The Witch Family (8 page)

Tired of watching the sky, Little Witch Girl was swinging now. She could sail off in practically any direction, and she was exploring the hill, as far down as she could reach with her toes, feeling for cracks and crannies. Yesterday's hurly-burly had created a number of cracks that had not been there before. Little Witch Girl had her shoes off so that she could dig her toenails, that were like little bird's claws, into the glass hill. She enjoyed scraping them over the smooth glass.

Suddenly, what did her toes come upon but a hole in the hill! She found that it was big enough for both feet to get into at the same time. In fact, she found that it was big enough for a thin little witch girl to get her whole self into, and this she did. Leaving the rope dangling on the outside, where it would be handy for the return trip, but taking her broomstick with her, tied to her waist like a sword, she went inside the bare and bleak glass hill, exploring.

What an enchanting path stretched ahead of her! It wound invitingly into the middle of the clear glass hill. Beautiful colors, such as sparkle in a prism, or a diamond, a drop of water, or a tear, dazzled her. Breathless at this shimmering beauty, Little Witch Girl tiptoed slowly down the path. Tinkling sounds could be heard, faintly and faraway, like fairy music.

"My!" said Little Witch Girl. "It is like being inside a soap bubble."

Then she came upon the most enchanting sight of all, a small waterfall! Real water was dropping from one glass ledge to another. And peeking out at Little Witch Girl from behind the waterfall, there was a radiant little mermaid. She seemed to be of exactly the same size and age as Little Witch Girl, and that was, you know, the same as Amy and Clarissa. The little mermaid had also long blond hair. But right now hers was very wet. She was shaking it dry in the golden reflection of the noontime sun, way way way on the outside.

"Hello," she said politely, looking at the little witch girl in surprise. "Who are you?"

"Hannah," said Little Witch Girl shyly. "Who are you?"

"Lurie," said the little mermaid. "Will you play with me?" She spoke crooningly, and her voice had a lovely sort of sigh in it, like the hush, hush of gentle waves on rocks, so that it would have been quite impossible not to play with her. But, of course, Little Witch Girl wanted very much to play with her, and happily nodded yes. The little mermaid reminded Little Witch Girl of Amy, not the bottom fish part, but the top blond-headed part.

"Oh, we must first give the baby her bottle," said the little mermaid. "I almost forgot."

("You know," said Amy to Clarissa, beginning to draw a mermaid baby, "that a baby sister was what the little witch girl wished for for herself at her party, don't you?" "No, I didn't know that," said Clarissa. "Now you know," said Amy. "When she sees this mermaid baby, she'll wish for one more than ever.")

"Baby! Bottle!" exclaimed the little witch girl.

"Yes. My baby sister. Named Babay," said the little mermaid.

"Babay!" gasped Little Witch Girl. "O-o-oh! How wonderful! Could I see her? I never heard of a mermaid baby before. Just real big mermaids are all I ever heard about. I never heard of a mermaid girl either, and yet—here you are!"

"Don't they teach you anything in school?" asked Lurie.

"Oh, my, yes. We learn about, well ... toads."

"Ugh," said the little mermaid. "I like frogs, but I do not like ugly toads. I'm glad I don't go to your school."

"Well. Where's Babay?" asked the little witch, who was anxious not to get into an argument about school. Naturally, everybody—real girls, witch girls, and mermaid girls—thinks their school is the best and says, "Rah, rah, rah!" when their school wins.

"She's sleeping now," said the little mermaid. "Under the water lilies. But she may have waked up and she may want her bottle."

The water lilies were not real. They were glass and of many colors. Despite being hard and cold, they were very beautiful. Little Witch Girl peeped under them. "0-o-oh!" she said. An exquisite little mermaid baby lay on a glass lily leaf, fast asleep. She had her tail tucked under her, and her thumb was in her mouth.

The little mermaid decided not to wake her up for her bottle. "It is not good to wake a baby up, you know," she said.

Little Witch Girl did not know this. But she was glad to learn it. Suppose she ever had a witch baby sister? Then she would know not to wake the baby up. "Where do you get the milk?" she asked curiously.

"From our mermaid cow."

"O-o-oh!" said the little witch girl. "And where is she?"

"Down there. If you put your ear to the ground, you will hear a moo, and that is our cow."

Little Witch Girl put her ear to the ground, and she did hear a very faint moo, a rather lonely and plaintive "moo-moo."

"Could I see her?" she asked.

"Oh, no, she is too shy," said the little mermaid. "Now," she said. "Let's have a little swim."

"Swim!" exclaimed Little Witch Girl. "We are not allowed to do that. I never even had my hat off until the day I came."

"Well, I feel dry and brittle," said the little mermaid. "Come on in the water. You can swim with your hat on."

"I don't know how to swim," admitted the little witch girl, ashamed.

"Don't know how to swim! What can you do?" asked the little mermaid.

"Fly," said Little Witch Girl. "Of course, on my broomstick."

"Well. I can't do that," said the mermaid. "But I can flip over the waterfall, and that is almost like flying." And she swam across the lagoon and flipped herself down and over the waterfall.

"Fine," said Little Witch Girl. "That was pretty. Now. How do you get back?"

"I have to swim up the waterfall, and, believe me, that is hard. It sometimes takes me a whole day." She lay on a glass rock and leaned on her elbow. "But don't go away," she said crooningly. "Stay."

Little Witch Girl had absolutely no idea of going. "I won't go," she promised. "Perhaps I can get you back more quickly with a rune I just learned called 'From low to high.'"

"Hm-m-m," said the little mermaid thoughtfully, from down below. "You sound like a witch. You even look like one. I just noticed. Are you a witch?"

"Oh, my, yes. I'm real, right, regular Little Witch Girl." A slight croak had crept into the little witch's voice.

"Oh, isn't that nice, to be a witch?" said the little mermaid. "But you will not cast a spell on me, will you? You will not change me into all fish, or all person?"

"Oh, no," assured the little witch girl. "I'll just try and get you up over the waterfall."

In her slightly hoarse and charming voice, Little Witch Girl chanted:

"Abracadabra
A B C
Mermaid lass of the glass hill sea,
A-flip your tail
And a-flop to me
Twenty and twenty is ten
you see."

The little mermaid landed with a splash in the lagoon at Little Witch Girl's feet. "My, that's smart!" she said.

Little Witch Girl was proud, but modestly said nothing.

Then, of course, the little mermaid wanted to try to ride the broomstick. But she had no better luck than Amy and Clarissa had had. She could not make it go and kept slipping off it and falling with a splash into the lagoon. The little witch girl had not yet learned the magic that would enable someone else to ride her broomstick without falling off. She was going to study this hard abracadabra soon, probably before Halloween.

"Well," said Little Witch Girl to cheer up the little mermaid. "You can swim. And I can fly. That's fair, isn't it?"

The two little girls then rested a while and had a conversation about their lives. The little mermaid told Little Witch Girl about her school, and Little Witch Girl told Lurie about hers. She also told Lurie about her friends, Amy and Clarissa. And she said, "You shall be my best friend and I shall be yours. Amy and Clarissa are best friends, and we shall be best friends, too."

To seal this friendship, the little mermaid pulled out one of her prettiest, most iridescent scales and gave it to the little witch girl. She, in turn, gave the little mermaid a tiny glass canoe that she got out of thin air and by way of abracadabra. Then they kissed each other and vowed to remain best friends forever.

Now it was time for the little witch to go home. "I have to go," she said.

The little mermaid shook her head and smiled. "Oh, no, you don't," she crooned, and a lovely lulling note came into her voice. Little Witch Girl felt her eyes closing. She almost fell asleep. Fortunately, she was sitting on her broomstick and a stiff straw stuck into her, reminding her that she was a little witch girl and belonged in the witch family, and that her home was on top of the glass hill and not inside it, however lovely the mermaid lagoon might be. Moreover, she heard a buzzing voice that admonished her sternly, "
AWAKEN!
" So, rousing herself and promising that she would come often, she mounted her broomstick and flew down the enchanting glass path.

"Good-bye, good-bye," they called to each other as long as they could hear.

When Little Witch Girl reached the entranceway, there was the heavy rope outside, and she swung herself up and onto the porch, where she sat down in her little red rocker and rocked. She paid no attention to Old Witch who was thumbing again through her big book of runes.

"I thought it was in here," she muttered. She was looking for the loose clipping that had the rune of Malachi, the bumblebee, on it. She thought that if she tore it up, his magic would disappear, and this was probably true. Fortunately, Little Witch Girl did not know what Old Witch was looking for and did not have to think must she, or must she not, give it up. So far, the Malachi rune was safe in the hem of Little Witch Girl's cloak.

Little Witch Girl decided not to tell her gammer Old Witch about the little mermaid or the mermaid lagoon. They were her own shining secrets. "My," she thought. "What a wonderful day! That Babay! She was so cunning! If only I had a baby sister too! Then I would have everything," she thought. "The baby could try to put its toe in its mouth." Sighing, she rocked back and forth, back and forth...

One day, Old Witch was poring over all her books, searching for a rune that would get the magic off Malachi—wherever he was—that someone (it was she, but she didn't know it) had magic-ed onto him. She looked under bumble, and bee, and Malachi, and magic, and bites, and stings; also under plain antidotes for magic. "Let's see," she muttered. "What about sewing bees? A sewing bee might sew up a spelling bee." She was so absorbed that she didn't hear the murmur of the bee, "
MEND THY WAYS!
" Nor did she hear anything Little Witch Girl said. "I might as well not talk," thought Little Witch Girl.

Little Witch Girl sat lonesomely rocking in her little red rocker. There was no one to talk to. She had been to the mermaid lagoon to play with Lurie. But neither Lurie nor Babay had been there. Perhaps they had swum away, way inside, to search for the beginning of the lagoon or to milk the mermaid cow. Little Witch Girl had waited for a while. She loved the many-colored pool. Dipping her fingers in it, she watched the drops falling from her fingers, like miniature soap bubbles. Suddenly she had begun to feel lonesome. "Lurie!" she had called. "Who-whoo!"

Her echo scared her. "Lur-eee ... whowhoo-oo-oo!" it answered as with a sigh. The echo did not seem to want to stop. Frightened, Little Witch Girl had flown home as fast as she could. So, there she was, sitting in her little red rocker, having a lonesome rock. It is sad to go looking for your best friend to play with and then for her not to be there. At this low, lonesome moment who should fly up but the red cardinal bird, Amy's emissary. He dropped a tightly folded little wad of paper in Little Witch Girl's lap. "Twee-eet!" he sang, and then he flew away.

"O-o-oh!" said Little Witch Girl, squealing with joy. "It's a letter from Amy!"

Is there anything nicer, when you feel lonesome, than to get a letter from a person whom you love very much? She could hardly bear to read it, she was so happy. Finally, she read:

"Dear Little Witch Girl,

Thank you for the birthday party in your house. How do you like the little mermaid? Fine? But she isn't there every time when you go and say, 'Can you play?' Well, it is the same with me and Clarissa. Sometimes she isn't there either. Sometimes she goes and plays with Polly Knapp. And that is when I wish most of all that I had a baby sister. Your birthday wish was for a baby sister, wasn't it? I thought so. Why not try for one with your abracadabra, or have Old Witch try?

I love you and you love me,
Amy.

P.S. Mind that Old Witch does not find Malachi, or the magic rune. BEE seeing you. A."

Old Witch, as well as Malachi, saw the letter in Little Witch Girl's lap, and she knew at a glance that it was from Amy.

"What does that banquisher want now?" she demanded irritably.

Little Witch Girl didn't even hear. She read the letter three times more. And then she happily sat, and she rocked, and she thought.

Old Witch peered curiously at Little Witch Girl from the doorway. After a while, she said, "Well, Hannah. What's the news?"