Having to do lessons during the holidays wasn't nearly as bad as Millie had feared. For one thing, Proudfoot and Throgmorten were allowed in and out of the school room - and everywhere else in the Castle for that matter - with the perfect freedom which befitted a Temple cat and which saved everyone a lot of time, given that there was no earthly way to stop them. Sitting at a desk with a purring Proudfoot warm and self-satisfied on your lap was jolly, and at least once a day there would be the fun of watching Flavian stiffen as he saw Throgmorten prowl in, and then move elaborately gingerly between the desks, pretending to check work or look out of windows, in order to be as far from Throgmorten as possible.

Millie also found that wearing the warm winter dresses that Rosalie had arranged to be awaiting her, instead of the school uniform of navy sailor blouse and skirt of the past 11 weeks, made more difference than she would have expected. She was not a girl to whom clothes were of much interest, but there was something freeing about clothes which were just for her rather than required by regulation, and there was a dress made of a wintry purple and green tartan in particular which gave her great pleasure.

Lessons relating to magic took up the whole of the morning, and the afternoons were devoted to maths, history and the like - all subjects which it was assumed that Millie's school had taught her amply. The afternoons were when she had her special tuition with Gabriel. At first she felt slightly anxious heading to his study after lunch. Christopher's parting words of "rather you than me" as he went back to the school room hardly helped.

But it turned out that Gabriel had no intention of any formal teaching. Instead, he carried on with his regular Chrestomanci tasks but talked to Millie about what he was doing, explaining at great length the subject matter of every letter brought to him for signature and the intricacies of whichever type of magic it involved, and asked her opinion about questions concerning it. Millie found it quite interesting and has no idea how much she was learning. She was almost disappointed on Thursday when she learned in the morning that Gabriel had been called away during the previous night, and as was the way with the work of Chrestomanci, there was no knowing when he would be back.

"Lucky devil" remarked Christopher grumpily, as they walked up the stairs after breakfast.

"I suppose I am", said Millie, not quite able to explain how she felt to Christopher, who persisted in believing that any time spent with Gabriel must be sheer torture. "At last a whole afternoon to read!"

"Not you, silly - him! I can't wait until it's my turn to whisk myself off and sort everything out with a wave of my hand".

"I shouldn't think that that's quite how it-"

"That's exactly how it is, for all I know!" Christopher interjected in frustration. "Since Gabriel refuses to ever involve me with any real work, never tells me anything that matters let alone takes me with him when he's called away. How am I supposed to learn how to do anything when I'm stuck in a stupid schoolroom all day?"

He at least had the grace to look embarrassed when he saw Flavian and the others waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

Perhaps these thoughts were still rankling in Christopher's mind when Gabriel returned, tired and wrung out, from the magical emergency he had spent the last 36 hours resolving and in no mood to be patient or understanding. At any rate, Christopher and Gabriel happened to have a ten minute conversation on Friday morning which descended after one minute into an exchange of sarcastic, although apparently courteous, comments and after three into an all-out shouting match, the upshot of which was that Christopher was forbidden from going to the circus that night.

At first nobody could believe it. Millie and Jason spent lunchtime formulating increasingly elaborate plans for smuggling Christopher out of the castle and to the circus, whilst Bernard and Elizabeth grilled Christopher on what had happened and whether Gabriel could possibly - surely he couldn't? - have meant it.

"Oh he meant it all right", said Christopher, bitterly.

"But you can break the enchantments, can't you? You could just go anyway!" Bernard looked around guiltily as he made the suggestion, looking slightly horrified by his own daring.

"Yes, but he'd know at once and he'd just make me come back in some simply horrid fashion" said Christopher savagely spearing a potato. "I don't care about the stupid circus anyway. He can keep it".

The great extent to which this was not true could hardly have been clearer, but everyone could see that a pretended truculent indifference was the only way Christopher could find to deal with his disappointment and humiliation. The others tried their best to contain their excitement as they gathered in the hall after an early tea, ready to pile into the carriage with Mordecai and Flavian. Christopher lurked at the first landing of the great stair case, glowering and haughty. Elizabeth couldn't help but call up to him "Oh Christopher, what a shame! We'll tell you all about it in the morning", and was met with a withering glare. Millie gave him a quiet wave, feeling both guilty that she hadn't thought of nobly offering to stay behind with him and also hugely relieved that she hadn't, lest he had taken her up on it.

"To the circus!" cried Bernard, as the housekeeper shut the huge door behind them. The children whooped with delight and raced each other through the night to the waiting carriage.