My grandmother stopped dead in her tracks. She already knew what was coming next.
‘Therefore,’ I went on, ‘if we use the Mouse-Maker to turn the new Grand High Witch and all the other witches in the Castle into mice, the whole place will be swarming with very clever, very nasty, very dangerous talking thinking mouse-witches! They'll all be witches in mouse's clothing. And that,’ I added, ‘could be very horrible indeed.’
‘By golly, you're right!’ she cried. ‘That never occurred to me!’
‘I couldn't possibly take on a castleful of mouse-witches,’ I said.
‘Nor could I,’ she said. ‘They'd have to be got rid of at once. They'd have to be smashed and bashed and chopped up into little pieces exactly as they were in the Hotel Magnificent.’
‘I'm not doing that,’ I said. ‘I couldn't anyway. I don't think you could either, Grandmamma. And mouse-traps wouldn't be the slightest use. By the way,’ I added,
‘The Grand High Witch who did me in was wrong about mouse-traps, wasn't she?’
‘Yes, yes,’ my grandmother said impatiently. ‘But I'm not concerned with that Grand High Witch. She's been chopped up long ago by the hotel chef. It's the new Grand High Witch we've got to deal with now, the one up in the Castle, and all her assistants. A Grand High Witch is bad enough when she's disguised as a lady, but just think of what she could do if she were a mouse! She could go anywhere!’
‘I've got it!’ I shouted, leaping about a foot in the air. ‘I've got the answer!’
‘Tell me!’ my grandmother snapped.
‘The answer is CATS!’ I shouted. ‘Bring on the cats!’
My grandmother stared at me. Then a great grin spread over her face and she shouted, ‘It's brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!’
‘Shove half-a-dozen cats into that Castle,’ I cried, ‘and they'll kill every mouse in the place in five minutes, I don't care how clever they are!’
‘You're a magician!’ my grandmother shouted, starting to wave her stick about once again.
‘Look out for the vases, Grandmamma!’
‘To heck with the vases!’ she shouted. ‘I'm so thrilled I don't care if I break the lot!’
‘Just one thing,’ I said. ‘You've got to make absolutely sure I'm well out of the way myself before you put the cats in.’
‘That's a promise,’ she said.
‘What will we do after the cats have killed all the mice?’ I asked her.
‘I'll take all the cats back to the village and then you and I will have the Castle completely to ourselves.’
‘And then?’ I said.
‘Then we shall go through the records and get the names and addresses of all the witches in the whole wide world!’
‘And after that?’ I said, quivering with excitement.
‘After that, my darling, the greatest task of all will begin for you and me! We shall pack our bags and go travelling all over the world! In every country we visit, we shall seek out the houses where the witches are living! We shall find each house, one by one, and having found it, you will creep inside and leave your little drops of deadly Mouse-Maker in the bread, or the cornflakes, or the rice-pudding or whatever food you see lying about. It will be a triumph, my darling! A colossal unbeatable triumph. We shall do it entirely by ourselves, just you and me! That will be our work for the rest of our lives!’
My grandmother picked me up off the table and kissed me on the nose. ‘Oh, my goodness me, we're going to be busy these next few weeks and months and years!’ she cried.
‘I think we are,’ I said. ‘But what fun and excitement it's going to be!’
‘You can say that again!’ my grandmother cried, giving me another kiss. ‘I can't wait to get started!’