Chapter 2 CHAPTER TWO CHARMAIN'S EXPLORATION OF THE HOUSE

Charmain stared into the empty passage for a moment, then slammed the door shut. "What should I do now?" she asked, looking into the empty old room. "I'm afraid you have to clean the kitchen, my little cutie," said Uncle William's weary but kind voice through the thin air. "I'm sorry I left so much laundry for you. Please open my suitcase for more detailed instructions." Charmain glanced at the suitcase.It turned out that Uncle William had left it on purpose. "Wait," she said to the box. "My own package hasn't been opened yet." She picked up her two luggage and carried them to the only other door.The door was at the back of the room, and Charmain struggled to open it with the hand that held the food bag, then the other hand held two bags, opened it with that hand, and finally had to put the bags on the floor and open the door with both hands , which turned out to lead to the kitchen.

She froze for a while.Then she dragged her two bags to the other side of the door, and as the door closed, she froze for a moment. "What a mess!" she said. This should be a comfortable, spacious kitchen.There is a large window facing the mountains, and the sun pours in warmly from the outside.Unfortunately, the sunlight only illuminated the mountains of plates and cups in the sink, on the drainboard, and on the floor next to the sink.The sun continued to shine forward - Charmain's startled eyes followed - and cast a golden light on the two large laundry bags leaning against the pool.It was so stuffed with dirty laundry that Uncle William used it as a shelf for dirty saucepans and fryers and the like.

From there Charmain's eyes moved to the table in the center of the room.Here Uncle William seemed to keep about thirty small teapots, and a similar number of milk jugs—not to mention the few that had once contained broth.The table was neat, Charmain thought, but crowded and unclean. "I think you're really sick," Charmain said aggrievedly into the air. This time there was no response.She walked cautiously back to the sink, feeling something was missing.She thought for a while before realizing that there was no tap.Perhaps, the house was too far from the city to have a drain.She looked out the window and saw a small courtyard with a water pump in the middle.

"Then I'm going to fetch some water and bring it back, and then?" Charmain asked.She looked at the dark, hollow stove.It was summer, so there was usually no fire, and she hadn't seen anything to burn. "Shall I boil water?" she said. "With a dirty saucepan, I thought, and then—come to think of it, how am I going to wash it? Can't I take a shower? Doesn't he have any bedrooms, or bathrooms?" She rushed to the little door on the other side of the fire and opened it.The door of Uncle William's house seemed to take ten people to open, she thought angrily.She could almost feel magical forces holding the doors shut.She found herself looking at a grain storage room.There was nothing on the shelf except a small pot of butter and a loaf of bread that looked moldy, and a large bag with the indecipherable label CIBIS CANINICUS that seemed to be full of soap flakes.At the back of the room there were two more sacks of laundry bags, as full as the ones in the kitchen.

"I'm going to scream," Charmain said. "How could Aunt Sembroni do this to me! How could Mom let her do this?" In this desperate moment, all Charmain could think of was what she always did when she was frustrated: burying herself in a book.She lugged two handbags to the crowded table and sat down in one of the two chairs.She opened the luggage bag, took out the glasses and put them on her nose, and then eagerly dug through the pile of clothes for the book she had asked her mother to pack. Her hands felt only something soft.The only hard object was a large bar of soap, kept with the other toiletries.Charmain carried the bag to the empty hearth and turned it more carefully. "It's incredible!" she said. "She must have put the book in first, at the bottom." She turned the bag upside down and dumped everything on the floor.What fell out was a heap of neatly folded skirts, dresses, socks, blouses, two knit coats, lace petticoats, and enough underwear to last a year.On top of these were her new slippers.After taking them all out, the bag deflated.Charmain groped every corner of the bag resolutely before throwing it aside, letting his glasses hang down under the lanyard, thinking about crying.Mrs. Baker apparently forgot to put the book in.

"Well," said Charmain, blinking and swallowing, "I don't think I've ever really left home before. Next time I'm going to pack and pack my books in wherever I go. Now I'll have to suffer Have fun." So she lifted the other bag onto the crowded table, pushing things away to make room for it.This knocked four milk jugs and a teapot to the ground. "I don't care!" said Charmain, seeing them fall.Fortunately, she was relieved that the milk jug was empty, it just bounced on the ground, and the teapot was not broken, it just lay on the side, and the tea spilled on the ground. "Maybe that's the bright side of magic," said Charmain, turning out the top pie sullenly.She tucked the hem of her skirt between her knees, leaned her elbows on the table, and took a large, comforting bite of a delicious pie.

Something cool, wriggling touched her exposed right leg. Charmain was stunned, not daring to chew on the pie in his mouth.This kitchen is literally full of giant magical slugs!she thinks. The cool thing touched the rest of her leg.It whimpered softly when touched. Charmain slowly pulled back the hem of the skirt and the tablecloth and looked down.Under the table sat a very small white dog with shaggy hair, looking up at her pitifully, trembling all over.When he caught Charmain looking down at him, he raised his scuffed white ears and slapped the ground with his short, thin tail.Then he whimpered softly again.

"Who are you?" said Charmain. "Nobody ever mentioned a dog to me." Uncle William's voice came from the air again. "His name is Waif. Be nice to him. He's a stray I picked up. He seems afraid of everything." Charmain never really knew dogs.Her mother said they were dirty and biting, and dogs were never allowed in the house, so Charmain was always nervous about dogs.But this dog is too small.It looks white and clean.And it seemed that he was more afraid of Charmain than Charmain was afraid of him.His whole body was shaking all the time. "Oh, stop shaking," said Charmain, "I won't hurt you."

Waif continued to tremble, still looking at her pitifully. Charmain sighed.She broke off a large piece of the pie and gave it to Waif. "Come on," she said. "This is for you. Fortunately, you are not a slug." Waif's shiny black nose twitched slightly at the pie.He looked up at her to make sure that was really what she meant, before slowly and politely taking the pie into his mouth and eating.Then he looked up at Charmain for another piece.Charmain was amused by his politeness.She broke off another piece.Then another piece.In the end, they divided the pie in half. "There," said Charmain, shaking the crumbs off her skirt. "We're going to eat this big bag slowly, there doesn't seem to be anything else in the house. Now tell me what to do next, Waif."

Waif trotted quickly to what appeared to be the back door, where he stood wagging his little tail and whimpering softly again.Charmain opened the door—as difficult as the other two—and followed Waif into the backyard, thinking she was going to pump water and carry it to the sink.But Waif ran past the water pump, under what looked like a peeled apple tree in the corner, lifted a very short leg, and urinated under the tree. "Got it," Charmain said. "That's what you do, not me. Also, you're not doing the tree well, Waif." Waif took one look at her and started running up and down the garden, sniffing here and there, lifting a leg in the grass.Charmain could see that he felt at ease in the garden.On second thought, she actually felt the same way.There was a warm, stable feeling, as if Uncle William had placed magical protection around him.She stood by the pump and looked out at the steep rolling hills beyond the fence.There was a breeze blowing from above, with a scent of snow and flowers, which reminded Charmain somehow of the elves.She wondered if they had taken Uncle William there.

They'd better get him back soon, she thought.Stay here for more than a day and I'll go crazy! There is a small hut in the corner next to the house.Charmain went over to look, and murmured, "Shovels, I think, and flower pots and all." But when she pulled open the heavy door, she found a huge copper sink inside, a Clothes wringer, and a place to light a fire under the sink.She watched it all for a while, like a strange exhibit in a museum, until she remembered that she had a similar shed in her backyard.It was also a mysterious place to her, for she was never allowed to go in, but she knew that once a week a washerwoman with red hands and a purple face would come and steam the hut and wash away her clothes. I don't know how it got clean. Ah, the laundry room, she thought.I figured I'd put those clothes bags in the sink and bring them to a boil.But how?I began to feel that the life I had lived was too comfortable. "It's a good thing, though," she said aloud, thinking of the washerwoman's flushed hands and purple face. But I can't wash the dishes with it, she thought.I can't take a shower either.Do I have to boil water in the sink myself?And, for God's sake, where do I sleep? Leaving the door open for Waif, she walked back into the inner room by herself, past the sink, laundry bags, crowded table, and her own pile, and opened the door on the far wall.Outside is the old living room again. "How hopeless!" she said. "Where's the bedroom? Where's the bathroom?" Uncle William's weary voice came from the air. "Bedroom and bathroom, you turn left after you open the kitchen door, dear. Excuse me for the clutter." Charmain looked back into the kitchen through the open door. "Oh, really?" she said. "Okay, I'll go and have a look." She walked carefully to the kitchen and closed the door in front of her.Then it pulled away again, as hard as she'd thought it would be at first, and she turned left quickly into the door frame before she had time to wonder if it was possible. She found herself standing in a corridor with an open window at the far end.The breeze blowing in from the window is filled with the smell of snow and flowers on the mountains.Charmain glanced startled at the green grassy slope and the blue distance, while he put his knees on the nearest door and busied himself turning the handle. The door is easy to open, as if it has been used for a long time.Charmain stumbled in, and a smell hit her nostrils, which made her immediately forget the smell outside the window.She stood there sniffling, sniffing happily.It was the musty but still fragrant smell of old books.There were hundreds of them, she noticed, looking around.The books are neatly arranged on the bookshelves covering the four walls, piled up on the floor, and stacked on the desk. Most of them are old books with leather covers, although some books on the floor have newer colored covers.This was obviously Uncle William's study. "Ooo!" cried Charmain. Ignoring the hydrangeas in the front yard outside the window, she plunged into the books on the desk.Some of these big, thick, fragrant books had metal clasps to hold them shut, as if opening them was dangerous.Charmain had the nearest book in her hand before she noticed a sheet of paper with trembling handwriting lying flat on the table. "My dear Charmain," she read, and sat back on the cushions of the chair at the desk to read. (Thank God! Charmain thought.) Or maybe a month, if there were any complications. (Oh!) (Hmph. Like I care! Charmain thought.) "I think he's 'grand' uncle," Charmain exclaimed. "He must be Aunt Sembroni's great-uncle, really, and she married Uncle Ned, who was Pa's uncle, only he's dead. It's a pity. I hoped to have some of his at first." Magic." Then she said politely into the air, "Thank you very much, Uncle William." no respond.Well, Charmain thought, there won't be.This is not a problem.So she began to study the books on the table. The thick book she held in her hand was called The Book of Nothingness.When she opened it, she was not surprised to see that every page was blank.But she could feel, under her fingertips, each empty page whispering and stirring under unseen magic.She quickly put the book down and picked up another one, called Wall's Guide to Astrology.The book was a bit disappointing, basically rows of black dots, plus lots of square red dots scattered in different patterns from the black lines, but not much to look at.Still, Charmain looked at it longer than she expected.There must be something hypnotic about these graphics.But in the end, she still put the book down with a little pain, and turned to pick up another "Advanced Seed Magic", which was not her favorite type at all.The book is densely printed with long paragraphs that almost always begin: "If we make predictions from the findings in my previous work, we should be ready to set out to expand the phenomenology of xenomorphism..." No, Charmain thought.I don't think we're ready. She put this book down too, and picked up the bulky square book on the corner of the table.The title of the book is The Book of Magic, and it appears to be written in a foreign language.Probably the language spoken by the people of England, Charmain thought.But the most interesting thing is that the book has been used as a paperweight on a pile of letters, letters from all over the world.It took Charmain a long time to read the letter curiously, growing more and more interested in Uncle William.Nearly all the letters were from other wizards, seeking to teach Uncle William the details of magic - apparently they considered him a great connoisseur - or to congratulate him on his latest magical discovery.Every letter from one of them was horribly written.Charmain scowled at them, and held the worst of them up to the light. Dear Wizard Nolan (so writes, or so she looks): ("Allergic? Admiring? Rotary?" God! What's that about! Charmain thought), "Darling, dear! He must have written it with a poker!" exclaimed Charmain, picking up another letter. The letter was from the king himself, in a much easier hand, albeit shaky and old-fashioned, to read. (Charmain reads with awe and amazement), It turned out to be the elves sent by the king! "I see, I see," said Charmain to himself, finishing the last pile of letters.Each letter in the pile was written in a different, but best, handwriting.They all seemed to be saying the same thing in different ways: "Please, Wizard Nolan, I want to be your apprentice. Will you take me?" Some even offered to give Uncle William money.One of them said he could give Uncle William a magic diamond ring, and another, who seemed to be a girl, said--sounding pathetic, "I'm not very pretty, but my sister is, and she said, if you'd teach me Me, she can marry you." Charmain flinched, but hurried through the rest of the letter.It reminded her of her letter to the king.Same useless, she thought.She knew that these were obviously the kind of letters to which a famous wizard would immediately reply with a 'no'.She stuffed the letters back under the Book of Magic and continued with the other books on the table.Behind the desk was a whole row of tall, thick books, all marked "Magic and Magic", which she thought she could read later.She picked up the other two books casually.One was called The Way of Mrs. Pentstemton—Signposts of Truth, and she felt like a useless preaching.The other, she opened the metal clasp and turned to the first page, discovered that it was called The Parchment Book.When Charmain turned to the next few pages, she found that each page contained a new spell—a clear spell, with a title explaining what it did, a list of materials below it, and a step-by-step guide to what to do. . "That's right!" said Charmain, sitting down and beginning to read. After a long time, as she was wondering which would be more useful, the "spell to tell friend from foe" or the "spell to enhance wit," or perhaps the "spell to fly," it occurred to Charmain that she badly needed a bathroom.She often thinks of such things when she is indulging in reading.Standing up, her knees huddled together, she remembered that the bathroom was a place she hadn't found yet. "Oh, how do I get to the bathroom from here?" she yelled. Reassuringly, Uncle William's benevolent, faint voice immediately floated from the air. "Turn left in the hallway, my cutie, the bathroom is the first door on the right." "Thank you!" Charmain panted and ran.