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
The sky was black with witches on brooms, all flying in the same direction as Jessica. They turned left when she turned left. They turned right when she turned right. When she began to descend to the High Street, the broom riders started to descend too.
“Are they following me?” Jessica wondered. “Or are they just going shopping in Miss Strega’s?”
Miss Strega’s hardware shop, where Jessica was doing her witch training lessons, was the most popular witches’ shop in the whole world. It always had the most up-to-date Brewing ingredients, Spell Books, Charms and brooms, but it was still unusual to see so many customers arriving all at once.
Of course, Jessica was the only one who saw the witches and their brooms. Ordinary People never noticed Miss Strega’s customers flying hither and thither. They didn’t even see the old hardware shop, for it was a secret “In Between” place, protected by a “For Witches’ Eyes Only” Spell. Miss Strega didn’t want nosy parkers snooping around, making trouble for Witches World Wide.
As Jessica came nearer the shop, she saw that there was a long queue outside the door, so she flew on to the roof, climbed through the dormer window, Zoomed through the attic trapdoor and landed with a thump on the shop counter.
Miss Strega peered over her glasses.
“I expect you have a reason for coming in through the roof, Jessica?”
“I was avoiding the crowds, Miss Strega. There are hundreds of witches outside.”
Miss Strega clapped her hands. “Tickety-boo. I’m offering free potion this evening so I hoped lots of customers would turn up.”
“You’re having a free potion evening? What about my class?”
“Doing the Witch Switch? Yes, we will have a class later. But I thought it might be interesting to have some old friends drop in first” – she gave a little giggle – “for a change.”
“Doing the Witch Switch? What’s that?”
Miss Strega cupped her long chin in her hand as if she were considering Jessica’s question carefully. “It’s a bit like shape changing, I suppose, but more extreme.”
Jessica groaned. She had never been any good at changing the shapes of things, with or without a wand. Once she had sort-of-accidentally transformed Miss Strega into a wasp, but then Miss Strega had got her own back and turned Jessica into a large pumpkin. It was scary being a pumpkin, thinking that someone might come along and carve you up for a Halloween lantern or turn you into a pie.
“Is that a good idea, Miss Strega?” she asked. “I’m quite happy with the shape I am. And I’d rather not have people eating bits of me when I’m not myself. Remember Felicity?”
Felicity, Miss Strega’s cat, had once turned into a ginger cat-shaped biscuit. She had been snoozing on a Spell Book and a Transformation Spell had slipped into her dreams. Unfortunately, before she was changed back into a cat, both Miss Strega and Berkeley, Jessica’s nightingale mascot, had nibbled little bits of her. Poor Felicity still looked a bit ragged around the ears.
“Fiddlesticks!” Miss Strega snorted. “The Witch Switch is something all witches do: it’s as traditional as Brewing or Flying – it’s useful in emergencies, it’s handy if you’re on a spying mission and it can be good fun. Now, open the door, poppet.”
As soon as Jessica turned the Closed notice on the door to Open, witches and hags of every shape and size began to elbow their way in.
“Four packets of troll squeals,” one shouted. “Two pokes of rompedenti biscuits.”
“I want one of those dragons’ teeth that you can plant to grow your own hero.”
Jessica was just about to whizz off to the ingredient drawers when she felt a sharp tug on the back of her cape.
“I think you’ll find I’m first in line, young lady,” snarled a very pushy hag. “I would like a large tub of gnats’ spittle and a carton of dry goats’ poo.”
“No!” screeched another. “I was definitely in front of you.”
“No way,” howled another. “I got here first!”
Fortunately, at that very moment, Miss Strega began to pass around glasses of colourful potions.
“Drinks, anyone?” she asked sweetly. “Mint Royale? Or would you prefer White Gold?”
After that, no one seemed to care about their turn in the queue any more. Jessica suspected that Miss Strega had been up to her old tricks, adding a spell to her potions so that all the witches wanted to do was spend, spend, spend and cackle, cackle, cackle. Even Berkeley, who was awfully shy about singing in public, had fallen under a spell. She perched prettily on the handle of the Brewing cauldron and bewitched the customers with her lovely silvery songs.
Jessica, as the witch-in-training, was left to do all the hard work. She fetched ingredients, filled bottles with Walpurga’s magic well water, parcelled up new capes and helped load cauldrons full of shopping on to the backs of brooms.
More and more customers arrived. They stood around, yakking and drinking and cackling their heads off at Miss Strega’s old jokes.
The noise was so deafening that Jessica didn’t hear the door click.
She was on her knees behind the counter, searching for a Cover of Darkness blanket, when she realised that the shop had gone very, very quiet.
She stood up slowly and peered over the counter.
All the witches had disappeared. There was not a single hag trying on a cape or enjoying a natter with Miss Strega.
On the other hand, an awful lot of cats had appeared from nowhere. They padded across the floor and sprawled on the windowsills. Several were lying on the counter. One or two were even attempting to climb into the drawers. And where three witches had been sitting gossiping around the Brewing cauldron, there were three life-size garden gnomes that definitely had not been there before.
“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed an unfamiliar voice. “What a lot of cats.”
Jessica whirled around. There was an Ordinary Person standing in the doorway!
Chapter Two
Jessica rushed out from behind the counter. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, for her mouth had gone completely dry, “we are closed. Miss Strega has already left.”
At the same time she was thinking, blithering batwings, what if some witch flies in on her broomstick while this Ordinary Person is here?
“Tell me,” said the Ordinary Person, fixing Jessica with a steely stare, “exactly how many cats do you have?”
Jessica said nothing, but she began to shoo the cats towards the cat flap with the end of her broom.
Miss Strega, help! she prayed.
The problem was that the cats just wouldn’t leave. They mewed and howled, scratched and hissed. Some of them arched their backs and refused to budge. Others tried to trip Jessica up by doing figures of eight around her legs. Another big fat black one bolted from behind the counter and upset a teetering pile of cauldrons.
“Oops! That pot missed me by the pompom of my hood,” one of the garden gnomes whispered. “I feel quite faint.”
Jessica was flabbergasted. “So that’s it! You’ve all changed into cats and gnomes and left me all alone. It’s not fair!”
The Ordinary Person began to walk around. She looked at the jumble of cobwebby mole traps and hurricane lamps in the window. She pursed her lips at the black cauldrons and rai
sed an eyebrow at the heap of broomsticks that the witches had left beside the door.
“They’re for brushing up fallen leaves,” Jessica muttered as she trailed after her.
The Ordinary Person wasn’t listening. She was staring at the three curious garden gnomes whose eyes seemed to follow her as she walked around the room.
“I’ve never noticed this shop before,” she remarked in a very frosty voice, “and that is odd because I work next door in the toy shop.”
“Really?” Jessica squeaked.
The Ordinary Person wrinkled her nose. She began to count all the cats: on the counter, stretched out on the shelves, asleep in the cauldrons and peeping out of drawers.
“It’s all a bit odd, isn’t it? Not to mention smelly.” Jessica’s face and ears turned scarlet.
Get out, she thought. Go away and leave us alone!
But now the Ordinary Person marched to the drawers at the back of the shop and scrunched her eyes up at their spidery handwritten labels.
“Well, since I’m here I’ll have a flea collar, just in case one of these flea-bitten old strays bumps into my little moggie.”
“Sorry, we don’t sell them.”
“Nonsense! There’s a drawer here marked Flea Collars. I’ll get one myself.”
The Ordinary Person went to pull open a drawer that Jessica knew contained a bloodcurdling collection of freaky hollers: WHOOOO! WAAAARGH!
There was no time to lose.
She stomped across the shop, whacking the floor with her broom: left, right, left, right.
“Don’t open that! It’s empty. We have no flea collars for sale. None at all. Goodbye.”
And she practically swept the Ordinary Person out on to the street and banged the door shut.
“Blithering batwings and warty warlocks!”
Behind her, all the stray cats began clambering out of drawers, hopping off the counter and carefully picking their way over the spilled pile of cauldrons.
Suddenly, before you could say moonbeams and marrowbones, the racket started again. Witches cackled. Glasses clinked. Berkeley trilled. And there were all the witches standing around, leaning on their brooms, trying on capes, leafing through Spell Books and sipping fresh glasses of Midnight Magic.
“Thank you, ladies, for such speedy Switching,” said Miss Strega.
“It’s years since an Ordinary Person barged in like that.”
Jessica rounded on her. “Why did you leave me all alone? We could have been found out!”
“Great honking goose feathers!” Miss Strega snorted. “Calm down, of course we couldn’t have been found out. Ordinary People don’t see witches. And, anyway, here in the shop we’re In Between.”
“Well, that Ordinary Person saw me. She managed to get In Between. She was definitely suspicious of all the cauldrons and broomsticks and cats. And she spotted the gnomes’ eyes following her. What if she had opened that drawer full of freaky hollers?”
“Don’t worry your enchanting little head about her, Jessica. She won’t be back. You saw for yourself how put off she was by all the cats.” She turned to the witches who had switched to gnomes. “By the way, ladies, thank you for not screaming when that cauldron went flying.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Strega,” they chorused. “You can always rely on us to keep the Witch Switch Promise.” “What about me?” exclaimed Jessica. “I didn’t know how to turn myself into a cat or a gnome!”
“There, there,” Miss Strega replied, soothingly. “You just need some practice. I told you I was having some friends in for a change – I thought you’d be amused if we all suddenly made a switch. Then the Ordinary Person turned up. That was a lucky coincidence!”
“Very lucky,” sniffed Jessica.
One by one, the last of Miss Strega’s customers gathered up their packages and loaded up their brooms. They chattered and hugged, promised to meet for Muncheon and then Zoomed off through the trapdoor to the rooftop. The last one had just departed when once again the door latch clicked.
“Hello,” said a second Ordinary Person, poking her head around the door. “Those black pots you have in the window – they’d be perfect for planting petunias on my patio – how much are they?”
“I don’t know,” Jessica stammered. Miss Strega had vanished again. “I think they’re about ten maravedis. Or maybe ten groats …”
The Second Ordinary Person frowned. “Maravedis? Groats?”
Jessica smiled weakly. Please just go away, she was thinking.
But the Second Ordinary Person had caught sight of the ingredient drawers at the back wall and strode bossily towards them. The labels swam around.
“Does that say Frog Spawn?” She squinted at the drawers. “And does that one say Teenage Slugs?”
“Frying pans,” said Jessica, quickly. “Ten-amp plugs. Miss Strega’s handwriting is terrible.”
The Second Ordinary Person looked Jessica up and down, from the top of her aerodynamic flying helmet to the hem of her black witch’s cape.
“Are you in fancy dress?”
Jessica shook her head. Then she nodded fiercely. “Yes, yes, I am.”
“I’ll give you ten pounds for this pot,” said the Second Ordinary Person at last. “If it’s more, you can pop in and see me next door at the estate agent’s.”
She scooped up one of the witch’s cauldrons, slapped a note on the counter and went off, muttering, “Maravedis! Groats! Fancy dress at this time of year? Ridiculous.”
Jessica rushed to the door, turned the Open sign to Closed and drew the curtains. Then she marched crossly back to Miss Strega’s high stool, where a tiny brown moth was resting.
“Miss Strega, I presume?” she said. “We need to talk.” “Absolutely, my little lamb’s lettuce,” said the moth, stretching her wings. “Just give me a moment to change.”
Chapter Three
When Miss Strega was herself again, Jessica explained that she was worried.
“I think that the For Witches’ Eyes Only Spell is wearing off. Ordinary People are slipping through some sort of a hole that lets them see the shop In Between.”
Miss Strega cupped her long chin in her hand. “It is unusual to have two unwelcome visitors on one day but, on the other hand, Ordinary People are silly billies. They don’t believe in magic so they don’t always see what’s in front of their noses.”
“Well, I was an Ordinary Person until my birthday so I remember what they’re like. Ordinary People don’t understand witches. If they realise that you are running a witchy shop right here on the High Street, they’ll come and throw eggs and boo and shout and blame you for bad things you didn’t do. They’ll close the shop down. They might even lock you up in one of their jails.”
“But that is where Switching comes in, Jess. At the first sign of people breaking into our space, we turn into something else.”
“How?”
Miss Strega looked thoughtful. “The same way that an acorn becomes an oak or an egg becomes a turkey. An egg doesn’t need to puzzle over Becoming A Turkey – it just does. A caterpillar doesn’t have a Becoming A Butterfly lesson. Switching is the same for us witches. It’s just faster. A witch can change instantly into anything she wants to be.”
“Anything?”
“Of course. But switching can be risky too. You have got to be brave to switch; you have got to trust your sister witches. That’s why we make the Witch Switch Promise.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Every witch must promise never to scream while another witch has Switched. Otherwise, the Switched witch will be stuck in whatever shape she had turned into.”
Jessica looked completely baffled.
“Remember when the cauldrons toppled over and nearly knocked the heads off the garden gnomes? Well, if even one of those gnomes had screamed, we would all have been stuck – locked into catness or gnome-ness.”
“For ever?”
Miss Strega shrugged. “Did I ever tell you about my great-aunt Delenda, the one who turned hersel
f into a gargoyle for a dare? Her witch-in-training was so frightened by her ugly stony face, she screamed the house down. Delenda has been stuck under a gutter ever since.” Miss Strega shook her head sadly and began to gather up the empty potion glasses. “They say her face is wearing away with all the rainwater pouring down on her.”
Jessica wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t quite sure whether to believe Miss Strega or not. It might be one of her old jokes. She had certainly never mentioned Great-aunt Delenda before.
“Why don’t I demonstrate the Witch Switch?” Miss Strega suggested, brightening up. “Then you can have a go. But first of all, are you ready to make the Witch Switch Promise?”
“I am.”
“Do you swear by the yellow toenails of the Rocky Mountain raven never to scream at a switched witch?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear by the raucous squawking of the White Peacock always to trust your sister witches?”
“I do.”
“Well then,” said Miss Strega, “let the Witch Switching begin.”
Suddenly she was looming over Jessica in the shape of a long-necked giraffe. “You can be big,” she said, “or you can be tiny …” Now she was a little grey mouse on the floor, squeaking in a high voice.
“You can be slippery …” A green snake slithered up on to the counter and looped itself into coils like a tall pile of rope.
“Or you can be spiny …” Miss Strega had become a porcupine, shaking out her bristles with a loud clack.
“Or feathery …” In a trice, Miss Strega had become a black hen with a silly hairdo, pecking at the crumbs on the floor.
“Or how about leathery?” She Switched into an enormous bull with a ring at the end of her nose. She snorted and drummed her hooves and took up so much room that Jessica was squashed into a corner of the shop.
