A Prince Among Youths

CHAPTER NINE

A Prince Among Youths

"Me ears 'urt," said Sophie. "Do yer think we could make a rule that stepmothers aren't allowed to use t' common room fireplaces?"

My ears hurt too, and Hannah was shaking. Megan was muttering about casting a Lingaugeo on "Sally-Anne's dragon-hag", and perhaps a Splingio too. Only Susan was calm.

"Mrs Perks seemed angriest about the fact that we were all sitting there listening," she said. "I wonder what she wanted to say that was too private for us to hear? She didn't spare us very much. Sally-Anne, can your stepmother do anything to you?"

I tried to remember whether anything in Cressida's furious rant had actually made sense. "I expect she's saving up some kind of punishment. And she'll tell Dad that I spoilt the ball for Ursula and Cecilia. If he believes her..." It was difficult to imagine Dad actually turning against me, but he would be disappointed in me and he would support whatever punishment Cressida allocated. "Let's hope the boys didn't hear," I said as Megan opened the door to the Entrance Hall.

Several boys were waiting for us there.

"Sally-Anne, are you all right?" asked Terry. "We could hear your stepmother all the way out here."

"Of course she isn't all right!" exclaimed Megan. "None of us is! The Wizengamot ought to banish stepmothers to the moon."

"Been worrking on that one for yearrs, I have," said Wayne. "But the munting stepmams do have all the rrights."

There was an awkward moment before Eddie Carmichael said, "Anyway, let's flit. Sophie, do you think that cloak is thick enough for the pouring rain?"

I was glad to drop the subject and let my friends move – most of them were going to Hogsmeade despite the weather. Hannah was going with Justin and Ernie, but had forgotten her shopping list. Megan, who had rashly promised to accompany Wayne and then regretted it, now had to explain to him that Susan would be coming with them. Michael Corner slid away from Terry's side when Weasley's sister appeared on the staircase. Soon Terry and I were alone with Anthony Goldstein. Since I had no money, I hoped they would suggest a different plan.

"Aren't you meeting anyone?" I asked Anthony.

"No, I'm going to catch up on some reading." He displayed a large Bible.

"Have you read all of it?"

"Of course – although this is only the Hebrew part."

I took courage and asked, "Will you read some to us?"

We went to sit in the little antechamber. There was no table, so Anthony balanced the great book on his knees and began to read.

"When I declared not my sin,

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

as by the heat of summer.

I acknowledged my sin to Thee,

my transgressions to the LORD.'

Then Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin..."

Anthony read very well, even if the words were disturbing. I didn't remember hearing anything so old-fashioned at Mum's church. I looked at Terry, but he seemed enthralled.

Anthony reached the end, and Terry said, "Let Sally-Anne choose something now. What would you like to hear?"

"Something a bit more cheerful," I told them.

Anthony turned the page. "Try this," he said.

"How precious is thy steadfast love, O God!

in the shadow of Thy wings.

They feast on the abundance of Thy house,

from the river of Thy delights.

For with Thee is the fountain of life;

in Thy light do we see light.

O continue Thy steadfast love to those who know Thee..."

This is more like it, I thought. Terry smiled at me, and we both smiled at Anthony. Who would have thought that, at the tail-end of the twentieth century, three young wizards would give up shopping trips and flying practice because we found it more entertaining to read the Bible?

"What... Terry hasn't kissed you yet?" Megan sounded disappointed. "But you've been going out together all term!"

"I don't know whether we're going out together or not," I admitted.

Hannah looked flustered. "But... goodness... you two are always together! And the way you talk about him..."

"'Annah," said Sophie, "yer always with Justin and Ernie. Are yer going out wi' them?"

"Everyone knows I'm going out with Ernie! Justin and I only... well... you know..."

"Whereas Sally-Anne and Terry only... well... you know," said Megan.

"And 'ere is Terry," said Sophie. "Yer 'ave to admit, Sally-Anne, that 'e's allus around."

He was. Whereas Sophie had broken up with Eddie Carmichael after only a couple of weeks, and Megan had more or less shaken Wayne off by the time of the Second Task, Terry and I were still the best of friends.

"Hello, Sally-Anne," he said. "Is there something exciting on that notice board?"

"No, we're just removing a few." I ripped off yet another page; I had been taking them down all morning.

Glass (but unbreakable) dancing shoe for the right foot.

Last seen in the Great Hall at the Yule Ball.

If found, please return to Sally-Anne Perks, 4th Year Hufflepuff.

Since the left shoe had survived the Yule Ball, I knew that the other could not have magically disintegrated, but must be lost in the ordinary way. Obviously it wasn't worth stealing without its fellow; and it was too distinctive to be overlooked or thrown away by anyone who might find it; so I had hoped all term that it might come back to me. But the spring term was over, and no one had replied to my notices, so I had to accept that the glass shoe had gone. However would I tell Aunt Odette?

"Did you try Summoning it?" asked Terry.

"Yes, but that didn't work. If the shoe still exists, it must have a Staying Charm on it."

"Who would want to do that?" asked Susan. "It seems a pretty pointless prank."

"So perhaps the worst is true," said Megan. "Perhaps some idiot did use it to practise the Reducto."

"They're unbreakable, remember," said Hannah. "Or is the Reducto charm stronger than the Unbreakable one? Perhaps lost shoes automatically return to the manufacturer. You could try going to Cobbler's over the holidays."

"Or perhaps they simply return to the owner's home," said Terry hopefully. "Perhaps the magic shoe will be safely waiting in your own wardrobe. Are you packed?"

I indicated my trunk next to Susan's; we were the only ones going home for Easter this year. I had to go home because Mum needed me, and of course I couldn't go to Mum's without first going to Dad's. I would just have to face up to whatever was waiting for me there.

"I'll miss you," said Terry. He hugged me but did not kiss me. "I'll send Tychicus with all the news in a couple of days."

"Why isn't Ella-Jane here?" was Cressida's first question as Molly-Rose and I stepped out of her Floo.

"She's staying at Hogwarts all Easter."

"I'm going to check that with her Head of House! Anyway, you two are here, so make yourselves useful. Molly-Rose, you can do the ironing. Sally-Anne, go and start dinner. Cecilia, love, no sneaking off. You can read to Xavier."

As soon as I reached the kitchen door, something clicked into place. I knew my own footfall had activated some kind of booby-trap. Next minute, my wand flew out of my sleeve, as if someone had Summoned it. In alarm, I pushed forwards, but my toe hit an invisible barrier.

The bruise was real. It was clear that I could not step out of the kitchen. I soon established that Cressida had locked the kitchen fireplace and the windows, so I was trapped. What was she trying to achieve? I began to peel potatoes, assuming she would have to let me out at bedtime.

I served lobscouse for dinner. We ate in the kitchen as usual; Dad praised my cooking without noticing what it was, while Cressida complained about money. After dinner I washed up. Then I cautiously felt the doorway, but the invisible barrier was still there.

"Of course you aren't getting out!" said Ursula, thrusting a flat, heavy box into my arms. "Did you really think you would get away with defying Mummy at Christmas? She's sent me to tell you to polish all this silverware. Don't go to sleep until you've finished the job."

Cressida had never owned silver before; if she was buying luxury goods on credit, it was no wonder she was short of money.

That was how the week progressed. When I wasn't cooking for the family, Cressida kept me busy with other tasks. For the first couple of days they were sensible: I had to clean the family's shoes; I had to plan a month of menus and write out the recipes "with no fancy French-chef words"; I had to disinfect Xavier's toys because they had been exposed to the Muggle neighbours' bout of measles; I had to hand-wash the woollens. When Cressida ran out of real jobs, she set me silly ones. I had to chip the ice out of the froster-box with a teaspoon (a job that Cressida could have done in an instant with a Thermo followed by a Desiccatio). I had to clean the stove-range with only vinegar because Xavier had inconveniently spilt the last bottle of dragon's blood. I had to scrub the floor with an old toothbrush.

Dad didn't seem to notice that I was sleeping in the kitchen, or even that I was there all day long; perhaps he was Confunded. He did amble in to talk to me sometimes.

"This unemployment situation is getting us all down," he admitted. "I've been singing in Muggle pubs, but it doesn't bring in enough money, and Cressida isn't happy with all the Muggle contact. She says working with Muggles was all right when you girls were younger, but now we have to think about making the right impression on the pure-blood bachelors. She wants us to look like the kind of family who only mix with magical society. So when I thought about working in the Muggle post office, Cressida wouldn't have that for the same reason. So I just hope my next album sells well."

"What kinds of songs are they?"

"The new album is dedicated to you six," he said proudly. "It has lullabies and educational chants and hopes of a better world for the next generation. But it's a bit of a gamble. Cressida thinks I should have stuck to love-songs because that's what sells. She says that if we don't break even soon, she might have to open up a shop. But we're hoping she won't need to do that before Xavier goes to Hogwarts..."

Fortunately, Cressida became bored with Molly-Rose and me, and she let us go to Mum's house on Easter Saturday. We stumbled out of Mum's Floo to an angry, chaotic household.

"I won't go! Try to make me!" Christopher's bellows were punctuated with swear-words.

"You'll do as you're told!" shouted Raymond. It was unusual for my stepfather to shout.

"If it really doesn't work out, I'm sure we can find a way to change the arrangement legally," Mum pleaded.

Jeremy looked up from his book. "It's all a trap," he said bitterly. "You say we can make a change, but I don't trust the courts to act before my exams."

The situation was that my stepbrothers' stepfather had accepted a job in London. The boys had stayed with Mum and Raymond while the Buftons were sorting out their move, but now Mrs Bufton wanted them to "come home to their family".

The telephone rang before I had even unpacked my trunk. Mum's voice was strained as she murmured, "Yes, of course, Cynthia... I'll fetch them at once, Cynthia..."

"I am not going to speak to my mother!" shouted Christopher.

By the time Raymond had dragged Christopher to the telephone, Jeremy was nowhere in sight. With a shout of, "Mum, I am not going to live in London because my home is here!" Christopher slammed down the receiver.

There was no dinner started, so I went into the kitchen. Christopher was still shouting at Raymond, but soon Molly-Rose brought an empty laundry basket in from the garden, and Jeremy began loading a full one into the washing machine.

"Don't listen to all the shouting," said Jeremy. "It's about nothing. They can't make us live with our mother."

"Can't they? Then the Muggle law courts must be much less interfering than the Wizengamot."

"But I'm of age," said Jeremy. "They can't make me live with either parent if I don't want to. So if I say I'm living here, that's that. Christopher is legally old enough to have a say in what happens to him, and the courts don't like to split siblings. He's an idiot to upset everyone by making so much fuss now."

How amazing! "The Wizengamot doesn't give me any say until I'm seventeen," I said. "Jeremy, what's so dreadful about your mother's house that you don't even want to visit her for Easter?"

"Nothing much," he admitted. "I mean, she's terribly disorganised, so we're always running out of milk and clean socks... Speaking of which, can you do something magical or mechanical to make this washing machine switch on?"

"You know I can't use magic out of school." I showed him how to turn the dial.

"Always running out of things, and we never know what time dinner will be, and the house is such a mess that everything gets lost. And she'll only be worse now that she finally has a job to take up half her day. But that isn't really the point, is it? The point is that she wants everything her own way. Why should we give up our home and friends and routines just so that Cynthia Bufton can keep her family together?"

"What, don't you think it's important to keep families together?"

"I don't accept that 'keeping families together' means always giving in to the most selfish family member. Isn't Dad part of my family? But twelve years ago, Mum decided she fancied a change of husband, so she just walked out on him. Then she decided she couldn't bear to give up her children for her boyfriend, so six months later we were uprooted to live in their house. Then she decided she couldn't be bothered going out to work, so Dad's been milked for every last penny to support us. And you already know how many times she's forgotten his access, or forced him to take extra access because having Christopher and me didn't suit her plans. And now she – "

Molly-Rose's book crashed to the floor. "Jeremy, you shouldn't talk that way about your mother! If the Wizengamot..."

Realising what she had said, she blushed, and we both giggled.

"If your Muggle Family Court," Molly-Rose pressed on, "knew what you were saying, they would accuse Raymond of poisoning you against Cynthia, and you might never be allowed to see him again!"

"That was only true before I was sixteen," repeated Jeremy. "But why should I have to move to a new school just two months before I sit my G.C.S.E.s? London uses a different exam board, so I wouldn't be prepared to sit those exams, and the London schools wouldn't be able to finish preparing me for the Midlands exams. But Mum didn't think of that. Her attitude was, 'Just do your best, and if you fail, you can always sit them again next year.'"

I agreed that Jeremy had a point.

"Besides, do you really think we'll be seeing much of Dad once she has us trapped in London? And what about the way we're being forced to leave all our friends behind? Mum's been getting away with too much for too long, but the law's on our side now. All we have to do is sit quietly, and everything will work out."

Whether Jeremy was right, we never knew, because Christopher refused to "sit quietly". While I cleaned the house and helped organise the Muggle legal documents, Mum and Raymond wasted their money on solicitors and social workers. Jeremy studied for his G.C.S.E.s (the Muggle version of O.W.L.s), Molly-Rose tried to look invisible, and the telephone rang all day long. Christopher was rude to Cynthia whenever he couldn't avoid speaking to her, and twice he even cut the telephone wire with scissors (Mum used a Reparo, but she wasn't pleased). His friends swarmed all over the house, except on the days when he vanished – and he sometimes stayed out until midnight. He left sweet wrappers all over the place because he said there was no point in tidying up a house where he wasn't going to be allowed to live, and I found cigarettes in his anorak pockets.

"No wonder my room smells horrible!" I complained to Molly-Rose.

"It isn't your room any more," she said. "The boys have decided to move in permanently. They want you to shift your stuff in with Ella-Jane and me."

"If that's what they want, they ought to say 'please'," I grumbled. My sisters' room was always a mess because Ella-Jane left her possessions all over the place, and Molly-Rose never spoke a word of protest. "Fine, let's tidy up before we have to find spots for yet more stuff."

Molly-Rose obligingly picked up an armload of ironed clothes that had never been put away. "Ella-Jane won't like it if you hide her things."

"Well, those are her only choices. Either she tidies her things herself or she lets me tidy them for her. Come on, let's organise a new system now, while she isn't around to protest."

After a week of this, Mum was exhausted. She confided that she was starting to want Christopher off her hands. "I understand why he wants to stay in Hereford, but the more he punishes us, the more determined Cynthia becomes to fight it out in court. Oh, dear, we really can't afford another court hearing!"

"Mum! Do you need me to go through your bills again?"

She smiled wearily. "We'll be all right if we can last out until September. Once Molly-Rose is safely at Hogwarts, I'll be able to leave the steelworks and start my own business."

"Mum, that sounds terribly risky."

"There is a risk, but my parents will help. I've wanted for a long time to have my own bookshop, and I'm sure Grandpa can help me do it properly. Oh, who could that be at the door?"

It was Mr Bufton. "I've come for the boys," he said. "They have half an hour to pack."

Jeremy began by saying, "I'm not going," but after Raymond and Mr Bufton forcibly dragged Christopher downstairs and stuffed him screaming into the car, Jeremy packed a suitcase full of schoolbooks and followed docilely. I packed their clothes, and they were off in ten minutes. Jeremy was so quiet that I knew he had a plan, and Christopher was so loud that I knew he hadn't.

"I wish we hadn't had to force them," said Mum.

"So do I," said Raymond. "But we must work within the law."

"Terry, thank you so much for all your letters. They saved my sanity!"

Terry hugged me. "I liked your answers too. But did you really tell me everything? It sounded as if you had quite a lot of trouble at home."

"In both homes," I admitted. "And it isn't over yet. Mum told me to keep my mind on my studies, but I've really started to wish I could leave school."

"You can borrow Tychicus any time you need to write home. And I'll – "

He was interrupted by a jingling of bells, a clacking of canes and a swirl of long, coloured ribbons. A string of second-year girls had taken over the Entrance Hall, and my sister Ella-Jane was leading them in a rhythmic stamping.

With a cry of, "Slay the dragons! Slay the dragons!" they nearly knocked us sideways.

"Ella-Jane, what on earth – ?"

"It's St George's Day, Sally-Anne! Don't be a square; join in!"

Three days later there was an owl from Mum.

Dear Sally-Anne, Ella-Jane and Molly-Rose,

I hope you are all well and having a productive summer term. We are very busy at the moment, so please don't worry if you don't hear from us as often as usual.

The boys have run away from London. Jeremy had saved up the train fare for both of them, and they arrived on our doorstep on Monday afternoon. They have gone back to their old school, despite being officially struck from the enrolment, and are refusing to speak to their mother.

Our solicitor says there is no legal way to force Jeremy back to his mother's house but that Christopher will have to obey the court's orders. We are doing our best to negotiate with the Buftons, who are naturally frantic, with the schools and with Christopher. Unfortunately, we are not progressing very far. Raymond and I are trying to accept that going to court is now inevitable...