THE WITCH'S CAT

I’m just trying to explain. If you stand back and look at it rationally, it really wasn’t my fault. A lot of people hate black cats, I don’t know why. We’re not any nastier or stranger than other cats. Mind you, I do enjoy freaking people out by walking across their path. As much fun as watching them walking under a ladder. And being a witch’s familiar is a different level of being a black cat.

Anyhow, I need to explain how it all happened, and how it definitely isn’t my fault, despite appearances. Mistress Maganath took on a new witch-in-training. Name of Greta Hexenschlag. She arrived with her brother Hans, who’s a great hulking yokel, all knees and elbows, and just stood there looking vacantly around, his mouth hanging open. Not likely to win the Most Intelligent Kid of the Year competition, if you know what I mean.

But the girl looked like a nice kid - lots of freckles, and the promise of a fine crop of warts as she got older. Hair always tangled, prominent teeth, skinny legs. Good witch material. And a GREAT cackle. She sounded like a creaking door that hadn’t been oiled in hundreds of years, at the entrance to a torture chamber.

And she had a familiar. But that’s where the trouble started. Seriously, whoever has a dachshund as a familiar? Hellhound, sure. Of course. But how can you take a dachshund seriously on a scale of one to ten in evil? Annoying, yes. Yappy, certainly. But evil? Sinister? I don’t think so. Come on – it was letting the side down. Badly.

Look, I tried. I did try. I even went up to the thing to try to make it feel welcome. You know, new kid on the block and all that. If Mistress Maganath was the kid’s mentor, I felt it behoved me to do the same for the familiar – and oh, yes, to make matters even worse, its name – oh, I hesitate to say it – its name was . . . Poochie.

But it didn’t take the right attitude. I was the expert, the one with all the experience, lowering myself a little to take on its education as a proper familiar, even though I didn’t have to, and it should have acted accordingly. Instead it yapped at me. And bounced on those little short legs, all over the kitchen – bounce, bounce bounce! So I did the cat thing - I slapped it across the face with my paw. It jumped back, with a stupid look on its face. I was almost sorry for it. Poochie, for heaven’s sake.

Well, it didn’t turn out the way I’d thought it would. The rotten little thing bounced right back – and licked me on the face! Well, I did what all cats do under these circumstances – I went for height. Specifically, I jumped up onto the shelf over the woodstove. Unfortunately, I hadn’t done my normal morning inspection of the entire house to ensure everything was as it should be, and Mistress Maganath had put a pot on the shelf without telling me. So the pot fell off the shelf. As I said – not my fault. It tumbled into another pot that was bubbling on the stove.

Blue and green lights shooting up from the pot, fumes, a screeching noise like the laughter of the damned, you name it. And though the fumes didn’t come up as far as me, that stupid dog was enveloped in them. I couldn’t see it for a moment or two, but something seemed to be happening within the coloured fog. Writhings and movings, turnings and expandings. The dog was making some very strange noises too, drowning out the unearthly screeching from the pot. When the mists finally cleared, the dachshund had vanished and in its place was an enormous black Hellhound, gigantic razor-sharp teeth, slaver, drool, the whole shebang. And worst of all, tan-coloured eyebrows! (We all know what that means!).

I got out of there as fast as I could. I suppose I should have warned Mistress Maganath, but hey, I’m a cat – we don’t do that kind of thing. So the first she knows there’s this enormous slavering monster in front of her. I have to say she handled it well (I was watching from a safe distance – no need to indulge in heroics; that’s what our humans are for, right?). Faced right up to the dog, looked it right in the eye and shouted ‘Bad Dog!’

Talk about magic words! The thing cowered, lowered its head, slunk into a corner and whimpered. The young witch-to-be, Greta, went over and threw her arms around the beast and crooned to it.

‘Did that nasty cat do awful things to you, Poochie? Come and let Mummy give you a cuddle.’

I dunno, I’ll never understand humans. How they can even like dogs is a mystery to me. Noisy, smelly, leaving little (or big) ‘presents’ everywhere for you to tread in. And look how they treat us cats! The dog starts licking her face with its drool-covered tongue, slobbering away, and she actually seems to like it! Yuk.

But back to the main action. The fumes have not stopped having an effect – nothing like it. They’ve drifted right through the house and out the door into the garden. Oh, boy. No more garden – it’s turned into a dark forbidding forest, full of eerie noises and sinister screechings. I have to admit, it does look pretty cool, and I’m thinking to myself maybe there’s a chance of small furry animals and little feathery birds to stalk and murder, but Mistress Maganath doesn’t seem all that pleased. I think she was pretty fond of that garden – vegetables for the table, herbs and spices for her witchery and for love-potions and magical spells. All gone now. Where all that carefully organised and laid out productive land was, is now covered by huge gnarled tree-trunks and swathed in darkness. Oops.

And then I look at the house itself. It was a very witchy looking house before – you know, thatched roof, half-timbered walls with whitewashed lime plaster on them, very fairy-tale. The sun had been shining brightly, a few fluffy white clouds in a clear blue sky. Now the clouds cover the whole of the heavens and they’re dark grey, bordering on black. In fact there was even a greenish tinge to them, very portentous, very sinister.

And the house itself – well, at least there was a bright ray of sunshine coming through a small gap in the clouds and illuminating the house. But it was no longer the simple building it had been. The blue-green fumes had been hard at work. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes - I had to get closer to confirm my suspicions. But they turned out to be true. The walls had turned into gingerbread. The roof was made of pink icing and the windows were transparent candy and toffee. I tried to go inside to check it all out, but the doorstep was all sticky and my fur got caught in it.

And then I got a glimpse of the look Mistress Maganath was giving me from under lowered brows. They talk about ‘If looks could kill’ – well, this one could have hung, drawn and quartered. I made myself scarce and didn’t come out till a long time afterward.

I heard Greta calling out to her brother – ‘Hansel! Hansel!’ – I suppose that was her pet name for him. And he replied ‘I’m coming, Gretel!’ But that was all I knew until later.

Whatever happened to Mistress Maganath I still don’t know. But she wasn’t there when I finally returned. A pity. She was a good mistress. The kids were gone, too. But some of the gingerbread had been eaten, and the oven had been recently used. That’s all I know.

So that’s my story, Mister Whittington. And that’s why I need a new human. But I think I could be a good companion for your son, Dick, on his trip to London. What do you reckon?