CHAPTER 3
The Boy
The Riverdene Home for Children in Need was not a cheerful place. It was in one of the most run-down and shabby parts of the city. Everything about it was gray: the building, the scuffed piece of earth which passed for a garden, the walls that surrounded it. Even when the children were taken out, walking in line through the narrow streets, they saw nothing green or colorful. Though the war against Hitler had been over for years, the bomb craters were still there; the people they met looked weary and shuffled along in dingy clothes.
Ivo had been in the Home since he was a baby, and he did not see how his life was ever going to change. He was not exactly unhappy but he was desperately bored. He knew that on Monday lunch would be claggy gray meat with dumplings, and on Tuesday it would be mashed potato with the smallest sausage in the world, and on Wednesday it would be cheese pie — which meant that on Wednesday the boy called Jake who slept next to him would be sick, because while cheese is all right and pies are all right, the two together are not at all easy to digest. He knew there would be lumps in the mashed potato and lumps in the custard and lumps even in the green jelly which they had every Saturday, though it is quite difficult to get lumps into jelly.
He knew that Matron would wear her purple starched overall till Thursday and then change it for a brown one, that the girl who doled out the food would have a drop on the end of her nose from September to April, and that the little plant which grew by the potting shed would be trampled flat as soon as its shoots appeared above the ground.
Ivo’s parents had been killed in a car accident; there seemed to be no one else to whom he belonged, and he did his best to make a world for himself. There was an ancient encyclopedia in the playroom — a thick tattered book into which one could almost climb, it was so big — and a well at the bottom of the sooty garden — covered up and long gone dry — but sitting on the edge of it one could imagine going down and down into some other place. There was a large oak tree just outside the back gate which dropped its acorns into the sooty soil of the orphanage garden.
It was at the back gate that Ivo liked to stand, looking out between the iron bars onto the narrow street. Sometimes people would stop and talk to him; most of them were busy and only said a word or two, but there was one person — a most unlikely person — who talked to him properly and who had become a friend. The other boys always scuttled away when they saw her coming, and she certainly looked odd, but Ivo was always pleased when she came. She was someone who said things one did not expect and he did not know anybody else like that.
The Hag did not have a grandson. She would have liked to have one, but since she had never married or had any children it was not really possible. But if she had had one, she thought, he would have been like Ivo, with a snub nose, a friendly smile, and intelligent hazel eyes. She had started by just saying hello to him on the way to the shops, but gradually she had stopped at the gate longer and longer, and they had begun to have some interesting conversations. Today, though, the Hag was so upset that she almost forgot she was talking to an ordinary human boy and one she had met only through holes in a gate, and almost straightaway she said: “I have had such bad news, Ivo! I have been betrayed by my toad!”
“By Gladys?” said Ivo, very much surprised. “But that’s terrible — you lived with her for years and years in the Dribble, didn’t you? And you gave her your mother’s name.”
“Yes, I did. You’ve no idea what I did for that animal. But now she won’t do any more work. She says she’s tired.”
There was a pause while Ivo looked at the Hag from under his eyebrows. He had guessed that Gladys wasn’t just an ordinary pet, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to know and what he wasn’t.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I mean I thought… familiars…” He paused, but the Hag didn’t snub him or tell him to stop. “I thought familiars didn’t ever… I thought they served for life.” And under his breath, “I would if I was a familiar.”
The Hag stared at him. She had never actually told him that Gladys was a familiar, but she wasn’t surprised that he had guessed. She had realized all along that he was a most unusual boy.
“They do. They’re supposed to. And it’s such a bad time…” It was no good holding back now. “There’s a meeting… of the London branch of all the people who are… well… not ordinary. And some of them think they are very powerful and special and show off like anything — even though the world is so different for people like us. If I go without a familiar they’ll despise me, I’m sure of that.” She sighed. “I suppose I must give up all idea of going. After all I’m so old and I’m an…”
She was about to say she was an orphan, but then she remembered that Ivo was an orphan, too.
But the boy was thinking his own thoughts.
“Can’t you find another familiar?” he asked. “There must be lots of animals who would be proud to serve you.”
“Oh, if only you knew. I’ve been everywhere.” And she told him of all her disappointments.
There was a long pause. Then: “Why does it have to be an animal?” asked Ivo. “Why can’t a familiar be a person? They’re just servants, aren’t they — people that help a witch or a wizard?”
The Hag sighed. “I don’t know where I’d get hold of one. And they’d have to be trained… Though I suppose if it was just for the meeting… It might be rather grand to sweep in with an attendant. But it’s too late now.”
Ivo was grasping the bars of the gate with both hands.
“I could be one,” he said eagerly. “I could be your familiar. It says in the encyclopedia that they can be goblins or imps or sproggets, and they’re not so different from boys.”
The Hag stared at him. “No, no, that would never do. You’re a proper human being like Mr. Prendergast. It’s not your fault but that’s how it is, and you shouldn’t get mixed up with people like us. It’s very good of you but you must absolutely forget the idea.”
But Ivo was frowning.… “You seem to think that being a proper human is a good thing but… is it? If being a proper human means living here and knowing exactly what is going to happen every moment of the day, then maybe it’s not so marvelous. Maybe I want to live a life that’s exciting and dangerous even if it’s only for a little while. Maybe I want to know about a world where amazing things happen and one can cross oceans or climb mountains… or be surprised.”
“You mean… magic?” said the Hag nervously.
“Yes,” said Ivo. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
CHAPTER 4
A Meeting of Unusual Creatures
It was Ulf who persuaded the Hag to let Ivo come. As far as he could see it was only necessary to get her through the meeting; after the Summer Task had been given out she wouldn’t worry so much about whether she had a familiar or not. So on the following day he tucked his long hair under a cap and the Hag wound a muffler around the fiercest of her whiskers, and they went to see the principal of the Riverdene Home for Children.
“We’ve just discovered that you have a boy here whose father we knew,” they told her.
And they asked if they could have Ivo to stay for a few days.
In those days it wasn’t nearly so difficult to get a child to come for a visit, and after they had filled out a few forms and produced a letter from Dr. Brainsweller to say how respectable they were, Ivo appeared with a small suitcase.