The Witches

I HAD DONE IT!

Even if I never got back alive to my grandmother, the witches were still going to get the Mouse-Maker! I left the empty bottle behind a large saucepan and began working my way back along the top shelf. It was much easier to move about without the bottle. I began using my tail more and more. I swung from the handle of one saucepan to the handle of another all the way along that top shelf, while far below me cooks and waiters were all bustling about and kettles were steaming and pans were spluttering and pots were boiling and I thought to myself, Oh boy, this is the life! What fun it is to be a mouse doing an exciting job like this! I kept right on swinging. I swung most marvellously from handle to handle, and I was enjoying myself so much that I completely forgot I was in full view of anyone in the kitchen who might happen to glance upwards. What came next happened so quickly I had no time to save myself. I heard a man’s voice yelling, ‘A mouse! Look at that dirty little mouse!’ And I caught a glimpse below me of a white-coated figure in a tall white hat and then there was a flash of steel as the carving knife

through the air and there was a shoot of pain in the end of my tail and suddenly I was falling and falling head first towards the floor.

Even as I fell, I knew just what had happened. I knew that the tip of my tail had been cut off and that I was about to crash on to the floor and everyone in the kitchen would be after me.

‘A MOUSE!’ they were shouting.

I hit the floor and jumped up and ran for my life. All around me there were big black boots going STAMP STAMP STAMP and I dodged around them and ran and ran and ran, twisting and turning, and dodging and swerving across the kitchen floor.

‘GET IT!’ they were shouting.

The whole floor seemed to be full of black boots stamping away at me and I dodged and swerved and twisted and turned and then in sheer desperation, hardly knowing what I was doing, wanting only a place to hide, I ran up the trouser leg of one of the cooks and clung to his sock!

‘HEY!’ the cook shouted. ‘Jeepers creepers! He’s gone up my trouser! Hold on, boys! I’ll get him this time!’

The man’s hands began slap-slapping at the trouser leg and now I really was going to get smashed if I didn’t move quickly. There was only one way to go and that was up. I dug my little claws into the hairy skin of the man’s leg and scuttled upwards, higher and higher, past the calf and past the knee and on to the thigh.

‘HOLY SMOKE!’ the man was yelling. ‘It’s going all the way up! It’s going right up my leg!’ I heard shrieks of laughter coming from the other cooks but I can promise you I wasn’t laughing myself. I was running for my life. The man’s hands were

all around me and he was jumping up and down as though he was standing on hot bricks, and I kept climbing and I kept dodging and very soon I reached the very top of the trouser leg and there was nowhere else to go.

‘HELP! HELP! HELP!’ the man was screaming. ‘It’s running round in my FLAMING KNICKERS!

‘TAKE OFF YOUR TROUSERS, YOU SILLY SLOB!’ someone else shouted. ‘Pull down your pants and we’ll soon catch him!’

I was in the middle of the man’s trousers now, in the place where the two trouser legs meet and the zip begins. It was dark and awfully hot in there. I knew I had to keep going. I dashed onward and found the top of the other trouser leg. I went down it like greased lightning and came out at the bottom of it and once again I was on the floor. I heard the stupid cook still shouting, ‘It’s in my trousers!

GET IT OUT!

Will somebody please help me to get it out before it bites me!’ I caught a flashing glimpse of the entire kitchen staff crowding round him and laughing their heads off and nobody saw the little brown mouse as it flew across the floor and dived into a sack of potatoes.

I burrowed down in among the dirty potatoes and HELD

MY

BREATH.

The cook must have started taking his trousers right off because now they were shouting, ‘It’s not in there! There’s no mice in there, you SILLY TWERP!’

‘There was! I swear there was!’ the man was shouting back. ‘You’ve never had a mouse in your trousers! You don’t know what it feels like!’

The fact that a tiny little creature like me had caused such a commotion among a bunch of grown-up men gave me a happy feeling. I couldn’t help smiling in spite of the pain in my tail.

I stayed where I was until I was sure they had forgotten about me. Then I crept out of the potatoes and cautiously poked my tiny head over the edge of the sack. Once again the kitchen was all of a bustle with cooks and waiters rushing about everywhere. I saw the waiter who had come in earlier with the complaint about tough meat coming in again. ‘Hey, boys!’ he shouted. ‘I asked the old hag if the new bit of meat was any better and she said it was perfectly delicious! She said it was really tasty!’

I had to get out of that kitchen and back to my grandmother. There was only one way to do this. I must make a dash clear across the floor and out through the door behind one of the waiters. I stayed quite still, watching for my chance. My tail was hurting terribly. I curled it round so as to have a look at it. About two inches of it were missing and it was bleeding quite a lot. There was a waiter loading up with a batch of plates full of pink ice cream. He had a plate in each hand and two more balanced on each arm. He went towards the door. He pushed it open with his shoulder. I leapt out of the sack of potatoes and went across that kitchen floor and into the Dining Room like a streak of light, and I didn’t stop running until I was underneath my grandmother’s table.

It was lovely to see my grandmother’s feet again in those old-fashioned black shoes with their straps and buttons. I shinnied up one of her legs and landed on her lap. ‘Hello, Grandmamma!’ I whispered. ‘I’m back! I did it! I poured it all into their soup!’

Her hand came down and caressed me. ‘Well done, my darling!’ she whispered back. ‘Well done you! They are at this very moment eating that soup!’

Suddenly, she withdrew her hand. ‘You’re bleeding!’ she whispered. ‘My darling, what’s happened to you?’

‘One of the cooks cut off my tail with a carving knife,’ I whispered back. ‘It hurts like billy-o.’

‘Let me look at it,’ she said. She bent her head and examined my tail. ‘You poor little thing,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to bandage it up with my handkerchief. That will stop the bleeding.’

She fished a small lace-edged handkerchief out of her bag and this she somehow managed to wrap around the end of my tail. ‘You’ll be all right now,’ she said. ‘Just try to forget about it. Did you really manage to pour the whole bottle into their soup?’

‘Every drop,’ I said. ‘Do you think you could put me where I can watch them?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘My handbag is on your own empty chair beside me. I’m going to pop you in there now and you can peep out as long as you are careful not to be seen. Bruno is there as well, but take no notice of him. I gave him a roll to eat and that’s keeping him busy for a while.’

Her hand closed around me and I was lifted off her lap and transferred to the handbag. ‘Hello, Bruno,’ I said.

‘This is a great roll,’ he said, nibbling away in the bottom of the bag. ‘But I wish there was butter on it.’

I peered over the top of the handbag. I could see the witches quite clearly sitting at their two long tables in the centre of the room. They had finished their soup now, and the waiters were clearing away the plates. My grandmother had lit up one of her disgusting black cigars and was puffing smoke over everything. All around us the summer-holiday guests in this rather grand hotel were away and tucking into their suppers. About half of them were old people with walking sticks, but there were also plenty of families with a husband, a wife and several children. They were all well-to-do people. You had to be if you wanted to stay in the Hotel Magnificent.

‘That’s her, Grandmamma!’ I whispered. ‘That’s The Grand High Witch!’

‘I know!’ my grandmother whispered back. ‘She’s the tiny one in black sitting at the head of the nearest table!’

‘She could kill you!’ I whispered. ‘She could kill anyone in this room with her white-hot sparks!’

‘Look out!’ my grandmother whispered. ‘The waiter’s coming!’

I popped down out of sight and I heard William saying, ‘Your roast lamb, madam. And which vegetable would you like? Peas or carrots?’

‘Carrots, please,’ my grandmother said. ‘But no potatoes.’

I heard the carrots being dished out. There was a pause. Then my grandmother’s voice was whispering, ‘It’s all right. He’s gone.’ I popped my head up again. ‘Surely no one will notice my little head sticking out like this?’ I whispered.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I don’t suppose they will. My problem is I’ve got to talk to you without moving my lips.’

‘You’re doing beautifully,’ I said.

‘I’ve counted the witches,’ she said. ‘There aren’t nearly as many as you thought. You were just guessing, weren’t you, when you said two hundred?’

‘It just seemed like two hundred,’ I said.

‘I was wrong too,’ my grandmother said. ‘I thought there were a lot more witches than this in England.’

‘How many are there?’ I asked.

‘Eighty-four,’ she said.

‘There were eighty-five,’ I said. ‘But one of them got fried.’

At that moment, I caught sight of Mr Jenkins, Bruno’s father, heading straight for our table. ‘Look out, Grandmamma!’ I whispered. ‘Here comes Bruno’s father!’