“Exercise patience,” answered The Grand High Witch. “First, I am explaining to you how my Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker is vurrrking. Listen carefully.”
“We are listening!” cried the audience who were now jumping up and down in their chairs with excitement.
“Delayed Action Mouse-Maker is a green liqvid,” explained The Grand High Witch, “and vun droplet in each choc or sveet vill be qvite enough. So here is vot happens:
“Child eats choc vich has in it Delayed Action Mouse-Maker liqvid…
“Child goes home feeling fine…
“Child goes to bed, still feeling fine…
“Child vakes up in the morning still okay…
“Child goes to school still feeling fine…
“Formula, you understand, is delayed action, and is not vurrrking yet.”
“We understand, O Brainy One!” cried the audience. “But when does it start working?”
“It is starting to vurrrk at exactly nine o’clock, vhen the child is arriving at school!” shouted The Grand High Witch triumphantly. “Child arrives at school. Delayed Action Mouse-Maker immediately starts to vurrrk. Child starts to shrrrink. Child is starting to grow fur. Child is starting to grow tail. All is happening in prrreecisely tventy-six seconds. After tventy-six seconds, child is not a child any longer. It is a mouse!”
“A mouse!” cried the witches. “What a frumptious thought!”
“Classrooms vill all be svorrrming vith mice!” shouted The Grand High Witch. “Chaos and pandemonium vill be rrreigning in every school in Inkland! Teachers vill be hopping up and down! Vimmen teachers vill be standing on desks and holding up skirts and yelling, ‘Help, help, help!’ ”
“They will! They will!” cried the audience.
“And vot”, shouted The Grand High Witch, “is happening next in every school?”
“Tell us!” they cried. “Tell us, O Brainy One!”
The Grand High Witch stretched her stringy neck forward and grinned at the audience, showing two rows of pointed teeth, slightly blue. She raised her voice louder than ever and shouted, “Mouse-trrraps is coming out!”
“Mouse-traps!” cried the witches.
“And cheese!” shouted The Grand High Witch “Teachers is all rrrushing and rrrunning out and getting mouse-trrraps and baiting them vith cheese and putting them down all over school! Mice is nibbling cheese! Mouse-trrraps is going off! All over school, mouse-trrraps is going snappety-snap and mouse-heads is rrrolling across the floors like marbles! All over Inkland, in everrry school in Inkland, noise of snapping mouse-trrraps vill be heard!”
At this point, the disgusting old Grand High Witch began to do a sort of witch’s dance up and down the platform, stamping her feet and clapping her hands. The entire audience joined in the clapping and the foot-stamping. They were making such a tremendous racket that I thought surely Mr Stringer would hear it and come banging at the door. But he didn’t. Then, above all the noise, I heard the voice of The Grand High Witch screaming out some sort of an awful gloating song,
“Down vith children! Do them in!
Boil their bones and fry their skin!
Bish them, sqvish them, bash them, mash them!
Brrreak them, shake them, slash them, smash them!
Offer chocs vith magic powder!
Say ‘Eat up!’ then say it louder.
Crrram them full of sticky eats,
Send them home still guzzling sveets.
And in the morning little fools
Go marching off to separate schools.
A girl feels sick and goes all pale.
She yells, ‘Hey look! I’ve grrrown a tail!’
A boy who’s standing next to her
Screams, ‘Help! I think I’m grrrowing fur!’
Another shouts, Wee look like frrreaks!
There’s viskers growing on our cheeks!’
A boy who vos extremely tall
Cries out, ‘Vot’s wrong? I’m grrrowing small!’
Four tiny legs begin to sprrrout
From everybody rrround about.
And all at vunce, all in a trrrice,
There are no children! Only mice!
In every school is mice galore
All rerunning rrround the school-rrroom floor!
And all the poor demented teachers
Is yelling, ‘Hey, who are these crrreatures?’
They stand upon the desks and shout,
‘Get out, you filthy mice! Get out!
Vill someone fetch some mouse-trrraps, please!
And don’t forrrget to bring the cheese!’
Now mouse-trrraps come and every trrrap
Goes snippy-snip and snappy-snap.
The mouse-trrraps have a powerful spring,
The springs go crack and snap and ping!