The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones Page B

shoes. One shoe must have torn off while Syracuse was plunging through the hedge.
    Finding the shoe was not a problem. Cat simply held his hand out and asked . The missing horseshoe whirled up out of a clump of grass, where no one would have found it for years in the ordinary way, and slapped itself into Cat’s hand. The real problem was that Cat knew Joss Callowwould be outraged if Cat tried sticking the shoe back on by magic. It was bound to go on wrong somehow. And Joss would be truly angry if Cat tried to ride Syracuse with one uneven foot. Cat sighed. He was going to have to levitate Syracuse all the way home, or conjure him along in short bursts, or—knowing how much Syracuse hated magic—most likely just walk. Bother.
    He found a gate and led Syracuse out through it and down the hill, where Joe and Roger were sitting side by side on the bank, talking eagerly. Cat could see they were now fast friends. Well, they clearly had a lot in common.
    â€œThat’s women’s work, a machine for washing dishes,” Joe was saying. “We can do better than that. If you get any good notions, you better come and tell me. I get in trouble if I wander round the Castle. You can find me in the boot room.” He looked up as he heard Syracuse’s uneven footfalls. “I have to be going,” he said. “I’ve an errand to run for our Gammer, down in Helm St. Mary.” He got up off the bank and picked up his bicycle. “And you’ll never guess what it is,” he said. “Take a look.” He pulled a large glass jar with a lid on out of the basket on the front of his bicycle andheld it up. “I’m to tip this in their village pond there,” he said.
    Cat and Roger leaned to look at the murky, greenish water in the jar. A few fat black things with tails were wiggling slowly around in it.
    â€œTadpoles?” said Roger. “A bit late in the year, isn’t it?”
    â€œQuite big ones,” Cat said.
    â€œI know,” Joe said. “I could only find six, and some of those have their legs already. Know what they’re for?” They shook their heads. “This is not a jar of tadpoles,” Joe said. “It’s a declaration of war, this is.” He put the jar back in his basket and got astride his bike.
    â€œWait a moment,” Cat said. “Do you know how far it is to Chrestomanci Castle?”
    Joe shot him a slightly guilty look. “You can see it from the top of this hill,” he said. “Got turned around, didn’t you? Not my fault. But the Farleighs don’t like people wandering around in their country, so they do this to the roads. See you.”
    He switched the toggle at the side of his box and went purring smoothly away up the hill.

Chapter Seven
    N ot surprisingly, Cat got back to the Castle a long time after Joe or Roger did. Syracuse resisted Cat’s attempt to levitate him and started to stamp and panic at the mere hint of teleportation. Cat was too much afraid he would split the unshod hoof to try either spell more than just the once. He could hardly bear to think of what Joss Callow would say if he brought Syracuse in with an injury. So he was reduced to plodding along by the grass verge, with Syracuse breathing playfully on his hair, happy that Cat was not trying to use magic anymore. That wizard who sold Syracuse, Cat thought glumly, must have frightened the horse badly by slamming spells on him. Cat wouldhave liked to slam a few spells back on the wizard.
    After a while, however, Syracuse’s happiness made Cat cheerful too. He began to notice things in that special way Syracuse seemed to be training him to do. He sniffed the smells of the grass, the ditches, and the hedges, and the dustier smell of the crops standing in the fields. He looked up to see birds teeming across the sky to roost for the night; and, like Syracuse, he jumped and then peered at a rustling in the hedge that was certainly a