by Debi Gliori
CONTENTS
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
In the time before Witch Baby
The spawning of Witch Baby
Making baby
1. Things begin to go disastrously wrong
2. The problem with Witch Baby, by Lily (a.k.a. The Slug)
3. A little bit of slug
4. Enter WayWoof
5. A bit of glitter
6. A barking rug
7. Midges stuck to my eyeballs
8. Midges drink my blood
9. The Hiss strikes back
10. Tasty tentacle treats
11. My brother, the hard-boiled egg
12. Eyes in the back of my head
13. A quick bite
14. Extra special
15. Totally barking
16. Starring WayWoof
17. In a huddle with the Hisses
Ae last Hiss
About the Author
Also by Debi Gliori
Copyright
About the Book
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 summonded up an invisible dog called WayWoof to be her pet. People can smell him but they can’t see him – so they think the smell is me.
But the 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!
A fabulous new series from the brilliant Debi Gliori, with spectacular illustrations.
Debi Gliori
Dedicated to families Great
and families Small but
especially to family Mine.
IN THE TIME BEFORE WITCH BABY
WREATHED IN CLOUDS in the coldest, wettest and most remote part of Scotland is an impossibly steep mountain called Ben Screeeiiighe. On its summit is a house so secret and hidden that nobody has even heard of it, let alone seen it. No postmen ever deliver mail to its rusting letterbox, no milkmen ever brave its crumbling doorstep and even the birds know better than to fly over its chimneys. What is this place? It is the lonely home of the Sisters of Hiss. Who are they? We know them by their other name of ‘witches’, but we know nothing.
We are, after all, only human.
We can have no idea what it must be like to be four hundred years old like the Sisters of Hiss.
We can only imagine what it must be like to live on a mountain with only the wild wind and the snow for company.
Without a map, we can only guess at which of the many mountaintops in the coldest, rainiest and most remote bit of Scotland might be the one the Sisters call home.
We are, after all, only human.
But some humans are curious. They never stop trying to find out answers to questions. They’re fascinated by hidden things. They want to find out everything there is to know about witches. They ask questions. They take photographs. They want to see the witches for themselves. Many of them have tried to find their way to where the witches live. Most of them have failed.
A few very determined humans have climbed all the way to the Sisters’ front doorstep only to slip and fall off the edge –
A far, far smaller number of determined humans have made it to the Sisters’ doorstep without slipping and falling and have even managed to open the letter box only to accidentally set off an avalanche –
Is there anybody at home,
Some, I am sorry to say, have been found by the Sisters and turned into their dinner . . . or worse.
So. Better not be too curious. Better not ask too many questions. If you ever find a map that says:
then for heaven’s sake have the sense to put the map back where you found it. Forget you saw it. Promise you’ll never go to the coldest, wet-test and most remote part of Scotland, just on the off-chance that you might stumble upon the home of the Sisters of Hiss.
THE SPAWNING OF WITCH BABY
YOU CAN’T JUST drop in to visit the Sisters of Hiss in their Highland hideaway unless you have a helicopter. This makes Ben Screeeiiighe the perfect place for the Sisters to live because they are very, very secretive and do not want any visitors, especially human ones. Human visitors drop litter all the way up the mountainside, take heaps of photographs, bang snow off their boots on the doorstep, peer through the letter box, ask endless stupid questions, demand to use the bathroom and forget to close the front door behind them when they leave.
After centuries of putting up with such bad behaviour, the Sisters have decided that humans are no good for anything except firewood. Few trees can grow on mountaintops, so firewood that generously hauls itself up the mountain and walks through your front door is terrifically useful.
Listen, over the of the wind –
‘Throw another human on the fire, there’s a dear.’
Ghastly smoke flies up the Sisters’ chimneys and is immediately whisked away in the wind.
Tonight, the full moon is playing peek-a-boo, weaving in and out of ribbons of black clouds scudding across the sky. It is, as they say, a dark and stormy night. A night for hatching plans of great wickedness.
It is the perfect night for spawning the Witch Baby.
Inside the Sisters’ home, it is every bit as gloomy as you might expect. The Sisters do not possess a vacuum cleaner. They do not realize such things have been invented. They have lived on their mountain for four hundred years, after all. Mounds of soot, layers of dust and ropes of cobwebs cover every surface of their house in a sticky veil. Shrivelled brown flowers droop from dismal vases and all is dark and dank. Even the Sisters’ lamps and lanterns seem to give out darkness instead of light. Smoke from the strangling fire puffs into the room and swirls about the ceiling.
Gathered around the fire are the Sisters of Hiss. These are three women of spectacular ugliness. One has an enormous nose like a meat-hook, another has a chin you could use to slice bread and the third is covered with so many warts she looks like a toad.1
Hanging from the walls all around the room are mirrors. Big mirrors, small ones, some with priceless golden frames, some with cheap wooden ones. Sadly, they’re all useless. Every single one of the mirrors is cracked from side to side, shattered by the Sisters’ attempts to look at their reflections.
Listen – there goes another one.
‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fair—
Oh, ugly, ugly, mirror-cracking Sisters. None of them will marry a handsome prince. Oh, ancient, ancient wrinkly Sisters.
They are too old to be mummies, too scary to be grannies, but that doesn’t stop them wanting what they cannot have.
More than anything in the whole world, the Sisters of Hiss want a little Witch Baby of their own.
They have always dreamed of having a tiny little baby to hold in their arms. A tiny little baby who wouldn’t look at them and go, A tiny little baby who would grow up to become a Daughter of Hiss. Poor Sisters. All they really want is to be loved, despite their chins, noses and warts.
At first, they filled their hidden house at the top of Ben Screeeiiighe with things they thought a baby would like; knitted hats and shawls, a pram and a high chair. Then they waited for a baby to appear.
Years passed, but no baby appeared. The shawls and hats were eaten by moths, the pram rusted and the high chair crumbled with woodworm, but no baby came to the house on the mountain. After many, many years went by, the Sisters decided to take matters into their own hands. They came up with a Plan to spawn a Witch Baby. No handsome prince would be needed, just a baby
. A human baby.
The Plan also needs a full moon, a big storm, some dark inky clouds, and the sun has to be in the sign of the Bull. The Sisters have had to wait for this to come together for years: some nights there’s a full moon but the clouds are pink and fluffy – perfect for spawning dear little bunnies, but useless for Witch Babies. Some nights there’s a moon, a storm, even some inky clouds, but the sun is in the sign of the Toad – don’t ask.
But tonight, close to midnight on the twelfth of May, the Sisters’ faces glow with delight. They are clustered around their fireplace, almost fizzing with excitement.
For tonight’s
Tonight the weather, the moon and the planets are all conspiring to create the perfect conditions for The Spawning.
* * *
1 Ooops. My mistake. She is a toad. She’s the one who had the unfortunate accident that we’re not allowed to talk about.
MAKING BABY
THE NOSE BEGINS to fan the fire with her skirts until a tiny curl of flame jumps out of the ashes in the hearth. She fans some more, her bony elbows pumping up and down and her skirt flapping like a sail. The flames grow and leap, reaching up the chimney’s throat and trying to climb up and out into the storm. A sudden down-draught swirls the ashes in the hearth and makes the Nose sneeze loudly.
All at once the fireplace fills with white smoke.
The smoke smells awful – of burned pumpkins and dragon’s underwear. Coughing and gagging, the Sisters retreat to the other side of the room, but they never take their gaze away from the fireplace. This is because in the middle of the smoke, a picture is forming. It’s a very small picture, but despite its size, the Sisters can see it’s a picture of babies. Lots of babies in little plastic cots. Is this a baby factory? An orphanage? No. It’s a hospital nursery for newborns. It is Baby Central. The Sisters’ hearts beat a little faster. If all goes according to plan, one of those babies will become their very own Witch Baby.
The Chin seizes the fireside poker and points it towards the white smoke. Amazing! The poker works like a television’s remote control. Suddenly the image of babies is clearer, bigger and much easier to see. And now, over the howl of the wind and the crackling of the fire, comes the sound of babies crying.
they go.
Poor little things. They’re frightened something awful is about to happen.
They’re probably right. It is.
The Toad hops towards the fireplace and points a webbed foot towards a baby who is sobbing louder than all the others put together. Smoke surrounds this baby in a circle that swirls and swoops and finally re-forms into an arrow, as if to say, THIS one. Choose her. Through the swirling smoke, the Toad can read a little pink card at the end of the baby’s cot. A little pink card that says:
The baby falls silent, gazing wide-eyed as the gigantic shadow of a warty toad crosses her cot. In their darkly lit room, hundreds of miles to the north, the Sisters nod in approval. Very good. Baby Daisy MacRae is not afraid of warty toads. One by one, shadows appear and fall across Baby Daisy’s cot; a gigantic hooked nose followed by a chin so sharp it cleaves the darkness in two. The baby opens her mouth and gurgles.
The Sisters inhale sharply. It has begun. A look of deep concentration crosses the baby’s face, and a loud sound comes drumming out of her nappy. The Sisters smile. This is exactly the sound they were hoping to hear. Switching from being a human to being a Hiss involves lots of magical rewiring. This causes lots of gas to form inside a baby’s tummy and that, as we all know, can be embarrassingly loud. It can also be somewhat dangerous. If there is a blockage somewhere that prevents this gas from escaping, well . . . anything could happen. The baby might explode or it could even turn purple and start shooting sparks out of its bottom. However, the coming from Daisy MacRae’s bottom is proof positive that the Witch Baby spell is working perfectly. Soon, Daisy’s blue eyes will turn green and her tiny rosebud mouth will flush with a deeper shade of pink than before, but the real changes that are taking place inside Daisy will be invisible to the naked eye.
One by one, the Sisters work through their to-do list of Witch Baby spell-checks:
a) Engage wart-mode. This is a magical tweak to Daisy’s DNA1, which will make sure that when she reaches the grand old age of forty-eight, she will sprout thousands of warts on her nose, toes and chin.
b) Activate tonsil-tweak. This is a tightening of Daisy’s vocal cords, which will make her voice slightly squeaky and quavery. While she is only a baby, or even a young child, nobody will notice, but when Daisy attains adulthood, she will begin to sound like a witch.
c) Memory overwritte. For this, the Sisters have to download twenty point seven four terabytes of alchemic RAM with full cross-platform functionality and added value hyperlink protocol.2
d) Meaningless muttering. This goes something like – gobble dee gook, bah-bah ramdass, aw minny, aw minny, tea mo tay, tea mo tay, cham-pu.
There. Done. It’s the best spell the Sisters of Hiss have ever cast. The Nose blows on the fire, the Chin fans the white smoke back up the chimney, and the Toad scrapes a spell-over symbol in the fire’s embers with a poker.
Outside, the wind howls louder, and a blizzard swirls around the mountaintops.
In the city hospital two hundred miles south, Baby Daisy MacRae shyly attempts her first spell. Slowly she floats up to the ceiling. Slowly she crosses the nursery full of babies, dips down through the door and out along the corridor. Amazingly, no one notices that there’s a brand-new baby floating across the ceiling. No one in the hospital looks up to see Baby Daisy hovering outside a door at the far end of the corridor. Slowly the door opens to reveal a shape asleep in a bed. Baby Daisy MacRae gives a tiny sigh of happiness, flies across the room, slips under the covers and curls up beside her new mummy.
As if in agreement, the wind chooses this moment to blow a gust straight down the chimney. it goes. Immediately the fire goes out and a huge puff of ash billows out of the grate. Choking and coughing, the Sisters peer into the fireplace, where a new picture is forming in the swirling dust.
Baby Daisy MacRae has turned herself into a dragon and lies in her cot, happily blowing fire-bubbles. Baby Daisy’s big sister is not a dragon and, judging by the horrified look on her face, has never seen a dragon at such close quarters before. On either side of the cot stand Daisy’s proud parents and, behind them, a scowling older boy, all unaware that they have a fire-breathing dragon in their midst. All, that is, except for Baby Daisy’s sister.
wails Baby Daisy’s sister. ‘The baby’s turned into a dragon!’
‘Lily, don’t be silly. Daisy’s just a baby.’
‘But, Muuuuuum,’ Lily insists, pulling back Daisy’s quilt to expose a pair of wings and a long, whippy tail. ‘Can’t you see?’
‘That’s quite enough, young lady,’ says Lily and Daisy’s dad. ‘Anyone can see that your little sister is a baby, not a mythical fire-breathing beast. I know it’s hard when a new baby comes along, but I’m sure you’ll grow to love your little sister . . .’
‘I didn’t,’ mutters the scowling older boy, glaring at Lily.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ mutters Lily.
‘Jack,’ warns Dad.
‘Children,’ sighs Mum.
wails Daisy. Instantly, the spell is broken and Daisy is turned back into a baby. A baby in a black babygro with a health warning written across its chest.
Back home with the Sisters of Hiss, the mood is turning ugly.
‘I thought nothing could go wrong with this spell. I thought our Witch Baby was supposed to be a secret.’ The Toad is hopping up and down in front of the fireplace, her webbed feet leaving little pockmarks in the ashes.
‘Calm down,’ the Chin says, but the Toad isn’t listening. She’s working herself into a frenzy. Her warty wattles quiver with outrage.
‘This is dreadful. Awful. Diabolical. If the Witch Baby’s sister can see that she’s a witch, then our cover is blown. This is a disaster.’
The Chin says nothing, but loo
ks longingly at the poker. You can tell she would dearly love to use it for something other than prodding the fire.
Outside, a new day is dawning. Sleet peppers the windows and the wind dies down to a dull shriek.
‘I have to agree with the Toad,’ sniffs the Nose, dabbing at her nostrils with a corner of her sleeve. ‘It does appear that we have made a dreadful Spelling Mistake.’
The Toad shudders. Spelling Mistakes are awful. This one could turn out to be the worst they’ve ever made. This one could be even worse than the Spelling Mistake which turned her into a Toad we don’t talk about.3
So. The Toad takes a deep, steadying breath and begins to explain exactly why this Spelling Mistake is such a terrible disaster.
‘That . . . that Lily will blow our cover. She’s not stupid – it won’t take her very long to work out what manner of creature her baby sister has become. Mark my words, once she’s twigged that her sister is a witch, then she’ll tell the whole world. First her parents, then her brother, then her teacher, her classmates, the postman, the milkman . . . everyone will know. Meanwhile, our Witch Baby will be casting spells all over the place, giving the impression that it’s so easy to become a witch, why, even a baby can do it. Right?’
groans the Nose. ‘By this time next year there won’t be a frog left unkissed in Scotland. Pointy hats will sell out from John o’ Groats to Jock’s Lodge.
Before we know it, there’ll be field trips to Ben Screeeiiighe to spot witches in their natural habitat. They’ll make television documentaries, films . . .’
