Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

“At least you cannot fail with that!” said Sootica joyfully, as she bade her brother goodbye, and set off behind her mistress on the broomstick.

But the moment they were gone Gobbolino sprang off the stool on which he had been standing to stir the cauldron, and began to pace up and down the cavern.

“Oh, my goodness, how wicked! How cruel! How wrong!” he said to himself. “Think of the parents’ sorrow and distress! Think of the lovely girl doomed to a hundred years of sleep on her birthday! Oh, no! No! No! Never will I take part in such cruelty! Oh, why was I born a witch’s cat? Oh, why?”

And leaving the cauldron to bubble as it chose, he curled up in a corner and fell asleep.

The witch and Sootica were early in returning.

All night long, as she flew about her errands, the witch had been uneasy and anxious about her spell.

“Suppose he stirs it too fast! Suppose he stirs too slowly? Suppose he lets the fire out? Or scalds himself and drops the ladle? I ought not to have left it, Sootica, for if that spell fails then all my hopes are lost.”

“Indeed it cannot fail, dear mistress!” said Sootica. “Stupid and ignorant as my brother is, the merest kitten could stir a spell all night. I am sure you have no cause for fear!”

But the witch was not easy, and long before the dawn she had turned the broomstick for home and was speeding back towards the Hurricane Mountains with the wind whistling through Sootica’s whiskers as she clung behind her.

“Whee-eew!” they whistled, and people in the towns and villages below murmured: “There goes Sootica, the witch’s cat!”

Once at the cavern’s mouth the witch leapt off her broomstick and rushed inside. Sootica followed her, but more sedately, for she felt sure Gobbolino would not have been so foolish as to stop stirring the cauldron as he had been told to do so.

What was her horror to see the ashes grey under the cauldron, the bubbling silent, and worst of all, Gobbolino asleep in a ball in his usual corner!

“Miserable cat!” shrieked the witch, picking him up by the scruff of his neck. “What do you mean by this, you wretched creature?”

“It was so cruel!” sobbed Gobbolino. “I couldn’t do it! Indeed I couldn’t do it, ma’am!”

“Cruel! What word is ‘cruel’ for a witch’s cat?” asked the witch, shaking him. “Don’t you want to be cruel? Don’t you want to be bad? Don’t you want to be wicked? Don’t you want to be ungrateful? You have the heart of a kitchen cat, the ambitions of a kitchen cat, and the looks of a kitchen cat! Henceforward you shall be a kitchen cat!”

And with one shriek of rage she hurled him into the cauldron.

16

Gobbolino the Kitchen Cat

The bubbles rose and broke about him as Gobbolino struggled in the cauldron. Had it been boiling he might have died, but he had let the fire out and it was almost cold.

At last the witch fished him out with a stick, and set him, dripping miserably, on the floor.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” she jeered. “If only your mother could see you now! If she was ashamed of you before she would be ten times more so to look at you as you are this minute! Ho! Ho! Ho! Kitchen cat! Kitchen cat!”

“I should like to be a kitchen cat!” said Gobbolino. “I never wanted to be a witch’s cat – not I! Witches are cruel and wicked and bad! They do evil and make people miserable! They come to a bad end, and nobody is sorry! They are bad! Bad! BAD!!”

“What! Haven’t I silenced you yet?” shrieked the witch, making a snatch at him to hurl him down the mountainside, but Gobbolino skipped aside, and next moment Sootica had mounted the broomstick and called to him: “Jump up behind me, brother, quick!”

Gobbolino made one leap just as the witch made another grab at his tail.

Up-up-up! soared the broomstick, higher and higher, till the witch’s shrieks and angry cries could no longer be heard and the grey peaks of the Hurricane Mountains were like shadows below.

Dizzy and sick with fright, Gobbolino could only close his beautiful blue eyes and cling to his sister Sootica as he thanked her over and over again for saving his life.

“Don’t thank me!” said Sootica. “You are a disgrace to the family, and I never want to see your face again. But you are my blood brother after all, and I did not want to see you hurled down the mountainside.”

“But what will happen to you when you go back without me?” asked Gobbolino.

“Oh, pooh! I am far cleverer than my mistress the witch!” said Sootica scornfully. “She would never dare touch a hair of my head. Don’t you worry about me, brother, but make up your mind to be a better cat in future. But there! I suppose it is of no use telling you that as things are now!”

Gobbolino was rather mystified by her words, but he had little breath left for wondering what she was talking about. It was all he could do to cling to the broomstick without falling off as they rushed through the air. It was ten thousand times worse than anything he had ever done before.