“What do you suggest then, O Brainy One?” they cried out. “How shall we dispose of this small pile of filth?”
They’re talking about me, I thought. These females are actually talking about how to kill me. I began to sweat.
“Whoever he is, he is not important,” announced The Grand High Witch. “Leave him to me. I shall smell him out and turn him into a mackerel and have him dished up for supper.”
“Bravo!” cried the witches. “Cut off his head and chop off his tail and fry him in hot butter!”
You can imagine that none of this was making me feel very comfortable. William and Mary were still running around on the platform, and I saw The Grand High Witch aim a swift running kick at William. She caught him right on the point of her toe and sent him flying. She did the same to Mary. Her aim was extraordinary. She would have made a great football player. Both mice crashed against the wall, and for a few moments they lay stunned. Then they got to their feet and scampered away.
“Attention again!” The Grand High Witch was shouting. “I vill now give to you the rrrecipe for concocting Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker! Get out pencils and paper.”
Handbags were opened all over the room and notebooks were fished out.
“Give us the recipe, O Brainy One!” cried the audience impatiently. “Tell us the secret.”
“First,” said The Grand High Witch, “I had to find something that vould cause the children to become very small very qvickly.”
“And what was that?” cried the audience.
“That part vos simple,” said The Grand High Witch. “All you have to do if you are vishing to make a child very small is to look at him through the wrrrong end of a telescope.”
“She’s a wonder!” cried the audience. “Who else would have thought of a thing like that?”
“So you take the wrrrong end of a telescope,” continued The Grand High Witch, “and you boil it until it gets soft.”
“How long does that take?” they asked her.
“Tventy-vun hours of boiling,” answered The Grand High Witch. “And vhile this is going on, you take exactly forty-five brrrown mice and you chop off their tails vith a carving-knife and you fry the tails in hair-oil until they are nice and crrrisp.”
“What do we do with all those mice who have had their tails chopped off?” asked the audience.
“You simmer them in frog-juice for vun hour,” came the answer. “But listen to me. So far I have only given you the easy part of the rrrecipe. The rrreally difficult problem is to put in something that vill have a genuine delayed action rrree-sult, something that can be eaten by children on a certain day but vhich vill not start vurrrking on them until nine o’clock the next morning vhen they arrive at school.”
“What did you come up with, O Brainy One?” they called out. “Tell us the great secret!”
“The secret”, announced The Grand High Witch triumphantly, “is an alarm-clock!”
“An alarm-clock!” they cried. “It’s a stroke of genius!”
“Of course it is,” said The Grand High Witch. “You can set a tventy-four-hour alarm-clock today and at exactly nine o’clock tomorrow it vill go off.”
“But we will need five million alarm-clocks!” cried the audience. “We will need one for each child!”
“Idiots!” shouted The Grand High Witch. “If you are vonting a steak, you do not cook the whole cow! It is the same vith alarm-clocks. Vun clock vill make enough for a thousand children. Here is vhat you do. You set your alarm-clock to go off at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Then you rrroast it in the oven until it is crrrisp and tender. Are you wrrriting this down?”
“We are, Your Grandness, we are!” they cried.
“Next,” said The Grand High Witch, “you take your boiled telescope and your frrried mouse-tails and your cooked mice and your rrroasted alarm clock and all together you put them into the mixer. Then you mix them at full speed. This vill give you a nice thick paste. Vhile the mixer is still mixing you must add to it the yolk of vun grrruntle’s egg.”