“What?” said Julia. She was curled in the shabbiest armchair, managing to suck a lollipop, to read a book called In the Hands of the Lamas, and to knit, all at the same time. Her knitting, hardly surprisingly, looked like a vest for a giraffe which had been dipped in six shades of grey dye.
“Can you make Cat’s soldiers move for him?” said Roger.
“I’m reading,” said Julia, round the edges of the lollipop. “It’s thrilling. One of them’s got lost and they think he’s perished miserably.”
“Be a sport,” said Roger. “I’ll tell you whether he did perish, if you don’t.”
“If you do, I’ll turn your underpants to ice,” Julia said amiably. “All right.” Without taking her eyes off her book or the lollipop out of her mouth, she fumbled out her handkerchief and tied a knot in it. She laid the knotted handkerchief on the arm of her chair and went on knitting.
Cat’s fallen soldiers picked themselves up from the floor and straightened their tin tunics. This was a great improvement, though it was still not entirely satisfactory. Cat could not tell his soldiers what to do. He had to shoo them into position with his hands. The soldiers did not seem happy. They looked up at the great flapping hands above them in the greatest consternation. Cat was sure one fainted from terror. But he got them positioned in the end – with great cunning, he thought.
The battle began. The soldiers seemed to know how to do that for themselves. Cat had a company in reserve behind a cushion and, when the battle was at its fiercest, he shooed them out to fall on Roger’s right wing. Roger’s right wing turned and fought. And every one of Cat’s reserve turned and ran. The rest of his army saw them running away and ran too. In three seconds, they were all trying to hide in the toy cupboard, and Roger’s soldiers were cutting them down in swathes. Roger was exasperated.
“Julia’s soldiers always run away!”
“Because that’s just what I would do,” Julia said, putting out a knitting-needle to mark her place in her book. “I can’t think why all soldiers don’t.”
“Well, make them a bit braver,” said Roger. “It’s not fair on Eric.”
“You only said make them move,” Julia was arguing, when the door opened and Gwendolen put her head in.
“I want Cat,” she said.
“He’s busy,” said Roger.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Gwendolen. “I need him.”
Julia stretched out a knitting-needle towards Gwendolen and wrote a little cross in the air with it. The cross floated, glowing, for a second. “Out,” said Julia. “Go away.” Gwendolen backed away from the cross and shut the door again. It was as if she could not help herself. The expression on her face was very annoyed indeed. Julia smiled placidly and pointed her knitting-needle towards Cat’s soldiers. “Carry on,” she said. “I’ve filled their hearts with courage.”
When the dressing-gong sounded, Cat went to find out what Gwendolen had wanted him for. Gwendolen was very busy reading a fat, new-looking book and could not spare him any attention at first. Cat tipped his head sideways and read the title of the book. Other-world Studies, Series III. While he was doing it, Gwendolen began to laugh. “Oh, I see how it works now!” she exclaimed. “It’s even better than I thought! I know what to do now!” Then she lowered the book and asked Cat what he thought he was doing.
“Why did you need me?” said Cat. “Where did you get that book?”
“From the Castle library,” said Gwendolen. “And I don’t need you now. I was going to explain to you about Mr Nostrum’s plans, and I might even have told you about mine, but I changed my mind when you just sat there and let that fat prig Julia send me away.”
“I didn’t know Mr Nostrum had any plans,” Cat said. “The dressing-gong’s gone.”
“Of course he has plans – and I heard it – why do you think I wrote to Chrestomanci?” said Gwendolen. “But it’s no good trying to wheedle me. I’m not going to tell you and you’re going to be sorry. And piggy-priggy Julia is going to be sorrier even sooner!”
Gwendolen revenged herself on Julia at the start of dinner. A footman was just passing a bowl of soup over Julia’s shoulder, when the skirt of Julia’s dress turned to snakes. Julia jumped up with a shriek. Soup poured over the snakes and flew far and wide, and the footman yelled, “Lord have mercy on us!” among the sounds of the smashing soup-bowl.
Then there was dead silence, except for the hissing of snakes. There were twenty of them, hanging by their tails from Julia’s waistband, writhing and striking. Everyone froze, with their heads stiffly turned Julia’s way. Julia stood like a statue, with her arms up out of reach of the snakes. She swallowed and said the words of a spell.
Nobody blamed her. Mr Saunders said, “Good girl!”
Under the spell, the snakes stiffened and fanned out, so that they were standing like a ballet skirt above Julia’s petticoats. Everyone could see where Julia had torn a flounce of a petticoat building the tree-house and mended it in a hurry with red darning wool.
“Have you been bitten?” said Chrestomanci.
“No,” said Julia. “The soup muddled them. If you don’t mind, I’ll go and change this dress now.”
She left the room, walking very slowly and carefully, and Millie went with her. While the footmen, all rather green in the face, were clearing up the spilt soup, Chrestomanci said, “Spitefulness is one thing I won’t have at the dinner-table. Gwendolen, oblige me by going to the playroom. Your food will be brought to you there.”
Gwendolen got up and went without a word. As Julia and Millie did not come back, the dining table seemed rather empty that evening. It was all stocks and shares from Bernard at one end, and statues again from Mr Saunders at the other.
Cat found that Gwendolen was rather triumphant. She felt she had made an impression on Chrestomanci at last. So she returned to the attack with a will on Sunday.
On Sunday, the Family dressed in its best and walked down to Morning Service at the village church. Witches are not supposed to like church. Nor are they supposed to be able to work magic there. But this never bothered Gwendolen at all. Mrs Sharp had many times remarked on it, as showing what exceptional talents Gwendolen had. Gwendolen sat next to Cat in the Chrestomanci pew, looking the picture of demure innocence in her broderie anglaise Sunday dress and hat, and found her place in her prayer book as if she were truly saintly.
The village people nudged one another and whispered about her. This rather pleased Gwendolen. She liked to be well-known. She kept up the pretence of saintliness until the sermon had begun.
The vicar climbed shakily into the pulpit and gave his text in a weak, wandering voice. “For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified.” This was certainly to the point. Unfortunately, nothing else he said was.
He told, in his weak wandering voice, of weak wandering episodes in his early life. He compared them with weak wandering things he thought were happening in the world today. He told them they had better be sanctified or all sorts of things – which he forgot to mention – would happen, which reminded him of a weak and wandering thing his aunts used to tell him.
Mr Saunders was asleep by this time, and so was stocks-and-shares Bernard. The old lady with mittens was nodding. One of the saints in the stained-glass windows yawned, and put up his crozier elegantly to cover his mouth. He looked round at his neighbour, who was a formidable nun. Her robes hung in severe folds, like a bundle of sticks. The bishop stretched out his stained-glass crozier and tapped the nun on the shoulder. She resented it. She marched into his window and began shaking him.
Cat saw her. He saw the coloured transparent bishop clouting the nun over the wimple, and the nun giving him as good as she got. Meanwhile, the