Bella Broomstick

by Lou Kuenzler

  To my family. You are magic!

  - LK

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Lou Kuenzler

  Copyright

  I am a hopeless witch.

  Everybody says so.

  Especially Aunt Hemlock. She woke me up at dawn this morning just to tell me how hopeless I am.

  “Belladonna Broomstick, you are the most hopeless young witch in the whole of the Magic Realm!” she said, poking me with her long fingernails as the seven warts on the end of her nose wobbled like fat green frogs.

  I don’t have any warts on my nose. Perhaps that’s why I’m such a hopeless witch?

  If I could grow just one teeny-tiny wart, I might learn to be good at magic.

  I yawned and peeped at my reflection in Aunt Hemlock’s magic mirror.

  “Aha!” cackled the mirror. “If it’s not Belladonna Broomstick. Just look at your big brown eyes and chocolate curls. Not a wart in sight. Pathetic. What a hopeless young witch!”

  “Actually, Bella, I think you’re very pretty,” whispered a spider that swung down from the roof of the cave.

  “Thank you,” I blushed, understanding every word he’d said. Speaking animal languages is the only thing I am any good at.

  “Quiet!” Aunt Hemlock grabbed the poor little spider by seven of his eight long legs and dunked him in her lumpy porridge.

  “Let him go!” I cried.

  As if by magic (which it probably was), Aunt Hemlock’s creepy chameleon, Wane, appeared on the kitchen shelf. Wane gives me the shivers. I never know what colour he is going to be or where he will appear next. He’s always spying on me and telling tales to Aunt Hemlock. Right now he was disguising himself behind a jar of frogspawn.

  “Yum! Is that spider for me, mistress?” he slurped, sticking out his long purple tongue.

  “Certainly not!” Aunt Hemlock dangled the spider above her open mouth. “This one is mine.”

  “Stop!” I begged, but Aunt Hemlock swallowed the poor thing whole. “How horrible!” I shuddered.

  “And very unfair not to share,” sulked Wane, turning piglet-pink in a huff.

  Aunt Hemlock ignored us both and picked her teeth with a chicken bone.

  “You’re looking marvellously magical today, if I may say so, mistress,” said the mirror, sucking up to her as usual.

  “At least one of us is looking magical,” sighed Aunt Hemlock. “Belladonna has her entrance exam for Creepy Castle School for Witches and Wizards today … but I don’t suppose she’ll pass. She is a hopeless witch, you know.”

  “Belladonna Broomstick is about as magical as mud,” agreed the mirror.

  I know what I’d do if I was good at magic… I’d turn that vain, goody-goody mirror into a toilet seat.

  I have never actually seen a toilet seat in real life.

  But I know what they look like because I’ve seen a picture in the Sellwell Department Store Catalogue – a wonderful, shiny book I found blowing about on the moors one day. I have no idea where it came from … perhaps the Person World? Most witches and wizards my age say there is no such place. But I keep the catalogue hidden under my bed and peep at the washing machines and fridges every night. Even if it is only a fairy tale, it can’t hurt to dream…

  “Hold on!” said Wane. “Hasn’t Belladonna already taken the exam for Creepy Castle…?” He gave a nasty little smile. I began to imagine all the things I’d like to turn him into, too.

  “Belladonna has taken the examination twice before,” sighed Aunt Hemlock.

  I knew what was coming next…

  “And she has failed it twice too!”

  “Third time lucky?” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.

  “How hilarious!” The mirror laughed so hard it nearly fell off the wall.

  “Not a hope, Belladonna!” wheezed Wane. His dry, lizardy voice sounded as if he’d swallowed a bucket of sand. “You are your parents’ daughter, after all…”

  “Don’t you dare be rude about my parents,” I said loudly in my best lizard language, so that even stupid Wane could understand me.

  Everyone says my mum and dad were no good at magic. When I was a baby, they turned themselves into white mice to make me laugh. It wasn’t a very good idea – not in the Magic Realm with so many witches’ cats about (not to mention big, greedy lizards!). All that was ever found were two pink tails…

  That’s why I live with Aunt Hemlock.

  “Mum and Dad might not have been very good at magic, but at least they were kind,” I said.

  “Kind?” Wane’s big round eyes nearly popped right out of his head. “Fat lot of good that did them!”

  “You horrible, leather-headed bully!” I picked up a wooden spoon and waved it like an ogre’s cudgel. Wane shot behind a cactus and turned prickly and green.

  “Goodie,” cackled the mirror. “A fight!”

  Aunt Hemlock stepped between us. “This exam had better be third time lucky, Belladonna Broomstick, or I’ll dip you in porridge and gobble you up like that spider.” She snatched another one off the wall and swallowed it whole, just to make her point. “If you fail this time, you won’t get another chance.”

  The exam hall at Creepy Castle was in the deepest, darkest, dampest dungeon in the whole school.

  My desk was at the very back, right next to Nightshade Newtbreath (worst luck).

  “Hee hee,” giggled Nightshade, showing off her perfectly chipped green teeth and sticking her (extremely) warty nose in the air. “I bet you won’t even be able to answer the first question, Belladonna Broomstick … or should I say, Belladonna Broomthick?”

  “Very funny!” I groaned. From the way Nightshade was laughing you’d think I’d never heard her silly Broomthick joke before. Nightshade is in my class at the Toadstool Spell Group, where witches and wizards go before we’re old enough for Creepy Castle. I have been there a long time, because I had to repeat the year – twice. Nightshade never lets me forget it.

  “Look!” she giggled, pointing at Dr Rattlebone, the ancient skeleton teacher who was overseeing the test. “You’ll be as old as him before you pass this exam.”

  “I’m not that old! Dr Rattlebone has been dead for nearly a thousand years,” I said. “I’m only just in double figures.”

  Dr Rattlebone rapped his bony fingers on the desk. “Silence, please,” he rattled. “You may turn over your parchments and begin.”

  There was a swishing sound like a hundred bat wings. I looked up at the roof of the dungeon, but the school bats were sleeping. I realized it wasn’t wings I could hear – it was the sound of a hundred parchments fluttering over ready for the exam to begin. Every other young witch and wizard in the room had done this simply by waving their wands at the page.

  I scrabbled in my bag. My wand was a horrible old thing, with a terrible temper like an angry rat. “Ouch!” I yelped as a sharp splinter jabbed me in the finger.

  I waved the wand at the page three times. (If you do anything three times in magic, there’s a chance it might work.)
Nothing happened.

  “Having a problem, Belladonna?” hissed Nightshade.

  “No!” I waved my wand again. One, two, three times…

  POOF! A great orangey-red flame shot on to the desk.

  “Help! Fire!” screamed Nightshade.

  “Belladonna has set her test paper alight.”

  It wasn’t only the paper – the big green bow in Nightshade’s hair was looking a little smoky, too.

  I leapt to my feet, knocking over my chair, as everyone else in the room gasped.

  “Spinning spiders, I didn’t mean that to happen!” I cried, trying to put out the flames with my wand. Unfortunately, that only made things worse. The burning paper spun in the air like a firework.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this in over nine hundred years of teaching,” said Dr Rattlebone, putting out the flames with his wand. “A very disappointing start, Belladonna.” He shook his skull so hard that it fell off his neck and rolled past my feet.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Nightshade leapt up to pass Dr Rattlebone back his head. “I don’t think Belladonna ought to be in the same exam room as the rest of us,” she whined. “She is far too dangerous, sir.”

  MY WORST MAGIC MISTAKES EVER

  Vanishing Spell - only my bottom half disappeared but it was missing for a whole week.

  Lizard Levitation – I dropped Wane in mid–air

  Turn Yourself Into A Toad Spell – unfortunately, I waved my wand at Aunt Hemlock by mistake.

  “Have a go at the first spell,” sighed Dr Rattlebone, balancing his skull back on his bony neck. “If you haven’t blown up the dungeon by then, I might let you carry on.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, bending over the fresh parchment that had magically appeared on my desk.

  TASK ONE: Using your wand, turn your shoelace into a worm.

  I felt a leap of hope. I’d read up on the Shoelace Hex last night. I looked down and saw the floor crawling with fat pink worms that the other students had already made.

  Swish! Swish! Swish! I waved my lumpy old wand up and down three times in a wriggly-squiggly worm movement. It was no good. My long brown shoelace was still trailing from my boot in a half-tied knot.

  I was just getting ready to try again when a scream from Nightshade made me jump.

  “Belladonna, look what you’ve done!” she wailed. Curling its way out of her shoe was a giant snake!

  “Hopeless!” groaned Dr Rattlebone. “Your wand movements were far too big, Belladonna.”

  I crouched down and hissed politely to the snake. “Welcome, friend!” He was a lot more exciting than a wiggly worm.

  “Do something!” screamed Nightshade as the slippery snake slithered around her ankle.

  Kaboom! With one wave of his spindly arm, Dr Rattlebone exploded the snake with his wand.

  “Poor thing!” I gasped (though I suppose it was only a shoelace really).

  “That does it.” Dr Rattlebone’s bony fingers grabbed my collar and he marched me towards the door. “You have failed the examination!”

  Everyone (even Nightshade) was deathly quiet now. My heart was pounding like a frog on a chopping board. “Please, sir, give me one last chance,” I begged.

  But Dr Rattlebone shook his head so hard it toppled off his neck again.

  “You have had your last chance, Belladonna Broomstick!” His skull rattled as it bounced across the floor. “You will never be a student at Creepy Castle School for Witches and Wizards!”

  “Failed?” Aunt Hemlock tore the note from Dr Rattlebone out of my hand.

  ZAP! She waved her wand and the parchment ripped into a thousand tiny pieces. ZING! The jagged shreds of paper turned into a swarm of angry wasps.

  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  No, not wasps – giant hornets! Each one had a stinger as long as a pin.

  “Blistering bugs!” I ducked under the table, sure that the stripy swarm would attack me. But they shot straight out of the cave door. I didn’t blame them. The mood Aunt Hemlock was in, she would probably turn them into a spicy hornet curry – stings and all.

  “What am I going to do with you?” she thundered as purple steam poured from her ears. “What use is a witch who cannot do the simplest magic?”

  “I could learn,” I stammered.

  “Where?” Aunt Hemlock’s green warts were wobbling like nettle jelly. “Where can you learn to be a proper witch now that you have failed to get a place at Creepy Castle?”

  “I – I don’t know,” I sighed. She had a point. Creepy Castle is the only school this side of the Magic Mountains.

  “Perhaps I could stay at home and practise my animal languages?” I said. I can already make myself understood with nearly all the common creatures in the Magic Realm.

  “Talking to animals? What’s the point in that?” snarled Aunt Hemlock. “The only thing dumb creatures are any good for is boiling up in potions and spells.”

  “Charming!” gulped Wane as he scuttled well away from the bubbling cauldron.

  “Belladonna could always volunteer at the potions laboratory,” laughed the magic mirror. “The magicians could practise on her until they get their mixtures just right.”

  “That is not a bad idea.” Aunt Hemlock’s green eyes sparkled. “Seeing as you like animals so much, Belladonna, you could be a sort of guinea pig for the laboratory.” She raised her wand.

  POOF!

  The air fizzled out of me like a popped balloon and I shrunk to the ground.

  “Eek! What am I doing down here?” I peered out from under a long fringe of shaggy orange hair. All I could think about was how much I wanted to eat a carrot … or maybe a nice fat sunflower seed and a hunk of lettuce.

  I stared up at the mirror and squeaked. Aunt Hemlock had turned me into a guinea pig!

  “Hilarious!” said Wane, laughing until he was tartan all over. “But I’ve got a better idea.”

  Aunt Hemlock sighed and waved her wand. “Let’s hear it, then.”

  PING!

  I turned back into a girl. I shook my arms and counted my fingers. Ten. I wriggled my toes. They were all there too. Phew! Fingers and toes are always getting left behind after a spell.

  Everything was back to normal … except, I still would have given anything to eat a nice juicy carrot.

  “Belladonna should get a job with the trolls in the cauldron factory,” sniggered Wane.

  “Belladonna is about as stupid as a troll!” Aunt Hemlock smiled.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” I said. It’s hard work at the factory, melting iron inside a roaring volcano. But my friend Gawpaw is a troll. He says that once the shift is over, they dance to tin flutes and cook stew in an iron pot as big as a bathtub – not that I’ve ever actually seen a bathtub except in the Sellwell Department Store Catalogue (page 73). Aunt Hemlock makes me wash in the swamp.

  “Trolls aren’t stupid,” I said. “Gawpaw knows—”

  “Enough!” Aunt Hemlock raised her hand. “No niece of mine, no matter how hopeless, is going to work amongst those smelly creatures.”

  That was pretty funny, coming from Aunt Hemlock. She stinks of rotten eggs, garlic and cheesy feet … except on wash night, when she smells of swamp mud.

  “If you cannot learn to be a proper young witch, then there is only one place for you,” said Aunt Hemlock with an evil grin.

  “No! Not…” The mirror gasped and shivered on the slimy green wall.

  “Surely you don’t mean…?” Wane peeped out at Aunt Hemlock from behind his two-toed hands. “Is that wise, mistress?”

  “Where are you going to send me?” I asked. Surely whatever she was planning couldn’t be worse than working inside a roaring volcano or being experimented on in a potions lab?

  “It’s perfect! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.” Aunt Hemlock threw back her head and laughed. “Belladonna Broomstick, I am going to send you to live in the Person World.”

  “The Person World?” I felt as if a thousand fawns were
leaping inside my tummy. “You mean, where the human beings live?”

  Nightshade Newtbreath says only babies believe in the Person World. Witches and wizards tell their children about it to scare them and make them be good – there are strange stories about the Wart Stealer, toothbrushes and the No-More-Bogey Man. But ever since I found the Sellwell Department Store Catalogue, I knew it was real!

  “The Person World will suit you perfectly,” cackled Aunt Hemlock. “There is no magic at all, and Persons are so stupid, you should fit right in. After all, Belladonna Broomstick, you are—”

  “A hopeless witch,” I beamed. For once I didn’t mind a bit. I was off to the Person World – the land of toilet seats and fluffy slippers. That was magic enough for me.

  I clung to Aunt Hemlock’s waist as we shot through the darkness on her broomstick. “Hold tight,” she barked. “We’re coming to the edge of the Magic Realm.”

  “I’m holding as tight as I can,” I gulped as my pointy witch’s hat blew away in the wind.

  “Don’t worry. You won’t be needing that again,” she laughed.

  Bam! Something cold and slimy hit me in the face. “Ouch! What was that?” I cried.

  “The Curtain of Invisibility,” hissed Aunt Hemlock. “It is drawn around the Magic Mountains to keep the witches and wizards hidden from the Person World.”

  How could something invisible hurt so much? It was like being slapped in the mouth by a big wet fish. I struggled to keep my balance, but toppled off the broom and began to tumble through the dark sky.

  Just in time, I grabbed hold of the bristles on the back of the broom. “That was a close one!” I cried as I dangled in mid-air.