Caution: Witch In Progress (2 page)

When
Gertie reached seven years of age, her mother decided it was time to teach her
a beginner’s spell.

    ‘I’m going to teach you how to give people warts,’ Ma said.

    She told Gertie that for some strange reason, mortals didn’t
like warts. If a witch was annoyed at one therefore, all she had to do was hold
a toad as close as possible to the offending person, and say a few magical
words.

    ‘The wartier the toad, the better,’ added Ma.

    Gertie listened intently, eyes glinting. This was very
important. Her first spell.

    When the little witch could easily repeat the spell, word for
word, her mother patted her on the head and said, ‘Good girl. Now, you go and
play in the weed garden.’

    Gertie knew exactly what she had to do. She crept quietly out of
the garden gate, which was edged by two huge posts bearing gargoyles staring in
both directions. Once through, and thankfully not called back, she headed for
the village slime pond to look for the wartiest toad she could possibly find.
Gertie made her choice with care, then spent the next half an hour chasing the
toad around while getting herself thoroughly wet and muddy. She finally managed
to grab the ugly toad as it had grown tired of hopping around, and gripped him
to herself.

    ‘Right, toad,’ she explained. ‘I won’t be so different when I at
least have some warts like Mummy and Gran, and I guess, almost everyone else in
the world.’

    As yet, Gertie had not had many dealings with mere mortals of
the wart-less variety.

    ‘I know it will please Mummy,’ Gertie continued, ‘so stay still
and stop wriggling, you silly toad.’

       The
toad stared at her, maybe unaccustomed to being spoken to. She stroked his
head. He pulled away a bit at first, probably not used to being stroked either.
He soon settled down and closed his eyes as if he liked it. Gertie had seen
witches use toads before. It was usually a case of grab, rub them on someone,
and then a toss back into the pond when it was all over with. Being
particularly warty, she bet this one had been taken all over the place for such
treatment, and kept quite busy. Gertie decided he liked her as he opened his
eyes again and sat waiting for what would come next.

    Gertie sat down, concentrating with all her might. With her eyes
closed she began to chant.

    ‘Wart of toad, see who I show,

    And on this person swiftly grow.’

    So saying, she gently (so not to hurt him) rubbed the toad over
her own face and hands. She then did it again, just to be sure.

    Gertie waited a while and held her breath in anticipation. She
carefully put the toad down so he could hop home, still with her eyes closed.
She then touched her chin, and nose. They felt as smooth and silky as ever.
Opening her eyes slowly, she examined her tiny pink hands, bit by bit. Not a
sign of a wart. Not even a pimple. She sighed in disappointment and dropped her
eyes to the ground. There sat the toad with a bewildered expression, looking
like he felt a great weight had been lifted off him. He was as smooth and shiny
as a green plum.

    ‘Oh no! You poor toad!’ cried Gertie, picking him up and nursing
him. ‘What have I done to you? Now you are not like your friends either!’

    The toad stared up at her and said ‘croak’.

    ‘Don’t be upset,’ Gertie continued. ‘Would you like to be MY
friend?’

    ‘Croak,’ replied the toad.

    ‘Oh Goody!’ Gertie squealed. ‘You can go everywhere with me in
my pocket. I’ll buy you nice things to eat, and we’ll be best friends because
we’re both so different.’

    ‘Croak,’ said the toad. He clearly knew when he was on to a good
thing.

    ‘I’ll call you, Wart,’ added Gertie thoughtfully, ‘because you
don’t have any.’

    It made sense to her at the time.

    Wart didn’t accompany Gertie everywhere in her pocket, of
course.

    ‘No toad, warty or otherwise, can be happy living in someone’s
pocket. They need water to swim in and oozy mud to get between their webbed
toes,’ Ma told Gertie when she returned home. Luckily, Gertie didn’t even get
into trouble for being so wet and muddy. Her mother seemed quite pleased she
had tried to cast her first spell. When Ma learned of the outcome however, she
sighed and gave an ‘I might have known’ sort of look. ‘At least you tried,’ she
said. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get it right.’

    Ma suggested the best place for Wart would be the little
stagnant pond in their back garden, near to the dandelion border.

    Gertie was afraid Wart might go away if she left him there, but
being a nice girl she decided he should be able to make up his own mind anyway.

       She
soon stopped worrying. Wart looked delighted to have a pond of his own and to
be without all those horrible warts. No one would be grabbing him for spell
casting now. It must have been a great weight off his back, in every way. He appeared
younger and more agile each time she saw him.

    Gertie came to visit him every day. ‘Wart, it’s me, Wart,’ she
called, so that he came over to have his smooth back stroked. The two soon
became firm friends. Secretly, Gertie began to feel quite pleased her first
spell hadn’t worked as expected.

    It was only when none of her attempted spells worked as they
should, that she would seriously begin to worry.

    Gertie’s next attempt at spells came quite by chance.

    ‘We’ve been invited to Grothilde’s for tea,’ Ma Grimthorpe told
her. Gertie loved to go to Grothilde’s, even though she was never quite sure if
Grothilde was speaking to her, or to her mother who was standing behind her
(and taller). Gertie tried to politely nod in all the right places, just in
case. She didn’t want to offend Grothilde because she was quite nice really,
despite her wayward eyes.

    The thing Gertie liked best about their visits were not so much
the devil cakes (which were absolutely delicious), but Grothilde’s armchair.

    ‘Will the chair be there, will it?’ Gertie asked in excitement.

    ‘Yes, dear, you know it will,’ replied Ma patiently.

    To all who entered the room, it looked like any other armchair.
It was upholstered in black, with a delicate scattering of skull patterns on
it, and four wooden clawed feet. No, it wasn’t the appearance of the chair that
made it out of the ordinary. It was what it did.

    When Grothilde had finished busying about and brought the tea
and cakes she, as always, stood wherever she happened to be at the time and
commanded in an authoritative voice ‘Chair.’

    Immediately, up the chair rose onto its four clawed feet and
scurried across to her. Grothilde began to sit even before it arrived, so sure
she was of its knack of getting there before her bottom touched down.

    Gertie loved it, and sometimes tried to make excuses for Grothilde
to have to get up a few times so she could watch her sit all over again.

    Gertie knew that Grothilde became wise to this, and rather
played up to it. That meant Grothilde had grown quite fond of her which made
Gertie happy.

‘Shame about your sweet face,’ Grothilde would say, ‘but you’ll make
a real witch one day’.

    Today, after performing her chair act three times for Gertie,
Grothilde announced with a wink of her good eye, ‘It’s about time you learned
another spell, Gertie, right, Ma?’

    ‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Gertie, clapping her hands in glee.

    ‘Right, lass,’ continued Grothilde, focusing her eye on the
girl. ‘About this chair.’

    ‘Yes?’ asked Gertie, when the older witch didn’t continue.

    ‘Well, I wouldn’t try to charm a chair yet, luv, but you could
try something else. It’s only th’animation spells.’

    ‘Thanimation?’ Gertie asked, looking puzzled.

    ‘Animation, dear,’ her mother replied quietly. ‘A spell to make
things move when they don’t really have a mind to.’

    ‘Like Gran when she takes her afternoon nap?’ asked Gertie,
clearly hoping she was getting the hang of it.

    ‘Well, not exactly,’ her mother smiled, showing her pointed
yellow teeth. ‘More like Grothilde’s chair and occasional table.’

    Grothilde had an occasional table in the true sense of the word.
The rest of the time it was a small set of steps she used to reach the top
shelf of her huge oaken book case.

    Whenever she needed something to put her cup of tea on however,
she snapped her fingers and the steps came running and rearranged themselves
next to her chair. What she did have to remember was never to snap her fingers
when she was up on the steps. If they ever decided to rearrange themselves
while she was up there she could easily lose her legs in a flash.

    ‘Or even like Mortella’s door knocker,’ Ma continued to explain.

    ‘Oh yes!’ exclaimed Gertie in glee.

    The young witch loved Mortella’s door knocker too. It was shaped
in the face of a fearsome demon, and when you knocked on the door with it, it
bellowed ‘GO AWAY, I DON’T WANT ANY.’

    Mortella had been greatly troubled by travelling salesmen in the
past, but this seemed to do the trick. The other witches knew well enough to
rap on the wooden door with their knuckles or their broomstick handles, so not
to be deafened. The door knocker was particularly for uninvited strangers.

    ‘So, I can make things walk, or talk?’ asked Gertie.

    ‘Easy, luv,’ grimaced Grothilde. ‘All you ‘ave to do is BELIEVE
it will work. Use some words if you want to, to focus the power, then point at
what you want to move. A bit of rhyming helps. I’ve never found out why. Maybe
it’s because you have to concentrate to think of a rhyme.’ She paused and
stared at Gertie.

    ‘Anyway, before you start, be SURE you want it to move, mind
you. It’s not that easy to stop some of the beggars once they get going. I once
asked a stool to move out of the way. The front door was open at the time
because I was spring cleaning by letting a good breeze blow through. The stool moved
all right. It set off, through the door, and down the path. Before I had chance
to notice because I was too busy trying to see what was going on across the
road, it was disappearing out of sight.’ She grinned.

    ‘The last I saw of it,’ she explained to anyone who wondered
where her favourite stool had gone, ‘it was vanishing hurriedly past th’end of
the street in the direction of the woods. It’s probably still walking,’ she
added as an afterthought.

    ‘I’ve not used a stool in a spell since. I’ve heard others say
they usually prove to be pretty stupid. They’re not really cut out for much
more than sitting in a corner looking wooden.’

    Even though Gertie loved being at Grothilde’s, today she
couldn’t wait to get home. Once there, she rushed to her room and looked around
in anticipation. Frowning in concentration, she tried to spot something to
experiment on. She had been advised to try something small.

    ‘Oh, what can I use?’ she asked, feeling frustrated. Nothing
sprang to mind. Gertie sighed, sitting down heavily on her bed. There was a
thump as something fell off. Leaning down, Gertie picked up her umbrella and
placed it back on the bed. She had reached it out earlier to take to
Grothilde’s, but the rain had stopped before they set out. Gertie stared
absent-mindedly at the umbrella. It was a special one, shiny black with a
wooden handle that ended in the shape of a bat’s head.

    ‘Oh!’ Gertie exclaimed, ‘I know, I’ll make you talk! You can
chat happily to me when we go for walks in the rain. You can tell me jokes and
make me laugh. Oh we’ll have such fun! You can be my friend.’

    The wooden head stared blankly at her.

Gertie
stared hard at the umbrella. ‘Right,’ she said, pondering, her finger in her
mouth. After some time, she summoned up every ounce of her concentration. She
pointed intently at the umbrella handle, and began her spell.

    ‘Come to life and be my friend,

    Talk to me, so I don’t have to pretend.’

    Well, she wasn’t used to making spells yet. This was her first
try at thinking up a rhyme herself. Nevertheless, though Gertie tried very hard
to believe, nothing happened. She concentrated even harder, and tried again.
She had no reason to wonder why it shouldn’t work, so she believed with all her
heart. This time, she felt sure she saw the bat’s little nose quiver.
Encouraged by this, Gertie tried again. She wasn’t one to give up easily.

    ‘A…a…Atishooooooooo!’ sneezed the bat’s head. ‘Gor Blimey,’ he
continued, ‘I’ve got a blinking cold. No wonder mind, being out in all
weathers. How would you like it? Being upside down with cold water pouring down
your ears? Never think of me do you? Oh no, you don’t take me out on nice sunny
days do you?’

    Gertie tried to reply, but didn’t get a chance.

    ‘No,’ the umbrella continued. ‘I only see light of day when it’s
pouring rain. What a life. Don’t interrupt,’ he added, as Gertie tried to
speak. ‘At last, I can have my say, and no one is going to stop me. I HATE
rain, do you hear me? I hate it. Why I was put on this Earth to be an umbrella
I don’t know. I must have done something really evil in a past life to deserve
this, that’s all I can say.’

    Unfortunately, it wasn’t all he could say. Because he continued.

    ‘Not only rain either. You take me out when it’s snowing too,
and blowing a gale. My ears get blooming freezing. And what do I get when we
arrive home for all my hard work? Cocoa? Hot chocolate? Kind words and a nice
warm fire? No, a blooming good shake. That’s what I get.’

    ‘I’m sorry, I never thought,’ said Gertie in a small, ashamed,
voice.

    ‘No. No one ever does. After all, I’m only a blooming umbrella.
ONLY an umbrella! But what would you do without me, eh? YOU’D get soaked. See
if you would like that. And do you hear me complain? No, you don’t. Why?
Because we umbrellas blooming well can’t, that’s why! Well, believe me, things
are going to be very different from now on. Mark my words. Hey, what are you
doing? Put me down. Hey. Where are we going?’

    Gertie had reached the wardrobe by now, and carefully stood the
umbrella in the corner.

    ‘HEY!’ the umbrella’s head exclaimed more loudly. ‘IT’S DARK IN
HERE YOU KNOW. THAT’S SOMETHING ELSE I DON’T …like.’

    The last word came out muffled, as the wardrobe door was closed
firmly. Gertie went off to tell her mother she didn’t think she would be using
the animation spell again.

    The umbrella bat continued to bemoan the fate of umbrella-kind
from the back of the wardrobe.

    Gertie and Bat did learn to get on better together. Gertie
managed to put up with some of Bat’s complaining and swearing, but she didn’t
let him get away with too much. Bat learned that a gloved hand over his mouth
shut him up entirely and got wool up his nose, so he knew not to push his luck
too far.

    Still, Gertie often got strange looks from passers-by when she
nipped out in the rain. On one such day, she was calmly walking along with a
little voice coming from the vicinity of her hand.

    ‘Oh Bat Spit! How long have we been out for? That hit me right
in the left ear. I’ve gone deaf now. No! Don’t shake me. I’ve gone all dizzy
too.’

    ‘Only trying to help,’ Gertie replied to Bat, smiling at
Griselde who was passing them at the time.

    ‘Sorry?’ asked Griselde, pausing.

    ‘Oh nothing. I’m just talking to my umbrella,’ said Gertie,
still smiling.

    ‘Oh, I see,’ replied Griselde, looking at Gertie as if she had
grown another head. ‘Always knew there was something strange about that girl,’
she muttered to herself as she hurried away.

    ‘What’s with her? Stupid, fat, doddering old DRAGON!’ Bat
commented, his voice raised, calling after Griselde.

    ‘BAT!’ exclaimed Gertie. ‘Don’t be so rude or I’ll cover your
mouth. Just you see if I don’t.’

    She looked around hurriedly to see if Griselde had heard, and
perhaps thought that Gertie herself had been the name-caller. She didn’t seem
to have.

    ‘I’ve heard enough today, Bat. Okay?’

    ‘Gor blimey, a guy can’t say anything around here,’ replied the
umbrella. ‘Touchy, aren’t we?’

    ‘BAT,’ Gertie threatened.

    ‘Okay, okay. Not another word will pass my soaked, cold, hungry,
quivering lips. OKAY!’ He exclaimed, as the glove edged closer.

    All outings with Bat ran along similar lines to this. Gertie
began to hope it didn’t rain very often.

    The one who seemed most impressed by Bat, was Fang. Fang also
lived in the village, and was a little older than Gertie. They could perhaps
have been friends, but Fang had a very superior way about him. He made it clear
he was too important to mix with the other little witches and warlocks. He said
he was destined for much better things than any of them. He often told Gertie,
one day, he would grow up to be a great warlock. Gertie believed him. You only
had to look at him to be immediately convinced. Fang spoke proudly about going
to the ‘Academy’ when he was older. Gertie didn’t want him to know she had no
idea what he was talking about, so she simply nodded. Whatever it was, it
sounded very important.

    ‘Even as a baby he had the biggest fangs we had ever seen,’ said
Fang’s mother in pride when Gertie and Ma Grimthorpe met up with them in the
street one day. ‘We had to name him after such an important feature.’

    He did have the most amazing teeth. Gertie wondered how he ever
closed his mouth, and then decided he probably didn’t.

    ‘There are so many little witches in the Vale,’ his mother
continued to brag, ‘and so few young warlocks. Fang will be so bad he’ll make
us very proud of him one day.’

    It did seem true there were far more witches than warlocks in
Vile Vale. Gertie asked Granny Grimthorpe about this later.

    ‘It’s just the way of witches,’ Gertie was told. ‘They always
have more girls than boys.’

    Gertie secretly wished she had been born a boy. At least it
would have meant there was something a bit special about her.

    Since that day, Gertie had been a little in awe of Fang. She was
especially pleased therefore when he heard Bat spluttering and complaining, and
asked to borrow him. Gertie gladly agreed.

    ‘Not a bad spell, for a witch,’ Fang admitted grudgingly. ‘Especially
one who doesn’t even look like one,’ he added, once the umbrella had been
handed over.

    It was days before Gertie managed to get Bat back. She only did
then because Fang’s mother brought it to her home muttering something about it
insulting ‘Great Uncle Gore’

    Gertie learned to her dismay that in his absence, Bat had
learned a whole new vocabulary of naughty words and insults. More than ever
now, she dreaded seeing the sky cloud over. That was the last time she loaned
Bat to anyone.

    Ma Grimthorpe was obviously impressed by the fact Gertie had got
a spell to work at all. Even though it wasn’t as she had intended. She told
Gertie she was about to teach her a simple Fire Spell.

    ‘This takes a lot of concentration,’ Ma explained to the
attentive girl. ‘But it is a very important spell. After all, how can we keep
warm and cook our food without a fire?’ she added, pointing to the great
cauldron hanging in the hearth.

    Gertie was delighted to be trusted with another spell,
especially such an important one. She gave her full attention to her mother.
Once Ma had shown Gertie what to do a few times, she doused the flames again.
She then left the proud girl in charge of relighting the fire. She made very
sure Gertie wouldn’t go anywhere near to it once lit. That would be dangerous.
Ma Grimthorpe trusted Gertie, who was a very sensible girl. She did however
leave Granny Grimthorpe to keep an eye on her, all the same.

    ‘You light the fire under the pot, Gertie,’ Ma instructed, ‘and
I’ll go to pick the toadstools and hemlock for our stew.’ Then, off she went
into the garden.

    Determined not to let her mother down, Gertie began
concentrating with all her might on the hearth. Not a flicker. She tried even
harder. Still not even a puff of smoke.

    The young apprentice witch tried looking away to give her eyes a
rest from staring under the black cauldron. She stared out through the window
at Mortella’s haystacks, then through the open door at Grothilde’s barn. All
the time, she kept the spell firmly in her mind so she couldn’t forget it.

    Focusing her attention back to the cauldron eventually, try as
she might, Gertie failed to make even one little spark. She would have been
happy with a feeble wisp of smoke. But there was nothing. At that moment, she
heard the shouts as Ma Grimthorpe rushed in, out of breath and red in the face.

    ‘Gertie, STOP!’ she shrieked.

    The shocked girl was led to the door by her gasping mother.

    ‘Oh dear. Did I do that?’ asked the bewildered little girl
innocently. She stared across at the smoke billowing from Mortella’s hay, and
the flames dancing merrily along the roof of Grothilde’s barn.

    ‘Well, it’s quite good that I made fire, isn’t it, Mummy?’
Gertie asked hopefully.

    Gertie knew her Ma couldn’t be angry with her for long. Like
everyone said, she was such a sweet child. They also said that was the problem.
Ma wanted Gertie to at least behave like a little devil sometimes. It was what
learning to be a witch was all about, she had been told. Gertie stared at her
mother with big blue eyes beginning to brim with tears.

    Ma Grimthorpe hugged the little girl to her. ‘One thing you must
always remember, dear,’ she insisted in a worried voice, ‘is never to let your
gaze wander when you are chanting spells. Oh yes, and one other thing,’ she
added as an afterthought, looking anxiously at the lines of witches hurriedly
passing buckets of water along to throw on the fires. ‘If anyone asks can you
do the Fire Spell, tell them no.’

    Gertie didn’t believe in telling lies. Even little white ones.
This time though, she saw the sense in what Ma said. The witches were having
awful trouble with Grothilde’s barn, because Grothilde herself was at the
throwing end of the line. As yet, she had failed to hit the barn once. She had
only succeeded in soaking the witches behind her, and an inquisitive seagull
flying low to get a better look.

    ‘All right, Mummy,’ Gertie agreed. ‘After all, it isn’t really a
lie, because I wasn’t able to light the fire under the cauldron.’

    Ma Grimthorpe sighed and shook her head.

    ‘Maybe it’s because she tries TOO hard,’ suggested Granny as she
sat rocking and knitting on that same night once Gertie had gone to bed. ‘The
spell only worked when she relaxed a bit. What she needs is a familiar. That’ll
help her target her spells properly.’

    Ma began to think. Many witches had what they called a
‘familiar’. To most, it was a black cat. It would go everywhere with its owner,
like a pet. Even on her broomstick!

    Grothilde’s familiar was a large black rabbit, but that was
simply by mistake. Ma remembered the tale well. Grothilde had misplaced her cat
familiar. Well, she called it misplaced. Actually, Griselde had seen the poor
cat falling off Grothilde’s broomstick in full flight, then running for cover
in the hope of hanging on to its remaining eight lives. Grothilde’s “Staying on
a Broomstick” spell wasn’t very strong, because she could only focus one eye at
a time on the subject of her magic.

    For a while, the squint-eyed witch had been without a familiar.
One day though, she was walking with her sister when she spotted a black shape
go darting past out of the corner of her good eye. Calling to her sister to put
a freeze spell on the shape, Grothilde ran after it.

    ‘Are you sure?’ her puzzled sister had asked the retreating
figure. She received no reply, so did as she was asked.

    By the time Grothilde saw the creature clearly enough to realise
it wasn’t a cat after all, but a rabbit, she didn’t dare admit it. Being
remembered for the Bat Spit spell was bad enough without going down in witch
history for mistaking a rabbit for a cat too.

    ‘Did you think it was a cat?’ Mona asked, a laugh beginning to
play on the corners of her crooked, whiskery, mouth.

    ‘A cat? Course not,’ lied Grothilde. ‘What would I want another
cat for? They can’t even stay on broomsticks.’

    Mona was about to say that everyone else’s did, but thought
better of it.

    ‘A rabbit. That’s what I want,’ continued Grothilde trying to
convince herself. ‘Clever these rabbits. You’ll see.’

    It hadn’t proved itself to be clever, but it hadn’t fallen off
her broomstick yet either.