Broomstick Battles

Chapter One

The clock in the hardware shop was ticking towards the witchy hour when broom riders could take to the skies. While she waited for her next lesson to start, Jessica, witch-in-training, sat cross-legged on the counter and cleaned her broomstick. Felicity, the shop cat, snoozed on top of the Spell Books. Jessica’s teacher, the legendary Miss Strega, witch-trainer and shopkeeper to the members of Witches World Wide, was thumbing through a magazine: The Top Ten Wonders of the Witch World. She had the look of someone who was Up To Something.

“I can’t believe how much stuff has got into my broom since I started flying,” said Jessica, disentangling a long thread of her scarf from the Moon-Vault control twig.

“Achoo,” sneezed Miss Strega.

“Here’s a goose feather from the night we were caught in the gale.”

“Achoo,” Miss Strega sneezed again.

“And this dragon soot must be from Torquemada’s stinking cave.”

“Achoo.”

“And – yeeuch! – there are blobs of sticky moondust all over the Pause and Reverse twigs.”

“Achoo,” replied Miss Strega, glancing at the clock.

Jessica kept on poking and jabbing between the twigs. She found one shiny gold maravedi coin, loads of scrunched-up Bewitching Jambarollie papers (from Miss Strega’s galloobious travel sweets) and some orange peel from the orchard where she had first made the Modern Witch’s Pyramid Brew.

“And great honking goose feathers! This is the exact wand that I used to fix Heckitty Darling’s ankle when she tripped over Snow White’s bucket and mop. I’ve been looking for that for ages!”

“Achoo! Achoo!” exclaimed Miss Strega, and snapped her book shut.

“Moonrays and marrowbones, Jessica!” she said. “You really mustn’t treat your broomstick like the back of an old sofa where you can stuff things. Some of us fought a war for the right to fly broomsticks.”

Jessica opened her eyes wide. “Were you in a war, Miss Strega?”

Miss Strega looked offended. “Not me, personally. It was a very long time ago. Haven’t you heard of the Broomstick Battles?”

Jessica pondered. “Was that the war between the witches who flew their brooms the Right-Way-Up and the witches who flew their brooms the Wrong-Way-Up? I don’t really know much about it.”

Miss Strega tut-tutted. “That is exactly why I want you to do a Spelling Backwards project. I do believe every witch-in-training should know her witch history. Even if we lose the odd girl. . .”

Jessica frowned. “Miss Strega, what is Spelling Backwards? And what do you mean even if we lose the odd girl?”

Miss Strega stroked her long chin. “Spelling Backwards is simply going back in time to see how witches used to live in the past. It’s quite easy. Returning to the present is the hard bit. One poor trainee never came back.”

“What do you mean, she never came back?”

“Just that. She disappeared into a history book one day and no one has seen her since.”

“And you can’t go and find her?”

“Absolutely not,” said Miss Strega, firmly. “People should never go blundering into a war zone without knowing how to get out of it.”

“So, tell me, why did the witches go to war?”

Miss Strega blew her nose noisily. “In the old days,” she explained, “when witches were wicked and had iron teeth and ate children for breakfast, everyone used to fly broomsticks with the bushy end behind them. Those old brooms were as good as they went, but the problem was that they didn’t go very far.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were powered by Sheer Bad Temper, that’s why. Every time a witch wanted to fly somewhere, say to a princess’s christening to put a bad Spell on her, she had to throw a hissy fit to get the broom off the ground. It was exhausting.”

“How do you know? Did you fly the Wrong-Way-Up?”

Miss Strega looked offended again. “Of course not,” she said. “I’m not that old – but I have read my Grandma Pluribella’s memoirs.” For some reason, she turned a little pink and went on smartly. “However, everything changed when Dame Walpurga of the Blessed Warts came along—”

“Dame Walpurga of the Blessed WARTS?” Jessica interrupted.

“The very same. You see, Dame Walpurga, warts and all, was not like other witches. She hated eating children for breakfast or any other time; she didn’t have iron teeth and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, throw a hissy fit. But she did like the idea of flying. She used to sit astride her broomstick and do her best to get hot under the collar.

She would put her hand on her hip, purse her lips, and try to have a tantrum. She narrowed her eyes and ground her teeth. Nothing happened – Dame Walpurga was just too sweet-tempered to fly off on a handle.

So she began to tinker. Through one long dark winter, she made up a Spell for each twig on her broom – one to steer forward, one to steer backwards, another to turn left or right, higher, lower, and so on. Then, when spring arrived, she climbed up on to her roof, mounted her broom with the twigs facing her – and tweaked. Jessica, she took off! Abracadabra! Hey presto! The Modern Witch’s Right-Way-Up Broom was invented.”

“Hurray for Dame Walpurga!” Jessica yelled and took off on a Spin around the shop. The Spell Books went everywhere. Felicity went flying and crashed, hissing, into Miss Strega’s arms, shooting murderous looks at Jessica.

Fortunately, the witchy hour struck at that very moment.

Miss Strega’s broomstick came whooshing out of the Broom Cupboard under the stairs. “Come on,” said Miss Strega, climbing aboard, “let’s go for a proper Spin. I feel another sneeze coming on so there’s no time to lose.”

Jessica quickly clambered on to her broomstick again and whistled for her nightingale, Berkeley, to get into her pocket. Miss Strega was already disappearing through the attic trap door.

Chapter Two

Jessica landed on the tallest chimneypot on the rooftop and looked down at the High Street. Buses, cars and bikes splashed through greasy puddles. School children with violins and football kits and library books dawdled in front of shop windows looking longingly at toys and books, mobile phones and trainers.

None of them, thought Jessica, could even see the creaking sign that hung over Miss Strega’s shop door.

And they can’t see me, either, she thought, wrapping her Super-Duper Deluxe Guaranteed-lnvisibility-When-You-Need-lt cape around her.

“Do stop disappearing, Jessica,” Miss Strega called from the peak of the roof tiles. “Come over here and take my hand.”

After one final chin-wobbling sneeze – Aa. . .aaa. . .aaa. . .aachoooo! – Miss Strega began to chant:

“Doog eltneg noom, Ward su pu, Tel su ylf, Rafa, tfola, Kcab, kcab, Kcab, kcab.”

At the last “kcab”, a shower of bright shooting stars fell out from behind the moon. The air crackled. The whole world groaned as if some large heavy machinery were braking painfully to a halt and going into reverse. Miss Strega and Jessica teetered dizzily until the noise stopped.

All the High Street shops had disappeared. In their place lay soft rolling hills with fields of round haystacks, a river with a humped bridge, and a strange little house. Its untidy yard was stacked high with bunches of twigs and lengths of branches.

“Tickety-boo!” Miss Strega clapped her hands. “If I’m not mistaken this is the historic site of Dame Walpurga’s Well, one of the Wonders of the Witch World. Nowadays it’s in the W3 headquarters at Coven Garden. Sadly, the cottage doesn’t exist any longer.”

Jessica frowned. “Why can we see it then if it doesn’t exist?”

“Because, my little lamb’s lettuce, we have just Spelled Backwards to when all the trouble started, to the witchy year of 370.”

Jessica whistled. “Wow, I wish I had listened to that chant.”

“What chant?” Miss Strega tapped her very long nose. “You really must be more observant, Jessica. Now, let’s fly down. You’ll need to turn your cape to Guaranteed Invisibility.”

Jessica floated off the roof. To her surprise, the sky was filled with witches hurtling from north, south, east and west, all flying the Wrong-Way-Up on old-fashioned broomsticks. They whizzed past with centimetres to spare, muttering crossly and spitting nails. Jessica had to use both her Duck and Dive twigs to avoid bumping into them.

“Simply hopeless!” Miss Strega sighed. “Those Wrong-Way-Uppers can’t even steer, let alone do any fancy flying. And, sadly, once they get tired and forget to be cross, they fall out of the sky.”

Even as she spoke, one of the hurtling witches began dropping helplessly towards the river.

“Dearie me.” Miss Strega gave a sort of choked giggle. “It looks like she’s in for a ducking.”

They hovered above the river watching until the bedraggled witch had clambered safely to the bank and joined the back of a long line of dripping witches trudging towards Dame Walpurga’s cottage.

Jessica and Miss Strega zipped over them and descended beside a handwritten notice on the garden gate.

NEW BROOMS FOR OLD

Dame Walpurga was sitting on a low three-legged stool. She was very, very warty, Jessica couldn’t help noticing, and even had a grinning warty toad sitting on her shoulder. Walpurga was also very, very loud. She boomed and cackled her head off as she demonstrated her new brooms to the swarm of eager customers who surrounded her.

“My first broom,” she was saying, “the Walpurga Basic, had only eighteen twigs, me dears, but it’s still a cracker. But you might prefer this one, the Walpurga Special. It has a Cauldron Hook, an Adjustable Seatbelt for your mascot and a very useful Air Bag (for those unavoidable crash-landings). Or perhaps,” she cackled, “some of you zippier types would like the Walpurga High-flyer for some extra oomph on the Milky Way. Go on,” she said encouragingly, as she passed her brooms around, “have a whirl! Have a test drive! Ig-Fo-Li, that’s it. Ignition, Forward and Lift. Whoops! Re-Pa-De. Reverse, Pause, Descend. There you go!”

She roared her support as the witches hurled their old besoms away and jerkily flew up on to the roof on their new brooms. Some of them even whooped and slapped their bottoms as they took off.

“Wey-hey!” they shouted. “Long life to Dame Walpurga and her Blessed Warts.”

Dame Walpurga hooted delightedly. “Have a Spin,” she yelled. “And don’t forget the old Ducking and Diving.”

Jessica turned to Miss Strega. “They all seem very friendly to me,” she whispered. “How did they end up going to war?”

“Wait,” said Miss Strega, “look who’s coming now.”

Chapter Three