My Unwilling Witch Starts a Girl Band Read online

  Did I hear you say, “Good work, RB,” Diary? I think I did.

  And that done, I can get on with the thrills and spills part—coming up with a supernova name and writing a winning song for a Girl Band that, thankfully, I’ll never be in!!

  So, the name

  The name

  the name

  the name???

  I heard the GIRL BANDS ARE US Producers and Promoters say they are looking for something different. Well, nothing could be more different than HA’s Girl Band as it’s not a GIRL Band.

  It’s a Witch and Frog Band with maybe a High Hag or two in it. So why not hit them with the truth, which is always bigger than anything else.

  SO, POSSIBLE NAMES FOR

  HA’S GIRL BAND:

  The Witch, the Frog and the High Hag(s)

  The Toadstools

  The Potions

  The Spell Sisters

  The Fireflies

  Boil and Bubble

  Boiling It Big

  Cold Comfrey

  The Witch Watch

  The Hey Prestos

  The Wizton Wonders

  The Wizton Wailers

  The Crooning Coven

  Bubbling Over

  Witch’s whiskers! Now that would work getting her back into black…

  All in Black

  The Blue Moons

  Once in a Blue Moon *

  No Ordinary Girls

  The Never Ever Girls

  Forever Witches

  The Cauldron Stirrers

  No Ordinary Girls (got that already)

  Bewitching Sisters

  The Fire and Brimstones

  Oh, SOCKS.

  This is fun and

  there’s the doorbell!

  Continue soon.

  Much Later

  Dear Diary,

  My best friend, Grimey—that’s who it was.

  Total moon that he is, when I’d told him the whole Girl Band saga, he offered to help me invent a winning song.

  Of course neither of us had invented a song before, but we decided it couldn’t be that different from inventing a spell.

  And as it turned out, it wasn’t

  First we decided we had to sing about something that mattered to us. And, as he is my greatest friend in the universe and I am his, what better than that for a song subject—friendship???

  So we dusted down a witch’s horn and a gawbox that have been under the sofa for moons.

  I dug out my school washboard. We turned over a few cauldrons to drum on with stirring sticks and LET IT HAPPEN

  And I have to admit,

  I can’t remember when I’ve

  enjoyed myself MORE!!

  This is what we came up with.

  It’s called BE RIGHT THERE:

  A friend’s a friend you have to win

  Now I have through thick and thin

  You’ll be my friend, my total moon,

  I’ll be right there

  whatever—

  If you feel blue I won’t be too

  I’ll dig right in and root for you

  If you need time to be alone

  I’ll keep away and stay at home

  If you are riding far too high

  And lose your way, I’ll come, I’ll fly

  And be right there

  be right there, be right there

  whatever—

  A friend’s a friend you have to win

  Now I have, through thick and thin

  You’ll be my friend, my total moon,

  I’ll be right there

  whatever—

  If you have crossed a line too far

  And can’t remember what you are

  If you have fallen in a hole

  To get you out will be my role

  If every spell you do goes wrong

  And you can’t see where you belong

  I’ll be right there

  be right there, be right there

  whatever—

  A friend’s a friend you have to win

  Now I have, through thick and thin

  You’ll be my friend

  I’ll be right there

  be right there, be right there

  forever!

  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

  Anyway, got to go—by the sound of it, HA and the Clinger are home!

  Much Later, in My Log Basket

  Dear Diary,

  Well, this is what happens when a Familiar and his witch get carried away with business that is not their business, like songwriting and Girl Bands: Trouble comes knocking.

  In this case Trouble in the form of the High Hag Iodine Underwood—the one with the beautiful singing voice.

  First, though, before she arrived, HA and the Clinger came dancing in through the door full of the songs they’d heard at the concert and what HA is going to wear as the No. 1 singer in her own Girl Band!

  And wait for it, Diary. Wait for it.

  BLACK.

  Oh yes, no less. HA has discovered that black is big in Girl Bands—and now she’s talking as if she never said, “Black is yesterday, pink is the new black.” Now she has packed all her pink in her flying trunk and sent it to the broomstick shed!!!

  She told me to go get some black, which she quickly cut about with the kitchen scissors, pulled on some cliff-high white boots, and there she was looking all

  Girl Bandish

  back in

  black!!!

  I couldn’t believe it. THEN, when I got out my list of possible names for her band, she didn’t even LOOK at it.

  “Don’t worry, RB,” she said. “Flying home from the concert, Bella and I came up with the dazzling band name we need. It’s obvious, isn’t it:

  ‘BACK IN BLACK’!!”

  They were so excited they did not see my disappointment that my list of names was not needed or listen when I said, “That’s almost the name I was going to suggest.”

  HA did not ask if I’d invented a Look-Like-a-Girl-Band-Girl spell. NOR did she ask if I’d written a winning song. Why? Because she and Bella had not only come up with the name for the band on their way back from the concert—but they had a song too.

  “And It’s so HOT it’s MAGMA!”

  cried HA. “LISTEN!”

  Well, you could have knocked me over with a pink feather thing. HA was right. Their song boiled and bubbled. It steamed. It WAS magma—straight from the volcano’s mouth! I could just hear it winning any audition and making HA bigger than she’d ever DREAMED she could be.

  It goes like this:

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT

  HA: YOU CAN’T INHIBIT....................ME

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT...

  HA: STAR EXHIBIT....................ME

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT

  HA: YOU CAN’T INHIBIT....................ME

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT...

  HA: STAR EXHIBIT....................ME

  Like a star in the heavens

  I’m a light on the ground

  My time’s been a-coming

  Now my time’s come around

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT

  HA: Yeah, I’m hot, hot rocking

  In my little black dress

  If the world is watching

  I can only confess…

  BELLA: RIBBIT, RIBBIT—CAN’T INHIBIT…

  HER RIBBIT, RIBBIT…

  BOTH: STAR EXHIBIT....................ME/HER

  Yeah… we’re hot, hip-hopping

  In our high, high heels

  Let the world get watching

  And know how it feels…

  RIBBIT, RIBBIT

  RIBBIT, RIBBIT—STAR EXHIBIT…

  HA: ME!

  When they’d finished I was so amazed, I didn’t know what to say. And it didn’t matter because this was the moment when Trouble/the High Hag Iodine Underwood rapped on the window and demanded to be let in!

  Oh! What’s this? It’s Bella the Clinger hopping toward my basket, sobbing a
pond. I’ll go on later—if i don’t drown in her tears.

  Nearly Dawning Time and Sorry If You’re Soaked

  Dear Diary,

  Bella was sobbing a pond because she isn’t going to be in HA’s Girl Band after all—but I’ll come to that in a moment.

  Meanwhile, back to the entrance of the High Hag Iodine Underwood.

  I smelled wet rot immediately—because it turned out she hadn’t come to roast HA for hot, hot rocking in a little black dress—or me for letting her.

  She’d heard the singing on her way to take comfrey tea with Witch Understairs next door. Said she hadn’t let her voice out for moons and could she JOIN IN???

  So join in she did. And blow me down with a feather thing again, can she sing?! She can belt it out and rock with the best. She can also play the horn and the gawbox!

  And with me on the cauldron drums, Thirteen Chimneys was soon jumping so hard its Thirteen Chimneys

  were rocking too.

  When we’d done STAR EXHIBIT a few times, Underwood announced, “One song doesn’t make a band, Hagatha dear. So do you have anything else original we can sing?”

  HA pointed at me and said, “RB has invented a winning song,

  HAVE YOU NOT,

  BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO.”

  So I sang through BE RIGHT THERE and even HA thought it was pretty hot. By the time we’d sung it together a few times, Witch Understairs and Grimey arrived to find out what was going on. So did all the frogs from the frog pen, all the eavesdroppers AND Witch Rattle and her friend Witch Sideways PLUS their Familiars, Arbuthnot Butnot and Magic Galore—on their way home from the Blue Moon Comfrey Rooms.

  And everyone agreed on this: we were too good to waste.

  Too good not to be heard by a wider audience. And would we PLEASE perform at the next Witches’ Conference and every Witches’ Jamboree forever???

  At this point I saw the Trouble we were in showing itself like the mouth of a deep abyss.

  HA started

  to sneer

  Sneer at the very idea that her Girl Band was meant for witches’ conferences and jamborees—and not for much bigger things like winning the Girl Bands Are Us competition and disappearing from witchdom forever because she’d become an Otherside Girl Band so big it was galaxy-sized!

  Luckily, Underwood stopped her before she really got started. “Oh, thank you everyone for your high praise indeed. But, as a High Hag, I can NEVER be seen performing in a Girl Band. The other High Hags would consider it silly and therefore undermining High Hag authority and for SILLY and UNDERMINING HIGH HAG AUTHORITY, a High Hag is sent spinning into The Blue That Lies Beyond All. So now I’ll put my voice back in its box and we’ll forget this evening ever happened!”

  With that she cast a cloud of Polished Talon Dust about the room to make us forget what we’d seen.

  HA and I were quick enough to avoid any of it falling on us. But the dust showered down on the others, and as soon as Underwood had left, they started wondering what they were doing in our house.

  HA sent them home with no explanation other than “witnessing the birth of BACK IN BLACK,” which made as much sense to them as if she’d said

  JIBBLES and JIRASOLES.

  And as soon as we were on our own,

  HA exploded

  with excitement – and I saw just how deep the Abyss of Trouble was that we were about to fall into.

  “Oh, RB, Bella…

  don’t you see…”

  she cried.

  “I’ve found the other girl for my Girl Band. It’s HER. Iodine Underwood! She sings like a skylark. And she hot-rocks too. With that voice and my voice, BACK IN BLACK can’t fail to become galaxy-sized. Now, here’s the challenge. How are we going to make her look NOT like the horrendous old Hag she is but a gorgeous Girl Band Girl?”

  She paced about in her cliff-high boots and then spun around and pointed at me.

  “Easy. Of course. While we were at the concert, you came up with a LOOK-LIKE-A-GIRL-BAND-GIRL SPELL.

  Didn’t you?

  Because if not,

  why not?”

  The spell—with its double layers—was lying on the kitchen table. I tried to get to it, thinking… turning a High Hag into a girl that looks like a toad in tight leggings WOULD NOT BE A GOOD MOVE for a witch and her Familiar. But HA’s beady eyes went ahead of me.

  “Of course, you did. Because you are the most faithful Familiar ever to come out of Familiar School.”

  And she pounced on it. And flicked through it—naturally seeing only its surface layer.

  “Tempests and treacle,

  this will do the trick

  perfectly!”

  she declared. “Now all I have to do is visit High Hags’ Headquarters and perform it on Iodine. Thank you, RB.”

  “But-but,” I stammered.

  “You mustn’t.

  You can’t.

  That spell has… I don’t think it’s… it hasn’t been tested.”

  “So now we’ll test it,” said HA. “Bring me a super-speedy broomstick that I won’t feel sick on, RB. I must do this alone.”

  “No, no, HA,” I argued. “It’s too dangerous. If the other High Hags find a Girl Band Girl Lookalike in their Headquarters, what’ll they do? Find out who put her there—YOU—and chase you into the byways and back alleys of witchdom, or worse: turn me into a cauldron toad for letting you!”

  “And, and,” added Bella, coming to my aid without knowing it, “if Iodine Underwood finds herself looking like a Girl Band girl lookalike, she’ll know exactly who did it to her because of tonight.”

  “Right,” I said. “Bella is right and so am I. Forget about the High Hag Iodine Underwood in your Girl Band.”

  “Besides,” said Bella, “you don’t need her. You have ME. And if you perform that spell on RB, you have him.”

  But HA was so carried away with herself as a galaxy-sized Girl Band, she forgot not to be cruel.

  “YOU?” she almost cackled at Bella. “YOU? Compared to Iodine Underwood you don’t sing. You croak. And as for you, RB, I’ve had second thoughts about you being in my band. You’ll be far more useful taking care of us. Making sure we’re produced and promoted right. Maybe inventing some more songs.

  And becoming—how shall I put it—

  Back In Black’s

  Manager Cat.”

  And here she presented me with a pair of eye shades, which she must have purchased at the Righton Beach Shop.

  I put them on and have to confess again: a thrill went through me.

  My head spun.

  Back in Black’s manager???

  In eye shades. Strolling about in the Starstruck Room, negotiating my Girl Band’s future with PPs?

  Was this my destiny after all?

  If it was, it wasn’t crusty old vinegar.

  Not crusty

  old vinegar at all

  Some Days Later and Not Back in Black

  Dear Diary,

  What webs we tangle ourselves in as soon as we try to be what we aren’t. All I can say is I hope what has happened will be a lesson to me.

  As soon as I put on those Righton Shop eye shades and thrilled at the thought of being Back in Black’s manager, I was sliding well into the

  Abyss of Trouble.

  And sliding fast.

  First, it came over me that HA was right. Iodine Underwood DID sing like a skylark who also rocks. HA is good and could pass for a gorgeous Girl Band girl any day. But to win the GIRL BANDS ARE US competition we HAD to have Iodine in our band. (OUR band—note the slippery slide.) And as its new manager (in eye shades), I’d do anything to get her.

  So, cool as a cauldron of hailstones, I told HA the truth about that Girl Lookalike spell. And then reconfigured the spell—

  at the presto—

  to take out its second layer

  and make it work on its surface layer!!

  By the time I’d done that I’d thought of a way for HA to convince Iodine to join BACK IN BLA
CK (once she was looking like a gorgeous Girl Band girl).

  “Just warn her,”

  I said, “that if she refuses, you’ll tell the other High Hags she

  rocked

  the night away at Thirteen Chimneys and she’ll soon be sent SPINNING INTO THE BLUE THAT LIES BEYOND ALL.”

  Then I gave HA our speediest broomstick and wished her well on her mission.

  What was I thinking,

  Diary?

  You tell me.

  Because HA did just that. And soon returned with Iodine on the back of her broomstick looking GORGEOUS in her own little black dress.

  We kept her rehearsing here at Thirteen Chimneys (with plenty of reminders of The Blue That Lies Beyond All) until the day arrived for the auditions at the Starstruck Room.

  Bella and I hung around at the back (I’d made her my assistant to help with her disappointment at not being in the band).

  She tried not to hop with impatience and I tried not to twirl OFF my Lucky Whisker with excitement while we waited.

  Finally, our wait was over. Last but not least, HA and Iodine took the stage and performed our

  two

  magma-hot

  songs—

  BE RIGHT THERE

  and

  STAR EXHIBIT

  I only wish you could have seen those Producers and Promoters and the rest of the audience when BACK IN BLACK had finished. They leapt to their feet. They wept. They clapped.

  One PP cried out:

  “IF EVER A GIRL BAND

  DESERVES TO BE BIGGER