Witch Baby and Me After Dark

by Debi Gliori

  ‘Come on.’ Vivaldi has speeded up, as if she can’t wait to get this bit over and done with. ‘I bet you anything you like that Daisy’ll have got there before us.’

  There? Arkon House? The thought of poor little Daisy toddling up to that gloomy tomb of a house gives me the CREEPS. Why on earth would anyone ever choose to live in a place like that? However, it doesn’t look as if there’s anyone home tonight, because the entire house is in darkness except for one light in a downstairs window. Welcoming, NOT. We creep towards the lit window, trying not to make any noise, just in case there are burglar alarms or guard dogs or . . .

  After her brush with death, the Toad had finally managed to stop shaking and was carefully making her way back home when the white owl struck again. There was a whoosh, followed by a zipping sound as a pair of lethally sharp claws whizzed past the Toad’s head, missing her by a wart’s width.

  ‘AAAARGH!’ wailed the Toad, dodging behind a tree. ‘Leave me alone, you brute!’

  ‘Notta boot,’ the white owl said, landing on a branch and peering down at the Toad with its huge eyes. Fluffing its feathers and shaking out its wings, it said proudly, ‘Notta boot, silly fog, I’m a howl.’

  The Toad’s eyes widened. Wait a minute, she thought. I’ve heard that voice before. Her brain almost glowed with the effort as she slowly connected talking white owl with red imp, added them together and arrived at—

  ‘Witch Baby! Is that . . . can it be, I mean . . . is that you?’

  The talking white owl blinked, but remained silent.

  ‘It’s me,’ the Toad babbled. ‘Me. Your very own loving Toad. You know. I’m a witch, just like you.’

  ‘Notta wits,’ the talking white owl said, adding, ‘Silly fog. I’m a howl.’

  The Toad groaned and was just about to point out that she wasn’t a frog, she was a toad, and not just any old toad, but a Toad toad, when there came the sound of more voices.

  ‘Is that you?’ and, ‘DAISEEEEEE,’ they called, and then came the sound of footsteps. Loud thudding footsteps, heading the Toad’s way. When you’re as small as a toad, the approach of feet is rarely A Good Thing There wasn’t enough time to hide, so the Toad pressed her body up against a tree trunk and tried to make herself as SMALL as possible.

  The footsteps stopped and the Toad could hear the sound of breathing very close by. She risked a quick look. Large patches of shadow had materialized overhead. Judging by their size, they were children. Two of them. The moment they spoke, the Toad recognized them: Witch Baby’s big sister and her friend. The Blue Moon girls.*

  ‘I know she’s here. I heard her,’ said Witch Baby’s sister.

  ‘But there’s nobody here,’ said her friend. ‘Maybe you heard her voice coming from the house?’

  ‘Daisy. Stop playing silly games and come out now.’

  There came a mocking ‘HOOOO? HOOOOT?’ from the treetops; overhead, Daisy spread her wings and glided away, her moonshadow falling across the path leading to Arkon House. A second later, three silhouettes ran in pursuit of the Daisy-Owl, two girls running flat out and, some way behind, a large toad.

  * At this, the Toad was barely able to suppress a squeak of terror. Blue Moonies could see. Blue Moonies could spot a witch a mile away. If the Blue Moonies got past the front door of Arkon House and spotted the Halloween-enhanced Nose with her whippy hair, eyes of fire and sparky fingertips . . . well, then they’d know immediately that she was a witch, and that would be the end of the Sisters of Hiss’s lovely quiet life. The Blue Moonies would immediately tell their parents, their parents would tell their telephones, and before the Sisters of Hiss could throw so much as a brain-wipe or a memory-fog spell, television cameras would be rolling up their front driveway, news-hounds would camp on the lawn and the Sisters of Hiss would never have a moment’s peace ever again.

  Thirteen:

  A little bit of bat

  At first the Nose thought someone was playing a trick on her. Hair thrashing wildly, fingertips fizzing and magic fairly pouring out of her ears, she had almost flown across the hall to answer the door. To her huge disappointment, there was nobody there. Then she looked down and saw the white owl. She was just wondering why there was an owl on her doorstep when she saw the two bandaged figures racing towards her.

  ‘Daisy!’ one of them yelled, and the Nose immediately realized who the figures were. With a hiss, she slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock. In her haste to shut it, she completely failed to recognize the true identity of the owl standing on her doorstep.

  There. Now those awful Blue Moon girls could bang and knock on the door till the moon turned into green gorgonzola, but the Nose would never let them in. Never. Eeughhhh. She shuddered. Blue Moon girls were almost worse than Witch Babies That Didn’t Go According to Plan.*

  Blue Moon girls were the bane of a witch’s life. Blue Moon girls were nosy, clever, talkative, and in clusters of more than one, downright dangerous. One Blue Moon girl might say, Oooh, look, there’s a witch, but nobody would believe her. But two Blue Moon girls? They would back each other up. They would say, WE saw a witch. People would pay attention to two of the gabby little pests. Two Blue Moon girls meant trouble.

  The Nose was about to explode with bottled-up Halloween magic. It took several repetitions of the Wheesht spell* to stop her from sending a bolt of lightning after the Blue Moon girls. By the time she’d finally managed to calm down, not only was the Nose exhausted, she was also ravenous. She staggered into the kitchen, helped herself to the contents of the fridge, raided the Toad’s hidden stash of chocolate, and with a box of special foil-wrapped chocolate mints under one arm, headed for the living room, where she turned the TV on to its loudest volume and collapsed into a sofa.

  Which explained why she didn’t hear the Toad’s increasingly desperate pleas to open the door and let her back inside. Even though the Toad knew that it was really dear little Witch Baby underneath that beak and those claws, the way the white owl kept staring at her was making her feel very nervous indeed.

  ‘Let me in,’ she yelled. ‘Open the blooming door, would you?’ But every window and door appeared to have been shut, locked and bolted against her. Jumping up and down outside the living-room window, the Toad could see the Nose sprawled across the sofa, lit by the flickering glow from the TV.

  ‘HELP!’ she shrieked, sliding back down the window in between each despairing attempt to gain her Sister’s attention. ‘HELP MEEEE! LET MEEEE IN!’

  To the Toad’s fury, not only was the Nose deaf to her cries, but she appeared to be shovelling handfuls of gold foil-wrapped chocolates down her throat. The Toad’s eyes widened. Wait a minute . . . she thought. Those sweets are mine. Those sweets are from my secret stash of foil-wrapped chocolate mints.

  That was the final straw. A mist rose before the Toad’s eyes and murderous thoughts filled her mind. She turned bright flame-red and grew a metre in all directions. Turning to face the white owl, she opened her mouth and long ribbons of fire poured out.

  Daisy’s owl-eyes widened. Something had gone horribly wrong with her funny frog-toy.

  ‘GO WAY. No like it, FOG,’ she said, and with a flurry of feathers she took off, more like a rocket than an owl. Seconds later, there was a smash, a shriek and a crash as a television flew across the garden. This was promptly followed by a pitter-pattering sound as a box of foil-wrapped chocolate mints followed in the wake of the TV.

  The Toad was home.

  *

  We’re running after the Daisy-Owl, begging her to slow down. It’s all very well flying through the dark if you’ve got wings, but keeping up on foot is almost impossible.

  ‘OW yells Vivaldi, stumbling on tree roots.

  ‘OUCH!’ I shriek, falling into a ditch.

  ‘HOOO-HOOO,’ calls my little sister, fluttering up ahead.

  I have no idea why Daisy took off like a rocket from round the side of Arkon House. The big-nosed lady who answered the door and then slammed it shut in our faces l
ooked very much like the old lady with cheese in her hair who Jack and I had seen in the woods the day before. But whoever she was, she obviously didn’t feel like handing out any Halloween treats. No matter how many times we knocked on the door, she ignored us. By then, all we wanted to do was reassure ourselves that WayWoof wasn’t inside, then get as far away from Arkon House as possible. Since the front door remained firmly shut, Vivaldi and I decided to sniff our way round the outside of the house trying to catch a whiff of WayWoof.

  As Vivaldi said, ‘We have to think like a dog in order to have any chance of finding her,’ and to prove her point, my mad friend got down on all fours and pretended to scratch behind her ear with one leg. I let my tongue loll out of the side of my mouth and rolled on my back with all four paws – I mean, my arms and legs – in the air. But fun as this was, it wasn’t really helping with finding WayWoof. We sniffed harder, but we couldn’t detect so much as an atom of Pong de Pooch. We tried by the bins (eughhh), the drains (PoOoO), and even started digging in a flowerbed like WayWoof would.* Try as we might to take ourselves seriously, we kept on bursting into nervous giggles.

  Sniff, sniff, snorrrrrrt.

  ‘Why don’t mummies take holidays?’ Vivaldi whispered.

  I had no idea, so I kept on sniffing.

  ‘Because . . .’ Vivaldi could barely get the words out, she was so giggly. ‘Because they’re afraid to relax and unwind!’ She collapsed in a heap in the flowerbed at the same time as Daisy took off like an express train.

  And now we’re running madly through the woods, bounding pell-mell downhill. We’re following Daisy, who is flying like an expert considering what a beginner owl she is. She swoops and glides over the treetops, hooting with delight, effortlessly riding the wind. By comparison, Vivaldi and I are stumbling around like a pair of hippos and panting like steam engines as we try to catch up with my little sister.

  ‘Waaaaait up,’ Vivaldi yells. ‘We can’t keep up with youuuuuu . . .’ But her voice is swept away by the wind and Daisy flies on, giving no sign of having heard. Poor Vivaldi – she’s an amateur when it comes to dealing with Witch Babies, whereas I’ve been on the receiving end of Daisy’s particular kind of baby magic for a year and a half. I’m pretty sure I know how to get my sister to pay attention.

  ‘OI, SQUIRT!’ I bawl, hands on either side of my mouth to make myself into LILY THE HUMAN FOGHORN.* ‘WE’VE GOT ALL THE Halloween SWEETS, NOT YOU-HOOO.’ I’m one hundred per cent certain that the owl’s wing beats have slowed down, but she hasn’t turned round yet, the baggage. Hmmmm. Time to pile on the pressure. ‘OOOH, MY, THESE ARE GOING TO BE SOOOOO GOOD. I’M UNWRAPPING A CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE RIGHT NOWWWAAARGH.’ And suddenly I’ve got a face full of outraged owl.

  See? Daisy may be a Witch Baby, but she’ll always be the Squirt to me.

  To fortify ourselves before we head for Yoshito’s, we each eat one of Annabel’s chocolate champagne truffles. They’re amazing. Unfortunately Daisy dribbles some of hers down her front, so her feathers turn a revolting shade of brown, despite my efforts to wipe them clean with a handful of leaves.

  ‘Toppit, Lil.’ Daisy pushes me away with her beak.

  ‘Um . . . Daze,’ I begin. ‘What about changing into something else before we get to Yoshito’s?’

  Daisy ignores me and turns her attention to grooming under her wings.

  ‘Uhhh, how about something a wee bit less realistic?’ I’m worried that Yoshito or her dad will be so impressed by Daisy’s costume that, just like Vivaldi’s mum, they’ll try to work out how it’s made. ‘What about changing into a WITCH?’

  ‘No wantit wits,’ Daisy says with such scorn that I blush. How stupid am I? Daisy is a witch. She doesn’t have to dress like one to prove it.

  Vivaldi comes to my rescue. ‘Or . . . um . . . how about a vampire? Or, I know – what about a werewolf?’

  Oh, no. OH, NO. Oh, for heaven’s sake. Vivaldi’s hands fly up to her mouth as if to try and stifle what she just said; to cram it back down her throat again before Daisy can hear. But it’s too late.

  ‘WAYYYYYYYYYYYYWOOoOOOoOooOo – wanta my WAYWOOo – hic WAY – hic WOoOoo.’

  Oh, dear. Daisy calms down eventually, but it takes the remaining three chocolate champagne truffles to finally stop her tears. By the time she’s smeared truffle-dribble down her front, across her feathers and all round her beak, you can’t tell what she is supposed to be. Then, just as we arrive at Yoshito’s round house, Daisy finally decides it’s time to change into something different. Gone are the chocolate feathers, and in their place is an exceedingly hairy version of that old Halloween favourite, the VAMPIRE. At least, I think that’s what she is – except from where I’m standing I can see that her feet are hovering a few inches above Yoshito’s doorstep, which means . . . she’s probably a bat, not a vampire after all.

  Which is fine, just as long as she doesn’t start to fly—

  ‘Lily! Vivaldi! Oh, and little Daisy too – come in, come in.’ The door opens and there is a dragon welcoming us into the house.

  ‘Not a dragon, Lily,’ Yoshito whispers, closing the door behind us. ‘I’m a koi carp.’

  Whatever she is, she looks incredible. She glows and glitters, with diamonds of light sparkling off thousands of spangles and sequins sewn the length of her costume. Her headdress is covered in tiny mirrors, so when I look at her I can only see her eyes surrounded by millions of tiny chopped-up reflections of myself. Oh, dear. I’d forgotten that I am Lily, the maggot. This has got to be the worst thing I’ve ever worn at Halloween. Now that I’m inside Yoshito’s house I can see that my costume is already falling apart. My pink bandages are coming undone and leaving shreds of pink thread everywhere I walk. Mind you, Vivaldi is unravelling too and she looks great. Perhaps it’s not such a disaster after all. After two or three thousand years, even the best-dressed mummies would be beginning to look a little the worse for wear.

  Yoshito waves a hand at a spiral staircase in the middle of her hall. ‘Papa and I are upstairs. Do you like our lanterns?’

  Wow. What an amazing house. There are enormous paper lanterns shining all the way up the stairs. They’re hanging on the thinnest threads so that they look as if they’re floating in space. Guided by Yoshito, we begin to climb, and to my amusement I notice that Daisy is so overawed by this house that she’s not floating or flapping like a bat any more. She’s hopping upstairs, thank heavens.

  The stairs wind up in a seemingly never-ending spiral of glass steps. It makes me feel dizzy being able to see all the way down through them to the hall below. From somewhere up above we can hear the murmur of voices and the faint sound of music.

  ‘Have you had other guisers visiting tonight?’ Vivaldi asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Yoshito says. ‘Papa has a friend round who is disguising as a witch.’ She drops her voice to a whisper and adds, ‘Her disguising isn’t very good. Nothing like as brilliant as you and Vivaldi.’

  ‘Me too. Lookit me,’ Daisy says, determined not to be upstaged by a pair of mere mummies, especially when one of them is wrapped in unravelling pink strips and looks like a shredded worm.

  Yoshito smiles, but doesn’t say anything. Daisy frowns. Obviously she was hoping for more, so she flaps her wings to encourage Yoshito to say something in praise of her vampire-or-possibly-bat disguise.

  Ah. She’s definitely a bat. How do I know this? Oh, sigh. Daisy has flipped herself upside down and is dangling from the ceiling above the stairs, yelling, ‘LOOKIT meeeeeee, WHEEEEEEE, lookit me.’

  Oh, dear. Can we go now? Before she does something worse – like raining bat-poo down on our heads or turning into a VAMPIRE bat and biting someone? How on earth am I supposed to explain this to Yoshito? As if my costume wasn’t embarrassing enough, now Daisy is behaving like a complete witch. I turn to Yoshito to try to make some excuse, and all my words dry up and wither in my mouth.

  Oh, NO.

  I look at Vivaldi.

  Oh, triple NO with knobs on.

  Oh, AA
AAARGH.

  Oh, Daisy, what have you done?

  * Just before Daisy was born, the Sisters of Hiss had cooked up a brilliant plan to turn a human baby into a Witch Baby. Their plan involved magic, full moons, warts, tonsils, memory and a great deal of meaningless muttering. They’d even found the perfect baby girl for turning into a Witch Baby: the newborn Daisy MacRae, who, all unknowing, lay gurgling happily in an Edinburgh maternity hospital while the Sisters of Hiss put their plan into action. However, at some point during the meaningless-muttering part of the spell, one or two – or perhaps all three – Sisters made a small, but ultimately disastrous Spelling Mistake. And as any witch can tell you, once made, a Spelling Mistake cannot be undone. Hence Daisy, the Witch Baby Who Does Exactly As She Pleases.

  * Wheesht is Old Caledonian for shutte uppe. Here’s the spell to stop uncontrollable eruptions of magic:

  Tether, truss, lash and bind,

  Keep your Magick tightly twined,

  Padlock, latch, bolt and chain,

  Keep your spells locked in your brain.

  * While this didn’t help us find WayWoof, our dig through the flowerbed turned up six foil-wrapped chocolate mint coins. Being noble mummies, Vivaldi and I didn’t eat these, but added them to the Halloween loot.

  * Mum passed this ability on to me in her genes. We MacRae women have lungs like . . . well, like bagpipes actually. If we wanted to, we could shatter windows in buildings a mile away with just one shriek.