[177] Before she could move—or even think—again, the creature shot up to twice the height of a person. It was dark purple and man-shaped, but it was not a man. It had small see-through purple wings on its back that were blurred and whirring with motion and its face was—Charmain had to look away. Its face was the face of an insect, with groping bits and feeler bits, antennae, and bulging eyes that had at least sixteen smaller eyes inside them.
[178] "Oh, heavens!" Charmain whispered. "I think the thing's a lubbock!"
"I am the lubbock," the creature announced. Its voice was a mixture of buzz and snarl. "I am the lubbock and I own this land."
[179] Charmain had heard of lubbocks. People at school had whispered of lubbocks, and none of it was pleasant. The only thing to do, so they said, was to be very polite and hope to get away without being stung and then eaten.
"I'm very sorry," Charmain said. "I didn't realize I was trespassing in your meadow."
[180] "You are trespassing wherever you tread," the lubbock snarled. "All the land you can see is mine."
[181] "What? All of High Norland?" Charmain said. "Don't talk nonsense!"
[182] "I never talk nonsense." the creature said. "All is mine. You are mine."
[183] Wings whirring, it began to stalk toward her on most unnatural-looking wiry blobs of feet. "I shall come to claim my own very soon now. I claim you first."
[184] It took a whirring stride toward Charmain. Its arms came out. So did a pronged sting on the lower part of its face. Charmain screamed, dodged, and fell off the edge, scattering flowers as she fell.
[185] Chapter Four INTRODUCES ROLLO, PETER, AND MYSTERIOUS CHANGES TO WAIF
[186] Charmain heard the lubbock give a whirring shout of rage, though not clearly for the rushing wind of her fall. She saw the huge cliff streaking past her face. She went on screaming.
"Ylf, YLF!" she bellowed. "Oh, for goodness' sake! Ylf! I just did a flying spell. Why doesn't it work?"
[187] It was working. Charmain realized it must be when the upward rush of the rocks in front of her slowed to a crawl, then to a glide, and then to a dawdle. For a moment, she hung in space, bobbing just above some gigantic spikes of rock in the crags below the cliff.
[188] Perhaps I'm dead now, she thought.
[189] Then she said, "This is ridiculous!" and managed, by means of a lot of ungainly kicking and arm waving, to turn herself over. And there was Great-Uncle William's house, still a long way below her in the gloaming and about a quarter of a mile off. "And it's all very well floating," Charmain said, "but how do I move?" At this point, she remembered that the lubbock had wings and was probably at that moment whirring down from the heights toward her.
After that, there was no need to ask how to move. Charmain found herself kicking her legs mightily and positively surging toward Great-Uncle William's house. She shot in over its roof and across the front garden, where the spell seemed to leave her. She just had time to jerk herself sideways so that she was above the path, before she came down with a thump and sat on the neat crazy-paving, shaking all over.
[190] Safe! she thought. Somehow there seemed to be no doubt that inside Great-Uncle William's boundaries, it was safe. She could feel it was.
[191] After a bit, she said, "Oh, goodness! What a day! When I think that all I ever asked for was a good book and a bit of peace to read it in…! Bother Aunt Sempronia!"
[192] The bushes beside her rustled. Charmain flinched away and nearly screamed again when the hydrangeas bent aside to let a small blue man hop out onto the path.
"Are you in charge here now?" this small blue person demanded in a small hoarse voice.
[193] Even in the twilight the little man was definitely blue, not purple, and he had no wings. His face was crumpled with bad-tempered wrinkles and almost filled with a mighty nose, but it was not an insect's face. Charmain's panic vanished. "What are you?" she said.
[194] "Kobold, of course," said the little man. "High Norland is all kobold country. I do the garden here."
"At night?" Charmain said.
[195] "Us kobolds mostly come out at night," said the small blue man. "What I said—are you in charge?"
[196] "Well," Charmain said. "Sort of."
[197] "Thought so," the kobold said, satisfied. "Saw the wizard carried off by the Tall Ones. So you'll be wanting all these hydrangeas chopped down, then?"
[198] "Whatever for?" Charmain said.
[199] "I like to chop things down," the kobold explained. "Chief pleasure of gardening."
[200] Charmain, who had never thought about gardening in her life, considered this. "No," she said.
[201] "Great-Uncle William wouldn't have them if he didn't like them. He's coming back before long, and I think he might be upset to find them all chopped down. Why don't you just do your usual night's work and see what he says when he's back?"
[202] "Oh, he'll say no, of course," the kobold said gloomily. "He's a spoilsport, the wizard is. Usual fee, then?"
[203] "What is your usual fee?" Charmain asked.
[204] The kobold said promptly, "I'll take a crock of gold and a dozen new eggs."
[205] Fortunately, Great-Uncle William's voice spoke out of the air at the same time. "I pay Rollo a pint of milk nightly, my dear, magically delivered. No need to concern yourself."
[206] The kobold spat disgustedly on the path.
"What did I say? Didn't I say spoilsport? And a fat lot of work I can do, if you're going to sit in this path all night."
[207] Charmain said, with dignity, "I was just resting. I'm going now." She got to her feet, feeling surprisingly heavy, not to speak of weak about the knees, and plodded up the path to the front door. It'll be locked, she thought. I shall look awfully silly if I can't get in.
[208] The door burst open before she reached it, letting out a surprising blaze of light and with the light Waif's small scampering shape, squeaking and wagging and wriggling with delight at seeing Charmain again. Charmain was so glad to be home and welcomed that she scooped Waif up and carried him indoors, while Waif writhed and wriggled and reached up to lick Charmain's chin.
[209] Indoors, the light seemed to follow you about magically. "Good," Charmain said aloud. "Then I don't need to hunt for candles." But her inner thoughts were saying frantically, I left that window open! The lubbock can get in! She dumped Waif on the kitchen floor and then rushed left through the door. Light blazed in the corridor as she raced along to the end and slammed the window shut. Unfortunately, the light made it seem so dark in the meadow that, no matter how hard she peered through the glass, she could not tell if the lubbock was out there or not. She consoled herself with the thought that she had not been able to see the window once she was in the meadow, but she still found she was shivering.
[210] After that, she could not seem to stop shivering. She shivered her way back to the kitchen and shivered while she shared a pork pie with Waif, and shivered more because the pool of tea had spread out under the table, making the underside of Waif wet and brown. Whenever Waif came near her, parts of Charmain became clammy with tea too. In the end, Charmain took off her blouse, which was flapping open because of the missing buttons anyway, and wiped up the tea with it. This of course made her shiver more. She went and fetched herself the thick woollen sweater Mrs. Baker had packed for her and huddled into it, but she still shivered. The threatened rain started. It beat on the window and pattered down the kitchen chimney, and Charmain shivered even more. She supposed it was shock, really, but she still felt cold.
[211] "Oh!" she cried out. "How do I light a fire, Great-Uncle William?"
"I believe I left the spell in place," the kindly voice said out of the air. "Simply throw into the grate one thing that will burn and say aloud, 'Fire, light,' and you should have your fire."
[212] Charmain looked round for one thing that would burn. There was the bag beside her on the table, but it still had another pork pie and an apple tart in it, and besides, it was a nice bag, with flowers that Mrs. Baker had embroidered on it. There was paper in Great-Uncle William's study, of course, but that meant getting up and fetching it. There was the laundry in the bags by the sink, but Charmain was fairly sure that Great-Uncle William would not appreciate having his dirty clothes burned. On the other hand, there was her own blouse, dirty and tea-soaked and missing two buttons, in a heap on the floor by her feet.