Glubbslyme Read online

  ‘Why do you wish to wiggle your nose and disappear?’ he enquired.

  Rebecca thought about it. She couldn’t see much advantage in it, certainly. She decided to try something else. She could get Glubbslyme to teach her how to make the sun come out – although the sun was already out and shining strongly of its own accord, so perhaps that wasn’t a very good idea either. So what else did good – or goodish – witches do?

  ‘I know!’ said Rebecca. ‘Teach me how to fly!’

  Glubbslyme had forgotten his impeccable manners. His head was right inside the syrup tin. He edged it out again with difficulty, flicking out his long tongue to lick up all the syrup round his ears.

  ‘Glubbslyme!’ said Rebecca severely.

  He looked a little embarrassed. She had to wet a J-cloth and give him a good mopping. It was tempting to play around with the washing up bowl but Rebecca had only to lift her head to see the stain on the ceiling from yesterday’s bathroom flood. Dad had stayed very cross for most of the evening. Rebecca towelled Glubbslyme dry and set him in the soap rack.

  ‘Will you teach me how to fly?’ she asked again.

  Glubbslyme swung his legs and sighed.

  ‘I do not care for flying,’ he said. ‘I suffer from vertigo.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Rebecca, wondering if it might be a dread seventeenth-century disease.

  But it was only dizziness.

  ‘Only!’ said Glubbslyme, closing his eyes. ‘Once I fell from the broomstick when we did fly to attend a Great Sabbat and I hurtled downwards like a hawk. I was certain I would spatter the ground with my chill blood but my dear Rebecca swooped after me and rescued me just in time.’

  ‘I won’t let you fall, Glubbslyme, I promise. Oh please, I’d give anything to be able to fly. Please. Please.’

  Glubbslyme sighed irritably.

  ‘Very well. One very brief flying lesson. First you will need to concoct a flying ointment. My Rebecca used the strongest ointment possible because she ventured far and wide. A weaker lotion will be sufficient for your purposes. Now, as to ingredients. Of course Rebecca varied hers according to her needs. When we did fly over three counties on All Hallow’s Eve she did use a goose grease base and added eagle’s claw and albatross eye, bat’s blood and the gore from a dangling man. I do not suppose there is a gibbet nearby, child?’

  ‘What’s a gibbet?’

  ‘It is the post on which malefactors are hung.’

  ‘We don’t have them nowadays,’ said Rebecca gratefully.

  Glubbslyme tutted. ‘Well, I daresay we can make do with eagle, albatross and bat.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to be possible either,’ said Rebecca. ‘I’m sure I couldn’t catch an eagle or an albatross and I’m scared of bats.’

  ‘You cannot fly without an aerial ointment,’ said Glubbslyme impatiently. He peered out of the kitchen window at the birds on the fence. ‘Suppose we keep things simple? Kindly catch six sparrows.’

  ‘I’m not extracting any eyes or beaks or claws,’ said Rebecca firmly. ‘And besides, I’d get reported to the R.S.P.C.A.’

  She made do with two sparrow feathers, a dead bumble bee and the wing of one of Glubbslyme’s snack dragonflies. She made a thick white paste with washing powder (because it was called Ariel), chopped the feathers, bee and wing into tiny pieces, and added them to the mixture.

  ‘It looks rather disgusting,’ she said. ‘It was a very dead bee.’

  ‘Beggars cannot be choosers,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Now bring me your broomstick and we will anoint ourselves with your inferior ointment.’

  There was a further problem.

  ‘I haven’t got a broomstick,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘No broomstick,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Might I enquire how you sweep your floors?’

  Rebecca went to the cupboard and brought out the vacuum cleaner and the dustpan and brush. Glubbslyme did not understand the vacuum cleaner so she switched it on and showed him. He shrieked and leaped for the safety of the kitchen sink.

  ‘It’s all right, Glubbslyme, there’s nothing to be frightened of, I promise,’ said Rebecca, switching off. ‘I used to be scared of the vacuum too – but that was just when I was a little baby.’

  ‘I do not think you were ever little enough to be sucked up into that dreadful nozzle,’ said Glubbslyme, shuddering. ‘Kindly banish it back into its cupboard. And we will not require the child’s broom either. It might prove an adequate steed for such as myself but it will not bear your great weight.’

  Rebecca was hurt. She was perhaps a bit plumper than Sarah and skinny old Mandy but she really wasn’t fat.

  ‘What can we use then?’ she asked, chucking the vacuum and brush back in the cupboard.

  Glubbslyme was peering into its depths.

  ‘What is the long pied stick in the corner?’ he asked.

  Rebecca realized he meant Dad’s red and yellow umbrella.

  ‘It will suffice,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Apply the ointment. We are about to learn how to fly.’

  Rebecca stuck her fingers into her unpleasant Ariel ointment and smeared a little on her arms and legs. She tried to avoid the little black bits in case they were the bee. The ointment felt uncomfortably itchy. She hoped she wouldn’t get a rash, she had very sensitive skin.

  ‘And me,’ commanded Glubbslyme.

  She smeared the ointment over his odd warty back. Glubbslyme certainly did not appear to have sensitive skin but when she worked round his tummy he grinned foolishly and doubled up.

  ‘Desist!’ he gasped. ‘I am extremely ticklish.’

  Rebecca became very giggly too, in nervous excitement. Glubbslyme told her to mount her steed. Rebecca straddled the umbrella, feeling rather a fool. She remembered long-ago games of hobby-horse, and wondered if she should give the umbrella an encouraging click of the teeth.

  ‘Aren’t you getting on too?’ she asked Glubbslyme.

  ‘Not unless it is absolutely necessary,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Now concentrate, child. Will the pied stick up into the ether.’

  Rebecca willed as hard as she could, her eyes squeezed shut with effort. Nothing at all happened. She stayed standing on the unmopped kitchen floor, straddling the umbrella.

  ‘Try harder! Concentrate,’ said Glubbslyme.

  Rebecca tried. She concentrated until she thought her brain would burst but still nothing happened. Glubbslyme suggested another application of ointment, so she rubbed until her arms and legs were coated in white, and she dabbed more ointment on her face and even up under her T-shirt. She felt horribly stiff and sticky and it made no difference whatsoever.

  ‘You seem to have no rudimentary aptitude whatsoever,’ Glubbslyme grumbled. ‘I will have to join you after all.’

  He hopped up gingerly behind her. The umbrella immediately twitched.

  ‘Oh mercy, my stomach,’ Glubbslyme moaned.

  ‘It moved, Glubbslyme! I felt it move,’ Rebecca cried excitedly.

  ‘I am in fear that my syrup pottage will move too,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Are you certain you wish to fly?’

  ‘Oh I do, I do!’

  ‘So be it,’ Glubbslyme sighed. ‘Give the magical command.’

  Rebecca gabbled seven Glubbslymes while his eyes revolved one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times.

  The umbrella twitched again, and then it jerked violently upwards, catching Rebecca off balance so that she shot down the umbrella, severely squashing Glubbslyme. There was one confused shrieking second when they were all actually airborne but then they clattered separately on to the kitchen floor. The umbrella lay quietly where it fell. Glubbslyme did not lie quietly. He hopped up and down, croaking furiously, rubbing his sore arm and bumped head. Rebecca had twisted her ankle and bumped her own head on the edge of the kitchen table but she did not dare complain. She concentrated on soothing Glubbslyme, which wasn’t easy.

  ‘You clumsy dim-witted dolt,’ he hissed.

  ‘I know, and I’m ever so sorry, Glubbslyme, really I am.