Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze

by Gwyneth Rees

  But he also knew that no matter how sick or scared he felt, he had to keep going. He had to get help in time to save Mia.

  10

  Like all cats, Cosmo had an excellent sense of direction and he remembered the way to Bunty’s house without too much trouble. At least, he assumed it was his instructions that were getting them there. The broomstick sometimes seemed to know which tree to turn left at, and which lamp-post to fly over, even before it was told.

  They had just flown over the park with the six tall trees when Cosmo became aware of another broomstick in the sky. There was definitely a witch on board rather than a cat, and as it flew closer, Cosmo saw that it was Euphemia. She seemed to recognize either him or the broomstick, because she flew right up to him. Her black cloak was flapping out behind her and her black pointed hat was tilting to one side. Her green hair was pushed under her hat.

  ‘You’re Mephisto’s kitten, aren’t you?’ Her gold teeth glinted at him in the sunlight.

  Cosmo nodded and trembled at the same time. Euphemia was using cat language. There were a few very clever witches who had taught themselves the language of cats, but Cosmo hadn’t guessed that Euphemia was one of them. Cosmo felt even more afraid of her now he knew that.

  ‘And does your mistress know you are out taking a ride on her broomstick?’

  Cosmo gulped. He wasn’t used to lying. ‘Yes,’ he mewed.

  ‘In that case, you won’t mind me giving her a call to check,’ Euphemia replied, reaching into the inside pocket of her black cloak and pulling out a mobile phone. She started to punch in Sybil’s number.

  Cosmo was so frightened he could hardly speak. ‘P-please,’ he stammered, ‘I’m only g-going to see my f-friend Jet.’ Cosmo had been managing to control his broomstick-sickness until now, but he was suddenly feeling much queasier. The broomstick tipped sideways to avoid a bird, and that was too much for Cosmo’s stomach. With a terrible retching sound, he vomited all over Euphemia’s mobile phone.

  Euphemia screamed in disgust, dropped the phone, then realized what she’d done and dived downwards to catch it before it reached the ground.

  Cosmo saw his chance to escape. ‘Fly straight to Bunty’s house as quick as you can,’ he gasped, and the broomstick took off at top speed.

  By the time Euphemia had caught her phone and wiped it clean on a leafy tree, Cosmo was a small speck in the distance. Euphemia could have chased after him – and caught him before he reached his destination – but she decided not to. She was on her way home, where she was expecting a visit from a rich witch who wanted to buy two of her largest gold cat statues. The witch had promised to bring the money round to Euphemia’s house that day, and she didn’t want to miss her.

  ‘I’ll teach that kitten a lesson later,’ she murmured under her breath.

  A few minutes later, Cosmo landed with a thud in Bunty’s front garden, catching the end of his tail under the broomstick. It hurt so much that he hissed out loud, but there was no time to stop and try to lick it better. He hurried round to the back of the house where he knew Jet’s cat flap was situated and miaowed a few times to let Jet know that he was there. When there was no reply, he continued inside, only just managing to stop himself hissing in pain again as the flap came down on the sore bit of his tail as he pushed his way through.

  The kitchen was empty. So was the room next door where they had all watched the Witch News together. Cosmo padded around the rest of the house and went upstairs, miaowing loudly, but there was no one there.

  Just as he was starting to panic because he couldn’t think what to do next, he heard a noise downstairs. Someone was coming in the back door. He raced down the stairs as fast as he could and met Scarlett as she was kicking off her shoes in the kitchen.

  ‘Cosmo!’ she gasped when she saw him. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Cosmo mewed at her frantically, but she didn’t understand. What she did gather was that he was very upset about something.

  ‘Aunt Bunty understands a little bit of cat language,’ Scarlett told him. ‘But she’s just left to go and see a witch who called up in a state about something. Aunt Bunty is a witch counsellor and she sometimes goes out to people if they can’t come and see her. I don’t know when she’ll be back.’

  But Cosmo didn’t have time to wait until Bunty got back. He had to get help for Mia and the other kittens now. He grabbed hold of the leg of Scarlett’s jeans with his teeth and tried to tug her towards the door. He had seen Doris’s poodle do that when he wanted Doris to take him for a walk. Cosmo had always thought it looked very silly and undignified, but now he was desperate enough to try anything.

  ‘What is it, Cosmo? Do you want me to come outside and play with you?’

  Cosmo released her jeans and gave his most urgent miaow. Surely nobody could mistake that for him wanting to play?

  ‘I don’t understand, Cosmo.’

  Cosmo tried to think of a way of telling her that the problem was Sybil. He looked around the kitchen. There on the table was Sybil’s spells-and-potions catalogue, with a picture of Sybil herself on the back. He jumped up on to the table and mewed and mewed while digging his claws into the picture of Sybil, until Scarlett finally asked, ‘Is it something to do with Sybil? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’ Cosmo had seen how humans and witches indicated ‘yes’, and now he nodded. Scarlett gasped in amazement, because she had never seen a cat nod before. ‘Has Sybil done something to scare you?’ Scarlett was frowning, trying to read Cosmo’s expression.

  Cosmo nodded even more furiously and started to tug Scarlett towards the door again. This time she went with him, picking up her shoes on the way. When Cosmo had led her as far as the broomstick he remembered that there was something in Bunty’s house that he wanted to borrow. He wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be, but he wanted to take it with them anyway.

  He hurried back into the kitchen and trotted across the floor to the larder. He jumped up on to the set of steps and on to the nearest shelf. He carefully picked his way along it, managing not to knock anything over as he searched for, and suddenly found, what he wanted. He lifted the little bottle between his teeth, jumped down to the floor and ran back outside, where Scarlett was waiting for him.

  ‘Shall I hold that?’ Scarlett offered, taking the potion bottle out of his mouth and looking curiously at the label. ‘Why do you need this?’ But of course, Cosmo couldn’t tell her.

  Scarlett swung one leg over the broomstick and waited for Cosmo to jump into the basket in the front. Then she said the spell that started up the broomstick and they were off. Whenever Sybil rode her broomstick she always took Mephisto with her and insisted that he start it up with a magic sneeze, Cosmo remembered now.

  As they flew over a rooftop with a witch’s pink chimney, Scarlett suddenly said, ‘I should’ve left a note for Aunt Bunty. Now if she comes back, she won’t know where I’ve gone.’ She touched her pocket and added, ‘I’ve got my wand to protect me but it won’t be much use against Sybil. Even a weak adult witch is more powerful than a child one.’ She sounded worried and Cosmo hoped that he wasn’t doing the wrong thing by taking her with him. But how else could he save Mia?

  As they neared Sybil’s house, they saw a long line of kittens stretching down the pavement and round the corner of Green Lane. Sybil’s neighbours would think they were seeing things if they looked out of their windows. After all, whoever heard of cats forming queues? As they flew nearer, it was clear that the kittens themselves thought that queuing was pretty silly and they were starting to drop out of line and become a disorganized rabble instead. There was a lot of nipping and hissing going on as the kittens jostled for places at the front.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Scarlett exclaimed as they landed on the pavement in front of the poster.

  How Cosmo wished he could tell her. ‘Has Sybil come out?’ he asked a black kitten he had never seen before.

  ‘Yes. She said she was about to open the pilchard barrel and she was going to invite
us in one by one.’ He looked at Cosmo with narrowed eyes. ‘You should be at the back of the queue, shouldn’t you, since you’ve just arrived?’

  ‘I don’t want any pilchards,’ Cosmo said. ‘When did she say she was going to start letting you into the house?’

  ‘In about ten minutes’ time. That was ten minutes ago.’

  Cosmo led Scarlett round to the back of the house. There was a lot of gold steam right to the front of the queue. Sybil shrieked as she saw Scarlett standing there – and let go of the kitten.

  Scarlett, seeing that the barrel was empty, dropped the lid just before Sybil pointed a long green-nailed finger at her. Cosmo saw that Sybil’s eyes had fixed on Scarlett’s with a glare that seemed to be freezing the younger witch to the spot.

  Scarlett was paralysed with fear. At that moment she really thought that she was never arrived then, won’t I?’ Sybil replied. She looked at the barrel. ‘You seem small enough to fit in there until I decide what to do with you. Go on. Get in.’

  Scarlett started to shake even more. Inside the barrel she would be very squashed indeed – she doubted she would be able to breathe properly once Sybil had put the lid on. ‘Please,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Can’t you just tie me up?’

  ‘So that your little cat friend can chew through the rope and set you free?’ Sybil laughed. ‘No, my pretty . . . Into the barrel you go!’ And she turned Scarlett’s wand around and pointed it at her in a threatening manner.

  Scarlett knew there was no use trying to argue any more. Then, just as she was climbing into the barrel, Cosmo started to sneeze. ‘A-A-A . . .’

  The two witches stared at him as he jumped on to the table in mid-sneeze and knocked over the glass potion bottle he had brought from Bunty’s house. It broke as it landed on the floor, splashing its contents everywhere, including over Sybil’s foot. Before Sybil could move away, Cosmo leaped down on to her foot and dug in his claws as hard as he could. ‘. . . TISHOO!’

  Sybil screamed in pain and kicked him away immediately, but Cosmo had already drawn blood. The blood was mixing with the witch-test potion that had been in the bottle (fully activated now by the magic sneeze). Instead of turning green as soon as it touched the clear liquid of the potion, Sybil’s blood was staying red.

  Scarlett gasped in disbelief.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Sybil snapped, snatching up the piece of broken bottle with the label stuck to it. Her face went pale as she read it.

  Scarlett was climbing out of the barrel now. ‘Your blood hasn’t turned green. That means it can’t be witch blood – not even seventy per cent witch blood like Aunt Bunty thought. That means . . .’ Scarlett paused, still hardly able to believe what she had seen. ‘That means you can’t be a witch at all!’

  ‘Of course I’m a witch!’ Sybil shouted angrily. ‘Don’t try and argue with me. You’re only a child. I’m stronger than you!’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Scarlett said slowly, moving forward to take back her wand. Sybil tried to keep hold of it at first, but Scarlett started to recite a spell and Sybil looked afraid and dropped the wand into her hand at once.

  Cosmo’s head was spinning as everything that hadn’t made sense to him came together in his mind: the magic carpet, the eye-of-newt tea, Sybil not being able to start up her own broomstick, the way she needed extra witch-cat help with her spells – and how she could harm cats without coming to any harm herself. It all made sense if Sybil wasn’t really a witch!

  Suddenly there was a loud ringing on the front doorbell and a stern, familiar voice called through the letter box. ‘Sybil, are you in there? Open up at once!’

  ‘Aunt Bunty!’ Scarlett rushed to open the door.

  Sybil made a dash to escape out the back, but Bunty had just sent all the waiting kittens round to the back of the house. All Sybil saw when she looked out of the door, was a sea of little furry bodies – with the bossy white kitten at the front of them – all miaowing furiously as they demanded to know where their pilchards were.

  As Scarlett told her aunt what they had just witnessed, Bunty was flabbergasted. ‘Are you sure?’ she kept saying.

  ‘Yes, and don’t you see, Aunt Bunty? This explains why Sybil could kill all those kittens and not come to any harm herself!’

  Bunty shuddered. ‘Thank goodness you and Cosmo got here in time! But I still can’t believe that Sybil has only been pretending to be one of us!’

  Doris, who had come in the door behind Bunty, was listening with interest. The more Doris had thought about Sybil’s plan, the more worried she had become that by not doing anything to stop it, she was indirectly harming those kittens herself – and she hadn’t liked the idea of indirectly disappearing in a puff of green smoke! She had contacted the Witches Against Bad Spells Society, and Bunty had offered to come round to her house since Doris was too afraid to be seen visiting hers. Once there, Bunty had seen all the kittens out in the street, extracted the whole story from Doris, and come straight round to Sybil’s house.

  Doris pointed at Sybil now, starting to feel excited as lots of things began to make sense to her. ‘That’s why you came out in a rash that time when I accidently gave you eye-of-newt tea!’ she gushed. ‘And remember that time when I saw the green nail polish in your bathroom? You told me you’d bought it to give to a human friend who wanted to look more like a witch. Was that nail polish really for you, then?’

  Sybil glared at Doris as if she was the most stupid creature on the face of the planet. ‘Of course it was for me! I don’t have any human friends! I can’t stand humans! My father was human and it’s ruined my life!’ And she started to sob – big, clear, human tears, not pale-green witches’ ones like she had always longed to have.

  ‘I think, Sybil,’ Bunty said sternly, ‘that you had better tell us everything.’

  Cosmo was mewing loudly now, trying to get their attention.

  Bunty turned to him. ‘Cosmo, what is it?’

  ‘Where’s Mia?’ Cosmo miaowed as slowly and clearly as he could, so that Bunty could understand.

  Bunty translated the question to Sybil, who hiccuped and looked guiltily across at the cauldron billowing out its golden steam.

  As Cosmo followed her gaze, his insides went icy cold. Had he and Scarlett arrived too late after all?

  11

  ‘Are you saying,’ gulped Bunty, as Sybil led her over to the cauldron, ‘that Cosmo’s friend is in there?’

  ‘She’s just an ordinary kitten, not a witch-cat,’ Sybil said – as if that should make everybody a lot less concerned that Sybil had just drowned her.

  ‘Get her out right now!’ Bunty commanded.

  Sybil gulped. ‘Well, she won’t be quite the same as when she went in,’ she warned them. She pulled a long green rubber glove over her hand and arm and plunged deep into the cauldron’s golden liquid, which was actually cool to touch even though it looked like it was boiling. What she pulled out made Cosmo hiss with horror. The thing that Sybil was holding was a cat, the same size as Mia, but instead of being alive it was a statue of solid gold.

  At that moment Mephisto and India walked in through the door, having pushed their way through the middle of all the kittens. ‘What’s going on?’ Mephisto demanded loudly.

  ‘Sybil’s . . .’ Cosmo began, but he couldn’t think of the right words to explain the horrific thing that had happened. He pointed a trembling paw at the little statue, which Sybil had set down on the table.

  Professor Felina, who had just got back from Tigger-Louise’s and had also come to see what was going on, walked into the kitchen to join them. She looked at the gathering of cats and witches and asked, ‘Where’s Mia?’

  ‘There!’ Cosmo spat out, pointing at the statue, before Bunty had time to break the news more gently.

  The professor stared at the gold statue for a long moment, looking stunned, then, for the first time in her life, she uttered the words, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m afraid Sybil has put Mia in her cauldron and turned her
into gold,’ Bunty said.

  All three adult cats stared at her. ‘But witches can’t harm cats!’ they chorused.

  ‘Sybil isn’t really a witch,’ Cosmo mewed. ‘Her blood doesn’t go green when you test it. That’s why she can kill cats without killing herself.’

  Felina stayed so still that she too looked almost like a statue for a moment. Then she let out a strangled cry and jumped up on to the table. Her whole body was trembling. She started desperately to lick at the statue as if she were trying to turn it back into Mia.

  It was too much for India, who could imagine only too well how she would feel if Cosmo had been the one who had been turned into gold. ‘Mephisto, can’t you do something?’ she hissed, jumping up to stand beside Felina who she attempted to comfort by rubbing her head against her face.

  ‘Only the witch who made the spell knows if it can be undone again,’ Mephisto replied jerkily. He was still reeling from the information that his mistress was an imposter – not a true witch at all. How could he – one of the most respected and experienced witch-cats in the neighbourhood – have been fooled like that? It couldn’t be true! It was impossible!

  Bunty was angrily turning on Sybil. ‘Tell us about this spell right now, Sybil!’

  Sybil stuck out her chin stubbornly. ‘Why should I? The same thing will happen to me if I tell you or if I don’t!’

  ‘Not necessarily!’ Bunty snapped.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll go to prison, but not necessarily witch prison,’ Bunty was watching Sybil’s face closely. ‘We might have to arrange for you to go to a human prison, since you are more human than witch.’

  ‘No!’ screeched Sybil. ‘You can’t do that! I’ve lived as a witch all my life! I can’t live amongst humans!’ She said the last word as if it contained a bad smell.