by Debi Gliori
‘Lil?’ Vivaldi’s mum is heading my way, a look of concern on her face. Yikes.
‘FINE! I’m fine,’ I yelp. ‘I think – aieee – I just … uh … dropped something on the … YOW … steps … Ah.’ I squat down and shovel Boomstek-the-chin-chewer back onto the ground, then spring up again. ‘Got it,’ I lie. ‘Sorted. Erm. Thanks for inviting me to tea. Mum says she’ll come and pick me up at eight, if that’s OK?’
‘Er … yes?’ Vivaldi’s mum looks slightly puzzled, but then she blinks and smiles at us. ‘I’ve just taken a batch of really chewy cherry almond cookies out of the oven. I’ve no idea if they’re any good because I sort of made them up as I went along …’
Vampie and Boomstek are skidding past me, heading for the kitchen. I hope the cookies haven’t been left within reach of them, or they’ll be gone before Vivaldi and I get a single crumb.
Vivaldi’s mum is blissfully unaware that her baking might be under siege. She jams her hands in her pockets, puts her head to one side and says, ‘And what I need now are two brave guineapigs to test the cookies for me—’
Vivaldi’s halfway across the hall, tearing off her coat as she heads for the kitchen.
‘Wait up,’ I yell, frisbeeing my hat onto the handlebars of Mull and Skye’s twin buggy and following Vivaldi into the cookiescented kitchen. Brave guinea-pig? It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
* Don’t answer that.
* How does she smell? And don’t say, ‘With her nose.’ Sigh. WayWoof releases occasional stink-clouds which smell of rotten cabbage covered in bad egg and lightly dusted with blue cheese. Phwoarrrrrrr. Was that you, or WayWoof?
** We might have ended up with a bad-tempered bat, or a depressed dragon, or a rancid rat, or … or … All I can say is thank heavens for WayWoof.
* You may know this already, but Blue Moonies are wildly intelligent, hysterically funny, stunningly beautiful, brilliant at sports, musical geniuses, frequently voted Most Popular Pupil at Schoo- Oh, yes, and they can see things that nobody else can. Not all of the above is true except for the last bit.
* However, just in case your brain is 95% cat, Boomstek has just said, ‘O great two-legged goddess with access privileges to the fridge and tin-opener please, please pick me up and hug me too.’
Four:
Total piggery
It’s dark when Mum comes to collect me. To my surprise, she’s brought Daisy along.
‘Hey, squirt. Thought this was way past your bedtime,’ I say, peering at the little hunched bundle on the back of Mum’s bike.
‘Don’t,’ sighs Mum. ‘We’ve already had a major shriek-fest over supper and I wanted a breather before the next one when I tell her it’s time for bee-ee-dee.’
‘Not seeping,’ the hunched bundle mutters, obviously aware that we’re discussing her upcoming duvet-with-pillow appointment.
Mum rolls her eyes, apologizes to Vivaldi’s mum for not staying for a cup of tea, and in moments we’re leaving the lights of Vivaldi’s house behind and walking home.
Daisy is silent on the back of Mum’s bike, but even her silences are loud. There’s something about the hunch of her shoulders and the pout of her lips that makes me nervous. She’s brooding, and when Daisy does this, it’s time to lock the door, pull the curtains tightly shut and hide under the bed. Except we can’t. We’re at the edge of the woods that lie between Vivaldi’s house and ours. The path ahead through the trees is every bit as dark as you’d expect at eight o’clock on a night in late March. Despite having had three helpings of vegetarian chilli plus a huge wedge of treacle tart and home-made ice cream, my stomach is managing to tie itself into a tight little knot of anxiety. Please, Daisy, I silently beg her, no spells tonight. No spe—
‘Not needa pee,’ Daisy informs us, adding, ‘All dun. Not clever girl.’
Oh dear. In the glow from her front bike-light, I can see Mum’s shoulders sag.
‘Not dunna poO,’ Daisy adds cheerfully, the lying toad. At this double whammy of nappy-insult, Mum cracks.
‘Oh, Daisy,’ she groans. ‘For heaven’s SAKE. Why didn’t you ask?’
‘Not gotta potty,’ Daisy counters. ‘Notta potty onna bike. Notta potty inna tees. Notta potty inna Lil-Lil’s bagpie. Notta po—’
‘All RIGHT, Daze,’ Mum snaps. ‘We get the message.’
But Daisy’s on a roll. All the way home she belts out every single one of the verses she can remember from the song her class is singing at the concert. By the time we reach our garden gate Mum and I are both wishing that the animals, the ark and its vast cargo of poo would sink without trace to the bottom of the deep blue sea.
‘The animals went in four by four —
Hurrah, hurrah!
The ’nosserus pood all over the floor,
the effalunt slid innit out of the door,
and they all went into the ark
for to get out of the drain.’
Daisy’s still singing upstairs, but at least we made it back home without her doing any magic spells. Pheee-yew. I’m packing my school bag for tomorrow, and on the other side of the kitchen my big brother Jack is loading up a plate with enough food to keep him going through the night. I try not to stare, but it’s hard. Jack’s appetite is colossal. Surely he can’t possibly eat that whole plateful without exploding?
You be the judge. On the plate are:
• Four sandwiches which could easily double as footstools.
• One bowl of noodles. (I use the word ‘bowl’ in the loosest sense. ‘Bucket’ would be more accurate.)
• One dangerously full mug of hot chocolate with a dense cluster of marshmallows bobbing on top.
• And – to fill in any last little hollows – a tottering column of digestive biscuits cemented together with strawberry jam.
As usual, a faint tss tss sound is coming from Jack’s head. Poor Jack. He needs a soundtrack for everything he does. It’s as if he’s starring in a film of his life, and needs music to make it real.
——— COMING SOON: ———
Jack Makes Another Sandwich
the sequel to Jack’s Snack,
–– starring ––
Jack Macrae,
best known for his award-winning role in
ATTACK OF THE STEAMING MUNCHIES
Just then, Daisy appears in the kitchen.
‘Naaaanight, Dack,’ she says, puckering up for a kiss.
‘mmmwah, Daze,’ goes Jack, his jaws working steadily on his second sandwich. Crumbs fall out of his mouth and into Daisy’s hair. Daisy blinks, then turns round and thunders back upstairs. Despite the crumbs, Jack is a perfect big brother for a Witch Baby. He never notices anything. Daisy could turn him into a boa constrictor and Jack would just keep on chewing mindlessly, unhinging his jaws to cram more food in, growing steadily more lumpy around the middle, totally oblivious to the fact that his baby sister had just turned him into a snake. This does not make him a perfect brother for me, though. Trying to communicate with someone who stares blankly at you while going tss-tss tsssst is really annoying.
‘Jack?’
Tsss – tssss tsssssTT.
‘You are a beast. That plateful is disgusting. You are the beastliest beast I’ve ever seen. You. Are. A. Pig.’
Tss? Tss?
‘Put one more mouthful in there and you’ll go BANG! Then Mum’ll be picking bits of your guts off the ceiling for months.’
TSS tsss TSS tss TSST.
You see my problem? Every few hours Jack’s batteries go flat, and while they’re recharging, he remembers how to speak.
‘Whafff?’ he grunts through a mouthful of sandwich. Eeughhh. Don’t look, Lily. Don’t look. Don’t … Oh dear.
Jack has a marshmallow spot-welded to his chin and he’s trying to remove it without using his hands. This is not a good look, but I am seriously impressed, all the same. Who would’ve thought his tongue could stretch so far? Yeeeearrrrghhh.
‘I need help, Jack,’ I begin.
�
��Mmfle?’ he sprays.
‘We’re supposed to be making invitations for our spring concert and …’ I tail off.
Where Jack was sitting is a small pig. It’s a dirty pink colour with coarse bristly hairs sprouting out of the top of its head and is making the most hideous snurkly snorky noises as it roots through Jack’s bowl/bucket of noodles. If it didn’t happen to have a pair of earbuds draped around its neck, I wouldn’t know that this is my brother, horribly altered thanks to …
‘DAISEEEEE?’ I shriek. ‘What have you done? Put him back!’
‘Put who back?’ Dad asks, ambling into the kitchen, undoing his tie and dropping his jacket over the back of a chair. The Jack-pig ignores him and turns its attention to the tower of digestive biscuits and jam. Crunch, gobble, snurk. Dad ignores the noise and runs his hands affectionately through the bristles on top of the Jack-pig’s head. My mouth falls open. Is he blind? Before I can say anything, Dad hauls off his tie, drops it on the table and says, ‘Eughhhh. Traffic was a nightmare. Got stuck behind a tractor, and would it let me past? Sorry I’m late. Any food left?’ He smiles and shakes his head at the remains of Jack’s little snack and slides into a seat beside me.
Amazing. I used to think that I had the most unobservant parents in the western hemisphere, but sometimes I’m not so sure. Vivaldi says her mum didn’t see a muffin floating in the air beside her, nor did she notice when the same muffin reappeared in a pool of puppy sick. But tonight it’s my dad who once again wins the Parent In A World Of His Own Contest. Not once has Dad remarked on the fact that his only son has turned into a pig. He really doesn’t notice. And as if that wasn’t deeply weird enough, neither does Jack. How weird is that? Surely he will look down at his trotters and think, Gosh, whatever happened to my fingers? When he tries to put his earbuds back into his ears and finds that there are two huge floppy bits of pink pigskin dangling from either side of his head, won’t he realize then that Something Is Amiss?
Nope. Not a flicker. Not so much as a single ripple of unease crosses his little smooth pink forehead. Earbuds are back in ears and he’s holding a sandwich in both trotters as he pokes it into his mouth. I can’t take any more. I excuse myself and head upstairs to find She Who Casts Spells and make her stop.
Five:
Down the toilet
Daisy is sitting up in bed wearing flowery pyjamas and a rather worried expression.
‘Not dunna pee, Lil-Lil,’ she says before I can get a word out. Poor Daisy. Every time she sees Mum or Dad, she thinks they’re about to whisk her off to the bathroom and plonk her on the toilet again. Daisy hates the toilet. She thinks that she’s going to fall down the hole, that there’s something living down there just below the surface of the water; something lurking in the darkness, waiting for a small girl to appear. I can understand why she prefers to wear nappies at night rather than waving her bare bottom at the Thing Down the Thing Down the U-Bend.
Unfortunately Mum is determined to get Daisy out of nappies before her second birthday, and time is running out. In only two weeks’ time we’ll be putting candles on a cake and preparing to welcome a tribe of marauding toddlers into our house. Daisy, being a stubborn little squirt, appears to be equally determined to stay in nappies till she’s seventeen.*
However, Mum’s constant questions about the contents of her nappy** are driving Daisy nuts.
Poor Daisy. I can feel her pain. Imagine if the only thing your mum and dad ever said to you was, Darling, do you need a poo? Over and over again. Need a poo? Darling? You’d probably begin to feel like a walking poo-factory. And, like Daisy, you’d soon become heartily sick of being herded into the bathroom to let the Thing Down the U-Bend have another chance at chewing your rear. I’m surprised poor Daisy hasn’t turned all of us into pigs, not just Jack.
So I don’t mention nappies or bathrooms. Instead, I sit on the bed beside her, pick up a pile of picture books and begin to leaf through them.
‘Story, Lil-Lil?’ she says, leaning up against me.
‘No problem, Daze,’ I reply. ‘Soon as you change Jack back into a boy I’ll read you a story.’
‘Three stories,’ she says, patting my knee.
‘One story, Daze. It’s late, I’m tired and it’s past your bedtime.’
‘No wantit one story,’ she insists. ‘Not seepy Want lots story, want BIG story – WANTIT, WANTIT, WAA—’
Just as she’s about to tip over the edge into toddler meltdown, a patch of shadow in the corner unfolds into a huge black dog which lollops across the bedroom, jumps on Daisy’s bed and licks her face until she collapses in helpless giggles. Thank heavens. Waywoof the peacemaker. Where would we be without you?
With her arms wrapped round WayWoof’s neck, Daisy calms down.
I pick up a book and wave it at her. ‘Story, Daze?’
She looks at me and slowly puts her thumb in her mouth.
‘Turn Jack back into a boy?’ I add.
‘Dunnit,’ she mumbles, hauling her mouth to one side to let the word out. Crikey. It was that easy? Last year Daisy could only do one spell at a time. This used to mean that when WayWoof appeared, I could breathe a sigh of relief because then I’d know there couldn’t be any other stray bits of Daisy-magic floating around at the same time. One spell at a time used to be quite enough for a little Witch Baby. That was then. But now … now she can keep several spells running at the same time, a bit like a juggler keeping lots of balls in the air at once. Daisy is becoming more of a witch as she grows older. And the more spells she does, the harder it is to keep her magical skills a secret.
I suspect that it would be disastrous for Daisy if any grown-ups found out that she is a Witch Baby. At first they wouldn’t believe what they were seeing: levitating muffins, brothers turned into pigs, dogs conjured out of thin air … Then, when it could no longer be denied that Daisy had Special Powers, our lives would be turned upside down. Hundreds of television people would turn up at our front door, all wanting to interview her. Newspaper reporters and photographers would camp round our house, all trying to take photos and ask questions. We’d be late for school, trying to fight our way past the crowds. There’d be helicopters with spotlights flying over our house, trying to see in our windows. It would be horrible. Every single thing our family did would be reported in the papers:
LILY MACRAE,
SISTER OF
WITCH BABY,
BRUSHES TEETH
SHOCK!
HORROR!
JACK MACRAE,
BROTHER OF
WITCH BABY,
GOES TSS-TSS
WE RAID
MACRAE
DUSTBIN
WITCH BABY’S
FAMILY NOT
100%
VEGETARIAN
After several weeks of this sort of thing the press would start pestering everyone we knew until someone cracked.
MACRAE
FAMILY
‘FRIEND’
TELLS ALL
‘I PLAYED WITH
WITCH BABY#8217;
BY NURSERY CLASSMATE
and
WITCH BABY
NOT TOILET-TRAINED
BY THE THING DOWN THE U-BEND
Daisy’s world would never be the same again. For the rest of her life she would be some kind of weird celebrity. She would never again be allowed to be just Daisy MacRae, my little sister. She’d be Daisy the Witch. People would be fascinated by her, but scared of her too. People would pester her to cast spells for them. From the moment the grown-up world became aware of what Daisy really is, her life – her ordinary life as the youngest member of our family – would be over. I know, it sounds as if I’m exaggerating, but I don’t think so. Something tells me it’s really important that I keep Daisy’s witchiness secret. At least until she’s old enough to take care of herself.
‘Wantit, piggybook,’ she says, pointing to a battered paperback. Good choice. This used to be Jack’s when he was small, and then it was mine, and now it’s been pass
ed on to Daisy. The pages have all fallen out at least once, and it’s been mended with sellotape over and over again, but that just proves that it’s a story that’s been loved to bits.
Perhaps that’s where Daisy got the idea for turning Jack into a pig. Aaaargh. I look nervously at the pile of books that have toppled off her bed and fanned out across the floor. In between their pages are enough ideas for magic spells to turn our little corner of Scotland upside down, inside out and totally topsy-turvy.*
Daisy pats my knee again. Actually, it’s more of a slap than a pat because she wants her story and she wants it NOW. At her feet, WayWoof stretches, yawns widely and then curls up to go back to sleep. The first wisp of a hideous smell wafts past my nose. Euurrghhh. A story and a stink. What more could a Witch Baby want?
* And how embarrassing would that be?
** Daisy’s not Mum’s,
* Not to mention turning our house into gingerbread, our shoes into glass slippers and the moon into green cheese.
Six:
A bad hair day
After the incident with the hot minestrone in the pool, the Nose’s hair started to smell weird. Try as they might, her Sisters were unable to ignore the scraps of mouldering macaroni and putrid peas caught up in her lank ponytail; then finally, when mushrooms started to sprout from the Nose’s scalp, the Chin decided that enough was enough. However, she didn’t dare suggest that the Nose took a bath and washed the remains of the minestrone out of her hair. That would have lead to Stampies and shriekies, because whose fault was it that the poor Nose’s hair smelled like a putrefying pizza?
Exactly.
