The Witches Read online

  ‘Tell me what those English witches do, Grandmamma,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, sucking away at her stinking cigar, ‘their favourite ruse is to mix up a powder that will turn a child into some creature or other that all grownups hate.’

  ‘What sort of a creature, Grandmamma?’

  ‘Often it's a slug,’ she said. ‘A slug is one of their favourites. Then the grown-ups step on the slug and squish it without knowing it's a child.’

  ‘That's perfectly beastly!’ I cried.

  ‘Or it might be a flea,’ my grandmother said. ‘They might turn you into a flea, and without realizing what she was doing your own mother would get out the fleapowder and then it's goodbye you.’

  ‘You're making me nervous, Grandmamma. I don't think I want to go back to England.’

  ‘I've known English witches,’ she went on, ‘who have turned children into pheasants and then sneaked the pheasants up into the woods the very day before the pheasant-shooting season opened.’

  ‘Owch,’ I said. ‘So they get shot?’

  ‘Of course they get shot,’ she said. ‘And then they get plucked and roasted and eaten for supper.’

  I pictured myself as a pheasant flying frantically over the men with the guns, swerving and dipping as the guns exploded below me.

  ‘Yes,’ my grandmother said, ‘it gives the English witches great pleasure to stand back and watch the grown-ups doing away with their own children.’

  ‘I really don't want to go to England, Grandmamma.’

  ‘Of course you don't,’ she said. ‘Nor do I. But I'm afraid we've got to.’

  ‘Are witches different in every country?’ I asked.

  ‘Completely different,’ my grandmother said. ‘But I don't know much about the other countries.’

  ‘Don't you even know about America?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really,’ she answered. ‘Although I have heard it said that over there the witches are able to make the grown-ups eat their own children.’

  ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘Oh no, Grandmamma! That couldn't be true!’

  ‘I don't know whether it's true or not,’ she said. ‘It's only a rumour I've heard.’

  ‘But how could they possibly make them eat their own children?’ I asked.

  ‘By turning them into hot-dogs,’ she said. ‘That wouldn't be too difficult for a clever witch.’

  ‘Does every single country in the world have its witches?’ I asked.

  ‘Wherever you find people, you find witches,’ my grandmother said. ‘There is a Secret Society of Witches in every country.’

  ‘And do they all know one another, Grandmamma?’

  ‘They do not,’ she said. ‘A witch only knows the witches in her own country. She is strictly forbidden to communicate with any foreign witches. But an English witch, for example, will know all the other witches in England. They are all friends. They ring each other up. They swap deadly recipes. Goodness knows what else they talk about. I hate to think.’

  I sat on the floor, watching my grandmother. She put her cigar stub in the ashtray and folded her hands across her stomach. ‘Once a year,’ she went on, ‘the witches of each separate country hold their own secret meeting. They all get together in one place to receive a lecture from The Grand High Witch Of All The World.’

  ‘From who?’ I cried.

  ‘She is the ruler of them all,’ my grandmother said. ‘She is all-powerful. She is without mercy. All other witches are petrified of her. They see her only once a year at their Annual Meeting. She goes there to whip up excitement and enthusiasm, and to give orders. The Grand High Witch travels from country to country attending these Annual Meetings.’

  ‘Where do they have these meetings, Grandmamma?’

  ‘There are all sorts of rumours,’ my grandmother answered. ‘I have heard it said that they just book into a hotel like any other group of women who are holding a meeting. I have also heard it said that some very peculiar things go on in the hotels they stay in. It is rumoured that the beds are never slept in, that there are burn marks on the bedroom carpets, that toads are discovered in the bathtubs, and that down in the kitchen the cook once found a baby crocodile swimming in his saucepan of soup.’

  My grandmother picked up her cigar and took another puff, inhaling the foul smoke deeply into her lungs.

  ‘Where does The Grand High Witch live when she's at home?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ my grandmother said. ‘If we knew that, then she could be rooted out and destroyed. Witchophiles all over the world have spent their lives trying to discover the secret headquarters of The Grand High Witch.’

  ‘What is a witchophile, Grandmamma?’

  ‘A person who studies witches and knows a lot about them,’ my grandmother said.

  ‘Are you a witchophile, Grandmamma?’

  ‘I am a retired witchophile,’ she said. ‘I am too old to be active any longer. But when I was younger, I travelled all over the globe trying to track down The Grand High Witch. I never came even close to succeeding.’

  ‘Is she rich?’ I asked.

  ‘She's rolling,’ my grandmother said. ‘Simply rolling in money. Rumour has it that there is a machine in her headquarters which is exactly like the machine the government uses to print the bank-notes you and I use. After all, bank-notes are only bits of paper with special designs and pictures on them. Anyone can make them who has the right machine and the right paper. My guess is that The Grand High Witch makes all the money she wants and she dishes it out to witches everywhere.’

  ‘What about foreign money?’ I asked.

  ‘Those machines can make Chinese money if you want them to,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's only a question of pressing the right button.’

  ‘But Grandmamma,’ I said, ‘if nobody has ever seen The Grand High Witch, how can you be so sure she exists?’

  My grandmother gave me a long and very severe look. ‘Nobody has ever seen the Devil,’ she said, ‘but we know he exists.’

  The next morning, we sailed for England and soon I was back in the old family house in Kent, but this time with only my grandmother to look after me. Then the Easter Term began and every weekday I went to school and everything seemed to have come back to normal again.

  Now at the bottom of our garden there was an enormous conker tree, and high up in its branches Timmy (my best friend) and I had started to build a magnificent tree-house. We were able to work on it only at the weekends, but we were getting along fine. We had begun with the floor, which we built by laying wide planks between two quite far-apart branches and nailing them down. Within a month, we had finished the floor. Then we constructed a wooden railing around the floor and that left only the roof to be built. The roof was the difficult bit.

  One Saturday afternoon when Timmy was in bed with flu, I decided to make a start on the roof all by myself. It was lovely being high up there in that conker tree, all alone with the pale young leaves coming out everywhere around me. It was like being in a big green cave. And the height made it extra exciting. My grandmother had told me that if I fell I would break a leg, and every time I looked down, I got a tingle along my spine.

  I worked away, nailing the first plank on the roof. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman standing immediately below me. She was looking up at me and smiling in the most peculiar way. When most people smile, their lips go out sideways. This woman's lips went upwards and downwards, showing all her front teeth and gums. The gums were like raw meat.

  It is always a shock to discover that you are being watched when you think you are alone.

  And what was this strange woman doing in our garden anyway?

  I noticed that she was wearing a small black hat and she had black gloves on her hands and the gloves came nearly up to her elbows.

  Gloves! She was wearing gloves!

  I froze all over.

  ‘I have a present for you,’ she said, still staring at me, still smiling, still showing her teeth