“I’ve brought Lois over to you, Rosemary, as she said your mum was getting you from the office today.”
I opened my mouth, about to correct her, when suddenly a plan formed in my head. I flipped Adi the thumbs up, and he nodded briefly and nonchalantly walked out of the playground.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said smoothly in my most grown up voice. “Mum told me to go to the office to wait for her. Thanks for bringing Lois over, Mrs Davies.”
I grabbed Lois’ hand. “Right, come on, we’re being big girls. We’re walking home on our own today.”
I smiled vaguely at Mr Bobbin and pointed in the direction of lots of parents to indicate the person picking us up had arrived, and we shot out of the playground on to the street.
Whatever had held Frances up was going to play to my advantage! I couldn’t wait to get home and try to get through the portal with Adi. A flicker of conscience passed through my brain — what if Frances turned up and was worried about where we were? I guiltily brushed it aside and focused on what we had to do.
Lois was already moaning. “Where’s my crisps, Rosie? Mum always brings me crisps or biscuits.”
“Don’t worry, Lois, the sooner we get home the sooner you can have whatever you want. Let’s try to walk faster, and then we’ll be home quicker.”
I dragged a very reluctant little sister around the streets, until 15 minutes later we arrived home. There was Adi waiting for us, sitting on the step reading a comic.
I knew Mum kept a spare front-door key under the plant pot. Once we’d got indoors, I replaced it, just in case we needed it again. Then I gave Lois crisps AND biscuits (I had to give her enough food to keep going) and set her up on the computer. Adi and I were ready!
“Are you going to tell me what magic you’ve come up with then, Adi?” I asked nervously.
“Wait and see, Rosemary. It might not work, but we’ll give it our best shot.” Adi rolled up the sleeves of his blue school jumper, repositioned his glasses on his nose, and took a deep breath.
He took a coin out of his pocket and a pen and paper. We both stood looking into the mirror. I bit my lip. Adi did a little wink at me and then we began the ritual of holding and dropping the coin in front of the mirror. I was about to suggest that I took over when, bingo, the coin unsteadily at first floated, then seemed to settle into a hovering position.
“Aradia. Aradia. Aradia,” we said in unison.
Whooooooosh, that rushing sound came again, and this time I felt slightly nauseous watching a faraway object in the mirror come towards me. A bit like travel sickness, I suppose. Suddenly there she was again in the mirror, the beautiful raven-haired lady.
“This is Aradia. Name and Pentagram Identification.”
“Adi Adani and Rosemary Pellow. We have no current pentagrams.”
Aradia sighed. “I’m sorry, but you cannot come through unless you can do maaagic. Goodbye.”
“But we can do magic!” Adi shouted desperately.
Aradia paused and studied us both with her piercing amber eyes. She smirked.
“Well, you I have sin before,” she pointed at me. “But not the boy. I will love to see this magic. So, impress me.”
I could tell Adi was nervous, because he kept going from one leg to the other, like a flamingo resting a leg in water and then swapping to the other one. I dug my nails into his side by way of reminding him to take charge here.
“Yes, right,” Adi said in a high pitched but loud voice. “This is my assistant,” he pointed at me to my surprise, “and we are going to use magic to tell you your shoe size and your age.”
I looked at him aghast. “Mum said you should never ask a lady her age,” I whispered to him.
“I’m not asking her age,” he growled. “I’m telling her. There’s a difference.”
Aradia paused to stroke the raven’s chest, which was again perched on her shoulder. It seemed to turn its beak and whisper in her ear.
“Alright,” she said. “But I promise you, leetle boy, you will never be able to guess my age, but you can have your leetle try. Why not?”
“Have you got a pen and paper?” Adi asked boldly.
“Yes, I have. Let’s get on with this maaagic.” She elongated the word and flounced her hands around the air as if it was a big joke to her.
This was not going to go down well with Adi. He hated anyone dissing him, especially BEFORE he had had a chance to prove his worth.
“Right, you will need to keep up with me,” he said briskly, “and don’t show me your workings out, just your final figure at the end. Multiply your age by one fifth of 100, add today’s date, i.e., 15 as it’s the 15th of October, times this by 20% of 25, add your shoe size, then finally subtract 5 x todays date i.e. 5 x 15. Now let me see your FINAL figure.”
Aradia’s fingers had been working ninety to the dozen, and I know most of the sums she did using a calculator. She turned the page round to us to show us this figure:
70,405
Adi looked puzzled and seemed to say nothing for ages.
“Well?” I whispered to him from the corner of my mouth. “Tell her how old she is and her shoe size.”
I thought Adi was going to hyperventilate, he was breathing so fast and hard.
He looked directly at Aradia and said, “You are 704 years old and you take a size five shoe.”
I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was going to have to kill him.
“704?” I gasped. “Adi, have you gone mad? She’s about 35, even I know that. You’ve totally blown it this time.”
I felt like crying. Our one chance. I had really trusted Adi. How could I have been so daft!? He must have got muddled with his nerves or something. It was all over. How were we going to find out what was on the other side now?
I was waiting for the swooshing noise to come and Aradia’s world to catapult away from us, but she was still there staring.
I looked to Adi, who was mute and in shock, I think. I looked at her. She looked furious. She slowly reached down beneath her and resurfaced holding the highest stiletto shoe I had ever seen. It was red and black with glitter and the heel was like a long black spike. As she thrust it towards us in the mirror, I closed my eyes and cowered. It was over. She was going to kill us with a stiletto spike.
The stabbing sensation never came, so I reopened one eye and saw more clearly that she was actually showing us the bottom of her shoe, and neatly printed in black was the number “5”.
“I am impressed, leeetle boy. How did you know I was born in 1313, huh? Maybe I nid better face cream,” she cackled. “You can come through.”
“And my assistant,” Adi bravely stated.
Aradia gave me a steely look and sighed reluctantly. “And your assistant.”
At that moment, the mirror seemed to expand and open into the wall like a pair of wardrobe doors parting to allow you entry. We started to walk towards the desk where Aradia was seated. The floor and walls were all wooden, a panelled, walnut-coloured wood, and Aradia’s desk was a curved high-topped area rather like you would see at a hotel reception. I turned to look behind me, to see if I could see our hallway, but all that was visible was more panelled, walnut wood from floor to ceiling. Our house and the entrance to it had totally disappeared. As we got within a foot or so of her desk, the raven flew off her shoulder toward us. I gave a small cry of fear.