Which Witches

chapter 9

When the witches had calmed down, Mr. Leadbetter stepped out from behind the rock and handed everyone an entry form for the contest. Mother Bloodwort, who couldn't read, held hers upsidedown, and the Shouter twins immediately began arguing about how many days there were to Halloween.
          "What about that lady over there?" Said Mr. Leadbetter. He had caught sight of the pale glimmer of Belladonna's hair between the trees.
        " Oh, you don't want to bother with her," said Nancy Shouter.
      "She's not one of us," said her twin.
     "Still, she is a witch," said Mother Bloodwort, spitting out a couple of flies. She was the only one who sometimes had a kind word for Belladonna. So Mr. Leadbetter walked over to the clump of trees where Belladonna was still trying to calm the familiars.
    " Oh, dear," he said when he had introduced himself. "How very unfortunate. "
       For he realized as soon as he saw her what was wrong. The little, short - eared bat hanging so tenderly in her hair, the chickens roosting on her foot, the scent of primroses with morning dew on them. " Have you.
......er ...... always been......?"
     "White?" said Belladonna sadly. " Yes from birth."
   "Nothing can be done, I suppose?"
Belladonna shook her head. " I've tried everything. "
" You won't be going in for the contest, then? "
Belladonna shook her head. " What would be the use?
You heard him. 'Darkness Is All' he said.  Witches cannot cry anymore than wizards can, but her eyes were wide with sorrow.  " Tell me, is he really .  .  . as marvelous as he looks?"
    Mr. Leadbetter thought. Pictures came into his mind. Arriman shrieking with rage when he lost his suspenders. Arriman filling the bath with electric eels and giggling.  Arriman ordering twelve stinking emus for the zoo and leaving his secretary to unpack them. . .
But there was nothing mean or small - spirited about Arriman , and it was very sincerely that Mr. Leadbetter said : " He is a gentleman. Most truly a gentleman."
       "I thought he must be, " said Belladonna, sighing.
       "Well, I'll leave you one of these anyway, in case you change your mind," he said. " And perhaps you'd be kind enough to see that -- Ms. Swamp, is it --- get hers, too? " He had turned away when he remembered something. " I'm going to vanish in a minute," he said.
   " At last I hope I am. I don't have any magic powers myself so I hope the great man will remember. But when I do there 'ii be some presents on the rock--one for each witch. Make sure you get yours. "
   "Oh , thank you, I will, " said Belladonna. Then she added shyly: " I hope you don't mind my saying so , but when you walked away just now I thought how very good - looking it was. Your tail, I mean. Mostly the backs of gentlemen are so flat and dull."
         Mr.Leadbetter was very much moved. " Thank you my dear; you've made me very happy. Of course the moonlight is flattering. By daylight it can look a little crude."
    He pressed her hand gratefully. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her about his childhood and the shock of finding that he was not like any other boys, but just then Arriman found out he needed his secretary.
There was a little puff of smoke and Mr. Leadbetter vanished.
     Almost at once, the other witches began to shriek and yammer.
     "Look! Over there,on the rock! "
     " Something glimmering!"
The next second they were all scrambling at a pile of oval hand mirrors, very beautiful ones, set in frames of precious stones. But when they looked into the mirrors' shining surfaces they did not see their own ugly faces. They saw the face of the great Arrow with his flashing eyes and curving nose and magnificent mustache. What was more, the mirror showed the witches what Arriman was doing at any moment in time so that they could get to know him and his habits and know what awaited them at Darkington if they should win.

      " What a smasher! " Said Nora Shouter.
      " Well, you 're not going to win, I'm going to win! "
  "Cor , I wouldn't mind being married to 'im , said Ethel Feedbag. " Give the sheep the staggers, I will, when I get up there ----- an' the cows the bloat."
    Mabel Wrack smiled pityingly. The daughter of Mrs. Wrack, who 'd be a mermaid, was such an obvious winner that she had nothing at all to worry about.
     "Mabel Canker, Wizardess of the North." It sounded good.
     "I never thought I'd be glad I buried poor Mr. Bloodwort, said Mother Bloodwort. ," But I am because now I can go in for the competition."
     " You! " shrieked the Shouter twins
You 're fat too old!."
    " I am now," said Mother Bloodwort, " thought's a lot of mem as likes an older women. But I've got a turning - myself-young-again spell. It's on the tip of my tongue, and when I remember it I won't half make things hum!"
    Belladonna had crept shyly forward and picked up one of the two mirrors that still glitter on the rock.
Arriman was taking off his antlers -- she could just seer Lester 's huge hand undoing the tape. The great man looked tired and discouraged. Oh , if only she could be there to stroke his forehead and comfort him!
   " What are you hanging around for? " Said Mabel Wrack. " You won't be going in for the competition."
"That 'd be a joke. Blossoming roses in the snow! Golden singing birds! Yak!" Said Nora Shouter.
Belladonna said nothing.  in silence, she helped the other witches pack up their picnics, lifted Doris into the trailer, soothed Ethel Feedbag's pig. But when the bus was ready to leave, she did not joined the others. It was a long walk back to Todcaster in the darkness, but she welcome the idea of it. More than anything, she wanted to be alone.
    She was sitting quietly on the rock where he had stood, gazing into the mirror, when a high and irritable voice said: " Well, I think you 're just being wet. Wet and feeble."
    Belladonna sat up, startled. Then she realized that the voice had spoken not " human " but " bat " and had come from her own hair.
     "Not to say spinless," the little bat went on.  " Why don't you at least have a try?"
    "Don't be silly," said Belladonna. " You know perfectly well that I can't even make a toad come out of someone 's mouth, and that's the corniest piece of blackness there is."
  " People change," said the bat.  "Take my Aunt Screwtooth. She was the most useless old bat you can imagine --- couldn't suck juice out of an overripe pear without her husband to hold her claw.  Then they took a holiday in some place abroad. Transylvania or some such name. She fell in with a family of vampires and settled over there. You should see her now, sucking blood as if it were mother's milk. Fairly sozzled with the stuff she is. And if my Aunt Screwtooth , why not you? "
      Belladonna was bending over the mirror again.
Arriman was in his pajamas now. Yellow silk, they were, edged with black braid.
       " Is that really true? About your Aunt Screwtooth?"
   The little bat blushed in the darkness. She was thinking. If she went in for the contest she could at least see him again. He 'd be one of the judges for sure. And once she was there, maybe she ' d find some way to help and comfort him.
    She stood up.  "All'right,"  she said,
  "I'll do it. I 'II have a try."