” she told him smugly. “Sat-nav and up to five hundred miles an hour.” She measured out the invisibility very precisely and scattered the powder neatly across them.
    Tom was nervous about taking off from this dizzy height. He felt confident about his flying, but he had never had to jump off a roof—if his parents had been able to see what he was doing, they would have had heart failure. His mouth was dry, but he wasn’t going to show Iris he was scared. Taking a deep breath, willing himself to stay calm, he muttered the flying spell and floated easily onto a smooth current of summer air.
    “Nice takeoff,” Iris said behind him. “The demisprite has been well taught.”
    “For the last time,” Lorna snapped, “his name’s Tom!”
    They were all quiet now, concentrating on the job of skimming across the warm landscape towards London (Tom had one sad moment of wishing he could fly home to his parents). The built-in sat-nav on Iris’s wings guided them to Harrods. They landed on the pavement outside the famous shop. Iris performed a textbook landing, with pointed toes and graceful arms. Lorna accidentally landed