Not Just a Witch

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.

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Have some soup,’ begged Dora Mayberry, putting the tray down beside Heckie’s bed. ‘Please, dear. Just try a spoonful.’

‘I couldn’t,’ said Heckie in a failing voice. ‘It would choke me.’

For two weeks now she had been lying in bed in her flat above the pet shop, refusing to eat and getting paler and weaker with every day that passed.

‘My heart is broken,’ Heckie had explained at the beginning.

‘Well, my heart is broken too,’ Dora had said – but of course it had always been agreed between them that Heckie was the sensitive one and felt things more.

Dora had moved in with Heckie because her own business was sold, and she cooked for Heckie and looked after the shop and baked the dragworm’s princesses, but nothing could make Heckie take any interest in life. Sumi came with nice things from her parents’ shop, and Joe, and of course Daniel as soon as he was well enough. Daniel had left hospital after a few days and his parents had been so relieved that they actually took time off to make a fuss of him. But even Daniel couldn’t stop Heckie lying back on her pillows and talking about death, although it was his bravery that had prevented a terrible disaster.

For the leopards had not been gassed. There was something that Mr Knacksap had forgotten if he ever knew it – and that was that Dora Mayberry had been the netball champion of the Academy.

This plump and humble witch had leapt high over a crouching leopard, caught the canister, and run – as she used to run down the pitch – to throw it safely into the lake.

The rest of that strange, exhausting night had been spent driving the leopards back to the prison, changing them back to people, and undoing the stone magic on the guards. Everyone had helped. Nat and Billy had fled, along with Sid, so it was Boris and Mr Gurgle who drove the circus vans, and the other Wickedness Hunters stood guard outside the prison till the job was done. Since the prisoners couldn’t remember how they had got into the exercise yard, and the guards couldn’t remember anything at all, nobody could punish anybody else, and soon the prisoners were back in their cells and quite glad to catch up on their sleep.

So everyone should now have been happy, but instead they were completely miserable – and this was because of Heckie.