Eva Ibbotson - Not Just a Witch

The ballroom, though, was in the front and it looked almost as it had done a hundred years ago. There were patches of damp on the ceiling and the plaster had flaked off, but the beautiful floor was still there, and the carved gallery. And now, with candles flickering in the holders and graceful shadows moving across the windows, it might have seemed as though the grand people who had danced there had come back to haunt the place in which they had once been happy.

But the creatures who moved between the pillars wore no ball gowns and carried no fans — and when they turned and wove their patterns on the floor, it was on four legs, not on two.

The leopards had been quiet when Heckie made them, but now it was different. The men who brought them had handled them roughly, prodding and poking with long-handled forks to send them faster down the wire tunnels and into the room. The big cats had smelled the fear in the men; their eyes glinted and they lashed each other with their tails.

A door opened high up in the gallery and a man dressed in black leather came out. His gas-mask hung by a strap round his neck and he carried a zinc-lined box which he lowered carefully on to the floor.

Sid would do anything for money. It didn’t matter to him what he killed. Only the week before he’d shot two dozen horses between the eyes so that they could be sent off to be eaten. He never asked questions either. How Mr Knacksap had got hold of three hundred leopards was none of his business. All the same, as he looked down on the moving, frosty sea of beasts, he felt shivers go up and down his spine.

I wish I hadn’t take it on, thought Sid.

Which was silly… He’d clear a thousand just for an hour’s work and nothing could go wrong. The windows were sealed up; the men who drove the lorries would drag the brutes back into the vans. They had masks too. There’d be no trouble.

Better get on with it. He fitted the rubber tight over his face. Now, with his black leather suit, he looked like someone from another planet. Then he bent down and began to prise open the box.

‘Stop! Stop!’ A wild-haired woman had burst through the door and was running between the leopards who, strangely, parted to let her pass. ‘Stop at once, Flitchbody! Those aren’t leopards, they’re people!’

‘And one of them is Cousin Alfred,’ yelled a second woman, small and dumpy, in a boiler suit.

Sid straightened up. He could knock off these two loonies along with the leopards, but killing people was more of a nuisance than killing animals. There were apt to be questions asked.

‘Get out of here!’ he shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. ‘Get out or you’re for it!’

Neither of the witches moved. Heckie couldn’t touch the assassin with her knuckle because there were no steps from the floor of the ballroom to the gallery. Dora couldn’t look at him out of her small round eyes because he wore a mask.

They were powerless.

Sid picked up the canister of gas. The women would just have to die too. Nat and Billy could throw them in the lake afterwards.

A large leopard, scenting danger, lifted its head and roared. And high in the rafters, a family of bats fluttered out and circled the room.

The witches had always understood each other without words. Heckie knew what Dora was going to do and it hurt her, but she knew it had to be done.

‘Ouch! Ow! Ooh!’

The shriek of pain came from Sid, hopping on one leg. Something as hard as a bullet had crashed down on his foot — a creepy, gargoyle thing with claws and wings made of stone. And now another one — a bat-shaped bullet hurtling down from the ceiling, missing him by inches. This wasn’t ordinary danger, this was something no one could endure!

Sid put down the canister and fled.

He didn’t get far. Almost at once he ran into someone who was very angry. Someone whose voice made both witches prick up their ears.

‘It’s Li-Li,’ cried Heckie. ‘It’s Li-Li telling off the horrible man who’s been trying to kill the leopards!’

‘It’s Lewis,’ cried Dora at the same time. ‘He’s come to save his Cousin Alfred!’

Mr Knacksap appeared on the gallery. He had snatched Sid’s gas-mask and was heaving with temper. No one could be trusted these days. He’d have to do the job himself.

‘Li-Li!’ shouted Heckie. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come!’

‘Lewis!’ cried Dora. ‘You’re just in time!’

The witches looked at each other.

‘What did you call him?’ asked Heckie.

‘Lewis. He’s my Lewis. The man I’m going to marry. What did you call him?’

‘Li-Li. He’s my Lionel. The man I’m going to marry.’

Then at last the scales dropped from the witches’ eyes and they understood that they had been tricked and double-crossed and cheated.

And in those moments, Knacksap fixed on Sid’s mask, lobbed the canister of gas high into the room — and ran.

‘Right? Is everybody ready?’ said Boris Chomsky. He climbed into the basket of the black air balloon, and Sumi and the garden witch moved over to make room for him.

‘Just checking the ammunition,’ said Mr Gurgle importantly, from the second balloon. His balloon was grey, but it only lacked a couple of hours till dawn so it wouldn’t show up too much. Joe sat beside him, and Madame Rosalia, whom no one would have recognized as Miss Witch 1965. She wore no make-up, her hair was tousled. For the past half hour she had crouched on the floor of Boris’s garage, muttering the spells she’d learnt at school and thought she had forgotten. Spells to raise the wind — and the right wind. A westerly, to take them as fast as they could go to Hankley Hall.

Daniel’s parents might not be able to show him much affection, but when their son was still not at home at one in the morning, the professors were frantic. They called the police, but they also went to Sumi’s house, and to Joe’s, to see if he was with his friends. And Sumi and Joe, running round to Heckie’s in case Daniel was with the witch, had met Mr Gurgle rallying the Wickedness Hunters.

‘Ammunition on board,’ called Mr Gurgle. ‘Ready for take-off!’

Boris put a tape of the Minister for Education saying schoolchildren needed more exams into the fuel adaptor — and the black balloon shot into the air.

Mr Gurgle inserted a cassette of the Minister for Trade saying that dumping nuclear waste was good for the fish — and the grey balloon shot upwards also.

Madame Rosalia had done her work well. The wind was keen and exactly where they wanted. Blowing them to the east and Hankley Hall!

Mr Knacksap was running, running… stumbling along gravel paths, blundering between trees. He’d thrown off the gas-mask and the branches stung his face.

Gas-proof witches! Who would have believed it? He’d been certain that the witches had died along with the leopards when he threw the canister — but just now he’d heard them calling to each other down by the lake.

Oh, Lord, don’t let them get me, prayed the furrier. Don’t let me become a louse. Don’t let me become a statue. And please, please don’t let me become the statue of a louse!

If he could just find somewhere to hide till the witches gave up and went home. Then he could haul the leopards away — Nat and Billy should be waiting at the bottom of the drive for a signal.

But where? Where could he be safe from the women he had cheated?

Panting, gasping, almost at the end of his tether, Mr Knacksap staggered on, past fountains, down a flight of steps, tripping over roots…

And then he saw in front of him a mass of high, dark hedges. Of course, the Hankley Maze! The first streaks of light had appeared in the east, but he’d be safe in there — no one would find him. If he was lost, so would the witches be if they tried to follow him. All he needed to do was wait till he heard them driving away, and then he’d get out all right. One just had to turn always to the left or to the right, it was perfectly easy.