The Witches Read online

  Very slowly, she bent down and picked me up with one hand. Then she picked Bruno up with the other hand and put us both on the table. There was a bowl of bananas in the centre of the table and Bruno jumped straight into it and began tearing away with his teeth at one of the banana skins to get at the fruit inside.

  My grandmother grasped the arm of her chair to steady herself, but her eyes never left me.

  ‘Sit down, dear Grandmamma,’ I said.

  She collapsed into her chair.

  ‘Oh, my darling,’ she murmured and now the tears were really streaming down her cheeks. ‘Oh, my poor sweet darling. What have they done to you?’

  ‘I know what they've done, Grandmamma, and I know what I am, but the funny thing is that I don't honestly feel especially bad about it. I don't even feel angry. In fact, I feel rather good. I know I'm not a boy any longer and I never will be again, but I'll be quite all right as long as there's always you to look after me.’ I was not just trying to console her. I was being absolutely honest about the way I felt. You may think it odd that I wasn't weeping myself. It was odd. I simply can't explain it.

  ‘Of course I'll look after you,’ my grandmother murmured. ‘Who is the other one?’

  ‘That was a boy called Bruno Jenkins,’ I told her. ‘They got him first.’

  My grandmother took a new long black cigar out of a case in her handbag and put it in her mouth. Then she got out a box of matches. She struck a match but her fingers were shaking so much that the flame kept missing the end of the cigar. When she got it lit at last, she took a long pull and sucked in the smoke. That seemed to calm her down a bit.

  ‘Where did it happen?’ she whispered. ‘Where is the witch now? Is she in the hotel?’

  ‘Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘It wasn't just one. It was hundreds! They're all over the place! They're right here in the hotel this very moment!’

  She leaned forward and stared at me. ‘You don't mean… you don't actually mean… you don't mean to tell me they're holding the Annual Meeting right here in the hotel?’

  ‘They've held it, Grandmamma! It's finished! I heard it all! And all of them including The Grand High Witch herself are downstairs now! They're pretending they're the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children! They're all having tea with the Manager!’

  ‘And they caught you?’

  ‘They smelt me out,’ I said.

  ‘Dogs’ droppings, was it?’ she said, sighing.

  ‘I'm afraid so. But it wasn't strong. They very nearly didn't smell me because I hadn't had a bath for ages.’

  ‘Children should never have baths,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's a dangerous habit.’

  ‘I agree, Grandmamma.’

  She paused, sucking at her cigar.

  ‘Do you really mean to tell me that they are now all downstairs having tea?’ she said.

  ‘I'm certain of it, Grandmamma.’

  There was another pause. I could see the old glint of excitement slowly coming back into my grandmother's eyes, and all of a sudden she sat up very straight in her chair and said sharply, ‘Tell me everything, right from the beginning. And please hurry.’

  I took a deep breath and began to talk. I told about going to the Ballroom and hiding behind the screen to do my mouse-training. I told about the notice saying Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I told her all about the women coming in and sitting down and about the small woman who appeared on the stage and took off her mask. But when it came to describing what her face looked like underneath the mask, I simply couldn't find the right words. ‘It was horrible, Grandmamma!’ I said. ‘Oh, it was so horrible! It was… it was like something that was going rotten!’

  ‘Go on,’ my grandmother said. ‘Don't stop.’

  Then I told her about all the others taking off their wigs and their gloves and their shoes, and how I saw before me a sea of bald pimply heads and how the women's fingers had little claws and how their feet had no toes.

  My grandmother had come forward now in her armchair so that she was sitting right on the edge of it. Both her hands were cupped over the gold knob of the stick that she always used when walking, and she was staring at me with eyes as bright as two stars.

  Then I told her how The Grand High Witch had shot out the fiery white-hot sparks and how they had turned one of the other witches into a puff of smoke.

  ‘I've heard about that!’ my grandmother cried out excitedly. ‘But I never quite believed it! You are the first non-witch ever to see it happening! It is The Grand High Witch's most famous punishment! It is known as “getting fried”, and all the other witches are petrified of having it done to them! I am told that The Grand High Witch makes it a rule to fry at least one witch at each Annual Meeting. She does it in order to keep the rest of them on their toes.’

  ‘But they don't have any toes, Grandmamma.’

  ‘I know they don't, my darling, but please go on.’

  So then I told my grandmother about the Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, and when I came to the bit about turning all the children of England into mice, she actually leapt out of her chair shouting, ‘I knew it! I knew they were brewing up something tremendous!’

  ‘We've got to stop them,’ I said.

  She turned and stared at me. ‘You can't stop witches,’ she said. ‘Just look at the power that terrible Grand High Witch has in her eyes alone! She could kill any of us at any time with those white-hot sparks of hers! You saw it yourself!’

  ‘Even so, Grandmamma, we've still got to stop her from turning all the children of England into mice.’

  ‘You haven't quite finished,’ she said. ‘Tell me about Bruno. How did they get him?’

  So I described how Bruno Jenkins had come in and how I had actually seen him with my own eyes being shrunk into a mouse. My grandmother looked at Bruno, who was guzzling away in the bowl of bananas.

  ‘Does he never stop eating?’ she asked.

  ‘Never,’ I said. ‘Can you explain something to me, Grandmamma?’

  ‘I'll try,’ she said. She reached out and lifted me off the table and put me on her lap. Very gently, she began stroking the soft fur along my back. It felt nice. ‘What is it you want to ask me, my darling?’ she said.

  ‘The thing I don't understand,’ I said, ‘is how Bruno and I are still able to talk and think just as we did before.’

  ‘It's quite simple,’ my grandmother said. ‘All they've done is to shrink you and give you four legs and a furry coat, but they haven't been able to change you into a one hundred per cent mouse. You are still yourself in everything except your appearance. You've still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice, and thank goodness for that.’

  ‘So I'm not really an ordinary mouse at all,’ I said. ‘I'm a sort of mouse-person.’

  ‘Quite right,’ she said. ‘You are a human in mouse's clothing. You are very special.’

  We sat there in silence for a few moments while my grandmother went on stroking me very gently with one finger and puffing her cigar with the other hand. The only sound in the room was made by Bruno as he attacked the bananas in the bowl. But I wasn't doing nothing as I lay there on her lap. I was thinking like mad. My brain was whizzing as it had never whizzed before.

  ‘Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘I may have a bit of an idea.’

  ‘Yes, my darling. What is it?’

  ‘The Grand High Witch told them her room was number 454. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘Well, my room is number 554. Mine, 554, is on the fifth floor, so hers, 454, will be on the fourth floor.’

  ‘That is correct,’ my grandmother said.

  ‘Then don't you think it's possible that room 454 is directly underneath room 554?’

  ‘That's more than likely,’ she said. ‘These modern hotels are all built like boxes of bricks. But what if it is?’

  ‘Would you please take me out on to my balcony so I can look down,’ I said.

  All the rooms in the Hot
el Magnificent had small private balconies. My grandmother carried me through into my own bedroom and out on to my balcony. We both peered down to the balcony immediately below.

  ‘Now if that is her room,’ I said, ‘then I'll bet I could climb down there somehow and get in.’

  ‘And get caught all over again,’ my grandmother said. ‘I won't allow it.’

  ‘At this moment,’ I said, ‘all the witches are down on the Sunshine Terrace having tea with the Manager. The Grand High Witch probably won't be back until six o'clock or just before. That's when she's going to dish out supplies of that foul formula to the ancient ones who are too old to climb trees after gruntles’ eggs.’

  ‘And what if you did manage to get into her room?’ my grandmother said. ‘What then?’

  ‘Then I should try to find the place where she keeps her supply of Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, and if I succeeded then I would steal one bottle of it and bring it back here.’

  ‘Could you carry it?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘It's a very small bottle.’

  ‘I'm frightened of that stuff,’ my grandmother said. ‘What would you do with it if you did manage to get it?’

  ‘One bottle is enough for five hundred people,’ I said. ‘That would give each and every witch down there a double dose at least. We could turn them all into mice.’

  My grandmother jumped about an inch in the air. We were out on my balcony and there was a drop of about a million feet below us and I very nearly bounced out of her hand over the railings when she jumped.

  ‘Be careful with me, Grandmamma,’ I said.

  ‘What an idea!’ she cried. ‘It's fantastic! It's tremendous! You're a genius, my darling!’

  ‘Wouldn't it be something?’ I said. ‘Wouldn't that really be something?’

  ‘We'd get rid of every witch in England in one swoop!’ she cried. ‘And The Grand High Witch into the bargain!’

  ‘We've got to try it,’ I said.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, nearly dropping me over the balcony once again in her excitement. ‘If we brought this off, it would be the greatest triumph in the whole history of witchery!’

  ‘There's a lot of work to do,’ I said.

  ‘Of course there's a lot of work to do,’ she said. ‘Just for a start, supposing you did manage to get hold of one of those bottles, how would you get it into their food?’

  ‘We'll work that out later,’ I said. ‘Let's try to get the stuff first. How can we find out for sure if that's her room just below us?’

  ‘We shall check it out immediately!’ my grandmother cried. ‘Come along! There's not a second to waste!’ Carrying me in one hand, she went bustling out of the bedroom and along the corridor, banging her stick on the carpet with each step she took. We went down the stairs one flight to the fourth floor. The bedrooms on either side of the corridor had their numbers painted on the doors in gold.

  ‘Here it is!’ my grandmother cried. ‘Number 454.’ She tried the door. It was locked of course. She looked up and down the long empty hotel corridor. ‘I do believe you're right,’ she said. ‘This room is almost certainly directly below yours.’ She marched back along the corridor, counting the number of doors from The Grand High Witch's room to the staircase. There were six.

  She climbed back up to the fifth floor and repeated the exercise.

  ‘She is directly below you!’ my grandmother cried out. ‘Her room is right below yours!’

  She carried me back into my own bedroom and went out once again on to the balcony. ‘That's her balcony down there,’ she said. ‘And what's more, the door from her balcony into her bedroom is wide open! How are you going to climb down?’

  ‘I don't know,’ I said. Our rooms were in the front of the hotel and they looked down on to the beach and the sea. Immediately below my balcony, thousands of feet below, I could see a fence of spiked railings. If I fell, I'd be a gonner.

  ‘I've got it!’ my grandmother cried. With me in her hand, she rushed back into her own room and began rummaging in the chest-of-drawers. She came out with a ball of blue knitting-wool. One end of it was attached to some needles and a half-finished sock she had been knitting for me. ‘This is perfect,’ she said. ‘I shall put you in the sock and lower you down on to The Grand High Witch's balcony. But we must hurry! Any moment now that monster will be returning to her room!’

  The Mouse-Burglar

  My grandmother hustled me back into my own bedroom and out on to the balcony. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked. ‘I'm going to put you in the sock now.’

  ‘I hope I can manage this,’ I said. ‘I'm only a little mouse.’

  ‘You'll manage,’ she said. ‘Good luck, my darling.’ She popped me into the sock and started lowering me over the balcony. I crouched inside the sock and held my breath. Through the stitches I could see out quite clearly. Miles below me, the children playing on the beach were the size of beetles. The sock started swinging in the breeze. I looked up and saw my grandmother's head sticking out over the railings of the balcony above. ‘You're nearly there!’ she called out. ‘Here we go! Gently does it. You're down!’

  I felt a slight bump. ‘In you go!’ my grandmother was shouting. ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry! Search the room!’

  I jumped out of the sock and ran into The Grand High Witch's bedroom. There was the same musty smell about the place that I had noticed in the Ballroom. It was the stench of witches. It reminded me of the smell inside the men's public lavatory at our local railway-station.

  As far as I could see, the room was tidy enough. There was no sign anywhere that it was inhabited by anyone but an ordinary person. But then there wouldn't be, would there? No witch would be stupid enough to leave anything suspicious lying around for the hotel maid to see.

  Suddenly I saw a frog jumping across the carpet and disappearing under the bed. I jumped myself.

  ‘Hurry up!’ came my grandmother's voice from somewhere high up outside. ‘Grab the stuff and get out!’

  I started skittering round and trying to search the room. This wasn't so easy. I couldn't, for example, open any of the drawers. I couldn't open the doors of the big wardrobe either. I stopped skittering about. I sat in the middle of the floor and had a think. If The Grand High Witch wanted to hide something top secret, where would she put it? Certainly not in any ordinary drawer. Not in the wardrobe either. It was too obvious. I jumped up on to the bed to get a better view of the room. Hey, I thought, what about under the mattress? Very carefully, I lowered myself over the edge of the bed and wormed my way underneath the mattress. I had to push forward hard to make any headway, but I kept at it. I couldn't see a thing. I was scrabbling about under the mattress when my head suddenly bumped against something hard inside the mattress above me. I reached up and felt it with my paw. Could it be a little bottle? It was a little bottle! I could trace the shape of it through the cloth of the mattress. And right alongside it, I felt another hard lump, and another and another. The Grand High Witch must have slit open the mattress and put all the bottles inside and then sewn it all up again. I began tearing away frantically at the mattress cloth above my head with my teeth. My front teeth were extremely sharp and it didn't take me long to make a small hole. I climbed into the hole and grabbed a bottle by the neck. I pushed it down through the hole in the mattress and climbed out after it.

  Walking backwards and dragging the bottle behind me, I managed to reach the edge of the mattress. I rolled the bottle off the bed on to the carpet. It bounced but it didn't break. I jumped down off the bed. I examined the little bottle. It was identical to the one The Grand High Witch had had in the Ballroom. There was a label on this one. FORMULA 86, it said. DELAYED ACTION MOUSE-MAKER. Then it said, This bottle contains five hundred doses. Eureka! I felt tremendously pleased with myself.

  Three frogs came hopping out from under the bed. They crouched on the carpet, staring at me with large black eyes. I stared back at them. Those huge eyes were the saddest things I had ever seen. It suddenly occurred to me that
almost certainly once upon a time they had been children, those frogs, before The Grand High Witch had got hold of them. I stood there clutching the bottle and staring at the frogs. ‘Who are you?’ I asked them.

  At that exact moment, I heard a key turning in the lock of the door and the door burst open and The Grand High Witch swept into the room. The frogs jumped underneath the bed again in one quick hop. I darted after them, still clutching the bottle, and I ran back against the wall and squeezed in behind one of the bedposts. I heard feet walking on the carpet. I peeped round the bedpost. The three frogs were clustered together under the middle of the bed. Frogs cannot hide like mice. They cannot run like mice, either. All they can do, poor things, is to hop about rather clumsily.

  Suddenly The Grand High Witch's face came into view, peering under the bed. I popped my head back behind the bedpost. ‘So there you are, my little frrroggies,’ I heard her saying. ‘You can stay vhere you are until I go to bed tonight, then I shall thrrrow you out of the vindow and the seagulls can have you for supper.’

  Suddenly very loud and clear there came the sound of my grandmother's voice through the open balcony door. ‘Hurry up, my darling!’ it shouted. ‘Do hurry up! You'd better come out quickly!’

  ‘Who is calling?’ snapped The Grand High Witch. I peeped round the bedpost again and saw her walking across the carpet to the balcony door. ‘Who is this on my balcony?’ she muttered. ‘Who is it? Who dares to trrrespass on my balcony?’ She went through the door on to the balcony itself.

  ‘Vot is this knitting-vool hanging down here?’ I heard her saying.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ came my grandmother's voice. ‘I just dropped my knitting over the balcony by mistake. But it's all right. I've got hold of one end of it. I can pull it up by myself, thank you all the same.’ I marvelled at the coolness of her voice.

  ‘Who vur you talking to just now?’ snapped The Grand High Witch. ‘Who vur you telling to hurry up and come out qvickly?’