Page 76 of Box of Frogs
Her eyes shone. ‘All this is simply fabulous.’ She licked her lips. ‘So do you have magic wands? Do you wave them in the air and say the magic word?’
Morgan and Jinn laughed. ‘No, it’s not like that. Usually spells are bound up in objects of their own,’ Morgan said. ‘Virtually all magic needs something physical to cling onto. Any such objects are difficult to create and enormously valuable. I’ve only seen a few myself.’
Jinn agreed. ‘Rubus has been collecting these objects for years. We’ve even hunted down a few of them for him. But there was no sign of any magical object or spell on or around the bogle’s body. Word is that the dragon’s magic-sucking device is very small. Of course, that makes it even harder to find. We’ve been trying to locate the dragon to see if he can help us trace it. That’s what we were doing now. We had a lead on a nearby flat which we attempted to search but,’ he frowned at both Morgan and me, ‘we were interrupted.’
‘Magically-bound objects,’ Julie breathed. ‘How wonderful.’
I bit my lip. ‘Um…’
‘They are quite few and far between,’ Morgan cautioned. ‘It’s not easy to create such objects in the first place, let alone use them.’
I put my hand tentatively up in the air. ‘Hello?’
‘But anything could be a bound object?’ she enquired.
I waved my hand around a little. ‘Just a little thing I should mention,’ I said.
‘What is it, Maddy?’
‘You’re saying that you searched around the golf course for a magically bound object because retrieving it might have been why the bogle was at the golf course?’
Finn shrugged. ‘Yeah. But it’s probably irrelevant to all this. We’ve not found a thing. There definitely wasn’t anything like that at the golf course, so there’s no point worrying your pretty little head about it.’
I scowled at him. ‘Enough with the patronising,’ I said. ‘Because I’m going to save all our skins. You lot,’ I pointed at each one of them in turn, ‘are going to bow down to me and be pathetically grateful.’ They looked at me. ‘I have amnesia. If I’m not given relevant information, I can’t possibly help out. Now you’ve given me the relevant information, I can save the day. It’s quite simple really.’ I beamed.
‘Go on,’ Morgan growled.
‘Charrie the bogle did have something strange with him on the golf course. I know because I took it out of his pocket and kept it. I didn’t know what it was – in fact I still don’t. It’s a smooth metal sphere, not much larger than a marble, which is attached to some sort of hook. It’s so odd looking that I’d happily believe it’s one of these bound objects, maybe even the world-destroying one that we’re looking for. The bogle took it from the golf course and I took it from him.’ I spread my arms. ‘Ta da!’
Jinn stared at me. ‘You have a magically-bound object from the bogle? But we searched your hotel room in case you’d taken something. And even when we were right behind you, there was no sign of a magical trail clinging to your body.’
My grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘I can’t promise it’s magical or it’s the dragon’s magic-sucker – and I really think we ought to come up with a better name than magic-sucker – but I can assure you that I’ve had something of the bogle’s all this time.’
‘You didn’t think to mention this before?’
‘To be honest, I’d completely forgotten about it. Between dead bodies, saving soap stars, amnesia and running for my life, a little chunk of shiny metal didn’t seem all that important.’
‘Well, get it out.’ Julie gave an excited little skip. ‘Let’s take a look at it, darling!’
Ah. ‘I don’t have ithere.’
Morgan frowned. ‘Where is it?’
‘It’s, uh, in my coat pocket.’
‘Where’s your coat? At Julie’s house?’
I winced. ‘No. It’s, um, underneath a car. Near Mike Timmons – Begonius’s –Travotel.’
Now everyone looked confused. ‘Mads, darling,’ Julie said. ‘Why would you put a coat under a car?’
I raised my shoulders helplessly. What could I say other than the truth? ‘I didn’t want to give away my secret superhero identity if I could help it.’
Finn stared at me. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ He flicked a look at his brother. ‘No wonder we didn’t notice anything magical. We didn’t realise how crazy she was and we didn’t think to look under the chassis of every vehicle we passed.’
‘If you possessed a super brain like mine, you’d understand why I did what I did,’ I said airily. ‘Or if you possessed any brain at all.’
He started towards me but Jinn put a heavy hand on his shoulder, holding him back.
