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.
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
