Kali 5 - Kali and the Potion

“Eye of Newt?”, asked Kali, looking down at the list of ingredients that Minerva the owl had written for her and looking glum, “Toe of Frog? Do I really need these things to make a magic potion?”.

 

The old wizards owl rolled her enormous eyes,

 

“Dear oh dear, Kali”, she said, “How do you expect to be a wizard if you can’t gather and mix the ingredients for a potion”.

 

“But how can I get these things?”, replied Kali, “Some of my best friends are Newts and Frogs. I can’t just go about taking their eyes and their toes and whatever else. Can’t I make a…vegetarian potion instead. Eyes of potatoes and toes of…umm..turnips”.

 

Minerva scowled grumpily,

 

“You are not making vegetable soup, Kali”, she said, “Magic is a very delicate thing. The old wizard made some of his best potions with Newt’s eyes”.

 

Kali rolled up the long paper scroll and stuffed it under her blue, starry collar.

 

“Well, I’ll do my best”, she said going out of the Wizards cottage carrying a basket for collecting the ingredients in her mouth, “But I can’t promise anything”.

 

Outside it was a bright, lovely day and, sighing, Kali was thankful that at least the weather was nice.

 

“Just right for a nice stroll in the country”, thought the dog as she walked through a patch of blue bells and daisies, stopping to pick some spotty toadstools from beneath the shade of a tree.

 

Just then, however, up out of a hole in the ground, popped Kali’s rabbit friend Loki.

 

“Hello”, said the rabbit, jumping up out of the hole and peering into Kali’s basket, “Picking strawberries are you or raspberries perhaps?”.

 

“No”, said Kali, picking some silver coloured moss from a nearby stone and dropping it in her basket, “I’m trying to collect ingredients for a magic potion that Minerva is going to teach me to make but the ingredients are all horrible things like Frogs eyes and lizards gizzards and I can’t use ingredients like that because all of the creatures of the forest are my friend”.

 

Kali unrolled the long list of ingredients so that Loki could look at it and Loki gulped as he saw the word “Rabbits foot” on the list.

 

“Oh I wouldn’t want to give up my feet”, said Loki, “I’m very attached to them”.

 

“Don’t worry”, said Kali to her friend, “I wouldn’t ever try to take your feet away. No. There must be some other way of making up a potion without using all those horrible things”.

 

Kali bent down to pick some Dandelions,

 

“Hmm. It says on the list that I need some Lions whiskers but perhaps these Dandelions will do just aswell”.

 

But, just then…

 

“Gribnorak!”, shouted Malcom the grizzly bear, running towards them.

 

“Gribnor..what?”, asked Kali.

 

“Gribnorak!”, replied Malcom, “A gruesome Gribnorak….and its coming this way!”.

 

“What’s a Gribnorak?”, asked Kali.

 

But Malcom didn’t stop to explain. He just kept running and then Kali and Loki saw lots of other animals running towards them; Harriet the Hare and Daisy the duck and her four little ducklings

 

and Roger the Badger and they were all shouting and panicking.

 

 

 

“Look out! Look out, Kali. There’s a Gribnorak coming”, quacked Daisy duck, picking up her ducklings in her arms and racing past them, “Run for your lives!”.

 

 

 

“But I still don’t know what a Gribnorak is?”, said Kali, scratching between her floppy, black colly ears with confusion.

 

 

 

Just then however, Kali and Loki saw the gigantic Gribnorak, bouncing towards them.

 

 

 

It looked a little like a kangaroo except that it was covered in blue scales and had one big, glaring red eye at the centre of its forehead and fiery breath coming out of its mouth and a long spiky tail.

 

 

 

“Grrrribnorrakk!”, it roared as it bounced, Kangaroo like, towards them, waving its clawed hands in the air, “Grrribnorrak! Grrribnorrak!”.

 

 

 

“Oh no!”, said Kali, the bouncing monster getting so close that its shadow was pouring over her and Loki who was shivering and cowering behind her, “What should I do?”

 

 

 

“Do anything!”, said Loki, “Throw something at it”.

 

 

 

Frantic, Kali threw the basket she was carrying at the bouncing monster  and it landed  upside down upon its head.

 

 

 

“Grrr!”, said the Gribnorak, struggling to get the basket off of its head.

 

 

 

Just then, however, there was a loud bang and a flash of bright green light and a puff of pink smoke and, when the smoke had cleared, Kali and Loki saw that the Gribnorak had vanished.

 

 

 

“It’s gone”, said Loki, peering out from behind Kali, “I wonder where it can have gone to?”.

 

 

 

“Hmmph!”, said Minerva, flapping down onto a nearby branch, “Well isn’t it obvious. Spotty toadstools and silver moss and dandelions. That’s all the ingredients for an anti- Gribnorak potion”.

 

 

 

“Oh well”, said Kali, happily, “Then I’ve made my first potion”.

 

 

 

“Well yes”, said Minerva, “But you’ll still have to get those other things on the list if your to become a proper wizard”.

 

 

 

But Kali had had enough of potions,

 

 

 

“Oh no”, she said, tearing up the piece of paper, “If I’m going to be a wizard then I’m going to be the kind of wizard that I want to be and that means no Eyes of Newt or Toes of Frogs or any of those horrible things”.

 

 

 

Minerva sighed grumpily.

 

 

 

“Then you’ll never be a proper wizard”, she said.

 

 

 

“Perhaps”, said Kali, putting her arms around Loki and Minerva and squeezing them tightly, “But I have friends and that’s just as important”.