Witch Baby and Me After Dark

by Debi Gliori

  Aaaargh. Puppies? Next spring? Real puppies? No way. Not when we’ve already got two invisible magic ones. And their invisible magical mother too.

  Daisy agrees. She glares at Mum and says, ‘No wantit puppies. Want Vampie an’ Boomstek. Wantit my puppies.’

  Mum shoots me a despairing look – What planet did you say your little sister came from? – and then takes Daisy by the hand and leads her into playgroup. As they go, I hear her saying, ‘What about a dear wee pussycat then, Daze? Ahhhhh. Or a bunny rabbit? Or even a guinea pig? That would be really sweet, wouldn’t it?’

  I’m imagining how sweet WayWoof would find a bunny rabbit. Sweet? Possibly a little chewy too. Mum comes back out of playgroup, waves goodbye and heads for home. The cloakroom is filling up with my classmates, all of us able to hear Daisy’s foghorn voice loudly insisting that BOOMSTEK and VAMPIE are the names of her PUPPIES. Oh, sigh.

  ‘Ah used to have a rat,’ Shane says, hanging up his jacket and changing into his indoor shoes.

  ‘You are a rat,’ Craig says, punching him on the shoulder and then dancing backwards out of range.

  ‘We’ve still got geese,’ Annabel says, slumping down beside Vivaldi and me and bending over to untie her laces. ‘Daddy is furious. They attacked all his guests.’

  ‘And they covered everyone’s cars in goose . . . er . . . droppings,’ Jamie adds, his face breaking into a huge grin. ‘Actually, it was pretty funny. All those grown-ups in fancy dress running around flapping at the geese and trying to shoo them away.’

  ‘Ah had a frog drop onto ma face,’ Shane offers.

  ‘A frog?’ Yoshito covers her mouth as she giggles. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t a handsome prince?’

  ‘What’re you oan about?’ Shane says; then the penny drops. ‘Oh, right. Like in that fairy story? Naw. It was a frog, and ah can tell you it wisny handsome.’

  ‘What about you, Lily?’ Jamie asks. ‘How was your Halloween?’

  Er. If only you knew, I think. I’m almost tempted to tell him everything, just to watch his face change, but instead I tell him a tiny bit of the truth:

  ‘Great. Full of bats, spiders, DEMONS and spooky eyeballs. We had a fantastic time, and we came home with more chocolate than we could eat, so I brought some in to share round.’

  There’s such a loud cheer at this. I’m slightly embarrassed, so I turn round to hang up my coat. When I turn back to face my classmates, Yoshito winks at me and says, ‘I love your hat, Lily. I’m going to ask my fairy godmother to make me one too.’ Shane rolls his eyes. ‘Fairy godmother? Ask her to make me rich and famous while you’re at it.’

  Yoshito smiles as if she’s keeping a delicious secret to herself. ‘You’ll have to ask her yourself,’ she says, then she runs off into the classroom.

  As the bell rings to call us in, I think that although I like the idea of Yoshito having a fairy for a godmother, I’d far rather have a Witch Baby for a sister. You have to ask fairy godmothers for things; with Witch Babies all you have to do is wait and see what happens next.

  Ae last Hiss

  ‘She’ll wear the pool out,’ the Toad observed, sprinkling icing sugar over a chocolate raspberry meringue cake and hopping backwards to admire the result.

  The Chin looked up from her knitting and sighed. ‘You can’t wear out water,’ she snorted. ‘How long has she been in there?’

  ‘In the pool? Pffff. Three days? Four? I’ve lost count. And let’s not forget that she’d already spent a week in the bath before you finally booted her out. Honestly. What a fuss. It was only a tiny little bit of Witch Baby poo—’

  ‘A tiny little bit?’ squawked the Chin. ‘At least a ton of dinosaur doo-doo fell out of your precious little Witch Baby’s bottom. Disgusting. I’m just thankful that we don’t have to house-train our Witch Baby. How her parents can stand it I cannot imagine.’

  In the silence a cloud of bubbles drifted past the kitchen window.

  ‘Does she have to use quite so much bubble bath?’ the Chin continued. ‘Surely she must be clean by now?’

  ‘At least while she’s in the pool she’s not stealing all our food,’ the Toad muttered darkly, upending a tub of double cream over the chocolate raspberry meringue cake and adding some chopped toasted hazelnuts for added crunch.

  ‘Stealing food? How can you blame her for giving in to temptation? Do you have to make such amazing food? Chocolate meringues with cream and hazelnuts? No wonder the poor Nose can’t resist,’ the Chin said, looking at the Toad’s cake and shaking her head.—

  Crestfallen, the Toad began to carefully remove all the hazelnuts and cream with her tongue.

  ‘We’ll have to get her out of the pool,’ the Chin said. ‘She’s going to turn into a shrivelled raisin if she stays in any longer. But then she’ll just start eating us out of house and home. Perhaps you should put a lock on the fridge door?’

  ‘Or I could stop cooking such lovely meals and we could return to eating stewed nettles and boiled rats like we used to,’ suggested the Toad.

  ‘Eurggghhh,’ the Chin said, knitting faster. ‘Don’t do that. Isn’t there a spell somewhere to turn greedy chocolate-stealing witches into ones who only nibble salad?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ the Toad admitted. ‘But if it’s anything like the wart-removing spell that turned me into a toad, the Nose could well end up turning herself into a stick of celery.’

  The Chin winced. Poor Toad. Nobody was ever allowed to mention the disastrous spell that had changed her into a toad. Perhaps they should put a lock on the fridge door, or . . .

  ‘Nice hat you’re knitting,’ the Toad said, determinedly cheerful. ‘Pretty colours too.’

  The Chin nodded, adding another row of sea-green stitches to the beautiful hat she was making for Mr Harukashi’s extraordinary daughter. A few days ago, a letter on pale sea-green paper had arrived for the Chin.

  Fairy Oddmother (the letter said)

  Thank you for the shoe. Papa is very happy. We are both looking forward to seeing you again soon. In the meantime it would be very nice if you would be so kind as to knit me a hat just like Lily’s. Only in green, not red like hers.

  Thank you.

  And beneath a row of little goldfish stickers was the signature:

  ‘To read is to obey,’ the Chin mutters, her needles clicking busily.

  By the window, the Toad is wondering what to make for dinner; outside, the Nose sees the first star of the evening appear in a darkening sky. Surely she’s clean now? Her stomach gives a rumble of protest. What will the Toad have made for tea? she wonders. Time to head inside out of the cold.

  My life is in ruins. Here’s why:

  I have a baby sister called Daisy. she’s not a baby baby, she’s a witch baby.

  Only I know this (that she’s a witch baby). Everyone else thinks she’s sweet and adorable.

  Daisy’s summoned up an invisible dog called WayWoof to be her pet. People can smell WayWoof but they can’t see him – so they think the smell is me.

  But worst of all is:

  Mum and Dad have decided that we’re moving house. To the far, far North of scotland. Which means I’ll never see my friends again!

  978 0552 55676 7

  My New School by Lily MacRae (aged nine)

  I am the New Girl.

  My only friend has got Mystery spots and might be off school for weeks.

  My little sister Daisy is starting playgroup . . . in the next-door classroom.

  Nobody else knows this, but Daisy is a witch. That’s witch as in, ‘casts spells’.

  How on earth can I keep her witchiness a secret?

  978 0552 55677 4

 

 

 
lter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share