The Witches Read online

  ‘I have one question, Your Grandness,’ said a voice in the audience. ‘What happens if one of the chocolates we are giving away in our shops gets eaten by a grown-up?’

  ‘That's just too bad for the grrrown-up,’ said The Grand High Witch. ‘This meeting is over!’ she shouted. ‘Out you go!’

  The witches stood up and began gathering their things together. I was watching them through the crack and hoping to heaven they would hurry up and leave so that I might be safe at last.

  ‘Wait!’ shrieked one of the witches in the back row. ‘Hold everything!’ Her shrieking voice echoed through the Ballroom like a trumpet. All the witches suddenly stopped and turned and looked towards the speaker. She was one of the taller witches and I could see her standing there with her head tilted back and her nose in the air and she was sucking in great long breaths of air through those curvy pink sea-shelly nostrils of hers.

  ‘Wait!’ she shouted again.

  ‘What is it?’ the others cried out.

  ‘Dogs’ droppings!’ she yelled. ‘Just then I got a whiff of dogs’ droppings!’

  ‘Surely not!’ the others shouted. ‘There couldn't be!’

  ‘Yes yes!’ shouted the first witch. ‘There it is again! It's not strong! But it's there! I mean it's here! It's definitely somewhere not too far away!’

  ‘Vot's going on down there?’ shouted The Grand High Witch, glaring down from the platform.

  ‘Mildred's just got a whiff of dogs’ droppings, Your Grandness!’ someone called back to her.

  ‘Vot rrrubbish is this?’ shouted The Grand High Witch. ‘She has dogs’ drrroppings on the brain! There are no children in this rrroom!’

  ‘Hang on!’ cried the witch called Mildred. ‘Hang on, everybody! Don't move! I'm getting it again!’ Her huge curvy nose-holes were waving in and out like a pair of fish-tails. ‘It's getting stronger! It's hitting me harder now! Can't the rest of you smell it?’

  All the noses of all the witches in that room went up in the air, and all the nostrils began to suck and sniff.

  ‘She's right!’ cried another voice. ‘She's absolutely right! Dogs’ droppings it is, strong and foul!’

  In a matter of seconds, the entire assembly of witches had taken up the dreaded cry of dogs’ droppings. ‘Dogs’ droppings!’ they shouted. ‘The room is full of it! Poo! Poo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooo! Why did we not smell it before? It stinks like a sewer! Some little swine must be hiding not so very far away from here!’

  ‘Find it!’ screamed The Grand High Witch. ‘Trrrack it down! Rrrootle it out! Follow your noses till you get it!’

  The hairs on my head were standing up like the bristles of a nail-brush and a cold sweat was breaking out all over me.

  ‘Rrrootle it out, this small lump of dung!’ screeched The Grand High Witch. ‘Don't let it escape! If it is in here it has observed the most secret things! It must be exterrrminated immediately!’

  Metamorphosis

  I remember thinking to myself, There is no escape for me now! Even if I make a run for it and manage to dodge the lot of them, I still won't get out because the doors are chained and locked! I'm finished! I'm done for! Oh, Grandmamma, what are they going to do to me?

  I looked round and I saw a hideous painted and powdered witch's face staring down at me, and the face opened its mouth and yelled triumphantly, ‘It's here! It's behind the screen! Come and get it!’ The witch reached out a gloved hand and grabbed me by the hair but I twisted free and jumped away. I ran, oh how I ran! The sheer terror of it all put wings on my feet! I flew around the outside of the great Ballroom and not one of them had a chance of catching me. As I came level with the doors, I paused and tried to open them but the big chain was on them and they didn't even rattle.

  The witches were not bothering to chase me. They simply stood there in small groups, watching me and knowing for certain that there was no way I could escape. Several of them were holding their noses with gloved fingers and there were cries of, ‘Poo! What a stink! We can't stand this much longer!’

  ‘Catch it then, you idiots!’ screamed The Grand High Witch from up on the platform. ‘Sprrread out in a line across the room and close in on it and grab it! Corner this filthy little gumboil and seize it and bring it up here to me!’

  The witches spread out as they were told. They advanced towards me, some from one end, some from the other, and some came down the middle between the rows of empty chairs. They were bound to get me now. They had me cornered.

  From sheer and absolute terror, I began to scream. ‘Help!’ I screamed, turning my head towards the doors in the hope that somebody outside might hear me. ‘Help! Help! Hel-l-l-lp!’

  ‘Get it!’ shouted The Grand High Witch. ‘Grrrab hold of it! Stop it yelling!’

  They rushed at me then, and about five of them grabbed me by the arms and legs and lifted me clear off the ground. I went on screaming, but one of them clapped a gloved hand over my mouth and that stopped me.

  ‘Brrring it here!’ shouted The Grand High Witch. ‘Brrring the spying little vurm up here to me!’

  I was carried on to the platform with my arms and legs held tight by many hands, and I lay there suspended in the air, facing the ceiling. I saw The Grand High Witch standing over me, grinning at me in the most horrible way. She held up the small blue bottle of Mouse-Maker and she said, ‘Now for a little medicine! Hold his nose to make him open his mouth!’

  Strong fingers pinched my nose. I kept my mouth closed tight and held my breath. But I couldn't do it for long. My chest was bursting. I opened my mouth to get one big quick breath of air and as I did so, The Grand High Witch poured the entire contents of the little bottle down my throat!

  Oh, the pain and the fire! It felt as though a kettleful of boiling water had been poured into my mouth. My throat was going up in flames! Then very quickly the frightful burning searing scorching feeling started spreading down into my chest and into my tummy and on and on into my arms and legs and all over my body! I screamed and screamed but once again the gloved hand was clapped over my lips. The next thing I felt was my skin beginning to tighten. How else can I describe it? It was quite literally a tightening and a shrinking of the skin all over my body from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers to the ends of my toes! I felt as though I was a balloon and somebody was twisting the top of the balloon and twisting and twisting and the balloon was getting smaller and smaller and the skin was getting tighter and tighter and soon it was going to burst.

  Then the squeezing began. This time I was inside a suit of iron and somebody was turning a screw, and with each turn of the screw the iron suit became smaller and smaller so that I was squeezed like an orange into a pulpy mess with the juice running out of my sides.

  After that there came a fierce prickling sensation all over my skin (or what was left of my skin) as though tiny needles were forcing their way out through the surface of the skin from the inside, and this, I realize now, was the growing of the mouse-fur.

  Far away in the distance, I heard the voice of The Grand High Witch yelling, ‘Five hundred doses! This stinking little carbuncle has had five hundred doses and the alarm-clock has been smashed and now vee are having instantaneous action!’ I heard clapping and cheering and I remember thinking: I am not myself any longer! I have gone clear out of my own skin!

  I noticed that the floor was only an inch from my nose.

  I noticed also a pair of little furry front paws resting on the floor. I was able to move those paws. They were mine!

  At that moment, I realized that I was not a little boy any longer. I was A MOUSE.

  ‘Now for the mouse-trrrap!’ I heard The Grand High Witch yelling. ‘I've got it right here! And here's a piece of cheese!’

  But I wasn't going to wait for that. I was off across the platform like a streak of lightning! I was astonished at my own speed! I leapt over witches’ feet right and left, and in no time at all I was down the steps and on to the floor of the Ballroom itself and skittering off among the row