Generally, good things are usually too good to last and so it was in New York. It went something like this . . .
‘OK,’ said Aubergine Wealth when the students were all gathered for the evening conference. ‘We pretty well own everything that’s worth owning in New York and it’s been ridiculously easy. In fact, it’s been not that great a challenge at all, really. So has anyone got any suggestions about what we could do next?’
‘Well, we’ve actually only got two weeks until the end of the summer holidays,’ said the Headmaster. ‘So we need to wrap things up here so we can all have a week’s rest before next term back at Quicklime’s.’
‘What do you mean, wrap things up?’ said Morbid.
‘Put everything back how it was before Summer School started,’ said the Headmaster. ‘This was only ever meant to be a project, something for you all to learn a bit about how the financial world worked.’
‘But Headmaster . . .’ Aubergine Wealth began, turning a terrible shade of white. ‘Please, Headmaster, tell me that what I’m thinking isn’t true?’
‘That depends on what you are thinking.’
‘Well, Headmaster,’ Aubergine Wealth said as he felt all the blood drain away from the pocket where he kept his wallet full of platinum credit cards, ‘it sounds like you want us to give everything back.’
‘Well, yes, of course,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I thought everyone realised that.’
They didn’t.
Some of the teachers and students were more upset than others.
‘But, but,’ said Morbid, ‘in case you’d forgotten, I’m actually the Mayor of New York. So what are we supposed to do about that?’
‘Oh come on,’ said the Headmaster. ‘You didn’t really think a twelve-year-old wizard could be in charge of all this, did you?’
‘But everyone voted for me,’ said Morbid. ‘Everyone.’
‘Well, no, what actually happened was that Winchflat used his Wonderful-Memory-Implanting-Machine to persuade everyone to vote for you,’ said the Headmaster.
‘Well, yes, but they did vote.’
‘And now they are all going to unvote,’ said the Headmaster. ‘Tomorrow morning when they wake up, everyone will have totally forgotten about that election and they’ll all be looking forward to voting next week, and you will not be one of the candidates because you will be back at Quicklime’s learning your eighty-five-and-a-quarter times table with everyone else.’
‘And what about all the money and the lovely penthouses and all the other stuff?’ said Merlinmary. ‘Can’t we keep any of it?’
‘No, it all has to go back to its rightful owners.’
‘That’s us, isn’t it?’ said Satanella. ‘We didn’t break any laws to get it all. So we should be allowed to keep it.’
‘I think using powerful spells and crafty wizardry might not strictly be against the law,’ said the Headmaster, ‘but it’s probably pretty close.’
‘Excuse me, Headmaster,’ Aubergine Wealth whimpered, ‘but isn’t that what being a wizard is all about? Isn’t magic our reward for being persecuted by human beings who are, after all, considerably more stupid than even the most stupid wizard who ever lived?’39
‘Well, yes, but the first law of wizardry is that we must not harm humans,’ said the Headmaster.
‘No it isn’t,’ said Aubergine Wealth. ‘That’s the first law of robotics.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ said Aubergine Wealth.
‘Oh.’
‘So does that mean we can keep all the stuff?’
‘No it does not,’ said the Headmaster. ‘And be aware, all of you, that you are under the Painful Pimples Spell, which means that if you keep anything at all, you will get great big yellow spots that will be very painful and burst at extremely embarrassing times. One pimple for each thing you keep.’
There was panic followed by a lot of clattering as everyone emptied their pockets. Rolls of dollar bills, exquisite jewellery, gold watches and a strange assortment of small electronic gadgets covered the floor. Dozens of pieces of paper, title deeds to fabulous apartments and stocks and shares fluttered everywhere.
The Headmaster reached into his gown and pulled out the Quicklime College Supreme Wand. He threw it into the air and it flew around the room just above everyone’s heads before returning to his hand. There was a brilliant white flash of light and all the treasure vanished, transported back to its original owners. At the same time a lovely peaceful calm descended on everyone so they didn’t actually mind losing all their treasures. And, to top it off, everyone got a special Show Bag with lots of sugar-filled lollies, a chocolate broomstick and a free pair of Mordonna Flood sunglasses.
The Headmaster had anticipated there might be a few objections to putting everything back and he had made sure he was prepared. Not only had he brought the wand – the first time in living memory it had ever been outside the remote valley in Patagonia where Quicklime College was situated – but Winchflat’s Wonderful-Memory-Implanting-Machine had actually been the Headmaster’s idea.
It never occurred to any of the students that the machine could work on them. They were, after all, witches and wizards, which meant their brains were several thousand times more advanced than human brains. So everyone assumed that they would be immune to memory implanting. The only two people who knew this wasn’t the case were Winchflat and the Headmaster. It had been one of the main things they had talked about when they had discussed the possibility of building a Wonderful-Memory-Implanting-Machine in the first place.
‘You know what people, even witches and wizards, can be like when large amounts of money are involved,’ the Headmaster had said. ‘If you could create this machine, it would give us some insurance in the event of any arguments at the end of the holidays.’
Winchflat agreed and that was how the machine came to be built.
‘Of course, no one must ever know that we discussed this,’ said the Headmaster. ‘And if it ever comes out, I will deny any involvement.’
‘If it ever comes out, Headmaster,’ said Winchflat, ‘I can soon fix it with a quick memory implant. See, it has its own insurance built in.’
‘Brilliant,’ said the Headmaster, wishing that every Quicklime’s student could be a genius like his star pupil.
Though if they actually were, he thought, I would be out of a job.
Winchflat sat quietly in the shadows at the back of the room, twiddling the knobs on the Wonderful-Memory-Implanting-Machine, and one by one everyone agreed that the Headmaster was right. Everything had to be put back exactly as it had been, not just the stuff that had just been sent back, but all the strange events that had happened since the Summer School had begun.
Well, not so much put back absolutely, totally, exactly as it had been, but in many cases a bit better. The toilet rolls were softer. The sun shone a bit more each day, but it didn’t get so unbearably hot and dusty. The birds all sang a bit sweeter and the cats that had been brought back from Belgium were now cross-eyed so they couldn’t catch the birds.
It didn’t take much magic to make the mayoral elections that Morbid had won the week before never have happened. Now they were due next week. Although the candidate who would be the winner was actually quite a decent person, there’s always room for improvement. So Winchflat improved him and within one month of being elected, he had got rid of three thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five stupid, petty little laws that only made people’s lives more restricted and miserable, though it was still illegal to fart in front of a nun on Sundays.40
BUT not everyone was happy. Standing in the shadows, almost hidden behind the blood-red velvet curtains, out of range of the Painful Pimples Spell and protected from the Wonderful-Memory-Implanting-Machine by a layer of lead implanted under his scalp, there was one person who was most definitely not at all happy.
Aubergine Wealth.
At the first talk of giving everything back, he had come over all faint and had to go outside for some fresh air. When his head had cleared he slipped back into the room and stood silently in the darkest corner, his head whirling with confusion and desperate plans. Parting with five cents gave him a headache. Giving up a dollar gave him a headache and a nose-bleed. And losing fifty dollars gave him a migraine and nose-and-ear-bleed and severe conniptions.41 The thought of having to give back the millions of dollars, portfolio of stock and shares and collection of wonderful penthouse apartments he had acquired over the previous weeks was more than he could stand. There was no way that was going to happen. If it meant leaving his beloved Quicklime College, then that was a price he was prepared to pay, although even the words ‘price he was prepared to pay’ were very upsetting.
He felt his whole being about to explode in uncontrolled rage. Yet he managed to stand completely still and silent. This he only managed to do by swallowing his own tongue. He stopped the steam inside his head from bursting out by biting off his little fingers and stuffing one in each ear. He grew faint from loss of blood, yet these sacrifices were worth the prizes the Summer School had brought him. He slid down behind the heavy curtains and fell into unconsciousness. No one noticed even when a thin trickle of blood crawled out from beneath the curtains and vanished into a crack in the floorboards.
Damn, curses and damn, he thought at the thought of parting with some of his precious blood.
39 The most stupid wizard who has ever lived is Floella Yardstyck, who lives in a small valley on the far side of Lake Tarnish. She is Transylvania Waters’s only person who is known as a Living Legend, which is a term humans use for very stupid people who can stand up and speak their name at the same time. If they play sport or sing really badly then they are called a Super Living Legend.
40 Actually, he didn’t so much abolish them as give them away to England, helping to make Britain one of the most controlled nanny states in the so-called free world.
41 Conniption is such a brilliant word, I am quite upset to realise that it has taken until The Floods Book 9 to use it. I will try harder and make sure I have conniptions in every other Floods book from now on. Conniptions are particularly nice on sourdough toast with finely chopped lettuce and mint sauce. No, that’s not right. That’s bacon.