Howl’s Moving Castle

“Come on,” Howl said to Michael and Sophie, who were both staring around the shiny brown-and-orange room. He took Mari’s hand and led them all out of the room and up the stairs. Even those had a carpet, a pink-and-green one. So the procession led by Howl hardly made any noise as it went along the pink-and-green passage upstairs and into a room with a blue-and-yellow carpet. But Sophie was not sure the two boys crouched over the various magic boxes on a big table by the window would have looked up even for an army with a brass band. The main magic box had a glass front like the one downstairs, but it seemed to be showing writing and diagrams more than pictures. All the boxes grew on long, floppy white stalks that appeared to be rooted in the wall at one side of the room.

“Neil!” said Howl.

“Don’t interrupt,” one of the boys said. “He’ll lose his life,”

Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed toward the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots. The picture on the box vanished. Both boys said words which Sophie did not think even Martha knew. The second boy spun round, shouting, “Mari! I’ll get you for that!”

“Wasn’t me this time. So!” Mari shouted back.

Neil whirled further round and stared accusingly at Howl. “How do, Neil?” Howl said pleasantly.

“Who is he?” the other boy asked.

“My no-good uncle,” Neil said. He glowered at howl. He was dark, with thick eyebrows, and his glower was impressive. “What do you want? Put that plug back in.”

“There’s a welcome in the valleys!” said Howl. “I’ll put it back when I’ve asked you something and you’ve answered.”

Neil sighed. “Uncle Howell, I’m in the middle of a computer game.”

“A new one?” asked Howl.

Both the boys looked discontented. “No, it’s the one I had for Christmas,” Neil said. “You ought to know the way they go on about wasting time and money on useless things. They won’t give me another till my birthday.”

“Then that’s easy,” said Howl. “You won’t mind stopping if you’ve done it before, and I’ll bribe you with a new one-”

“Really?” both boys said eagerly, and Neil added, “Can you make it another of those that nobody else had got?”

“Yes. But just take a look at this first and tell me what it is,” Howl said, and he held the shiny gray paper out in front of Neil.

Both boys looked at it. Neil said, “It’s a poem,” in the way most people would say, “It’s a dead rat.”

“It’s the one Miss Angorian set for last week’s homework,” said the other boy. “I remember ‘wind’ and ‘finned’. It’s about submarines.”

While Sophie and Michael blinked at this new theory, wondering how they had missed it, Neil exclaimed, “Hey! It’s my long-lost homework. Where’d you find it? Was that funny writing that turned up yours? Miss Angorian said it was interesting-lucky for me-and she took it home with her.”

“Thank you,” said Howl. “Where does she live?”

“That flat over Mrs. Phillips’ tea shop. Cardiff Road,” said Neil. “When will you give me the new tape?”

“When you remember how the rest of the poem goes,” said Howl.

“That’s not fair!” said Neil. “I can’t even remember the bit that was written down now. That’s just playing with a person’s feelings-!” He stopped when Howl laughed, felt in one baggy pocket, and handed him a flat packet. “Thanks!” Neil said devoutly, and without more ado he whirled round to his magic boxes. Howl planted the bundle of roots back in the wall, grinning, and beckoned Michael and Sophie out of the room. Moth boys began a flurry of mysterious activity, into which Mari somehow squeezed herself, watching with her thumb in her mouth.

Howl hurried away to the pink-and-green stairs, but Michael and Sophie both hung about near the door of the room, wondering what the whole thing was about. Inside, Neil was reading aloud. “You are in an enchanted castle with four doors. Each opens on a different dimension. In Dimension One the castle is moving constantly and may arrive at a hazard at any time…”

Sophie wondered at the familiarity of this as she hobbled to the stairs. She found Michael standing halfway down, looking embarrassed. Howl was at the foot of the stairs having an argument with his sister.

“What do you mean, you’ve sold all my books?” she heard Howl saying. “I needed one of them particularly. They weren’t yours to sell.”

“Don’t keep interrupting!” Megan answered in a low, ferocious voice. “Listen now! I’ve told you before I’m not a storehouse for your property. You’re a disgrace to me and Gareth, lounging about in those clothes instead of buying a proper suit and looking respectable for once, taking up with riffraff and layabouts, bringing them to this house! Are you trying to bring me down to your level? You had all that education, and you don’t even get a decent job, you just hang around, wasting all that time at college, wasting all those sacrifices other people made, wasting your money…”