Not Just a Witch

‘Oh, blast the woman! I’d better go and see.’ Heckie opened the door and the dragworm decided to follow her. This was not so simple. His front end bounded out of the basket quickly enough, helped by the whirring of his little wings. But then he stopped and a frown appeared between his shaggy eyebrows. The worm part of him had twenty-four legs, a pair on each of his bulges, and it was not easy for him to decide which one to start walking with.

The wizards and witches tittered, and the children glared at them.

Then all at once, the legs on the third bulge from the end started to move, which set off all the others, and, suddenly looking very happy, the dragworm bounded and slithered down the stairs.

In the shop, Heckie tucked him up behind one of the food-bins so that no one could see him. Then she opened the door and the woman in the white fur coat swept in. She was carrying a birdcage with a cover which she took off. Inside was a large green and orange parrot.

‘Where’s Sam?’ said the parrot, his head on one side.

‘I want you to buy this bird,’ said the woman in a bossy voice.

‘I’m afraid I don’t buy birds from private people. One can never be sure that they are not diseased.’

‘This parrot is not diseased,’ said the woman huffily, and once again the parrot said: ‘Where’s Sam?’

‘Where is Sam?’ asked Heckie.

‘Sam was his owner. He’s gone away and because I am a kind and caring person, I offered to find a home for the parrot. I’ll take fifty pounds.’

Heckie was about to say no, but the parrot edged closer on his perch and she saw his eyes. ‘I’ll give you forty,’ she said.

To her surprise, the woman took it and left.

‘I’ll see you later,’ said Heckie to the parrot, and went back to the meeting.

‘Now,’ she said, when she was back in the sitting-room. ‘Is there anything else—’

She broke off. Daniel and Sumi had both leapt to their feet and run towards the door.

‘Oh, what has happened?’ cried Daniel.

The dragworm had managed to get back upstairs but there was something terribly wrong with him. His breath came in rasping gasps, his wings were limp and the hair on his topknot had turned quite white! Worst of all was his wormy end. It had been smooth and pale with gentle pink splodges. Now all the splodges were horribly inflamed, raised up from the skin like boils, and the centre of every one was full of pus.

Up to now, Heckie’s familiar had never made a sound, but as they carried him back to his basket, his head fell back and from his poor, sick throat there came a tragic and despairing: ‘Quack!’

Nobody laughed. Even the witches and wizards who had jeered knew that when people are in trouble they often go back to their childhood, crying or calling for their mothers. The dragworm had gone back to his early life – the life when he was a duck.

Heckie was beside herself, running backwards and forwards with medicines and blankets, and it was the garden witch who said: ‘Wait! I’ve seen this before. Seen it with Mad Millicent’s familiar.’ She scratched her head, but Heckie was far too worried to clip off the green shoot that burst out between her eyebrows. ‘The fiercest witch in the east, she was, and her familiar with her.’

The cheese wizard nodded. ‘That’s right. He was a lizard and he’d come on just like that when there was some evil in the place. And Wall-eyed William’s familiar too. An eagle, he was – a real brute and he used to come out in great red boils under his feathers. A proper help it was to William.’

‘You mean . . .’ Heckie looked up and she was blushing. ‘Are you saying . . .? Oh, surely not. I’m only an ordinary witch. Surely I couldn’t have made one of . . . you know . . . them?’

The wizards and witches nodded and looked at Heckie with a new respect.

‘Made what?’ Joe wanted to know.

‘A detector! A wickedness detector! A familiar who comes over queer when he meets anyone wicked!’ cried Heckie, clapping her hands, and Daniel felt quite cross. How could she look so pleased when the dragworm was suffering? Though actually he was beginning to look a little better: some of the black was returning to his hair and the spots were fading. ‘A wickedness detector. Oh my, oh my! So we’ll always know for certain whether somebody’s evil or not! Well, there’s nothing to stop us now!’

‘Yes, but who made him come out in spots like that?’ asked Joe.

Everybody looked at everybody else. In the silence, they could hear the parrot still asking: ‘Where’s Sam? Where’s Sam?’

‘Of course!’ cried Heckie. ‘The woman in the shop. The woman with the white Rolls-Royce. After her, children! Find out everything you can about her. Everything!’

Chapter Seven

It didn’t take the children long to trace the owner of the white Rolls-Royce. Her name was Mrs Winneypeg and she was one of the richest women in Wellbridge. She didn’t just have a white Rolls-Royce, she had a white BMW and a white Jaguar. She lived alone in a house with seven bedrooms and a private swimming pool and owned seven fur coats, three of them mink.