Year of the Griffin Read Online Free Page B

from the pit, along with cold, earthy air.
    â€œIs this your idea of conjuring?” he demanded.
    â€œI was trying,” Lukin answered. Evidently he had his teeth clenched. “I was trying for a paper off your desk. To write on. Those were nearest.”
    â€œThen try again,” Wermacht commanded him. “Fetch them back at once.”
    Lukin took a deep breath and shut his eyes. Sweat shone at the sides of his white face. Beside him Olga began scrabbling in her cloak pockets, watching Lukin anxiously sideways while she did so. Nothing happened. Wermacht sighed, angrily and theatrically. Olga’s hawklike face took on a fierce, determined look. She whispered something.
    A little winged monkey appeared in the air, bobbing and chittering over the remains of the lectern, almost in Wermacht’s face. Wermacht recoiled, looking disgusted. All the students cried out, once with astonishment and then again when the wind fanned by the monkey’s wings reached them. It smelled like a piggery. The monkey meanwhile tumbled over itself in the air and dived down into the pit.
    â€œIs this your idea of a joke?” Wermacht snapped at Lukin. “You with the secondhand jacket! Open your eyes!”
    Lukin’s eyes popped open. “What do—”
    He stopped as the monkey reappeared from the pit, wings beating furiously, hauling the missing part of the lectern in one hand and the papers in the other. The smell was awful.
    â€œThat’s nothing to do with me,” Lukin protested. “I only make holes.”
    The monkey tossed the piece of lectern against the rest of it. This instantly became whole again, and it tossed the papers in a heap on top. With a long, circular movement of its tail, a rumbling and a crash and a deep growling thunk , like a dungeon door shutting, it closed the hole, leaving the stone floor just as it had been before Lukin tried to conjure. Then the monkey winked out of existence, gone like a soap bubble. The smell, if possible, was worse.
    Olga, who had gone as white as Lukin, silently passed him a small shining notebook. Lukin stared at it as it lay across his large hand. “I can’t take this! It looks really valuable!” The book seemed to have a cover of beaten gold inlaid with jewels.
    â€œYes, you can,” Olga murmured. “You need it. It’s a present.”
    â€œThanks,” Lukin said, and his face flooded red again.
    Wermacht hit the newly restored lectern sharply. “Well?” he said. “Is anyone going to admit to the monkey?”
    Evidently nobody was. There was a long, smelly silence.
    â€œTchah!” said Wermacht. He gestured, and all the windows sprang open. He piled his papers neatly in front of him on the lectern. “Let’s start again, shall we? Everybody write ‘The Second Law of Magic.’ Come along, you in the secondhand jacket. This means you, too.”
    Lukin slowly sat down and gingerly pulled out the little gold pen slotted into the back of the jeweled notebook. He opened the book, and its hinges sang a sweet golden note that made Wermacht frown. Carefully Lukin began to write neat black letters on the first small, crisp page.
    The class went on and finished without further incident, except that everyone was shivering in the blasts of cold air from the open windows. When it was done, Wermacht picked up his hourglass and his papers and stalked out. Everyone relaxed.
    â€œWho did that monkey?” was what everyone wanted to know as they streamed out into the courtyard.
    â€œCoffee,” Olga said plaintively from the midst of the milling students. “Surely we’ve got time for coffee now?”
    â€œYes,” Elda said, checking. “I need a straw to drink mine.”
    They had coffee sitting on the steps of the refectory out of the wind, all six together. Somehow they had become a group after that morning.
    â€œDo you know,” Felim said reflectively, “I do not