The Grand High Witch glared around the room. ‘I hope nobody else is going to make me cross today,’ she remarked.
There was a deathly silence.
‘Frrrizzled like a frrritter,’ said The Grand High Witch. ‘Cooked like a carrot. You vill never see her again. Now vee can get down to business.’
Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker
‘Children are rrree-volting!’ screamed The Grand High Witch. ‘Vee vill vipe them all avay! Vee vill scrrrub them off the face of the earth! Vee vill flush them down the drain!’
‘Yes, yes!’ chanted the audience. ‘Wipe them away! Scrub them off the earth! Flush them down the drain!’
‘Children are foul and filthy!’ thundered The Grand High Witch.
‘They are! They are!’ chorused the English witches. ‘They are foul and filthy!’
‘Children are dirty and stinky!’ screamed The Grand High Witch.
‘Dirty and stinky!’ cried the audience, getting more and more worked up.
‘Children are smelling of dogs’ drrroppings!’ screeched The Grand High Witch.
‘Pooooooo!’ cried the audience. ‘Pooooooo! Pooooooo! Pooooooo!’
‘They are vurse than dogs’ drrroppings!’ screeched The Grand High Witch. ‘Dogs’ drrroppings is smelling like violets and prrrimroses compared vith children!’
‘Violets and primroses!’ chanted the audience. They were clapping and cheering almost every word spoken from the platform. The speaker seemed to have them completely under her spell.
‘To talk about children is making me sick!’ screamed The Grand High Witch. ‘I am feeling sick even thinking about them! Fetch me a basin!’
The Grand High Witch paused and glared at the mass of eager faces in the audience. They waited, wanting more.
‘So now!’ barked The Grand High Witch. ‘So now I am having a plan! I am having a giganticus plan for getting rrrid of every single child in the whole of Inkland!’
The witches gasped. They gaped. They turned and gave each other ghoulish grins of excitement.
‘Yes!’ thundered The Grand High Witch. ‘Vee shall svish them and svollop them and vee shall make to disappear every single smelly little brrrat in Inkland in vun strrroke!’
‘Whoopee!’ cried the witches, clapping their hands. ‘You are brilliant, O Your Grandness! You are fantabulous!’
‘Shut up and listen!’ snapped The Grand High Witch. ‘Listen very carefully and let us not be having any muck-ups!’
The audience leaned forward, eager to learn how this magic was going to be performed.
‘Each and every vun of you,’ thundered The Grand High Witch, ‘is to go back to your home towns immediately and rrree-sign from your jobs. Rrree-sign! Give notice! Rrree-tire!’
‘We will!’ they cried. ‘We will resign from our jobs!’
‘And after you have rrree-signed from your jobs,’ The Grand High Witch went on, ‘each and every vun of you vill be going out and you vill be buying…’ She paused.
‘What will we be buying?’ they cried. ‘Tell us, O Brilliant One, what is it we shall be buying?’
‘Sveet-shops!’ shouted The Grand High Witch.
‘Sweet-shops!’ they cried. ‘We are going to buy sweet-shops! What a frumptious wheeze!’
‘Each of you vill be buying for herself a sveet-shop. You vill be buying the very best and most rrree-spectable sveet-shops in Inkland.’
‘We will! We will!’ they answered. Their dreadful voices were like a chorus of dentists’ drills all grinding away together.