Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape Read online

  Gwyneth Rees is half Welsh and half English and grew up in Scotland. She went to Glasgow University and qualified as a doctor in 1990. She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, but has now stopped practising so that she can write full-time. She is the author of Mermaid Magic, Fairy Dust, Fairy Treasure, Fairy Dreams, Fairy Gold, Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze and, for older readers, The Mum Hunt, The Mum Detective, The Mum Surprise, My Mum’s from Planet Pluto and The Making of May. She lives in London with her two cats.

  The Mum Hunt won the Younger Novel Category of the Red House Children’s Book Award 2004.

  Visit www.gwynethrees.com

  Also by Gwyneth Rees

  Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze

  Mermaid Magic

  Fairy Dust

  Fairy Treasure

  Fairy Dreams

  Fairy Gold

  For older readers

  The Mum Hunt

  The Mum Detective

  The Mum Surprise (World Book Day 2006)

  My Mum’s from Planet Pluto

  The Making of May

  Illustrated by Samuel Hearn

  MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  First published 2007 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2007 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN-13: 978-0-330-43733-2

  ISBN-10: 0-330-43733-X

  ISBN 978-0-330-47068-1 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47069-8 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47071-1 in Mobipocket format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47070-4 in Microsoft Reader format

  Copyright © Gwyneth Rees 2007

  The right of Gwyneth Rees to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  For Ethan and Wilf

  And with thanks to Oscar Shaw

  for his feline input

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  1

  Cosmo’s mother, India, had just finished washing him very thoroughly with her rough pink tongue, and now she took him to have a look at himself in the mirror.

  ‘See how clean and shiny your ears are now,’ she told her kitten proudly, as they looked into the glass together. ‘And your white bits are spotless too. You really must try harder to keep them that way, Cosmo.’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Cosmo mewed. Thankfully he was mostly black in colour like his father, but he had inherited his white paws and the white tip on the end of his tail from his mother – and those were the parts that he found most difficult to keep clean whenever he went outside to play.

  India was an elegant, white short-haired cat with emerald-green eyes, whose great-great-great-grandmother had been a cat of a very high pedigree flown to this country from India when her human family had moved here. Cosmo loved to hear his mother’s stories about the beautiful, faraway country she had been named after, where apparently all the mice were curry-flavoured.

  ‘I think you would look beautiful in a sari, Mother,’ Cosmo told her now, as he watched her wrap herself up in a very fine gold-and-red shawl that had been draped over the back of a bedroom chair.

  Cosmo’s father, Mephisto, came into the room then, and India quickly extracted herself and went over to inspect his ears. India saw the cleanliness of Mephisto’s ears as her responsibility too, since he couldn’t reach them himself, and today she thought they were looking a bit dirty. Mephisto was a cat of high standing in the local community, which meant it was very important that he had clean ears at all times, so she set to work immediately.

  Cosmo’s father was a handsome jet-black cat with dark green eyes and very large paws and Cosmo wanted to grow up to be just like him. Unlike ordinary cats, Mephisto was a witch-cat, which meant he had special magic powers and could help witches with their spells. In particular, witch-cats were known for their powerful magic sneezes. A few weeks earlier, when Cosmo had reached the age of six months, he’d had to undergo a special test to see if he was a witch-cat like his father or an ordinary cat like his mother. To his delight he had turned out to be a witch-cat, which meant he was able to assist witches with their spells, ride broomsticks and do all sorts of other exciting magical things.

  Until recently, Cosmo’s family had lived in the garage rather than the house, because the witch who had lived there had been a very nasty one called Sybil, who had ended up being sent to Witch Prison after brewing up a particularly evil spell. Even thinking about Sybil made Cosmo shiver, though his parents had reassured him that she could no longer harm him. Bad witches were only ever allowed out of prison to do community service – being made to help others was the one punishment every bad witch dreaded – and at those times they were securely tagged with an electronic device which meant that they got turned into frogs if they tried to run away.

  After Sybil had been sent to prison, a family of good witches had moved into her house instead. They were called the Two-Shoes family and they consisted of a very kind witch called Goody, her witch-husband, Gabriel, and their witch-daughter, Scarlett, who had quickly become Cosmo’s best two-legged friend. (Cosmo’s best four-legged friend was a tabby kitten called Mia, who lived in the house next door.)

  Today was a very special day for the Two-Shoes family, because early that morning Goody had gone into the local witch hospital to have a baby. Cosmo was pleased that Scarlett was going to have a new baby brother or sister, but he was also a bit worried that she wouldn’t want to play with him as much when she wasn’t an only child any more. Not that he was going to be an only kitten for very much longer either. India’s tummy had been getting a lot bigger over the last few weeks and recently she had told him that she was expecting a new litter of kittens. Cosmo had been her first kitten – an only one, which was unusual since mother cats generally gave birth to several babies at once.

  The cat flap sounded and Mephisto’s ears instantly pricked up. Even though they were upstairs he had excellent hearing and could always tell if they had an intruder.

  ‘It’s probably just Felina,’ India said. ‘She’s coming to examine me today.’

  Felina was the local cat professor and she was also Mia’s mother. The two of them lived next door with a very devoted and well-trained human called Amy. Felina was the cleverest cat in the neighbourhood, and other cats came from miles around to seek her advice and attend her lectures. Felina specialized in
Humanology (the study of human behaviour) and she was also becoming an expert in the study of non-cat languages. Whereas all cats could understand spoken Human, Felina had taught herself to read it as well. And whereas most cats understood a bit of mouse language and dog language (which was one of the easiest languages to learn because it was so basic), Felina could also understand rabbit, hedgehog, bat, fox and several bird and fish dialects.

  The day before, Felina had told India that by examining her tummy, she would be able to tell her exactly how many kittens were inside. She had studied the way humans did this and said that she saw no reason why a cat shouldn’t be able to do the same. India couldn’t imagine how Felina was going to do such a thing, but she had willingly invited her to try.

  Felina arrived at the top of the staircase now, holding something very strange in her mouth. It seemed to be some sort of long grey rubber tube, which she was dragging along the ground behind her. At one end of the tube was a round flat metal object and at the other end there were two shorter tubes, each of which had a hard plastic knob on the end of it. When Cosmo went to sniff the plastic knobs, he found that they had wax on them.

  ‘Be careful,’ Felina mewed at him as she let go of the object. ‘That’s human earwax – it’s not as clean as ours.’

  ‘What is this thing?’ India gasped, coming forward to tap the rubber tube with her paw very tentatively.

  ‘It’s called a stethoscope,’ Felina informed them. ‘I slipped in through the window of the doctor’s surgery down the road and borrowed it. Human doctors use them to listen to heartbeats and I remember seeing a similar one last time Amy took me to the vet. I’m going to use it to tell you how many kittens you’re going to have. Each kitten will have its own heartbeat so all I have to do is put this stethoscope on your tummy, India, and count how many there are.’

  ‘Oh, Felina, however do you know these things?’ India said, amazed.

  Even Mephisto, who tended not to be easily impressed by the skills of other cats, was clearly full of admiration for the cat professor’s expertise as she carefully positioned her head in between the two plastic ear-knobs and picked up the end of the long grey tube between her teeth – clasping it near the round metal part which she plonked down on to India’s swollen tummy.

  India was purring loudly with excitement and Felina ordered her to stop because she couldn’t hear properly. Felina slowly slid the metal part of the stethoscope over India’s belly until she had covered the whole area. Then she shook her head to rid herself of the bits that were stuck in her ears and started to look very pleased with herself. ‘Nine kittens,’ she announced.

  ‘Nine!’ India looked delighted.

  ‘Are you sure there are that many?’ Mephisto sounded alarmed.

  Felina nodded. ‘A very fine litter.’

  ‘I shall have to start looking for a nice warm nesting place,’ India said.

  ‘A nice large nesting place, you mean,’ Mephisto grunted.

  ‘If there are nine of them, it’s going to take you a long time to wash them all, isn’t it, Mother?’ Cosmo murmured. ‘You probably won’t have time to wash me as well!’ And he suddenly felt quite welcoming towards the new arrivals.

  Just then the telephone started ringing.

  ‘That might be Scarlett,’ Cosmo mewed excitedly. ‘She said she’d ring as soon as there was any news.’

  ‘I’d better go and listen to it,’ Mephisto said, leading the way downstairs to where the phone and answering machine sat on the table in the hall. Cosmo followed him and they waited patiently for the ringing to stop and the recorded message to play, and then for the sound of the voice of the caller to come out of the answering machine.

  ‘Hi, Cosmo! Hi, Mephisto and India! Are you there? It’s Scarlett!’ a girl’s voice sang out. ‘Mum’s just had a baby boy. He’s really cute and we’re going to call him Spike. Mum’s got her own room in the hospital so you can all come and visit him if you like. If you come on the broomstick you can fly right up to the window and land on the ledge. Mum’s room is the third window from the right on the top floor. Dad and I are here and so is Aunt Bunty. See you later!’

  ‘Let’s go now, Father!’ Cosmo miaowed. Cosmo was very good at broomstick-riding although he sometimes got a little bit broom-sick if they went too fast.

  As Mephisto grunted something in reply, Cosmo rushed upstairs to tell India and Felina the good news.

  Both of them were very excited too. ‘I think I’m a little heavy to go broomstick riding now,’ India said. (Although India wasn’t a witch-cat, Mephisto had often taken her for rides by hooking a basket on to the end of the broomstick for her to sit in.) ‘But your father can go with you to the hospital.’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t go,’ Mephisto said, yawning, as he followed Cosmo into the room. ‘Babies don’t interest me that much.’ As India gave a little growl he hastily added, ‘Of course, kittens interest me a great deal, my dear.’ And he went over to give India’s tummy a lick.

  ‘Why don’t you take Mia with you to the hospital, Cosmo?’ Felina suggested. ‘I’m sure she would love to see this new witch-baby. It will be very educational for her too. I was giving her a lesson on the newborns of other species only last week.’

  ‘I’ll go and ask her right now!’ Cosmo said, zooming off down the stairs towards the cat flap.

  Outside he looked up sharply as a broomstick whooshed overhead with a witch on board he didn’t recognize. Her long green cloak was flapping out behind her and she had a green pointed hat on her head – which meant she must be a witch-midwife. She looked like she was in a hurry, so perhaps she was on her way to deliver a witch-baby.

  Cosmo remembered what his mother had told him about witch-midwives. ‘A midwife is a special type of nurse who helps deliver babies. Witch-midwives have special uniforms, which is how you can tell them apart from other witches – they always wear green pointy hats and green cloaks and they always carry a bar of green soap in their pocket. You see, it’s very important for witches to have clean hands before they touch a newborn witch-baby, just like cats must have clean tongues before they lick a newborn kitten.’

  Suddenly a gust of wind caught the broomstick and the witch-midwife tipped to one side. She didn’t fall off her broom, but Cosmo saw that something had dropped out of her pocket. She had flown on before there was time to call out to her, so Cosmo jumped over the fence into the next garden to see if he could find whatever it was. It was probably just a bar of soap, he thought.

  It took Cosmo a while to find the object, which was lying in one of the flower beds. It was a plastic bag with something green inside it that clearly wasn’t soap. He picked up the bag with his teeth and dragged it out on to the lawn to inspect the contents more closely. To his amazement he saw that the bag contained green toenail clippings. All witches had green toenails – and toenail clippings were sometimes used as ingredients in witches’ spells – but these were the curliest, brightest-green toenails that Cosmo had ever seen. And most amazingly of all, they actually seemed to be glowing!

  2

  The Witch Hospital – a building that was very large and had no less than ten pink chimneys coming out of its roof – was disguised from human eyes by having a frontage that looked like an ordinary house and a sign on the gate that was invisible to humans. The top floor was the maternity unit, where witch-mothers gave birth to witch-babies, and it was staffed entirely by witch-midwives.

  That afternoon Scarlett Two-Shoes was holding her newborn baby brother in her arms while her mother looked on from her bed. Scarlett’s father had just gone with Goody’s sister, Bunty, to fetch some cups of eye-of-newt tea from the hospital canteen. ‘He’s so cute,’ Scarlett kept saying, over and over.

  ‘He looks just like you did when you were a baby,’ her mother told her, ‘except that you had even curlier toenails.’

  Scarlett unwrapped the blanket to have another look at baby Spike’s green curly toenails, which were visibly glowing. ‘Our toenails don’t glow like that, do
they, Mum?’ she said. ‘So why do Spike’s?’

  ‘All witch-babies have glowing toenails,’ her mother explained. ‘It lasts for the first two weeks after they’re born as a sort of protection against evil spells or illness. Once they’ve stopped glowing we’ll trim them in the same way we trim our own toenails – but we mustn’t cut them until then.’

  ‘Some witches don’t trim their toenails, do they, Mum?’ Scarlett pointed out.

  ‘Some witches prefer not to,’ Goody agreed. ‘They just wear very pointy shoes instead. But I find long toenails a bit of a nuisance myself.’

  Just then a witch-midwife came into the room.

  ‘Hello,’ Goody greeted her. ‘You’re a new face.’

  ‘I just came on duty,’ the midwife said, smiling to reveal a large gap in her top front teeth. ‘I need to take your baby away to weigh him now. It won’t take long.’ She held out her arms for Scarlett to hand over Spike.

  ‘He only got weighed this morning,’ Goody said.

  ‘Yes, we’ve had a problem with the scales I’m afraid. We’re having to reweigh all the babies. Don’t worry. It won’t take long.’

  Cosmo and Mia were riding Cosmo’s broomstick towards the hospital, and Mia (who was riding in the broomstick’s basket) was telling Cosmo everything she had learned from her mother about witch-babies. ‘They’re almost the same in appearance as human babies, but they’re easier to look after. You never have to guess what’s wrong with them if they start crying, you see. Their left ear always goes green if they’ve got a wet nappy, their right ear goes green if it’s a dirty nappy, and their nose goes green if they need feeding.’

  ‘That’s really cool,’ Cosmo said.

  ‘I know. They have green belly buttons and green finger and toenails like all witches of course, but unlike adult witches their toenails are really curly.’