From acorn to sapling 7/13

Things began to go wrong late one evening. Jennifer Jane had just given Moggy the cat-biscuits that he had as a special treat after a meal, when he stopped crunching for a moment and pricked up his ears.

“It’s her next door,” he said, before continuing to wolf down his treat.

Jennifer Jane looked up just as there was a hurried knock on the kitchen door. The tall figure of Ermintrude rushed in, closely followed by Eve.

“You’ve got to come to Lurbridge quickly, the villagers are worried about the height of the water in the dam and think you may be the only person able to help them.”

Jennifer Jane was horrified. She imagined that Ermintrude could be seen by Eve because she was not really a witch, but blurting out the villagers’ troubles really worried her.

Supposing Eve started asking questions and found out about the alternate world, if that happened then she and her parents may well lose all their knowledge of the fairy folk and that was a terrible thought.

She quickly called for her parents, before Erm could give away any more secrets in front of Eve. Both mum and dad heard the note of near panic in her voice and rushed into the room.

“Oh!” said her mother, “you must be Ermintrude, we’ve heard a lot about you!”

“I’m afraid I’ve got to go out for a while,” said Jennifer Jane, hoping that her parents would be able to distract Eve from finding out too much.

Dave appeared in the doorway and quickly took in the situation. “Come into the sitting room Eve,” he said, “we don’t see each other very often, how have you been keeping?”

“Where’s Lurbridge?” Eve asked, as Dave took her into the sitting room.

“Don’t worry dear,” said mum, “we’ll try and think of something to get her mind off it. “You go and see what it is that they want you for and be careful.”

Jennifer Jane followed Ermintrude as she led the way to the woods where she had hidden her broom. “Whatever made you go to the house next door? You may have caused an awful lot of trouble for me and my parents!”

“I’m sorry about that, but I wasn’t really sure where you lived and I must have gone into the wrong garden by mistake. I assumed the lady who answered the door was your mother, so I said it was very important that I saw you immediately and she took me round to your house.”

While she was explaining this, Erm had found her broom and the two girls wobbled off towards the wishing fog, on their way to the Witches’ Home.

“The villagers at Lurbridge are getting frightened about the size of the lake behind the dam,” said Erm. We’ll go straight there so that you can see for yourself, but at the very least they want the height of the water reduced to a safer level.”