My Unwilling Witch Goes to Ballet School

by Hiawyn Oram

  She was barefoot, in a ragged torn-off dress with dirt rubbed into her face. (Apparently to make her look like a “poor little hungry thing” from the f-f-frozen wastes of wherever.)

  Mind you, it worked.

  The mad ballet school man and woman swooned.

  “It’s the Little Matchstick Girl!” they cried (whatever that is). “Now let’s see what you can do.”

  Well, sad to relate, she could do everything because she’d not only studied that Ballet for Beginners book but — unbeknownst to me — she’d also done a ballet spell on herself.

  Whatever they called out for her to do, she did perfectly. After the Five Basic Positions, they got really excited.

  “Plié in first!” they called.

  “Plié in second!

  Relevé!

  Relevé!

  Battement tendu!

  Rond de jambe,

  one, two, three!

  Very good, cherie!”

  But it was her arabesque that did it. They flipped at her arabesque, all right.

  Now my witch has a place at Otherside Ballet School, and if I don’t keep this from the High Hags — I won’t be OVER a hot cauldron, I’ll be IN one till I’m back at the Awethunder School for Familiars — a steamed cat dumpling.

  PS: This is the ballet spell I found under her pillow while unmaking her bed this morning.

  SPELL TO GET EVEN THE MOST LUMPEN BEING INTO BALLET SCHOOL

  Your legs are now elastic and your hips can turn right out

  Your arms look smooth and boneless as you spin and twirl about

  Your body’s strong and supple and can leap into the air

  There is no step you can’t perform and nothing you don’t dare

  First position, second position, third position, four

  Fifth position, feet turned out, fully crossed, and more

  The plié and the relevé, the splits, the arabesque

  And all of it from chanting this while sitting at your desk.

  (Repeat twelve times every day until your audition is successful.)

  The Hags Get Wind of It Day

  Dear Diary,

  SOCKS, SOCKS, TADPOLES IN SOCKS!

  The Hags HAVE got wind of

  HA at ballet school!!

  But let me go back a bit.

  This morning when we arrived at the school, the Mad Two announced they are so pleased with HA’s progress, they are going to create a special ballet for her for “the end of term show.”

  They were very excited, chucked her under her chin, and cried, “Oh, cherie, we think you are going to be a star! In fact, we are sure of it — you are going to be the next Pavlova!”

  “Next Pavlova?”

  HA almost screamed.

  “How can I be a Pavlova? From what I have seen in your Eateries, this Pavlova is nothing but a fluffguff, grubspit dessert!”

  For some reason this made the Mad Two laugh like tinkling bells and chuck HA under the chin some more.

  “Oh no, cherie, the dessert came much later!” cried one of them. “Anna Pavlova was one of the greatest dancers the world has ever seen! Now, come, let us get to work!”

  Well, for me, these Pavlova promises were so spirit-lowering, I could not watch the warmup class and sneaked home to do some chores.

  I buried myself in untidying, invited back all the eavesdroppers HA had shooed out, and then went collecting ingredients for our empty spell jars. And that’s where I bumped into the High Hags, Trixie Fiddlestick and Iodine Underwood.

  AND FOUND OUT THEY’D FOUND OUT!

  So Fiddlestick told me. It was this: while flying past one of the ballet school windows, she’d seen HA, “twirling about in skintight nothing and unnatural stockings with a B.O.Y.— pronounced ‘boy’ — on the Other Side.”

  She was so boiling and bubbling, I could see there was no point in arguing. I could see they were thinking as they boiled and bubbled, “This Familiar’s going to spend the rest of his life at Familiar’s School if he doesn’t come up with something good.”

  So I did. I came up with something brilliant, if I do say so myself. I said, “She is only in that ballet school to work on her child-scaring techniques.”

  Well, they seemed to believe me because they simmered right down but — and it’s a GIANT but — in the morning they are coming to the school INVISIBLY to see HA’s child-frightening work for themselves.

  So between now and then I have to either:

  1. convince HA to stop being a Pavlova for a day and scare the other ballet school children into their wits.

  OR

  2. if she refuses — which is likely, as she already calls the children “her best friends in the whole wide universe” — think of a way of doing it myself.

  Anyway, must dash as have to collect HA and try to stop her going for an after-class “smoothie” with those new best friends/want-to-be Pavlovas of the non-dessert kind.

  Bad Start for My Plan Day Night

  Dear Diary,

  While I was giving HA’s aching feet a foot bath, I tried to introduce my plan. It was hard to get a word in edgeways.

  “Tgghh …” she groaned.

  “How they work me at that school. ‘Lead with the heels, stretch the knees, direc’ the toes, hold the turnout, lift the be-hind … bravo and again!’ They work me so hard, I don’t even have time to find a spell to turn me into a great ballerina overnight.”

  In the tad of breathtake that followed, I took my chance and said that maybe she wasn’t meant to be a Pavlova. Maybe she should leave ballet school straight after class tomorrow. And before doing so, she should scare the other Pavlovas into their wits — as an act of reminding herself what she really is — a great witch when she is willing.

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  “Are you crazy?”

  she screeched. “ Scare the children? Leave ballet school? Tomorrow they will reveal the ballet they’ve created for me.

  Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life!”

  At this point I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out that tomorrow the Hags would be in school, invisibly, to witness her child-scaring techniques, and if she didn’t want me to be steamed, curly-furred, and back at Awethunder she’d better forget special ballets and start scaring.

  Also the wrong thing to say.

  She ranted she would NEVER frighten her new best friends in the whole wide universe. Not for me. Not for anything.

  I pleaded but she dismissed my pleas. “Do something yourself, RB. STOP THOSE HAGS BEFORE THEY GET IN!”

  Well, with all my talent and training, there’s no way I can prevent High Hags from going anywhere INVISIBLY. So there’s nothing else to do: I’ll have to scare the children myself.

  And as, in my experience, nothing scares those Otherside ratlets quite like big slimy toads … here goes.

  I’m off to catch some — the bigger, the slimier, the better!

  Slime Bun Award Fit and HA Storms

  a Convention Day — Well

  After Midnight

  Dear Diary,

  What a day, what a night! But I mustn’t get ahead of myself.

  I was telling you I was going toad-catching. And toad-catching I went. It was hard work, but by dawn I had a sack full of slimy GIANTS.

  I lined them up and warned them of the brew they’d be in if they didn’t help me out.

  The biggest one only sneered. “Pull the other leg, RB. We all know you work for the famous Anti-Live Ingredientist Witch, Haggy Aggy, who has forbidden all living creatures from her potion-brewing.”

  “Only when it suits her,” I replied sternly. “And if you won’t do what I ask, I’ll hand you over to my friend Grimey.” And that did the trick as Grimey’s witch has a BIG reputation for toad-rich brews. “All right,” they croaked. “You win. What do you want?”

  I explained my plan and to my relief they agreed to help — some even with enthusiasm — as they climbed back into the sack, ready to be flown to ballet school. But — I
then went to get a broomstick, and as I was returning, all I could hear was HA frothing.

  She’d stumbled over the sack! And, after all my hard work collecting those toads, she just emptied them over the fence calling, “Hop away, my darlings! Before that witch next door gets her warty mitts on you!”

  Now what, I asked myself? And decided

  Later

  Dear Diary,

  Sorry — fell asleep midsentence.

  Where was I? Oh yes, trying to decide what to do and coming up with precisely NOTHING.

  Nothing then — obviously, because I fell asleep — and nothing on the bus ride to school because HA kept interrupting my thoughts, babbling about starring in her own Special Ballet.

  When we arrived, HA was just pulling on her leg warmers when the Mad Two called her aside.

  “Cherie,” they said, “The ballet we’ve created for you is ready. Today we start work. It is, of course, THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, based on the famous fairy tale. You will dance the title role.”

  “Yes?” said HA eagerly.

  “And what, I mean, vot, is the story?”

  The Mad Two looked surprised, as if she should know it, but they told her anyway.

  “It is the story of the poor little girl with no shoes who goes barefoot in the snow selling matches. She is so cold, she lights the matches to keep warm. In the light of each match she sees a wonderful vision. Finally she sees her dead grandmother, the only person who has ever loved her. In the morning, of course, she is frozen to death, but her soul is happy, soaring to heaven to that beloved grandmother.

  And now, look … here is Madame Petrovsky, the wardrobe mistress.”

  Well, at that moment, two things happened. First, a window opened and in on the breeze came the four High Hags. They were invisible to everyone else but, being in the know and a well-trained Familiar, I could see and hear them perfectly.

  They fluttered into some chairs and fixed their eyes on HA, waiting for her Scaring of Children to start.

  At the same time, Madame Petrovsky was holding up HA’s raggedy match girl costume.

  At the sight of it HA went white, green, and puce. And my heart soared like the Little Match Girl’s because WHITE-GREEN-PUCE IS THE SIGN THAT HA IS ABOUT TO THROW A PROPER WITCH’S FIT. And, as witch’s fits go, this one took the Slime Bun Award.

  She screeched, “Me? Dance in rags! Like that poor little nobody I came here as, from the frozen wastes of Sibericus? Not ever! I want beautiful feathers, a frothy, frothy net! I want a glittery, starry princess tiara!” She was so full of fit, she forgot not to be what she is — a witch — and rose into the air on a blast of fury.

  As the Hags watched with obvious delight, HA shot bolts of white rage from her fingertips.

  Of course, the little Pavlovas were terrified and ran for cover. But HA did not stop. Now she cast an

  INANIMATE OBJECTS WALKABOUT SPELL.

  The costumes backstage slipped off their rails and — like headless, legless ghosts — characters from famous ballets wafted around the hall.

  Pieces of scenery came to life — painted roses on a castle wall grew into a thorny thicket. Gilded tables and chairs got up and chased the little Pavlovas.

  Mirrors flexed and reflected them back as fat little monsters till they screamed with horror.

  The Hags were more than satisfied. They’d seen what they’d come to see, and now left the way they came — on the breeze.

  Only High Hag Fiddlestick hung back to whisper, “Good work, RB. See you at the Witches’ Convention tonight. I hope Haggy Aggy has prepared a good speech.”

  And, in that moment of otherwise triumph, all I could think was YIKES AND TRIPLE YIKES!!

  I’d been so busy busing back and forth to ballet school, I’d forgotten all about the Convention. Haggy Aggy didn’t even have a SUBJECT for her speech, let alone written one word of it.

  But then — call me good or what — I had a supernova idea.

  It was obvious what the speech should be about, and the title came to me in a flash:

  * * *

  TECHNIQUES FOR SCARING

  WANT-TO-BE

  PAVLOVAS

  BASED ON PERSONAL

  RESEARCH AT BALLET SCHOOL

  BY WITCH

  HAGATHA AGATHA.

  * * *

  Writing it wouldn’t be a problem because I’d do that. Getting HA to deliver it, however, was quite another matter. But then I had my super, supernova idea — which I’ll come to in a minute.

  First, I went for the foldaway broomstick I’d hidden in HA’s ballet bag. I flew up to HA and made her invisible using the Tried and Tested Out-of-Sighter every Familiar learns in first grade.

  * * *

  THE TRIED AND TRUSTED SPELL TO OUT-OF-SIGHT YOUR WITCH FOR HER OWN GOOD

  Make a breeze by sneezing seven times.

  Curl your Lucky Whisker backwards and chant:

  It’s in your own interest

  That you’re out of sight

  So wherever you are

  There is nothing but light,

  Not an arm or a thumb

  Not a leg or a tum

  Not one scrap or one cell

  Though you’re perfectly well

  Not a hair in between

  When this spell is said

  CAN BE SEEN!

  * * *

  Out of sight to everyone but me, I picked her up and then swooped under a frothy and feathered Swan Princess costume that was wafting about the hall.

  In a few tads of trice, we were out of that ballet school, flying away through a window the Hags had thankfully left open — and heading for the safe haven of home!

  Fortunately for my plan, being invisible does take the wind out of a witch’s sails. So, as soon as we got back to Thirteen Chimneys, and I had reversed the Out-Of-Sighter, HA turned on the TV, lay on the sofa, and fell asleep.

  All just as I hoped.

  Because while she slept I wrote her speech for the Convention. And if I do say so myself, it was something of a masterpiece.

  So now all I had to do was wake her and persuade her to go and deliver it!!!

  It wasn’t easy. When I read her the title, she refused outright. “But I love those children, RB. If I have scared them, it was by mistake. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. It was just that I was so UPSET AND DISAPPOINTED by that horrid raggedy old dress they were going to make me wear. So, in a word,

  NO!

  I wouldn’t give a speech like that even if I had to hang over a hot cauldron for the rest of my life!” (Easy for her to say.)

  But then — and here comes the SUPER,

  SUPERNOVA IDEA

  I mentioned earlier — I brought out the Swan Princess costume I’d had the good thinking to bring home.

  By now, HA’s spelling of it had worn off. It no longer had a life of its own. It was inanimate and ready to be stepped into. I dangled it. Tempting her.

  “Would you change your mind,” I tempted, “if you could get up on the stage wearing this?”

  Well, ask a silly question!!

  She lit up brighter than the evening star — and couldn’t dress in it or get to the Convention fast enough!

  Of course, once there, I still had one tricky sticky problem to solve: explaining her appearance to the High Hags.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to. They had been so impressed by what they’d seen her do in the ballet school, they “explained” it to me!!

  “Well, of course, she must give her speech ‘in costume,’ RB,” said Amuletta. “How else will the audience get the full picture? How else will they understand the nature of ballet schoolers or Pavlovas, as you call them — how they dress and what they get up to? In fact, ask her to show us what this ‘ ballet’ thing is — that is, if she knows some and wouldn’t mind.”

  And so it was that HA, dressed as a Swan Princess, gave a demonstration of the Five Basic Ballet Positions, the plié, and the arabesque at a Witches’ Convention — all with the High Hags’ approv
al — before delivering her/my rather brilliant speech.

  I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say she took the audience by storm.

  Even the Hags joined the standing ovation and had one of their toads present her with a huge bouquet of Poison Gallwort.

  There was one disappointment, though. Uncle Sherbet had come to the Convention. He had been in the audience!! Afterward he came to congratulate me on the willingness of my witch “to forgo her black and her dignity for froth and frippery all in the interests of greater witchery.”

  I was so blue-mooned by this, I couldn’t even say,

  “OH, UNCLE SHERBET, IF ONLY YOU KNEW!”

  Mind you, what is not disappointing one tad is that HA has now decided becoming a great ballet dancer is too much like hard work.

  She says she’s quite happy doing the odd arabesque in the Swan Princess costume, in front of the bathroom mirror.

  Hopefully, she’ll tire of that soon too.

  And speaking of tiredness, I’m off for some proper Shut-Eye.

  I’m so frazzled

  I feel my fur falling out in handfuls.