Author's Note: Charmain's illness in this comes directly from the last time I had 'flu-with-vomiting, except that I did not dare to go back to sleep and spent the night on the bathroom floor, wrapped in a towel and shivering or sweating with heat. Unfortunately, there was no spell to make me get better!

I love reviews, guys. I know you're reading this; there have been 39 visitors to this story in the past month, but I've only gotten three reviews - all from Rebel of my Destiny, who rocks to bits. So, all you other guys... please? I'll even throw in a bit more Peter/Charmain next chapter, if you like. I'm not just asking for "omg so good lol write more!!!!", although of course that's always nice. I'm asking for constructive criticism too, so that I can improve my writing.

By the way, I will probably not be updating for about a week, as I am going to Melbourne. Enjoy, anyway!

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Chapter Six

Wherein Shoes Melt Quite Unexpectedly

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It was quite early on Saturday morning when Charmain awoke feeling entirely unwell. She was decidedly dizzy and her stomach felt rather rebellious. She managed to slip her feet into her slippers and her arms into her dressing gown before stumbling into the closest room, which happened to be Peter's, and falling on the floor.

Peter looked at her groggily. "Charmain? Wha's goin' on?" He yawned.

Charmain now felt far too hot, and threw off her dressing gown. "I feel funny," she muttered croakily. She turned white and vomited on the carpet.

Peter frowned. "That floor was clean!" He rubbed his eyes and looked at her properly. "You all right?"

Charmain paled even further and fainted, collapsing against the cupboard and slithering down to the floor.

"Well, that answers that," grumbled Peter, feeling far too awake for so early in the morning. He pushed his bedclothes off and slid his feet into slippers before walking over to Charmain and crouching next to her. She had regained consciousness, but was still obviously lightheaded. "What's the matter?"

"Feel sick," she moaned. "Too hot. Head hurts. Throat hurts. Everything hurts."

Peter looked at her flushed cheeks. "You've got a temperature," he said. "You must have the 'flu. Go back to bed." He reached out his hands to help her up, but Charmain flopped her hand to shoo him away.

"'F I stand up, I'll be sick 'gain. Don't wan' go an'where," she muttered. "Cold. 'M cold."

Peter picked her up, ignoring her protestations, and managed to put her in his bed, where she immediately and unceremoniously threw up over the side. Peter managed to move away without getting splattered, but Charmain's dressing gown did not.

"Ugh," said Peter, holding out the now rather messy garment.

Charmain collapsed against the pillows and squinted around. "Did th' walls always move? I can't 'member."

"The walls? Moving?" Peter stared at the wall behind the bed. It looked just the same as it always did: neatly whitewashed except for the footprints from when he had last tried to do a headstand. "They're not moving."

"They are!" Charmain pointed at them with a hand that shook rather. "All wobbly. Like jelly."

Peter felt her forehead and drew his hand back in shock. "You're burning!" Hallucinations, he thought to himself. No wonder. She feels like an oven.

"Am not!" said Charmain crossly. "Cold. Not hot. 'M freezin'." She shivered and tried, weakly, to pull the blanket over herself. Peter did it for her.

"I'll be back in a minute, Charmain."

She didn't answer. She had fallen asleep.

Peter looked at all of the shelves in the study, trying to find a book on First Aid. Medical Magic (So many of these books have silly titles, Peter thought disdainfully)looked the most likely. He flipped through it, trying to find a spell for curing the flu. He found it under I, for Influenza (after looking through Itching, Insomnia, and Irritability, the latter of which he thought he might use on Charmain some day)

'Ingredients,' he read, 'two teaspoons of honey, a pinch of pepper, a live earthworm,' (a worm! he thought. Charmain will not like this at all), 'a digestive biscuit, a cup of hot water and a silver spoon.'

"Funny list of ingredients," he muttered, slipping on his favourite boots.

It took less time than he had thought it would to find them. Within five minutes, he was looking back at Medical Magic.

'Stage One. Intone the words, 'Malum influentia, dimitto!' over the biscuit, while sprinkling it with the pepper.'

"Malum influ–" He sneezed. "Malum influentia, dimitto."

'Stage Two. Spread one teaspoon of honey on the digestive biscuit and hand to the patient. They must leave at least a crumb.'

"Charmain!" he yelled.

She stumbled down the corridor and into the study. "What?" she said crossly, sitting down and leaning against the bookshelf. "I was sleeping. Y' woke me up."

"Sorry," said Peter, truthfully. "Only I'm working on a spell to make you better." He handed her the spelled biscuit, smothered in honey and pepper. "You have to eat some of this."

Charmain went green again, but took a small bite.

'Stage Three. Feed a crumb of the biscuit to the worm and say, 'Let the illness leave [patient] and go into this worm.''

He took the worm out of his pyjama pocket, where he had put it.

"Ugh!" said Charmain. "A worm!"

Peter ignored her and tried to feed a crumb to the worm.

(If you've ever tried to feed a worm anything that isn't dirt, you know how difficult it is.

If you haven't, imagine trying to feed a cat a pill, but the cat's smaller than your hand and the medicine is as big as its whole mouth.)

Peter managed to eventually shove the crumb down the worm's throat. Charmain was dozing again.

"Let the illness leave Charmain and go into this worm," Peter said grumpily.

Charmain opened her eyes and looked blearily at him. "Bit medieval, isn't it?"

"If it works," said Peter, "it can be as medieval as it wants."

"True." Charmain yawned and closed her eyes again.

'Stage Three,' read Peter. 'Add the leftover biscuit and the second teaspoon of honey to the water and drop the worm in. Say, 'May this potion cleanse [patient] from their influenza and bring them whole again,' while stirring three times clockwise with the silver spoon.'

Peter stirred and spoke.

Charmain looked at him. "This really is a very strange spell."

"Not really," said Peter distractedly. He was reading the last line.

'Stage Four. Have the patient stand up and say, 'Let it be so,' then drink the potion. The worm must be swallowed.'

"You're not going to like this, Charmain," he started, but Charmain shrugged,

"I don't like 'flu either. Wha' do I have t' do?"

"Swallow the mixture, with the worm in it."

"Ugh!" said Charmain. "Def'nitely medieval!"

Peter pulled her up. She managed to stay standing, although she was swaying rather.

"Say this," said Peter, showing her the book.

Charmain managed a smile. "No glasses. Can't read."

Peter ran out of the room and grabbed her glasses from her bedside table. He handed them back to her. "Better?"

"Mos'ly." She could read now, although the letters looked a bit odd from her fever. "Let it be so," she said as clearly as she could, and drank the potion down as quickly as she could.

It had a quite surprising effect on Charmain. It felt as though her entire body had just been set on fire. Her eyes were literally glowing with heat. Her nightdress hem was ablaze, her slippers were burning, and with her red hair streaming down her back, she looked like some sort of fire goddess.

Peter was burning too, although not like she was. He was simply suffering from the heat thatCharmain was emitting. He thought, quite blurrily, through the blazing pain, that they would both be dead if they didn't have magic.

And then, quite suddenly, it stopped.

Charmain sagged, filled with relief, both that she no longer felt ill and that she was no longer on fire.

Peter panted, exhausted from a mixture of the magic-working, being awoken at six in the morning and being almost set on fire. However, he was utterly exhilarated at working a spell that had actually worked exactly the way he'd meant it to.

Or so he thought, until he tried to move.

"My shoes!" he gasped. "They're not moving!"

Charmain tried to move her feet as well. Her slippers, too, were stuck. "Oh, Peter, what on Earth have you done?"

"Me?" asked Peter, trying to work out whether to be outraged or amused. He chose the former. "You're the one who practically set the bloody place on fire!"

Charmain scowled. "It was your spell!"

"Funny, I didn't see you complaining just a minute ago, when you said you were feeling better."

"That was before I realised my feet were stuck to the rug!" She blinked, suddenly feeling very foolish, and eased her feet out of her slippers.

Peter felt rather silly as well. He bent down to untie his boots so as not to look her in the eye, for fear that he would burst out laughing.

He managed to take his boots off and tried to find out why they were so stuck.

He looked up at Charmain, aghast.

"The soles melted!"

That was all it took to set them both off. They laughed for a full ten minutes. Every time one of them started to calm down, the other would say something to make them laugh again.

Finally, when their sides and stomachs were aching and their eyes were watering from laughter, they managed to stop.

"But what are we to do about the shoes?" asked Peter after a while of lying there breathing heavily.

Charmain shrugged. "Pull them off, I suppose."

"Well now, how devastatingly simple!" Peter said sardonically. "I wish I'd thought of that. Only one little problem I can see: we can't pull them off. We already tried, in case you've forgotten. When our feet were still inside."

"Well, maybe with two of us pulling at the shoe…"

"Let's try, but it's not going to work."

Much to Peter's disgust, it did.

Unfortunately, it left foot-shaped holes in the rug, a truly beautiful one from Rashpuht.

"Now what do we do?" said Charmain.

"We could just leave it and hope that Wizard Norland doesn't notice," suggested Peter hopefully.

Charmain looked at him.

"I know, I know, but it was worth a shot. Um… magic?"

"I knew you'd say that," said Charmain, sounding resigned. "Only you should do it. I'll go clean up your room. Sorry."

"That's fine," started Peter, but Charmain had already left to find a bucket and soap.

It was an hour later before Charmain returned. She was evidently about to either attempt to disgust him with various detailed descriptions of the vomit, or to scold him about leaving socks under the bed (again). However, Peter had problems of his own to worry about.

The rug where the shoes had been had grown back in the correct pattern. However, it had grown far, far too much, and far, far too fast. It was a foot from the ceiling and still growing.

"Peter, you'll never believe what I found under your–" She cut off in mid-sentence and stared, gaping, at the carpet.

"What have you done?"

Peter winced. Her voice was abnormally loud, screechy and shocked.

"It's not my fault! I did just what it said to do in Household Spells for fixing holes in carpets!"

"Well, the spells in that book don't work properly! In case you didn't recall, last time we turned the living room pink!"

"That was because you didn't want to give up your stupid silk handkerchief! It would have worked fine otherwise!"

"Oh, and what about your mauve flowers?"

"Charmain, shut up!"

"How dare you tell me to shut up?"

"No, I mean look at the rug!"

Charmain's mouth dropped open again.

Through the forest of silken carpet fibres, Charmain and Peter could see the tips pressing against the ceiling.

"Charmain!" said Peter desperately. "Do something!"

"What?"

"I don't know!" he cried. "Something! Anything!"

Charmain took a deep breath.

"STOP, you stupid rag! I've half a mind to wipe the dishes with you! Stop – bloody ­– growing!"

Miraculously, they stopped growing.

Charmain, rather pleased with herself, added, "And shrink back to where you're meant to be. None of this nonsense."

Slowly and sulkily, the threads sunk back, finally stopping at about the same level as the other threads. Charmain thought they looked a little darker than the rest, but they were fine otherwise.

She breathed out, relieved.

Peter sighed. "It's only just after eight. What on earth is going to happen the rest of the day?"

Charmain shrugged. "I don't know, but if we don't have breakfast soon, there's going to be a mutiny, and I'll make sure there are pirates."

"Well," said Peter, "at least you're feeling better. Breakfast it is, then."

He shoved her, quite kindly, down the corridor.