This is the story of three children living in Bez Valley. Cornelia Button wants to be a famous singer, but she can’t sing for toffee. Her sister Maude wants to be a gypsy princess so that she can cast spells to make her baby brother disappear. And their nerdy friend Zwelabo wants to be a brave hero like his mysterious, absent father.

The secret to realising their dreams is Mr Button’s magical globe. When the children spin the globe, they open the doorway to the Kingdom of Gamagion – a world where anything and everything is possible…

Cornelia Button and theof Gam

agionGLOBE

Cornelia felt herself falling. And when she stopped falling with that terrible suddenness she always got at the end of bad dreams, she was caught by a blanket of air that made her heart plummet through her chest to her feet. She opened her eyes and looked through green mist which surrounded her like candyfloss. Maude lay pale and silent next to her.

A figure was walking towards them through the green curtain of mist…

EDYTH BULBRING

EDYTH B

ULBRING

Edyth BulbringIllustrated by Rosemary Banfi eld

For Emily

First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2008

10 Orange StreetSunnysideAuckland Park 2092South Africa+2711 628 3200www.jacana.co.za

© Edyth Bulbring, 2008

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-77009-501-4

Cover design by Jacana MediaSet in Sabon 11.5/14ptPrinted by CTP Book Printers, Cape TownJob No. 000622

See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za

Chapter OneThe bright star at the end of a cold day

The children in the packed school hall booed the empty stage.

‘Why are we waiting? Why are we waiting?’ they chorused, ignoring the hisses for silence from teachers and parents.

Then as a woman began to play the piano, they quietened down. A large girl with hair like a puzzle bush stumbled onto the stage. She screwed up her eyes, seemingly searching the audience for one particular face. Then she gave up looking, breathed in, lifted her chin and sang. The girl’s name was Cornelia Button.

Cornelia was hardly through the first half of the song when pockets of children in the hall started giggling. Their laughter escalated into snorts and hiccups and hasty nose-blowing. Rude text messages flashed and beeped onto small screens:

‘Lke a pig wth its lgs chpt off!!!!’‘Pss the vmit bag – gng 2 pke.’

But not all the children in the hall were making a racket and carrying on. There were two children in the front row of the audience who stuck out from the rest because they were silent. Their names were Maude and Zwelabo.

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

As Cornelia continued with her howling, a pink stain crept up Maude’s neck and after a few moments her entire face was a miserable bubblegum colour.

Zwelabo’s eyes glowed like ping-pong balls in his dark face but, unlike Maude, he appeared to be enjoying Cornelia’s performance very much. He sprawled in his chair looking quite happy and relaxed as he tapped his foot on the floor.

When at last the noise stopped and the final piano note faded away, Zwelabo leapt to his feet and whistled and shouted, ‘Yeah! Yeah!’

The rest of the audience cheered with relief as Cornelia bounded down from the stage to where her sister and friend were sitting. Before she could take a seat, Zwelabo grabbed her hand and turned it up and around in a complicated handshake.

‘Oh Cornelia, you were totally awesome!’ Zwelabo said.‘Ja, wasn’t I cool? That was amazing! I just love that

song.’‘Me too, she rocked, hey?’ Zwelabo said to Maude, who

looked like she had just stumbled off one of those sick-making rides at the funfair.

Cornelia turned to her sister. ‘Where’s Mom? I thought she would’ve been sitting here in front with you guys.’

Maude hesitated. ‘Oh, I think I saw her at the back. We can catch up with her when this is all over.’

‘No, that wasn’t…’ Zwelabo closed his mouth as he caught Maude’s warning glance.

Cornelia scowled, ‘I looked and looked for her before I started singing…’ She slouched back in her seat next to Maude, nursing her disappointment.

Two sisters never looked more different. Eleven-year-old Cornelia was extremely large, while Maude, aged nine, was a scrawny, undernourished looking child.

The children attended St Marcellin’s School up the road from their home in Bez Valley. Each year, the school staged a fundraising concert and every year since grade one, Cornelia had taken part.

This year Cornelia was desperate to get a significant role in the play and was impatient to hear how she had done in the audition. But there was one more performance to go before the end. A girl with beaded braids glided onto the stage and the pianist started up again. The girl was very good indeed and the audience clapped with appreciation.

‘She’s got a chance – what do you think – old Wadeisa’s not too bad hey?’ Cornelia whispered to her companions.

‘She’s a complete nostril. Totally sucky,’ Zwelabo assured Cornelia.

After the girl finished her song, a woman walked onto the stage to announce the results of the auditions. Cornelia groaned as she heard the outcome: Wadeisa and her brother Sibusiso got the roles of the king and queen and a dozen more children got the other respectable parts.

As Mrs Bog-Toadface (not her real name but it was the one Cornelia gave her) announced the roles, the children thumped each other on the back and behaved like finalists in a beauty competition.

Mrs Bog-Toadface then looked in the direction of the front row. ‘And last, but of course not least, the role of the post-box goes to Cornelia Button. Thank you, Cornelia, for always being such a good sport.’

Although bitterly disappointed, Cornelia allowed herself to be thumped on the back by Zwelabo.

As everyone squeezed and jostled out of the hall, Cornelia passed a cluster of girls surrounding Queen Wadeisa. She grabbed Cornelia by the arm and purred, ‘Sorry for you the post-box doesn’t get to sing, but it’s better than last year when you were a rock. At least you get to open your mouth

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

when I post my letters to the king.’Wadeisa’s companions shrieked away like only catty

girls can. ‘What a scream you are Wadeisa...’‘Did you get that? I got it. Oh, say that bit about the

rock again...’Cornelia joined in with a couple of guffaws of her own.

She always thought the nicest things about people and assumed they thought the same about her. But Cornelia’s generous spirit had not rubbed off on her sister. Maude could spot a mean fake a mile off and before Cornelia could engage in her usual agreeable way, Maude hissed at Wadeisa, ‘Oh go and post yourself down the toilet, you greasy little tapeworm.’

She stalked off, dragging Cornelia with her. The three children made their way out of the school hall into the dark Johannesburg winter afternoon.

‘Where’s Mom got to? I thought you said you saw her in the hall?’ Cornelia asked.

Just then a car drew up and a woman hooted and rolled down the window. ‘I’m sorry. I got held up. Get in, I’m in a hurry to get home.’

Cornelia flew down the stairs to the car. ‘Ag, Mommy, don’t tell me you’ve just arrived? I told you three times this morning that my audition was at four o’clock. How could you forget?’

‘I’m so sorry, my love. Of course I didn’t forget. I was up to my armpits in work and then Walter was niggling and the time just ran away.’

Cornelia’s face beamed at the mention of her baby brother’s name. Walter was only eight months old and Cornelia adored him. She was quite prepared to make allowances for her mother where Walter was involved.

Maude, however, did not have the same fondness for her brother. She had been dreadfully put out by Walter’s arrival

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in the family and got mad with her mother whenever she could.

She glared at her mother and set her mouth into a thin, tight line. Maude had the thinnest mouth you have ever seen. It was as though someone had taken a red crayon and drawn a straight line across her face. And when Maude was annoyed, her mouth almost disappeared.

After dropping Zwelabo off at his house, the Buttons arrived home. While Maude bathed, Cornelia wandered onto the upstairs balcony. She was pleased to find a big woman relaxing on the couch smoking a cigarette. She was Mr Button’s sister and in the top ten of Cornelia’s most favourite people in the world along with Pavarotti and her father.

‘Hey Aunty, what you doing?’ said Cornelia, leaning over to give her aunt a kiss.

‘Bon soir, Cornelia. I’m just looking at the stars and doing my dreaming. How was your audition? I thought bien things about you this afternoon.’

Cornelia understood her aunt perfectly despite the French words that she had used in her reply. Aunty Hilda loved all things French and was saving to go to Paris. In the meantime she was learning the language and practised all the time.

Cornelia threw herself down next to her aunt and stretched her legs out. She felt tired and low and needed to talk to somebody who would understand.

‘You know, Aunty, singing is one of the things that makes me totally happy. All I want to do is sing. But I just can’t anymore,’ she wailed.

‘So the audition went badly?’Cornelia picked at a loose thread at the bottom of her

dress until half the hem had unravelled. ‘I’m the post-box. I don’t get to sing. With a non-singing role four years

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

running, I’m never going to be a world-famous singer.’Aunty Hilda did not know what to say. How could

she tell her niece, whom she loved to bits, that her singing sucked?

And so Aunty Hilda took a packet of tobacco and some papers out from beneath her layers of clothing and passed them to her niece. Cornelia rolled the tobacco into a perfect tube, licked the edges and popped it into her aunt’s mouth.

Aunty Hilda lit the end and looked long and hard at one particularly bright star that hung blinking between two cypress trees in front of the house. The star winked at her like an old friend sharing a secret.

After puffing away for several minutes, Aunty Hilda took the cigarette from her lips and tossed it over the balcony. Mrs Button got furious when she found stompies in the garden but this never stopped Aunty Hilda.

Then she took Cornelia’s hands in hers and said, ‘Never, never say never – do you hear me? All children can be whatever they imagine themselves to be. And you are one of the best kinds of children I know. If you can imagine it, you can be it. Comprend-tu?’

The star hanging between the two cypress trees twinkled in agreement. This decided Aunty Hilda. She took a deep breath and continued, ‘Sometimes a person needs a bit of help to get the imagination going. You need to be in the right place at the right time. It’s like your dad and his travels. The way he relies on that globe of his to take him to places that will capture the imagination of his readers. You should spin it sometime and see what happens…’ Then Aunty Hilda stopped. It was as though she had decided that she had said enough.

Mr Button spent a lot of time travelling. Each month he spun his globe and went to wherever his finger landed.

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Then he wrote stories about the countries he had visited and sold them to magazines and newspapers.

And so Aunty Hilda did not tell Cornelia the truth about her rotten singing and Cornelia felt a lot better even though she did not quite understand everything her aunt had said.

Just then, Mr Button arrived home and joined them on the balcony. Mr Button looked at his daughter. It was clear from the expression in his eyes that he was quite cracked on her. Like Aunty Hilda and Cornelia, he had eyes that changed colour, but the golden centre always stayed the same. His eyes were now dark green as he stroked Cornelia’s face. ‘How’s my baby?’

Cornelia punched her father on the arm and laughed. ‘Ag, Daddy, I’m not the baby in the house. And you’ll never guess. I’m going to be the post-box in the school play and I have to make a costume out of red cardboard and open my mouth when the letters get posted.’

Mr Button laughed and punched her back. ‘A post-box? Never! Your school doesn’t have a clue. I would’ve given you the role of the post office.’

His body shook as he laughed at his joke. Cornelia joined in and they laughed together. Not because it was very funny, but just because they liked laughing together.

Cornelia gave him her place next to Aunty Hilda and sat on a cushion on the floor.

‘So how was it – that place with the funny name?’ Aunty Hilda asked her brother.

Mr Button shrugged. ‘It’s the same old story. The further I travel, the more I realise that I’m never going to find it. I just can’t find that place.’

‘Ag, Gordon man, you know the rule. I don’t know why you think that you’ll ever go there again. You must stop looking. You must let it go. C’est la vie.’

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

‘Ja-ja, Hilda. I know, I know. But it’s still out there somewhere. If I just keep looking, I know I’ll find it.’

Cornelia did not have a clue what they were talking about and did not get very far figuring it out because Mrs Button, holding Walter, appeared on the balcony. Mr Button gave her his seat on the couch, taking Walter from her arms.

‘So, Cornelia tells me she’s got a part in the school play. How was the audition? Was she wonderful?’

Mrs Button felt guilty about letting Cornelia down and tried to wriggle out of the question by posing another question.

‘Ag, Gordon, really! Don’t you think it’s high time we put an end to this whole singing thing? Cornelia must accept that she can’t sing to save her life.’

Mrs Button had not seen Cornelia sitting on the floor in the dim light. Cornelia felt her face going hot but the rest of her felt cold. Aunty Hilda’s hand rested on her shoulder.

Mr Button rushed to his daughter’s defence. ‘The child’s just having fun. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Fun? It’s a hard, cruel world out there and Cornelia needs to face facts. When I was a child, I don’t remember all this nonsense about fun. In fact, I have very few memories of my childhood,’ said Mrs Button.

This was something about her mother that Cornelia had grown to accept. While Mr Button and Aunty Hilda told the children lots of stories about growing up, Mrs Button only talked about her job. Cornelia could hardly believe her mother had ever been a child.

Cornelia piped up from the floor, ‘Mommy, I’m not going to give up my singing, however useless you think I am. Aunty Hilda says that children have the power to be anything they imagine. So if I imagine myself a world-class singer, I can be one.’

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Mrs Button got a nasty surprise when she heard Cornelia’s voice. But Mr Button was the most rattled by Cornelia’s statement.

‘Hilda, you shouldn’t have, it’s too dangerous…’ he protested.

‘Ag, Gordon man. You mustn’t worry about Cornelia’s imagination. The chances of it happening again are impossible. And if her imagination makes her happy, then what’s the harm?’ Aunty Hilda said.

Cornelia could not make sense of their conversation. Her father and aunt were talking in riddles again. Mrs Button seemed to think so too.

‘Come, enough of this rubbish. It’s freezing out here and it’s time for Cornelia to have a bath. And please, Cornelia, don’t waste water,’ she said, putting an end to their nonsense.

Chapter One

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Chapter TwoAn outing with Aunty Hilda

The next day was Saturday and Mr and Mrs Button had some work to complete so Aunty Hilda had agreed to look after the children for the morning. She had a Saturday routine that seldom changed and never got boring. It involved her three bad habits, or vices, as Aunty Hilda called them. The thing with vices, she told the children, was that everyone had them and you needed to be able to identify them early on in life. They needed to be named, fed and exercised regularly. There was no point trying to deny or starve your vices, she warned the children. If you did this, they would become your worst enemies instead of your most loyal companions.

Cornelia thought this was pure logic.Vices usually travelled in threes. The names Aunty Hilda

gave to her vices were Miss Lovely, Mrs Lekker and Master Lucky. Cornelia had grown fond of her aunt’s vices and looked forward to the day when she would have her own.

Aunty Hilda arrived with Zwelabo in tow.‘Hilda, you’re a real mensch. What would I do without

you? You really are going to have your hands full,’ Mrs Button said, handing over Walter.

‘Très grande. Pinky is seeing her shrink this morning so Zwelabo makes it more and merrier. Really, no problem

11

at all. We’ll just pop off down to the Centre and see what trouble we can get up to.’

The idea of Mrs Maluleke’s shrink fascinated Cornelia. Zwelabo’s mother was the only adult she knew who had one of them. Mrs Maluleke had told the children that her shrink was responsible for taking her head and straightening out the crinkles. She needed this because she was the single mother of a highly sensitive child.

Zwelabo’s absent father was a mystery. Zwelabo said his father was a secret agent on a long mission. He was a real hero in the league of Spiderman and Nelson Mandela and one day everyone would meet him – including Zwelabo.

Cornelia once overheard a conversation between her mother and Mrs Maluleke. It went something like this:

‘It’s not for me to tell you, Pinky, but Zwelabo is going to have to know sometime.’

‘But Glory, it’s so difficult.’‘Yes Pinky, life is difficult, but he needs to know.’‘But Glory, not yet. It’s too soon.’‘No Pinky, it’s not soon enough. This ridiculous make-

believe is not healthy. He’ll work it out eventually.’Cornelia wondered what it all meant. She rather liked

Zwelabo’s secret agent father stories and never challenged them.

Cornelia and Zwelabo greeted each other using their complicated handshake and joked around until everyone was ready for their outing to the Centre. The small shopping mall was six blocks down from the house so they took Walter in his pram.

The walk to the Centre could be quite entertaining if they ignored the litter and the slum houses. The shebeens were another matter. Aunty Hilda never ignored these. She liked the people and the noise and the music and so Cornelia liked it all too.

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

On the way to the Centre, they played the version of hopscotch Aunty Hilda had invented to accommodate all the uncovered water meters that pitted the pavement. One day the council would wake up and make the covers out of plastic instead of iron or steel. But until then, Aunty Hilda told them, the water meter covers put food in people’s stomachs and they had their game. Things could not have worked out better for everybody, she would say happily.

At the bottom of the road, they stopped at a group of people sitting on the pavement selling all sorts of things. They did this every time, as Aunty Hilda could never resist spending money on lovely items. There was a woman sitting on a piece of cardboard in front of a rail of clothes.

‘Keep it for me for month end, Sophie,’ Aunty Hilda said, fingering an orange jacket with a piece of fake fur around the edges.

Aunty Hilda was a complete clothes addict. Her favourites were those that had been worn before she was born. She called them ‘originals’. Mrs Button called them dead people’s clothes.

Their first stop in the mall was the hairdressing salon and the beauty parlour, which were next door to each other. Cornelia and Zwelabo went straight for the beauty parlour like they always did, while Aunty Hilda and Maude went next door to the salon.

‘And so, what’s it going to be this time, Miss Lovely?’ a woman said to Aunty Hilda as they kiss-nuzzled each other like people who like each other a lot tend to do.

‘Hey Ranjeni. How’s things? How’s life? How’s the business? How’s the soul?’ Aunty Hilda replied. They said the same thing every time.

Maude and Aunty Hilda took their seats in front of the mirror that ran around the salon. Then the serious talking began. Was it going to be – a trim, a colour change, a colour

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streak or a perm? Aunty Hilda settled on red highlights and then it was Maude’s turn.

This was always a difficult one. The problem with Maude’s hair, Mrs Button always said, was that there really was not a lot of it. This meant that it had to be kept short so that it would have a chance to grow thick and strong.

Maude despaired. All she wanted was to have long hair like a gypsy princess. She knew that if she did, she would be able to make magic and cast spells to make things the way they were before Walter arrived in the family.

‘I want long hair like Aunty Hilda and my sister,’ said Maude.

Ranjeni winked at the mirror. ‘No problemo. Just sit tight and let’s make some magic, my princess.’

An hour later, Maude looked up in the mirror to see a face covered in bright red make-up staring back at her. The face bared yellow fangs.

‘Hey Zwelabo, you look like a vrot tomato. What are you?’ Maude asked.

‘I’m a devil. Do you like me? Did I make you scared?’ Zwelabo said, pouncing around her chair.

‘You’re like a large pimple gushing pus. Of course you’re scary,’ Maude said as Ranjeni yanked her head to the front and attached another beaded extension to her hair.

Cornelia appeared. ‘Look! Look! Look!’ she said as she clicked her green nails in the air.

‘Hey, aren’t you the bee’s knees,’ Aunty Hilda said, tapping her plastic talons. ‘Priscilla really has done the lovelies on you.’

Priscilla ran the beauty parlour next to the hairdressing salon. She was also a best friend of Aunty Hilda’s so she always indulged the children when Aunty Hilda had her hair done.

Cornelia caught sight of Maude and gasped. ‘Jislaaik,

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

Maude! You’ve got long hair. You look like a gypsy princess.’

‘Yaw, what fabulous nails,’ Maude replied, flicking the hair extensions away from her face the way she had seen long-haired girls at school do when they were being very cool.

‘What’s the time, Aunty?’ asked Cornelia as she always did.

And without looking at her watch, Aunty Hilda replied, ‘It’s spot-on hamburger time and forty minutes to go before we eat waffles and ice-cream.’

A little later they left the hairdressing salon and wandered into a restaurant at the end of the corridor.

‘Hey Veronique,’ the children chorused, greeting a woman with pink hair. She was obviously one of Ranjeni’s regulars.

‘Darlings,’ she purred, kissing and nuzzling Aunty Hilda. She then grabbed Zwelabo around the neck in a vice-grip. ‘Who’s this red-faced monster?’ Zwelabo was a big favourite of hers.

‘I’m a devil, silly. Now geddoff me,’ he said, wriggling from her grip in such a way that he got a hug and a kiss.

Having fed themselves – and Aunty Hilda’s second vice – it was now time for business. And on cue, Veronique and Priscilla appeared.

Veronique perched at the end of the table so that she could leap up when a customer arrived or departed. Priscilla, who wore a beauty spot in the shape of a moon on her cheek, squeezed in next to Cornelia. Ranjeni arrived five minutes later. ‘Sorry sisters, I had a blue rinse that took forever.’

The women produced a calculator, a little black book, black pens and four tickets. ‘Combien la kitty?’ asked Aunty Hilda as Veronique’s fingers chattered across the calculator keys and ticked off figures in the little black book.

15

‘OK, so far Master Lucky has delivered us a total of eight thousand one hundred rontos. That takes into account our weekly ticket investment and the usual losses,’ Veronique replied, snapping the little black book closed and putting the calculator away.

The four women belonged to a lottery stokvel. They were all saving for a dream. Aunty Hilda wanted to go to Paris and her three friends wanted to expand their shops and become business moguls.

The women nodded and turned to their tickets. Aunty Hilda chewed and sucked the end of her pen. Then came the part that the children loved.

‘Cornelia, tell me again, what did you get for your spelling test last week?’

‘Maude, was it thirty-three or thirty-seven extensions that Ranjeni put in your hair?’

‘Zwelabo, tell me my skattie, how many runs did the cricket team make in the first twenty overs last week?’

With each answer, Aunty Hilda scribbled on her hand and made marks on her ticket. She took five sets of numbers each week. One of the sets she called her special set of magic numbers which was the sum of her life. She took this same set every week. The other four sets were made up of numbers she met during the week. She either felt them in her waters or they happened along the way. They could be anything from the total on a grocery bill to the number of stairs she climbed on an outing.

‘Okiedokie, I’m done. Come my sisters, move it up, Master Lucky doesn’t hang around waiting,’ said Aunty Hilda as she slapped her ticket and some money on the table.

‘Maude, you know what to do. Let your magic work for us – and ask Sidney for a packet of my ciggie paper – he knows the ones I always get,’ Aunty Hilda said.

Maude scooped up the tickets and left the restaurant

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

clutching the money. When she returned, Aunty Hilda handed her friends their tickets and gave hers to Cornelia. ‘Into the lucky jar when we get home,’ she said, and Cornelia put it in her jeans pocket.

The lottery was drawn on Saturday night. If Aunty Hilda missed seeing the draw on television, she checked her numbers in the Sunday Times the following day.

Aunty Hilda looked at her watch and announced, ‘It’s half past my favourite vices and thirty minutes to my snooze.’

She gathered her bag, her shawl and various layers of clothing as Walter, who had slept through the morning, began to wriggle in his pram. Cornelia could tell he was hungry, so they took the quick way home past the municipal dump. They did not stop to chat to the lady who sold tinned food and ice-creams out of the garage shop in the front of her house or the two brothers who ran a car washing service in their yard.

‘Check you later,’ Aunty Hilda yelled at them over her shoulder as they hurried home.

Mrs Button greeted them at the door. ‘Hilda, you ou doring. I’m done with my work. How about giving me Walter and you go have a nap. You must be finished.’

She took Walter out of the pram and looked at the children. ‘I can see that you lot have had fun. Cornelia, those nails are fine for now, but I don’t want to see you going to school like that.’

Her face went soft when she saw Maude’s hair extensions. ‘You’re too pretty by half, my baby princess. Come and let me give you a love.’

Maude’s large eyes flickered over Walter in her mother’s arms and her mouth tightened into a grim line. She flipped her hair to one side, turned her back on Mrs Button and walked away into the garden.

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At the bottom of the garden Aunty Hilda had claimed a spot where she planted all the seeds and cuttings she borrowed from the other gardens in the neighbourhood. One of Cornelia’s favourite plants was a fleshy shrub with yellow spiky flowers. She could never remember the name. It was Aunty Hilda’s special plant and it cured practically any ailment – a sore, a scratch, a bruise, a cut. Cornelia always carried a piece of it in her pocket for just in case.

The children made their way across the lawn to Mr Button’s study. It was supposed to be a work place, but it ended up being a storeroom for everyone’s junk. In the one corner was a blue suitcase that contained old clothes. It was the source of many of the games they had played since they were very small.

Zwelabo took Mr Button’s old waistcoat from the suitcase and grabbed a pair of garden shears from the pile of tools next to the bag of fertiliser.

‘I’m a brave warrior-agent like my dad. I fight enemies and carry secrets,’ he said and swung his weapon in the air.

‘Of course you are,’ said Cornelia.Cornelia despaired for her friend. He was small for his

ten years and got asthma when he played sport. And so he was labelled a ballet-boy by the nasty children at school and viewed as one of the nerds that play with girls.

Maude chose a red petticoat and a faded pink dressing gown. She hitched them up on her waist with an old dog collar. ‘And I’m a gypsy princess, of course. I make magic,’ she said waving a chopstick in her hand.

To be able to make magic was something Maude wanted more than anything in the world. If she could cast spells, she would be able to make her baby brother disappear.

‘Cool as a jewel, Gypsy Princess. And me, you can guess who I am, can’t you?’ Cornelia asked as she twirled around in a peacock-blue cape and a long, yellow skirt which had

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Cornelia Button and the Globe of Gamagion

obviously been a curtain in its former life.‘Of course! Of course!’ shouted Zwelabo. ‘You are the

world famous Diva Divine who sings in palaces of kings and queens all over the world and is admired by millions of music lovers.’ Maude rolled her eyes.

‘Get my dad’s globe and let’s start the game,’ Cornelia instructed Zwelabo. She was referring to the globe that Mr Button used to identify his travels. Mr Button had won the globe in a competition when he was a child.

Maude frowned at Cornelia. ‘That’s a bit risky, hey? You know how he feels about that dumb globe. If it breaks, he’ll kill us.’

Cornelia nodded. ‘I know it’s out of bounds, but I want today to be a different sort of game. I want that globe. Get it Zwelabo, it’s next to the computer.’

Zwelabo did what Cornelia asked – as he always did. He fetched the globe and handed it to Cornelia. Then the children left the study and walked out onto the grass.

Cornelia closed her eyes and spun the globe on its axis. She thought about what Aunty Hilda had told her on the balcony that cold night after her audition. She thought about the star that had twinkled in agreement with Aunty Hilda.

‘If we can imagine it, we can be it,’ she said.Maude spun around Cornelia like a dervish. She waved

her wand and sanctified the words with her magic.‘I see myself in a land where I make great music. I see the

gypsy princess, Magical Maude, who casts spells and makes magic, and I see the brave hero, the dreaded Zwelabo Zed, who destroys the enemy with his courage.’

At this, Cornelia allowed the globe to stop spinning. She settled her finger on a star-shaped spot at the top where the axis joined the globe and held her breath.

Other teen titles by Jacana

The Story of Lucky Simelane by Robin Malan

Lucky Fish! by Reviva Schermbrucker

Sharp Sharp Zulu Dog by Anton Ferreira

Call on the Windby David Donald

This is the story of three children living in Bez Valley. Cornelia Button wants to be a famous singer, but she can’t sing for toffee. Her sister Maude wants to be a gypsy princess so that she can cast spells to make her baby brother disappear. And their nerdy friend Zwelabo wants to be a brave hero like his mysterious, absent father.

The secret to realising their dreams is Mr Button’s magical globe. When the children spin the globe, they open the doorway to the Kingdom of Gamagion – a world where anything and everything is possible…

Cornelia Button and theof Gam

agionGLOBE

Cornelia felt herself falling. And when she stopped falling with that terrible suddenness she always got at the end of bad dreams, she was caught by a blanket of air that made her heart plummet through her chest to her feet. She opened her eyes and looked through green mist which surrounded her like candyfloss. Maude lay pale and silent next to her.

A figure was walking towards them through the green curtain of mist…

EDYTH BULBRING

EDYTH B

ULBRING