by Lou Kuenzler
I watched in horror as the glass hit the edge of the stony path and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
Whoosh!
The moth shot into the air like a silver bullet from a gun.
“Wait!” I leapt up, trying to catch it. But I knew it was hopeless. With a last burst of shining light, the tiny speck of magic vanished in the dark sky.
It was over. I had no fast flamingo broomstick ready to jump on to now. This time, the hope moth was gone for good.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Bella Broomstick! Is that you?”
The same angry voice was shouting across the lawn. For a moment I thought it was Aunt Hemlock, it sounded so terrifying and cross. Then I realized it was Aunty Rose. Of course! The magic had faded already. Without a spell on her, she had no reason to be kind and loving to me any more.
“Bella?” she hollered again.
“I’m here,” I said, creeping out of the shadows. It was getting light. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Rascal stalking along the edge of the lawn. His tail was twitching as he sniffed the grass.
“Where have you been, young lady?” Aunty Rose was standing outside the front door with her hands on her hips.
“Come here where I can see you,” she barked.
I took another step forward into the golden light spilling out over the WELCOME mat in the open doorway.
Uncle Martin burst through the garden gate. “You found her!” he puffed, running up the path towards Aunty Rose.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I had ruined everything – not only my dreams, but theirs as well. For once, Aunt Hemlock’s magic had been something truly wonderful and good (even if she had never meant it to be). Her cunning spell might have been a trick, but the Ables really had seemed happy to have me before the hope moth was lost.
“Sorry? Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself ?”Aunty Rose stormed towards me in her fluffy pink slippers. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Sorry isn’t good enough!”
“I know,” I trembled. She must have found out about the spell. “It was wrong. I…”
“Don’t ever disappear like that again!” Aunty Rose flung her arms around my neck. “We were so worried.”
“Worried?” I said. “You … you’re not cross?”
“You vanished without telling anyone where you’d gone,” sighed Aunty Rose, hugging me so tightly that I could barely breathe.
“Typical! Just like my mum,” purred Rascal, peeping out from under a bush. “Spitting at me one minute and licking my nose the next.”
Slowly, I began to smile. Whatever Aunty Rose did, she certainly wasn’t going to lick my nose. But Rascal was right. I remembered how Mrs Cat had arched her back and hissed at her lost kitten when I first brought him home. Really she wasn’t angry so much as relieved to know he was safe.
“We’re not cross,” said Uncle Martin gently. “We were just frightened that something had happened to you.”
“Imagine how worried we were when we went into your room,” Aunty Rose explained. “I only popped my head in to check you were sleeping soundly. But then your bed was empty … and it was the middle of the night … and…”
“I even called the police,” said Uncle Martin as the sirens screeched to a stop on the road outside. “I better go and tell them it was a false alarm.”
“So … so they’re not going to arrest me?” I said. “You’re not going to send me away.”
“Arrest you?” laughed Uncle Martin.
“Of course not,” said Aunty Rose. “This is your home, Bella. You belong here.”
“But … what about the moth … the magic?” I mumbled. My legs were shaking so much they almost gave way beneath me. Nothing made any sense. Why would the Ables want to keep me now the spell was broken?
“Moth? Magic? Whatever are you talking about?” chuckled Aunty Rose. “There’s nothing magic here … just warm hearts and a welcoming home.”
“But that is magic,” I grinned. And at last I understood. The Ables wanted me to stay … and not because Aunt Hemlock had tricked them with a spell.
“You’re part of our family, Bella,” said Uncle Martin, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders.
There were so many things I wanted to say. My heart was fluttering faster than the hope moth’s wings, it was so full with happiness and love. But all I could manage was a sort of gulping sound like a frog. “Thank you!” I croaked. “I’ll be the best child you could ever hope for.”
Aunty Rose shook her head. “Just be yourself, Bella,” she said, firmly. “Warts and all.”
“Bursting blisters! Have I finally grown a wart?” I asked, confused.
“No!” laughed Uncle Martin, as I rubbed my nose.
“All I meant is that we’re going to get along fine, just the way we are,” smiled Aunty Rose.
Galloping galaxies! The Ables liked me the way I was! No magic, no warts, no tricks, no spells … just plain Bella Broomstick.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All the magic tricks were gone and the Ables still wanted me to stay at Honeysuckle Cottage. I was so happy, I could have danced around the dark garden. But Uncle Martin had finished talking to the police and Aunty Rose was looking stern again.
“There’ll be no more wandering off without telling us,” she said. “Is that clear? What were you doing out here in the middle of the night anyway?”
“Er…” My brain fizzed and popped like a potion. What could I say? I didn’t want to lie. Not after I had caused the Ables so much worry and they had been so kind … not if we really were going to be a proper family. But how could I explain? How could I tell them I had flown through the air on a magic flamingo? How would they feel if they knew they were living with a witch?
“For now,” said Uncle Martin, waving to the police as they climbed back into their car, “how about you just tell us the important bits?”
“Well that’s easy!” purred Rascal in Cat Chat as he marched into the middle of the lawn. “Start with me.”
And so I did.
“I found this kitten and he needs a home,” I said. “The family he belongs to can’t look after him any more…”
“Wait a minute!” I had barely started my story when Mr Seymour poked his long beaky nose through the railings. What did he want now? My fingers twitched on the end of my pink flamingo pen as I thought of the way that he had treated Gretel’s family – closing down their bookshop and throwing them out of their home. I wished I could wave my feathery wand and cast a spell on him right now. That would teach him a lesson.
Three Spells That Would Serve Mr Seymour Right
1: Warts on his big, nosy nose!
2: Turn him into a windmill.
3: Decorate his boring grey concrete with doodles of cute fluffy kittens wearing bow ties (and flamingoes as well).
Or perhaps I should simply turn him into a frog (and Piers too, just for fun!)
But this was the Person World and I had promised myself there would be NO MORE MAGIC! I slid the flamingo pen safely behind my ear where it couldn’t do any damage. I would just have to hope that there was some other way I could help Gretel and her family.
“Stop!” Mr Seymour was waving his arms and jumping up and down. Piers ran out of the house too, wearing his pyjamas. I was surprised he didn’t sleep in his bow tie.
“Don’t let those police officers leave before I have had a chance to speak to them,” shouted Mr Seymour.
My heart froze. Why did Mr Seymour want to speak to the Police Persons so urgently? Had Piers remembered that I had turned him into a worm? The Police would take me away from the Ables and throw me into gaol after all.
“What can we do for you this time, Mr Seymour?” said the tallest Police Person, climbing slowly back out of the car.
“Spotted any flying carpets? Or alien spaceships?” muttered the shorter one, giggling into his sleeve. “Or a witch on a broomstick perhaps?”
The icy panic in my heart was spreading to my fingertips.
“This may be a joke to you,” Mr Seymour sniffed. “But I have called the station three times already. You do not seem to be taking this seriously but I have seen a—”
“Rat!” screamed Piers, as an enormous furry brown creature ran across his yellow velvet slippers.
“Told you, Bella!” screeched Rascal, dashing after it.
There was a flash of brown fur, the swish of a tail and the wink of a black beady eye as the creature leapt through the railing and scuttled under a bush. I recognized my old grumpy wand!
“Thank you!” I whispered in my best Rat Rattle as the leaves rustled and the end of his thick pink tail disappeared.
“I don’t think it’s us you need. It’s pest control,” chuckled the tall Police Person.
Mr Seymour was hiding inside one of his empty concrete plant pots. The rat had obviously given him quite a shock. It wasn’t as good as a vanishing spell or giant green warts on the end of his nose, but at least someone had managed to teach him a lesson.
Piers was as white as a ghost too as they both shot back inside their big grey house and slammed the front door behind them.
“Dear, oh dear!” The Police Persons were giggling loudly as they climbed back into their car. Even Aunty Rose was trying not to smile.
But Uncle Martin was frowning. “Rats in the garden? I don’t like that,” he said peering under the bush where the rat had vanished. “They eat birds’ eggs you know.”
“What we need,” said Aunty Rose, winking at me, “is a cat.” So that is how the four of us – Aunty Rose, Uncle Martin, Rascal and me – stepped over the WELCOME mat together … and became the family who live at Honeysuckle Cottage.
Before we went to bed, we all sat at the kitchen table and had a warm drink.
“We’ll call this little fellow’s family first thing in the morning and tell them we have agreed he can stay here,” said Uncle Martin, patting Rascal’s head as the kitten pounced on the end of his dressing gown cord. “I think he knows better than to bother my birds again.”
“He most certainly does!” I said, wagging my finger sternly at Rascal. I should have known a big softy like Uncle Martin would be just as kind to a kitten as he was to any other waifs and strays (like little lost chicks and me!).
“I wonder what Mr Seymour was going to tell the police he saw flying over the village this time?” said Aunty Rose, sipping her warm tea.
“I don’t know,” Uncle Martin shook his head. “But it’s the strangest thing … I could swear I spotted a pink flamingo in the sky tonight!”
“A flamingo? Round here?” Aunty Rose raised her eyebrows. “Sometimes I think you must have feathers in that big bald egg-head of yours,” she giggled.
Rascal and I looked at each other but neither of us said a word (not even in Cat Chat).
“He’s only teasing you, Bella,” smiled Aunty Rose, “because he knows how much you like that pen of yours.”
“I love it!” I said, stroking the soft pink feathers which were tucked safely behind my ear. “It’s the most magical thing ever to come out of the Sellwell Department Store!”
“That’s good,” nodded Uncle Martin. “You can take the pen to school with you when you start next week.”
“School?” I gasped.
“Of course,” said Aunty Rose. “Don’t look so worried. It’s all arranged. First thing on Monday morning, we’ll go down to Merrymeet Primary and meet the head.”
“The head!” I shivered, remembering Dr Rattlebone’s bony skull bouncing across the dungeon floor at Creepy Castle.
“You’ll make lots of lovely friends,” said Aunty Rose. “And you know someone there already.”
“Really?” I said, thinking of Gretel’s smiley big sister. She looked about the same age as me.
“Piers Seymour will be in your class, for sure,” chuckled Uncle Martin.
Piers Seymour? That’s all I need.
“Slithering snakes! I’m hopeless at school,” I groaned.
But perhaps it would be better in the Person World. And I’ll always have Honeysuckle Cottage to come home to.
Thank you to the magical team at Scholastic, especially my brilliant editors Lamm and Genevieve Herr, Peter Matthews, Perrett for design, Rachel Phillipps, David Sanger and all the publicity, rights and sales teams for your wonderful work and cunning spells. Also Pat White, Claire Wilson and Lexie Hamblin at RCW. Julia Leonard and Sophie McKenzie – you really worked your magic on this one! Thank you all.
Scholastic Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2015
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2015
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2016
Text copyright © Lou Kuenzler, 2016
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eISBN 978 1407 15936 2
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