"You can't have it. But you can have a fight if you like. Apart from the damage it'll do you, I'll make sure I let off a signal that'll bring the Night Police down on us like gorgons from hell. You don't want their attention, do you?"

That made her flinch a bit. I built on my advantage.

"Don't be naive," I said. "Think about it. You're trying to rob me of a very powerful object. It belongs to a terrible magician. If you so much as touch it, he'll find you and nail your skin to his door."

Whether it was this threat or the accusation of naivete that got to her, the girl was rattled. I could tell by the direction of her pout.

Experimentally I shifted one elbow a little. The corresponding boy grunted and tightened his grip on my arm.

A siren sounded a few roads away. The girl and her bodyguards looked uneasily down the alley into the darkness. A few drops of rain began to fall from the hidden sky.

"Enough of this," the girl said. She stepped toward me.

"Careful," I said.

She stretched out a hand. As she did so, I opened my mouth, very, very slowly. Then she reached for the chain round my neck.

In an instant I was a Nile crocodile with jaws agape. I snapped down at her fingers. The girl shrieked and jerked her arm backward faster than I would have believed possible. My snaggleteeth clashed just short of her retreating fingernails. I snapped at her again, thrashing from side to side in my captors' grasp. The girl squawked, slipped, and fell into a pile of litter, knocking over one of her two guards. My sudden transformation took my three boys by surprise, particularly the one who was clutching me around my wide scaly midriff. His grip had loosened, but the other two were still hanging on. My long hard tail scythed left, then right, making satisfyingly crisp contact with two thick skulls. Their brains, if they had any, were nicely addled; their jaws slackened and so did their grasps.

One of the girl's two guards had been only momentarily shocked. He recovered himself, reached inside his jacket, emerged with something shiny in his hand.

As he threw it, I changed again.

The quick shift from big (the croc) to small (a fox) was nicely judged, if I say so myself. The six hands that had been struggling to cope with large—scale scales suddenly found themselves clenching thin air as a tiny red bundle of fur and whirling claws dropped through their flailing fingers to the floor. At the same moment a missile of flashing silver passed through the point where the croc's throat had recently been and embedded itself in the metal door beyond.

The fox ran up the alley, paws skittering on the slippery cobbles.

A piercing whistle sounded ahead. The fox pulled up. Searchlights dipped and spun against the doors and brickwork. Running feet followed the lights.

That was all I needed. The Night Police were coming.

As a beam swung toward me, I leaped fluidly into the open mouth of a plastic bin. Head, body, brush—gone; the light passed over the bin and went on down the alley.

Men came now, shouting, blowing whistles, racing toward where I'd left the girl and her companions. Then a growling, an acrid smell; and something that might have been a big dog rushing after them into the night.

The sounds echoed away. Curled snugly between a seeping bin—bag and a vinegary crate of empty bottles, the fox listened, his ears pricked forward. The shouts and whistles grew distant and confused, and to the fox it seemed as if they merged and became an agitated howling.

Then the noise faded altogether. The alleyway was silent.

Alone in the foulness, the fox lay low.

Arthur Underwood was a middle—ranking magician who worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A solitary man, of a somewhat cantankerous nature, he lived with his wife, Martha, in a tall Georgian house in Highgate.

Mr. Underwood had never had an apprentice, and nor did he want one. He was quite happy working on his own. But he knew that sooner or later, like all other magicians, he would have to take his turn and accept a child into his house.

Sure enough, the inevitable happened: one day a letter arrived from the Ministry of Employment, containing the dreaded request. With grim resignation, Mr. Underwood fulfilled his duty. On the appointed afternoon, he traveled to the ministry to collect his nameless charge.

He ascended the marbled steps between two granite pillars and entered the echoing foyer. It was a vast featureless space; office workers passed quietly back and forth between wooden doors on either side, their shoes making respectful pattering noises on the floor. Across the hall, two statues of past Employment ministers had been built on a heroic scale, and sandwiched between them was a desk, piled high with papers. Mr. Underwood approached. It was only when he actually reached the desk that he was able to glimpse, behind the bristling rampart of bulging files, the face of a small, smiling clerk.

"Hello, sir," said the clerk.

"Junior Minister Underwood. I'm here to collect my new apprentice."

"Ah—yes, sir. I was expecting you. If you'll just sign a few documents…" The clerk rummaged in a nearby stack. "Won't take a minute. Then you can pick him up from the day room."

" 'Him'? It's a boy, then?"

"A boy, five years old. Very bright, if the tests are anything to go by. Obviously a little upset at the moment…" The clerk located a wodge of papers and withdrew a pen from behind his ear. "If you could initial each page and sign on the dotted lines…"

Mr. Underwood flourished the pen. "His parents—they've left, I take it?"

"Yes, sir. They couldn't get away fast enough. The usual sort: take the money and run, if you get my meaning, sir. Barely stopped to say good—bye to him."

"And all the normal safety procedures—?"

"His birth records have been removed and destroyed, sir, and he has been strictly instructed to forget his birth name and not reveal it to anyone. He is now officially unformed. You can start with him from scratch."

"Very well." With a sigh, Mr. Underwood completed his last spidery signature and passed the documents back. "If that's all, I suppose I had better pick him up."

He passed down a series of silent corridors and through a heavy, paneled door to a brightly painted room that had been filled with toys for the entertainment of unhappy children. There, between a grimacing rocking horse and a plastic wizard doll wearing a comedy conical hat, he found a small pale—faced boy. It had been crying in the recent past, but had now fortunately desisted. Two red—rimmed eyes looked up at him blankly. Mr. Underwood cleared his throat.

"I'm Underwood, your master. Your true life begins now. Come with me."

The child gave a loud sniff. Mr. Underwood noticed its chin wobbling dangerously. With some distaste, he took the boy by the hand, pulled it to its feet, and led it out down echoing corridors to his waiting car.

On the journey back to Highgate, the magician once or twice tried to engage the child in conversation, but was met with teary silence. This did not please him; with a snort of frustration, he gave up and turned on the radio to catch the cricket scores. The child sat stock—still in the backseat, gazing at its knees.

His wife met them at the door. She carried a tray of biscuits and a steaming mug of hot chocolate, and straight away bustled the boy into a cozy sitting room, where a fire leaped in the grate.

"You won't get any sense out of him, Martha," Mr. Underwood grunted. "Hasn't said a word."

"Do you wonder? He's terrified, poor thing. Leave him to me." Mrs. Underwood was a diminutive, roundish woman with very white hair cropped short. She sat the boy in a chair by the fire and offered him a biscuit. He didn't acknowledge her at all.