Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze

by Gwyneth Rees

  ‘Oh no!’ Cosmo mewed. ‘Tigger-Louise, did you just eat a word that was here?’

  ‘A word?’Tigger-Louise looked genuinely mystified. ‘What’s that, my dear?’ She started to head for Felina’s water bowl. ‘I’d better have a drink before we go – dried food always makes me thirsty.’

  Felina looked sympathetically at Cosmo and Mia. ‘Well, it looks as if you’re going to have to copy out that word for me all over again, doesn’t it? Never mind. Copying it out a second time will help you to learn it better.’

  ‘I’m getting sick of letters,’ Mia grumbled, when her mother was out of earshot.

  ‘I know,’ Cosmo sighed. ‘But we have to find out what that spell ingredient is. Come on. Let’s get on with it before Sybil gets back.’

  But when they reached Sybil’s kitchen, they found that she was already back. She was sitting at the table drawing something with coloured pencils on a large piece of white paper. It looked like she was making some sort of poster.

  ‘It’s no good,’ Cosmo said, making a hasty backwards exit through the cat flap. ‘We can’t look at the recipe again while she’s there.’ His tail was bushing up in frustration.

  ‘Never mind. We can always try again tomorrow,’ Mia said.

  Cosmo didn’t reply. If he was right, he thought gloomily, then tomorrow might be too late.

  9

  Cosmo stared at the poster Sybil had pasted to the front gate. On it she had drawn a picture very like the one attached to the window of the cat flap, except that instead of showing a cat being strangled, it showed a cat being fed a fat, juicy pilchard.

  Sybil came out of the house now, wearing her cutest little-old-lady outfit and carrying a megaphone. Cosmo couldn’t think what she was going to do with it until he followed her out of the gate and down the street. As she walked along she lifted the megaphone up to her mouth and shouted out a loud message.

  ‘FREE PILCHARDS FOR ALL

  KITTENS AT NUMBER

  NINETY-EIGHT GREEN

  LANE. COME TO THE HOUSE

  WITH THE POSTER ON THE

  GATE AND COLLECT YOUR

  FREE PILCHARD. FIRST

  COME FIRST SERVED.

  THERE’S PLENTY FOR

  EVERYONE. BRING ALL

  YOUR FRIENDS!’

  Cosmo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sybil never gave out anything for free. What was she up to?

  He followed her all around the neighbouring streets until she finally headed back the house. ‘I need you to help me, Cosmo, dear,’ she said, while they were still in earshot of the kittens. As soon as she had slammed the front door she flung off her wig and dropped him on to the ground, adding, ‘Just keep out of the way, you little pest!’

  Cosmo headed straight for the cat flap, but he found that Sybil had set it on the special lock that allowed a cat to come in, but not to go out again. Just as he was wondering if he could force it open, the front doorbell rang and Sybil went to answer it.

  ‘Doris!’ Sybil didn’t sound very pleased.

  Doris sounded excited. ‘I’ve just ordered the latest broomstick attachment from Broomsticks.com. I’ve printed out a picture to show you. Look. It’s sort of like a mini-caravan with wings. I’ll be able to—’

  ‘How lovely,’ interrupted Sybil, not sounding as if she thought it was lovely at all. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘I just saw your sign. Why are you feeding all the neighbourhood kittens? I thought you didn’t like kittens?’ Doris didn’t notice Cosmo slipping silently past her legs as she spoke.

  ‘I have to get rid of some out-of-date pilchards!’ Sybil said sharply, so intent on getting rid of Doris that she didn’t notice Cosmo escaping either.

  ‘But—’ Doris didn’t have time to reply because the door was swiftly slammed in her face.

  Once he was outside, Cosmo bounded out on to the pavement where the queue of kittens had now grown to six. There were the two marmalade brothers from the corner house, the white kitten from down the road who had the mother called Snowie, and three tabbies who he didn’t recognize.

  ‘Listen, all of you,’ he gasped. ‘This is a trick! Sybil’s just trying to get you inside her house so she can use you in a spell she’s making.’ Cosmo was almost certain now that what Sybil was planning was very evil indeed.

  ‘But witches can’t harm cats,’ the white kitten said. ‘Your mother told my mother that the other day. Mother says she’d like to move in with a witch, because our human isn’t very nice to us.’

  ‘Witches usually only want witch-cats to live with them,’ Cosmo replied impatiently, eager to get back to the subject of the danger they were in.

  But that remark – which Cosmo hadn’t meant to sound tactless – didn’t go down too well amongst the kittens. None of them were witch-cats (at least, not as far as they knew). ‘Are you saying we’re not good enough to live with a witch?’ one of the marmalade boys hissed.

  And his brother mocked, ‘At least we don’t do spells that go wrong and leave us with paws that are the wrong colour!’

  All the kittens laughed.

  Cosmo felt himself getting hot with embarrassment and he tried to curl his gold paw underneath him so that it didn’t show. His tail started to swish a bit, which it always did when he got angry, and he had to concentrate really hard on trying to keep it still. He didn’t want the kittens to think he wanted a fight. He had to get them to believe that he was trying to help them. ‘I don’t understand either how Sybil can want to hurt you,’ he said, ‘but I know she hasn’t got any pilchards for you!’

  Just then Sybil opened the front door. Her white bun wig was back on, although it was looking a little lopsided. ‘Doris!’ she shouted to her friend, who had only just started to cross the street back to her own house. ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper just now. My barrel of pilchards is in the garage and I’ll need some help carrying it into the kitchen. Be a dear and help me, will you?’

  Doris beamed with the pleasure of feeling wanted again. ‘You do have a very bad temper,’ she pointed out, wagging her finger to admonish Sybil as she quickly went back across the road to join her.

  Cosmo was stunned. As far as he knew there was nothing in the garage except junk.

  ‘No pilchards, eh?’ the white kitten piped up. ‘I reckon Cosmo just wants to keep all those pilchards for himself!’

  Sybil addressed the waiting kittens, thankfully failing to notice Cosmo hiding behind them, announcing, ‘I won’t open the barrel until at least a hundred kittens have arrived.’

  ‘Quick, all of you,’ said the white kitten, who seemed to have appointed himself as their leader. ‘Go and round up as many others as you can. I’ll keep your places at the front of the queue.’

  Cosmo didn’t know what to do. Then he had a sudden thought. The kittens wouldn’t listen to him – they thought he was stuck-up because he was a witch-cat – but they might listen to Mia.

  He found Mia in her back garden stalking a butterfly.

  He quickly told her what was happening. ‘But I’m sure Sybil can’t really have any pilchards in the garage or Mother and I would have smelt them,’ he finished.

  ‘Is your mother there now?’ Mia asked.

  ‘No. She’s gone out to the goldfish pond with Father. Do you think we should go and fetch them?’

  ‘Let’s go and see what Sybil’s doing in the garage first.’

  They found the garage doors wide open. Sybil and Doris were already inside. Doris was hanging back while Sybil marched over to an old barrel that was lying on its side in the corner, half hidden by some cardboard boxes. Sybil had to stand on the magic carpet to get to the barrel, and as usual it stayed completely flat. Cosmo thought that Scarlett must have been wrong when she said that magic carpets never ran out of magic. This one must have done or it would have sensed Sybil was a witch – and reacted – as soon as she stood on it.

  Doris moved forward. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘That’s just an empty b
arrel.’ But before she could say anything else she let out a shriek as the carpet – which she was also now standing on – gave a sharp jerk and lifted itself up off the ground with both witches still on it.

  ‘Down, down!’ Doris shouted, but the two witches had already lost their balance and were toppling over as the carpet brought them back to earth again. ‘Why didn’t you say it was a magic carpet?’ Doris gasped, sitting on the floor, looking shocked. ‘I thought it must be an ordinary one. Why didn’t it move when you stood on it, Sybil?’

  Sybil, who was picking herself up and giving the carpet a little kick with the toe of her shoe, looked irritated. ‘It doesn’t work properly, that’s why!’ she grunted. ‘I keep meaning to get rid of it. I’m going to have a car boot sale one of these days and see how much I can get for it. Now help me with this barrel, will you? Those kittens think it’s full of pilchards and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how a magic carpet can work for one witch and not another,’ Doris continued, but Sybil ignored her, and since Doris could never be bothered to think very much about things that she didn’t understand, she let the subject rest.

  Cosmo and Mia stayed in the garage, wondering what to do next. Mia was very worried about what Sybil was going to do to the kittens once she had tricked them into coming inside her house. Cosmo was worried about that too, but he was also thinking about Sybil and the magic carpet. If the carpet had reacted to Doris like that, then it must be working after all. And if it was working then it should have reacted when Sybil stood on it. It didn’t make sense.

  ‘I think we should follow the witches into the house and hear exactly what they’re planning,’ Mia said, standing up to lead the way. ‘Then I’ll go and speak to those kittens.’

  Mia reached the cat flap first, pushed it open and slipped inside. She was getting bolder about entering Sybil’s kitchen now, Cosmo noticed. As Cosmo followed her, he remembered something important. The cat flap was set to let you go in but not out. He immediately stopped moving forward, but it was too late. His tail had cleared the flap and it was already clicking shut behind him.

  They were trapped.

  Sybil and Doris were in the front room drinking tea. Doris was drinking eye-of-newt tea and Sybil was having a cup of herbal. Sybil was allergic to eye-of-newt and she only kept the tea in her house in case visitors came. Her mother in particular was especially partial to it. They had left the empty barrel in the kitchen, and Cosmo and Mia saw that a large chopping board and the sharp knife Sybil had bought in the supermarket were laid out on the table. In the fireplace, the cauldron was simmering away although no fire was alight beneath it. It had to be magic rather than heat that was making it simmer.

  ‘Do you really think she was going to put those kittens from the cats’ home in her cauldron?’ Mia asked. ‘I mean, we could have got it wrong, couldn’t we? Maybe it just looked like she was going to throw them in, like your father said.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ Cosmo murmured. But he didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘I mean, if Mother is right, Sybil wouldn’t be able to kill a kitten without killing herself, would she?’

  ‘I know it doesn’t make any sense,’ Cosmo agreed.

  In the other room, Doris was loudly saying, ‘I’ve never heard of a witch being allergic to eye-of-newt tea before. Usually it’s only humans who come out in a rash when they drink it.’

  Suddenly Cosmo had a very scary thought indeed – a thought that would explain everything. But it was so scary and ridiculous that he didn’t even dare tell Mia.

  When the two witches came back into the kitchen, the kittens hid behind the washing machine. Cosmo continued to turn his new idea over and over in his mind.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to help me with my mother’s spell, Doris?’ Sybil was saying, letting out a teasing sort of laugh. ‘I’m sure we could find you a little share in the profits if you wanted to take part.’

  ‘It didn’t sound safe when you showed me the recipe,’ Doris replied nervously. ‘My mother told me about a witch her mother knew, who flew into a temper and deliberately knocked her cat off her broomstick. As soon as the cat hit the ground and died, the witch disappeared in a green puff of smoke and her broomstick was left flying about the sky all on its own. Witches can’t harm cats, Sybil. You know that!’

  ‘Old witches’ tales,’ scoffed Sybil. ‘Totally unreliable. My mother says that if I use her recipe, I’ll be perfectly safe.’

  ‘But Sybil . . . that recipe . . . it’s . . .’ Doris picked up Sybil’s recipe book and the kittens heard the sound of pages being turned as she started to flick through it. Then they heard her say in a shaky voice, ‘I just can’t believe you’re really going to use this!’ Doris started to read out loud the part she couldn’t believe any witch could ever use. ‘Take one hundred kittens and chop some of them in half according to required statue size. To make a small gold statue you will need one kitten, for a large gold statue, two kittens, and for a medium-sized statue you will need one-and-a-half kittens.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Sybil sounded thoughtful. ‘I wonder if it’s best to chop them lengthways or across the middle.’

  She was interrupted by a loud retching sound coming from behind the washing machine.

  ‘Come out of there, you little pest!’ Sybil yelled, assuming it was Cosmo.

  But it was Mia who had thrown up, and before Cosmo could stop her, she had panicked and made a dash for the cat flap.

  ‘It’s that kitten from next door,’ Sybil gasped in surprise, catching Mia easily as she pushed in vain at the flap.

  Cosmo forced himself to stay where he was, knowing that if Sybil caught him too he would have no chance to help his friend. He was trembling and not just because Sybil had Mia. He was also petrified because he knew now that what he’d suspected about Sybil was true. She was using kittens in her spell!

  ‘What are you going to do with her?’ Doris asked, keeping well out of the way of Mia’s sharp claws as Sybil dangled her by the scruff.

  ‘What do you think?’ Sybil scoffed. ‘You are going to be the first kitten I turn into gold,’ she told Mia, who was yowling now and trying to bite Sybil’s hand. ‘But for now you can stay in there.’ And she dropped Mia inside the empty barrel and closed the lid on her. ‘You’d better leave now, Doris, if you don’t want to disappear in a puff of smoke yourself! And remember – if you breathe a word about this to anyone, I’ll . . .’ She made her voice sound very sinister. ‘I’ll tell my mother.’

  Doris went pale at the thought. She knew that Euphemia was so ruthless and powerful that even Sybil sometimes felt afraid of her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she gulped. ‘I won’t tell. I don’t like kittens. I only like dogs. You don’t have to worry about me.’

  Sybil nearly told her about her spell to make puppies’ teeth fall out, because it amused her to shock Doris, but on this occasion she decided not to. After all, what she needed now was for Doris to leave quickly, so that she could get on with her spell without any more delays.

  As Sybil led Doris to the front door, Cosmo saw his chance to escape and get help. ‘I’ll come back and rescue you, I promise,’ he whispered as he passed the barrel where he could hear Mia scratching away at the inside. He darted out into the hall as Sybil was opening the front door, waited until Sybil had stepped out after Doris to inspect the gathering kittens, and slipped out silently behind her.

  He hurried round the side of the house and made straight for the alleyway at the back that linked his garden with the others in the street. He knew where the goldfish pond was and that it should only take him a few minutes to get there. He would tell his parents about the recipe, and they would realize he had been right about Sybil after all. They would know what to do.

  But when Cosmo arrived at the garden with the pond, he found that it was covered over with a thick green net. There was no sign of his mother or father.

  Cosmo started to panic. Where could they be?

  He hurried back t
o check inside the garage in case his parents had come back while he was out looking for them. By this time his heart was pounding really hard.

  His parents weren’t there, but Sybil had left the garage door open and her broomstick was lying on the floor just inside. Cosmo stared at it. He knew that any witch-cat could control a broomstick if it was taught how. He had seen what Mephisto had done to get the broomstick started and how his father had directed it while they were in the air. He had watched carefully, but he hadn’t attempted to do it himself yet. He wasn’t even sure if he could do it. But if he couldn’t find his parents, then he had to fetch someone else to help – and the only person he could think of was a broomstick ride away.

  Nervously, Cosmo padded over to the resting broom, which still had its basket for carrying potions attached to the front. Maybe if he sat in the basket he would feel less scared about falling off. But he knew that he couldn’t just climb aboard. A broomstick wasn’t like a magic carpet. It didn’t lift off the ground just because it sensed somebody was ready to ride it. Broomsticks had to be started up by igniting the bristles at the back. What Cosmo had to do now was summon up a really good sneeze.

  There was a lot of dust in the garage and dust was good for making you sneeze. Cosmo went over to a particularly dusty corner and breathed in as deeply as he could. He soon felt his nose twitching. ‘A-A-A . . .’ he began, racing back to the broomstick as fast as he could. ‘TISHOO!’ he finished, sneezing little droplets all over the bristles. Straight away the end of the broom started to glow, turning first yellow, then orange, then a warm-red colour. Cosmo jumped into the basket and miaowed a command. The broomstick responded to his voice, recognizing that the voice and magic sneeze came from the same cat, and rose off the ground and out through the garage doors with such a jolt that Cosmo immediately felt his stomach lurching.

  Cosmo held on tightly with his claws as the broomstick rose upwards at a much steeper angle than it had done when Mephisto was steering. He closed his eyes and forced himself not to look down, because he knew that would only make him feel more sick.