Welcome to Yowling – a secretive seaside village where magic is just one step away…

  Max has spent years thinking he is cursed, because whenever he touches anything electrical it explodes. But then he is sent to Yowling and discovers he is a Spellstopper, someone with the rare ability to drain dangerous build-ups of magic and fix misbehaving enchanted items.

  When Max’s grandad is kidnapped by the cruel Keeper of the malfunctioning magical castle that floats in the bay, only Max’s gift can save him. Together with his new friend Kit, Max throws himself into an adventure filled with villainous owls, psychic ice cream and man-eating goldfish. But can he really pull off the biggest spellstop ever?

  To Tony, my grandfather

  Contents

  About this Book

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Max had a problem. A big problem – the sort that ruins your life. Over time, Max had learned to expect the worst, because in his experience, the worst nearly always happened. But it was hard to feel like that today. The summer holidays had just begun, the sun was shining, and Max rushed downstairs, two at a time.

  He went through his usual routine to make breakfast. He got his wooden spoon, and used it to turn the kettle on. Then he dropped two slices of bread into the toaster, using the edge of the spoon to press down the lever. The fridge was harder to manage without touching it, but Max had got pretty good with the wooden spoon. He’d had years of practice. Avoiding anything that used electricity was almost second nature to him, but he always needed to be on his guard. If he ever relaxed, disaster inevitably followed.

  Max took out the milk and butter, careful not to let his hand brush against the inside of the fridge. It had only been six months since he had broken the last one. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him as he prodded the door closed. She was always watching him, as if she was waiting for him to break something else.

  Today, she seemed even more anxious than usual. She kept glancing out of the window, into the street, and was twisting a set of keys round and round her finger.

  “I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, as she watched Max butter his toast, then smother it in peanut butter. “You might not like it.”

  Max was immediately suspicious.

  “We’re not going on holiday again, are we?”

  “No! Not after the last one.”

  She was referring to the time she had tried to take Max on an aeroplane, before either of them realized how bad his problem was. After he had broken three ticket scanners in a row, the security guards had refused to let Max go any further. Max suspected that was actually a good thing. It had been painful enough getting shocked by the ticket scanners. He’d have probably died if he’d touched something as big as an aeroplane.

  “What is it, then?” he asked, through a mouthful of toast.

  “Remember that competition I entered? The one where you had to come up with a slogan for that energy company?”

  Max nodded. His mother had spent days trying to think of a catchy one-liner. She had literally come up with hundreds of ideas. He couldn’t blame her – the first prize had been forty thousand pounds.

  “Well, I won,” she said.

  “That’s brilliant!” cried Max, leaping to his feet. “We’re rich!”

  But his mother was shaking her head.

  “I won second prize. A new car. It arrived this morning.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” asked Max. “We’ve never been able to afford a car before!”

  “It’s electric,” she said. “An electric car. I’m so sorry, Max.”

  Max felt the excitement that had bubbled up inside him fade away, and a feeling of despair crept into its place. He rarely travelled in cars of any sort, but a brand-new electric car sounded particularly dangerous.

  “But if I touch anything electric, it breaks.”

  “It’ll be okay,” said his mother, reaching forwards and taking his hand. “I’ve worked out a way around it. You just need to put on your wellies and your special gloves.”

  “But it’s boiling!”

  “Please, Max. Just give it a try. We could go off on a trip somewhere – wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Max sighed, then went over to the coat rack in the hall. He shoved his bare feet into his black rubber boots, which already felt hot and sticky. Then he picked up his “special gloves” and felt even worse. They weren’t special at all. They were just ordinary rubber washing-up gloves. He hated them more than anything, but he often had to wear them in public, especially if they went on a train or a bus. That was dreadful. No one wore wellington boots in London, especially when it wasn’t even raining, and rubber gloves just made you look strange. It might have been bearable if they had been black, like his boots, but the only ones in the supermarket that were small enough for Max were bright yellow, just to make it extra-obvious that he was wearing washing-up gloves. He hated the powdery feel of them and their horrible, sweet smell. They reminded him of how weird he was.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Up until Max was eight, he had been completely ordinary. He could change the channels of the television without breaking it and he was able to touch household appliances without using a wooden spoon. Then, soon after his eighth birthday, he had been at his friend Sami’s house playing a video game, when suddenly he felt a sharp stab of pain in his fingers and the games console had died. No one could revive it. Sami’s father had suggested that they use his old one instead, but as soon as it was Max’s turn, the same thing happened. Both Sami and his parents had gone a bit silent after that, and the next day in class Sami ignored him completely.

  Similar things started happening at school too – there was an incident with the lights at the Christmas concert, a full-on disaster in the computer room, and within six months Max had gone from having lots of friends to having no one at all. Now people seemed to sense that there was something wrong with Max just by looking at him. Although it had only been four years since his problem started, it felt like an eternity. He had never heard of anybody else reacting to electricity in the same way. Even the doctor couldn’t explain it. It was as if he was cursed.

  “Come on!” cried his mother, hurrying past him, carrying a large, bulging plastic bag.

  Max followed her down the front steps and out onto the street. The new car was parked right in front of their house. It was black and shiny, and his mother stroked it gently, as if it was a horse or a cat.

  “Don’t look so worried,” she said. “You’ve been in cars before and it’s been fine.”

  “Yes, but there wasn’t a giant battery sitting underneath those cars, was there?”

  “I’ve thought it all through,” said his mother, firmly. She opened the door on the passenger side, then pulled a large rubbery sheet out of the plastic bag. “I’ll just spread this over the seat and then you’ll be completely safe.”

  Max stared at the sheet in horror. It was the kind of thing that you put on beds to stop people weeing on them.

  “I can’t sit on that,” he croaked. “People will think I wet myself.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s the most practical solution.”

  She went around the car and got into the driver’s seat.

  “Get in!” she called, leaning over towards him with an encouraging smile.

  Max climbed into the car. He sank down into the rubber-covered seat, which made a gentle farting noise as he lowered himself into it. The sheet smelled just like the washing-up gloves and it stuck to the bare skin of his arms, below the short sleeves of his T-shirt.

  “See?” said his mother, beaming at him. “It’s all fine. So, where do you want to go? You choose.”

  “The beach,” said Max, at once. He loved the sea, but as they lived in London, he hardly ever got a chance to see it.

  “It’s a bit far,” said his mother, looking doubtful, but then she caught sight of Max’s eager face.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  Max felt his spirits soar. The new car was actually quite nice. Everything looked expensive and shiny, and there were lots of screens everywhere, which lit up as soon as the motor was switched on.

  Max settled back into his rubbery cocoon, wishing that it wasn’t so hot. He was sweating already and it was only nine o’clock in the morning.

  “Can we turn the air conditioning on?” he asked. His mother frowned at the dashboard, looking confused.

  “I don’t know how,” she said. “Why don’t you have a look at the instruction manual? It’s in the glove compartment, just in front of you.”

  Max reached forwards to open it. He was wearing his rubber gloves so he knew he’d be okay. But he wasn’t quite careful enough. His elbow grazed the side of the door and brushed against the controls for opening and shutting the window. The moment his bare skin touched the control panel there was a lou d bang. Pain seared through Max’s body, shooting up his arm and into his chest. He had just enough time to register what had happened before he blacked out.

  “Max?” He heard his mother’s voice, close to his ear. She sounded scared. “Max?”

  He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been unconscious. It might have only been a couple of seconds, or it could have been a few minutes. He opened his eyes and saw he was still in the car, with his mother leaning over him. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw he was awake.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Max nodded.

  “Thank heavens for that.”

  She slumped back against her seat and started crying.

  Max watched her, and felt a lump rise in his own throat.

  “Is the car all right?” he asked, hoping that somehow he hadn’t broken it.

  His mother tried to start it up. Nothing happened. She tried again and again, but the car was completely dead. Max was expecting her to be angry, but she just looked upset and frightened, and that was even worse. Her whole body seemed to sag with unhappiness, as if the situation had crumpled her up. Max had never seen his mother look so defeated. He didn’t know what to say to comfort her, so they both sat there in an awkward, uncomfortable silence that seemed to grow bigger the longer it lasted.

  “Let’s go back inside,” she said, eventually. “Will you be able to walk? Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, even though he still felt sick from the electric shock. “Honestly.”

  Max trudged back into the house, and tore off his boots and gloves, resisting his mother’s attempts to help him. His arms and legs felt prickly and weak, and he was so dizzy that the hallway seemed to rock gently, as if he was on a boat. But that was nothing compared to the fact that he’d destroyed his mother’s brand-new car. She was calling the garage now, but still watching him anxiously, as if she was afraid he’d faint again.

  As Max suspected, the people from the garage were not able to fix the car. They had never seen anything like it, apparently. They kept questioning Max’s mother, and although she was careful not to mention anything about Max, he could tell that they were suspicious.

  “You must have done something,” they kept saying. “Everything’s short-circuited, and the battery looks like it’s melted. It’s impossible.”

  When they finally left, Max looked at his mother, who seemed even more defeated than she had done before.

  “I’m really sorry about the car.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said heavily. “As long as you’re all right.”

  “I told you – I’m fine,” he said, trying to sound like he meant it.

  “We can’t go on like this though, Max. At some point, you’re going to get seriously hurt.”

  “I know!” cried Max, frustration welling up inside him. “But it keeps happening – I can’t stop it!”

  “And it’s getting worse,” said his mother. Her voice cracked like she was about to burst into tears again. She closed her eyes for a minute, as if she was trying hard to pull herself back together.

  “Could you go upstairs to your room for a bit?” she said, at last. “I need to think about what we can do to fix this problem. Something we haven’t tried…”

  “I’ll be more careful…” he began, but she cut him off, her voice still wobbly and upset.

  “Please, Max.”

  He went up to his room, still feeling awful. It seemed impossible that just two hours ago they had been planning to go to the beach. Everything felt wrong and horrible. He could hear his mother pacing up and down the sitting room, directly below him, for what seemed like hours, and he was sure he heard her weeping again. Then he heard her speaking to somebody on the phone. He pressed his ear to the floorboards, and although he couldn’t make out what she was saying, he could tell from her tone of voice that it didn’t bode well.

  Much later, she came upstairs and knocked on his door. She wasn’t crying any more, which was good, but her face was still blotchy and she looked exhausted.

  “Your grandfather’s coming over soon,” she said. “He’s driving up from Yowling.”

  “Why?” asked Max. He knew practically nothing about his grandfather beyond the fact that he existed and lived somewhere in the countryside. He’d never even met him. Max had always wanted to be part of a bigger family, but it had only ever really been him and his mother.

  “Because…” His mother stopped and took a deep breath. “Because I’ve been speaking to him and we both agreed it would be a good idea if you went and stayed with him for a while.”

  “What?” Max leaped up from his bed in horror. “You’re getting rid of me?”

  “Of course not! It’s just for the summer holidays. But you’ve got to learn how to control this problem you have with electricity – you can’t go on like this. And your grandfather is the only person who’ll be able to help.”

  At that moment, the doorbell buzzed.

  “That’ll be him now,” she said, and went to answer it.

  “I don’t get it,” said Max, as he followed her down the stairs. “He doesn’t even know me – how’s he going to be able to help?”

  But his mother had already tugged open the front door and Max saw his grandfather standing on the doorstep.

  You could tell just by looking at him that he didn’t belong in London – he was too wild and messy. He was tall with wispy grey hair, thick grey eyebrows and an unruly grey beard. His clothes were particularly odd – his shirt was singed and torn badly at the cuffs, his trousers were patched at the knees, while his brown leather boots were blackened with scorch marks. It looked as if he’d been caught up in some sort of explosion, or fight, or possibly both. He grinned when he saw Max peering nervously at him from the hall.

  “Another chip off the old block,” he said, striding inside and clapping Max so hard on the back that he almost fell over.

  “Max, this is your grandad,” announced his mother.

  “Hello,” said Max, not sure what to make of him.

  “First off, you’re not calling me Grandad,” said his grandfather. “My name’s Bram.”

  “Okay,” said Max uncertainly.

  His mother sighed, but Bram didn’t seem to notice. He carried on talking to Max as if Max knew exactly what was going on.

  “You packed yet? We need to get back. Got a long drive ahead.”

  “No,” said Max, and he turned to his mother.

  “Do I have to go?” he pleaded desperately. He wasn’t at all sure about going off with someone he didn’t know, even if it was his grandfather.

  “Yes,” said his mother, more firmly now. “You get your things together, and Bram and I will have a little chat.”

  Max did as she said. He didn’t feel at all happy about the situation, but there didn’t seem to be any alternative. If Bram really could help him, it was worth a shot.

  He trudged upstairs and stood in the middle of his bedroom, wondering what he should take. His tiny room was crammed with books – mainly thick, dull volumes about history and science and geography. There was even a set of fat encyclopaedias, with muddy brown covers. It wasn’t that Max liked reading these sorts of books, it was because he couldn’t just look things up on the internet, which often made homework difficult.

  A half-made model of a ship lay on his desk beside his school things, but Max knew that he couldn’t fit it inside his rucksack without breaking it. Instead, he just grabbed a random selection of clothes, a pair of pyjamas and his toothbrush, then went downstairs to retrieve his wooden spoon from the kitchen. He’d definitely need that. His grandfather raised his bushy eyebrows when he saw Max shoving a spoon into his rucksack, but he said nothing.

  “That reminds me,” said his mother, getting to her feet. “Don’t forget your special gloves.” She picked up the washing-up gloves from where Max had thrown them down earlier and held them out.

  “He won’t need those,” said Bram, glaring at the gloves as if they had offended him. “You can keep them.”

  “I have to wear them,” said Max, gearing himself up to explain. But his grandfather drank the last of his tea and stood up, seizing Max’s rucksack and slinging it over his own shoulder.

  “Right, we’ll be off,” he said. “Don’t worry, Emily, he’ll be fine.”

 

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