âAs a matter of fact,â said Marigold, âI understand perfectly.â For the first time, she caught herself feeling genuinely fond of Pettifog.
âAnd now youâve ruined everything!â he said. (So much for fondness, Marigold thought.) âHow am I supposed to be of service to a wizard if the wizard is a blob of glop? The demonic realms will slurp me back! Thatâs whatâs supposed to happen when my employment is terminated.â He was talking faster now, as though he might get slurped at any moment. âI canât go back, Princess. I wonât be able to bear it. Iâve seen too many daffodils!â
âDonât talk like that!â Marigold put her hands on Pettifogâs trembling shoulders. âYouâve got to calm down, or weâll never get Torville fixed. First of all, your employment hasnât been terminated. Youâre simply employed by glop. Isnât that right, Torville?â
The glop gave an emphatic nod.
Pettifog took a breath. âBut if the greater demons find out, they might ââ
âThey wonât find out,â said Marigold. âI certainly wonât tell them. And soon it wonât matter anyway because weâre going to turn Torville back to himself.â
âOh, really?â Pettifog didnât sound convinced. âHow?â
âWell, I donât know how,â Marigold admitted, âbut thereâs got to be someone who does. I suppose I could ask my parentsâ royal magician to reverse the spell. Do you think we could send her a message somehow?â
Pettifog groaned. âIf the royal magician of Imbervale finds out that Torvilleâs been turned to glop, dear Princess, it will be the best news sheâs received all year. She wonât lift a finger to help us. Sheâll be too busy celebrating.â
Pettifog was right; it had been a foolish idea. âWeâll ask another evil wizard, then.â
âYou mean Torvilleâs competition?â Pettifog shook his head. âTheyâll be celebrating, too. If any of them could have changed him to glop, they would have done it already.â
âBut they couldnât,â Marigold said slowly, âbecause of the Villainsâ Bond. Oh, no.â She must have squeezed Pettifogâs shoulders too tightly, because he was trying to squirm away. âHave I broken the Villainsâ Bond?â she asked him. âIf the other villains learn what Iâve done to Torville, will they send unkillable wasps after me? Will they make my toes fall off?â
âThey certainly should,â Pettifog grumbled. âYouâre ruining my suit.â
Marigold let go. She stared down at the blob of glop, finally understanding just how much trouble sheâd barreled into this time. If she couldnât get Torville turned back to himself before someone else found out what sheâd done, Pettifog would be slurped away by demons and Marigold would have one hundred and five plagues raining down around her ears. Any witch or wizard would leap at the chance to curse a princess of Imbervale â even a wicked one. And there wasnât a soul in all the Cacophonous Kingdoms whom she could ask for help. Even if she could have climbed into her fatherâs lap and asked him for a kiss on the forehead, it wouldnât have done a bit of good.
Down on the floorboards, Torville was growing agitated, twisting his whole gelatinous self back and forth. âDo you know someone who can turn you back to yourself?â Marigold asked him in desperation.
âWho cares what Torville knows?â Now that Pettifog was free from Marigoldâs grasp, he was hard at work smoothing out the wrinkles sheâd made in his jacket. âHe canât tell us anything!â
But Torville was nodding again. He oozed hopefully toward Marigold, leaving a thin trail of slime behind him.
Marigold watched him move. She thought hard. âYou canât speak,â she said to Torville, âbut you can get around well enough, canât you? Thatâs a start. Wait here.â She might not know how to lift an enchantment from a be-glopped wizard, but she had an idea about how to communicate with one. She ran over to the blackboard and started erasing the magical formulas Torville had scrawled all over it. âPettifog, do we have a screwdriver?â
âOf course we do. You canât break a curse with it, though.â He produced one from a workroom drawer and held it out to Marigold. âWhat are you getting up to?â
âIâm making a contraption,â Marigold told him. âA simple one. It wonât be perfect, but it should work well enough for now.â Balancing on her tiptoes, she unscrewed the blackboard from its standing frame while Pettifog did his best to hold it steady. Together, they laid it flat on the floor. Then Marigold chalked the letters from A to Z in a circular pattern on the board while Pettifog coaxed Torville into his hands and carried him gingerly across the room.
âPut him here,â said Marigold, pointing to the center of the blackboard. Pettifog set him down in the middle of the circle of letters. âCan you read the alphabet around you, Torville?â
Torville was bubbling around the edges now, but he didnât move, and Marigold wondered if they shouldnât have scraped him off the floor after all. Then, to her relief, he nodded.
âAnd do you think you can move from one letter to the next?â
Torville oozed experimentally toward the letter A. He nodded again.
âGood. Now, what was it that you wanted to say? Whoâs the person who can help you?â
It took an eternity for Torville to answer. Watching him move around the board reminded Marigold of waiting for the last bit of honey to drip from a spoon. After a good two minutes of oozing, heâd reached the letter O, where he paused to rest. âIs O the first letter?â Marigold asked. Torville nodded weakly. A bubble rose to his surface and popped like a sigh.
It took him only twenty seconds to travel from O to N, and not much longer to reach L, but after that he set off across the circle again, and Marigold couldnât bear to sit and watch him. Besides, she was ravenous. By the time sheâd wandered down to the kitchen, helped herself to a bowl of the cold porridge on the stove top, and brought it back up to the workroom, Torville had reached the letter Y.
âO-N-L-Y,â Marigold spelled aloud. âThe first word is âonly.ââ
Pettifog was still crouched by the blackboard. âI donât think Torville looks quite right.â
âOf course he doesnât,â said Marigold. âHeâs a blob.â
Pettifog rolled his eyes. âDonât you see heâs gotten pale? Heâs not as golden as he was at first, and I think heâs slowing down. That journey to the letter Y has worn him out.â He looked accusingly at Marigold. âYou should give him some of your porridge.â
âWhat?â Marigold looked first at her porridge, then at Torville. âHe doesnât have a mouth anymore.â
âIf you wonât feed him, Iâll do it myself.â Before Marigold could stop him, Pettifog had plucked the spoon from her bowl and placed a small, cold lump of porridge on the blackboard. âHere you go, Torville. Eat up.â
âHonestly!â said Marigold, seizing back her spoon. But Torville was already oozing over the lump of porridge and burbling with something that might have been delight. As Marigold watched, the porridge disappeared â though she still wasnât sure where, exactly, it went â and Torvilleâs color improved. When the last bit of food was gone, the blob of glop let out a very small burp and headed across the blackboard once more.
âSee?â Pettifog looked smug. âHe loves porridge.â
By the time Torville reached his next destination â the letter M â Marigold had gotten tired of waiting. âOnly M,â she said. Down on the blackboard, Torville began to pivot. It might be quicker, Marigold realized, to guess what he was spelling. âOnly magic?â she tried. âOnly moonlight? Only . . . mushrooms? Mousetraps? Mandrakes? Muffins?â
âNo,â said Pettifog, ânone of those. Heâs spelling âOnly Marigold.ââ
âHe isnât!â said Marigold.
But Torville had already stopped inching across the board and was nodding with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. âIâm the only one who can change you back?â Marigold asked him. âThat canât be right!â
âI should have guessed it,â said Pettifog. âWhen Torville cursed the downstairs toilet, he had six wizards and a magical plumber come to look at it, but none of them could break the curse. Since Torville was the one who got the magic knotted up so badly in the first place, only Torville had any chance of untangling it.â
âBut the toilet is still cursed!â
âSome knots are very hard to untangle.â
Marigold stared up at the ceiling beams, which radiated from the center of the room like spokes of a wheel. If even Torville couldnât reverse a spell gone wrong, how in the world was she supposed to manage it? âI donât know where to begin!â she said. âIâm not a real wizard!â
âObviously not,â said Pettifog. âI think Torville may be doomed.â
Torville, who had been resting near the letter M, began to fizz around the edges. He might have been nervous or indignant; it was hard for Marigold to guess. âWell, Iâm going to try to save him anyway,â she snapped. âYou donât have to be so hopeless about it.â
âHope,â said Pettifog, âis what the Thing eats when itâs not eating princesses.â He bent over the blackboard and nudged the blob of glop into the palm of his hand. âBut Iâm fond of Torville, so Iâll help you if I can.â
Marigold spent the rest of the morning plowing through Torvilleâs books. Most of the magical manuals in his storeroom would have taken her years of studying to understand, and even the ones that made sense didnât bother explaining how to reverse a spell youâd made a mess of. One book (You Can Curse! Fifty Simple Spells to Cast at Home) recommended undoing your work âin the usual manner.â
âBut it doesnât say what the usual manner is!â Marigold tossed the book down on the workroom floor, feeling utterly fed up. âYouâre just supposed to know. Are you sure Torville never mentioned it?â
âIâm positive,â said Pettifog through his teeth. This was the fifth time Marigold had asked him that question, and each time he answered it, he got a little crankier. âTorville didnât discuss the workings of his spells with me. I stirred the cauldron; I didnât ask questions. And now I need more porridge.â