A Life Less Ordinary Read Online Free PDF Page B

everyone was laughing at him. He kept screaming that it was a trick and every time he jumped, he put the lie to his own words.
    “Look down,” Master Revels suggested. George did and saw the cut. Before he could scream, Master Revels tapped him on the head and nodded to me. “My lovely assistant will heal him with a kiss!”
    I leaned down and kissed George on the forehead, cancelling the spell that had cut him in two. George, much to his relief, was allowed to go back into the audience, no longer parted at the middle. I had to keep the laughter off my own face. It was so absurd. The audience loved it.
    “And now, the final trick,” Master Revels concluded. “I will make my own assistant disappear from this box!”
    As before, he invited a couple of people from the audience to inspect the box. One of them was a teenage boy more interested in staring at me than at the box, but the other was an older man who tapped away at it before finally concluding that there was no way out. Master Revels waved to me and I stepped inside a box no larger than the Doctor’s TARDIS, at least on the outside. There was a feeling of disorientation and I found myself stepping out of the box’s twin, backstage.
    “She’s gone,” Master Revels declared, in mock horror. His voice became remarkably melodramatic. “She’s gone and she’s stealing all my money!”
    I smiled as the audience’s roar grew louder and the curtain started to come down. Master Revels had explained that there would be two or three curtain calls, but I wouldn’t have to be there for any of them. I found a seat and sat down, suddenly feeling inhumanly tired. I had never wanted a life on the stage.
    “Well, hello,” a voice said, from behind me. I jumped up and spun around. “The Black Rod has found himself a new assistant.”
    The figure was, at first, hidden in the gloom. As she stepped forward, I felt my eyes widening in disbelief. Even at the Fringe, she was unusual. She was tall, with long dark hair and eyes so dark that they sent a chill down my spine. She wore a long white dress, cut in a Grecian style that seemed almost to be a part of her. Her skin was inhumanly pale.
    “You may call me Circe,” she said. I was frozen, unable to move, as she advanced towards me. One long finger reached out and touched me on the forehead. Her touch was cold, as if her fingers were made of ice. “Woman to frog.”

 

    Chapter Four
    Before I could react, I felt a hammer blow at the back of my neck. My vision seemed to twist and fade, even as my entire body shifted. I felt, just for a second, as if I was melting and falling...and then my sense of perspective changed. The backroom seemed suddenly so much larger. The woman – Circe, she had called herself – was a walking giant. I could see right up her dress. It would have been hilarious under other circumstances, yet I had no idea what had happened to me. Something warm and soft landed on my head and I jumped. I jumped halfway across the room.
    I caught sight of myself in a mirror and recoiled in horror. I was a frog! Or maybe I was a toad; I didn’t know the difference between the two. I was small, green and warty, with eerie eyes. I opened my mouth, intending to scream, but all that came out was a frog-like noise. My ears seemed to have changed as well – I could suddenly hear so much better than before – yet everything sounded odd in the room. I had an overwhelming urge to seek fresh water and swim away from the terrifying surroundings...
    Sheer panic brought me back to myself. One of the books I had glanced at while sorting out the piles of books had talked about animal transformations. The thinking mind might remain the same, even if a person had been transformed into a worm or a slug, but the unthinking mind would change along with the body. A transfigured person might lose themselves and end up becoming whatever they’d been transformed into. If I failed to keep hold of myself, I realised, I might end up