The Little Broomstick

  It was, and the spell worked. The door opened in smooth, obedient silence, and Mary, her heart thumping, stole into the hall. She shut the door quietly behind her and stood still, listening.

  No lights; no sound. With stealthy flashes of her torch she tiptoed down the long corridor towards the door of the lab.

  This was shut, but not locked. She eased it open, and was back in the horrid room she remembered. It was quite light. The furnace still roared green behind its transparent door, filling the long room with that phosphorescent decaying light, and striking gleams and ripples of glitter from the racks of jars and flasks.

  The clock was ticking; off-beat it went, with its nasty little rhyme:

  Hickory dickory dock

  The mice got into the clock…

  Mary ignored it. She shut the door carefully, and tiptoed past the teacher's desk to the massive, locked door of the strong-room.

  The book was still open at the lock-spell. She put her hand, still faintly sticky with the fly-by-night, on the bronze sea-horse which did duty for a handle, and whispered the spell.

  The huge door came smoothly open, and stood wide for her to enter.

  Inside, the lamp still burned with its yellow light.

  Further back, in the dusk, the bars of the cages glimmered, and behind the bars, the eyes. All wide awake, all staring.

  'Tib?' whispered Mary. 'Tib? Are you there?'

  No answer. Only a rustling and a faint muttering, gobbling sound as all the queer misshapen creatures came crowding to the fronts of their cages. Those that had eyes had them fixed on her, beseeching.

  Small paws scrabbled at the bars.

  'Tib?' Surely, if Tib were here, he would make some sign. She began to run along the rows of cages, peering in the faint light, calling, 'Tib? Tib? Tib?' in a desperate little whisper.

  A squirrel shot a paw out and snatched at her sleeve, and she paused.

  'Tib? Is that you?'

  From the next cage a hedgehog's foot reached, urgently, and from the cage above a twisted claw stretched out to pat her hair.

  Mary had not thought of this. She backed away from the wall of cages, and took out her torch again, sending its beam along the packed rows. 'Tib? Tib? If you're here, make a sound! Try, Tib! Try to mew! Surely you've still got a voice?'

  But they all understood her. And they were all desperate. From every cage came small, frantic noises, as the rabbits, rats, squirrels, pangolins, hedgehogs, frogs and lizards tried, from all their differently shaped throats, to mew.

  'Please, please!'

  Mary, her hands to her ears, was almost crying. 'Can't you understand? I can't open all those locks; it would take hours and hours! And even if I could, how could you get away? You're all so little, and you've none of you got proper legs or wings! Please, please be quiet and let me find Tib!'

  But they took no notice. The eyes besought her, the paws reached frantically through the bars, the little throats croaked and mewed and gobbled and cried.

  Then suddenly, silence.

  Then Mary, too, heard what they had heard.

  Footsteps were coming down the corridor towards the laboratory door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gay Go Up And Gay Go Down…

  There were two sets of footsteps, and one of them belonged to Madam Mumblechook. Mary heard her talking, then a man's voice answering her.

  She ran to the door of the strong-room, and stood there, listening. Perhaps they were not coming here; perhaps the voices would go straight past the laboratory door …They stopped just outside it.

  'A most successful experiment, Doctor Dee,'

  Madam was saying. 'And well worth staying late for. I believe we may congratulate ourselves.'

  The doorknob turned.

  Mary whisked back into the strong-room and pulled the massive door shut behind her. It closed quietly, with a faint gasp of air. She could hear nothing now. All round her the creatures were silent, save for the faint scratching of their feet on the floor of the cages, and their soft, hurried breathing. The air was dead; Mary heard her own heart as if it were footsteps.

  They had spoken of an experiment. Perhaps they just wanted something from the lab. Perhaps they would not come in here…

  She heard the lock of the strong-room door turn over with a smooth click.

  When Madam Mumblechook and Doctor Dee came into the strong-room, Mary was at the far end of it, crouched on the floor in the darkness behind the last bay of cages.

  '…in here,' Madam was saying, 'and that will do for tonight, I think? We can perhaps continue tomorrow?'

  'Certainly,' said Doctor Dee. 'I admit to finding it a challenge, a real challenge. A more difficult subject even than the grey, wouldn't you agree?'

  'Indeed. But how satisfactory to be able to check those results with this one, and so soon.'

  There was a sound of something being laid down. 'There. Quite a difference, isn't there? I don't think he'll be readily recognised now, even if she decides to be difficult about it.'

  'All cats are grey in the dark, don't they say?' said Doctor Dee, and laughed. 'Ah, it's awake now. All is well. There was a moment, I admit to you, dear ma'am, when I thought I might have made the mixture too strong. But I venture to suggest that we may even be on the verge of discovering one of the classic formulae. I would not put it any less strongly. However, I suggest we leave the creature in the lab cage overnight, until–ah, naughty!'

  Something had hissed, but not like a cat; more like a snake, thought Mary.

  Madam Mumblechook laughed, and Doctor Dee said complacently, 'He'll learn. And now, dear Madam, I had better be on my way.'

  'Come to my office first,' said Madam Mumblechook. 'One for the road. It's a wild night now, from the sound of the wind. Your broomstick is reliable?'

  'Totally. Straight to its stable, and never a swerve to right or left. It's the only way it knows,' said Doctor Dee. 'After you, dear Madam.'

  They were going. Mary held her breath. She had the impression that all the creatures in the cages held theirs. The great door whooshed shut on its cushion of air. Silence settled. She tiptoed out into the lamplight to see what Madam had brought.

  In a small–a very small–cage made of bright, common-looking metal, a cage no bigger than a large mousetrap, sat a frog. It had a hunched back, protruding eyes, and a spotted skin. It was sitting up on its enormous haunches, and its forelegs were too short. They were just little curled claws, held tightly in to its chest. When it saw Mary, it hitched and shuffled itself forward on its haunches towards the bars, and tried to reach her with the tiny, useless paws.

  An experiment, they had said. A difficult subject.

  He'll learn, they had said, and laughed.

  Mary put a finger through the bars, and the little paws fastened round it. She saw how the lamplight ran over the freckled skin like silk; how the powerful frog muscles bunched and glimmered; how the bulbous eyes shone.

  'Tib?' she whispered. 'My pretty Tib. I know it's you. You'd be beautiful, whatever they did to you. And I think I'm beginning to understand; the "grey" they talked about–that was your brother Gib, wasn't it? He must be here too, somewhere. If I get you out, you can show me which he is, and we'll take him, too. Keep still, now, and let go my finger. I've got to find the Master Spell.'

  For of course the lock-spell by itself would be useless. She must undo the transformation as well.

  She opened the book at the Master Spell.

  The red lines, with their warning stars, seemed to quiver in the lamplight…It will come back upon the ufer, to his dire affliction. Beware, and fay me not fave in fore need.

  Well, this was sore need, and if it came back upon her, that was just too bad. It was already more than bad for Tib and his brother, and for these countless other creatures whom she wished so desperately that she could help as well.

  She took a breath. The massive door was tightly shut. There was no need to whisper. She raised her voice to its normal pitch, and spoke quickly and
clearly…

  There were six lines of it, and it is not possible to quote it here, because never after this night was Mary able to remember a word of it. But it was a simple, gay little rhyme, and it ended on a phrase that might have been (but wasn't) 'the dancing ring of days.'

  '…ring of days,' finished Mary, strongly.

  That did it.

  Everything happened at once.

  With a clicking and a cracking like a million billion nuts popping under the feet of a hundred elephants, the locks of the cages–all the cages flew open. The cupboard door fell off its hinges, and the glass frog rolled out as the books and papers on the shelves wisped away to charred ash. The strong-room door itself swung wide and stood. And out of every cage the creatures jumped, flapped, crept, shuffled, clawed their way, till they swarmed all round Mary's feet on the ground.

  Then, suddenly, the dim lamp swelled and flashed and sparkled, and the dead air of the strong-room went whirling and whistling through the bars of the empty cages and with it–instead of the grunting breaths and shuffling claws of the unhappy, stunted creatures on the floor–came the sound of wings and dancing hoofs. Under Mary's eyes a lame hedgehog stretched and grew and became a young deer, dappled and big-eyed, and supple as willow; a shuffling pangolin swept into the air with the knife-wings and scarlet throat of a swallow; the glass frog, rolling to her feet, melted into the steely velvet of a beautiful smoke-grey cat; then all round her were wings and the joyous cries of birds, and the light-flecked coats and tossing antlers of deer.

  And from the little metal cage with its burst lock leaped Tib, eyes wide and brilliant, and landed on Mary's left shoulder, as the grey cat swarmed up her other arm to anchor every claw in the collar of her coat.

  For a few shocked and deafened seconds Mary could not move. The sudden flashing magic, the appalling noise, seemed to split the night.

  Then she shouted: 'Run, everyone! This way!' And tore out through the strong-room door and across the lab.

  Here, too, was chaos. Tubes and retorts burst with cracks and flashes, and liquid ran down red, green, and purple, so that the deer's hoofs splashed coloured spray shoulder high as they galloped through. The clock weights dropped to the floor, became mice, and vanished down the nearest crevice, closely followed by the mice from the burst cage on the bench. The clock springs, released screaming, whipped up in great coils, whirled round and round three times, then smashed in a whirring tangle of metal.

  'Whoof!' said the clock, and stopped.

  The furnace exploded.

  The lab door stood wide. Mary, the book in her hand and the cats on her shoulders, dived through it and, with the air alive with birds and with a score of deer racing beside her, ran down the long corridor to the front door.

  It was open, too.

  But so was the door of Madam's office. And in that doorway, side by side, Madam Mumblechook and Doctor Dee stood transfixed and furious.

  Then, together, they leaped into action. Doctor Dee whirled his wand of power up, and yelled, 'Stop! I bid you stop!' And Madam Mumblechook ran to slam the front door.

  But nobody stopped, or even paused. Doctor Dee was waving his wand and shouting still, but his voice could not be heard for the noise of wings and hoofs and the excited calling of the animals and birds. Tib, on Mary's left shoulder, was yelling like a demon, and on her right, the grey cat answered. The noise was dreadful. And whether it simply drowned the wizard's voice, or whether the Master Spell still held, Madam and the Doctor were powerless.

  The front door sprang open against the witch's hands, so violently that she was flung back against the wall; and then the herd of deer, with Mary in their midst and the flock of birds sweeping overhead, ran clean over the wizard, knocking him, wand and all, flat to the floor. Then they were all racing anyhow down the wide steps and out in the fresh, free night.

  The deer fled on, over the grassland, under the trees' shadow. Mary saw them reach the wall, and over it in the windy starlight they went like a lifting wave. The birds shot high into the starlit air, screaming with joy. Mary stumbled down the last step, the cats clinging like goosegrass, and ran for the dark corner where she had left her little broomstick.

  It must have come to meet her. She almost fell over it, half-propped against the stone griffin at the foot of the steps.

  She leaped astride it, clapped it with her hand, and shouted: 'Home! Straight home!'

  It jumped into the air. As she soared over the trees, gaining height, she saw below her the last wave of deer leap the park wall and scud away into the dark woods. All around, the treetops were filled with birds, singing as if it were midday. Then woodland, birdsong, and the scent of the trees dropped away from her, and there was nothing but the flying starlight and the ecstatic shrilling of the two cats at her ears.

  It seemed a much quicker ride than usual. The broomstick slowed, swooped down through a swirl of windy cloud, then coasted to a smooth landing on grass.

  Mary dismounted stiffly. The two cats leaped down off her shoulders, but, to her surprise, stayed close beside her feet, and even in the fitful light of the cloud-mantled stars she could see the arch of their backs, and the stiffness of their tails. They seemed to be staring at the house.

  Mary turned to see what was scaring them so.

  Then she, too, stiffened and stood staring. And she knew that if she, like the cats, had had a tail, it would have been sticking straight up like theirs, and fluffy as a bottle-brush.

  It was the wrong house.

  She picked up the broomstick. Yes, it was the wrong broomstick, too. Her own little broomstick had, after all, stayed exactly where she had bidden it.

  And there had only been one other visitor to Endor College that night. 'Straight to its stable, and never a swerve to right or left,' Doctor Dee had said. And this was where it had brought her.

  Mary stood there on Doctor Dee's front lawn, holding Doctor Dee's broomstick, and staring at the front of Doctor Dee's house with horror.

  The cats spat, sprang away, and vanished into the shadows.

  Someone jumped out of the bushes behind her. A voice said, gruffly and threateningly, 'So it was you, you rotten witch! Now I've got you, and you'd better do as I say!'

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Where She Was Going I Couldn't But Ask It,

  For In Her Hand She Carried A Broom…

  It was a boy; a boy of about Mary's own age, perhaps a little older, but taller and tough-looking.

  His hair looked quite dark in the starlight, and he was scowling ferociously. He was also brandishing a thick stick with a nasty-looking knob on the end.

  Then he stopped, peered, and said on a note of uncertain surprise, 'I know you, don't I? We've met somewhere, but I don't remember–Who are you?'

  Mary had backed a step in front of the threatening cudgel. 'I've never seen you before in my life. I'm Mary Smith, from Red Manor. Are you Doctor Dee's apprentice?'

  'Doctor who's what? Of course I'm not!' He sounded surprised and indignant, but he had let the cudgel fall. 'I'm the Vicar's son, Peter. I live in Redmanor too, but I–' He took in his breath. 'Yes, that's it! I've seen you in a photo up at the Manor, that's why I must have thought I knew you. Daddy said you were staying with your great-aunt.'

  'They told me you were away on holiday,' said Mary.

  'We got back today. But look, what is all this? What are you doing here? And why should I be somebody's apprentice? Who's this Doctor Dee?'

  'Don't you know? This is his house–at least, I think it must be.'

  He was scowling at her still, but uncertainly, and this gave Mary confidence. She added, 'What are you doing here yourself, anyway?'

  'I came to look for my cat,' said Peter.

  'So it is yours!' cried Mary. 'The grey one? It is Gib, then?'

  He nodded. 'When we got back, Mr Spenser said Gib had disappeared a week ago, and they hadn't seen him since. We've looked everywhere, all day. Mother and Daddy said he must have gone astray, but I knew he would never do t
hat. Then I found a note under one of the plant-pots in the potting shed. It said–'

  'I know what it said. It was a receipt for "One Familiar for Transformation Experiments",' said Mary.

  The boy stiffened, and the cudgel moved again as his grip tightened. 'Then you are a witch? I–I didn't think they were real, but when I saw you …I'm certain I saw you come flying in over that wall, and there's the broomstick to prove it! And I suppose this Doctor Dee of yours is a wizard as well, if you thought I was his apprentice!' He swung the cudgel up, and took a step forward. 'I promise you, if you don't give me my cat back–'

  'Please,' said Mary, backing again, 'I'm not a witch, honestly! I just got mixed up in it, the same as you, because my cat disappeared as well, and as a matter of fact I've found them both, and transformed them back again. I found a book of spells, and–'

  'Do you expect me to believe that?' demanded Peter. 'Where are they, then?'

  'There,' said Mary, with relief, as the two cats, their fur once more sleek and shining, strolled out of the shadows on to the grass.

  'Gib!' said Peter. The cudgel thudded down on the grass, and he snatched the cat up, hugging him. 'Where did you find him?'

  'Look,' said Mary earnestly, 'there isn't time to tell you all about it. You'll just have to believe me, and I think we'd better be getting out of here now, this minute. There are two of them in it–Doctor Dee, and a witch who lives not far from here, and I think they may be coming after me. They're dangerous, I don't have to tell you.' She stooped and picked Tib up. 'So let's hurry, shall we? I'll tell you all about it on the way.'

  But the boy didn't move. 'That's the whole point,' he said. 'We can't get out. The walls are smooth as glass and there aren't any trees, and the gate's locked.'

  Mary looked round her. He was right. Doctor Dee's house stood in a square garden which was surrounded by a very high wall. There was not a tree, not a creeper, nothing by which the walls could be climbed. And even in the starlight she could see the enormous padlock on the gate. 'But–how did you get in, then?'