“You’re most afraid of your thirteen-year-old-self?” I snorted, or at least I tried to, but something about the kangaroo’s lungs made it sound like I was dying.
Nathan scratched the back of his neck and shrugged.
“So … what do we do?”
“Well, I say let’s go back to Mr Scott’s house.”
“Now?”
“I want my muscles back!”
“Alright.”
Looking back down the street, with streetlights guiding the way, we heaved ourselves along the path once more. Or, at least, Nathan heaved, I hopped.
“Seriously, how did you carry me before?”
“Maybe it took a moment to sink in.”
Hm. I was feeling more and more like a kangaroo, my feet feeling heavy and awkward, my mind blanking out.
Wandering back onto the pebbly path and through the large white gates, we made our way back to the front door. The police cars were gone, and the lights had been switched back off.
“Do we just … knock?”
“Well, I don’t think I can knock.” I looked down at my small fists and up at the shiny wooden door.
Nathan stepped forward and let his knuckles tap the wood.
Something clattered from behind the door, and Nathan and I shared a worried glance. Maybe this wasn’t safe. Mr Scott had done this to us. But then again, I don’t think we had a choice.
A light was flicked on in the hallway so that the oval windows beside the door lit up. The door creaked open, and Mr Scott murmured something. “What do you want–” The old man stopped, he still wore his dressing gown and held a coffee mug in one hand. He furrowed his eyebrows together in shock and opened his mouth, as if to say something.
“It’s us, Mr Scott, Evie and Nathan!” Nathan said quickly, though Mr Scott had already grasped my hand, or paw—wait, what is a kangaroo’s hand called? —and was leading us into the living room. It was the room we were in before, with the velvet couch and warm lighting. I hopped beside the lamp, deciding I wouldn’t sit on the couch because I didn’t even know if I could sit down.
My ear was itchy.
Mr Scott hurried furiously around, closing the curtains and looking at us again in disbelief. “How … When … What …?”
“It was a dare. To steal your potions. Didn’t work out.” Nathan laughed awkwardly, his legs hardly touching the floor as he sat on the sofa.
“You daft teenagers, think you rule the world. Now look at you. You meddled with my potions. You must have mixed the death potion with the desire potion, which would’ve made …” a pause, we edged closer, “the potion that turns you into what you fear most.”
I feel like I should have been angry, but I found this more humorous than it should have been. Mr Scott, sitting in his dingy science lab mixing stuff together to make death potions. Nathan, it seemed, based on the look of horror plastered on his face, was not impressed; he slid further back on the couch and gave me a worried look.
“Well, don’t look at me like that. Old people have gotta have hobbies, and once I read about witchcraft in a book, I thought it would be fun to give it a try. Never mind, but we’ve got to get the cure into you before it’s been an hour, otherwise you’re stuck in those …” He looked at us and snorted. “Those are funny fears.”
“Kangaroos are so jumpy, and so dangerous!” I retorted, though I agreed this would be kind of funny—if we found a cure in the next twenty minutes.
“Right, I’ll make the cure and you two, sit tight.”
“I’ll help.” Nathan said quickly, following Mr Scott down the hall.
Then a thought trickled into my mind. Why did Mr Scott make all these potions? Like, why would he need a death potion? It was uneven, the way he said it was a hobby—it didn’t seem right. Then an idea joined that thought, and I found myself wandering back out into the hall. Nathan and Mr Scott were in the kitchen, piling up ingredients.
I hopped past the archway that entered the kitchen, and hurried towards the potions room, the door with a port hole on it. Using my tail, I kicked it open. The cold wind whipped my face from the window we had left open before. In the hurry we were in before, I didn’t notice the darkness of this room; the way the potions that were on the floor and on the shelves spoke to each other; the colours bubbling and sizzling away; books piled on top of each other in the middle of the room; and the cold stone floor and the icy air.
I don’t know what I was doing. I remembered reading something about cures getting rid of potions. I don’t know. I thought I’d just try.
I grasped the potions in my grip and poured them into the cauldron. The liquid turned from purple to orange to green to maroon.
“Evie! The cure is ready!” I heard Nathan say in his squeaky-child voice.
I tried to grasp the rest of the potions before I heard Mr Scott starting to trot down the hall. My hands slipped and broke a pot of a pink potion labelled love potion. Stupid kangaroo hands!
“What are you–?” Mr Scott held a blue bottle with cure stamped on it and gawped at me. All his potions were now sizzling away in the cauldron, apart from the pink mess in front of me.
“Evie …?” Nathan hurried from behind him and looked at me, too, in utter disbelief.
I mouthed, “Give me the cure,” and Nathan sighed.
“Who do you think you are–?”
The cure was out of Mr Scott’s hand and landed, perfectly, in the cauldron, making the maroon turn black. It was burning, and the liquid began to disappear, leaving nothing in the cauldron. I cupped the pink liquid and quickly poured it into the mixture, that too disappearing.
“What did you do? No, my potions!”
“They were dangerous,” I said simply.
“I don’t have any more cures! And I … I don’t have any more ingredients! The Maroon Market comes once every fifty years! It’s a market where people sell potions and ingredients. I used all the ingredients up!”
“Well, we’re in a bit of a pickle then,” Nathan said, his voice rising.
Realisation kicked in, and I widened my kangaroo-eyes.
“Oh.”
“And we have five minutes left,” Mr Scott murmured.
“Oh.”
Another minute passed, and Mr Scott let out a loud sigh.
“I’m too old for this,” he groaned. “I do have one more cure. I was saving it for myself, because I wanted to use the live forever potion so that I could live till the next Maroon Market and get rich from selling all my potions, and then, you know, be rich for a while, and then die. Rather morbid, but I think this is for the best. I am pretty wealthy already. Anyway, right, let’s get you that cure. As long as you two promise to not tell anybody about this little … incident.”
We nodded quickly. Fireworks lit up inside me. I wouldn’t be a kangaroo for ever! Nathan, too, was grinning, a pair of braces showing in his toothy smile.
