Chapter 2
The girls looked at each other in shock.
‘What was that? whispered Jessica fearfully as the cackling laughter rang out again.
Sophie gulped. ‘I don’t know, but we’d better knock and see,’ she said bravely, rapping firmly on the door. The laughter ended abruptly with a shriek and a white haired lady with a large beaky nose rushed to open the door.
‘Oh dear, I thought you were coming next week. This is really inconvenient. I was sure I had written the date down somewhere but I’ve been very busy lately and I must have mislaid it. Never mind. You’re here now. Come in, come in. you must be Sophie and Jessica. You can call me Aunt Hazel.’
She smiled at them, showing large white teeth, and pushed her steel rimmed spectacles firmly up on her nose.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to share a bedroom,’ she said over her shoulder, as she led the way down a narrow passage. ‘My other bedroom is full of, er, important things at the moment. I’ll shut the door and I don’t want you going in there.’
She paused for breath as she opened the door to a sunny room at the end of the house.
‘There’s one bed by the window and I’ve put up a stretcher. You can decide who has what.’
‘I’ll have the bed,’ said Sophie quickly, as Jessica resignedly put her bag beside the stretcher. Aunt Hazel left them to unpack then suggested they take a picnic lunch out to the beach.
‘It’s winter. It’s cold,’ Sophie said bluntly. ‘Why can’t we have lunch inside?’
‘Ah, er, I’m a bit busy, I’m afraid,’ Aunt Hazel apologised. ‘I’d really like you girls to go and play until at least three o’clock. I should be finished by then.’
Sophie and Jessica reluctantly allowed themselves to be ushered out onto the front path, with Sophie clutching a shopping bag packed with sandwiches and a bottle of orange juice.
‘My feet hurt,’ said Jessica as they walked down the track through the sandhills to the beach. ‘And I’m cold.’
‘I know, it’s freezing. What does she think we are anyway? I feel like a dog that’s been sent off for a walk.’
‘You don’t look like a dog,’ giggled Jessica. ‘Or maybe you do. One of those sheepdogs with their hair hanging in their faces.’
Sophie tossed her hair back and grinned at Jessica. ‘We might as well make the best of things. Look for a good place for a picnic, somewhere out of the wind.’
The girls trekked along the bay, which would have been lovely in the summer. The overhanging trees provided a large shady area over the sand, but it was too cold and unpleasant to sit under in winter. At one end of the beach they found a large rocky patch where a few upturned dinghies were pulled up on the beach. They saw one that was standing half on its edge and crawled under it.
‘This is good, said Sophie cheerfully. ‘Nice and sheltered. Want a sandwich?’
‘It smells a bit fishy under here,’ said Jessica dubiously.
‘The sandwiches are salmon and that always smells fishy as well so it won’t matter,’ explained Sophie, reluctant to move from the shelter of the dinghy.
‘Oh all right then,’ said Jessica with a sigh, but she took the proffered sandwich and they ate in silence.
Despite their fears of being bored, the girls found the beach quite a good place to play. It was completely deserted apart from a few pushy seagulls that came squawking for food with their gaping beaks and black beady eyes. Sophie threw the birds the remains of the sandwiches for them to quarrel over. When they had eaten the last crust they flew off further down the beach, muttering among themselves.
Sophie and Jessica scratched their names in the wet sand with a large stick and watched the waves come up to wash them away. They played hopscotch on the firmer damp sand out of reach of the waves. This was easy to draw lines on and Jessica found a sea tumbled pebble to throw for a marker. Tiring of this, they tried digging for crabs, or rather Sophie dug for crabs while Jessica watched.
‘They don’t hurt, they only nip a bit,’ said Sophie patiently, while Jessica squeaked anxiously and hopped away every time she thought Sophie was close to exposing a crab. However the crabs were too cunning for her and the best she could do was to find a dead one, which at Jessica’s urging she regretfully threw away.
After that they spent the next hour looking for shells, in a competition to see who could find the most unusual one. Sophie found one she claimed would have been used by a mermaid for combing her hair, and Jessica was delighted to spot a large perfect scallop shell. They discovered a large rock pool at the end of the bay and decided that it would have been perfect for swimming if the weather had been warmer. Sophie took her sneakers and socks off and paddled, shrieking at the cold, but Jessica was far too afraid of crabs to risk it. They found a twisted piece of planking that Sophie was convinced had come from a pirate ship, and a curious piece of driftwood that to Jessica’s relief was too big for even their combined efforts to drag back to the house as a souvenir.
They walked the length of the bay, keeping out of reach of the grey waves thumping and frothing across the sand towards them. They began looking for treasure, which Sophie assured Jessica was washed up on beaches regularly.
‘Look for pieces of gold or necklaces of pearls,’ she suggested.
The only necklace they found was a length of seaweed with round knobbly bits that looked like beads. The girls discovered that these made a very satisfying squirt when squeezed between the fingers, and chased each other round trying to score the most direct hits. Even the delights of this game palled after a while.
‘It must be three o’clock by now. Let’s go back,’ Sophie announced at last.
Jessica agreed and together they ran back up the sandy track to Aunt Hazel’s cottage. They stopped outside the door and listened cautiously, but all they could hear was the murmur of the waves along the shore. Aunt Hazel came out to meet them, looking pink and flustered.
‘Good girls. My, er, friends are just leaving. Go and clean yourselves up.’ She shooed them off to the bedroom and Jessica was only in time to catch a brief glimpse of a couple of elderly ladies creeping quietly out of the door.
‘I wonder what they were doing?’ wondered Sophie.
‘It must have been a meeting of some kind.’
‘They looked very guilty for people who had only been to a meeting. I wonder if they were planning something terrible, like robbing a bank or kidnapping someone for ransom,’ said Sophie darkly.
‘They looked like perfectly ordinary old ladies to me,’ Jessica protested, but Sophie gave a disbelieving sniff.
Sophie looked around casually when she went into the living room later on, but the only thing she saw was a folded piece of paper with WI written on the front in large letters. As she reached over to pick it up, Aunt Hazel whisked it away.
‘I’ll take that. It’s private,’ she said briskly.
This immediately made Sophie determined to read it but she had no chance to do this as Aunt Hazel locked the paper in the spare room.
‘Anyone would think she couldn’t trust us,’ she said indignantly to Jessica.
‘Well she can’t. You were going to read it.’
‘Only because she is obviously hiding something. It must be something bad or she wouldn’t be worried about it.’
She and Jessica discussed it that night as they lay in bed listening to the waves crashing onto the beach.
‘WI must be the name of their group. Perhaps it stands for Wet Ink,’ suggested Sophie.
‘Or Wriggling Insects,’ said Jessica with a shudder.
‘Witless Idiots.’ Sophie scratched at a sandfly bite on her leg. Jessica giggled weakly at this and the girls fell asleep, worn out by all the fresh air and unexpected exercise.
Witches Incorporated Page 2
