The Sorcerer's Tome

Chapter 1: A Portal in a Storm

Tom threw off his coat and raced upstairs. His mum shouted a greeting from the kitchen as he tore through the house. In his bedroom, he dragged his already loosened black and green school tie over his head and threw it in the corner by a chest of drawers. His white shirt and charcoal trousers followed. He rescued his jeans from the end of his bottom bunk where they had been discarded the previous night. He put them to his face, inhaling deeply; 'Hmm, last another couple of days,' he thought, pulling them on. He picked up his can of deodorant, aimed and pressed the top. It fizzed into silence.

"Bum," he said and glancing around the room, saw his brother's expensive body spray and grabbed it.

After taking a shower in the pricey spray, Tom pulled on a hoody, grabbed his white trainers and ran out of the bedroom.

"Mum, is my blue fleece ready?" Tom asked, bursting into the kitchen.

His mum was putting a casserole dish into the oven. She was wearing a long black dress with silver sparkles and what Tom called her 'going out face'.

"Are you going out?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes," Mum replied, hurriedly taking off the apron protecting her best dress. "It's the Minstrels' Christmas party at the Witches tonight. Jackie is picking me up at five, so we can go and get the function rooms decorated before the others get there."

"Oh yeah," replied Tom, vaguely remembering his parents talking about it the other day. He opened the fridge and surveyed its contents.

"Matt and James will have to sort out the dinner. Your dad's out at a meeting," she said, rushing past him. "Oh, look at the time," she moaned, looking at the clock in the hall. "She'll be here in ten minutes."

Tom grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge, slopped some into a cup and followed her, still carrying the carton. "What about my fleece?" he asked.

"It's in the wash basket," Mum called.

"I wanted that for tonight, it's our end-of-term party at Sam's."

"It would still be under your bed where you threw it if I hadn't rescued it this morning," Mum said coming back downstairs with her fake fur coat on. Tom thought she looked like a giant poodle but thought it safer not to say anything.

"Bet you made sure Alice's ballet stuff was ready," he grumbled.

"Alice puts her things in the wash basket when she's finished with them, so they get washed straight away. You don't," Mum replied. "Look, Tom, I can't run around after you all the while. You're old enough to help out around here. I have four of you to look after, and I'm backwards and forwards to your Gran's all the while. You've got that hoody on, put your coat over the top."

She bustled back into the kitchen in a haze of overpowering perfume and started to write instructions on a pad for her older children to follow.

There was the sound of thunder on the stairs heralding the arrival of a muscly, thick-set youth with a towel wrapped around his waist and dripping hair. He pushed past Tom snatching the juice carton on his way.

"Oi, that's my deodorant, you git," James shouted as the fragrance registered in his brain.

"Only borrowed it," Tom said, running up the hall. "Ow!" He wasn't quick enough to avoid the whip of James' towel as he flicked it, catching the younger brother painfully on the back of his leg.

"JAMES!" shrieked Mum, coming back into the hallway and seeing a little more of her son than she would have liked to. "Cover yourself up, Alice is in the living room."