Charming or What? (Witch-in-Training, Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Keep Reading

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  A cold raindrop slid down Jessica’s nose.

  “Bother,” she grumbled. “I hate flying in the rain.”

  Jessica was on her way to Miss Strega’s shop on the High Street where she was about to begin her third course of lessons as a witch-in-training. She had already learnt to fly a broomstick (the right way up) and had even vaulted over the moon. She was pretty good at Spelling (with and without a wand) and knew how to make a basic brew. She had a terrific flying helmet and a Super-Duper De-Luxe Guaranteed-Invisibility-When-You-Need-It cape. Unfortunately, both the cape and the helmet were letting in water.

  “Bother and double bother,” she repeated as she wiped her nose. “I should have taken the bus.”

  Berkeley, Jessica’s night-in-gale mascot, poked her head out of Jessica’s pocket. “Hu-eet, hu-eet,” she chirruped sweetly and cocked an eye at the broom’s Fast-Forward twig.

  “We are Fast Forwarding, silly,” Jessica sniffed. “And stop singing. It’s not singing weather.”

  Berkeley quickly snuggled back into her warm pocket fluff and they flew on without another tweet. Jessica buried her chin in her cape, pulled her flying helmet down over her eyes and grimly steered her broom forward until she was directly above Miss Strega’s hardware shop. She dropped down, dismounted and immediately stepped into a deep puddle. As she lifted the latch of the shop door, a huge drop of water fell off the creaking shop sign and trickled down the back of her neck. She stomped inside.

  Old Miss Strega was sitting as usual on her high stool behind the counter. She had her long chin cupped comfortably in one hand and held a book in the other. Felicity, Miss Strega’s ginger cat, was sitting in her usual place on top of a pile of Spell Books.

  As Jessica dripped across the shop floor, Miss Strega looked up and peered at her over her glasses. “You’re making puddles, Jessica.”

  Jessica pulled out her wand. She frowned with concentration as she tried to think of a suitable Wash ’n’ Wipe Spell.

  “NO Spelling,” Miss Strega warned. “I don’t want you flooding my shop by mistake and holding up our flight. There’s a mop under the stairs.”

  Jessica scowled as she fetched the mop. “What flight?”

  Miss Strega tapped the cover of the Witches World Wide Rule Book. “It says here that witches-in-training should spend some time abroad so I’ve booked—”

  “A holiday?” Jessica stopped mopping and spun around. “What a brilliant idea.”

  “Well, not exactly a holiday.” Miss Strega cleared her throat. “At least, not for you. I’ve put your name down for a summer school.”

  Jessica raised a damp eyebrow. “A summer school? To learn what?”

  “Why, Charming of course,” declared Miss Strega, hopping down from her stool.

  “You certainly need some Charm skills and Pelagia’s Academy in the Charm Archipelago is the very best. Felicity and I will come too. And Berkeley.”

  “Felicity and Berkeley and you are going to school too?”

  “Moonrays and marrowbones!” Miss Strega cackled. “Of course not. We three already know everything there is to know about Charming. We shall be on holiday.”

  At the mention of her name, Berkeley fluttered out of Jessica’s pocket and enthusiastically trilled thank you in her lovely silvery voice.

  Felicity winked an orange eye at Jessica.

  Jessica stuck her tongue out at the cat and turned to Miss Strega who was noisily emptying a drawer full of her own wands on to the counter. “Who is this Pelagia anyway?”

  “Pelagia is rather an unusual witch. She used to be a pirate, but had a change of heart for some reason and decided to be good. She’s a lighthouse keeper now and teaches Charming part-time.”

  “Do I have to do Charming? Isn’t Spelling enough?”

  Miss Strega stroked her long chin. “Personally, I suggest you try both. You see, Charming is not something everybody can pick up, like flying a broomstick or typing without looking at the keyboard or making a basic brew. Charming is more a way of being, it’s something you become.”

  Jessica looked confused.

  “And then again,” Miss Strega continued, “you will need to know about Charms. They can be incantations but they can also be things. Like a lucky horseshoe or a magic crystal.”

  Jessica looked more confused than ever. Was Pelagia going to make her become a horseshoe, rather like being a tree at drama lessons?

  Miss Strega stuck a wand behind her ear and gathered the rest into a bundle with a rubber band. “Look, don’t worry your bewitching little head about it for the moment, Jess. Pelagia will explain all this much better than I can. So let’s shut up the shop and take to the sky.”

  Felicity and Berkeley sat on the counter and watched with interest as Jessica and Miss Strega prepared for their trip. First of all, Jessica put away the mop and filed the bundle of Miss Strega’s own wands in a drawer marked My Swansdown. (This was an example of Noquan – Not Quite An Anagram – one of Miss Strega’s highly secret codes to hide what she really had for sale if non-witches blundered into the shop.) Then while Miss Strega made up a flask of her favourite brew, Cold Smelly Voles, for the journey, Jessica carefully sprayed her broomstick with goblin deterrent. (She still got the heebie-jeebies when she remembered the night that she had had to eject a goblin that had cheekily clambered on to her broomstick.) Miss Strega counted all the groats and maravedis in the till and tipped them into her saddle bag. Jessica topped up the bird seed in her pocket. Finally, Miss Strega riffled through a box of cards beside the door.

  “No good, no good, no good. Ah-ha, this one will be perfect,” she said, selecting a card and looping it over a nail on the door. “Now, Felicity, Berkeley, Jessica, take your positions, prepare for take-off. Ig-Fo-Li: Ignition, Forward and Lift.”

  Jessica pressed her Ignition twig and eased her broom forward. As the door closed quietly behind her, she turned around to read the notice.

  Chapter Two

  They rose up over the High Street and sailed over the park where, only months earlier, Jessica had made her first flight. The rain, if anything, was worse. Frogs croaked and splashed off into the duck pond, a sopping fox rummaged in a rubbish bin. Owls huddled and shivered in their tree boxes. All the neighbourhood cats had gone home out of the wet.

  “Brrr,” thought Jessica, “I hope it will be warmer in the Charm archi-thingy.”

  With the wind behind them, the broomsticks made fast progress and they were soon flying over international waters. Gradually, the rain stopped, the mist cleared and the sun shone brightly. Jessica’s wet cloak began to steam as the temperature rose.

  “Nearly there now,” said Miss Strega.

  Moments later, half a dozen little islands came into view. They dazzled like green and white fruit drops scattered over a turquoise mat. Jessica and Miss Strega tweaked their Pause twigs and hung in the sky admiring the long white sandy beaches fringed with palms and dotted with all sorts of witchy people flying kites, building sandcastles and paddling in the shallows. Water-skiers skimmed between the islands leaving silver streaks in their wake.

  “Wow!” said Jessica.

  “Hu-eeeeet!” whistled Berkeley.

  “Merrowwww!” purred Felicity.

  “
Well, tickle me pink with a flying fish!” exclaimed Miss Strega. “It’s charming!”

  “And look at that!” Jessica pointed to the largest of the islands, Charm Major. On top of the highest cliff there was a tall slender whitewashed lighthouse. A weather vane in the shape of a witch on her broomstick (right way up, of course) swung gently in the sea breeze. And there, on the look-out platform, was an extraordinary creature waving a Witches World Wide flag and shouting through a megaphone, “PERMISSION FOR LANDING GRANTED.”

  Jessica grinned at Miss Strega. “Is that Pelagia?”

  “The very same, and she likes nothing better than a stylish landing so let’s dip and bob prettily as we approach.”

  Pelagia was quite unlike any witch that Jessica had ever seen. She wore knee-length shorts, a black bandanna and a cloak patterned with sea horses and starfish. Her legs were bare and her toenails painted blue. She had orange freckles, mad hair, gold hoop earrings and lots of charm bracelets that tinkled when she moved.

  “Welcome to the Charm Archipelago, me dears,” she said as she hugged Miss Strega, patted Felicity and Berkeley and shook Jessica’s hand. “We’ll get cracking right away.”

  Pelagia set off at a blistering pace, whizzing down the banisters of the spiral staircase with Jessica and Miss Strega sliding behind her as fast as they could.

  “That will be your room …” said Pelagia, pointing through an open door where Jessica could see a pair of hammocks strung up between two round porthole windows, “… and that is my Control Room.”

  Jessica got a glimpse of another hammock hanging above a large mahogany sea-chest with gilded brass corners. The lid was raised and it seemed to be full of rolled up maps, gold coins, pearls and other jewels. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

  “Hey,” she whispered over her shoulder to Miss Strega., “look at all that treasure.” But, even as she spoke, the chest gave a little giggle and slowly closed all by itself.

  When they reached the ground floor and jumped off the handrail, there was another surprise. A large arched door swung open on a very busy, very noisy kitchen. A floor brush and dustpan were sweeping up a pile of sand that had blown in under the door. A parade of plates and cups were sailing across the room from the draining board to the dresser. A tray was busily piling itself up with tumblers, jugs of cool drinks, an ice bucket and some curly straws.

  “Good show,” Pelagic, beamed. “Come out to the garden as soon as you can.”

  Jessica tugged at Miss Strega’s elbow. “Who is she speaking to? Does she have an invisible helper?”

  Miss Strega tapped the side of her long nose and laid a long finger on her lips, as if she knew perfectly well what was going on.

  “Pelagia,” Jessica began, “how do the dustpan and brush and the cups and the tray … ?”

  Pelagia chuckled. “Charming, aren’t they, like every well-run home.” And, without another word of explanation, she hurried Jessica and Miss Strega out into the lighthouse garden.

  “Do make yourself comfortable, Miss Strega,” she said, pointing at a deckchair under a huge umbrella with a thatch of palm leaves. She clapped her hands and the tray with a jug of iced fruit cocktails and a large platter piled high with mango, coconut and pineapple floated towards them.

  “This is going to be wicked,” Jessica thought, wondering if she should start with a slice of mango or a wedge of pineapple, but Pelagia gently caught her by the elbow.

  “Our classes start at once,” she said as she steered her towards the garden gate. “You won’t need your broom, me dear, and you’ll probably be more comfortable without your shoes too.”

  Chapter Three

  Jessica followed Pelagia down to the edge of the cliff and clambered after her as she swung on to an iron ladder that led down to the beach below.

  “This is where I landed many moons ago,” Pelagic, explained as she held out her hand for Jessica to jump off the bottom rung. “It’s a marvellous beach for lucky pebbles.” She knelt down and began to pick up smooth stones which she set out in groups of three and then in complicated interlocking circles.

  “Miss Strega said you used to be a pirate,” Jessica remarked casually as she knelt down to watch.

  Pelagia’s bracelets rattled. “Never say pirate, me dear, say sallee-rover. But yes, Miss Strega is right. I spent years on the high seas, seeing the sights from old Cathay to Valparaiso.”

  “And why did you give it up?”

  “We’ll leave that story for another day,” said Pelagia with a pained expression. Then she closed her eyes and began to chant:

  “Circles within circles

  Of pebbles in trebles

  Banish all harm and

  Conjure a Charm.”

  Within moments, Pelagia seemed to have fallen asleep. Jessica looked about her. She listened to the froo-froh of the wind in the palm trees and the rumbling, gurgling noises coming from her tummy.

  “I’m really hungry,” Jessica murmured, remembering the slices of mango and pineapple. “I wonder when we have supper.”

  Berkeley peeked her head out of Jessica’s pocket. “Hu-eet, hu-eeet?” she whistled, offering Jessica a pinch of bird seed.

  Immediately, a terrible hullabaloo started up in a nearby tree. “Clear off,” something squawked. “Buzz off. Sling your hook.”

  “Umm, Pelagia?” Jessica said, stroking Berkeley’s neck feathers to calm her down. “Someone in that tree is being very rude to us.” Pelagia opened her eyes. “That’s Josephine being silly about Berkeley. She’s not used to bird visitors.”

  “Is Josephine another witch?”

  “Not at all. She’s my mascot, a hornbill. She’s in a hollow inside that tree where she’s laid her egg and she’ll stay sealed up in it until her chick is ready to fly.”

  “Sealed inside the tree? She must be starving.”

  Pelagia laughed. “Not at all. You can help me feed her later on. Do you see that hard red and yellow thing poking out of the slit in the trunk – that’s her bill. But now, back to work.”

  She waved a hand over the three circles of stones. “Three is a perfect number, don’t you agree? It has a beginning, a middle and an end. And so many good things come in threes.”

  “Like the two sides and the middle of a cheese sandwich?” Jessica suggested. Her tummy grumbled even louder. “A knife and a fork and a spoon? Toast and butter and marmalade? Sausage, egg and chips?”

  Pelagia’s bracelets rattled.

  “Oops. Sorry.” Jessica turned a little pink.

  Pelagia smiled. “It’s a good idea to carry a lucky stone before eating in a strange place. That’s an elementary rule for travelling witches. We’ll brew up once you’ve chosen your stone. Any one of these will protect you from harm but, if you select the right one, you’ll be able to use it as a conjuring stone as well.”

  Jessica examined the pebbles. At first they all seemed to be the same, sort of brown and speckled. But as she picked them up and looked harder, she could see they were all different. Some had little flecks of white, or red, or black. Some were nearly completely brown. Some stones had shiny bits that glinted in the sunlight. One of them had a very tiny little hole. Jessica stroked her cheek with it and blew through the hole. “This is it,” she said firmly. “This is definitely it.”

  “In that case—” said Pelagia, springing to her feet.

  “Oh, good, thought Jessica, food at last!”

  “—I’ll give you your Timetable and the Task List.”

  “Timetable? Task list?” Jessica sighed. Charm School sounded as if it was going to be very hard work.

  Pelagic, rummaged in the pockets of her starfish cloak and drew out several rolls of crisp brown paper that looked as if they had been soaked in tea.

  “This is a navigation map of the Archipelago,” she explained as she handed Jessica three sheets. “This is your Timetable and finally, this is the Task List. By the way, will you want pins or pendants when you’ve finished?”

  Jessica wrinkled her no
se.

  Pelagia rattled her charm bracelets. “You know, pendants like these to wear on your wrists. Or perhaps you’d prefer pins to wear on your cape?”

  “Pins,” said Jessica, beaming. “Definitely pins.”

  “Right! That’s decided. Now lets make that brew.”

  Charm School already sounded more promising.

  Chapter Four

  After supper, Jessica was very keen to study her Timetable and Task List. She was also very keen to try out her hammock so she went off to her room. After her umpteenth attempt to climb into it, she felt like a winded starfish trying to climb into a moving onion bag. Again and again, she grasped the side rope with two hands, hauled herself off the ground, tried to get one knee inside and then the other, but every time she would overshoot and tumble down the other side. This of course made the hammock sway and rock violently. Then she tried something different. She ran backwards and threw herself into the hammock with a sort of high jump scissors technique. The world started spinning, but after a few minutes the hammock settled into a gentle relaxing swing. She had made it!

  “Tut-tut,” said Miss Strega, suddenly appearing at her side. “You do make things difficult for yourself.” With that, she picked up her broomstick, flew up above her hammock, paused, descended, settled herself comfortably and ordered the broomstick to wait beneath the window for further instructions.

  Jessica sighed loudly. Sometimes she completely forgot she was a GASP of BR(EATH), that is to say, a Graduate Airborne Spinner and Pilot of the Broom Riders: (Earth And The Heavens).

  “Now, Jess,” said Miss Strega, lying back on her cushions. “Tell us what Pelagia has in store for you.”

  Jessica began to read aloud.