Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac

mean?’ said Groome.
    ‘He
always said he’d fly,’ said Cedric.
    ‘Always?’
said Mrs Gowdie, curiously.
    ‘You
mean you knew him?’ asked Lord Collingford.
    ‘Oh yes
. . .’ said Cedric. ‘He helped me find the treasure.’
    ‘Then
who was he?’
    Cedric
looked at them all. ‘You’d never believe me.’
    Lord
Collingford smiled at him. ‘Go on, Cedric, who was he?’
    ‘Well,’
said Cedric, looking a little sadly at the balloon as it disappeared in the
distance, ‘he was a magician called Catweazle.’
    The
balloon flew higher and Catweazle looked happily at the woods and fields below
him. He sang the flying spell.
     
    ‘ “Twelve are they that circle round.
    If power you seek they must be found.
    Then look for where the thirteenth lies,
    And mount aloft — the one who flies.” ’
     
    Higher
and higher he flew. Over towns and hills. He watched as the sun sank beneath
the horizon and the stars of the Zodiac began to twinkle around him.
    Touchwood
croaked feebly. He had no head for heights.
    ‘Nay
minion, fear not!’ said Catweazle. ‘Magic will lead us! Everything works,
Touchwood! Everything works!’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
    Richard Carpenter was born in King’s Lynn and spent most of his
childhood in Norfolk. He was brought up on comics and Shakespeare, Greek mythology
and Beano. Always interested in the theatre, he went to the Old Vic Theatre
School and then into repertory all over the country. During these years he
began to write short stories for radio.
    After a year at the Old Vic he eventually began working in television,
where he starred in a series for Granada. He has appeared in over 300
television programmes.
    ‘Being a television actor helped to teach me to write,’ he says, ‘as
sometimes the dialogue isn’t very easy to say, and needs overhauling a bit.’
    Catweazle was his first book and was based on the television
serial he wrote for London Weekend International.
    He is married to actress Annabelle Lee and they have two children, Tom
and Harriet. His hobbies are painting, sculpture, jazz and talking to anybody
about anything.

 

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