The Witches

HELLO, GRANDMAMMA

As soon as I was out of the Ballroom, I took  off like a flash. I streaked down the corridor, went through the Lounge and the Reading Room and the Library and the Drawing Room and came to the stairs. Up the stairs I went, jumping quite easily from one to the other, keeping well in against the wall all the time. ‘Are you with me, Bruno?’ I whispered.

‘Right here,’ he said.

My grandmother’s room and my own were on the fifth floor. It was quite a climb, but we made it without meeting a single person on the way because everyone was using the lift. On the fifth floor, I raced along the corridor to the door of my grandmother’s room. A pair of her shoes was standing outside the door to be cleaned. Bruno was alongside me. ‘What do we do now?’ he said.

Suddenly, I caught sight of a chambermaid coming along the corridor towards us. I saw at once that she was the one who had reported me to the Manager for keeping white mice. Not, therefore, the sort of person I wanted to meet in my present condition. ‘QUICK!’ I said to Bruno. ‘HIDE IN ONE OF THOSE SHOES!’ I hopped into one shoe and Bruno hopped into the other. I waited for the maid to walk past us. She didn’t. When she came to the shoes, she bent down and picked them up. In doing this, she put her hand right inside the one I was hiding in. When one of her fingers touched me, I bit it. It was a silly thing to do, but I did it instinctively, without thinking. The maid let out a SCREAM that must have been heard by ships far out in the English Channel, and she dropped the shoes and ran like the wind down the corridor.

My grandmother’s door opened. ‘What on earth is going on out here?’ she said. I darted between her legs into her room and Bruno followed me.

‘Close the door, Grandmamma!’ I cried. ‘Please hurry!’

She looked around and saw two small brown mice on the carpet. ‘Please close it,’ I said, and this time she actually saw me talking and recognized my voice. She froze and became absolutely motionless. Every part of her body, her fingers and hands and arms and head, became suddenly as stiff as a marble statue. Her face turned even paler than marble and her eyes were stretched so wide I could see the whites all around them. Then she started to . I thought she was going to faint and fall over.

‘Please close the door quickly, Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘That awful maid might come in.’

She somehow managed to gather herself together enough to close the door. She leaned against it, staring down at me, white-faced and shaking all over. I saw tears beginning to come out of her eyes and go dribbling down her cheeks.

‘Don’t cry, Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘Things could be a lot worse. I did get away from them. I’m still alive. So is Bruno.’

Very slowly, she bent down and picked me up with one hand. Then she picked Bruno up with the other hand and put us both on the table. There was a bowl of bananas in the centre of the table and Bruno jumped straight into it and began tearing away with his teeth at one of the banana skins to get at the fruit inside.

My grandmother grasped the arm of her chair to steady herself, but her eyes never left me.

‘Sit down, dear Grandmamma,’ I said.

She collapsed into her chair.

‘Oh, my darling,’ she murmured and now the tears were really streaming down her cheeks. ‘Oh, my poor sweet darling. What have they done to you?’

‘I know what they’ve done, Grandmamma, and I know what I am, but the funny thing is that I don’t honestly feel especially bad about it. I don’t even feel angry. In fact, I feel rather good. I know I’m not a boy any longer and I never will be again, but I’ll be quite all right as long as there’s always you to look after me.’ I was not just trying to console her. I was being absolutely honest about the way I felt. You may think it odd that I wasn’t weeping myself. It was odd. I simply can’t explain it.

‘Of course I’ll look after you,’ my grand-mother murmured. ‘Who is the other one?’

‘That was a boy called Bruno Jenkins,’ I told her. ‘They got him first.’

My grandmother took a new long black cigar out of a case in her handbag and put it in her mouth. Then she got out a box of matches. She struck a match but her fingers were so much that the flame kept missing the end of the cigar. When she got it lit at last, she took a long pull and sucked in the smoke. That seemed to calm her down a bit.

‘Where did it happen?’ she whispered. ‘Where is the witch now? Is she in the hotel?’

‘Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t just one. It was hundreds! They’re all over the place! They’re right here in the hotel this very moment!’

She leaned forward and stared at me. ‘You don’t mean … you don’t actually mean … you don’t mean to tell me they’re holding the Annual Meeting right here in the hotel?’

‘They’ve held it, Grandmamma! It’s finished! I heard it all! And all of them including The Grand High Witch herself are downstairs now! They’re pretending they’re the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children! They’re all having tea with the Manager!’

‘And they caught you?’

‘They smelt me out,’ I said.

‘Dogs’ droppings, was it?’ she said, sighing.

‘I’m afraid so. But it wasn’t strong. They very nearly didn’t smell me because I hadn’t had a bath for ages.’

‘Children should never have baths,’ my grandmother said. ‘It’s a dangerous habit.’

‘I agree, Grandmamma.’

She paused, sucking at her cigar.

‘Do you really mean to tell me that they are now all downstairs having tea?’ she said.

‘I’m certain of it, Grandmamma.’

There was another pause. I could see the old glint of excitement slowly coming back into my grandmother’s eyes, and all of a sudden she sat up very straight in her chair and said sharply, ‘Tell me everything, right from the beginning. And please hurry.’

I took a deep breath and began to talk. I told about going to the Ballroom and hiding behind the screen to do my mouse-training. I told about the notice saying Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. I told her all about the women coming in and sitting down and about the small woman who appeared on the stage and took off her mask. But when it came to describing what her face looked like underneath the mask, I simply couldn’t find the right words. ‘It was horrible, Grandmamma!’ I said. ‘Oh, it was so horrible! It was … it was like something that was going ROTTEN!’

‘Go on,’ my grandmother said. ‘Don’t stop.’

Then I told her about all the others taking off their wigs and their gloves and their shoes, and how I saw before me a sea of bald pimply heads and how the women’s fingers had little claws and how their feet had no toes.

My grandmother had come forward now in her armchair so that she was sitting right on the edge of it. Both her hands were cupped over the gold knob of the stick that she always used when walking, and she was staring at me with eyes as bright as two stars.

Then I told her how The Grand High Witch had shot out the fiery white-hot sparks and how they had turned one of the other witches into a puff of smoke.

‘I’ve heard about that!’ my grandmother cried out excitedly. ‘But I never quite believed it! You are the first non-witch ever to see it happening! It is The Grand High Witch’s most famous punishment! It is known as “GETTING FRIED”, and all the other witches are petrified of having it done to them! I am told that The Grand High Witch makes it a rule to fry at least one witch at each Annual Meeting. She does it in order to keep the rest of them on their toes.’

‘But they don’t have any toes, Grandmamma.’

‘I know they don’t, my darling, but please go on.’

So then I told my grandmother about the Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, and when I came to the bit about turning all the children of England into mice, she actually leapt out of her chair shouting, ‘I knew it! I knew they were brewing up something tremendous!’

‘We’ve got to stop them,’ I said.

She turned and stared at me. ‘You can’t stop witches,’ she said. ‘Just look at the power that terrible Grand High Witch has in her eyes alone! She could kill any of us at any time with those white-hot sparks of hers! You saw it yourself!’

‘Even so, Grandmamma, we’ve still got to stop her from turning all the children of England into mice.’

‘You haven’t quite finished,’ she said. ‘Tell me about Bruno. How did they get him?’

So I described how Bruno Jenkins had come in and how I had actually seen him with my own eyes being shrunk into a mouse. My grandmother looked at Bruno, who was guzzling away in the bowl of bananas.

‘Does he never stop eating?’ she asked.

‘Never,’ I said. ‘Can you explain something to me, Grandmamma?’

‘I’ll try,’ she said. She reached out and lifted me off the table and put me on her lap. Very gently, she began stroking the soft fur along my back. It felt nice. ‘What is it you want to ask me, my darling?’ she said.

‘The thing I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is how Bruno and I are still able to talk and think just as we did before.’

‘It’s quite simple,’ my grandmother said. ‘All they’ve done is to shrink you and give you four legs and a furry coat, but they haven’t been able to change you into a one hundred per cent mouse. You are still yourself in everything except your appearance. You’ve still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice, and thank goodness for that.’

‘So I’m not really an ordinary mouse at all,’ I said. ‘I’m a sort of mouse-person.’

‘Quite right,’ she said.

‘YOU ARE A HUMAN

IN MOUSE’S CLOTHING.

YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL.’

We sat there in silence for a few moments while my grandmother went on stroking me very gently with one finger and puffing her cigar with the other hand. The only sound in the room was made by Bruno as he attacked the bananas in the bowl. But I wasn’t doing nothing as I lay there on her lap. I was thinking like mad. My brain was whizzing as it had never whizzed before.

‘Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘I may have a bit of an idea.’

‘Yes, my darling. What is it?’

‘The Grand High Witch told them her room was number 454. Right?’

‘Right,’ she said.

‘Well, my room is number 554. Mine, 554, is on the fifth floor, so hers, 454, will be on the fourth floor.’

‘That is correct,’ my grandmother said.

‘Then don’t you think it’s possible that room 454 is directly underneath room 554?’

‘That’s more than likely,’ she said. ‘These modern hotels are all built like boxes of bricks. But what if it is?’

‘Would you please take me out on to my balcony so I can look down?’ I said.

All the rooms in the Hotel Magnificent had small private balconies. My grandmother carried me through into my own bedroom and out on to my balcony. We both peered down to the balcony immediately below.

‘Now if that is her room,’ I said, ‘then I’ll bet I could climb down there somehow and get in.’

‘And get caught all over again,’ my grandmother said. ‘I won’t allow it.’

‘At this moment,’ I said, ‘all the witches are down on the Sunshine Terrace having tea with the Manager. The Grand High Witch probably won’t be back until six o’clock or just before. That’s when she’s going to dish out supplies of that foul formula to the ancient ones who are too old to climb trees after gruntles’ eggs.’

‘And what if you did manage to get into her room?’ my grandmother said. ‘What then?’

‘Then I should try to find the place where she keeps her supply of Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, and if I succeeded then I would steal one bottle of it and bring it back here.’

‘Could you carry it?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘It’s a very small bottle.’

‘I’m frightened of that stuff,’ my grandmother said. ‘What would you do with it if you did manage to get it?’

‘One bottle is enough for five hundred people,’ I said. ‘That would give each and every witch down there a double dose at least. We could turn them all into mice.’

My grandmother JUMPED about an inch in the air. We were out on my balcony and there was a drop of about a million feet below us and I very nearly out of her hand over the railings when she jumped.

‘Be careful with me, Grandmamma,’ I said.

‘What an idea!’ she cried. ‘It’s fantastic! It’s tremendous! YOU’RE A GENIUS, my darling!’

‘Wouldn’t it be something?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t that really be something?’

‘We’d get rid of every witch in England in one swoop!’ she cried. ‘And The Grand High Witch into the bargain!’

‘We’ve got to try it,’ I said.

‘Listen,’ she said, nearly dropping me over the balcony once again in her excitement. ‘If we brought this off, it would be the greatest triumph in the whole history of witchery!’

‘There’s a lot of work to do,’ I said.

‘Of course there’s a lot of work to do,’ she said. ‘Just for a start, supposing you did manage to get hold of one of those bottles, how would you get it into their food?’

‘We’ll work that out later,’ I said. ‘Let’s try to get the stuff first. How can we find out for sure if that’s her room just below us?’

‘We shall check it out immediately!’ my grandmother cried. ‘Come along! There’s not a second to waste!’ Carrying me in one hand, she went bustling out of the bedroom and along the corridor, banging her stick on the carpet with each step she took. We went down the stairs one flight to the fourth floor. The bedrooms on either side of the corridor had their numbers painted on the doors in gold.

‘Here it is!’ my grandmother cried. ‘Number 454.’ She tried the door. It was locked, of course. She looked up and down the long empty hotel corridor. ‘I do believe you’re right,’ she said. ‘This room is almost certainly directly below yours.’ She marched back along the corridor, counting the number of doors from The Grand High Witch’s room to the staircase. There were six.

She climbed back up to the fifth floor and repeated the exercise.

‘She is directly below you!’ my grandmother cried out. ‘Her room is right below yours!’

She carried me back into my own bedroom and went out once again on to the balcony. ‘That’s her balcony down there,’ she said. ‘And what’s more, the door from her balcony into her bedroom is wide open! How are you going to climb down?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. Our rooms were in the front of the hotel and they looked down on to the beach and the sea. Immediately below my balcony, thousands of feet below, I could see a fence of spiked railings. If I fell, I’d be a goner.

‘I’ve got it!’ my grandmother cried. With me in her hand, she rushed back into her own room and began rummaging in the chest of drawers. She came out with a ball of blue knitting wool. One end of it was attached to some needles and a half-finished sock she had been knitting for me. ‘This is perfect,’ she said. ‘I shall put you in the sock and lower you down on to The Grand High Witch’s balcony. But we must hurry! Any moment now that monster will be returning to her room!’