I am getting brave. Some of my stories I keep close to the vest because they are the ones I love most and the ones I want to publish. This is one of them – though I know the formatting is all wrong and I need to edit it. Meet Ella, my favorite little witch. She has a full series all her own. She’s mischievous and endearing and always, always getting into trouble. But we like her that way!
Ever have one of those days, the kind where nothing at all goes right? Everyone does, even witches like me. Oh quit staring at me like that. I won’t turn you into a toad or anything, probably couldn’t if I tried. Nothing is working for me today.
I come from a family of witches and one warlock, that’s my dad. My mom and my baby sister are hare-nosed witches. No silly, they don’t have hairy noses, but my teacher, Mrs. Higgenbottom does. They are hare-nosed witches, you know, like a rabbit. They can twitch their noses and whatever spell they want just happens. My sister, Manda, doesn’t know she’s a witch yet. She’s still a baby. Mom says we’ll tell her when she’s three.
I’m just a plain old wand witch like my dad. I don’t have a magical bone in my body and believe me I have looked. I have tried wriggling my nose and squinting my eyes and even shaking all my fingers, but nothing happens. I have to learn to do magic with a wand and some spells.
I go to a witch’s school called The Complete Cauldron on the second Tuesday of every week. What? You mean there is no second Tuesday in your week? That’s because you’re NOT a witch. But trust me; you have it better then me. I have a whole extra day of school in my week, and it takes me longer to get to weekends then you. That just stinks! Witches and Warlocks go to ordinary school and most grown-ups hold ordinary jobs, so everything stays a secret. For some reason, regular people are afraid of us. I just don’t get it.
So today was the second Tuesday of this week and I had to go to school. I tried to pretend I was sick and stay home, but mom knew I was faking, she always knows. Nothing went right today. Mrs. Higgenbottom, the teacher with the hairy nose, turned Fred Noggins into a turtle at the very beginning of the school day, just because he was taking too long to get his books out. She turned him back before recess. Mrs. Higgenbottom was in an awful mood. My best friend, Charlotte, said that Mrs. H. must have had Eye of Grump for breakfast. Mrs. H. turned Charlotte into a monkey for chattering. You know how hard it is to concentrate when your best friend keeps asking you for bananas all day? Oh, don’t look so scared, Mrs. Higgenbottom hasn’t been able to cast a spell through a book… at least not yet.
The very first class I had today was “Practicing with Wands,” but my wand did not want to cooperate at all. I had to turn a handsome prince into a frog. It’s really easy to do. And there must be lots of frogs out there for all the princesses to find and kiss. You didn’t think it just happened that way, did you? So I tried and tried but first he was a goat and he tried to eat my clothes. I quickly waved my wand again and this time I turned him into a ram. Stupid Wand! I waved my wand again and he became a green bird, right color; wrong animal. I finally did get him turned into a frog, but he had a ram’s horn on his head and wings on his back. Mrs. Higgenbottom was starting to turn a funny color red. I don’t know what’s the matter with her.
The next class was my favorite class, Basic Potions. I love mixing potions. My dad has a great big greenhouse full of all kinds of fun things to use for potions, but I’m not allowed in there…ever! Sometimes parents are no fun. I don’t know why they won’t let me play in there; after all I am very good at mixing potions. Well, I am, usually. Today’s potion was supposed to help flowers grow. Charlotte turned her plant into a banana tree and ate it. Monkeys! I put in too much of the snapdragon wings and my nice plant turned into a mean Venus Fly Trap and it bit Mrs. Higgenbottom right on her hairy nose. I tried not to giggle. Now my teacher was not only red, but her eyes were starting to pop right out of her head. She’s so grumpy.
After recess we had Brew and Stew, our cooking class. It is guaranteed to turn us into great chefs. Today we were making Green Slime Juice, Worm Stew and Chocolate Covered Spiders for dessert. I really hoped this worked because whatever we make, we must eat for lunch. My slime juice was not thick enough. My worm stew was okay, but the worms were still wriggly and three of my spiders scurried off my plate and up Mrs. Higgenbottom’s leg. By now she was turning purple, her eyes were popping out of her head, and she was starting to shake all over. I asked her if she wanted me to call the witch doctor, but steam started coming out of her ears. I ran down the hall. I think I will skip lunch today.
After lunch we went to Flying Practice and that’s a pretty easy class. All you have to do is fly around on your broom and practice taking off and landing. Charlotte had a really hard time riding her broom. Her tail kept getting in the way. Me? I did great until the very end of the class when we had to park our brooms; mine went into reverse and socked Mrs. H. right in the stomach. After she got her breath back, she raised her wand to change me into something, but I got out of there too fast for her.
Finally, we had our last class of the day, Simple Spells. What a great class that was! I really did have a good time in there. We had to write a spell that would turn the green leaves on the trees to beautiful colors of red, orange, and yellow. What? Oh, I know, you thought that was autumn, didn’t you? Nope, that’s just what we want you to think. So, I wrote my spell:
Leaves on trees so pretty green,
Turn into a lovely scene,
Shades of red, orange, yellow and brown
And then in November come tumbling down.
And my spell would have worked too. I was good at spells better even then Charlotte. Only I was done so fast that I decided to write another spell just to make Charlotte laugh.
It went like this:
Grumpy old teachers who cast a spell,
Hear my words and heed them well
From wings of bats and turkey gizzards
I turn you into a great big lizard.
I only meant for Charlotte to see it, but she started laughing really hard. Monkeys don’t laugh softly. Mrs. Higgenbottom made me read my spell for the rest of the class to hear. I tried to tell her no, but she kept yelling at me. So, I did and sure enough it worked. Mrs. Higgenbottom turned into a red, bulging eyed, shaking, and steam coming out of her ears lizard. I have to clean out the bat cages for a whole month, but it was worth it. I just hope mom doesn’t ask me how school went today.
Shannon McCauley - Author 