by Lou Kuenzler
“No matter what Piers says, the Seymours can’t bully us any more. I’m not scared of them. Not one little bit,” said Esme, doing a cartwheel across the grass.
“Oh no!” she cried suddenly, touching the top of her head as she landed in a heap under an apple tree. “I left my top hat by the bus stop on the village green.”
“What’s that?” said Mrs Lee, looking up from her notebook. “Who’s on the village green?”
“Not who,” giggled Esme. “What! I left my hat behind.”
“I’m sure it will still be there in the morning,” smiled Mrs Lee.
I thought about the eleven magic rabbits that would be out on the village green tonight too.
“I hope Nibbles and his friends will be all right,” I whispered.
Chapter Eight
Esme’s attic bedroom was at the very top of the windmill. It was a terrible mess with books and clothes and comics all over the floor.
“Sorry!” she blushed, clearing a space so we could flop down on her bed.
I didn’t mind a bit. The room seemed just like Esme herself – bursting and bubbling over with fun. There was even a long stripy sock hanging from the lampshade.
“What about your dad?” I asked as Esme pulled a patchwork quilt over our knees. “Does he like living at the windmill too?”
A shadow flickered over Esme face. “Dad doesn’t live with us any more,” she said. “He and Mum separated last year, just before Jack the Bean was born.”
“Oh,” I said, wishing that I had never asked her. “You must miss him a lot.”
“That’s why I wanted to get good at magic,” Esme sighed. “He used to do conjuring tricks too. Not that they ever worked. Mum says the only trick he was ever any good at was disappearing!”
Esme laughed as if she had made a joke, but she didn’t look happy. “My parents disappeared too,” I told her. “That’s why Aunt Hemlock had to look after me. They turned themselves into white mice. But with so many witches’ cats in the Magic Realm, something terrible must have happened. All that was ever found were two pink tails.”
“That’s awful!” gasped Esme. “Can’t you do a spell to try and bring them back?” I saw a leap of hope in her eyes. “Perhaps you could make my dad come home too?”
I shook my head. It was difficult to explain. “Magic doesn’t work like that. Witches can’t just undo horrid things and change them back again,” I said.
I expected Esme to look disappointed, but a little smile crept over her face. “Could you do some real magic now, though? I mean just a tiny spell. A teeny-tiny one, just to show me how it works?” she begged.
I knew I shouldn’t…
But I thought how sad Esme must be about her dad. If there was any way that I could cheer her up … even a little bit.
“Just one teeny-tiny spell,” I said, glancing round the room to see what I could do.
My eyes came to rest on the long stripy sock, hanging from the lampshade. “Perfect!”
I held out my wand.
Stripy sock hanging there,
Dance around and …
Er …
… and find your pair!
Wheee! A rainbow of sparkly light shot from the end of my wand.
“Cool!” cheered Esme.
I had to admit it was pretty amazing. The straggly sock came to life, as if an invisible foot was dancing inside it. It spun and kicked and twirled in the air, even turning upside down to do a little tap dance on the ceiling. Then it shot across the floor and suddenly there were two of them – two long stripy socks dipping and bowing as if they were a man and a woman on the ballroom-dancing programme Aunty Rose likes to watch on telly-vision.
Slowly, they rolled themselves into a ball and came to rest beside Esme’s overflowing laundry basket.
“Wow!” she said. “That was amazing! I don’t suppose… I mean, could we…”
“Magically tidy up your room?” I grinned. I just had exactly the same idea.
I leapt to my feet, bouncing on the bed as I waved my wand three times in the air.
Magic spell, do what you can,
Make this room spick and span!
Boom! It was as if an earthquake had struck.
Shelves shook. The bed wobbled. A chair toppled over.
Then a whirlwind of comics, books, shoes and clothes swirled around us.
“Duck!” cried Esme, and we buried our heads under the patchwork quilt.
“Sorry! I think I’ve overdone it again,” I gasped.
But Esme peeped out from under the corner of the blanket. “No,” she said. “Look!”
I lifted my head. The storm was over. Esme’s room was as neat and perfect as the Sellwell Department Store. All the books were on the bookshelves. All the clothes were on hangers. Even her little doll’s house was tidy.
“Whomping wizards!” I gasped.
“Whomping wizards indeed! I don’t think it’s ever looked as neat as this,” gulped Esme.
Suddenly, the door swung open. The sound of a howling baby filled the room.
“What’s going on in here girls? You’ve woken Jack the Bean,” said Mrs Lee, jiggling the red-faced baby. “I was trying to do some writing. I thought the whole windmill was going to fall down.”
“Sorry, Mum. We were just tidying up,” said Esme calmly.
Mrs Lee’s mouth fell open as she stepped properly into the room and looked around. “Well I never, Esmeralda Tinkerbell Lee! I don’t think your bedroom has ever been so tidy. Thank you, Bella. You must be a very good influence.”
“I can’t believe she told you my middle name is Tinkerbell,” groaned Esme as Mrs Lee went back down the stairs.
“Don’t worry, mine is Bat-Ears!” I confessed.
Esme snorted with laughter. Then she spun me around the room. “Well, Belladonna Bat-Ears, thank you!” she said. “It was lovely to see Mum looking happy. She’s been so worried about everything since Dad left and we lost the bookshop…”
“No! Thank you,” I said, sinking into a dizzy heap on the tidy floor “That’s the first time anyone has ever asked me to do magic just for fun. It felt…” How could I describe it?
“Amazing?” asked Esme.
“Sparkly!” I said. My fingers were still tingling as I held my wand.
Chapter Nine
Esme stood in the middle of her tidy bedroom holding out our green Merrymeet School book bags.
“Please, Bella!” she begged.
“No! We can’t use magic to do our homework,” I gasped.
“I don’t see why not.” Esme smiled at me with her big blue eyes. “Think how furious Piers and the Mars gang would be if everyone on Mercury table got a gold star for their Roman homework. The twins are so clever that theirs will be brilliant anyway. And if we use a little magic…”
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?” I said. “I know we just tidied your room with a spell, but it’s not the same. Isn’t homework meant to help Persons learn things?”
“Humph! I thought witches were supposed to be wicked. But I suppose you’re right,” sighed Esme. “Come on! We’d better go downstairs and use the computer instead.”
“Computers are like Person magic. I think they are brilliant,” I said as we sat at the kitchen table.
“Oh dear! I don’t think Mum’s had a very good day,” said Esme, pointing to six empty coffee cups and a pad of paper beside the computer. Mrs Lee had obviously been trying to write her book. But she seemed a little stuck.
A Story About … (Something?)
by Pandora Lee
Once upon a time there was a … ?
After that there was just a lot of crossing out and scribbling.
“At least she’s made a start,” I said, thinking how difficult it had been to write about my summer holidays. “And I always love a story that begins Once upon a time…”
“Me too!” said Esme, typing on the computer. A new screen appeared.
“We have to find out one really interesting thing,” sh
e reminded me. I peered over her shoulder as we read all about the Romans building straight roads and inventing the calendar. But we had already learnt about those things with Miss Marker in school.
We looked further down the page.
“Look!” we cried at exactly the same time.
It is believed that the Romans introduced the first rabbits to Ancient Britain.
“Perfect!” said Esme, spreading out a big sheet of paper. “I’ll do the writing if you do one of your brilliant pictures. Just don’t make the rabbit look anything like Nibbles or Piers will be furious!”
Suddenly there was a terrible sound – as if a hundred rattling suits of armour were stomping around the windmill. “Scampering scorpions! What’s that noise?” I gasped, nearly jumping out of my skin.
“It’s just our funny old telephone,” said Esme, leaping to her feet to answer it. “Hello?” As she listened to the voice on the other end of the big red receiver, her face turned white as a ghost.
“Yes, Mr Seymour… Yes. I understand,” she said slowly. “I’d better call Mum.”
She covered the phone with her shaking hand.
“It’s Piers’s dad,” she whispered. “He says we have one week to move out of the windmill. He says he’s going to bulldoze it to the ground…”
Chapter Ten
Mrs Lee poured us all a cup of tea as she explained everything Mr Seymour had threatened to do.
“We must try and keep calm. Perhaps we can appeal to the council,” she said. But, as she lifted the pot, I saw her hands were shaking. “He says he is going to knock down the windmill, bulldoze the meadow and build a concrete car park here instead.”
“He can’t do that!” Esme gasped. “He doesn’t even own the windmill. It’s been in our family for generations.”
“I’m afraid he can,” said Mrs Lee, sadly. “He’s sending over some documents to prove it, but … well, it seems my grandfather owed money to Mr Seymour’s grandfather…”
“So he sold him the windmill,” groaned Esme.
“The worst thing is, the Seymours didn’t even want it,” said Mrs Lee, shaking her head. “They just left it empty to rot.”
“But it’s so beautiful here… And it’s your home. Surely Persons can’t just go around knocking down windmills whenever they feel like it?” I cried.
“I am afraid Mr Seymour is a very powerful man. If the paperwork is right, he can do what he likes,” said Mrs Lee. “He claims he needs somewhere to park his lorries. The ones that deliver concrete up and down the country. He is in a terrible rush about it all of a sudden…”
“This is because of Piers!” Esme swallowed hard. I could see she was trying not to cry. “He… Well, something happened to him at school today, Mum. Everyone laughed … and he thought it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t Esme’s fault,” I said. “It was mine.” If only I hadn’t interfered with her trick. Then Nibbles would never have appeared inside her hat … and he would never have bitten Piers’s nose. I was right. Magic always causes trouble in the Person World.
“It was Piers’s own fault. He was being horrible as usual,” said Esme. “But when everyone laughed, he promised to get revenge on me.”
“And now the Seymours are going to turn us out of our home. It’s like the bookshop all over again,” sighed Mrs Lee.
“We were just getting settled in,” said Esme. “I know there’s still so much to do. But I painted the windows and Gretel planted flowers…”
“That’s what’s so sad,” agreed Mrs Lee. “It really did feel as if the old place was magically coming back to life.”
“Magically?” whispered Esme, grabbing my arm. “That’s it! There is something we can do. Why didn’t I think of it before? Come on, Bella.”
She pulled me towards the door.
“Don’t worry, Mum. I’ve got a plan,” she beamed. “I mean, not yet. But Bella’s going to help. And we’ll save the windmill, I promise. Just you wait and see…”
Esme sat me down under an apple tree in the meadow.
It was dark. Uncle Martin would be here to pick me up soon. I could see Mrs Lee talking to Gretel in the warm orange light of the kitchen. Even from far away I could tell the little girl was crying and stamping her feet as she heard how the windmill would be knocked down.
“Please help us,” said Esme. “You’re a witch. There must be something you can do?”
“You mean with magic?” I asked. My heart was pounding. Until I reached the Person World, I couldn’t even turn a shoelace into a worm. Now Esme was asking me to save her family home.
“Yes!” she cried. “Surely you can use a spell to stop Mr Seymour’s plan?”
“Clattering cauldrons! Maybe I can!” I leapt to my feet and grasped my wand. It felt brilliant to have someone believe in my magic skills at last. “What sort of spell do you want?”
“I don’t know exactly…” Esme paced up and down in the gloom.
There had to be something. But what sort of spell could possibly stop Mr Seymour?
“Got it!” cried Esme. “You need to turn back time and make him change his mind!”
I froze on the spot. “I can’t do that,” I said. “No witch can.”
I wish I had listened more in the Magical Methods lessons we used to have back in the Toadstool Spell Group. But I knew for sure there are three things no witch or wizard can ever do:
“I’m sorry, Esme. It’s just not possible,” I said. “But you’re right. There has to be something I can do. Some sort of spell.”
I paced up and down again. Thinking… Desperately thinking.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Esme at last. It was so dark now I couldn’t see her face, but I knew what she must be feeling. Why can’t magic be used for something useful?
Not like dancing socks. But for real things – things that really matter. And she was right.
If I couldn’t bring my own parents back, or make Esme’s dad come home, or save the windmill, then what was the point?
Nothing! Magic was useless.
Chapter Eleven
I barely slept at all that night. Rascal, my little kitten, was snoring on the end of my bed. But I kept tossing and turning. I couldn’t think of any spell or magic potion that could stop Mr Seymour knocking the windmill to the ground.
“What shall I do?” I said in Cat Chat, burying my head in Rascal’s soft grey fur. “I feel like I’ve let Esme down.”
“Shh!” He batted me away with a fluffy grey paw. “I’m dreaming I’m a lion in Africa.” Moments later he was snoring again.
“More like a rhinoceros than a lion,” I whispered, getting up and going to look out of the window.
All I could see in the moonlight was the big dark shape of Hawk Hall: the Seymours’ huge, horrible grey house that sits right next door to our little cottage. There isn’t a single flower in their garden. Not even a blade of grass. Just three shiny grey cars parked on the grey driveway and grey concrete all around.
“Horrible!” I shuddered. No wonder the Seymours didn’t care what happened to the windmill or the ancient orchard and the meadow. They didn’t seem to know anything about nature or beauty…
There was a flash of movement in our garden and by the light of a street lamp I saw a fluffy white tail with a star on it disappearing under the hedge. “Speckles!” I cried, recognizing one of the magic rabbits from yesterday. I opened the window and clicked my teeth in Rabbit language. But she had already hurried away. She wasn’t heading towards Hawk Hall, of course, as there was nothing on all that concrete for a little rabbit to eat.
I was still yawning when Uncle Martin and Aunty Rose walked me to school the next morning.
“I hope you have something nice for lunch today,” said Aunty Rose.
“Steer clear of the sprouts!” chuckled Uncle Martin.
“I will,” I agreed. But I was finding it hard to concentrate as I thought I saw Speckles disappearing behind a parked car.
By the time we reached the vil
lage green, I had seen Bunnykins the Second lolloping along the footpath. Cosy and Dozy were fast asleep on the doormat outside the pub. And I thought I saw Smoky in a garden behind the post office.
I didn’t point the bunnies out to Aunt Rose and Uncle Martin in case they asked too many questions about where they had come from. But I was glad to see the magic bunnies all the same. They had hurried away from school so fast yesterday that I hadn’t really had time to think about where they would live. But it was lovely to imagine them happily making their homes all around Merrymeet.
“What’s all this then?” said Uncle Martin, pointing to a large crowd of grown-up Persons who seemed to have gathered in front of the school. Some of them were still wearing their pyjamas.
“They don’t look very happy,” he said.
“Oooh!” said Aunty Rose. “Maybe they’ve heard about Mr Seymour’s terrible plan to turn Mrs Lee and those poor kiddies out of their home and cover that beautiful meadow with concrete! News travels fast in Merrymeet.”
But, as we drew closer, it quickly became clear it wasn’t the windmill the crowd was worried about.
I caught snatches of conversation:
“Whiskers…” “Lop-ears…”
“Long-ears…” “Cottontails…”
“Burrow-diggers…”
But one word kept being repeated over and over again.
“RABBITS!”
“Rabbits?” said Aunty Rose in surprise.
“They’ve eaten all my parsley!” said old Mrs Brimblecombe from the post office.
“And dug holes all over the churchyard,” said the vicar.
“And eaten nearly everything in the allotments!” thundered a tall woman in green wellingtons. “We have the Harvest Festival Gardening Competition coming up! If this carries on, we’re doomed.”
