by Maeve Friel
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Keep Reading
Also by the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Jessica Diamond found out that she was a witch on her tenth birthday. She started broom-flying lessons at once with the legendary witch trainer, Miss Strega, and soon afterwards passed her Flying Test (despite a nearly catastrophic encounter with a tearaway goblin). Now she was about to begin her Spelling Lessons.
Miss Strega’s shop was founded in 991. It was an old-fashioned hardware shop, tucked in between the estate agent’s and the toy shop. If anyone peered in through the window they could see what a heap of junk it sold: There were hurricane lamps and mousetraps and flypapers dangling from hooks high above a stack of iron cooking pots; and untidy balls of string which unwound themselves and got caught up in broomsticks and bird scarers. But hardly anyone ever went inside and if they did Miss Strega shooed them away, saying she was closing up early.
When Jessica arrived after school that afternoon, she discovered the place was even messier than usual. It looked as if a tornado had just rushed through it. There were cauldrons, cobwebby crates and three-legged stools lying all over the floor. Dozens of dusty books were scattered on the counter beneath a pile of flying helmets. And Miss Strega herself seemed to have been blown into the cupboard under the stairs, for she suddenly emerged draped from head to toe in witches’ cloaks.
“What on earth has happened?” Jessica asked, dismounting from her broom and rushing to disentangle Miss Strega. “Have you been burgled?”
“Not at all, my little lamb’s lettuce!” exclaimed Miss Strega. “Perish the thought. I’m just having a good sort-out. We can revise your renaming skills at the same time.”
“My renaming skills?” Jessica frowned.
Miss Strega pushed Felicity, her fat ginger cat, off a stool and set down armfuls of cloaks. “As you now know, Jessica,” she said, tapping the side of her long nose, “I am the Official Storekeeper of the Members of Witches World Wide, the W3. My shop has to be a highly undercover secret operation so I make the shop look as uninviting as possible to ordinary people. Even so, once in a blue moon, some chump blunders in looking for garden shears or a packet of parsley seeds, so …”
“I know,” said Jessica, “you rename things so that they think they really are in a hardware shop before you chase them out. Like you put the Teenage Slugs in a drawer marked Ten-Amp plugs.”
“Exactly,” agreed Miss Strega. “There are two Spelling Programmes involved – Noquan and Sablit.”
Jessica’s eyes opened wide.
“NOQUAN stands for Not-Quite-an-Anagram. SABLIT – Sounds-a-Bit-Like-It. You’ll soon get the hang of them. Pop up on your broom and follow me.”
The back wall of the shop was covered from top to bottom in wooden drawers with brass handles and spidery handwritten labels.
“Look at that, for example,” she said, pointing at a label that read Parsley Seeds. “What do you think I really keep in that drawer?”
Jessica knitted her brow. “Is it Sablit? Pa’s Sleigh Beads. No, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Miss Strega stroked her long chin. “Try Noquan.”
Jessica allowed the letters to swim around in her mind. “Could it be a Sleepy Dress? A magic dress that makes whoever wears it fall asleep?”
“I can see you are going to be a whiz at Noquan,” Miss Strega chuckled. “What about Ten-inch Nails?”
“Oh, I remember that one from before. They’re Snails’ Antennae.”
“Grate Polish?”
“Gnat’s Spittle.”
“Slide Rules?”
“Yeuch,” said Jessica as she worked it out. “That must be Snails’ Drool.”
“Tickety-boo. Now, let’s do it the other way round. Where could you put the Dragon Spears?”
“Behind the Garden Shears?”
“Good girl. A pot of Happy Dream?”
“Nappy Cream?”
“Lungs of Skunk?”
“Sink Plungers,” Jessica grinned. “But what are they all for?”
“I was just coming to that,” said Miss Strega, “but first I’ll make us a stiff brew while you tidy away all this clutter. I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty in working out where everything goes.”
While Miss Strega stirred her brew, Jessica tidied up the shop. She was just putting the last of the Serpent Tears in the drawer labelled Secateurs when a book on the counter caught her eye.
As everybody knows, it’s very difficult not to pick up a book with a good cover. However, the book that caught Jessica’s eye did not have a good cover. In fact it did not have a cover at all. It was very grubby and spattered with multicoloured stains like a well-used cookery book. Indeed, as Jessica discovered when she riffled through the pages, Spelling Made Easy was a sort of recipe book but for very odd dishes like Astronomical Turnovers and Vanishing Cream. She flipped the pages back to the Introduction.
“Spelling is easy,” she read aloud, “but the secret of good Spelling is in the Mingling.”
“Absolutely!” said Miss Strega, giving her cauldron a resounding smack with a wooden spoon. The sudden noise gave Berkeley, Jessica’s night-in-gale mascot, a terrible shock. She had been having an afternoon nap in Jessica’s pocket but now soared up to the ceiling rafters with a warning “hu-eet, hu-eet”. Miss Strega pretended not to notice and went on. “As you say, the art of Spelling, Jessica, is in the Mingling.”
Jessica read the sentence again. “Actually, I don’t understand it at all. What exactly is Mingling?”
“As luck would have it, Jessica,” said Miss Strega as she hopped up on her high stool, “Mingling is the next topic of our Spelling Lessons.”
Chapter Two
Jessica sat cross-legged on the counter and laid her broom carefully beside her. Berkeley fluttered down from the ceiling and perched on her shoulder. Felicity jumped up on to the counter too, arched her back, stretched, circled three times and finally settled down on Jessica’s lap, purring loudly.
Miss Strega rapped her knuckles on Spelling Made Easy. “If you are all sure you’re comfortable, I’ll begin. There are several Spelling techniques that you will have to learn as part of your training but. . .”
“How many?” Jessica interrupted.
“Well, there’s Spelling With Brews and Potions; Spelling With and Without Wands and Chanting to name but three. Mingling is a basic craft when we use Spelling With Brews and Potions and that’s our lesson for today. I’ll make one of the Potions from Spelling Made Easy to show you how it works. It’s a rather old textbook, as you can see, and a bit old-fashioned, but it does include several timeless Spellings …”
“You are not at all old-fashioned, Miss Strega,” Jessica interrupted, “even though you must be very old.”
Miss Strega stroked her chin very thoughtfully. She opened the book at Starter Brews. “This is a good one,” she said and she began to read aloud: “Alphabet Soup: first rub your cauldron with a light film of oil. Throw in a handful of letters of the alphabet, a few commas and full stops. Season as required with question marks or exclamation marks and bring to the boil. Correct stirring is essential or you will end up with a soup of meaningless words with no magic properties at all.”
“But what is it for?” asked Jessica.
Miss Strega sighed loudly. “Do concentrate, Jessica. Obviously, the Alphabet
Soup Spell is used to plant a word or an idea in someone’s head.”
“What sort of idea?”
“Say, for example, that someone is doing something really irritating and you want them to stop—”
“Like what?”
“Anything irritating!” Miss Strega sounded rather snappish. “So, you grease your cauldron, like so, throw in a handful of the letters of the alphabet and—”
“Yes, but which letters?”
“Moonrays and marrowbones, Jessica! Any or all of them will do. It doesn’t matter a whit. It’s the way you Mingle that puts the right words in the person’s brain.”
“But I don’t understand what the Mingling is … and how does the person know what to think?”
Miss Strega sighed and drank a thimbleful of her own stiff brew. “Now pay attention,” she ordered. “I’m starting to Mingle.” Holding her left hand behind her back like a television cook, she extravagantly sprinkled a few exclamation marks into the cauldron. “Now take the feather of a long-eared owl …”
“Does it have to be a long-eared owl? Would a short-eared one not work?”
“ …and draw it backwards and forwards over your soup like this.” Miss Strega closed her eyes and drew the long feather rapidly over the soup. “Backwards and forwards, figures-of-eight,” she chanted, “round and about, a criss and a cross, then loop the loop.”
“Do you have to close your eyes?” Jessica asked. “How many times must you …”
Jessica’s voice trailed off into silence. All of a sudden, the words
STOP INTERRUPTING!!!
had popped up in her brain and were flashing on and off like warning lights. She covered her face with her hands and peered through her fingers.
Miss Strega was doing her best not to laugh. She had covered her chin with her hand and pressed her lips together but her shoulders were shaking up and down and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“May I try to Mingle?” Jessica asked, all polite.
“Of course, my dear.”
Jessica lightly oiled a cauldron. She threw in a handful of letters and seasoned her mixture with a single exclamation mark. She began to Mingle, doing the figures-of-eight routine, the side-to-side, the round and abouts, the crissing and crossing, then looping the loop.
Miss Strega’s shoulders stopped shaking. Her nose turned a little red and she abruptly started to inspect her finger nails. “Was I really showing off, Jess?” she said, sheepishly.
“Yes,” said Jessica, “you were.”
And they both began to cackle so long and so loudly that Berkeley rose off Jessica’s shoulder in alarm and Felicity leapt off Jessica’s lap and dashed out through the cat flap.
“By the hooting of Minerva’s owl, Jessica,” said Miss Strega when they had caught their breath, “I can’t remember the last time a witch-in-training got the better of me like that. But,” she added hastily as Jessica turned a little pink, “before you get too bigheaded, remember that you have a long way to go before you get your Spelling Certificate.”
Jessica groaned. “More tests?”
“Of course.” Miss Strega picked up the copy of Spelling Made Easy. “For your homework, I want you to learn all the Spells in Chapters One and Two. Word-perfect, please, with Mingling actions as recommended.”
Chapter Three
The following day when Jessica flew in for her next Spelling Lesson, she was surprised to see a notice in the shop window.
EVERYTHING HALF PRICE
Inside, the walls were covered in a blizzard of notices and special offers.
Unicorn Hairs, 3 for the price of 2
Stardust, Economy Pack,
Now only 4 groats
“Oh goody,” thought Jessica, “Miss Strega is having a sale. I wonder if I have enough pocket money for a new cloak.”
Jessica had made her cloak from a black plastic bin liner and it was looking very much the worse for wear. She was hunting for a new one in her size when Miss Strega appeared from her private apartment with a large cauldron of brew.
“Mmm, that smells yummy,” said Jessica. “What is it?”
“Cold Smelly Voles,” said Miss Strega setting it down on the counter. “It’s for my customers. Shoppers tend to spend more when they get free samples. I’ve made up some nibbles too.”
“You mean things like cocktail sausages and cubes of cheese?”
“That sort of thing: bewitching jambarollies, spellbinding munchies,” said Miss Strega, pouring herself a thimbleful of brew. “But especially Cold Smelly Voles. Cheers! By the way, are you looking for something?”
“Yes,” said Jessica, picking up a lovely satin cloak with a velvet trim. “I thought I might get myself a new cloak.”
“Nonsense,” said Miss Strega, putting it back on the pile. “You mustn’t worry your enchanting little head about a new cloak just yet. A bright young witch like you needs to learn how to Spell first.”
Jessica frowned. Sometimes Miss Strega sounded exactly like her mother.
The news that Miss Strega was holding a sale had spread like wildfire among the W3. Soon there were witches flying in from north, south, east and west to stock up on all the cut-price bargains. The Broom Cupboard and the Cloak Room were full to bursting with broomsticks and cloaks. As the witches shouted out their orders, Jessica whizzed around on her broom trying to guess what Miss Strega might have written on the labels.
“Three Pokes of Fever!”
“Four Lungs of Skunk!”
“Have you got any of those new Goblin Deterrents?”
Jessica was completely baffled by the Goblin Deterrents.
Meanwhile Miss Strega ladled out tumblers of Cold Smelly Voles to each newcomer. Little groups of friends sat on the three-legged stools, sipping their drinks and swapping news.
“What a marvellous pick-me-up this is, especially after a long flight,” they all agreed.
“Clearly cold and seriously smelly.”
“Yuck,” thought Jessica. Although, when she had a sip of Cold Smelly Voles she found it tasted rather deliciously of lemons and cloves. Miss Strega was brewing in Sablit.
The party – for that is what it sounded like – was in full noisy swing when, suddenly, the door was flung open and in hurried a very interesting-looking witch. In the first place, she was wearing a white cloak with red cross- trimmings and an extraordinary pair of knee-length boots with a design of flying bats. She had a stethoscope hung around her neck and a medicine bag swinging from the end of her broom.
“Dr Krank! How lovely to see you!” Miss Strega exclaimed. “What can we do for you this evening?”
“Oh my dear Miss Strega,” Dr Krank replied, “thank goodness your shop is still open. You won’t believe the hubble and bubble I’ve got myself into. My General Purpose This-will-fix-it Brew has burnt dry! When I flew in to my surgery this afternoon, what did I find but smoke pouring out of the windows, all the cats coughing and a hole the size of a dinner plate in the bottom of the first-aid cauldron. I’ll have to start a new brew from scratch.”
Miss Strega tut-tutted sympathetically. “Would you like to have Jessica, my witch-in-training, as your personal assistant? If you give her your list of ingredients, she’ll mingle it all up for you. We’ve just been learning the art of Mingling.” Miss Strega lifted her long-eared owl’s feather and began to draw it over the cauldron of Alphabet Soup which was still sitting on the counter from the previous day.
Dr Krank looked rather doubtfully at Jessica. “A witch-in-training? I don’t suppose she can Spell. Youngsters never can these days.”
“Of course she can Spell. She’ll Spell whatever you ask her.”
Jessica looked at Miss Strega in horror.
“Very well,” Dr Krank commanded. “Spell …” She hesitated for a moment.
Miss Strega continued distractedly waving her feather over the cauldron.
“I’ve got it.” Dr Krank snapped her fingers. “Spell Cheery-ade.”
“Brilliant,” thought
Jessica. That was one of her homework Spellings. It sounded good fun:
“One guffaw, two grins,
A can of laughter, giggles (two tins),
Blend with beeswax, two large packs.
Now rub the lotion behind the ear,
Your bad mood will disappear.”
“Bravo!” Miss Strega beamed with pride at her pupil and winked.
“Charming,” chorused the customers, raising their glasses of Cold Smelly Voles.
Even Dr Krank smiled as she selected one of the largest black cauldrons and blew the dust off it.
“Enchanting. A classic spell for cheering people up,” she agreed. “So, Jessica, I’d be delighted if you could help me fetch the ingredients, but I’ll do my own Mingling, thank you very much. Here is the list of ingredients for my General Purpose This-will-fix-it Brew. I’ll need a sieveful of Stardust and a dozen Milk Teeth to start with.”
While Dr Krank toiled over her cauldron, stirring round and round and roundabout, Jessica zoomed about the shop until her head was spinning, pulling out cobwebby drawers and rooting among the dusty cupboards for a Beloved Teddy Bear, Mystic Biscuits, Buttercup Dew, the Scent of Snow, a Baby’s Chuckle. She even found the Goblin Deterrent, cleverly renamed Oblong Detergents.
Dr Krank’s cauldron foamed and fizzed, bubbled and boiled, filling the shop with the most wonderful aroma. At last she laid down her feather and called for her broom and cloak.
“I think that ought to fix most of the complaints I come across in a day’s work. And now, I must fly. Jessica, will you help me load this on to my bezom.”
Wobbling a little under its weight, Jessica heaved the brimming cauldron up on to the doctor’s broomstick.
Dr Krank steadied herself for take-off, fast-forwarded through the door, and with a final wave, flew off into the night, scattering droplets of brew behind her.