by Debi Gliori
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409097167
www.randomhouse.co.uk
WITCH BABY AND ME ON STAGE
A CORGI BOOK 978 0 552 55679 8
Published in Great Britain by Corgi Books,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This edition published 2010
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Debi Gliori, 2010
The right of Debi Gliori to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
The Random House Group Limited supports the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organization. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace-approved FSC-certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be
found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment.
Set in Adobe Garamond Pro l4/19.5pt by Falcon Oast Graphic Art Ltd.
Book design by Clair Lansley
Corgi Books are published by Random House Children’s Books, 61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk www.rbooks.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CRO 4TD
CONTENTS
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Praise
Also by Debi Gliori
A most unwelcome gift
1. My sister, tot-killer
2. A toast to the nappy
3. Puppy love
4. Total piggery
5. Down the toilet
6. A bad hair day
7. Rain stops play
8. Night watch
9. No mummies here
10. Here comes the rain (again)
11. The Toad takes charge
12. Total toddler meltdown
13. A technical hitch
14. A near miss
15. Sister for sale
16. A near miss, Hiss
17. Tonight’s the night
18. Lucky word: Yes
19. Playing for keeps
20. Monkey business
21. Daisy victorious
Ae last Hiss
For Sisters;
of Hiss, real, imaginary, step, half and in-law
but especially for S and K-R;
this one is for you
Praise for the Witch Baby series:
‘Enjoyable, comical series full of interesting characters.’
Primary Times
‘The combination of quirky humour, sibling rivalry and real-life problems … had me captivated from start to finish’
Waterstone’s Books Quarterly
‘Witch Baby and Me is what I have come to expect from a Debi Gliori book, jammed with hilarious and often gross jokes. I giggled all the way through … I can’t recommend this story highly enough for lovers of magic, humour or even books. A wicked triumph’
Eoin Colfer
Also by Debi Gliori
PURE DEAD MAGIC
PURE DEAD WICKED
PURE DEAD BRILLIANT
DEEP TROUBLE
DEEP WATER
DEEP FEAR
WITCH BABY AND ME
WITCH BABY AND ME
AT SCHOOL
WITCH BABY AND ME
AFTER DARK
A MOST
UNWELCOME GIFT
Midnight at Arkon House, and all is quiet and dark. In their attic bedrooms, the Sisters of HiSS are fast asleep. This means they won’t be casting any spells right now. This is A Good Thing, because just outside their rooms, toddling along the moonlit attic corridor, is a very small girl who shouldn’t be there at all. She is wearing a nappy and pyjamas with daisies printed—
Hang on a No … No … No WAY. Surely that isn’t Witch Baby? What on earth is she doing?
As any fool knows, sneaking into a witch’s home is insanely dangerous, but Witch Baby shows no fear. Surely, if she knew what lay on the other side of the three bedroom doors, she would be wide-eyed with terror, holding her breath – or at the very least creeping around like a mouse to avoid waking the Sisters of HiSS from their wicked slumbers. But no – not Witch Baby. She’s not even tiptoeing. Toddle, waddle, stamp she goes, until she arrives outside the first bedroom and stops.
At this point a sensible child would turn right round and creep back along the corridor, tiptoe downstairs, then run like the wind out of the front door, not stopping until she was back home, safe in her own bed.
However, Witch Baby is not a sensible child. She’s a WITCH, for spawn’s sake. Not that you could tell by looking at her. Even her parents and her big brother Jack think she is a perfectly normal little girl called Daisy MacRae. But Daisy’s big sister Lily knows better. Lily knows that dear little Daisy is actually a Witch Baby – but Lily is asleep right now and has no idea that her little witchy sister isn’t tucked up in her cot in the room next door. Daisy’s been Sneaking Around At Night for the past few weeks, but so far no one has noticed. While everyone is asleep, Daisy has been flying through the dark, spying on the people in her neighbourhood to see if anyone is as good at spells as she is. She hadn’t found even the tiniest glint of magic until now, but here, at Arkon House, the air fairly fizzes with it. The closer Witch Baby gets to the Sisters of HiSS, the fizzier she feels. Now, standing outside this bedroom, she can hardly wait to find out who or what lies on the other side of the door.
Standing on tiptoe, Witch Baby reaches up for the handle and, very s … l … o … w … l … y, turns it until she can open the door and peer inside. The room behind the door is a bit of a mess. Actually, the room behind the door looks as if it has recently been struck by a hurricane. Every surface is littered with items of clothing. Witch Baby blinks. Perhaps the wardrobe exploded … That would explain the pants dangling from the lampshade and the vests draped across the top of the curtains. Witch Baby pops her thumb in her mouth and strokes her nose. She can hear the sound of breathing. There’s someone in this bedroom. In the middle is a tottering pile of frocks and socks and woolly cardigans. The pile is heaving up and down ever so slightly. This is because there’s somebody half buried beneath these garments: it’s the Nose, the crabbiest and most waspish of the Hisses. Most of the Nose is hidden; only her nose pokes up like a shark’s fin, her giant nostrils flapping in the darkness as she sifts and sniffs the night air like a bloodhound.
The Nose is having an awful dream – so awful she makes little whimpering sounds in her sleep, and occasionally her mouth opens wide as if she’s about to scream. This is not a pretty sight. Oh, dear. Poor Nose. Once again she is having the terrible dream about being turned i
nto a human being. Eughhhh. Horrors. Being turned into a human is one of the Sisters of Hiss’s worst nightmares.*
Actually, all witches would rather gargle with toilet cleaner than be turned into humans. There are two reasons for this:
Reason one: humans can’t do magic; and
Reason two: at least half of all humans have to change babies’ nappies.
No wonder the Nose is whimpering.
Before the witch wakes up to find someone staring at her and promptly turns that someone into a pimple,* Witch Baby finally shows some sense. She closes the Nose’s bedroom door very quietly and tiptoes away down the corridor. Miraculously she doesn’t step on the squeaky floorboard or skid on the threadbare rug, but she does stop outside the next door and repeat the whole exercise. This time the bedroom is tidy, but looks as if a thousand years worth of dust and cobwebs have gathered on every surface. It’s the kind of room for which the word ‘aaaaaaAAAAAAAA-kerchooo might have been invented. There, under a moth-eaten cream eiderdown, lies the Chin with her mouth wide open, snoring loudly. Her enormous chin is buried in a fold of the eiderdown, so she actually looks quite sweet… even if she sounds like a warthog with indigestion.
The Chin is dreaming about knitting. She’s been doing a lot of knitting recently; not for her Sisters, but for a little girl called Yoshito. In her sleep, the Chin smiles. Dear Yoshito. The poor child really believes that the Chin is a fairy godmother in disguise.*
Poor Yoshito. She couldn’t be more mistaken.
The Chin? A fairy godmother? That’s like believing the BIG BAD WOLF is really Father Christmas. There is, however, a part of the Chin that rather likes the idea of being mistaken for a fairy. For one thing, everybody knows that fairies are far, far prettier than witches; for another, fairy wings don’t drop twigs everywhere like witch’s broomsticks do.
In her dream, the Chin looks up from knitting a scarf for Yoshito to discover that her hunched shoulders have sprouted a dainty pair of sky-blue wings. She smiles in her sleep and her fingers flutter faster beneath her quilt as she whispers, ‘Purl, plain, yarn over, slip next two stitches, turn, purl, plain …’
However, don’t be fooled by all this mild woolcraft. Even though the Chin quite likes Yoshito, that doesn’t mean she likes any other human children. Yoshito is quiet, well behaved and, thankfully, toilet-trained. Just about every other human child that the Chin has met is either noisy, badly behaved, in nappies or a combination of all three. If the Chin were to wake up now and catch sight of a small girl peering round her bedroom door, she’d probably turn her into an earwig.
Fortunately she is concentrating so hard on her dream-knitting that she doesn’t hear Witch Baby close the bedroom door and wander down the corridor to investigate the last bedroom. This proves to be a small green bathroom with a funny smell and mould growing in the cupboard under the sink. Asleep in a puddle in the bath is the Toad, her great golden eyes swivelling beneath her closed eyelids. Poor Toad. She is dreaming that she is kissing a long line of princes, one after the other – mwah, mwah, mwah – and turning each one into a toad, like her.
Ahhhhh, bless. Even though she is a true Sister of Hiss, the Toad has a heart of solid marshmallow.* To the Chin and the Nose’s disgust, the Toad appears to love children; especially babies.** The Toad doesn’t mind that babies are Waily, dribbly, wakeful little BEASTS; damp at both ends and frequently caked in Poo. The Toad would fill Arkon House with babies if it weren’t for her hard-hearted Sisters. If she were to wake up now and discover Witch Baby standing at her bedroom door, the Toad would be over the moon. Unlike her unobservant Sisters, the Toad would immediately recognize that here was the same little girl she and her Sisters magically transformed into a Witch Baby many moons ago.
However, the Toad is several fathoms down, diving deep into her dream, kissing everything as she goes. She is deeply, blissfully, soundly asleep.
Which explains why she doesn’t hear when the little girl mutters, ‘Needa poo,’ then turns and waddles off down the corridor. Halfway downstairs, Witch Baby stops and frowns mightily. A prrr-atta-tat-tat sound comes from her nappy, followed by a rather gruesome squelch. And now there is a very bad smell halfway down the stairs. Witch Baby heaves a huge Sigh. So undignified, wearing nappies. Sensibly, she does what any self-respecting Witch Baby would do. She vanishes, leaving the nappy behind as an unwelcome gift for the Hisses.
* Second only to the one about being turned into a dog. As avowed cat-lovers, most witches think dogs are stupid, smelly, panting sacks of festering dog-meat with revolting personal habits and a tendency to cover everything around them in a layer of fur and dog-lick.
* Commonly known as an Itch Baby.
* I can almost hear you gasp, ‘Whaaaaat? Does Yoshito’s head button up the back? Is she mad? Can’t she see that the Chin is a wicked old witch?’
To which the answer has to be no. No, no and thrice no. Here’s why … When Yoshito was born, her mummy died and Hare., her poor daddy, spent the next nine years seesawing between grief at the loss of his wife and joy at the arrival of his daughter. Then, last summer, Miss Chin moved into the neighbourhood and Hare began to change. After nine years of quiet sadness, he now sings in the shower, picks flowers for their kitchen table and smiles more often; but above all, his eyes twinkle and sparkle all the time, but twice as brightly when Miss Chin is near. It is, Yoshito decides, as if somebody has waved a magic wand over her daddy. That somebody can only be Miss Chin. Mischin, the fairy godmother.
* The Chin’s heart is equally soft, but is encased in a brittle shell of prickly thorns, jaggy nettles and bramble stems. Only an utterly determined prince ++ would be able to hack his way through that thicket to reach the Chin’s guarded heart. And the Nose? Pffffff. It’s by no means certain that she even has a heart, but if she does, dynamite might break into it, but you’d need lots and lots and lots. Sadly, it is likely that if she has one, the Nose’s heart will be made of stone. ++Fortunately Yoshito’s daddy, Hare, is every bit as determined as the best and bravest storybook princes. Against his persistent attacks of loving-kindness, the barricades around the Chin’s heart have begun to collapse. To her alarm, the Chin is growing rather fond of her tireless suitor.
** The Nose loves children too. Especially oven-roasted and served with onion gravy.
One:
My sister, tot-killer
Vivaldi was late for school today. She finally arrived at half past nine, apologized to our teacher, Mrs McDonald, handed her a note and slid into the seat beside me, rolling her eyes and whispering, ‘I’ll tell you later.’
It’s not like her to be late, especially today, when we’re beginning rehearsals for the spring concert. This year we’re having a Noah’s Ark theme and the nursery children will dress up as animals. Daisy is going to be … the monkey! In the nursery classroom next door, we can hear the littlies learning the song they’re going to sing at the concert. Their playleader, Miss McPhee, is picking out the tune on the piano, and high-pitched voices stumble along behind with the words.
Oh, dear. It’s hard learning stuff when you’re very small, but this particular task is being made ten times more difficult by my little sister Daisy: right now she is being a complete Witch. Her voice is very loud, which is how I know that it’s her belting out the wrong words. Oh, Daisy.
‘The animals went in two by two –
Hurrah, hurrah!
The werewolf needed to do a poo,
the spider wanted to do one too,
and they all went into the loo
for to get out of the drain.’
And then Miss McPhee stops playing the piano and says, ‘No, Daisy. Now, you know those aren’t the right words. Come on, children. What should we all be singing?’ There’s a long silence, then Miss McPhee says, ‘Right. We’ll start with the next verse. I’ll help you,’ and off they go again.
‘The animals went to do a pee –
Hurrah, hurrah!
The spider peed on the bumblebee,
&
nbsp; the elephant peed in the monkey’s tea—’
‘DAISY!’ Miss McPhee yells, and then she carries on, this time with the right words,
‘And they all went into the ark
for to get out of the rain.’
There are some days when I’m embarrassed to be related to Daisy. This is one of them. I’m blushing to the roots of my hair, and it’s not just because of Daisy’s love of jokes about Poo. It’s also because Daisy is a Witch Baby. That’s Witch, as in: takes an unhealthy interest in toads, bats and spiders. Witch, as in: casts spells. Witch, as in … Uh-oh, next door, the nursery has gone silent. Huh? A classful of small children never goes quiet.
And now I’m getting a bad feeling. I’m having a Lily MacRae all-systems Code Red aoooga aoooga nee-naw nee-naw panic attack. My stomach is doing back-flips and my heart is hammering, and if I were a cartoon, my eyes would be two spinning spirals and my hair would be standing on end – because this is exactly how I feel when Daisy is about to do a spell. In this I’m not alone. Beside me, Vivaldi is rolling her eyes and pulling a face. She nods in the direction of the nursery and waggles her eyebrows, as if to say, What’s going on?
I’ll have to find out – I can hear a giggle coming from next door, as if someone very small has just discovered something hilarious. Actually, the giggle is more of a cackle than a giggle, but only I would be able to tell them apart. It’s the sound Witch Babies make when they think they’ve just cast a particularly clever spell. A spell they’re rather proud of. Aaaargh. I find that my left arm has shot up into the air before I even know what I’m about to say. Somehow I have to find out what’s happened to cause the unearthly silence next door.
