by Natasha Lowe
“We’re close,” Mabel yelled. “Keep going, Ruby.” And then the wind turned, swirling fiercely to the left, and tipping the podium upside down. Mabel watched in horror as the witches started falling from the sky, skirts blowing up like inside-out umbrellas. “Angle your broomstick and dive, Ruby,” Mabel shouted, her throat raw from screaming. “Now spread apart,” she ordered. “Swoop down underneath them.” The cobweb widened but it didn’t break, and Mabel prayed that the strands would hold. “Brace yourself,” she yelled, as the crowd of witches and dignitaries hurtled into it, trapped like a catch of giant purple fish.
Mabel’s arms burned with pain, and Ruby screamed. But neither of the girls let go. The cobweb stretched and stretched, tugging them backward and breaking the momentum of the fall. Glancing down, Mabel saw the teachers flapping about, expressions of shock on all their faces. Miss Brewer’s hair puffed out in a frizzy gray cloud. Her bloomers were showing and her mouth kept opening and closing like a salmon just pulled from the water. Lord Delacy had lost his hat, and he appeared to be sucking his thumb. Mabel couldn’t speak. She was crying so hard her glasses had misted up, and when she smiled at Ruby, it was through a blur of happy tears.
Chapter Twenty-Six
* * *
Well Done, Mabel Ratcliff
TUGGING THE NET OF WITCHES back to Ruthersfield was a slow, grueling business, but Mabel and Ruby laughed the whole way, pushed on by the adrenaline of success. As they flew over Melton Bay, they saw Miss Reed heading sedately toward them with Kittypuss.
“You’re a little late,” Miss Brewer snapped from inside the cobweb as Miss Reed hovered beside them. “Mabel saved the day.”
“So did Ruby,” Mabel called back. “I couldn’t have done it without her.”
“Such an undignified way to be rescued,” Miss Reed murmured, noting the jumble of witches. Most of their hair had come unpinned, and they resembled a net of mermaids, rather than respectable teachers.
Mabel waved at some children on the beach, who were jumping and pointing, staring up at the witches as they flew across the sky. A great sense of pride and achievement swelled in Mabel’s chest, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
Word had traveled fast, as was usually the case in Potts Bottom. A number of sobbing girls had stumbled into town with horrifying tales of what had happened. So when Mabel and Ruby finally landed outside the school, a large crowd of villagers was gathered there to greet them. Mabel rolled off her broomstick and lay on her back for a moment, listening to the crowd cheer. As she got slowly to her feet, the roar from the crowd intensified. Mrs. Tanner swept Ruby into her arms, and Nora rushed over to Mabel, wrapping her in a tight hug and kissing the top of her head.
“I came down here as soon as Daisy told me what was happening. She had just come out of the baker’s and saw the podium fly off. I was terrified you wouldn’t come back,” Nora whispered. “I was so scared I might lose you.”
“I was quite scared myself,” Mabel admitted. Every muscle in her body ached, and her palms were raw with blisters.
Miss Brewer slowly stood up, helped by Miss Seymour and Angelina Tate. The headmistress attempted to pin her hair back into place with shaking fingers. She walked over to Mabel and Ruby and lowered her head. The crowd fell silent, and after a moment Miss Brewer raised her eyes. “Mabel Ratcliff and Ruby Tanner,” she said, in a voice full of reverence. “What you did today took an unbelievable amount of courage, quick thinking, and determination. You showed the world what a true Ruthersfield girl is capable of, and I applaud you both from the bottom of my heart.” There was a great deal of cheering at this, and Miss Brewer had to hold up her hand for silence. “You displayed strength of character and true spirit, and some day, girls, I believe either one of you will make a head girl that Ruthersfield can be proud of, the sort of head girl who will be remembered for generations to come.”
Mabel stood beside Nora, too tired to speak, thinking that perhaps Mabel wasn’t such a bad name to have after all.
“I would also like to announce,” Miss Brewer continued, bestowing a smile on Mabel, “that it is time we changed our flying requirements here at Ruthersfield. From now on girls will learn to ride their broomsticks bicycle style and the use of cats will be optional.”
“Yes!” Mabel cried, hugging Ruby, who was standing beside her.
“May I ask that you reconsider?” Miss Reed interjected. “Such a practice is not for young ladies.”
“Miss Reed, after the show of heroics we have all just witnessed, I’m surprised at you. Ruthersfield is moving into the twentieth century, and I suggest that you join us there. As for you,” Miss Brewer said, turning to Winifred, who was sobbing in her father’s arms. “You are no longer welcome at this school. I am expelling you, Winifred Delacy.” A gasp rippled its way around the girls. “What you did was despicable. Stealing is not to be tolerated. But on a far more serious note, your actions today could have taken many lives. If it hadn’t been for Mabel Ratcliff’s and Ruby Tanner’s show of bravery, you would probably have ended up in Scrubs Prison.” The gasp became a crazy chattering of voices. Everyone knew that Scrubs was a high security prison for witches, and once inside, a witch was never released.
“I’m sorry,” Winifred sobbed. “I just wanted my father to be proud of me. Please let me stay.”
“There is no discussion here, Winifred. You will leave the property at once.”
Mabel couldn’t help but feel sorry for Lord Winthrop Delacy. He was looking at his daughter with such sadness and disappointment, and Mabel knew the Delacys’ lives would never be the same again.
Police Constable Lambert from the Potts Bottom force stepped forward and tipped his hat at Lord Winthrop. “Your Lordship, I must ask that your daughter hand over her wand immediately. Under Yorkshire law she is banned from practicing magic ever again.”
“But I want to be a crystal ball gazer for the queen,” Winifred sobbed.
Lord Delacy bowed his head in shame, and Mabel noticed that he had a bald spot right at the back. Without his top hat it was rather noticeable, and he kept brushing his hand across it, as if trying to conceal the patch of pink, slightly sunburned skin. Now that the competition was over, Mabel decided that she would go back to working on a hair-growing potion that not only made hair thicker and longer but could also be a cure for baldness. There was clearly a need for such a potion, and she gave an enormous yawn, wondering if mermaid hair might work well as an active ingredient. Mermaids were known for their thick, beautiful, quick-growing hair, so it seemed like a good place to start.
“Mabel?” Miss Brewer was saying, interrupting her thoughts.
“I’m sorry, Miss Brewer, could you repeat that?” Mabel said, smothering another yawn.
“I said that since you didn’t get a chance to present your invention to the committee, along with most of the other girls entering, we will reschedule the assembly for next week.”
Angelina Tate stepped over, still looking a little windswept. “I would just like to say a big thank you from the Society of Forward-Thinking Witches to both of you girls. What you did today showed creativity and genius, and it would be my great pleasure to make you honorary members of the society. Mabel Ratcliff and Ruby Tanner, you are the sort of young witches that will lead our community into the new century. That cobweb net you came up with . . .” Angelina Tate shook her head and looked over at Miss Seymour. “Genius, really genius.”
Mabel gave an embarrassed shrug. “I was just playing around with ideas,” she said. “It was an experiment. I didn’t really know what I was inventing.”
“That’s how some of our greatest new inventions are discovered,” Miss Seymour pointed out. “By accident.”
“Mabel, Ruby,” the girls started chanting. They were clapping and stamping their feet. Miss Brewer didn’t tell them to quiet down, because after such an eventful afternoon, some clapping and stamping seemed entirely appropriate.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
* * *
A Girl of the Twentieth Century!
DAISY HAD NEVER BEEN SO proud. She clucked around the kitchen like a mother hen, filling the big tin bathtub with hot water and washing Mabel clean. Afterward, Mabel put on her trousers, because she couldn’t bear the thought of getting back into petticoats and a frock, and sat down at the table to consume a large plate of ham and cucumber sandwiches, two currant buns, a slice of ginger cake, and a bowl of raspberries, picked fresh from the garden by Nora.
Lightning seemed to sense that his services weren’t going to be needed anymore, because he sat close beside Mabel’s chair, looking up at her out of big worried eyes.
“He’s nervous he might lose his supply of kippers and cream,” Mabel said, scratching Lightning behind the ears.
“Which he steals most of, I would like to point out,” Daisy added. “Good riddance to him, if you ask me.”
“Oh, Daisy, you don’t mean that.” Mabel patted Lightning’s fur, sending a cloud of black hairs into the air. “I know you would miss him dreadfully.”
“Ummph,” Daisy muttered. “Why don’t you invent an easy way to pick up pet fur? Then I might feel more warmly toward him.”
“Interesting idea,” Mabel said. “I’ll add that to my list of things to work on.”
Mabel was just finishing the last currant bun when a photographer from the Potts Bottom Gazette arrived, asking to take her picture. “Would you like to change into something smarter for the photograph?” he suggested, eyeing Mabel’s trousers with distaste. “A pretty dress, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” Mabel replied. “But could we take the picture outside?” Leading him into the garden, she stood beneath the apple tree and, clutching her broomstick, smiled proudly at the camera.
The next morning when Mabel got to school, Miss Seymour came hurrying over, waving a copy of the Gazette. And there, on the ladies home page, were two photographs, one of Mabel and one of Ruby. Underneath, in bold letters, it said, DARE TO PUSH BOUNDARIES AND FLY AGAINST THE WIND. ELEVEN-YEAR-OLDS MABEL RATCLIFF AND RUBY TANNER SHOW US HOW IT’S DONE.
“Of course they should have put you both on the front page with the real news,” Miss Seymour remarked. But she was smiling. “Not with the recipes and fashion tips.”
“I don’t mind. And at least I got to wear my trousers in the picture,” Mabel said. “I’m thinking of making Miss Brewer a pair for Christmas,” she added. “When she sees how comfortable they are, maybe she’ll change her mind and let me wear them to school.”
The headmistress had kept her word about altering broomstick-riding protocol, but she refused to let the girls wear trousers. “This is a school for young ladies,” Miss Brewer had told Mabel firmly. “You make some excellent points about safety and control, Mabel, but we will not be resorting to totally heathen ways.”
The following week, when Mabel finally demonstrated her clothes dryer in a bottle (her basket having been discovered in the rhododendron bushes by the school gardener), she won first place and the patent to put it into production. “A fun and useful invention that will make life a lot easier for a great many households,” Angelina Tate had said.
However Miss Brewer did give Mabel a firm talking to about harvesting wind, saying, “It is far more dangerous than playing with fire, Mabel Ratcliff, and you are to ask assistance before working with the elements again.”
“Yes, Miss Brewer,” Mabel replied. She handed over the remains of her wind specimens to Miss Mantel, who uncorked them in the potions room, making sure there was plenty of polar bear breath on hand to freeze the more powerful winds as they came out.
The competition judges had been most impressed by Ruby’s everlasting candle, although she couldn’t seem to get it to burn for longer than four months. It was Mabel who finally worked out that the addition of phoenix blood would keep the candle burning indefinitely.
Florence and Diana were given a wand whipping from Miss Brewer when their part in locking Mabel and Ruby in the attic came to light. They were both put on cobweb duty for a month and went around with tearstained faces, mumbling “sorry” to Mabel every time they saw her in the hallways.
As for Winifred Delacy . . . Well, her parents employed a governess who had answered their advertisement in the Ladies’ Home Journal, requesting someone who would provide a strict, firm hand for their daughter. And it was quite a surprise to Mabel the first time she saw Nanny Grimshaw marching Winifred around Potts Bottom, a look of smug satisfaction on her sour face. Whatever Winifred had done, no one deserved the torture of Nanny Grimshaw, and Mabel couldn’t help feeling rather sorry for her former classmate. She even considered slipping Winifred a little cat-calming brew to put in Nanny’s tea. Whenever the girls passed each other, Winifred would look away or pretend to examine a wildflower, but she did occasionally give a small nod to show she had heard Mabel say hello. Since she couldn’t wear her witch’s hat anymore, she had taken to wearing elaborate feather-trimmed bonnets that looked like she had a bird nesting on her head.
One warm July morning, a few weeks before the summer holidays, Nora surprised Mabel with a visit to the orphanage. Even though Mabel wished they could have brought home all the children, she was delighted when little Ann came back to live with them. Daisy made up a bed in the corner of Mabel’s room, and whenever Ann woke with bad dreams in the night, Mabel would put on a puppet show with her teddy bear and stuffed donkey, making them dance around the room. Nora added Ann’s name to the family tree, and before long none of them could remember what life had been like without her.
As the years went by, Mabel continued to push boundaries, suggesting that the school start up Ruthersfield’s first broomstick gymnastics team. She pointed out that it would provide exercise and sportsmanship for the girls, as well as coordination, balance, and confidence. Finally, in year ten, Miss Brewer agreed, and their new flying instructor (who had taken over from Miss Reed) was most enthusiastic, being a member of the SOFTW and open to new ideas.
Science became part of the Ruthersfield curriculum, and it was (to no one’s great surprise) Mabel’s favorite subject. She spent hours in the potions lab experimenting with new ideas, still trying to come up with a hair-restoring tonic, and wanting to know what would happen if you added powdered dragon scales to a basic courage potion or stirred worm wind into an invisibility spell. Some of her creations were successful and some were complete disasters. Like the time Mabel’s cauldron exploded, spewing a fast-forward spell everywhere, because she had wanted to see what would happen if you added leopard spots to the mixture. Not a good idea, Mabel discovered.
In year twelve, Ruby Tanner was made deputy head girl, and with a great deal of pride, Mabel Ratcliff accepted the position of head girl. She was, in everyone’s opinion, the best head girl Ruthersfield had ever had, expanding the good works program to include a twice yearly day out at the seaside for the orphanage children, and a weekly story-time and cake hour. Mabel would bring along a cake donated by the Potts Bottom Bakery and read to the children from one of the books in Nora’s library. Inspired by the stew pot, she also invented a magic picnic hamper for the orphanage. It was the size of a small basket and provided a full teatime spread for sixty children, complete with sandwiches, cakes, buns, and lemonade. Like the stew pot, the picnic hamper always contained a lovely element of surprise, except when fish paste sandwiches showed up, which all the children hated.
Mabel Ratcliff was one of the first Ruthersfield girls to study magical science at university. She moved to London in 1908, and over the course of her life invented many wonderful things. Mabel did finally come up with a hair-growing potion, but it took her years before she figured out that powdered snakeskin had miraculous regrowth properties and was the answer she had been looking for. Mixed with mermaid hair and rainbow dust, it made a fabulous hair-restoring cream that came in a wide variety of colors, and for Daisy’s sixty-fifth birthday Mabel presented her with a bottle. Much to Daisy’s great delight, she instantly grew a mane of thick red curls, just like Nellie Glitter
s’s!
Mabel’s greatest achievement though (and the one she was proudest of) was when she accomplished her dream of harnessing star power. It became the cleanest, most efficient form of energy available. And in 1929, Mabel Ratcliff helped design the first rocket broomstick to travel to the moon. But, however impressive these inventions were, it was always her hair potion that she was best remembered for.
Having no plans to marry, Mabel was taken quite off guard when at thirty-five years old she met and fell in love with William Sanders, a landscape artist who also pushed boundaries. He took the Ratcliff surname, giving up his own, and it was William, not Mabel, who stayed home with their only child, a baby girl they christened Magnolia. William Ratcliff made an excellent househusband, raising many eyebrows when he took little Magnolia to the park. She showed a great deal of talent for hanging upside down from trees, but not the slightest hint of magic. Mabel was a touch disappointed when it became clear that Magnolia had not inherited her magical gene, but she never gave up hoping that one of her grandchildren or great-grandchildren might someday get the gift.
As for Nora Ratcliff . . . Well, she stayed in Potts Bottom for the rest of her life, becoming head of the Rose Growers’ Association and dying in bed at the grand old age of eighty-five. Little Ann grew up to become a schoolteacher, and since both she and Mabel lived in London, they gave the cottage and most of the furniture to Daisy, who had served Nora faithfully since she was sixteen. There were a few books and possessions the girls wanted to keep, but the most important thing Mabel took with her, and eventually passed along to her own daughter, was the Ratcliff family tree.
Every once in a while on hot summer days, when a longing would swell up inside Mabel, a longing for the mother she would never know, she liked to spread out her family tree on the kitchen table, tracing the Ratcliffs right back to the thirteenth century. She always remembered what Nora had told her. If a sapling is moved to a new home, given the right care and love, it will set down fresh roots and flourish. Mabel was extremely proud of her Ratcliff heritage. But she never forgot her humble beginnings either. In fact, not long after moving to London, she purchased two large terra-cotta flowerpots, which she placed on each side of her front door. And every summer, as soon as the weather turned warm, she would fill them with Royal Duchess roses and ornamental ferns, in private memory of both her mothers.
