Like an insecure giant heron, Catchpole skipped in front of Septimus saying, “Allow me to open the doors, Apprentice.”
“I have the password, thank you,” Septimus replied.
Catchpole hopped back. “Oh, yes, of course you do. Silly me. Well, if there’s anything else I can do, anything…” He suddenly stopped, remembering that there was something he definitely did not want to do. He did not want to help with Spit Fyre’s breakfast.
But Septimus—to Catchpole’s relief—did not take him up on his offer. He just murmured the password and let the giant silver doors silently swing open to reveal a gray, blustery spring day splattered with stray drops of rain. Septimus wrapped his green woolen Apprentice cloak around himself and set off at a brisk pace down the big marble steps that led from the Wizard Tower into the Courtyard. He skirted the base of the Tower and headed for a newly built wooden shed, which was neatly tucked in against one of the huge buttresses. Then, very quietly, in the hope that Spit Fyre would not hear and get overexcited, he opened the door and slipped inside.
Septimus clicked his fingers. Two candles sprang into flame, brightening the gray morning light inside the shed and illuminating the interior, which consisted of three big tubs of oats, a barrel of skimmed milk delivered that morning, one tub of windfall apples and, crammed into an old sack, an assortment of pies and sausages, the leftovers from the Meat Pie and Sausage Cart—also delivered early that morning.
With the practiced air of someone who did this every day—weekdays, weekends, holidays and feast days, come rain or shine—Septimus got to work. From outside the shed he wheeled in a large empty wooden tub on the side of which was written in multicolored letters:
SPIT FYRE
DO NOT REMOVE
If found please return to the Wizard Tower Courtyard
Septimus started to fill the tub. He took hold of a long-handled shovel and began to scoop out great quantities of oats and throw them into his wheeled tub. When it was about one third of the way full he emptied the sack of meat pies and sausages into the oats and mixed them in well; then he added two big shovelfuls of the apples. Finally he heaved up the barrel of skimmed milk, unscrewed the top and upended it over the mixture. The milk tumbled out with a loud glugging noise. When it had all disappeared into the oat and sausage mix, Septimus plunged in the shovel and, with some difficulty, stirred the glutinous mix. By the time he had finished, the oats had soaked up the milk and had expanded to nearly fill the tub. Septimus took out the shovel, shook off a few clinging pieces of steak and apple and regarded the mixture with an air of satisfaction. It was now a grubby brown color flecked with bits of broken piecrust, smashed sausages and bruised apples. Perfect.
Septimus wheeled the tub out into the Courtyard and took off, the wheels clattering and jumping on the cobbles. As he expected, as soon as the tub hit the cobbles, a loud thudding echoed around the Courtyard walls and the ground under his feet shook as though a stampede of elephants were on its way. Spit Fyre, Septimus’s almost full-grown dragon, was hungry.
A stampede of elephants might well have been easier to manage than Septimus’s next task, which was to let Spit Fyre out of the Dragon Kennel—a long stone building with a line of small windows set in just under the eaves. Septimus had recently had the Wizard Workshop make up a new set of doors with a huge iron bar inside each one. The trick was to open them without getting himself, or any passing Wizard, trampled into the ground. Septimus had noticed that it had been quite some time since any Wizard had actually dared to pass by during Spit Fyre’s breakfast time, particularly since the notorious episode of Catchpole being mistaken for a large meat pie (or was it a sausage?) and hurled into the breakfast tub by a well-aimed swipe of the dragon’s tail.
Septimus left the breakfast tub at the foot of a wide ramp that led up to the barn doors of the Dragon Kennel. He tiptoed up the ramp in the vain hope that Spit Fyre would not notice him coming, which of course the dragon did. And as the doors reverberated to great thuds of Spit Fyre banging them with his nose, Septimus calmly placed his hand on the doors and said, “UnBar!” Deep inside the thick doors he felt the whirr and rumble of the bar retracting. He immediately leaped to one side. No sooner had Septimus safely cleared the ramp then the doors sprang open under the force of a dragon, who now weighed the equivalent of 1,264 seagulls.
His claws sending up showers of sparks as they scraped along the stones, Spit Fyre skidded to a halt in front of his breakfast tub and began siphoning up the contents. The noise reminded Septimus of the sound his bathwater made when he took the plug out, only a hundred times louder. Catchpole, who claimed to have seen the elusive bottomless whirlpool in Bleak Creek, said that when he closed his eyes, he was hard pressed to tell the difference between Bleak Creek and Spit Fyre eating his breakfast, although he thought that Spit Fyre was probably louder.
The dragon did not take long to finish his breakfast. He scraped the barrel clean with his long, green, rasping tongue; then he licked his lips appreciatively and sucked up the last few shreds of sausage that had stuck to his scales.
“Hello, Spit Fyre,” said Septimus, careful to approach the dragon from the front as he had had a few narrow misses with Spit Fyre’s powerful tail. The dragon snuffled a greeting and put his head down so that his great green dragon eye, the iris rimmed with the red of Fyre, looked into Septimus’s brilliant green eyes. Septimus stroked the dragon’s velvety nose and said, “I’ll be back later, Spit Fyre. Be good.”
The dragon settled down outside the Dragon Kennel and closed his eyes. Now the usual late-morning chorus began—the crash of slamming windows as Wizard after Wizard tried to escape the low rumble of Spit Fyre’s snores echoing around the yard.
Septimus jumped over Spit Fyre’s tail, taking care not to trip over the barb at the end. Then he walked across the Courtyard and into the blue shadows of the beautiful lapis lazuli Great Arch. There, as he always did now, he stopped and looked down Wizard Way. Septimus still loved the feeling of being in the Wizard Way of his own Time, where he belonged. He breathed in the rain-misted air and as he gazed down the wide avenue something purple caught his eye at the far end. Septimus knew it was Marcia Overstrand; a gust of wind had blown the ExtraOrdinary Wizard’s cloak out like a great purple sail behind her as she strode through the Palace gates.
Wondering what had sent Marcia to the Palace, Septimus checked in his pocket for a piece of paper and set off along Wizard Way to the Manuscriptorium. He paused for a moment outside the door, freshly painted in Jillie Djinn’s new corporate color—a pinkish purple. He Felt someone Ill-Watching