The Witches: Chapters 6–11

There was a lady wearing a tiny green hat in the middle of the back row who kept scratching the nape of her neck.

A boy at school called Ashton had had nits in his hair last term and the matron had made him dip his whole head in turpentine.

It is always funny when you catch someone doing something coarse and she thinks no one is looking.

And why, for heaven's sake, were all the other witches gazing at her with such a mixture of adoration, awe and fear?

It was so crumpled and wizened, so shrunken and shrivelled, it looked as though it had been pickled in vinegar.

There was something terribly wrong with it, something foul and putrid and decayed.

It seemed quite literally to be rotting away at the edges, and in the middle of the face, around the mouth and cheeks, I could see the skin all cankered and worm-eaten, as though maggots were working away in there.

There are times when something is so frightful you become mesmerised by it and can't look away. I was like that now.

I was transfixed.

I was magnetised by the sheer horror of this woman's features.

It rasped. It grated. It snarled. It scraped. It shrieked. And it growled.

There was some sort of a foreign accent there, something harsh and guttural, and she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter w.

I simply cannot tell you how awful they were, and somehow the whole sight was made more grotesque because underneath those frightful scabby bald heads, the bodies were dressed in fashionable and rather pretty clothes.

"Useless lazy vitches! Feeble frrribbling vitches! You are a heap of idle good-for-nothing vurms!"

The bald heads in the audience all nodded vigorously.

But The Grand High Witch continued with her terrible recital.

The witches gasped. They gaped. They turned and gave each other ghoulish grins of excitement.

The witches gasped. They gaped. They turned and gave each other ghoulish grins of excitement.

"I am vonting you to get only the very best shops filled up high vith piles and piles of luscious sveets and tasty chocs!"

"You vill be having no trouble in getting vot you vont," shouted The Grand High Witch, "because you vill be offering four times as much as a shop is vurth and nobody is rrree-fusing an offer like that! Money is not a prrroblem to us vitches as you know very vell. I have brrrought vith me six trrrunks stuffed full of Inklish banknotes, all new and crrrisp. And all of them," she added with a fiendish leer, "all of them homemade."

"You vill be having no trouble in getting vot you vont," shouted The Grand High Witch, "because you vill be offering four times as much as a shop is vurth and nobody is rrree-fusing an offer like that! Money is not a prrroblem to us vitches as you know very vell. I have brrrought vith me six trrrunks stuffed full of Inklish banknotes, all new and crrrisp. And all of them," she added with a fiendish leer, "all of them homemade."

I saw the tiny body of The Grand High Witch stiffen and then go rigid with rage.

The entire audience cowered and shook.

"She's done it again! Her Grandness has concocted yet another of her wondrous magic child-killers! How do we make it, O Brilliant One?"

"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 were making such a tremendous racket that I thought surely Mr Stringer would hear it and come banging at the door.

Then, above all the noise, I heard the voice of The Grand High Witch screaming out some sort of an awful gloating song...

In every school is mice galore
All rrrunning rrround the school-rrroom floor!
And all the poor demented teachers
Is yelling, 'Hey, who are these crrreatures?'

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!"

“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 filthy smelly little boy! We'll swipe him! We'll swizzle him! We'll have his tripes for breakfast!"

Underneath all the clamour that was going on I heard one witch in the back row saying to her neighbour, "I'm getting a bit old to go bird's nesting. Those ruddy gruntles always nest very high up."

The audience of witches was listening intently, sensing that something dramatic was about to happen.

There was a great rustle and bustle of putting on wigs and gloves and shoes, and I saw The Grand High Witch herself reach for her face-mask and put it on over that revolting face of hers.

Bruno was looking a bit bewildered, but he allowed himself to be led up on to the platform, where he stood beside The Grand High Witch and said, "Okay, where are my six bars of chocolate?"

"This smelly brrrat, this filthy scum
This horrid little louse
Vill very very soon become
A lovely little MOUSE!"

The Grand High Witch stood on the very centre of the platform, and those dangerous eyes of hers travelled slowly around the audience of witches who were sitting so meekly before her.

"I can't exactly see you sprrrinting after the speedy catsprrringer either, or diving into deep vorters to spear the blabbersnitch, or striding the bleak moors vith a gun under your arm to shoot the grrrobblesqvirt. You are too old and feeble for those things."

"I can't exactly see you sprrrinting after the speedy catsprrringer either, or diving into deep vorters to spear the blabbersnitch, or striding the bleak moors vith a gun under your arm to shoot the grrrobblesqvirt. You are too old and feeble for those things."

"I can't exactly see you sprrrinting after the speedy catsprrringer either, or diving into deep vorters to spear the blabbersnitch, or striding the bleak moors vith a gun under your arm to shoot the grrrobblesqvirt. You are too old and feeble for those things."