The problem with cats 6/8

Abigail listened to Jennifer Jane’s story trying hard not to smile at the funnier parts. “Once again I think you’ve been very lucky,” she said when at last the tale was finished.

“You should know by now that we all learn more and more as we grow older, so it stands to reason that an old witch knows far more spells than you do. The only thing about getting older is that you tend to stick to the things you do well, so she may always use that sequence of spells in combat and that’s what made her so fast. Otherwise she doesn't seem to be doing any harm, even if she is rather greedy. My advice is to forget the whole thing and just put it down to experience. It is rather strange though, I don’t know of any group of witches over in that direction. Nowadays we mostly live in communities like this one, or in twos and threes like Esme and Dulce, helping out the locals.”

Jennifer Jane wasn’t at all pleased. She went back home in a sulk, trying to think of ways in which she could get her own back on the witch who’d called her a first year apprentice. She was very proud of her achievements and was quite sure she could do better if she had another opportunity.

She went to bed that night without having thought of a way to put things right. As so often happens, in the morning she woke up with a brilliant idea.

“Glad to see you with a happy face again,” said Dad as she came down to breakfast, “you looked a right grump when you came in last night.”

“I was trying to help George with his new business and we bumped into a witch who wanted to charge him for using a road. We had a bit of a magic argument and I lost. She turned me into a cat, which is not very nice, or very funny,” she added, as both her parents burst into laughter.

“Well thank goodness Abigail gave you that safety spell,” said Mary, “at least you know things like that won’t last for very long.”

Jennifer Jane went off to school in a happier frame of mind. Over the next week or two she spent her spare time practising a spell sequence and reading through the index of spells in the Witches’ Home library.

Abigail’s remarks about becoming fixed in your ways as you got older, had given her the lead into an idea as to how she could defeat the witch in the woods.