'Keep that woman off me.'

'Get moving,' said Cornelius Murphy.

They stood before the house of Hovis.

'This is it,' said Arthur. 'You can untie me now.

'I think not.' Cornelius looked up at the great dark house. It was a fine enough building.

Con-structed to one of Sir John Soane's neo-cla.s.sical designs. Demonstrating his predilection for horizontal skylines and love of an aurora in the tympanum of the central pediment. This latter being a well-placed detail, which, although small, conferred a certain distinction to the elevation.

'And Hugo Rune is here?'

'Bottom bell,' said Arthur. 'The one marked A. THOTH.'

'A Thoth?' Cornelius asked.

'Well, you didn't expect it to read H. Rune?'

'Oh. I don't know. But then, I don't really expect H. Rune to be in there.'

'But he is. Go on, press the b.u.t.ton.'Cornelius stretched forward a long slim finger, but he could not quite bring himself to press the b.u.t.ton. Somewhere inside his head, the needle of suspicion fluttered into the red zone.

'Perhaps it would be better if you pressed it, Mr Kobold.'

'With pleasure. Untie my hands.'

'Use your nose.

'Oh really!'

Anna made little drilling noises with her mouth.

Arthur craned his nose towards the bell push.

'Er, just a moment.' Tuppe put up his hand to speak. 'Before anyone presses anything, there's just a couple of small points I'd like cleared up.'

'Speak on, my friend,' said Cornelius.

'Well,' Tuppe began, 'I have been following all this quite carefully. And if Hugo Rune really is in there, how is he going to open the door? I mean, if we're in a different time frame from everyone else on earth, we will be invisible to him and he'll just be a statue to us. Oh, and the bell-push won't ring the bell, will it? Remember the telephones and the bottles that won't pour and everything?'

'Ah,' said Cornelius. 'Good points. What do you think, Mr Kobold, good points?'

'Very good points.' Arthur Kobold made an uneasy face. This being a face which now displayed signs of unease to an even greater degree than the one which he was previously wearing. Which had already had a great amount of unease on it. So to speak. 'Ideas anyone?'

'I have one,' said Anna.

'I thought you might,' said Arthur Kobold. 'Does it involve you sticking that drill up my bottom again?'

'No. It involves you voiding the spell.'

'Void the spell?' Arthur took a step backwards. But just the one. Anna held him tightly by the halter rope. 'I have no idea what you mean, young woman.'

'Oh, I think you do.' Anna looped the rope around her hand and gave it a significant jerk. 'This different time frame business sucks. And do you want me to tell you why?'

Cornelius looked at Tuppe.

And Tuppe looked at Cornelius.

'Yes please,' they said.

'Then I will. I don't pretend to understand how "magic" works. Before tonight. I would have doubted that it worked at all. But I do understand some things about the laws of motion. So tell me this, if we're all moving faster than a speeding bullet, how come we aren't experiencing friction from the surrounding air? If we were moving that fast under normal circ.u.mstances, we'd be glowing white hot by now, having first had the flesh stripped straight off our bones, of course. But we're not, Mr Kobold, are we?'

'Ah,' said Arthur. 'It would appear not. Although I am experiencing a degree of sweatiness at the present time.'

'So,' Anna continued, 'it is my supposition that we are held within some kind of protective coc.o.o.n.

A magical coc.o.o.n.

'She's good for a girl, isn't she?' said Tuppe to Cornelius.

Anna turned a glare towards the small fellow. 'You will get a smack', said she, 'if you make any more remarks like that.'

'Sorry,' said Tuppe.

'I should think so too. Now, if you and Cornelius would care to bend Mr Kobold over, I will drill all the necessary details out of him.'

'No no no.' Arthur edged his back to the wall. 'No need for any of that. It is a spell, yes. But it's not my spell. It belongs to the guvnor. It's his special birth-day spell. I'm not supposed to use it.'

'Then why did you?'

'Because you stole the guvnor's favourite car. The alarm went off in my office. It seemed the best thing to do at the time. We couldn't have anyone seeing that car. The guvnor was asleep, so I used hisspell. Why couldn't you have stolen one of the other cars? There's hundreds of them in there to choose from.'

'Hundreds?' Cornelius made with the open mouth. 'Oh dear,' said Arthur Kobold. 'You didn't see all the rest then?'

'Void the spell,' said Anna. 'And do it now.

'I can't. It's more than my job's worth. The spell is only to be used once a year, on the guvnor's birth-day. And only by him. You'll just have to get used to life in the fast lane, I'm afraid.'

'The b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' said Tuppe. 'He never had any intention of returning us to our normal time.'

'Down with his pants,' said Anna. 'I've had quite enough.'

'No,' wailed Arthur. 'No, no, no.

'Then void the spell. This is the last time of asking.'

'All right. All right. But you'll have to untie my hands.'

'I'll be right behind you.' Anna gestured with the drill. 'One dodgy move and it's the steel suppository for you.'

'No dodgy moves. I swear.'

'Right then. Cornelius, untie his hands.'

'Certainly.' Cornelius loosened the ropes. 'There now,' he said. 'Do your thing.'

'Hm.' Arthur pressed his fingers to his temples and began to rock gently on his heels. And then he uttered the magic words. They appeared to be the standard bogus-latin gobbledegook that you get in the movies. But, then, this wasn't the movies. This was real life. Oh yes.

There was a crash, a bang, a wallop and the sound of water going the wrong way down the plughole. And then.

Cornelius felt the breeze on his face. And a million smells rushed into his nostrils. He opened his eyes, because evidently he must have closed them, and he saw that the world was right once more.

Well, almost right. Anna was there. And Tuppe was there.

But Mr Kobold wasn't there. And neither were the ocarina, the route map or Rune's annotated A-Z.

11.

'Have at you, varlet!' The hands of Hovis drove down the steel, thrice blessed. Right up to the pommel in the big green beast's backside.

The creature spat reefer, mingled with profanity, and screamed. Inspectre Hovis turned his blade.

'You have my diamonds, I believe,' said he, administering another vicious twist.

'Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!' went the creature.

And then, BANG!

It was a particularly messy kind of a BANG! Inspectre Hovis was showered with odorous ooze. He toppled backwards as the fetor engulfed him.

When he was able to rise, which he did to the accompaniment of much coughing, spluttering and gagging generally, he became aware of two things. The creature had gone. But so too had the diamonds.

'It would seem that we have egg on our faces,' said Cornelius Murphy.

'And jam.' Tuppe licked his lips. 'Strawberry jam.'

'The b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' Anna threw her hands in the air. 'Look at me. Look at me.'

Now, a tall, seventeen-year-old woman can look good in most things. Dressed even in a plastic bin-liner, she can seem like heaven. But carrying off that covered-in-banana-custard-from-head-to-toe look, that's asking a lot. And certainly more than Anna Gotting was prepared to be asked.

'Look at my T-shirt! That was signed by the lead singer! Look at my hair! Oh my G.o.d!' She turned upon Cornelius with the fury that h.e.l.l hath none of. 'This is all your fault, you b.l.o.o.d.y clown!'

'My fault?' Cornelius wiped egg from his face. 'I don't think that's altogether fair.'

'Fair? Fair?' Anna made claws. Bright yellow ones. 'Well,' said Cornelius, 'I was for pressing the bell-b.u.t.ton. I was quite prepared to overlook the obvious fact that we were defying the laws of motion.

At least until I'd got to meet Hugo Rune. I would have broached the subject then, of course.

'What? What?' Anna plucked at her T-shirt.

'Er, excuse me..' Tuppe raised his hand once more. 'Perhaps we might push the bell-b.u.t.ton now. I mean, if Hugo Rune is in there, maybe he'd let us use his bathroom.'

'You press it.' Anna's voice rose to perilous heights. 'Push the bell, bang the b.l.o.o.d.y knocker. Do what you d.a.m.n well please. But I've had enough. You can stick your Forbidden Zones. Stick your fairies. Stick their magic spells. Stick Hugo Rune and his wonderful water car, which you lost! Stick it all and stick yourselves. You are a fool, Cornelius. And you, Tuppe, you re quite unspeakable.'

'Does this mean that s.e.xual intercourse is out, then?' the small fellow enquired. 'Ouch!' he continued, as a sticky yellow fist caught him squarely in the face.

'And stick your stupid old jokes. I'm finished. Goodbye.' And with that she turned about and stormed away across Kew Green. Not quite as pretty as a picture.

The two lads watched her go.

'You might have handled that a mite better,' said Cornelius, when she was finally out of sight.

Tuppe rubbed his chin. 'Good riddance,' said he.

'Good riddance? What do you mean?'

'Well.' Tuppe's tiny face puckered and his bottom lip got a definite quiver on. 'She spoiled things, Cornelius. It was much better when it was just the two of us. The Epic Duo, eh?'

'But we weren't very epic. We've lost everything this time.'

Tuppe began to blubber. 'You'll figure it out, I know you will. And we always get girls along the way. You don't need her hanging around all the time.'

'She did come up with some rather good ideas.'

'You come up with ideas all the time.' Tuppe sniffled and snuffled. Cornelius offered him the use of his hankie, a nice oversized red gingham one.

'Have a blow.'

'Thanks.' Tuppe made great foghorn noises into the handkerchief.

'I'm sorry,' he said.'It's OK. We'll get by.'

'Of course we will. You and me, eh?'

'You and me.

Tuppe made another mighty blow into the hand-kerchief before offering it hack. 'Thanks.'

Cornelius considered the sodden germ-carrier. 'Keep it,' he said. 'A present.'

'Thanks very much.' Tuppe stuffed the thing down the front of his dungarees. 'So what do we do now?' he asked with considerable bright and breeziness. 'Ring the bell? See if your real daddy is at home to callers?'

'No. I don't think so. It occurs to me now that the name Thoth rings a bit of a bell itself. As in the Egyptian G.o.d Thoth.'