My Unwilling Witch Goes to Ballet School Read online

  Text copyright © 2007 by Hiawyn Oram

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Sarah Warburton

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: May 2009

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-07373-8

  To Kate B.,

  with love and thanks

  H. O.

  For Lucy

  S. W.

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Contract of Service

  A Short History of How You Come to be Reading My Very Private Diaries

  Nonstop Swan Lake Day Night

  Straight Hair, Phony Phone Call and the Hags Are On to Me Day Night

  Audition Day Night

  The Hags Get Wind of It Day

  Bad Start for My Plan Day Night

  Slime Bun Award Fit and HA Storms a Convention Day — Well After Midnight

  Later

  Back at Thirteen Chimneys After Getting Lost and Diverted By The JIM

  CONTRACT OF SERVICE

  between

  WITCH HAGATHA AGATHA, Haggy Aggy for short, HA for shortest

  of Thirteen Chimneys, Wizton-under-Wold

  &

  the Witch’s Familiar,

  RUMBLEWICK SPELLWACKER MORTIMER B, RB for short

  It is hereby agreed that, come

  FIRE, Brimstone, CAULDRONS overflowing,

  or ALIEN WIZARDS invading,

  for the NEXT SEVEN YEARS

  RB will serve HA,

  obey her every WHIM and WORD and at all times assist her

  in the ways of being a true and proper WITCH.

  PAYMENT for services will be:

  * a log basket to sleep in * unlimited slime buns for breakfast

  * free use of HA’s broomsticks (outside of peak brooming hours)

  * and a cracked mirror for luck.

  PENALTY for failing in his duties will be decided on the whim of

  THE HAGS on HIGH.

  SIGNED AND SEALED

  this New Moon Day, 22nd of Remember

  Witch Hagatha Agatha

  Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B

  And witnessed by the High Hag, Trixie Fiddlestick

  A SHORT HISTORY

  OF HOW YOU COME TO BE READING MY

  VERY PRIVATE DIARIES

  In a snail shell, they were STOLEN. Oh yes, no less. My witch, Haggy Aggy (HA for short), sneaked into my log basket and helped herself.

  According to her, this is what happened:

  On one of her many shopping trips to Your Side she met a Book Wiz. (I am told you call them publishers, though Wiz seems more fitting as they make books appear, as if by magic, every day of the week.)

  Anyway, this Book Wiz/publisher wanted HA to write an account of HER life as a witch here on Our Side. Of course, HA wasn’t willing to do that. Being the most unwilling witch in witchdom, she is far too busy shopping, watching TV, not cackling, being anything BUT a witch, and getting me into trouble with the High Hags * as a result.

  The Book Wiz begged on her knees (apparently) and offered HA a life’s supply of shoes if she came up with something. So HA did. She came up with THIS — MY DIARIES. ALL OF THEM!!!!

  Of course, when I wrote the diaries, I was not expecting anyone to read them. Let alone othersiders like you. But as you are, here is a word to the wise about how things work between us:

  1. We are here on THIS SIDE and you are there on the OTHER SIDE.

  2. Between us is the HORIZON LINE.

  3. You don’t see we’re here, on This Side, living our lives, because for you the Horizon Line is always a day away. You can walk for a thousand moons (or more for all I know), but you’ll never reach it.

  4. On the other paw, we know you’re there because we visit you all the time. This is partly because of broomsticks. A broomstick has no trouble with any Horizon Line anywhere. A broomstick (with one or more of us upon it) just flies straight through.

  And it has to be like that because scaring otherside children into their wits is part of witches’ work. In fact it is Number One on the Witches’ Charter of Good Practice (see copy glued at the back).

  On the other paw, it is NOWHERE in the Charter for a witch to go over to Your Side to make friends and try to be and do everything you are and do – as my witch, Haggy Aggy, does.

  But then, that’s my giant problem: being cat to a witch who doesn’t want to be one. And as you will see from these diaries, it makes my life a right BAG OF HEDGEHOGS. So all I can say is, if HA tries to make friends with YOU, send her straight back to This Side with a spider in her ear.

  Thank you,

  Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B. xxx

  This Diary Belongs to:

  Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B.

  RUMBLEWICK for short, RB for shortest

  Address:

  Thirteen Chimneys,

  Wizton-under-Wold, This Side

  Bird’s Eye View: 331 N by WW

  Telephone:

  77+3-5+1-7

  Nearest Otherside Telephone:

  Ditch and Candleberry Bush Street,

  N by SE Over the Horizon

  Birthday:

  Windy Day 23rd Magogary

  Education:

  The Awethunder School for Familiars

  12–Moon Apprenticeship to the

  High Hag Witch Trixie Fiddlestick

  Qualifications:

  Certified Witch’s Familiar

  Current Employment:

  Seven-year contract with Witch Hagatha Agatha,

  Haggy Aggy for short, HA for shortest

  Hobbies:

  Cathastics, Point-to-Point Shrewing, Languages

  Next of Kin:

  Uncle Sherbet (retired Witch’s Familiar)

  Moldy Old Cottage,

  Flying Teapot Street,

  Prancetown

  Nonstop Swan Lake Day Night

  Dear Diary,

  My Uncle Sherbet (now retired but once a famous Familiar) has been to visit.

  I’d written to him many times about Haggy Aggy and her GIANT unwillingness to be a proper-practicing witch.

  He always replied with good advice and helpful spells. Even so, I think he thought I was EXAGGERATING.

  So I invited him to come and see for himself.

  And guess what? She is just SO contra-turvy that for the three nights he was here, she behaved almost like a perfectly willing witch!!

  She wore full witch’s black (apart from a pink petticoat and a flower on her hat).

  She hardly STOPPED crouping, crawing, and throat-hrobbling, when she usually complains cackling is cacophonous collywash!!

  “Nothing like a good cackle-ophony to clear the air and send a message of witchradeship to your fellow Wiccans, don’t you think, Sherbet?” she cawed when we went sightseeing over the Dragon’s bog.

  And when we did go out, she insisted on flying the broomstick HERSELF — when mostl
y she claims just looking at a broomstick makes her feel broomstick-sick.

  So now my favorite uncle has gone home not suspecting but believing I exaggerate her unwillingness.

  But here’s the thing, Diary. I DO NOT.

  In fact, if I tried for thirteen moons I couldn’t exaggerate it.

  I mean, listen to this, the latest:

  SHE IS ONLY PLANNING

  TO BECOME

  A BALLET DANCER.

  Oh yes. No less.

  And she is so serious about it, she’s even planning to begin where actual Otherside ballet dancers begin — at ballet school!

  And yes, you may say YIKES on my behalf even if you don’t know what ballet school is — because you soon will — and then you’ll say TRIPLE YIKES.

  This is how we arrived in this particular tricky sticky situation:

  As soon as Sherbet left, she claimed to be completely witched-out — “helping you, RB, give your uncle a good impression of me.” (Did I ask her to do that? No. The opposite. I wanted Sherbet to see her unwillingness to be a proper-practicing witch.)

  Anyway, next she announced there was only one thing that could revive her: an Otherside shopping spree.

  Flopping feebly into her room, she burst out soon after, brimming with spreefulness and wearing anything and everything NOT BLACK.

  She insisted we go in her pink car, not by broomstick. (At least it does have fly mode so we can get across the Horizon in it.)

  As ever, once over there, she spent all she had left to spend on her Shopalot card — and then tried to spend more!! I got her away (before she was REFUSED and told to PUT THINGS BACK) by warning her that our car would soon be vanished by Otherside Parking Guards if we didn’t move it.

  Then, as I was leading the way to the car, I turned and saw she wasn’t with me.

  She was staring transfixed into a shop window.

  Going back, I saw the window was full of frothy skirts — some shaped like toadstool tops, some like white bluebells. There were feathery and gemmy things for wearing on the head. Shiny slipper shoes of white and pink, some with ribbons to crisscross up a leg.

  And my witch was drooling.

  “Oh, RB,” she sighed. “Such prettiness as dreams are made of. We must go in and find out what all this is FOR!” So we did – risking a vanished car.

  Inside the shop there was a TV screen showing Othersiders dressed in the wear type that was in the window.

  They were prancing, leaping, tripping, toetop-of-shoes-tipping, gliding, sliding, twirling, and sometimes SWOONING in each others’ arms.

  Watching, HA nearly SWOONED herself.

  “What is it?” she screeched.

  The shopping helper screeched back (having no idea she was talking to a witch, however unwilling), “SWAN LAKE, of course, my dear!”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” HA cried.

  “How do I get to do Swan Lake?”

  The shop clerk looked surprised but answered softly, “Well, you’d start by going to ballet school, I should think.”

  And that was that. Ballet school it was and ballet school it is.

  In a few tads of tell, HA got all the info she needed from that willing shopping helper. She found out where the nearest ballet school is, its telephone number, and how you get to go to it (apparently by being so serious about becoming a Swan Laker you won’t take “no” for an answer).

  Of course, when the shop clerk said HA could buy a copy of the Swan Lake film to watch at home, she jumped at it. And because she had no credit left on her Shopalot,

  SHE ORDERED ME TO LEAVE SOMETHING IN EXCHANGE!!

  (Sadly, all I had was a foldaway broomstick, which I’d brought in case of a vanished car situation. So, it was goodbye to that finely tuned conveyance.)

  Anyway, as a result — and in the interests of attending ballet school — she has watched Swan Lake NONSTOP, from the moment we got home till she took it to bed with her, a short time ago.

  And, worst luck, she made me watch it with her.

  If I shut one eye for a split second, she jogged me with cries of,

  “RB, wake up, you can’t miss this bit!”

  If I suggested making a cup of comfrey tea, she cried,

  “No, no, you can’t miss THIS bit!”

  I now know every bit of that Swan Lake so well, I’m afraid to take a nap, even though I’m frazzled. Why? Because I know I’ll be dancing it in my sleep.

  Straight Hair, Phony Phone Call

  and the Hags Are On to Me

  Day Night

  Dear Diary,

  I was right to be afraid. Every moment I’ve been napping since I last wrote, I’ve been a dancing swan — and every moment I’ve been awake, I’ve been dancing around her and her dreams of ballet school!

  Immediately after comfrey tea this morning, she ordered me to make her a Hair-Straightening Potion so she could flatten her wonderful witch’s mop into a “beautiful ballet dancer’s bun.”

  (Dead boring ballerina’s bun, if you ask me.)

  However, for your info, here is my Hair-Straightening Recipe.

  As I’ve told you, she has forbidden all live ingredients from our spells and potions.

  So I tried to put her off using the Straightener by telling her about the slugs.

  But all she said was, “Just this one time, RB, I will turn two blind eyes.”

  She was so eager, in fact, she used double quantities; and worst luck, her hair is now as flat as a flattened broomstick box.

  Next, she sent me to the nearest Otherside library with a spell to make everyone present fall asleep while I found her a Ballet for Beginners book.

  It was on my way back from that exercise, when I met the High Hags.

  They were clearly returning from an all-night Children Scaring jaunt — because they were in high spirits, singing, cackling, bucking their broomsticks, AND NOT LOOKING WHERE THEY WERE GOING.

  Until they nearly collided with me.

  Then they slowed down and started pointing their pointing fingers.

  Apparently they’d seen us the day before — returning across the Horizon in HA’s pink car, HA dressed in anything and everything NOT BLACK, and the car overflowing with Otherside shopping.

  “It is in your Contract of Service to keep your witch in the ways of proper practice,” Dame Amuletta throbbled, while the other three glared as if they could see right through to my bones.

  “And proper – practicing witches wear black, use broomsticks, and prefer to shop on This Side at the Crafty Witches’ Co-Op.”

  What could I say? She was right on every count.

  AND I KNEW IT!

  “I try to do my best,” was all I could think of, stroking my Lucky Whisker in the hope that the Ballet for Beginners book wouldn’t slip out from under my hat.

  “But sometimes …”

  “Sometimes never!” screeched Amuletta.

  “Now, do better than your best or you know what will happen.”

  And I do. They’ll hang me over a hot cauldron until my fur curls and/or send me back to first grade at the Awethunder School for Familias.

  As they flew away, all I could think was: I have to get HA off the whole idea of going to ballet school because if the High Hags get wind of THAT, I’m a curly-furred first grader for certain.

  Only so far, Dear Diary, I am failing giant time.

  As soon as I got home, HA grabbed the Beginners book, went to her room, and started speeding through it.

  In what seemed like a few tads of tell, she came out claiming she’d “ mastered” the “Five Basic Positions and a lot more” — and ordered me to fly her to the nearest Otherside telephone so she could call the ballet school!!

  All I could think was SOCKS, SOCKS, TADPOLES IN SOCKS.

  Because if it’s in my Contract of Service to keep my witch in the ways of proper practice, it’s also in my contract to obey her every whim and word.

  What could I do? I flew her to that see-through telephone booth on Ditch and Candleberry Bush St
reet where — wait for it — she made ME magic some Otherside money out of the telephone’s money box so she could reuse it to call the ballet school!!

  When I’d managed it — to some very strange stares from passing Othersiders — and she got to speak to someone, she did so in the phoniest accent you’ve ever heard.

  “I am a poor little hungry one from the f-f-f-frozen wastes of Sibericus,” she simpered.

  “Believe me, I haff never stopped being f-f-f-frozen, as you can hear. But in the interest of the great ballet, I haff stowed away on a trans-Siberican Sleigh to f-f-f-follow my dream of dancing the Swan Lake Swan Princess. Please giff me a chance. And don’t make me take no for an answer. Please.”

  Well, the Othersiders at the ballet school must be out of their phony-sensing senses. They were completely taken in, and wait for it:

  she’s got herself “a dance audition” tomorrow — their morning time of 10 o’clock!

  Audition Day Night

  Dear Diary,

  “The audition” was a nightsnake and I had to live through every minute of it.

  We crossed the Horizon by broomstick (the car wouldn’t start, I made sure of that!). And then — on her insistence — we took an Otherside bus!! (“No one else will arrive by air, RB! And I don’t want to look out of place on my first day.”)

  Immediately when we arrived, she disappeared into the “Girls’ Room.” When she came out I hardly recognized her.