Chapter 1 Part 1

A Note about Witches

Part 1

A

1. In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks.

2. But this is not a fairy-tale.

3. This is about REAL WITCHES.

4. The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this.

5. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.

B

1. REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women.

2. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.

3. That is why they are so hard to catch.

4. A REAL WITCH hates children with a red-hot sizzling hatred that is more sizzling and red-hot than any hatred you could possibly imagine.

C

1. A REAL WITCH spends all her time plotting to get rid of the children in her particular territory.

2. Her passion is to do away with them, one by one.

3. It is all she thinks about the whole day long.

4. Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman or driving round in a fancy car (and she could be doing any of these things).

5. Her mind will always be plotting and scheming and churning and burning and whizzing and phizzing with murderous bloodthirsty thoughts.

D

1. "Which child," she says to herself all day long, "exactly which child shall I choose for my next squelching?"

2. A REAL WITCH gets the same pleasure from squelching a child as you get from eating a plateful of strawberries and thick cream.

3. She reckons on doing away with one child a week.

4. Anything less than that and she becomes grumpy.

5. One child a week is fifty-two a year.

E

1. Squish them and squiggle them and make them disappear.

2. That is the motto of all witches.

3. Very carefully a victim is chosen.

4. Then the witch stalks the wretched child like a hunter stalking a little bird in the forest.

F

1. She treads softly. She moves quietly. She gets closer and closer.

2. Then at last, when everything is ready...  phwisst!... and she swoops! Sparks fly.

3. Flames leap. Oil boils. Rats howl. Skin shrivels.

4. And the child disappears.

G

1. A witch, you must understand, does not knock children on the head or stick knives into them or shoot at them with a pistol.

2. People who do those things get caught by the police.

3. A witch never gets caught.

4. Don't forget that she has magic in her fingers and devilry dancing in her blood.

5. She can make stones jump about like frogs and she can make tongues of flame go flickering across the surface of the water.

H

1. These magic powers are very frightening.

2. Luckily, there are not a great number of REAL WITCHES in the world today.

3. But there are still quite enough to make you nervous.

4. In England, there are probably about one hundred of them altogether.

5. Some countries have more, others have not quite so many.