The Witches

‘He's always suffering mishaps,’ Mr Jenkins said. ‘He suffers from overeating and then he suffers from wind. You should hear him after supper. He sounds like a brass band! But a good dose of castor-oil soon puts him right again. Where is the little beggar?’

‘I've already told you,’ my grandmother said. ‘He's in my handbag. But I do think it might be better if we went somewhere private before you meet him in his present state.’

‘This woman's mad,’ Mrs Jenkins said. ‘Tell her to go away.’

‘The plain fact is,’ my grandmother said, ‘that your son Bruno has been rather drastically altered.’

‘Altered!’ shouted Mr Jenkins. ‘What the devil d'you mean altered?’

‘Go away!’ Mrs Jenkins said. ‘You're a silly old woman!’

‘I am trying to tell you as gently as I possibly can that Bruno really is in my handbag,’ my grandmother said. “My own grandson actually saw them doing it to him.’

‘Saw who doing what to him, for heaven's sake?’ shouted Mr Jenkins. He had a black moustache which jumped up and down when he shouted.

‘Saw the witches turning him into a mouse,’ my grandmother said.

‘Call the Manager, dear,’ Mrs Jenkins said to her husband. ‘Have this mad woman thrown out of the hotel.’

At this point, my grandmother's patience came to an end. She fished around in her handbag and found Bruno. She lifted him out and dumped him on the glass-topped table. Mrs Jenkins took one look at the fat little brown mouse who was still chewing a bit of banana and she let out a shriek that rattled the crystals on the chandelier. She sprang out of her chair yelling, ‘It's a mouse! Take it away! I can't stand the things!’

‘It's Bruno,’ my grandmother said.

‘You nasty cheeky old woman!’ shouted Mr Jenkins. He started flapping his newspaper at Bruno, trying to sweep him off the table. My grandmother rushed forward and managed to grab hold of him before he was swept away. Mrs Jenkins was still screaming her head off and Mr Jenkins was towering over us and shouting, ‘Get out of here! How dare you frighten my wife like that! Take your filthy mouse away this instant!’

‘Help!’ screamed Mrs Jenkins. Her face had gone the colour of the underside of a fish.

‘Well, I did my best,’ my grandmother said, and with that she turned and sailed out of the room, carrying Bruno with her.

The Plan

When we got back to the bedroom, my grandmother took both me and Bruno out of her handbag and put us on the table. ‘Why on earth didn't you speak up and tell your father who you were?’ she said to Bruno.

‘Because I had my mouth full,’ Bruno said. He jumped straight back into the bowl of bananas and went on with his eating.

‘What a very disagreeable little boy you are,’ my grandmother said to him.

‘Not boy,’ I said. ‘Mouse.’

‘Quite right, my darling. But we don't have time to worry about him at this moment. We have plans to make. In about an hour and a half's time, all the witches will be going down to supper in the Dining-Room. Right?’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘And every one of them has got to be given a dose of Mouse-Maker,’ she said. ‘How on earth are we going to do that?’

‘Grandmamma,’ I said. ‘I think you are forgetting that a mouse can go places where human beings can't.’

‘That's quite right,’ she said. ‘But even a mouse can't go creeping around on the table-top carrying a bottle and sprinkling Mouse-Maker all over the witches’ roast beef without being spotted.’

‘I wasn't thinking of doing it in the Dining-Room,’ I said.

‘Then where?’ she asked.

‘In the kitchen,’ I said, ‘while their food is being got ready.’

My grandmother stared at me. ‘My darling child,’ she said slowly, ‘I do believe that turning you into a mouse has doubled your brain-power!’

‘A little mouse,’ I said, ‘can go scuttling round the kitchen among the pots and pans, and if he's very careful no one will ever see him.’