Jimmy, The Glue Factory and Mad Mr Viscous

by Gerrard Wllson

“If you really want to know what you should do with that wand, you must return to the Circus of Grotesques, and seek out my sisters.”

  “Your sisters?” Jimmy asked, perplexed on hearing this.

  “There were two of them!” Eric guffawed, “I knew it, so I did!”

  Tempering Eric’s enthusiasm, the old man said, “Listen, Jimmy – both of you, if you are ever to reach your true potential you must return to the Circus of Grotesques and speak with my sisters!”

  “Both of us?” Eric asked, gulping hard, remembering how scary they could be.

  “Yes, both of you,” he answered.

  Having finished her liquorice shoelace, Mrs Smith, standing up from her crate, said, “Tell them, Jeremiah; it’s time.”

  “It’s time?” the boys asked. “It’s time for what?”

  “It’s time to tell you who – what you really are,” said Mr Smith, motioning for them to return to their crates, and sit.

  By the time Mr Smith had finished explaining, telling Jimmy and Eric they were actually witches, the boys’ minds were reeling, shocked to the core by this news. Several minutes later, having digested the strangest, most unexpected thing anyone had ever told them, Jimmy and Eric were still trying to come to terms with it. “That must have been what he, Mr Viscous, meant,” said Jimmy, “when he said the other side.”

  “Yes,” Eric concurred. “The same type of thing happened to me, when the first witch said I had possibilities.”

  “Mr Smith! What does it mean?” Eric asked, all in a tizz.

  “Yes, what does it mean?” asked Jimmy. “How – why are we witches?”

  “My sisters will answer your questions, and then some,” the old man replied, “including,” he pointed to the wand, “how to use that.”

  Enviously eyeballing the wand, Eric said, “What about me? I want a wand, also!”

  Standing up from his crate, ushering the boys towards the shop door, Mr Smith said, “I think it’s about time you were away, whatever will your mothers think of you, being out so late?” Realising how late it was, Jimmy and Eric exited the shop, ready to dash home.

  “When shall be go see them, Mr Smith?” Jimmy asked the old man.

  “When the time is right, you will know,” he answered cryptically.

  “What about Horatio?” Eric asked, suddenly remembering him. “You never explained about him?”

  “All in good time,” Mr Smith answered, “now away with you.”

  With that, Jimmy and Eric ran down the street, disappearing from sight around the corner.

  Closing the shop door, Mrs Smith said, “You certainly are an old bluffer, Jeremiah, telling him that.”

  “Perhaps I am,” he replied, tapping the side of his nose, “then again, perhaps I am not.”

  That evening, Jimmy finished his dinner (it was mutton stew) so quickly his mother said, “You ate your dinner so fast anyone might think you have not eaten for week.”

  Smiling impishly, he explained, “I was awfully hungry.”

  “It’s not even your favourite,” she said. “In fact I usually have to coax you to finish it.”

  “That was before...”

  “Before?” she asked, intrigued by what he was saying, hinting at. “Before what?”

  “Before I found out I was a witch!” he told her, in all seriousness.

  Handing him the empty coal bucket, laughing at his silliness, she said, “You and your fanciful ideas. Be off with you, we have need of some coal.”

  “But I always collect it in the morning!” he griped.

  “Is it below your dignity, now that you are a witch, to collect coal at evening time?” she asked jokingly.

  “No, not at all,” he replied, accepting the battered old bucket. Donning his coat and gloves, bidding her a cheery goodbye, he exited the house, whistling ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips.’

  THE END (or is it the beginning?)