Not Just a Witch

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘Right? Is everybody ready?’ said Boris Chomsky. He climbed into the basket of the black air balloon, and Sumi and the garden witch moved over to make room for him.

‘Just checking the ammunition,’ said Mr Gurgle importantly, from the second balloon. His balloon was grey, but it only lacked a couple of hours till dawn so it wouldn’t show up too much. Joe sat beside him, and Madame Rosalia, whom no one would have recognized as Miss Witch 1965. She wore no make-up, her hair was tousled. For the past half hour she had crouched on the floor of Boris’s garage, muttering the spells she’d learnt at school and thought she had forgotten. Spells to raise the wind — and the right wind. A westerly, to take them as fast as they could go to Hankley Hall.

Daniel’s parents might not be able to show him much affection, but when their son was still not at home at one in the morning, the professors were frantic. They called the police, but they also went to Sumi’s house, and to Joe’s, to see if he was with his friends. And Sumi and Joe, running round to Heckie’s in case Daniel was with the witch, had met Mr Gurgle rallying the Wickedness Hunters.

‘Ammunition on board,’ called Mr Gurgle. ‘Ready for take-off!’

Boris put a tape of the Minister for Education saying schoolchildren needed more exams into the fuel adaptor — and the black balloon shot into the air.

Mr Gurgle inserted a cassette of the Minister for Trade saying that dumping nuclear waste was good for the fish — and the grey balloon shot upwards also.

Madame Rosalia had done her work well. The wind was keen and exactly where they wanted. Blowing them to the east and Hankley Hall!

Mr Knacksap was running, running… stumbling along gravel paths, blundering between trees. He’d thrown off the gas-mask and the branches stung his face.

Gas-proof witches! Who would have believed it? He’d been certain that the witches had died along with the leopards when he threw the canister — but just now he’d heard them calling to each other down by the lake.

Oh, Lord, don’t let them get me, prayed the furrier. Don’t let me become a louse. Don’t let me become a statue. And please, please don’t let me become the statue of a louse!

If he could just find somewhere to hide till the witches gave up and went home. Then he could haul the leopards away — Nat and Billy should be waiting at the bottom of the drive for a signal.

But where? Where could he be safe from the women he had cheated?

Panting, gasping, almost at the end of his tether, Mr Knacksap staggered on, past fountains, down a flight of steps, tripping over roots…

And then he saw in front of him a mass of high, dark hedges. Of course, the Hankley Maze! The first streaks of light had appeared in the east, but he’d be safe in there — no one would find him. If he was lost, so would the witches be if they tried to follow him. All he needed to do was wait till he heard them driving away, and then he’d get out all right. One just had to turn always to the left or to the right, it was perfectly easy.

Only what was that? Good heavens, WHAT WAS THAT? A thing high up in the sky. A blob… an Unidentified Flying Object. No, two of them. Two UFOs…

‘It’s the Martians!’ screamed Mr Knacksap, weaving frantically between the hedges.

‘There he is, down in the maze,’ said Joe. ‘We need to lose some height.’

Boris nodded and turned down the sound. In both balloons the taped gabble died to a whisper and the balloons dropped quietly to hang over the hedges of yew.

‘Ready with the ammunition?’

The garden witch nodded and heaved the first of the missiles on to the edge of the basket, where Sumi steadied it and let it go.

‘No! No! Don’t do it!’ yelled the furrier.

But the unspeakable THING was already hurtling towards him — gigantic, hideous, deformed… to fall not a foot away from him, spattering him with ghastly misshapen bits of itself. And now a second one — not a death-dealing cauliflower this time, but an artichoke whose spiky leaves drew blood as they gashed his cheek.

‘Spare me! Spare me!’ implored Knacksap — and a stick of celery the size of a tree caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder.

The furrier was on his knees now, gabbling and praying. But there was a fresh horror to come! From the second of the UFOs came a new menace: a rain of deadly weapons, round ones like landmines, which splattered to the ground beside him, releasing an unbearable, poisonous stink!

‘No, not that one,’ begged Mr Gurgle, up in the balloon. ‘I’m teaching that one to skip.’

‘Can’t be helped,’ said Joe tersely. He heaved the round, red cheese on to the rim of the basket, took aim — and fired.

This time he scored a bull’s-eye. The furrier screamed once and rolled over. He was still lying on the ground, twitching, when the witches ran into the maze.