Muggle Meets Magic

"Here, Lou--give us a hand, will you?"

Lou Tupper lifted her head from the latest Sugar to see Candice Myers and Diana Shaw hauling packages and boxes into the shop. "What is it now?" she asked loudly, putting the magazine down and popping the gum she had been chewing.

Candice stared at her in exasperation. "Blimey, you'd have thought it's her who's been doing all the work, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, all right, there's no need to go on yapping." Lou slid off the stool she had been perching on, smoothing the fabric of her new crushed velvet leggings, and flounced over to where the other salesclerks were already starting to open a few boxes.

Fridays were usually the most uneventful time of the week, with only a handful of customers trickling in throughout the day. But this Friday was not turning out to be the restful day Lou had expected. With their stern senior assistant away, she had thought there would be less work to do, but apparently the others felt otherwise. It wouldn't have been so bad if Candice hadn't wanted Lou to come do her bit as well. It was nearly lunchtime and Lou was tired of Candice trying to boss her around--and her just a new girl like me, she thought resentfully.

Lou was beginning to think that working life wasn't such a lark after all. Earning her own pocket money certainly helped but it was small compensation for the grief she had to put up with every day. Some of her friends did totally cool things after leaving school. Of course, there was no use thinking of Patsy or the others who'd gone on to do their A-levels--Lou was certainly realistic enough about the capabilities of her own grey matter--but what about Johnsey, now travelling in a small rock band all over the country; Nigel, who was training at a hairdressing salon, of all things; and Katrina who was working as a stringer at the local daily and having such a whale of a time she actually moaned when given leave.

Compare that to Lou, stuck for the past few months in a dreary second-hand shop with rude customers and infuriating fellow assistants and not even given time to have a decent read for a change. Unfortunately it was no use moaning about it at home--her mother was likely to start lecturing her on her favourite topic: that at least Lou had a job, compared to the 473,000 unemployed people throughout the UK (which Lou always thought was a bit of an exaggeration).

Checking the flow of her thoughts--Lou was prone to bouts of daydreaming--she sighed and remembered that she had to start working. "Okay, I'll tidy up those," she waved at one package, whose torn paper wrapping revealed a set of dog-eared books, "but I'm off at one, all right?"

Candice glowered. "You already went out at break while we were putting up the new window display."

"Oh, excuse me, but I think I'm entitled to have lunch, too."

"Yeah, but you'll have to let me and Di go out to lunch first. When we come back you can go wherever you please. As long as you come back on time, 'course."

Lou felt like killing her. Only last night, Gavin Anderson--who'd been in her year at school and who she'd had her eye on for ages--had called her up and asked if she'd have lunch with him during her afternoon break. Admittedly it wasn't a proper date because he'd only said to wait for him at the corner chip shop, but it was a start. And now the uppity Candice threatened to spoil things.

"I need to go out at one--already promised someone I'll meet them."

"Then that someone'll just have to wait, won't they?" Candice said aggravatingly. "Why are you being so difficult about it, anyway--your turn'll still come at half past. That's fair, innit, Di?"

Diana raised her brows, which Lou thought could've meant anything, and methodically went about unpacking one box, which turned out to contain baby clothes. Lou usually didn't mind the earnest-looking Diana so much. She was an industrious worker and a model employee, though far too quiet in Lou's opinion, but that was a bonus compared with the vociferous Candice with her never-ending question tags. Only now she wished Diana was a little more outspoken--in Lou's favour, of course.

"I'll--I'll still go out at one," Lou said desperately. "You can't make me have just a thirty-minute break."

"Oh, can't we? Forgotten what Ms Trent said, have you? Mark my words, you carry on the way you do and there'll be blood on the carpet when she comes back."

Remembering the way with which the frosty senior assistant had reminded them about working the exact number of hours they were being paid for, Lou had to concede that Candice was right.

"Fine!" she said, slamming the books she'd picked up on the counter. "Have lunch whenever you like, Candice Myers. See if I care."

"My, temper, temper. You shouldn't have gone out earlier, then, should you?"

Lou was just about to consider doing the bespectacled girl some bodily harm when Diana said in a clear voice, "I think I entered some wrong figures in the stock ledger, Candice. Could we go and check it?"

"Sure." Looking concerned, Candice trotted after Diana to the room at the back of the shop.

Lou heaved a sigh and set to work on the books. A couple had yellowing pages and shabby covers, but many of the others were paperbacks in quite good condition. She set aside the two worn-looking ones, scooped the others into one arm and walked over to the revolving bookstand, where she slipped each book into the appropriate slot.

"I don't believe it--more Archers," she murmured, putting First Among Equals and Not a Penny More among numerous books already bearing the same author's name. Lou herself never bought that kind of books--she preferred lighter reads. Remembering her magazine, she went back to the sales counter where she had put it.

She just thought she'd read one article--'Is Your Friend Driving You Crazy?' (trying to decide whether Goody-goody Candy could be considered a 'friend' by any definition of the word)--but then on the next page she noticed a model, superbly tanned a hue of brown no English lass could ever hope to achieve in February. The model was clad in a gorgeous shimmery pink jacket, and she had to see where she could buy it. It turned out that the jacket was, unfortunately, a Miss Selfridges's creation and beyond what Lou could afford, but she thought optimistically that she might find a similar item in the Littlewoods catalogue. And if she asked very nicely, her mother might even get it for her birthday next month.

"Excuse me!"

Lou looked up from her third 'okay, this is the last one' article and saw a middle-aged woman standing in front of her, a cottage-shaped teapot in one hand. Lou hadn't realised that a customer had come in. Furtively glancing to her left, she saw that Diana and Candice had returned. The latter, wearing a knew-you'd-slip-up smirk, looked particularly thrilled at her lapse.

Lou flashed her most dazzling smile. "I'm sorry, I was momentarily engoss--inglossed--"

"Engrossed," the woman said, looking impatient.

"Yes, that's right." Nodding, Lou held out her hand, trying to look helpfully professional, and asked in her best salesclerk-y manner, "Would you like me to wrap that up for you? Pretty teapot, isn't it? Isn't there anything more you'd like to buy? We have the whole tea set if you'd take a look at that. I do think the tiny cups are really quite sweet. All this cottage ceramics are coming back into fashion again, aren't they? And I think--"

The woman interrupted, "Could you please hurry up? I have a bus to catch."

"Oh, of course," Lou beamed, handing over the wrapped teapot in a carrier bag. "That'll be two pounds fifty exactly." The woman plunked over the requisite amount of money and stomped off, while Lou called cheerily, "Thank you and please come again!"

The minute the door closed behind the annoyed customer Candice announced, "Honestly, you won't believe how some people could be so hopeless. You can't even take care of one customer, Louie."

"Shut your gob. And don't call me Louie."

"Pretty manners you've got--" Candice began, but was sidetracked when the clock chimed once. "There, time for our lunch. Sit tight, eh, Lou--we'll be back soon. And mind you don't scare off anyone with that long face of yours."

"Har har," Lou said sarcastically. She watched Candice and Diana grab their bags and put on their coats in an extremely disgruntled mood, gritting her teeth when Candice tossed her a smug look as they walked out. The girl was really too much.

For a couple of minutes, Lou tried devising ways of meeting Gavin after all, but knew that none of her ideas would really work--mostly because the chip shop was next to the café where the other girls liked to have their lunch. Feeling sorry that she hadn't taken Diana aside and begged her to pass on a message to him, Lou cast a resentful look at the boxes of books and clothes waiting to be unpacked and sorted. Candice might have been able to force her to miss her meeting with Gavin but Lou certainly wasn't going to do any work--she planned to spend this half-an-hour just wallowing in misery.

Gavin might be thinking that she'd stood him up, or that she hadn't been interested in the first place, or something. In any case, he's bound to feel that I'm not worth bothering about, Lou thought, disconsolately examining her nail polish for signs of chipping.

As the minutes passed her mind began conceiving even more elaborate notions about her currently non-existent future with him (what if Gavin was her True Love and Candice thwarted their souls meeting just by telling Lou to stay put for thirty minutes? What if Gavin was trying to decide between two girls and Lou's non-appearance put him in favour of Girl No. 2?). She was near to hitting the depths of despair--what if he was planning on confessing that he'd fallen for her the first moment they met, and because she didn't come, went home angry and was hit by a car and died never knowing that his feelings were reciprocated?--when someone pushed the door open.

Lou, into whose head her mother had drummed several maxims of proper behaviour, tried not to stare too openly at the old man who came into the shop. He was tall and gaunt, with bushy white brows and a droopy white moustache, and wild-looking hair that was (oddly enough) still dark and luxuriant, considering that he looked about a hundred. He was dressed in what seemed to be some sort of costume--royal blue robes and a matching steeple hat, with a silvery cape thing.

How funny, it's nowhere near Halloween, Lou thought, eyeing the cluster of satiny gardenias that decorated the hat, and concluding that this man must be like her mother's old relative, whose mind the rest of the family labelled euphemistically as 'a little off'. In the last years of his life Cousin Gordon took to wearing nothing else but Aran jumpers and kilts. His long-suffering children had to always have a brand new set in the wardrobe because if the weather turned nasty and there were no clean, dry ones he would throw a tantrum and walk around in his birthday suit.

The customer peered short-sightedly at her. "Here, missy, you sell clothes, don't you?"

Lou, who had also been taught to be respectful to old people--even if they looked totally barmy--came forward and said politely, "Yes, sir." After all, he seemed harmless enough.

The old chap lifted his arms, sticking them at right angles from his body. He looked like he was starting on some warm-up exercises. "Well, then, bring some of them over here so I can try them on."

"You're looking for something in particular, sir?"

"Something longish that'll cover my legs in nippy weather, not like those," he said, pointing disapprovingly at a poster of Ryan Giggs in his football gear on the wall.

"You mean trousers." Lou nodded understandingly. She thought it would be best to humour the old thing--at least it kept her mind off Gavin. She picked a couple of tweed trousers from the clothes rack that looked long enough for the old man and handed them to him brightly. "Now, why don't you go over to the fitting room and see if either of these fit?"

The old man looked affronted. "Do you think I'm daft enough to be putting on those newfangled things? Likely as not the elves will have to hold them up for me to jump in. No, I meant something like those."

'Those' were several bridesmaid's dresses in different pastel shades hanging on a rack in the women's section. Fighting an urge to laugh at someone clearly living in a fairytale world, Lou selected a pale green one which looked brand new--it had faux fur on the collar and a sheer, flouncy skirt.

"This one's very nice, sir, and it's in very good condition, too."

He examined the frock dubiously. "Hm, it's a bit dressy, isn't it? Not something you'd wear to the match. An old bachelor like me has to be careful with what I wear. Pick something else."

Lou willingly went to fetch several other items--grabbing stuff from both the men's and the women's sections, seeing as the costumer wasn't particular--and a few actually pleased him enough that he tried them on right there in front of her. ("I'm not going into that poky little room where there's hardly enough space for a gnome to breathe.")

Lou helped him with the tricky business of putting them on over his voluminous robes, all of which caused considerable difficulty as even the more loose clothes seemed a little snug when put over what he already wore. The old man pronounced judgment on a plaid nightshirt (a bit on the short side), a fancy evening gown made of ruched grey taffeta (too tight under what Lou's nurse mother termed the axilla), a billowy maternity dress (the smocking was a tad scratchy), a khaki trench coat (the fabric was too stiff) and was just about to try on a colourful batik caftan when he caught sight of a red nightgown in Lou's arm.

"Let's see that one," he said, and Lou handed it over. It was a very comfortable-looking flannel nightgown with white floral print on a crimson background and a lacy round yoke neck. "Now this is perfect for the World Cup." He went on conversationally, "I bought the tickets months ago, actually. Cost me a fair bit, too."

"That'll fit just nice, sir, it's roomy enough, and I think it looks very flattering," Lou said distractedly--for the past few seconds she had been frantically glancing at the clock, which showed 1.25 p.m., meaning that it was almost her turn to go to lunch.

The old man put it against himself, admiring his reflected image in a nearby mirror. "It does, doesn't it? Wrap this up, now."

Lou quickly bundled the nightgown into a carrier bag (it was now 1.27 p.m.) and said, "That'll be four pounds ninety five, please."

The old man put a hand into one capacious sleeve, produced a worn leather pouch and fumblingly reached into it. A shower of coins rained on the counter and dropped to the floor. Lou, ever helpful, went on her knees, gathering the assorted change. All the coins were slightly thinner than the usual fifty-pence piece and, oddly enough, had a hole in the middle. Something beginning with a G was embossed on each in a flourishing script--Lou's geography was never her strong point but she thought the money was Gambian currency.

The old man, looking dismayed as she handed over the money, said with a grimace, "Wrong bag," and groped in the depths of the other sleeve. Another leather pouch yielded ordinary pound coins--masses of them. They must weigh a ton, thought Lou. The old man spread the money on the counter, scrutinising each coin carefully. He seemed to have difficulty counting them--probably when they get that old even simple sums become hard.

"I'll help you, sir, shall I?" Lou said, swiftly flicking five of the coins towards the edge of the table into her waiting palm (it was now 1.31 p.m.), and ringing up the purchase in the till. She handed the old man a five-p coin and the carrier bag, gabbled, "Thanks please come again," very fast, and practically hustled him out the door, bumping into Candice and Diana in the progress. As soon as the customer was gone Lou whirled accusingly on Candice.

"You're late!"

"Dear me, aren't you a touchy one. We hurried back as soon as we could. Anyway, it's barely half past even, is it?" Candice half-turned her head curiously towards the door. "What a weird-looking geezer that was. Did he buy anything?"

"A nightdress," Lou said sourly, trying to do up the buttons on her duffel coat as quickly as possible. "One of those flowery ones that came in last week."

"I suppose he bought it for his wife, did he? Funny, you would've thought someone who looked that potty couldn't be married."

Lou was scathing as she wound her self-knitted scarf around her neck (her mother was particular about keeping warm in cold weather). "We didn't exactly discuss the personal details of his life, but as a matter of fact, he said he's a bachelor. The nightie's for himself."

"The dirty old codg--" Candice remarked scornfully, but Lou didn't stop to listen. She pulled the door open and fairly hared it down the street. The old man was nowhere to be seen, a rather peculiar thing considering that he'd looked pretty feeble when he came in, and couldn't have walked very quickly. Lou arrived at the chip shop, a stitch in her side, gasping for breath and praying for a miracle.

It didn't happen. The chip shop was full of customers, true, but not one of them had Gavin's tousled auburn hair and crinkly grin.

Cradling her crushed heart, Lou aimlessly trudged down the tiny sunlit alley that branched off the road, and which separated the chip shop on the corner from the café on the same street. Lou didn't really remember having been here before, but she was too upset to think much about it. A sleek Siamese pranced haughtily across her path. Normally Lou liked cats but today she only felt like giving it a savage kick--which she didn't, being mindful of the RSPCA that her mother regularly donated to. Some children ran by with balloons that bobbed in their hands, laughing and chattering at the top of their voices. Lou wanted to snarl at them and tell them not to look so happy. She walked the length of the alleyway, thinking huffily of what she would tell Candice when she got back, until she came to the end, where a couple of busking clowns were juggling oranges, watched by more children.

A stout boy perhaps a couple of years younger than Lou was standing in front her, hands in his pockets, casually humming. Passing him, Lou gave him a dirty look, and grumpily turned back, intending to go and have a bite. But right in front of her, she saw the nightgown man, who was vaguely looking around with bleary myopic eyes. Lou frowned, thinking, I can't have missed seeing him in that flashy getup--but here he was, turned up from nowhere.

"Uncle Archie!" The plump boy had rushed forward, taking hold of the old man by one arm. "Didn't we tell you not to wander off by yourself? Mum's gone to see if you'd got lost near the market--and she's not exactly familiar with this place either."

"Nonsense!" the old man snapped. "Can't I be expected to look after myself? It's ridiculous how you youngsters fuss so."

"But, Uncle Archie--"

"Push off, Ern," said Archie grandly, and Lou giggled, which caused both the boy and the old man to look at her. Feeling embarrassed, she tried to slink away, but Archie said in sudden recognition, "Hey, you're the girl from the shop."

Lou nodded in confirmation, her face pink.

Archie said, "This young lady sold me my Muggle clothes. Very obliging, she is--helped me pick it out, and everything."

Lou turned even redder, but to offset the impression her viciously-inflicted glare must have made on Archie's nephew, said hello brightly. The boy nodded and very correctly said, "I must thank you for helping my uncle. He's not used to this place, you see."

"Oh, are you not from around here?"

"Yes, we're in town for a shopping expedition. I'm Ernie Macmillan," he held out a hand (which Lou had no choice but to take) and shook hers with a kind of pompous gravity that made Lou want to laugh, "from Skipham."

"Oh, you must go to the Comprehensive then? I have some friends there, do you know them? Bob Trefusis who's doing his GCSEs, and Michelle Greene, who's perhaps nearer your age. Oh, and Leah Hankins, only I think that Leah's planning to drop out from sixth form, she says she's not swotty enough. Bob actually went to our school but then his dad got laid off and they went to live in the country, which he says is a good thing because--"

Ernie interrupted her, "I don't go to that--school."

"Oh," Lou said, immediately realising the meaning of his brief pause and feeling stupid. She should have known. The puffed-up thing went to a public school, of course--Eton or Harrow or something, one of those places where they had overrated school pride, rotten discipline, hilarious uniforms and a dubious sense of honour (at least, that's what Lou knew from reading Roald Dahl). She supposed Ernie was blue-blooded, or at least County, which would perhaps explain Archie's loopiness. She'd always had a hazy idea that upper class families produced oddballs every other generation.

Old Archie had drifted away to look at the buskers--his bright garb matched the riotous clowns' costume of blue and red. They watched him in silence, and then Lou said confidingly, "I thought your uncle was very funny--he actually went and bought a woman's nightgown, of all things."

"Did he?"

Ernie, the stuffed shirt, didn't sound very interested, but then he might not care to discuss his uncle's condition with a virtual stranger. He was probably in denial about it. But Lou, determined to be friendly, went on, "Yes, he seemed to have this thing against trousers for some reason. I was sorry for the poor old boy, you know--I think he believed that he was buying that nightgown specially for Italy."

"Italy?" Ernie looked puzzled.

"He mentioned something about the World Cup--said he had tickets--" Lou laughed, "but he couldn't've been serious, right? Or did you really get him tickets just to watch footie when he could've seen it on the telly?"

Ernie mumbled something that Lou couldn't catch, but then a round-faced woman scurried up to them. Her features bore enough likeness to Ernie to proclaim them mother and child. This woman wore an ordinary cardigan and skirt and carried an ordinary straw basket, but jammed over her brown curls was a polka-dot shower cap. Obviously, eccentricity really did run in the family.

"Oh goodness, Ernie, however did you manage to find your uncle?" She went and pulled the old man nearer to them. "Don't you ever do that again, Nunks, d'you hear me? I was frantic, absolutely frantic--not knowing where you could have got to, or anything." Her tone was sternly chiding, as though telling off a naughty child.

"Yes, Agnes, dear," said her uncle meekly, looking surprisingly contrite.

Ernie went over and whispered something to his mother, and from looking upset, her face turned grimly resolute. "We really should've kept a closer eye on him--it's Nunks that's the trouble, too fond of walking off on his own, he really can't be left alone. What'll happen next time I don't know--sometimes I think I do more Memory Charms because of him alone than all the Charms the Obliviators perform in a day--"

"Excuse me?" Bewildered, Lou stared at the frowning woman and her son, who was grimacing at her in a faintly apologetic manner. Ernie's mother pulled something from the inside of her cardigan. To Lou it looked like an ordinary wooden stick, but the woman's next words filled Lou with apprehension:

"This young lady, did you say?"

Lou's instinct told her to run, but then...

"OBLIVIATE!"

* * *

Lou shook her head to clear it from a deep, opaque haziness--it swam quite a bit, as though she had been carsick. Around her the little cul-de-sac was quite empty, except for a lone white-and-brown cat that rolled around on the sun-dappled cobblestone road, playing with an orange. Lou felt slightly disoriented. Hadn't there been noise here not too long ago--noise and laughter and people?

A sudden rumbling in her stomach sent her hurrying to the main street and the chip shop, from which wafted a most delicious smell. An auburn-haired boy sitting at the farthest table waved at her sheepishly (shouldn't she know who he was?--but Lou was sure she would presently). She was just about to step inside when a flash of silver cloak among the crowd rushing and jostling along the pavement caught her eye. Why did that, somehow, seem familiar? And wasn't that a spotted shower cap peeking from that dark-haired woman's straw bag?

Lou gave her head a final, firm shaking, and walked straight to the back of the shop.

"Hiya, Gavin," she said.