My Unwilling Witch Goes to Ballet School Read online

  But at least it’s not curled — NOT YET!

  USEFUL EXPLANATIONS

  ABOUT THINGS

  YOU MAY NOT KNOW

  AS YOU ARE A DIARY

  BILGE

  Filthy, smelly water full of litter and slimy sludge.

  SPAWN

  A teeming mass of eggs (usually the work of frogs).

  MILDEW

  A teeming mass of mini mushrooms (fungi).

  DRY ROT

  Mini fungi that rot from the inside out.

  WET ROT

  Soggy mini fungi that rot from the outside in.

  CONTRACT OF SERVICE

  What you’ve agreed to do for your witch and what you’ll get in return.

  THE FIVE BASIC BALLET POSTIONS

  The beginning and end of every ballet step, which dancers must be able to do in their sleep.

  PLIÉ (plee-AY)

  Dance French for a bending of the knee or knees with hips, legs, and feet turned straight out (OUCH) and no falling over.

  BATTEMENT TENDU (bat-MAHN tahn-DEW)

  Dance French for sliding foot from here to there without lifting your toe from ground, both knees straight. (Looks easy till you try it.)

  ROND DE JAMBE (rawn duh jawmb)

  Dance French for taking around the legs — “EN TERRE” or “EN L’AIR” as the Mad Ballet Two say, which means on the ground or in the air.

  CHERIE (sheh-RRIE)

  Everyday French for “my dear.”

  ARABESQUE

  Balancing on one leg with the other leg sticking out in a straight line behind you, EVERY BIT of it equal distance from the floor!!

  PIROUETTE (peer-WET)

  Dance French for a complete spin of the body on one foot without falling over. (KERWHISH!)

  CONVENTION

  A get-together of witches to exchange ideas on proper witches’ practice and ever-greater witchery. Usually with speeches and clapping and extra-slimy slime buns afterward.

  WITCHES’ CHARTER OF GOOD PRACTICE

  1.Scare at least one child on the Other Side into his or her wits — every day (excellent), once in seven days (good), once a moon (average), once in two moons (bad), once in a blue moon (failed).

  2.Identify any fully grown Othersiders who were not properly scared into their wits as children and DO IT NOW. (It is never too late for a grown Othersider to come to his or her senses.)

  3.Invent a new spell useful for every purpose and every occasion in the Witches’ Calendar. Ensure you or your Familiar commits it to a spell book before it is lost to the Realms of Forgetfulness forever.

  4.Keep a proper witch’s house at all times — filled with dust and spiders’ webs, mold, and earwigs’ underthings; and ensure the jars on your kitchen shelves are always alive with good spell ingredients.

  5.Cackle a lot. Cackling can be heard far and wide and serves many purposes such as (i) alerting others to your terrifying presence and (ii) sounding hideous and thereby comforting to your fellow witches.

  6.Make sure your Familiar keeps your means of proper travel (broomsticks) in good repair and that one, either, or both of you exercise them regularly.

  7.Never fail to present yourself anywhere and everywhere in full witch’s uniform (i.e., black everything and no ribbons upon your hat ever). Sleeping in uniform is recommended as a means of saving dressing time.

  8.Keep your Familiar happy with a good supply of comfrey tea and slime buns. Remember, behind every great witch is a well-fed Familiar.

  9.At all times acknowledge the authority of your local High Hags. As their eyes can move 360 degrees and they know everything there is to know, it is always in your interests to make their wishes your commands.

  Dear Reader,

  Haggy Aggy’s made “bestest” best friends in the whole wide world with two very unwitchy girls. And they have asked her to sleep over tonight and she’s said YES. Does that sound like witch behavior to you? I thought not. WHY ME?

  Pick-up my next diary, My Unwilling Witch Sleeps Over, to find out why I’m going totally bats on a broomstick.

  Sincerely,

  Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B.

  Turn the page for A SNEAK PEEK!

  AVAILABLE AUGUST 2009—Wherever Books are Sold

  Little, Brown

  Books for Young Readers

  Back at Thirteen Chimneys After

  Getting Lost and Diverted By The JIM

  Dear Diary,

  We’re home, thank the stars. Back from the Far Quagmires, though by no means out of the “quagmire.”

  To continue: what with the grubspit feelings of guilt and having to sleep over—by the time the fog lifted and we came to leave Pondernot’s—HA’s mood was so dark she could hardly see her way out of the front door.

  Though I was standing there ready with our broomstick, she walked straight past me and nearly fell into one of the bog fires in what Pondernot fondly calls her “garden.”

  This put her into an even fouler mood. Followed by an even fouler one, when Pondernot said with a crooked smile, “Now my dear, you know how much it would upset me to see a fully-fledged witch being flown by her Familiar. So I hope you’ll be flying that broomstick home yourself as any AUNT-RESPECTING witch would do.” With a thundery snarl, HA grabbed our broomstick, mounted it, and took off with barely time for me to leap on behind.

  Well, the truth is, Diary, in the dark mood she was in, HA should NOT have been flying anything, anywhere. Let alone from the Far Quagmires to Wizton-Under-Wold. It requires much alertness of the stars above and landmarks below. It should NEVER be attempted by one in a personal eclipse and hardly able to see her own flying hand in front of her.

  So, inevitably, in spite of my attempts to navigate from the back of the broom,

  WE WENT THE WRONG WAY.

  We went so wrong, we ended up crossing the Horizon and flying uselessly hither and thither on the Other Side, until HA said she was feeling so sick she was going to fall off.

  I took my life in my paws, clung and clawed my way past her to take over the flying, and quickly brought us down—as I thought safely—on the nearest suitable landing place.

  As it turned out—it wasn’t safe or suitable.

  It was the roof of a building in which, HA was soon to discover, Otherside children go to do JIM (similar to catnastics, if a clumsier version).

  And now that we were off-broomstick and away from guilt and the Far Quagmires, HA’s dark mood suddenly lifted.

  Her sun and moon came out again.

  She dangled cheerfully from the water pipes of the building, so she could peer in and eavesdrop at a half-open window.

  “Oh RB,” she cried, “do take a look.

  “There are darling girls in there doing what they call JIM—leaping, tumbling, propelling, and turning free through the air. No springs on their feet, no wings on their shoulders! Oh, how I’d love to be what they are and do what they do. And do you know what? Because I would love to, I’ve decided I will!”

  Well, you know Haggy Aggy.

  Once she’s decided, she’s decided. So forget Pondernot’s guiltifyings about being more Other Side than This Side.

  An Otherside JIM girl is what HA is going to be!!

  Dear Precious Children,

  The Publisher asked me to say something about these Diaries. (As I do not write Otherside very well, I have dictated it to the Publisher’s Familiar/assistant. If she has not written it down right, let me know and I’ll turn her into a fat pumpkin.)

  This is my message: I went to a lot of trouble to steal these Diaries for you. And the Publisher gave me a lot of shoes in exchange. If you do not read them the Publisher may want the shoes back. So please, for my sake — the only witch in witchdom who isn’t willing to scare you for her own entertainment — ENJOY THEM BOTH.

  Yours ever,

  Your fantabulous shoe-loving friend,

  Hagatha Agatha (Haggy Aggy for short, HA for shortest) xx

  Hello, this is the Publisher’
s Familiar here. After the publication of these diaries, Rumblewick Spellwacker Mortimer B. naturally became an international phenomenon, renowned for his wit, wisdom, and knack for tackling tricky, sticky situations. This very busy cat sat down for an interview with Yours Truly and spilled the beans on favorite spells, Catnastics, and that most unwilling witch, Haggy Aggy.

  PUBLISHER’S FAMILIAR: You’ve become immensely popular on the Other Side because of these diaries. Tell me, are you a star on Your Side as well?

  RUMBLEWICK: In my eyes, I am a megalight of marvelwockery on ALL sides. And as any wisewit knows it is not how others see you but how one sees oneself that counts. But, no. Apart from my best friend, Grimey, who fully appreciates my catabilities, I am not star-spangled on Our Side. Worst luck. In fact I think some of the other Familiars may even feel sorry for me. SOCKS, SOCKS, and triple yikes. On the other hand, HA’s burning ambitions to become galaxy-sized in the wider world of non-witches are simmering far too successfully for my liking. She will probably explode like a shooting star all over Otherside Celebrity-ness very soon.

  PF: Is HA your first witch since your graduation from the Awethunder School for Familiars?

  RB: HA is the ONLY witch I’ve been in service to apart from my seven-moon apprenticeship to the High Hag Fiddlestick, which was like puffing dandelions compared to working for HA.

  And, of course I’d rather assist a proper witch like Grimey’s, Witch Understairs. Even so, I’d say every Familiar should be exposed to the helter-skelter of an unwilling witch at some point, and tested on the Scariest Rides of Life.

  PF: With her love of pink and fondness for Otherside activities, Haggy Aggy can no doubt be a most frustrating witch. But despite her antics, you do seem to be quite fond of her. What do you like best about HA?

  RB: She is my witch and I am her cat. I would fly to the ends of the next galaxy for her and be back in time for comfrey tea and slime buns. Besides, I know that underneath all that pink froth and frip-trippery, there’s a seriously supernova witch glowing with ideas from the Dark Ages who couldn’t live without me and who is going to wake up one lunchtime soon and remember to shine on THIS SIDE!

  PF: You list Catnastics as one of your hobbies. What does it involve?

  RB: I was always good at Catnastics in school because I have a head for heights, probably thanks to my Lucky Whisker that knows balance backward. It mainly involves turning continuous triple body spins as you fly through the air without the assistance of magic before landing softly upon all fours. And it’s not as easy as it sounds, believe me.

  PF: What was your favorite class at the Awethunder School for Familiars, and what was the most useful spell you learned while there?

  RB: I loved all my classes at Awethunder, but the one that nudged to the top of my thrill-list was Practical Disguise. I had the gift. I could think myself into a disguise in a tad of tell. Once I disguised our teacher as a disguised disguise so triple presto she didn’t even know she had been disguised. I won the Class Prize for that. And given my current situation, one of the most useful things I learned in Spelling was the tried and trusted “Keep Your Witch Upright” spell.

  PF: What advice do you have for ballerinas, Familiars, and writers-in-training?

  RB: My advice for wannabe Otherside ballerinas is: (1) Learn the Five Basic Ballet Positions without using magic, which is cheating. (2) Say “cherie” a lot and speak with that funny accent called French, and most importantly, (3) before you start a ballet class, check that there isn’t a witch at the barre, pretending she isn’t one. My advice to Familiars is: think and spell on your paws, keep out of the Abyss of Trouble, avoid the Narrow Avoid, and don’t let the High Hags hang you over a hot cauldron till your fur curls. And if your witch disappoints, don’t get down, get inventive. As for my advice to writers-in-training: if you’re writing a diary, keep it under lock and key so it cannot be stolen from your log basket and sold to a publisher for a lifetime supply of shoes, as happened to me … and write from the heart, though don’t be afraid to sprinkle well with Imagination Dust.

  THE HA - INDUCED - HEADACHE - CURING RECIPE/SPELL

  (only to be used in the battiest of sitchifications)

  • One grain of salt

  •One dollop of frog’s foot fungus

  •A pound of pickled laughter

  •Dash of guilt

  •Smidge of lizard spittle

  Mix ingredients together in a vat of goodwill and season with grated mildew. Allow to settle for at least three tads of tell before gulping down as quickly as possible.

  Then recite:

  Very haggard Haggy makes me,

  Up she tips me, over waysy.

  But someday I’ll get her back on track,

  In witching form and back in black,

  And catulations will await me!

  * The High Hags run everything around here. They RULE.