Enchanted Glass. Diana Wynne Jones

his box on the ground. “But, as my grandfather always said, you really don’t want to know.”

      But Aidan did want to know. While Andrew fetched the usual kitchen chair and stood on it on tiptoe to roll cabbages on to the woodshed roof, and then handfuls of radishes that came, many of them, pattering straight down on to the grass, Aidan felt quite scornful of someone who refused to find out about something as odd as this. Could the vegetarian be something that flew? No, because what Aidan could see of the grass, as he collected fallen radishes, was quite trampled here. A giraffe? Something like that. Andrew at full skinny stretch on the chair, with one arm up planting a swede up there, must measure a good fifteen feet. Or three metres, say.

      “Where did your grandfather say this eating-creature came from?” he asked.

      Andrew swung round and pointed with the big purple swede. “From over Mel Tump,” he said. “Pass me the rest of the radishes now, will you?”

      Aidan turned round. The garden petered out here, into a low hedge with wire in the gaps. Beyond were red-lit meadows, several of them, that stretched all the way to a sunset-pink hill about a mile away. The hill was all bristly with bushes and little stunted trees. Full of hiding places, Aidan thought, scooping up radishes. Didn’t the professor ever go and look? Curiosity ran about inside him, like an itch. Aidan swore to himself that he would look, would solve this mystery. Find out. But not tonight. He was still dead tired.

      He was so tired, in fact, that he went off to bed as soon as they were back indoors. The last thing Aidan remembered as he went up the dark, creaking stairs was Andrew saying from the hall, “I suppose we’ll have to get you a few more clothes.”

      It was almost the first thing Andrew said the next morning too, when Aidan had sleepily found his way down to the kitchen where Andrew was eating toast.

      “I need to go into Melton anyway,” Andrew said. “You could do with something to keep the rain off at least.”

      Aidan looked to see if it was actually raining. And he saw, really saw for the first time, the coloured panes in the back door. While Andrew was putting more bread in the toaster and politely finding Aidan some cereal, Aidan took his glasses off and stared at the window. He had never seen anything so obviously magical in his life. He was sure that each different-coloured pane of glass was designed to do something different, but he could not see what. But the whole window did something else too. He itched with curiosity almost as strongly as he had last night. He wanted to know what it all did.

      Andrew noticed Aidan taking his glasses off. He intended to ask Aidan about that. While they were having breakfast, Andrew wondered what magical talents Aidan had, and how strong these were, and how to put the question to Aidan in a way that was not nosy or offensive.

      But just then he had to throw the cereal packet down on the table and rush to the door as Mr Stock’s hatted outline appeared behind the coloured glass.

      Mr Stock had thought carefully. He was still very angry with Mrs Stock and he wanted to annoy her by not producing any vegetables at all today. On the other hand, he was pleased with Andrew for giving Stashe a job — though why Andrew had to take in this runaway kid as well Mr Stock could not see. What the racing results suggested were just Stashe’s nonsense to his mind.

      So that morning, he marched into the kitchen without a word, nodded to Andrew, but not to Aidan, and slapped down a very small baby’s shoebox beside the cereal. The box contained a tiny bunch of parsley.

      Andrew shut the door behind Mr Stock and burst out laughing. Aidan thought of all those radishes last night and got the giggles. They were still laughing on and off when Mrs Stock arrived, bringing the day’s paper and carefully pushing Shaun in front of her.

      “You have to explain to him carefully, mind,” she said.

      “Fine,” said Andrew. “Just a moment. I want to look at today’s racing results.”

      “I don’t approve of betting,” Mrs Stock said, taking off her coat and getting out her crisp blue overall.

      “Wasn’t that stuff about racing results all nonsense?” Aidan asked.

      “Probably,” Andrew said as he opened the paper. “But I want to test it out. Let’s see. First race at Catterick—” He stopped and stared.

      “What’s it say?” Aidan asked, while Mrs Stock pushed Shaun out of the way as if he were some of the living room furniture and started to clear the table.

      “First,” Andrew read out in a slightly strangled voice, “Shaun’s Triumph—”

      “I never!” Mrs Stock exclaimed, in the middle of putting on bright pink rubber gloves.

      “Second,” Andrew read on, “Perfect Secretary, and third, Monopod. Third place means something with one leg. If you take that to mean Tarquin O’Connor, it all sounds surprisingly apt. I’m driving into Melford this morning, Mrs Stock. Can you write me a grocery list?”

      Shaun cleared his throat anxiously. “What do I do, Professor Hope?”

      Andrew had no idea of what Shaun should do, or could do. He toyed with the notion of getting Stashe to find work for Shaun when she arrived, but decided that this was not fair on either of them. He thought quickly. Where could Shaun do no harm? “Er — um. The old shed in the yard needs clearing out, Shaun. Think you can do that?”

      Shaun beamed eagerly and made an effort to look clever. “Oh, yes, Professor. I can do that.”

      “Come with me then,” Andrew said. Thinking that Aidan might have better ideas about what Shaun could do, he asked Aidan, “Like to come too?” Aidan nodded. Mrs Stock was going round the kitchen like a whirlwind, making him feel very uncomfortable.

      The three of them went outside into a light drizzle of rain. They were just crossing the front of the house to get to the yard when a small car came hurtling up the drive and stopped, in a scatter of wet gravel. It was Tarquin’s specially adapted car, with Tarquin driving it. The passenger door opened and Stashe leaped out. Andrew stared a little. Stashe had chosen to dress like an official secretary today. Gone were yesterday’s wellies and body warmer. She was wearing a neat white shirt with a short dark skirt and high-heeled shoes. Andrew had to admit she looked pretty fabulous, particularly about the legs. Pity she was crazy.

      “I’ll get straight on with sorting that computer, shall I, Professor?” she called out, and went dashing through the rain and in through the front door before Andrew could answer.

      Tarquin, meanwhile, was levering himself out of the driver’s seat and assembling his crutches. “Can I have a short word with you, Professor, when you’ve a moment?” he said. “Short but important.”

      “Certainly,” Andrew replied. The word would be something on the lines of Don’t-you-go-messing-about-with-my-daughter, he thought. Understandable. It must be worrying having a beautiful, mad daughter. “Wait for me in the living room, if you would. I won’t be a minute. I have to set Shaun to work.”

      Tarquin nodded and crutched himself to the front door. Andrew, Aidan and Shaun went on round to the yard where the broken-down old shed stood. Andrew always wondered what it had been built for. An artist’s studio perhaps? It was old, built of bricks of a small, dark red kind that you hardly ever saw nowadays, with its roof in one slope. Someone had, long ago, given these bricks a thin coat of whitewash, which had largely worn off. The shed would have been big enough — just — for a stable or a coach house, except that it had no windows and only one small, quaintly arched door. Its roof leaked. Someone, long ago, had draped several layers of tarpaulins across the tiles to keep the wet out. Nettles grew in clumps against its walls.

      Andrew forced the stiff door open on to a dimness stacked with bags of cement (When had his grandfather needed cement? Andrew wondered) pots of paint (Or those either?) and old garden seats. In the middle stood the huge old rusty motor mower that only Mr Stock had the knack of starting.

      Shaun stumbled against the mower and barked his plump shin.