Morris Hollett and St Vernon’s Ward for Strange & Unusual Diseases

  ***

  The Wizzers were already in Marvin’s Office when they arrived.

  It wasn’t really an office, more a large cupboard with a small table that acted as a desk, a chair and then a mixture of mops, brooms, buckets and pans, and boxes of toilet rolls, cleaning fluids and dusters.

  He looked around for a cauldron or large bucket with a bubbling potion but Morris couldn’t see anything of the type and he noticed Doctor Grunk doing the same as well.

  The Doctor quickly told the two Wizzers what Marvin had told them. Marvin was standing in the corner of his room looking very sheepish and cringed when the Wizzers looked at him with surprise.

  ‘Well,’ said Alwyn with a sparkle in his eye. ‘When Thinley and I arrived we noticed an interesting whiff in the air.’

  ‘You did?’ said Morris, sniffing, ‘I can’t smell anything.’

  ‘Ah but you won’t young Morris. This is a special stink that only Wizzers can smell!’

  ‘But what is it?’ said Doctor Grunk.

  ‘A potion nearing ripeness…a rather special potion,’ said Alwyn, smiling.

  ‘But where?’ asked Morris.

  Thinley pointed to a white mug with purple spots on the table.

  ‘In a cup?’ choked Morris and the Doctor at the same time and with equal surprise.

  They both looked closer and then peered in to see what it contained, not knowing what to expect.

  ‘Why it’s…’ said Morris, ‘half a cup of cold tea!’

  The Doctor and Morris looked at each other, confused.

  Morris had at least expected to see something bubbling and colourful but not this weak, grey, brew…with a skin on top.

  ‘This mixture will soon be the Eenimeeni Spell,’ announced Alwyn, his eyes dancing with joy.

  ‘Perhaps Marvin would like to tell us the ingredients?’

  They looked at the small old man in the corner.

  ‘Erm, yes, well,’ he straightened up and then spoke with an authority that took Doctor Grunk and Morris by surprise.

  ‘One needs;

  A pinch of fluff from a black kitten’s tummy,

  essence of burp on a day sort of sunny,

  ear wax of flea,

  the tip of a sting from a bumblebee,

  the buzz from a fly,

  an inch of wool the colour of sky,

  essence of oak,

  from a toad – a croak,

  a Flurple of slumpit

  and a jiggle of crowned butterfly spit…

  and, urm mixed and glued with the Eenimeeni chant…’

  ‘Fantastic, absolutely fantastic!’ cried Alwyn. ‘You’d go straight to the top of my class! I believe you were the recipient of the spell cast by top student, Knobbly, last week!’

  ‘I think the spell maintained its form and sent part of Knobbly – the bit of him that knew the spell – into you and it stayed almost full strength as it didn’t pass out of the boundaries of the hospital. It’s a real first!’ he laughed.

  There was a stunned silence in the room while they each looked at the cup, and then Marvin, and then each other.

  ‘Well, it sounds wonderful, but what does the Eenimeeni spell actually do?’ asked Doctor Grunk.

  Alwyn laughed. ‘It’s the answer to our problems – it creates a copy, of whatever you want…’

  ‘Even a…person?’ asked Morris, his mind working overtime.

  ‘Yes!’ giggled the Wizzers together.