On the table in the middle of the room were the remains of a meal. It was laid for two. John noticed that one plate and the cup and saucer beside it were empty, but the other had some cold meat and pickles on it, and only half of the cup of tea had been drunk, as though someone had left the table in a hurry.
‘Where is Miss Dibdin?’ asked Rosemary.
‘How should I know?’ said Mrs Cantrip, with her head on one side. ‘With your precious white cat, for all I know.’
‘Go and look upstairs, Rosie!’ said John.
Rosemary went, and while she was gone, Mrs Cantrip went on rocking and looking at John with a twisted smile. He began to wonder if they had made a mistake after all. Rosemary came down again and reported that there was no sign of Miss Dibdin and no trace of Blandamour. She had looked in every drawer and cupboard and corner.
‘I’ve had enough of your busybodying,’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘I’m going to sleep.’
She took a large handkerchief out of her pocket, spread it over her face and linked her hands over her waist. But the vigorous rocking of the chair suggested someone very wide awake indeed.
‘If only we could see better. It’s so dark!’ said John.
‘I believe she keeps her candles in here,’ said Rosemary, and she went to the little hanging cupboard behind the door.
‘Top shelf, left-hand side,’ said Mrs Cantrip from under the handkerchief. John and Rosemary looked at each other in a puzzled way. They had never known Mrs Cantrip to be obliging before, and the very strangeness of it made them suspicious.
‘Light as many of ’em as you like,’ said the old woman. Rosemary took down three candles.
‘There’s a box of matches here,’ she said and picked it up from the bottom shelf. But Mrs Cantrip whipped the handkerchief from her face and said fiercely, ‘Don’t you touch it! Put it down!’
Now you will have noticed that everyone who picks up a box of matches gives it a little shake to see if there are any matches inside. Rosemary obediently put the box down, but she noticed that although it was not light enough to be empty, it did not make the little rattle that matches usually do. It had been lying on the bottom shelf of the cupboard where she remembered Mrs Cantrip had kept the few little bits of magic she had left. Only the glass pickle jar was there, but now it was empty, too. The label on it said MINUSCULE MAGIC.
‘Minuscule!’ said John. ‘I’ve seen that word somewhere, I wish I could think –’
‘I shouldn’t bother, dear!’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘You light the pretty candles from the one in the bottle. It’s a pity to waste good matches!’ She was smiling once more.
John lit the candles and stuck them in a row on the mantelpiece, and as he lit the third one he suddenly said, ‘I’ve got it! We were playing that spelling game, and Daddy used it, and we all said there wasn’t such a word as minuscule, and Daddy said there was and it meant very, very tiny!’
Mrs Cantrip jumped up from her chair so violently that she knocked it over backwards. For a few seconds one could have heard a pin drop, and then from behind Rosemary, who was still standing in front of the open cupboard, came a faint, faint scrabbling noise together with a tiny shrill ‘meow’. At first she thought it was a mouse, but, as everybody knows, mice don’t mew.
‘The matchbox!’ she said.
Mrs Cantrip strode across the room, but Rosemary was too quick for her. She picked it up and gently slid it open. Fitting neatly, curled up inside, was a tiny, tiny white cat!
‘It’s Blandamour! You’ve made her small with the Minuscule Magic!’ said Rosemary.
30
The Return of the Kings
John and Rosemary peered at the minute white cat.
‘Oh, Blandamour, I’m so thankful we’ve found you!’ whispered Rosemary.
The tiny creature rubbed against her outstretched forefinger, and purred with a sound no louder than the ticking of the smallest watch.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ asked Mrs Cantrip defiantly. ‘Say to them Fallowhithe animals, “Here’s your Queen back again. I’m sorry she’s no bigger than a ginger biscuit?” Do you think they’ll believe you? Well you needn’t bother, I shouldn’t think it matters much by now. Not that I care two pennyworth of pentagons who wins, the Fallowhithe cats or the Broomhurst ones. And it’s no use asking for the counter-spell,’ she went on fiercely. ‘I’ve done enough obliging of you for one night and I’m doing no more. Three candle ends I’ve given you, and that’s generous.’
‘Perhaps Miss Dibdin would help us,’ suggested Rosemary.
‘Yes, where is she?’ asked John, looking at the unfinished meal on the table.
‘Where she won’t be no help to you!’ snapped Mrs Cantrip.
‘What have you done to her?’ asked John sharply.
‘She shouldn’t have been so aggravating,’ said the old woman sullenly. ‘Serves her right!’
‘Miss Dibdin, where are you?’ called Rosemary anxiously.
As if in answer a small round object rolled off the top shelf of the cupboard behind her and fell with a plop on to the floor. It was a nutmeg. They looked at the top shelf, and struggling to push its way between a bag of sugar and a packet of rice was a tiny, doll-like figure, in a neat tweed jacket and skirt.
‘Miss Dibdin!’ said John.
‘How could you?’ said Rosemary accusingly to Mrs Cantrip.
The old woman tossed her head, but she seemed anxious not to look Rosemary in the eye.
‘Well, I had to keep her out of mischief somehow,’ she said sullenly. ‘I couldn’t have her messing up my last crumb of magic with her silly ways.’
‘When did you do it?’ asked John.
‘It suddenly came over me in the middle of supper, so I blew a grain or two of Minuscule Magic on her just as she helped herself to pickles, and popped her in the cupboard in a potted meat jar to keep her safe. I can’t think how she got out. You can have her if you want to, she’s no use to me. And the cat, too, for that matter. The battle is over by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘The battle!’ said Rosemary. ‘I’d almost forgotten all about it.’
As if to remind them, there was a prolonged scuffle outside and far away a sharp cat call.
‘Come on, Rosie, let’s get back to headquarters. I’ll put Miss Dibdin in my pocket, and you take Blandamour.’
Very gently he picked up Miss Dibdin between his finger and thumb. She had been sitting in a dazed way on a pepper pot. He popped her back into the potted meat jar and put it in the top pocket of his blazer. Rosemary picked up the matchbox, and when the tiny cat had curled herself up inside, closed it softly. Together they hurried out into Fairfax Market. There they looked up anxiously at the roofs above them, expecting to see the struggling shapes that had swayed and fought there when they had made their way to Mrs Cantrip’s house. But there seemed nothing to be seen but deserted walls and roofs, and the sounds of battle sounded faint and far away. A solitary cat limped past them.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Rosemary. ‘Has the Fallowhithe army won?’
‘Won!’ said the cat bitterly. ‘It won’t be long now before the Broomhurst creatures are in full control. They have swept over half the town. Already this is enemy-held territory. There are pockets of our animals here and there, harrying where they get the chance, but our fellows are retreating to the other end of the town.’