Witch Baby and Me On Stage

by Debi Gliori

Faced with this problem, the Chin racked her brains. How on earth could she persuade the Nose to wash her stinky hair without causing her to throw an epic wobbly? After a few sleepless nights spent trying to come up with an idea, inspiration struck one morning at breakfast.

  ‘Hmmmm … but then again, no,’ the Chin said to herself, making sure that the Nose was listening. ‘No way. That’s sooo wrong. You don’t look anything like her.’ And then, having successfully baited her hook, she settled back in her chair and waited for the Nose to bite.

  She didn’t have to wait long. The Nose’s response was almost immediate.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ she demanded. ‘Who doesn’t look anything like who?’

  ‘Pardon me?’ the Chin said, making her voice deliberately vague and wispy. ‘Did you say something?’

  In contrast to the Chin’s woolly queries, the Nose’s words stitched through the silence like sharp little needles. ‘You said, “You don’t look anything like her.” I repeat: who is you and who is her?’

  ‘Oh!’ squawked the Chin, giving a tinkly little laugh to annoy the Nose even more. ‘Such nonsense. Somebody – Mr Harukashi? No … The postman? Don’t think so. Ohhhh – could it have been the chap in the pizza shop? I forget … Anyway, somebody said that they thought you looked exactly like whatshername – oh, you know – that stunningly attractive TV cook, Fenella Thingummy – except I said your hair’s too long, but they said if you had a haircut you’d look just like her twin.’

  The Nose’s eyes grew round and wide. ‘Fenella Lawless?’ she breathed. ‘The Queen of Cupcakes? You’re kidding! Me? ME? MEEEEEEEEEEEE?’

  The Chin turned aside to hide her smile of delight. Perfect. The Nose had taken the bait. Hook, line and sinker. Now, all that remained was to book a hairdresser and soon the stink of decomposing minestrone would be a fading memory …

  The next day the Nose and the Chin walk arm in arm towards Klassy Kutz.

  ‘Cut, curl, dye, perm, straighten, highlights?’ the hairdresser asks as he whisks a gown around the Nose’s neck and seats her in a revolving black leather chair. Not waiting for an answer, he spins the old witch round in a circle and regards her with a critical eye.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ he says, putting his head to one side. ‘This calls for something biiig and dramatic …’

  The Nose swallows. Although she’s prepared to go through with this in order to look even more like the glamorous Fenella Lawless, she feels very uncomfortable being stared at by this young man. Nobody has ever stared at the Nose for such a long time. Nobody alive, that is. The Nose grits her teeth and endures it. The hairdresser picks up a limp strand of her hair and tsssks as if he’s disappointed.

  ‘Dear me,’ he says sadly. ‘Your hair’s in a terrible state. When did you last have it cut?’

  The Nose wisely decides not to tell the truth – it is quite likely that her last haircut took place before this young man’s great-great-grandmother was born. Instead, she mumbles something about being unable to remember.

  ‘Never mind, dear,’ the young man says, wheeling the Nose’s chair across to a row of sinks. ‘We’ll soon sort you out. SHAMPOO!’

  Before the Nose can say a word, she’s being bent backwards over a sink and warm water is sluicing across her scalp.

  ‘Comfy?’ the hairdresser asks, rubbing vigorously all over the Nose’s head. Bubbles begin to drift out of the sink, and the Nose is surrounded in a warm cloud of flowery perfume. More warm water, more delicious fragrances – and then, as suddenly as it began, the shampooing is over.

  The Nose is unfolded from the sink, her head is skilfully wrapped in a warm turban of towelling and she is wheeled across to a wall of mirrors for her haircut.

  Across the room, the Chin is immersed in reading a magazine. Sunday, the glossy pages inform her, is Mother’s Day. On Sunday, she reads, all mummies get to lie in bed, have breakfast brought to them, receive cards, flowers, chocolate, jewels, paintings, holidays, handbags … and all just for being a mummy. The Chin sighs. How lovely that must be, she thinks. Nobody has ever brought her breakfast in bed or given her a Mother’s Day card. Poor Chin. Despite all her spells and wickedness, all she really wants is to be loved. But witches are not easy to love; most people are so scared of them, they’d rather fling themselves off a cliff than give a witch a cuddle. Children have been taught to avoid even talking to strange old ladies with wild hair and funny clothes. In fact, the Chin has gone through her entire life without ever knowing what love is.*

  The Chin sighs again. She’ll never be a mummy now. Not at four hundred years old. When she was a young witch, she used to dream about having a dear little Witch Baby of her own, a dear little Witch Baby who would grow up calling her ‘Mummy’. However, what the Chin hadn’t realized was that for every mummy there also had to be a daddy. Sadly, most of the daddies on the Chin’s list of possibilities took one look at the Chin’s chin, heard her witchy, creaky, quavery voice, or perhaps caught a glint of the magic flickering behind her eyes … and that was the last the Chin ever saw of that daddy.

  Poor Chin. As the months, years, decades and eventually centuries rolled past, all hope of finding that ideal, elusive Witch Baby daddy faded away. In desperation, the Chin and her Sisters chose a human child to be their adopted Witch Baby. But no matter what they did to her, Daisy would never call any of the Sisters of Hiss ‘Mummy’.

  Somehow Chinny, Nosy and Toady didn’t quite sound the same. Poor Chin. Poor Nose. Poor Toad. Dragging her thoughts back to the present, the Chin lets her gaze fall onto the photo in the magazine in her lap. The photo of a perfect mummy enjoying her Mother’s Day breakfast, a tiny child tucked in each arm, flowers artfully strewn across the quilt. A flash of irritation at the smug-cat-who-got-the-cream expression on the mummy’s face makes the Chin’s fingers twitch, and before she can stop herself, a bristly black beard suddenly appears on the plump pink chin of the no-longer-perfect mummy. The Chin’s eyes widen. Did she just do that? The corners of her mouth quiver and she gives a snort of laughter, which she hastily tries to disguise as a cough.

  ‘Everything OK over there?’ the hairdresser asks, pausing halfway through the Nose’s haircut to smile at the Chin. ‘I won’t be too much longer. Soon have your mum here looking ten years young—’

  There is a squawk, a FLASHHHHHH and a FRIZZZZLE. The hairdresser’s scissors fall to the floor with a clatter. Where the hairdresser was stands a large and ugly bird. Casting a terrified glance around, it gives a dismayed honk and vanishes across the room behind a bead curtain. In the sudden silence a telephone begins to ring.

  The Chin’s mouth falls open. ‘Whaaa? What on earth? N-N-NOSE?’

  The Nose stands up, drags the gown from round her shoulders and flings it aside. ‘Sssserves him right,’ she spits. ‘Calling me your MOTHER! The pea-brained dodo.’

  ‘You turned him into a dodo?’ the Chin wails. ‘Oh, Nose. You promised you wouldn’t do any magic in public unless strictly necessary.

  You know it’s too dangerous. QUICK – before anyone finds out – put him back.’

  ‘Shan’t,’ the Nose mutters, stalking across to a mirror to check her reflection. Fortunately she is too blinded by rage to notice when the mirror promptly shatters. She spins on her heel and glares at the Chin. ‘Ssstupid, ssstupid and ssstupid,’ she hisses. ‘I don’t look anything like your mother. Any fool would be able to tell that we are Sissssters.’

  Despite her own promise to avoid using magic unless it was strictly necessary, the Chin decides that this is an all-out emergency and, like it or not, magic will have to be used. Behind her back she makes the sign of the gushy thumb* and blinks – left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye – at her reflection. Immediately the broken mirror ripples as if its jagged glassy surface is made of water, and just as immediately, the Nose’s reflection reappears.

  But this is a Nose transformed. Her huge nose is far smaller, her eyes larger, wider and smokier, her bushy eyebrows curved into a haughty arch and her twisty mouth puckered int
o a plump pink pout.** For good measure the Chin throws in a pyramid of artfully placed cupcakes to remind the Nose of her twin, the glamorous Fenella.

  ‘Come on,’ the Chin insists. ‘Bring the hairdresser back – he’s done a great job. Look in the mirror. That haircut has transformed you. You look marvellous.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ the Nose says, twirling this way and that, all the better to admire her reflection.

  ‘Let’s go,’ urges the Chin. ‘The Toad’s making a curry for supper tonight and you know you’d hate to be late for that.’

  The Nose’s eyes widen. Curry? Her nostrils flare. With the Toad’s special sarnosas? Her stomach growls. Would there be coconut rice with a stack of home-made naan bread too? The Nose’s mouth waters. All at once she decides to forgive the hairdresser. Poor boy probably needed to wear glasses. Imagine mistaking her for the Chin’s mother! Pffffff – the very idea! Her fingers flex and flick a spell in the direction of the dodo. There is a small flash, and a cloud of feathers drifts out from behind the bead curtain.

  Time to go, the Chin decides, before the hairdresser puts his foot in it again. Leaving a small pile of notes and coins behind as payment for the Nose’s half-completed haircut, she ushers her Sister out into the street just as it begins to rain.

  * However, there is some hope for her. Hare Harukashi is head-over-heels in love with her. This is utterly remarkable because anyone can see that the Chin is a four-hundred-year-old witch with a chin so sharp you could use it to slice bread. Anyone except Hare and his daughter, Yoshito. The Chin has tried to put them off. She has even told Hare she’ll turn him into a maggot if he doesn’t stop pursuing her, but Hare pays her no heed. If she turns him into a maggot, Hare will still love the Chin with all his maggoty heart. Such is the way of true love: it is blind, it is insane and it intends to overcome every obstacle in its way.

  * The gushy thumb has been used for generations to keep applause apraise, falsely good reviews and general grovelly, insincere sucking-up gushing forth as if from a tap.

  ** But only in the mirror, sadly. In reality, the Nose is still as ugly as ever.

  Seven:

  Rain stops play

  Rain is still thundering on the roof at morning break time.

  Mrs McDonald sighs and scrubs at the steamed-up windows of our classroom. ‘Sorry, dears,’ she says. ‘You’ll just get soaked if I let you all go outside now.’

  A huge groan goes up – this is the third time this week that we’ve been stuck inside. It’s not that being outside in a rainy playground is so brilliant, but being stuck inside means we can’t run around or climb on things or make our usual blood-curdling shrieks and roars.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mrs McDonald says, heading for the staffroom. ‘I’m sure it will brighten up soon. It can’t go on raining for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’ moans Craig, slumping back in his seat and kicking the leg of his desk. ‘Who’s gonny stop it, eh?’ ‘Ah don’t care,’ says Shane. ‘Ah like it when it rains. Puddles and stuff. It’s not all that bad.’ ‘What are you on?’ Craig demands, glowering at Shane. ‘D’you think you’re some kind of duck? Or a fush?’

  ‘Aw, come on,’ Shane tries to reason with him. ‘All the rain’ll put us in the mood for doing the scenery for the concert.’

  ‘Oooooh, I’m in the moooood,’ Craig mocks, standing up and grabbing Shane’s shoulders. ‘Ooooh, I’m soo in the mood. I looooove rain, oooh—’

  ‘Shut up,’ mutters Shane, a blush spreading up from his collar as Craig waltzes him around the desks going, ‘Ooooh, ooooh, rain. Ooooh, oooh, love it – oooh, Shane.’

  Across the classroom, Jamie shakes his head and groans. Another day at the zoo. Beside him, his sister Annabel lifts her nose in the air and says, ‘Eughhhh. I hate it when it rains. Daddy won’t let me go out on my pony because ever since he put in the tennis court the paddock always gets flooded …

  We all gape at Annabel. Aware that she is suddenly the centre of attention, she carries on, ‘It’s awful, really. I can’t ride my pony when it’s wet, and Daddy won’t let me have an indoor riding school …

  Craig bends forwards and slowly bangs his forehead against his desk.

  BANG.

  Annabel’s nose wrinkles, but she’s unstoppable. ‘It’s really not fair – thanks to the rain, I end up losing about a hundred days of riding every year—’

  BANG, BANG, BANG goes Craig’s head, and then he stops, stands upright and peers at Annabel as if he’s never seen her before. His eyes grow wide and he puts both hands in front of his face as if he’s trying to ward something off.

  ‘AAAAAAARGH!’ he yells, so loudly that we all jump. ‘It’s an Annabelly Oh NoOOOOO. Help. Aaagh. Run! HIDE!’

  Annabel frowns. ‘Whatever are you—?’

  ‘OHHHH, arghhhhh. It’s one of the speaking ones. UURGHHHH. They’re the worst. One bite and it’s fatal. Back, I tell you, get back.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Annabel says, but I cannot be the only one to notice that her eyes are filling up and her voice has developed a slight wobble. Poor Annabel – if only she didn’t go on and on and on about how rich her daddy is or how enormous their house is or how many things she owns; if she weren’t constantly reminding us how posh her family is, we’d probably really like her. As it is, everyone in our class does a lot of eye-rolling when Annabel starts one of her I’m - so - much - posher - than - the - Queen rants. Oh, sigh.

  ‘Come off it, Craig,’ Jamie mutters. ‘Leave her alone and pick on someone your own size.’

  ‘That would be hard,’ Craig snorts. ‘Youse’re all dead wee. Ah’m the biggest in this class.’

  He’s right. When we’re all lined up in order of height, Craig is far taller than any of us.

  ‘So that means you’re the only one who can reach up to paint the clouds at the top of the scenery,’ Jamie says, cleverly steering the subject away from Annabel.

  ‘Aye, so ah am,’ Craig says, grabbing a big brush and tipping paint into a small pail. ‘Right. No point in waiting, eh? Ah’m gonny get started.’

  ‘Er … I say … hang on,’ Jamie squawks. ‘Don’t you think we should sort of … er … wait? At least till Mrs McDonald comes back from her coffee break?’

  ‘Nup,’ says Craig, levering the lid off another tin of paint and peering inside. ‘Ochhhh. Yon’s all dried up.’

  Jamie shrugs and rolls his eyes. At least he tried. Besides, it won’t be him who gets into trouble.

  ‘What colour did we decide the sky should be again?’ Vivaldi asks, jamming her arms into an old shirt to protect her school clothes.

  ‘Grey,’ says Shane.

  ‘Blue,’ says Mozart, Vivaldi’s little sister.

  ‘Nawwwwww,’ groans Craig. ‘It’s goat to look like it’s aboot to rain. It’s a story about an ark, no a cruise ship.’

  ‘The sky should be sort of silvery grey and purple. Like a bruise,’ says Yoshito.

  We all stop and stare at her.

  ‘A bruise?’ squeaks Annabel; then, after a second, ‘Eauuu. I see what you mean. You’re absolutely right. The sky does look bruised before a big storm.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ says Jamie. ‘Well done, Yoshito. I think you’d probably better mix the paint.’

  Yoshito beams. She may be one of the smallest in our class, but she has a huge imagination.

  ‘My fairy godmother has a shawl that colour,’ she says as she starts stirring paint. ‘That’s where I got the idea.’

  Yoshito speaks about her fairy godmother as if she’s real. If I didn’t have a baby sister who is a witch, I’d probably roll my eyes and sigh when Yoshito talks like that. However, when you’re related to somebody as weird as Daisy, you don’t bat an eyelid when school friends claim to have fairies in the family.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ says Vivaldi. she’s banging staples into a wooden frame to hold a sheet of canvas in place. ‘I’d like to meet your fairy godmother someday.’

  ‘I hope you will,’ Yoshito says, giving the p
aint a final swirl. ‘I am sending her an invitation to our concert so perhaps you can meet her then.’

  Craig peers down from the top of the stepladder, where he’s begun painting clouds. ‘Ask your fairy godmother to make it stop raining, eh? Ah’m fed up wi’ no being able to play football.’

  ‘You can ask her yourself,’ Yoshito says, handing the paint up to Craig and adding mischievously, ‘But you’ll have to believe in fairies first, otherwise her spell won’t work.’

  Craig gives a disbelieving snort, jams his brush into the pot and applies a dripping swoosh of silvery-purple paint across the canvas. ‘What a great get-out clause,’ he sneers. ‘If the spell doesny work, that’ll be my fault for not believing hard enough. Ochhhh, what a load of rubbish. Fairies? They’re about as real as Santa Claus.’

  ‘What’re youse oan about?’ Shane demands. ‘Santa is real. He brought me a mountain bike for Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Annabel interrupts. ‘Everyone knows Santa’s only your mum and dad.’

  ‘Nup,’ Shane insists. ‘Ah know there’s no way ma mum and dad could afford to buy me a new bike.’

  ‘They probably went out and stole it then,’ Annabel offers unhelpfully.

  Furious and humiliated, Shane makes a lunge at her, but instead crashes into Craig’s stepladder.

  ‘Watch OUT!’ Craig roars, but it’s too late. Yoshito’s pot of bruise-coloured paint wobbles, bounces and topples off the ladder, then falls to the floor with a sickening SPLOTTTCHH. Gobbets of paint fly in all directions. With impeccable timing, this is the exact moment when Mrs McDonald returns from the staffroom.

  Eight:

  Night watch

  It’s a long way past midnight but Witch Baby is still out and about. While Lily and Jack and Mum and Dad sleep, the youngest member of the MacRae household is UP TO NO GOOD. Rain patters on windows and roofs, and so does Daisy. Tonight she is peering though the many, many windows of Mishnish Castle, where Annabel and Jamie live with their dad and their nanny. It’s such a big house for only four people; they all rattle around in it like buttons in a biscuit tin. There are so many floors and wings and rooms and windows that it takes Daisy ages to find that Jamie and Annabel have enormous bedrooms on the second floor.