Glubbslyme Read online

  ‘I suppose I’d better take you back to your pond now,’ Rebecca teased.

  Glubbslyme looked alarmed.

  ‘I ought not embark on a long journey with a full stomach.’

  ‘So when shall I take you?’

  ‘I did not state categorically that I must be returned,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘I merely stated that my powers are wasted with you. I feel them withering within me. I shall lack the power to put a simple hex on someone soon. Come along, child, have you no enemies?’

  ‘I do,’ said Rebecca darkly.

  ‘Then let us hex them forthwith,’ said Glubbslyme, flexing his four limbs in preparation. ‘Name all the persons.’

  ‘There’s only one person actually,’ said Rebecca. ‘Her name’s Mandy.’

  ‘Her other names?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Glubbslyme sighed. ‘We must endeavour to be specific lest we hex all Mandys within fifty miles. What are this particular Mandy’s characteristics?’

  ‘She’s pretty and she’s very nasty and she’s got new black shoes with high heels.’

  ‘That will suffice. Halt, hapless child, so winsome, wicked, and well-shod. We are about to put a hex upon you.’

  ‘Just a little jokey hex Glubbslyme. Give her the hiccups or a boil on her bottom. Nothing serious,’ said Rebecca.

  She started the chant of seven Glubbslymes but she felt a bit anxious. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. That was the trouble. It was a bad idea. Bad magic.

  ‘Stop it, Glubbslyme. Stop your eyes revolving. I’ve changed my mind!’ Rebecca shouted.

  But it was too late.

  The slugs were crawling all over Mandy. They wriggled up her arms and down her legs into her new shiny shoes. They spiralled up her neck and glided across her glossy pink lips. Rebecca screamed and tried to pick them off Mandy but she was whirled away by a sudden tempest. She floated helplessly up in the air while she watched poor Mandy writhing down below. She ran to the pond to try to wash the slugs away but someone had tied Mandy’s thumbs to the heels of her new shoes. She hurled herself into the pond but she didn’t come up.

  ‘Help! Help! Mandy’s drowning and it’s all my fault!’ Rebecca screamed.

  ‘Hey, hey! Wake up, poppet, you’re having a nasty dream. It’s all right, Dad’s here.’

  Rebecca woke up and found herself sobbing in Dad’s arms. He sat on the edge of her bed and rocked her as if she were a baby.

  ‘Oh Dad, what am I going to do? Poor Mandy,’ Rebecca sobbed.

  ‘There now. It was just a dream,’ said Dad.

  ‘I let him put a hex on her,’ Rebecca wailed.

  ‘Come on, pet, you’re still half asleep,’ said Dad.

  ‘No I’m not. Oh Dad, you don’t understand,’ said Rebecca in despair.

  She had tried so hard to get Glubbslyme to remove the hex but he insisted it was impossible.

  ‘What is done cannot be undone,’ he had snapped. ‘What ails you, child? I thought you detested this girl? Have a little resolution if you please.’

  Glubbslyme had retired to the greenhouse, sulking. Rebecca had spent a very miserable afternoon and evening, worrying.

  ‘What’s up, pet? Can’t you tell me?’ Dad said now, tucking her up. ‘You’ve been very quiet and odd today. It’s not because I got cross with you about that old shopping bag, is it?’

  Rebecca had washed it out as best she could but it was still in a pretty disgusting condition when Dad came across it in the cupboard. (She had had to throw her pillow straight in the dustbin). Dad had got very angry when Rebecca failed to give him an adequate explanation for the state of the shopping bag.

  ‘No Dad,’ Rebecca mumbled, hoping he wouldn’t notice she no longer had a pillow.

  ‘Then what is it? What was all that about a hex? Have you been making up some imaginary game and it’s started to get too real and scary?’ said Dad.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Rebecca unhappily.

  ‘I suppose it’s because you’re left on your own such a lot,’ said Dad, sighing. ‘I don’t know what to do about these silly old holidays. I can’t get any more time off work. I wonder about advertising for some nice lady to look after you?’

  ‘A babysitter?’ said Rebecca indignantly. ‘I’m not a baby! I’m all right, Dad. I like being by myself.’

  ‘Why don’t you play with Sarah more?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to play with me,’ Rebecca mumbled.

  ‘Of course she does! You two are best friends, aren’t you?’

  ‘She’s got another friend now. Mandy,’ said Rebecca, and she started crying again.

  ‘Ah!’ said Dad, thinking he’d got to the bottom of things at last. ‘You were mumbling Mandy when you were still dreaming. I see. I don’t suppose you hit it off with this Mandy, right?’

  Rebecca nodded and cried harder.

  ‘You girls! Why can’t you all be friends together? How about inviting Sarah and Mandy over to play tomorrow? Do something that’s really fun together. Why don’t you buy a cake mix and make fairy cakes, you like doing that?’

  ‘Mandy won’t want to come, Dad.’

  ‘Of course she will. You try asking her.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll be able to come.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because – because . . . I’m scared she might be ill,’ wailed Rebecca. ‘She might be covered in warts or worse – and it’s all my fault.’

  Dad didn’t seem to think this likely. He told Rebecca she was still half asleep. He yawned, because he felt half asleep himself, gave her a kiss goodnight and went back to his own bed.

  Rebecca was not half asleep. She was wide awake. She lay tossing and turning, unable to rest her head, unable to rest at all. When it started to get light at long last, she thought she heard a croak from the bottom of the garden. Rebecca couldn’t wait any longer. She crept downstairs and out into the garden. The dew was so thick she had to paddle through the grass. Her bedroom slippers were never going to be the same again.

  She found Glubbslyme just curling up at the bottom of his pot for a dawn snooze, after a night’s sluggorging. (The last of the Baker plague). He was not very pleased to be disturbed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Glubbslyme, but I’m desperate,’ said Rebecca, and she started to cry.

  ‘Desperate?’ said Glubbslyme drily. ‘Is the house aflame? Have cut-throats seized your father? Are soldiers running amok through the streets? If so, I will assist. If not, desist.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Rebecca, and she cried harder.

  Glubbslyme sighed irritably, but when she went on crying he emerged from his pot.

  ‘Desist,’ he said, but much more gently.

  ‘I’m so worried about Mandy,’ Rebecca howled. ‘I keep having nightmares about her.’

  ‘What is done cannot be undone,’ Glubbslyme repeated, but he sounded as if he might be wavering. ‘Unless . . .’

  ‘Unless?’ said Rebecca, holding her breath.

  ‘I cannot null my hex but possibly I can try to heal the creature.’

  ‘Oh please do! How will you do that?’

  ‘With great toil and endeavour,’ said Glubbslyme, and he yawned. ‘I will have my nap and attend to the matter after breakfast.’

  ‘Oh Glubbslyme, couldn’t you do it now? Please? Please?’

  ‘If you absolutely insist,’ said Glubbslyme. ‘Then I must gather as many herbs of healing as I can. I am sure you are fussing unnecessarily. I expect the child merely has a mild gripe or a pustular boil or two. One cannot make specifications when casting a hex but under your lily-livered jurisdiction my powers are paltry.’

  ‘I do hope so,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘I will provide cures for the most obvious diseases and we will hope for the best. Alas, even so it will not be simple. Your garden lacks even the commonest herbs. Your choleric neighbour has scarce better selection, for all he be so proud of his flowers. I can use a red rose to bind and cool, a sprig of lavender for pains in the head, and