The Wednesday Witch

by Ruth Chew

  The map had fallen apart in the sea water, but Mary Jane was sure she remembered the way home. They flew inland until they saw the highway, but where was the street with the double rows of trees?

  “What’s the matter?” asked Cinders. Mary Jane had steered the vacuum cleaner in a circle for the third time.

  “I’m lost.”

  Cinders stretched her neck over Mary Jane’s shoulder and looked down. “Go left.”

  They flew along the highway for several miles. The ground looked familiar now. There was Ocean Parkway.

  Mary Jane sighed with relief. She pointed the wand homeward. Marian clutched the hose desperately. Any minute she might fall and crash onto the roof of a car. Her wet jeans stuck to her skin. She wasn’t at all sure she liked magic.

  In the joy of steering the vacuum cleaner Mary Jane forgot her wet clothes. When at last she flew past the park and the school and over the apartment building down to her own window, she was quite an expert. She steered James in the window and landed softly in the middle of the floor.

  Marian untangled herself from the hose and looked around in a dazed way.

  Mrs. Brooks came to the door. “You’re back! I was beginning to worry. Why didn’t you let me know when you came in?” When she saw the wet clothes all she said was, “I don’t think you ever go near that lake in Prospect Park without falling in.” She looked around at the untidy room. “I see you didn’t get very far with that vacuum cleaner. I’ll have to show you how to use it.”

  Cinders was such a nuisance in school on Monday and Tuesday that Mary Jane refused to take her on Wednesday. Coming home alone in the afternoon, Mary Jane had just reached the block where she lived when she looked up and saw Hilda. The witch came flying on roller skates over the apartment building on the corner.

  Hilda held her arms out on either side to balance herself and took long glides in the air. The witch was having fun. She chased a pair of sparrows and skimmed over a rooftop. When she reached Mary Jane’s house, she swooped down and landed on the front walk.

  Mary Jane watched Hilda take off the skates, fold them as small as a handkerchief, and tuck them in her apron pocket.

  The witch clumped up the front walk, her feet heavy and slow without the skates. Mary Jane ran up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Hilda spun around. “What do you want?”

  “What do you want?” asked Mary Jane.

  “My vacuum cleaner, of course.”

  “Then give back my skates.”

  “I can’t give you the skates now. I did a lot of work on them,” cried the witch angrily, “and you’d better give me my vacuum cleaner!”

  “What will you do if I don’t?”

  “Wait and see.” The witch felt in her pocket for the magic scissors.

  Mary Jane slipped her quick little hand under Hilda’s big clumsy one and pulled the scissors out of the pocket. With a snip she brought Hilda down to her own size, and then, snip, snip, snip—the witch was only three and a half inches tall. Mary Jane held her in one hand.

  “Stop, stop!” screamed the witch.

  Mary Jane stopped. “Oh, dear! I am sorry. I never meant to do this to you.”

  Hilda glared. “The way you were going,” she moaned, “I would soon have disappeared completely.”

  “You reached for the scissors first,” reminded Mary Jane.

  “That has nothing to do with it,” sulked the witch. “Now I can’t get home. The skates have shrunk too. It would take an age to go ten blocks.”

  “I never thought of that.” Mary Jane looked at the witch standing on the palm of her hand, tiny hands on her hips, feet spread apart. “You know,” she mused, “you’re just the right size for my dollhouse, and I don’t have any dolls. I wonder if Cinders would mind.”

  Mary Jane popped Hilda into her lunch box and rang the doorbell. Her mother opened the door and greeted her with a hug. After a quick hug in return Mary Jane slipped away upstairs. From the dollhouse Cinders called, “Did you bring me some food?”

  “I left a piece of sausage in my lunch box. And, oh, Cinders, could the witch share the dollhouse with you? There’s plenty of room, and she has nowhere to live.”

  Cinders looked suspiciously at Mary Jane. “What have you been up to?”

  Mary Jane opened the lunch box. The witch had fainted. “Cinders,” she cried, “what’s wrong with her?”

  “Probably the smell of sausage. And, by the way, you forgot to give it to me.”

  Mary Jane gently laid the witch in the pink and white guest bed of the dollhouse. She threw Cinders the sausage and ran to get some water to bathe the witch’s forehead. Hilda slowly opened her eyes and looked around the dainty doll’s bedroom. She saw Mary Jane’s enormous face looking in. “Drat!” said the witch.

  “Would you like something to eat?” asked Mary Jane politely.

  “I’m sure you have no witch’s brew,” said Hilda sadly.

  Only last night Mary Jane had tried mixing toothpaste with some of her mother’s perfume. She had put it in a baby aspirin bottle which still had a few crumbs left. After breakfast she added some orange juice. Now she took the bottle out of her desk drawer, shook it, and filled a tiny cup. She put the cup on the doll’s dining room table.

  Hilda sat up in bed, her sharp nose quivering. She pattered down the little stairway and trotted into the dining room. Hardly daring to believe her nose, she approached the table. “It smells like something I haven’t had since I was a child. What is it?”

  “Just a little pretend witch’s brew,” said Mary Jane. “I didn’t really like it, but you might.”

  Hilda lifted the cup and sniffed it with delight. “Smells delicious,” she said, and took a sip. “M-m-m-m. It is delicious!”

  The witch sat on a little chair and drank the whole cupful. Then she had a second helping. Mary Jane felt very proud.

  After drinking her second cupful, Hilda walked into the kitchen, where she found Cinders holding both paws over her nose. “How did you get here? I put you in my pocket.”

  “I fell out.”

  Hilda took another look. “Are you sure you’re my cat? You sound like her, but you don’t look like her. I couldn’t put up with you.” She frowned and shook a finger at Cinders. “Do you know that you are positively fat! No witch’s cat is ever fat.”

  Hilda looked around. “I’ll have to make this house more home-like if I’m to be living here.” She took down the curtains and stuffed them under the sofa, scattered the pots and pans and dishes around the kitchen and dining room, and changed the chairs from one room to another. She managed to carry a heavy living room chair upstairs and place it in the bathtub. She piled the rugs on top of one of the beds and moved the little books Mary Jane and Marian had made to the kitchen sink. At last Hilda dusted her hands. “There now,” she said, “that looks better.”

  Mary Jane had gone to see Marian to tell her the news. Marian was weeding her garden. She went on weeding while Mary Jane told of the latest doings of the witch.

  Marian raised her head. “I guess now we never will play with the dollhouse. I saw just the right dolls in Woolworth’s yesterday. You can dress and undress them too.”

  “But, Marian,” said Mary Jane, “it’s more fun to have a real live witch living in the dollhouse. I don’t suppose, though, that she’ll let us dress and undress her.”

  Mary Jane helped her friend with the weeding. Marian had just time before supper to run over and look at the witch. Mrs. Brooks met them at the door. “Mary Jane, I don’t like to scold, but I told you to take care of that dollhouse. Aunt Harriet went to a lot of trouble to send it. I went upstairs to put your laundry away and I saw that the dollhouse is a frightful mess. If you can’t keep it neat we’ll put it away until you’re older.”

  Mary Jane and Marian raced up to Mary Jane’s room. The dollhouse was a shambles. Mary Jane looked through the dollhouse as she set it to rights. She found Cinders behind the clock.

  “Where is the witch?” Mary Jane was franti
c.

  “Oh,” said Cinders glumly, “she flew away on those old roller skates.”

  The window was closed. Mary Jane and Marian went to Mrs. Brooks’s room. They heard a little clicking from the dresser. Hilda had managed to pull the stopper out of the perfume and had got her head stuck in the bottle. Her legs were waving in the air with the roller skates still on her feet.

  Marian grabbed the bottle, and Mary Jane held the witch. By turning her like a stopper they pulled her out.

  Hilda stood on the roller skates on the dresser and smoothed her skirt. She picked up her hat and put it back on her head. She looked a bit shamefaced. “I thought it was bigger than it was.” Seeing Marian, she asked, “Who is that?”

  “This is my friend, Marian. Marian, this is the famous Witch Hilda.”

  Hilda looked pleased. She was not a powerful or important witch, and it was nice to have someone call her famous. She bowed to Marian, who said, “How do you do?”

  Marian had to go home for supper. Mary Jane went back to straighten the dollhouse, and Hilda continued to explore Mrs. Brooks’s dressing table. The cold-cream lid was loose. Hilda accidentally sat in it. She skated to the bedspread and rolled in it to get the cold cream off. Then she tied the venetian-blind cords together to make a flying trapeze and used a pink lipstick to draw a lovely picture on the wall.

  Wanting someone to admire her drawing, Hilda went to look for Mary Jane. She almost skated into Mr. Brooks’s face as she flew down the hall. With a sharp left turn she whizzed past his ear.

  “Somebody left a window open. There’s a bat in here!” called Mary Jane’s father.

  Mary Jane came running. She had never had a close look at a bat.

  Hilda was insulted. “Bat indeed!” she said, and decided to go home to the dollhouse. She skated into the upstairs bathroom. “I know I put a chair in that tub,” said Hilda. She skated through the whole house. All her work had been undone. The house was just as neat and unfriendly as before.

  “Drat!” said the witch. She was close to tears, but she bravely started all over again to put the dollhouse in comfortable disorder.

  Mary Jane and her father had not been able to find the bat so they went downstairs to supper. Mary Jane stored a piece of chicken in her pocket for Cinders, but she didn’t know what to feed the witch.

  After supper Mary Jane wanted Cinders to help with her homework. When she looked in the dollhouse for the cat, she found the house a complete mess again. Hilda was wearily pushing an easy chair up the stairs. She had taken off the skates and put them back in her pocket.

  “Why, Witch Hilda, what are you doing?” gasped Mary Jane. “I just finished straightening that house.”

  Hilda sat down on the stairs and let go of the chair. Mary Jane caught it before it could fall. She put it back in the living room.

  “I think,” said Hilda bitterly, “that we have to get a few things straight around here—and I don’t mean this house. If I’m to live in it, I ought to be allowed to make it comfortable. I am not comfortable in straight houses.”

  “But, Witch Hilda,” said Mary Jane, “my mother will take the dollhouse away if I don’t keep it neat.”

  “I want to go home.”

  At this moment Mary Jane’s father came into the room. Hilda hid in a corner of the dollhouse stairway.

  Mr. Brooks took one look at the dollhouse. He held Mary Jane’s arm and led her down the hall to show her the drawing on the wall, the cold cream on the bedspread, and the tangle of cords by the window.

  Mary Jane tried to tell her father it was the witch who had made the mess, but he did not believe her.

  “Now,” said Mr. Brooks, “go clean up your room.”

  Mary Jane went back to her room to find the witch once more trying to drag the easy chair up the stairs.

  “Come on,” sobbed Mary Jane, “I’ll take you home.”

  She pulled out the vacuum cleaner and found Cinders behind the dollhouse clock. Luckily Mary Jane was wearing a dress with two pockets. She put Cinders in one and the witch in the other.

  “Don’t forget food!” cried the cat. Mary Jane went quietly down to the kitchen and loaded a shopping bag with a container of milk, two apples, half a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. “Tuna fish,” begged Cinders. Mary Jane packed two small cans and a can opener.

  Back upstairs she mounted the vacuum cleaner, wound the hose around her neck, and pointed the wand toward the open window. “Witch Town, James.”

  Shakily James rose into the air. He felt sick because Mary Jane’s mother had used him to clean the basement playroom, and the dust was still in him. With a cough he cleared the windowsill and sailed out into the summer night.

  Sometimes Cinders told Mary Jane where to point the wand, and other times the witch gave directions. James was very slow.

  “I think,” said Cinders, “that he’d fly faster if you emptied the dust out of him.”

  Mary Jane brought the vacuum cleaner down on top of an office building. She climbed off, opened the clasps on the jug, and carefully shook out the dust.

  After that James went more quickly. He seemed to remember the way himself. Faster and faster, over forests and lakes. He crossed wide oceans and strange dark valleys. The fires of Witch Town blazed below. James flew into the open mouth of Witch Hilda’s cave. Mary Jane tumbled off the vacuum cleaner. She was tired from the trip, but Hilda had strapped on the roller skates and came flying out of her pocket.

  The witch was in high spirits. “I have an idea! I have an idea!” she chanted. “Mary Jane, help me.”

  Hilda’s excitement was catching. Mary Jane jumped to her feet. “What can I do?”

  Hilda flew to her battered old recipe book. “Look up measuring tape.”

  “How do you spell it?”

  “M-E-G-H-E…,” began Hilda.

  Cinders meowed loudly. Mary Jane lifted her out of her pocket and placed her on her shoulder. “I may be fat,” said Cinders to the witch, “but I can still spell—M-E-A-S-U-R-I-N-G T-A-P-E.”

  Mary Jane leafed through the book. Hilda stuck a torch in a crack in the wall. By its flickering light Mary Jane made out the words. “Magnet,” she read, “mailbox, match, measles. Oh here it is. Measuring tape.”

  Hilda was bobbing about in the air in wild excitement. “What do we need, Mary Jane?”

  “For a magic measuring tape start with twenty pieces of cooked macaroni taken from the plate of a hungry man. Sew these together with twenty white hairs of an old woman. Put the attached macaroni in a pot of thick witch’s brew with four rattlesnake rattles. Dance the can-can around the pot for four minutes, and then recite the Gettysburg Address.”

  “That’s an easy one,” said the witch. “Could you copy it down? We’ll have to go back to the World of Human Beings for those things. Nobody in Witch Town eats macaroni. By the way, I’m hungry. Could I interest you in a nice hot cup of witch’s brew?”

  Mary Jane looked toward the huge pot bubbling away in the corner of the cave. The smell from it was hard to believe. “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

  “But I am,” meowed Cinders. “You forgot to give me supper.”

  Mary Jane felt in the pocket where the witch had been. She found the bit of chicken. It was almost as good as when she had put it there. Mary Jane gave it to the cat.

  Hilda meantime was having trouble getting anything to eat. The spoon was too big for her to lift, and she was afraid to stand on the rim of the pot with her skates on. Once more she had to ask Mary Jane for help.

  Mary Jane scooped up a spoonful of brew, and Hilda skated out of the cave and came back with an acorn cup. Mary Jane filled the cup twice before the witch was satisfied.

  “Now,” said Hilda, when she had finished her second helping, “are you up to flying home again?”

  “She had better rest first,” said Cinders.

  Mary Jane was indeed tired from her long trip. There was a pile of feathers on the floor of the cave. She covered them with a cloak of Hild
a’s and lay down. In no time she was fast asleep, with the little cat curled against her neck.

  When Mary Jane awoke it was broad daylight. “Oh,” she cried, “it’s Thursday morning. I must get to school. I wonder what time it is.”

  Cinders yawned and stretched. “It’s early, silly. Have you forgotten that it’s June?” The cat cocked an eye at the sun. “My guess is that it’s about five o’clock in the morning. Let’s have breakfast and see how fast James can get you home.”

  Both Mary Jane and Cinders had milk, and Mary Jane ate an apple and a peanut butter sandwich as well. Hilda was asleep in the bowl of her big spoon, the roller skates still on her feet. Mary Jane gently put her in her pocket. She filled a bottle with witch’s brew and climbed on the vacuum cleaner.

  Yesterday’s journey had put James back in practice. In almost no time at all Mary Jane flew into the open window of her bedroom. She climbed off the vacuum cleaner and shoved it into the closet. Peeking in the mirror she saw that her face was dirty and her hair tangled, but there was still time for a shower.

  Mary Jane changed into fresh clothes, taking care to choose a dress with two pockets. She sat at her desk to do her homework. Cinders helped with the spelling.

  She was nearly finished when her mother came in. “I see you never straightened your room, Mary Jane. It’s time I had a talk with you, but we’d better wait till after school. It took hours to clean up my room last night. I never even got around to say good night to you. I wonder why your father gave me a perfume named ‘Mischief.’ There’s quite enough of that around here already. Now hurry or you’ll be late for school.”

  Mary Jane picked up her books. She put the bottle of witch’s brew in her lunch box along with a doll’s cup and went downstairs for her sandwiches.