The Starflash Opal Page 3

as the strange shapes weave around them like creatures consumed with curiosity. They cannot imagine where Zophenas lives. She does not even have a spidery cave like Waldo. She seems to live everywhere and nowhere; part of the misty land and heavy gloom.

  Within minutes she is back and says, “He appears to have passed on peacefully and is probably frolicking already with young witches and warlocks who came to a sticky end before their time. They live in a smoky land of poisonous plants ideal for mixing into spells with the nastier bits of animals. Which brings me on to Task Number Two.

  “What I need now is the ointment of a witch - the mixture that helps her to fly. It’s made from some of those horrible plants used by Waldo; monkshood, deadly nightshade, henbane and hemlock. The witches bind it with the fat of unbaptised children - barbaric! And you’ve probably heard them rushing through the night on broomsticks, forks and shovels to their rowdy parties.

  “ I’ve never dabbled in their magic, so I haven’t a clue what goes on. But I do know you will have your work cut out stealing the ointment because it is often guarded by giant toads that the witches dress in velvet and hang with bells. I ask you! Some have jewels in their heads which are an antidote to poison. But I think you are very clever children and will have no trouble distracting the toads and taking the ointment.”

  First spiders, now toads, thinks Gemma. Ugh!

  “How do we find a witch?” asks Swot.

  “Over the Miasmic Sea in a crumbling cottage in a garden overgrown with poisonous plants,” says Zophenas. “Stand quite still while I wish you there.”

  Gemma and Swot draw a deep breath and wait. For a moment nothing happens. The mist still swirls, the curious shapes weave round them and they shiver in the damp. Then they are lifted off their feet and on a strong current of wind are carried over the mist to the boiling black sea where even fish do not want to live.

  It billows, throwing up sickly yellow wave crests which curl and try to soak the children’s flying toes, but they remain out of reach, whisked on the north wind towards a distant shore that shines with pale stones and sea shells in the moonlight.

  As they draw near, they see sand dunes filled with the small white shells stretching far inland, but as they fly over them, they disappear and, in their place, tall dark plants wave sulkily in the wind. Suddenly it is daylight; grey with no sun.

  “Do you think these are the witches’ plants?” asks Gemma.

  “Possibly. But we must find the crumbling cottage,” Swot replies.

  Tall trees grow between the plants, then a broken garden gate and fence appear, surrounding a wild garden, bulging and groaning in the wind with the plants used by witches.

  “Look! There’s a cottage!” Swot points to an old house with a sagging chimney and many tiles missing from the roof. Its windows are broken. Black cats and small toads leap on the leaning window sills.

  The children find they can lower themselves onto the ground with ease and without a sound, pick their way through the plants towards the cottage. Some plants grab them with long tendrils. Others prick them with thorns, while one rubs its cold, furry leaves against their skin.

  The cottage seems to draw no nearer, as though the plants are preventing Swot and Gemma from reaching it, but after a very long time, they can see the rusty knocker in the shape of a toad on the front door.

  “I wonder where the witch keeps the ointment?” says Swot.

  “I wonder where the witch is?” muses Gemma, looking quickly over her shoulder.

  “We had better look for the giant toads rather than the witch,” says Swot, “Zophenas said they guard the ointment. But are they inside or outside the house?”

  The black cats and small toads have vanished. Cautiously the children creep closer to the cottage. They come to the first window. Swot very slowly peers through one corner. A room full of shadows. Ready at any moment to draw back his head, he waits until his eyes grow used to the dark. Then he makes out a table covered with strange-shaped bottles, bubbling and smelling horrible. He can see neither witch nor toad.

  Bending in two he beckons for Gemma to follow and they pass on to the next window. Sitting on a shelf are six babies in red shawls watching the cardboard cut-out of a black cat hung from the ceiling. Their eyes follow it to and fro, to and fro......

  They must be the unbaptised babies from whom the witch takes fat to bind her ointment, thinks Swot. We must think of a way to rescue them.

  Gemma screams. Swot spins round. A witch with straggly black hair, red pimples and a sagging dress, has grabbed Gemma round the neck.

  “Aha! What have we here?” she croaks, baring her one front tooth. “It looks like a good supper to me. How did you know it was supper time, children?”

  Gemma sobs and Swot dives at the witch, grabbing her skinny hands with their long black nails. She digs them into him and he falls back.

  The Witch

  Back to the Start!

  “Oh no, little boy, none of that. Come, I’ll show you my kitchen utensils. I have pots of all shapes and sizes. One of them should be big enough for you two!”

  Gemma shrieks and the witch tucks her under one scrawny arm. Swot struggles, dragged along by his collar. They pass through the broken door with the rusty knocker and along a dark passage past the rooms with the babies and the bubbling bottles.

  They reach the witch’s kitchen piled with dirty pots. Two big black ovens stand in the middle of the room. Already something that smells nasty is cooking on top of one.

  “Now let me look at you! What brings you here? Children don’t usually find Hagatha’s’ house. It’s too well hidden,” says the witch.

  Swot is silent. Gemma still sobs.

  “A secret mission eh?” says Hagatha. “Well that doesn’t matter because in ten minutes you’ll be mincemeat.”

  Now Swot notices the giant mincing machine in one corner.

  “I’m so tired of minced cat and toad. You’ll be a real treat, my little ones. And I think I deserve it before I make my next jar of flying ointment.”

  Swot is suddenly alert. How can they escape Hagatha’s pot long enough for her to make the ointment, so they can steal it? Hagatha rubs her scraggy hands together and begins to assemble mysterious ingredients on top of one of the ovens. She waggles her ugly nose, sniffing at the liquid in the steaming pot, and nods in satisfaction.

  One by one she adds the mysterious ingredients and with a huge wooden spoon, begins to stir. The smell grows worse. Hagatha drags an enormous black casserole across the floor and pours in the liquid.

  “You two will go into this pot and I’ll magic it into the oven!” she declares in her crackly voice. But when she looks round for the children they have vanished. She does not see two black beetles scuttling across the floor into a dusty corner. Zophenas has saved their lives.

  They watch Hagatha stamping over the flagstones in a fury and flinging out of the kitchen, skinny arms flying, to search the rest of the house. The babies start crying, one of the bubbling bottles falls from the table and Hagatha curses and screams.

  Swot and Gemma scuttle onto a chair and wait for her to come back. How can they rescue the babies before she uses their fat for her flying ointment? And without the ointment they cannot return to Zophenas.

  Hagatha tramps back into the kitchen and starts rummaging among bottles and jars on a shelf. “Aha! I have just enough fat left here for my ointment!” she mutters, “Never mind supper now. I must prepare for the Witches’ Sabbath tomorrow.”

  Swot and Gemma sigh with relief and watch as she starts chopping dark green plants and sifting strange powder into a black bowl. She starts to hum a tuneless song and stirs the mixture faster and faster.

  At last she stops and lifts a tall glass jar onto the oven beside the bowl. With the wooden spoon she takes out an oozing mass of the ointment and drops it into the jar. It is dark green and bubbles and seethes for several minutes before settling in a motionless lump.

  Hagatha washes out the black bowl, puts
it on the shelf and leaves the kitchen.

  “This will be easy!” whispers Gemma.

  But, at that moment, the children hear a shuffle, mutter and jingle in the passage. Two enormous toads, dressed in short velvet jackets hung with small bells and wearing floppy orange hats, appear in the doorway.

  “Where has she put it?” mutters one.

  “There!” says the other pointing to the jar of ointment.

  “Another boring night watching the ointment doesn’t walk away!” sighs the first.

  They seat themselves on rickety stools beside the jar.

  “What shall we do tonight? Words or numbers?” says the second toad.

  “Numbers. What’s ten times forty times twenty eight?” asks the first toad.

  The second toad looks blank. His bulging eyes glaze.

  “Don’t know.”

  Swot feels his limbs sprouting from the black beetle’s armour, then his head pops out and his body begins to fill. Gemma is changing back too.

  “Eleven thousand two hundred!” Swot announces.

  The toads swing round, bells jingling, to face him.

  “WHO are YOU?” demands the first toad.

  “Swot and this is Gemma. I can help you with your numbers. What’s your name?”

  “Wart,” says the frog. That Swot can understand. The toad is covered in them.

  “What’s yours?” he asks the second toad.

  “Blister.”

  “Can you count Blister?”

  “No.”

  Well, if you would like to come with me I can show you how!” says Swot. He catches