Nathan Reed - Spelling Trouble

“I can see you are going to be a whiz at Noquan,” Miss Strega chuckled. “What about Ten-inch Nails?”

“Oh, I remember that one from before. They’re Snails’ Antennae.”

“Grate Polish?”

“Gnat’s Spittle.”

“Slide Rules?”

“Yeuch,” said Jessica as she worked it out. “That must be Snails’ Drool.”

“Tickety-boo. Now, let’s do it the other way round. Where could you put the Dragon Spears?”

“Behind the Garden Shears?”

“Good girl. A pot of Happy Dream?”

“Nappy Cream?”

“Lungs of Skunk?”

“Sink Plungers,” Jessica grinned. “But what are they all for?”

“I was just coming to that,” said Miss Strega, “but first I’ll make us a stiff brew while you tidy away all this clutter. I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty in working out where everything goes.”

While Miss Strega stirred her brew, Jessica tidied up the shop. She was just putting the last of the Serpent Tears in the drawer labelled Secateurs when a book on the counter caught her eye.

As everybody knows, it’s very difficult not to pick up a book with a good cover. However, the book that caught Jessica’s eye did not have a good cover. In fact it did not have a cover at all. It was very grubby and spattered with multicoloured stains like a well-used cookery book. Indeed, as Jessica discovered when she riffled through the pages, Spelling Made Easy was a sort of recipe book but for very odd dishes like Astronomical Turnovers and Vanishing Cream. She flipped the pages back to the Introduction.

“Spelling is easy,” she read aloud, “but the secret of good Spelling is in the Mingling.”

“Absolutely!” said Miss Strega, giving her cauldron a resounding smack with a wooden spoon. The sudden noise gave Berkeley, Jessica’s night-in-gale mascot, a terrible shock. She had been having an afternoon nap in Jessica’s pocket but now soared up to the ceiling rafters with a warning “hu-eet, hu-eet”. Miss Strega pretended not to notice and went on. “As you say, the art of Spelling, Jessica, is in the Mingling.”

Jessica read the sentence again. “Actually, I don’t understand it at all. What exactly is Mingling?”

“As luck would have it, Jessica,” said Miss Strega as she hopped up on her high stool, “Mingling is the next topic of our Spelling Lessons.”

Jessica sat cross-legged on the counter and laid her broom carefully beside her. Berkeley fluttered down from the ceiling and perched on her shoulder. Felicity jumped up on to the counter too, arched her back, stretched, circled three times and finally settled down on Jessica’s lap, purring loudly.

Miss Strega rapped her knuckles on Spelling Made Easy . “If you are all sure you’re comfortable, I’ll begin. There are several Spelling techniques that you will have to learn as part of your training but. . .”

“How many?” Jessica interrupted.

“Well, there’s Spelling With Brews and Potions; Spelling With and Without Wands and Chanting to name but three. Mingling is a basic craft when we use Spelling With Brews and Potions and that’s our lesson for today. I’ll make one of the Potions from Spelling Made Easy to show you how it works. It’s a rather old textbook, as you can see, and a bit old-fashioned , but it does include several timeless Spellings …”

“ You are not at all old-fashioned, Miss Strega,” Jessica interrupted, “even though you must be very old.”

Miss Strega stroked her chin very thoughtfully. She opened the book at Starter Brews. “This is a good one,” she said and she began to read aloud: “Alphabet Soup: first rub your cauldron with a light film of oil. Throw in a handful of letters of the alphabet, a few commas and full stops. Season as required with question marks or exclamation marks and bring to the boil. Correct stirring is essential or you will end up with a soup of meaningless words with no magic properties at all.”

“But what is it for ?” asked Jessica.

Miss Strega sighed loudly. “Do concentrate, Jessica. Obviously, the Alphabet Soup Spell is used to plant a word or an idea in someone’s head.”

“What sort of idea?”

“Say, for example, that someone is doing something really irritating and you want them to stop—”

“Like what?”

“Anything irritating!” Miss Strega sounded rather snappish. “So, you grease your cauldron, like so, throw in a handful of the letters of the alphabet and—”

“Yes, but which letters?”

“Moonrays and marrowbones, Jessica! Any or all of them will do. It doesn’t matter a whit. It’s the way you Mingle that puts the right words in the person’s brain.”

“But I don’t understand what the Mingling is … and how does the person know what to think?”