Year of the Griffin. Diana Wynne Jones

course by establishing the first ten laws of magic. Will you all get out your notebooks and write. Your first big heading is ‘The Laws of Magic’.”

      There was a scramble for paper and pens. Olga dived for her cloak pockets, Elda for her feathered bag and Ruskin for the front of his armour. Felim looked bemused for a moment, then fumbled inside his wide sash until he found what seemed to be a letter. Ruskin passed him a stick of charcoal and was rewarded with a flashing smile of gratitude. It made Ruskin stare. Felim’s narrow, rather stern face seemed to light up. Meanwhile, Elda saw Claudia sitting looking lost and hastily tore her a page out of her own notebook. Claudia smiled almost as shiningly as Felim, a smile that first put two long creases in her thin cheeks and then turned the left-hand crease into a dimple, but she waved away the pen Elda tried to lend her. The words ‘Laws of Magic’ had already appeared at the top of the torn page. Elda blinked a little.

      Lukin just sat there.

      “Smaller headings under that, numbered,” proclaimed Wermacht. “Law One, the Law of Contagion or Part for Whole. Law Two— You back there, is your memory particularly good or something? Yes, you with the second-hand jacket.”

      “Me?” said Lukin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I’d need a notebook.”

      Wermacht frowned at him, dreadfully. “That was extremely stupid of you. This is basic stuff. If you don’t have this written down, you’re going to be lost for the rest of the time you’re here. How did you expect to manage?”

      “I – er – I wasn’t sure. I mean—” Lukin seemed completely lost. His good-looking but sulky face grew even redder than Ruskin’s had been.

      “Precisely.” Wermacht stroked his little pointed beard smugly. “So?”

      “I was trying to conjure a notebook while you were talking,” Lukin explained. “From my room.”

      “Oh, you think you can work advanced magic, do you?” Wermacht asked. “Then by all means, go ahead and conjure.” He looked meaningly at his hour-glass. “We shall wait.”

      At Wermacht’s sarcastic tone, Lukin’s red face went white – white as a candle, Elda thought, sliding an eye round at him. Her brother Blade went white when he was angry too. She scrabbled hastily to tear another page out of her notebook for him. Before she had her talons properly into the paper, however, Lukin stood up and made a jerky gesture with both hands.

      Half of Wermacht’s lectern vanished away downwards into a deep pit that opened just in front of it. Wermacht snatched his hour-glass off the splintered remains of it and watched grimly as most of his papers slid away downwards too. Deep, distant echoings came up from the pit, along with cold, earthy air.

      “Is this your idea of conjuring?” he demanded.

      “I was trying,” Lukin answered. Evidently he had his teeth clenched. “I was trying for a paper off your desk. To write on. Those were nearest.”

      “Then try again,” Wermacht commanded him. “Fetch them back at once.”

      Lukin took a deep breath and shut his eyes. Sweat shone at the sides of his white face. Beside him, Olga began scrabbling in her cloak pockets, watching Lukin anxiously sideways while she did so. Nothing happened. Wermacht sighed, angrily and theatrically. Olga’s hawk-like face took on a fierce, determined look. She whispered something.

      A little winged monkey appeared in the air, bobbing and chittering over the remains of the lectern, almost in Wermacht’s face. Wermacht recoiled, looking disgusted. All the students cried out, once with astonishment, and then again when the wind fanned by the monkey’s wings reached them. It smelt like a piggery. The monkey meanwhile tumbled over itself in the air and dived down into the pit.

      “Is this your idea of a joke?” Wermacht snapped at Lukin. “You with the second-hand jacket! Open your eyes!”

      Lukin’s eyes popped open. “What do—?”

      He stopped as the monkey reappeared from the pit, wings beating furiously, hauling the missing part of the lectern in one hand and the papers in the other. The smell was awful.

      “That’s nothing to do with me,” Lukin protested. “I only make holes.”

      The monkey tossed the piece of lectern against the rest of it. This instantly became whole again, and it tossed the papers in a heap on top. With a long, circular movement of its tail, a rumbling and a crash and a deep growling thunk, like a dungeon door shutting, it closed the hole, leaving the stone floor just as it had been before Lukin tried to conjure. Then the monkey winked out of existence, gone like a soap bubble. The smell, if possible, was worse.

      Olga, who had gone as white as Lukin, silently passed him a small, shining notebook. Lukin stared at it as it lay across his large hand. “I can’t take this! It looks really valuable!” The book seemed to have a cover of beaten gold inlaid with jewels.

      “Yes, you can,” Olga murmured. “You need it. It’s a present.”

      “Thanks,” Lukin said, and his face flooded red again.

      Wermacht hit the newly restored lectern sharply. “Well?” he said. “Is anyone going to admit to the monkey?”

      Evidently nobody was. There was a long, smelly silence.

      “Tchah!” said Wermacht. He gestured, and all the windows sprang open. He piled his papers neatly in front of him on the lectern. “Let’s start again, shall we? Everybody write ‘The Second Law of Magic’. Come along, you in the second-hand jacket. This means you too.”

      Lukin slowly sat down and gingerly pulled out the little gold pen slotted into the back of the jewelled notebook. He opened the book and its hinges sang a sweet golden note which made Wermacht frown. Carefully, Lukin began to write neat black letters on the first small, crisp page.

      The class went on, and finished without further incident, except that everyone was shivering in the blasts of cold air from the open windows. When it was done, Wermacht picked up his hour-glass and his papers and stalked out. Everyone relaxed.

      “Who did that monkey?” was what everyone wanted to know as they streamed out into the courtyard.

      “Coffee,” Olga said plaintively from the midst of the milling students. “Surely we’ve got time for coffee now?”

      “Yes,” Elda said, checking. “I need a straw to drink mine.”

      They had coffee sitting on the steps of the refectory, out of the wind, all six together. Somehow they had become a group after that morning.

      “Do you know,” Felim said reflectively, “I do not find Wizard Wermacht at all likeable. I most earnestly hope we see him no more than once a week.”

      “No such luck,” said Olga, who had her crumpled timetable out on her knee. “We’ve got him again straight after lunch. He does Herbal Studies too.”

      “And Elementary Ritual tomorrow,” Elda discovered, pinning down her timetable with her right talons while she managed her straw and her coffee with her left. “That’s three times a week.”

      Ruskin hauled his timetable out from under his mail and examined it glumly. “More than that. He does Demonology and Dragonlore too. Man’s all over the place. Two sessions a week on Basic Magic.”

      “He’s not likely to forget us, is he?” Lukin remarked, running his fingers over the smooth humps of the jewels in the golden notebook.

      “Maybe he’s not vindictive,” Claudia suggested. “Just no sense of humour.”

      “Want to bet?” grunted Ruskin. “Lukin, can I see that notebook a moment?”

      “Sure,” said Lukin, handing it over. “I suppose, from his point of view, I was quite a trial to him, although he did seem to pick on people. Funny though. When I first saw Wizard Corkoran, I thought he was the one I was going to hate. Stupid lightweight in silly clothes.”

      “Oh,