“Ugh, no,” Penny says, at the same time as I say, “Yes.”
“Hewashandsome,” Professor Bunce admits, “and charismatic in his way. He had Lucy wrapped around his little finger. She thought he was a visionary.”
“Mum, you have to admit,” Penny says, “he really was a visionary.”
Professor Bunce makes a face again. “He always had to have everything his way, even back then. Everything was black-and-white with Davy, always. And if Lucy didn’t agree—well, Lucy always agreed. She lost herself in him.”
“Davy,” Penelope says. “So weird.”
“What was Lucy like?” I ask.
Penny’s mum smiles. “Brilliant. She waspowerful.” Her eyes light up at that word. “And strong. She played rugby, I remember, with the boys. I had to mend her collarbone once out on the field—it was mad. She was a country girl, with broad shoulders and yellow hair, and she had the bluest eyes—”
Penny’s dad wanders into the kitchen.
“Dad!” Penny says. “Nowcan we talk?”
The other Professor Bunce fumbles towards the kettle and turns it on. Penny’s mum turns it off and takes it to the sink to add water, and he kisses her forehead. “Cheers, love.”
“Dad,”Penny says.
“Yeah…” He’s rummaging in the fridge. He’s a smallish man, shorter than Penny’s mum. With sandy blond-grey hair and a big squishy nose. He’s got unfashionable, round, wire-rimmed glasses tucked up on his head. Everyone in Penny’s family wears unfashionable glasses.
The gossip about Penny’s dad is that he’s not even half as powerful as her mum; my mum says he only got into Watford because his father used to teach there. Penny’s mum is such a power snob, it’s hard to imagine her married to a dud.
“Dad, remember? I needed to talk to you.”
He’s stacking food in his arms: Two yoghurts. An orange. A packet of prawn crackers. He grabs a gingerbread girl and notices me. “Oh, hello, Agatha.”
“Hello, Professor Bunce.”
“Martin,” he says, already leaving. “Call me Martin.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah, come on up, Penny—bring my tea, would you?”
She waits for his tea, then snatches a couple more gingerbread people—they’re eating them faster than I can decorate them—and follows him upstairs.
“Why did they break up?” I ask Professor Bunce after Penny and her dad have cleared out.
She’s staring at her laptop, holding her tea, forgotten, halfway up to her mouth. “Hmmm?”
“Lucy and Davy,” I say.
“Oh. I don’t know,” she says. “We’d lost touch by then. I imagine she finally realized he was a git and had to cross the ocean to get away from him. Can you imagine havingthe Magefor an ex? He’s everywhere.”
“How did you find out that she left?”
Professor Bunce looks sad. “Her mother told me.”
“I wonder why the Mage has never dated anyone else…”
“Who knows,” she says, shaking it off and looking back at her computer. “Maybe he has secret Normal girlfriends.”
“Or maybe he really loved Lucy,” I say, “and never got over her.”
“Maybe,” Professor Bunce says. She’s not paying attention. She types for a few seconds, then looks up at me. “You just reminded me of something I haven’t thought of in years. Wait here.” She walks out of the kitchen, and I figure she probably won’t be back. The Bunces do that sometimes.
