Charming or What?

Chapter One

A cold raindrop slid down Jessica’s nose.

“Bother,” she grumbled. “I hate flying in the rain.”

Jessica was on her way to Miss Strega’s shop on the High Street where she was about to begin her third course of lessons as a witch-in-training. She had already learnt to fly a broomstick (the right way up) and had even vaulted over the moon. She was pretty good at Spelling (with and without a wand) and knew how to make a basic brew. She had a terrific flying helmet and a Super-Duper De-Luxe Guaranteed-Invisibility-When-You-Need-It cape. Unfortunately, both the cape and the helmet were letting in water.

“Bother and double bother,” she repeated as she wiped her nose. “I should have taken the bus.”

Berkeley, Jessica’s night-in-gale mascot, poked her head out of Jessica’s pocket. “Hu-eet, hu-eet,” she chirruped sweetly and cocked an eye at the broom’s Fast-Forward twig.

“We are Fast Forwarding, silly,” Jessica sniffed. “And stop singing. It’s not singing weather.”

Berkeley quickly snuggled back into her warm pocket fluff and they flew on without another tweet. Jessica buried her chin in her cape, pulled her flying helmet down over her eyes and grimly steered her broom forward until she was directly above Miss Strega’s hardware shop. She dropped down, dismounted and immediately stepped into a deep puddle. As she lifted the latch of the shop door, a huge drop of water fell off the creaking shop sign and trickled down the back of her neck. She stomped inside.

Old Miss Strega was sitting as usual on her high stool behind the counter. She had her long chin cupped comfortably in one hand and held a book in the other. Felicity, Miss Strega’s ginger cat, was sitting in her usual place on top of a pile of Spell Books.

As Jessica dripped across the shop floor, Miss Strega looked up and peered at her over her glasses. “You’re making puddles, Jessica.”

Jessica pulled out her wand. She frowned with concentration as she tried to think of a suitable Wash ’n’ Wipe Spell.

“NO Spelling,” Miss Strega warned. “I don’t want you flooding my shop by mistake and holding up our flight. There’s a mop under the stairs.”

Jessica scowled as she fetched the mop. “What flight?”

Miss Strega tapped the cover of the Witches World Wide Rule Book. “It says here that witches-in-training should spend some time abroad so I’ve booked—”

“A holiday?” Jessica stopped mopping and spun around. “What a brilliant idea.”

“Well, not exactly a holiday.” Miss Strega cleared her throat. “At least, not for you. I’ve put your name down for a summer school.”

Jessica raised a damp eyebrow. “A summer school? To learn what?”

“Why, Charming of course,” declared Miss Strega, hopping down from her stool.

“You certainly need some Charm skills and Pelagia’s Academy in the Charm Archipelago is the very best. Felicity and I will come too. And Berkeley.”

“Felicity and Berkeley and you are going to school too?”

“Moonrays and marrowbones!” Miss Strega cackled. “Of course not. We three already know everything there is to know about Charming. We shall be on holiday.”

At the mention of her name, Berkeley fluttered out of Jessica’s pocket and enthusiastically trilled thank you in her lovely silvery voice.

Felicity winked an orange eye at Jessica.

Jessica stuck her tongue out at the cat and turned to Miss Strega who was noisily emptying a drawer full of her own wands on to the counter. “Who is this Pelagia anyway?”

“Pelagia is rather an unusual witch. She used to be a pirate, but had a change of heart for some reason and decided to be good. She’s a lighthouse keeper now and teaches Charming part-time.”

“Do I have to do Charming? Isn’t Spelling enough?”

Miss Strega stroked her long chin. “Personally, I suggest you try both. You see, Charming is not something everybody can pick up, like flying a broomstick or typing without looking at the keyboard or making a basic brew. Charming is more a way of being, it’s something you become.”

Jessica looked confused.

“And then again,” Miss Strega continued, “you will need to know about Charms. They can be incantations but they can also be things. Like a lucky horseshoe or a magic crystal.”

Jessica looked more confused than ever. Was Pelagia going to make her become a horseshoe, rather like being a tree at drama lessons?

Miss Strega stuck a wand behind her ear and gathered the rest into a bundle with a rubber band. “Look, don’t worry your bewitching little head about it for the moment, Jess. Pelagia will explain all this much better than I can. So let’s shut up the shop and take to the sky.”

Felicity and Berkeley sat on the counter and watched with interest as Jessica and Miss Strega prepared for their trip. First of all, Jessica put away the mop and filed the bundle of Miss Strega’s own wands in a drawer marked My Swansdown. (This was an example of Noquan – Not Quite An Anagram – one of Miss Strega’s highly secret codes to hide what she really had for sale if non-witches blundered into the shop.) Then while Miss Strega made up a flask of her favourite brew, Cold Smelly Voles, for the journey, Jessica carefully sprayed her broomstick with goblin deterrent. (She still got the heebie-jeebies when she remembered the night that she had had to eject a goblin that had cheekily clambered on to her broomstick.) Miss Strega counted all the groats and maravedis in the till and tipped them into her saddle bag. Jessica topped up the bird seed in her pocket. Finally, Miss Strega riffled through a box of cards beside the door.

“No good, no good, no good. Ah-ha, this one will be perfect,” she said, selecting a card and looping it over a nail on the door. “Now, Felicity, Berkeley, Jessica, take your positions, prepare for take-off. Ig-Fo-Li: Ignition, Forward and Lift.”

Jessica pressed her Ignition twig and eased her broom forward. As the door closed quietly behind her, she turned around to read the notice.

Chapter Two

They rose up over the High Street and sailed over the park where, only months earlier, Jessica had made her first flight. The rain, if anything, was worse. Frogs croaked and splashed off into the duck pond, a sopping fox rummaged in a rubbish bin. Owls huddled and shivered in their tree boxes. All the neighbourhood cats had gone home out of the wet.

“Brrr,” thought Jessica, “I hope it will be warmer in the Charm archi-thingy.”

With the wind behind them, the broomsticks made fast progress and they were soon flying over international waters. Gradually, the rain stopped, the mist cleared and the sun shone brightly. Jessica’s wet cloak began to steam as the temperature rose.

“Nearly there now,” said Miss Strega.

Moments later, half a dozen little islands came into view. They dazzled like green and white fruit drops scattered over a turquoise mat. Jessica and Miss Strega tweaked their Pause twigs and hung in the sky admiring the long white sandy beaches fringed with palms and dotted with all sorts of witchy people flying kites, building sandcastles and paddling in the shallows. Water-skiers skimmed between the islands leaving silver streaks in their wake.

“Wow!” said Jessica.

“Hu-eeeeet!” whistled Berkeley.

“Merrowwww!” purred Felicity.

“Well, tickle me pink with a flying fish!” exclaimed Miss Strega. “It’s charming!”

“And look at that!” Jessica pointed to the largest of the islands, Charm Major. On top of the highest cliff there was a tall slender whitewashed lighthouse. A weather vane in the shape of a witch on her broomstick (right way up, of course) swung gently in the sea breeze. And there, on the look-out platform, was an extraordinary creature waving a Witches World Wide flag and shouting through a megaphone, “PERMISSION FOR LANDING GRANTED.”

Jessica grinned at Miss Strega. “Is that Pelagia?”

“The very same, and she likes nothing better than a stylish landing so let’s dip and bob prettily as we approach.”

Pelagia was quite unlike any witch that Jessica had ever seen. She wore knee-length shorts, a black bandanna and a cloak patterned with sea horses and starfish. Her legs were bare and her toenails painted blue. She had orange freckles, mad hair, gold hoop earrings and lots of charm bracelets that tinkled when she moved.

“Welcome to the Charm Archipelago, me dears,” she said as she hugged Miss Strega, patted Felicity and Berkeley and shook Jessica’s hand. “We’ll get cracking right away.”

Pelagia set off at a blistering pace, whizzing down the banisters of the spiral staircase with Jessica and Miss Strega sliding behind her as fast as they could.

“That will be your room …” said Pelagia, pointing through an open door where Jessica could see a pair of hammocks strung up between two round porthole windows, “… and that is my Control Room.”

Jessica got a glimpse of another hammock hanging above a large mahogany sea-chest with gilded brass corners. The lid was raised and it seemed to be full of rolled up maps, gold coins, pearls and other jewels. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“Hey,” she whispered over her shoulder to Miss Strega., “look at all that treasure.” But, even as she spoke, the chest gave a little giggle and slowly closed all by itself.

When they reached the ground floor and jumped off the handrail, there was another surprise. A large arched door swung open on a very busy, very noisy kitchen. A floor brush and dustpan were sweeping up a pile of sand that had blown in under the door. A parade of plates and cups were sailing across the room from the draining board to the dresser. A tray was busily piling itself up with tumblers, jugs of cool drinks, an ice bucket and some curly straws.

“Good show,” Pelagic, beamed. “Come out to the garden as soon as you can.”

Jessica tugged at Miss Strega’s elbow. “Who is she speaking to? Does she have an invisible helper?”

Miss Strega tapped the side of her long nose and laid a long finger on her lips, as if she knew perfectly well what was going on.

“Pelagia,” Jessica began, “how do the dustpan and brush and the cups and the tray … ?”

Pelagia chuckled. “Charming, aren’t they, like every well-run home.” And, without another word of explanation, she hurried Jessica and Miss Strega out into the lighthouse garden.

“Do make yourself comfortable, Miss Strega,” she said, pointing at a deckchair under a huge umbrella with a thatch of palm leaves. She clapped her hands and the tray with a jug of iced fruit cocktails and a large platter piled high with mango, coconut and pineapple floated towards them.