Is lovely noise for us to hear!
Is music to a vitch’s ear!
Dead mice is every place arrround,
Piled two feet deep upon the grrround,
Vith teachers searching left and aright,
But not a single child in sight!
The teachers cry, ‘Vot’s going on?
Oh vhere have all the children gone?
Is half-past nine and as a rrrule
They’re never late as this for school!’
Poor teachers don’t know vot to do.
Some sit and rrread, and just a few
Amuse themselves throughout the day
By sveeping all the mice avay.
AND ALL US VITCHES SHOUT HOORAY!”
The Recipe
I hope you haven’t forgotten that while all this was going on I was still stuck behind the screen on my hands and knees with one eye glued to the crack. I don’t know how long I had been there but it seemed like for ever. The worst part of it was not being allowed to cough or make a sound, and knowing that if I did, I was as good as dead. And all the way through, I was living in constant terror that one of the witches in the back row was going to get a whiff of my presence through those special nose-holes of hers.
My only hope, as I saw it, was the fact that I hadn’t washed for days. That and the never-ending excitement and clapping and shouting that was going on in the room. The witches were thinking of nothing except The Grand High Witch up there on the platform and her great plan for wiping out all the children of England. They certainly weren’t sniffing around for a child in the room. In their wildest dreams (if witches have dreams), that would never have occurred to any of them. I kept still and prayed.
The Grand High Witch’s dreadful gloating song was over now, and the audience was clapping madly and shouting, “Brilliant! Sensational! Marvellous! You are a genius, O Brainy One! It is a thrilling invention, this Delayed Action Mouse-Maker! It is a winner! And the beauty of it is that the teachers will be the ones who bump off the stinking little children! It won’t be us doing it! We shall never be caught!”
“Vitches are never caught!” snapped The Grand High Witch. “Attention now! I vont everybody’s attention for I am about to be telling you vot you must do to prepare Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker!”
Suddenly there came a great gasp from the audience. This was followed by a hubbub of shrieking and yelling, and I saw many of the witches leaping to their feet and pointing at the platform and crying out, “Mice! Mice! Mice! She’s done it to show us! The Brainy One has turned two children into mice and there they are!”
I looked toward the platform. The mice were there all right, two of them, running around near The Grand High Witch’s skirts.
But these were not field mice or house mice or wood mice or harvest mice. They were white mice! I recognised them immediately as being my own little William and Mary!
“Mice!” shouted the audience. “Our leader has made mice to appear out of nowhere! Get the mouse-traps! Fetch the cheese!”
I saw The Grand High Witch peering down at the floor and staring with obvious puzzlement at William and Mary. She bent lower to get a closer look. Then she straightened up and shouted, “Qviet!”
The audience became silent and sat down.
“These mice are nothing to do vith me!” she shouted. “These mice are pet mice! These mice are qvite obviously belonging to some rrreepellent little child in the hotel! A boy it vill be for a certainty because girls are not keeping pet mice!”
“A boy!” cried the witches. “A filthy smelly little boy! We’ll swipe him! We’ll swizzle him! We’ll have his tripes for breakfast!”
“Silence!” shouted The Grand High Witch, raising her hands. “You know perrrfectly vell you must do nothing to drrraw attention to yourselves vhile you are living in the hotel! Let us by all means get rrrid of this evil-smelling little sqvirt, but vee must do it as qvietly as possible, for are vee not all of us the most rrree-spectable ladies of the Rrroyal Society for the Prrree-vention of Crrruelty to Children?”