Carry On Read Online Free PDF Page A

crank one open. The fresh air smells even sweeter now that I’m inside. I open the other window, still sucking on my thumb, and watch the dust motes swirl in the breeze and the sunlight, then fall back on my bed.
    The mattress is old—stuffed with feathers and preserved with spells—and I sink in. Merlin. Merlin and Morgan and Methuselah, it’s good to be back. It’s always so good to be back.
    The first time I came back to Watford, my second year, I climbed right into my bed and cried like a baby. I was still crying when Baz came in. “Why are you already weeping?” he snarled. “You’re ruining my plans to push you to tears.”
    I close my eyes now and take in as much air as I can:
    Feathers. Dust. Lavender.
    Water, from the moat.
    Plus that slightly acrid smell that Baz says is the merwolves. (Don’t get Baz started on the merwolves; sometimes he leans out our window and spits into the moat, just to spite them.)
    If he were here already, I’d hardly smell anything over his posh soap.… I take a deep breath now, trying to catch a hint of cedar.
    There’s a rattle at the door, and I jump to my feet, holding my hand over my hip and calling again for the Sword of Mages. That’s three times already today; maybe I should just leave it out. The incantation is the only spell I always get right, perhaps because it’s not like other spells. It’s more of a pledge: “In justice. In courage. In defence of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.”
    It doesn’t have to appear.
    The Sword of Mages is mine, but it belongs to no one. It doesn’t come unless it trusts you.
    The hilt materializes in my grip, and I swing the sword up to my shoulder just as Penelope pushes the door open.
    I let the sword drop. “You shouldn’t be able to do that,” I say.
    She shrugs and falls onto Baz’s bed.
    I can feel myself smiling. “You shouldn’t even be able to get past the front door.”
    Penelope shrugs again and pushes Baz’s pillow up under her head.
    â€œIf Baz finds out you touched his bed,” I say. “He’s going to kill you.”
    â€œLet him try.”
    I twist my wrist just so, and the sword disappears.
    â€œYou look a fright,” she says.
    â€œRan into a goblin on the way in.”
    â€œCan’t they just vote on their next king?” Her voice is light, but I can tell she’s sizing me up. The last time she saw me, I was a bundle of spells and rags. The last time I saw Penny, everything was falling apart.…
    We’d just escaped the Humdrum, fled back to Watford, and burst into the White Chapel in the middle of the end-of-year ceremony—poor Elspeth was accepting an award for eight years of perfect attendance. I was still bleeding (from my pores, no one knew why). Penny was crying. Her family was there—because everybody’s families were there—and her mum started screaming at the Mage. “Look at them—this is your fault!” And then Premal got between them and started screaming back. People thought the Humdrum must be right behind Penny and me, and were running from the Chapel with their wands out. It was my typical end-of-year chaos times a hundred, and it felt worse than just chaotic. It felt like the end.
    Then Penelope’s mum spelled their whole family away, even Premal. (Probably just to their car, but it was still really dramatic.)
    I haven’t talked to Penny since.
    Part of me wants to grab her right now and pat her down head to toe, just to make sure she’s whole—but Penny hates scenes as much as her mum loves them. “Don’t say hello, Simon,” she’s told me. “Because then we’ll have to say good-bye, and I can’t stand good-byes.”
    My uniform is laid out at the end of my bed, and I start putting it away, piece by piece. New grey trousers. New green-and-purple striped