Short Story: The Great Magic Disasters of Pip Dubois

 The Great Magic Disaster of Pip Dubois

Pip Dubois had a problem. A big, sparkly, absolutely catastrophic problem that made his life more complicated than trying to explain cricket to a confused crocodile.
He had magic.
Not the cool kind of magic you see in films where wizards save the world and look dead sophisticated doing it. Oh no. Pip had the most embarrassing, unpredictable, downright ridiculous magic in all of Provence, possibly in all of France, and that was saying something in a country that invented snails as a delicacy.
It had started three weeks ago on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday morning in the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Pip had been rushing to school, his rucksack bouncing against his back, when he'd spotted Madame Bouchard's prize-winning roses looking rather droopy.
"Pauvres fleurs," he'd muttered sympathetically. "Poor flowers."
That's when it happened. The roses didn't just perk up, they exploded into a riot of colours that would make a rainbow jealous. Purple roses with orange polka dots. Blue roses with yellow stripes. One particularly enthusiastic rose had turned bright pink with little dancing croissants all over its petals.
Madame Bouchard had fainted directly into her lavender bush.
Since then, Pip's magic had been about as controllable as a caffeinated squirrel in a nut shop. When he was nervous, flowers grew out of his ears. When he was excited, his hair changed colours faster than a chameleon having an identity crisis. And when he was really, truly mortified (which was approximately every five minutes), he accidentally made everything around him speak French with a terrible British accent.
"Bonjour, mon petit Pip!" his alarm clock had cheerfully announced that morning. "Time to wake up, old chap! Allez-y!"
Pip had buried his head under his pillow and groaned. His magic was getting worse, not better, and today was the day he'd decided to do something drastic about it.
He'd done his research. Well, he'd asked his grand-mère Colette, who knew everything about everything and made the most incredible tarte tatin in three départements. According to Grand-mère, there were several foolproof ways to get rid of unwanted magic:

1. Eat a baguette backwards while hopping on one foot
2. Swim in the Mediterranean at exactly midnight during a full moon
3. Convince a goat to teach you proper French pronunciation
4. Find a magic-eating creature (though she'd been rather vague about what those looked like)

Pip had decided to start with option one, because honestly, how hard could it be?
Very hard, as it turned out.
He'd positioned himself in the kitchen at precisely 7:30 AM, holding a fresh baguette from Monsieur Laurent's boulangerie. His little sister Céleste watched from the doorway, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief.
"Tu es complètement fou," she announced. "You're completely mad."
"I'm not mad," Pip protested, lifting one foot. "I'm desperate. There's a difference."
He took a bite from what he hoped was the back end of the baguette and immediately began hopping. The magic, apparently delighted by this new game, decided to join in. With each hop, Pip's hair changed colour, red, blue, green, purple, and tiny sparkles shot out of his fingertips.
"Magnifique!" Céleste clapped her hands. "You look like a disco ball with legs!"
That's when things went properly mental.
The baguette, clearly not appreciating being eaten backwards, began to fight back. It wriggled in Pip's hands like an angry snake, growing longer and more rebellious with each bite. Soon, it was whipping around the kitchen like a crusty, carb-loaded lasso.
"Merde!" Pip yelped, still hopping on one foot as the baguette wrapped itself around the chandelier. "This wasn't in Grand-mère's instructions!"
The chandelier, apparently feeling left out of the magical mayhem, began to sing opera. Loudly. In Italian.

"FIGARO, FIGARO, FIGARO!" it bellowed, swaying dramatically.

Maman rushed into the kitchen, took one look at her son hopping around with rainbow hair while being attacked by a singing chandelier and a rebellious baguette, and did what any sensible French mother would do.
She put the kettle on for tea.
"Pip, mon chéri," she said calmly, as if magical breakfast disasters were perfectly normal. "Perhaps we should try a different approach."
"But Grand-mère said—" Pip began, then yelped as the baguette made a particularly aggressive swipe at his nose.
"Grand-mère also once convinced your grand-père that snails could predict the weather," Maman pointed out. "Remember the Great Snail Incident of 2019?"
Pip did remember. The entire village had carried umbrellas for three weeks straight because Grand-père's weather snails had been feeling particularly pessimistic.
With a defeated sigh, Pip stopped hopping. The baguette immediately went limp and dropped to the floor with a satisfied thump. The chandelier finished its aria with a dramatic flourish and returned to normal chandelier behaviour.
Pip's hair, however, remained a vibrant shade of purple.
"Right then," he announced. "Option two. Midnight swimming it is."
The problem with midnight swimming in the Mediterranean was that Pip lived a good hour's drive from the coast, and he was eleven, which meant his driving skills were limited to bumper cars at the village fête.
But Pip was nothing if not resourceful. He'd convinced his older cousin Marcel to drive him to the beach in exchange for doing Marcel's maths homework for a month. Marcel, who considered mathematics about as appealing as eating sand, had readily agreed.
"Tu es vraiment bizarre," Marcel commented as they drove through the winding roads of Provence, lavender fields stretching out on either side. "You're really weird, you know that?"
"I prefer 'uniquely challenged,'" Pip replied, watching nervously as his reflection in the wing mirror showed his hair cycling through the colours of the French flag. "It sounds more sophisticated."
They arrived at the beach just as the clock tower in the nearby village chimed midnight. The full moon hung over the Mediterranean like a giant spotlight, turning the water silver and mysterious.
Pip stripped down to his swimming trunks, shivering slightly in the cool night air. This had to work. It simply had to.
"Bonne chance," Marcel called from the car, clearly having no intention of getting involved in whatever magical madness was about to unfold.
Pip waded into the water, the cool waves lapping at his ankles, then his knees, then his waist. The magic seemed to sense what he was trying to do and began to protest vigorously. His hair started glowing like a neon sign, and small fish began following him around as if he were the Pied Piper of the Mediterranean.
"Allez-vous-en!" he hissed at the fish. "Go away! I'm trying to have a serious magical moment here!"
The fish, apparently understanding French better than most tourists, promptly began to sing. Not just any song, mind you, but a rousing rendition of "La Marseillaise" in perfect harmony.
"Allons enfants de la Patrie!" they warbled enthusiastically.
Other sea creatures began to join in—a particularly patriotic octopus provided percussion by slapping its tentacles against a rock. A school of sardines formed itself into the shape of the Eiffel Tower. Even a grumpy-looking crab scuttled over to conduct the impromptu underwater orchestra.
Pip stood waist-deep in the Mediterranean, surrounded by a full marine musical production, and realised that his magic wasn't going anywhere. If anything, it seemed to be getting stronger.
"C'est un désastre!" he wailed.
The sea creatures took this as their cue for an encore.
Marcel, watching from the shore, was laughing so hard he'd fallen out of the car.
By the time they returned home, Pip was thoroughly dejected and smelled strongly of seaweed. His hair had settled into a sort of aquamarine colour that matched the Mediterranean, and he kept hiccupping small bubbles.
"Maybe option three will work better," he muttered, though he wasn't particularly optimistic.
Finding a goat willing to teach French pronunciation turned out to be surprisingly easy. Monsieur Petit, who lived on the outskirts of the village, kept a small herd of goats that were known throughout Provence for their intelligence and, according to local legend, their excellent taste in cheese.
The head goat, a dignified creature named Brigitte, looked at Pip with the sort of expression usually reserved for tourists who asked for ketchup with their coq au vin.
"Baaaah," she said, which Pip's magic helpfully translated as, "Your pronunciation is absolutely dreadful."
"That's why I need help!" Pip explained desperately. "Please, Brigitte. I'll bring you the finest hay in all of Provence if you'll just teach me to speak properly!"
Brigitte considered this, chewing thoughtfully on a mouthful of grass. "Baaaah bah bah," she finally replied.
Pip's magic translated: "Very well. But I warn you, I'm a strict teacher. We'll start with the basics. Repeat after me: 'Bonjour, je m'appelle Pip.'"
For the next hour, Pip stood in a field surrounded by goats, practising his French pronunciation. Every time he got something wrong, Brigitte would give him a withering look that could have curdled milk. The other goats provided a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on his progress with various bleats and snorts.
"Baaaah!" Brigitte corrected for the fifteenth time. "It's 'je m'appelle,' not 'je maple'! You're not a tree!"
Pip was beginning to suspect that his magic was actually making his French worse, not better. Every word he spoke seemed to come out with an accent that was part British, part confused tourist, and part something that might have been Martian.
Just as he was about to give up, something extraordinary happened. Brigitte, apparently fed up with his linguistic disasters, began to glow with a soft, golden light.
"Mon Dieu!" Pip gasped. "You're magical too!"
"Baaaah," Brigitte replied, which translated as, "Of course I'm magical, you silly boy. How do you think I learned to speak French in the first place? I'm not originally from France, you know. I'm from Wales."
This explained the slight accent Pip had noticed in her bleating.
"But if you're magical," Pip said slowly, "then maybe you can help me get rid of mine!"
Brigitte fixed him with a stern look. "Baaaah bah baaaah bah," she said firmly.
The translation made Pip's heart sink: "Magic isn't something you get rid of, young man. It's something you learn to live with. Rather like having particularly unruly hair or an unfortunate tendency to snort when you laugh."
Feeling thoroughly defeated, Pip trudged home as the sun began to set over the lavender fields. Three methods down, one to go. But finding a magic-eating creature seemed about as likely as finding a unicorn in the local supermarché.
He was so lost in his gloomy thoughts that he almost didn't notice the small, round creature sitting on his garden gate. It looked rather like a cross between a hedgehog and a croissant, with tiny legs, enormous eyes, and what appeared to be a small beret perched at a jaunty angle on its head.
"Excusez-moi," the creature said politely. "Are you the young man with the troublesome magic?"
Pip nearly jumped out of his skin. "You can talk!"
"Bien sûr," the creature replied. "I'm a Mangeur de Magie—a Magic Eater. My name is François, and I understand you have a problem you'd like me to solve."
Pip's heart leapt. "You mean you can actually eat my magic? Make it go away completely?"
François adjusted his tiny beret thoughtfully. "I could," he said slowly. "But first, tell me—why do you want to get rid of it so badly?"
Pip launched into the whole embarrassing story—the colour-changing hair, the singing sea creatures, the opera-loving chandelier, the rebellious baguette. François listened with the sort of patient attention usually reserved for confession booths and therapy sessions.
"Ah," François said when Pip had finished. "I see the problem."
"You do?" Pip asked hopefully.
"Oui. Your magic isn't the problem, mon ami. Your attitude towards it is."
Pip blinked. "I don't understand."
François hopped down from the gate and waddled over to Madame Bouchard's garden, where the polka-dotted roses were still blooming magnificently. "Look at these flowers," he said. "Are they not beautiful?"
"Well, yes, but—"
"And the sea creatures who sang for you—did they not bring joy to everyone who heard them?"
"I suppose, but—"
"And your hair," François continued, "does it not make people smile?"
Pip touched his currently turquoise locks self-consciously. "It makes them stare."
"Exactement!" François exclaimed. "It makes them notice. It makes them wonder. It makes them remember that the world is full of magic and possibility. Do you know how rare that is?"
Before Pip could answer, Céleste came running out of the house, her face bright with excitement.
"Pip!" she called. "Come quickly! Something wonderful has happened!"
Confused, Pip followed his sister into the house, with François waddling along behind them. In the kitchen, they found Maman, Papa, and Grand-mère gathered around the table, all looking rather amazed.
"What's going on?" Pip asked.
Grand-mère smiled and pointed to the fruit bowl. "Look," she said simply.
Pip looked. The fruit bowl, which had been filled with ordinary apples and oranges that morning, now contained the most extraordinary fruit he'd ever seen. Apples that shimmered like jewels, oranges that glowed softly from within, and pears that seemed to contain tiny, swirling galaxies.
"Your magic," Maman explained gently, "has been affecting the whole house. But not in a bad way. Look around."
For the first time, Pip really looked at what his magic had been doing. The walls were covered in the most beautiful, intricate patterns that seemed to shift and dance in the light. The windows sparkled like stained glass, casting rainbow reflections across the floor. Even the old wooden table seemed to glow with warmth and life.
"It's beautiful," he whispered.
"Oui," François agreed, climbing onto the table to get a better view. "Your magic doesn't destroy, Pip. It transforms. It makes ordinary things extraordinary."
Papa, who had been unusually quiet, cleared his throat. "Son," he said, "do you remember what happened at the village fête last month? When did little Marie fall into the fountain?"
Pip nodded. Marie, the baker's daughter, had been leaning over the edge trying to catch a toy boat when she'd tumbled in. She couldn't swim, and the adults had been too far away to help in time.
"You jumped in after her," Papa continued. "And somehow, the water became shallow enough for you both to stand up safely. The fountain had been nearly two metres deep, but suddenly it was only knee-deep."
"I thought that was just a coincidence," Pip said quietly.
"Non," Grand-mère said firmly. "That was your magic, mon petit-fils. Your magic that saved Marie's life."
Pip felt something shift inside his chest, like a door opening that he hadn't even known was closed.
François nodded approvingly. "Magic chooses its wielders carefully," he said. "It doesn't go to those who will use it for selfish purposes, or those who will waste it on trivial things. It goes to those who have good hearts and the courage to help others."
"But I made such a mess of everything," Pip protested.
"Pah!" Grand-mère waved her hand dismissively. "You think magic is supposed to be neat and tidy? You think it comes with an instruction manual? Magic is wild and wonderful and sometimes completely ridiculous. That's what makes it magic!"
Céleste giggled. "I liked the singing fish," she said. "They were better than the radio." Pip looked around at his family, at François perched on the table like a tiny, wise professor, at the magical transformations his power had wrought throughout their home. For the first time in three weeks, he didn't feel embarrassed about his magic. He felt... proud. "So," he said slowly, "you're saying I should keep it?" 

"Absolument!" François declared. "But perhaps with a few lessons in control, non?"

Over the next few weeks, François became Pip's unofficial magic tutor. It turned out that magic-eating creatures were actually magic teachers who had gotten tired of explaining the difference to confused young wizards.
"The key," François explained one sunny morning as they practised in the garden, "is not to fight your magic, but to work with it. Think of it like dancing with a partner who's much taller than you—you have to learn to follow their lead while still maintaining your own steps."
Pip discovered that his magic responded much better to positive emotions than to panic and embarrassment. When he felt happy and confident, his magic created beautiful, helpful things. When he felt scared or frustrated, it went completely bonkers and started making the furniture sing show tunes.
The breakthrough came during the annual village fête. Pip was helping to set up the decorations when disaster struck—a sudden windstorm knocked over all the carefully arranged flower displays, turning the village square into a chaotic mess of petals and broken stems.
The fête was supposed to start in an hour, and Madame Dubois, the event organiser, was on the verge of tears.
"C'est fini!" she wailed. "It's ruined! We'll have to cancel everything!"
Pip looked at the devastation, then at the disappointed faces of the villagers who had worked so hard to prepare for the celebration. Something warm and determined bloomed in his chest.
"Non," he said firmly. "It's not ruined. It's just... temporarily rearranged."
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and for the first time in his life, deliberately reached for his magic instead of trying to push it away.
"S'il vous plaît," he whispered to his power. "Help me fix this. Help me make something beautiful."
The magic responded like a cat that had finally been petted properly. It purred through his veins, warm and cooperative, and flowed out through his fingertips in streams of golden light.
The scattered petals rose into the air, swirling and dancing like confetti in a gentle breeze. But instead of reforming into the original, rather boring flower arrangements, they created something entirely new—floating gardens that hung in the air like living chandeliers, each one more spectacular than the last.
Roses bloomed in impossible colours, their petals shimmering like silk. Lavender cascaded in purple waterfalls that filled the air with the most incredible fragrance. Sunflowers as big as dinner plates beamed down at the amazed crowd, their faces following the sun like golden spotlights.
But the pièce de résistance was the fountain in the centre of the square. Pip's magic had transformed the plain stone structure into something that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale. Water danced upward in spirals and loops, creating temporary sculptures that formed and dissolved in an endless, mesmerising display. Fish made of pure light swam through the air above the fountain, occasionally diving down to splash playfully in the enchanted water.
The entire village stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then someone started to clap. Then someone else. Within seconds, the square erupted in applause and cheers.
"Magnifique!" Madame Dubois exclaimed, tears of joy streaming down her face. "C'est le plus beau fête que nous avons jamais eu!" It's the most beautiful festival we've ever had!
Pip felt his cheeks warm with pride and happiness. His hair, which had been a nervous shade of green all morning, settled into a warm, golden colour that matched the afternoon sunlight.
"Bravo, mon ami," François whispered from his perch on Pip's shoulder. "Now that's what I call proper magic."
The fête was the most successful the village had ever seen. People came from neighbouring towns to see the magical decorations, and by evening, Pip found himself something of a local celebrity. Children followed him around, begging him to make flowers grow from their ears (which he politely declined to do, having learned his lesson about ear-flowers). Adults shook his hand and thanked him for saving the celebration.
But the best moment came when Marie, the little girl he'd saved from the fountain, ran up to him with a drawing she'd made.
"C'est toi!" she announced proudly, showing him a crayon picture of a boy with rainbow hair surrounded by dancing flowers. "You're magic, Pip! Just like in the fairy tales!"
Pip looked at the drawing, then at Marie's beaming face, then at his family and friends gathered around him. François was right—magic wasn't something to be ashamed of or gotten rid of. It was a gift, and like all gifts, it was meant to be shared.
"Oui," he said, grinning as a few sparkles danced around his fingertips. "I suppose I am."
As the sun set over Provence, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that even Pip's magic couldn't improve upon, he realised something important: he didn't want to be ordinary anymore. Ordinary was overrated. Extraordinary, on the other hand, was exactly where he belonged.
And if his magic occasionally made the croissants at breakfast sing opera, or turned his homework into origami butterflies, or caused his bicycle to sprout wings during particularly exciting rides... well, that just made life more interesting.
After all, what was the point of having magic if you didn't use it to make the world a little more wonderful?
"Vive la magie!" Pip declared, throwing his arms wide as fireworks of pure joy exploded from his fingertips, lighting up the village square like a celebration of everything magical and magnificent in the world.
And somewhere in the distance, Brigitte the goat gave an approving bleat that sounded suspiciously like applause.