Lesley had only laughed. “Oh, come on, who do you think you’re kidding? It’s obvious what’s going on. You’re head over heels in love with the guy!”
But how could I be in love with a boy I’d only known for a few days? A boy whose behavior was impossible most of the time? Although at those moments when it wasn’t he was just so … so … so incredibly—
“Here I am!” crowed Xemerius, landing in sweeping style on the dining-room table next to the candle. Caroline, who was sitting on Mum’s lap, gave a small start of surprise and stared his way.
“What’s the matter, Caroline?” I asked quietly.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “I thought I saw a shadow, that’s all.”
“Really?” I looked at Xemerius in surprise.
He just shrugged one shoulder and grinned. “It’s nearly full moon. Sensitive people can sometimes see us then, usually just out of the corners of their eyes. Then if they look more closely, we’re not there at all.” Now he was dangling from the chandelier again. “That old lady with the golden curls sees and senses more than she’s letting on. When I put a claw on her shoulder, just to find out what would happen, she reached up to the place … not that that surprises me, in your family.”
I looked lovingly at Caroline. A sensitive child—not that she’d inherited Great-aunt Maddy’s talent for seeing visions.
“Now comes my favorite bit,” said Caroline, her eyes shining, and Great-aunt Maddy threw herself into the story of sadistic Hazel with her best Sunday dress on, standing up to her neck in the liquid manure, screeching, “Just you wait, Madeleine, I’ll pay you back for this!”
“And so she did, too,” said Great-aunt Maddy. “More than once.”
“But we’ll listen to that story another time,” said Mum firmly. “You children must go to bed. You have school in the morning.”
We all sighed, Great-aunt Maddy loudest of all.
* * *
FRIDAY WAS PIZZA DAY, and no one skipped school lunch. Pizza was about the only edible dish the school ever served. I knew that Lesley would die for that pizza, so I didn’t let her stay in the classroom with me. I had a date with James there.
“Go and have lunch,” I said. “I’d hate for you to miss pizza on my account.”
“But then there’ll be no one here to act as lookout for you. And I want to hear more about yesterday, with you and Gideon and the green sofa—”
“Look, with the best will in the world, I can’t tell you any more than I already did,” I said.
“Then tell me again. It’s so romantic!”
“Go eat that pizza!”
“You absolutely must get his mobile number,” said Lesley. “I mean, it’s a golden rule: never kiss a boy if you don’t have his phone number.”
“Delicious cheese and pepperoni…,” I said.
“But—”
“Xemerius is here with me,” I said, pointing to the windowsill where he was sitting, chewing the end of his pointy tail and looking bored.
Lesley caved in. “Okay. But make sure you get something to eat today. All that waving Mrs. Counter’s pointer about does no one any good! And if anyone sees what you’re up to, you’ll be carted off to the loony bin in short order, remember that.”
“Oh, go away,” I said, pushing her out of the doorway just as James was coming through it.
James was glad we’d be on our own this time. “That freckled girl gets on my nerves, always butting in! She treats me like thin air.”
“That’s because so far as she’s concerned you are … oh, forget it!”
“Well, so how can I help you today?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me how to say hello at a soirée in the eighteenth century.”
“Hello?”
“Yes. Hello. Hi. Good evening. You must know what people used to say when they met. And what they did. Shaking hands, kissing hands, a bow, a curtsey, Your Highness, Your Serene Highness … it’s all so complicated, and there’s so much I could do wrong.”
James had a self-satisfied expression on his face. “Not if you do as I tell you. The first thing you should know is how to curtsey to a gentleman of the same social rank as your own.”
“Oh, wonderful,” said Xemerius. “The only problem is, how will Gwyneth know what his social rank is?”
James stared at him. “What’s that? Shoo, kitty, shoo! Go away!”
Xemerius snorted disbelievingly. “What did you say?”
“Oh, James, take a closer look,” I said. “This is my friend Xemerius, the gargoyle demon. Xemerius, this is James, another friend of mine.”
James shook a handkerchief out of his sleeve, and the scent of lilies of the valley wafted through the air. “Whatever it is, I want it to go away. It reminds me that I’m in the middle of a terrible nightmare, a feverish dream in which I have to teach a pert minx how to behave.”
I sighed. “James, when are you going to face the facts? Over two hundred years ago, you may have had a feverish dream, but since then you’ve been … well, you and Xemerius are both … you’re—”
“Dead,” said Xemerius. “Strictly speaking.” He put his head on one side. “It’s true, you know. Why won’t you face it, like she said?”
James flicked his handkerchief. “I don’t want to hear this. Cats can’t talk.”
“Do I look like a cat, you stupid ghost?” cried Xemerius.
“You do, rather,” said James, without looking. “Except for the ears, maybe. And the horns. And the wings. And the funny tail. Oh, how I hate these fevered fantasies!”
Xemerius planted himself in front of James. His tail was lashing furiously. “I am not a fantasy. I’m a demon,” he said, and in his annoyance, he spat out a torrent of water on the floor. “A powerful demon. Conjured up by magicians and architects in the eleventh century, as you reckon time, to protect the tower of a church that isn’t standing anymore these days. When my sandstone body was destroyed, hundreds of years ago, this was all that was left of me—a shadow of my former self, so to speak, condemned to wander this earth until the world falls apart. Which could take another few million years, I should think.”
“Tralala, I’m not listening,” said James.
“You’re pathetic,” said Xemerius. “Unlike you, I have no choice—I’m bound to this earth by a magician’s curse. But you could give up your pitiful ghostly existence and go wherever human beings do go when they’re dead.”
“I’m not dead, you stupid kitty cat!” cried James. “I’m only sick in bed with horrible feverish hallucinations. And if we don’t change the subject this minute, I’m leaving!”
“Okay,” I said, trying to use the board eraser to mop up the puddle Xemerius had made. “Let’s go on. Curtseying to a gentleman of the same social rank…”
Xemerius shook his head and flew away over our heads to the door. “I’ll stand guard for you. Think how embarrassing it’d be if anyone found you here curtseying.”
The lunch break wasn’t long enough to learn all the tricks James wanted to teach me, but in the end, I could curtsey in three different ways and hold out my hand to be kissed. (A good thing that custom has died out, if you ask me.) When the other students came back, James bowed to me and left, while I whispered a quick word of thanks.
“So?” asked Lesley.
“James thinks Xemerius is a funny kind of cat, part of his fevered fantasies,” I told her. “I can only hope that what he’s taught me isn’t also distorted by the fever. If not, then now I know what to do if I’m introduced to the Duke of Devonshire.”
“Oh, good,” said Lesley. “So what do you do?”
“Sink into a deep curtsey and stay there for a long time,” I said. “Almost as long as before the king, and for longer than if I was curtseying to a marquis or a count. It’s quite simple, really. And I always have to hold out my hand to be kissed like a good girl and keep on smiling.”
“Well, fancy that! I’d never have expected James to come in useful.” Lesley looked around appreciatively. “You’ll wow them in the eighteenth century.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said. But nothing could cloud my good mood for the rest of the classes. Charlotte and stupid Puffylips would be amazed to find out that I even knew the difference between a Serene Highness and an Illustrious Highness, although they’d done their level best to make it sound as complicated as possible.
“And by the way, I’ve worked out a theory about the magic of the raven,” said Lesley after school, on the way from the classroom to our lockers. “It’s so simple that no one’s thought of it yet. Let’s meet tomorrow morning at your house, and I’ll bring everything I’ve found out. So long as my mum hasn’t decided it’s house-cleaning day again and handed out rubber gloves to everyone—”
“Gwenny?” Cynthia Dale, coming up behind us, slapped me on the back. “Do you remember Regina Curtis who was in the same class as my sister until last year? She’s in hospital with anorexia now. Is that where you want to end up as well?”
“No,” I said, baffled.
“Okay, then eat this! At once!” Cynthia threw me a caramel. I caught it and obediently unwrapped it. But as I was about to put it in my mouth, Cynthia grabbed my arm. “Stop! Are you really going to eat it? So you’re not on a starvation diet?”
“No,” I said again.
“Then Charlotte was lying. She said you kept skipping lunch because you want to be as thin as her. Give me my caramel back. You’re not anorexic after all.” Cynthia put the caramel in her own mouth. “Here, your invitation to my birthday party. It’s going to be fancy dress again. And this year the theme is “Greensleeves.” You can bring your boyfriend with you.”
“Er—”
“It’s a funny thing, but Charlotte said the same. I don’t mind which of you brings that guy, I just want him to be at my party.”
“She’s crazy,” Lesley whispered to me.
“I heard that,” said Cynthia. “You can bring Max, Lesley.”
“Cyn, Max and I haven’t been together for the last six months.”
“Oh, bother,” said Cynthia. “Sounds like too few boys this time. Either you bring some with you or I’ll have to uninvite a few girls again. Aishani, for instance, although she probably won’t come anyway, because her parents don’t let her go to mixed parties … oh, my God, who’s that? Please, someone pinch me!”
“That” was a tall boy with fair hair cut short. He was standing outside the principal’s office with Mr. Whitman. And he seemed to me curiously familiar.
“Ouch!” screeched Cynthia, because Lesley had taken her at her word and pinched her.