Caution: Witch In Progress Read Online Free

Gertie often got strange looks from passers-by when she
nipped out in the rain. On one such day, she was calmly walking along with a
little voice coming from the vicinity of her hand.
        ‘Oh Bat Spit! How long have we been out for? That hit me right
in the left ear. I’ve gone deaf now. No! Don’t shake me. I’ve gone all dizzy
too.’
        ‘Only trying to help,’ Gertie replied to Bat, smiling at
Griselde who was passing them at the time.
        ‘Sorry?’ asked Griselde, pausing.
        ‘Oh nothing. I’m just talking to my umbrella,’ said Gertie,
still smiling.
        ‘Oh, I see,’ replied Griselde, looking at Gertie as if she had
grown another head. ‘Always knew there was something strange about that girl,’
she muttered to herself as she hurried away.
        ‘What’s with her? Stupid, fat, doddering old DRAGON!’ Bat
commented, his voice raised, calling after Griselde.
        ‘BAT!’ exclaimed Gertie. ‘Don’t be so rude or I’ll cover your
mouth. Just you see if I don’t.’
        She looked around hurriedly to see if Griselde had heard, and
perhaps thought that Gertie herself had been the name-caller. She didn’t seem
to have.
        ‘I’ve heard enough today, Bat. Okay?’
        ‘Gor blimey, a guy can’t say anything around here,’ replied the
umbrella. ‘Touchy, aren’t we?’
        ‘BAT,’ Gertie threatened.
        ‘Okay, okay. Not another word will pass my soaked, cold, hungry,
quivering lips. OKAY!’ He exclaimed, as the glove edged closer.
        All outings with Bat ran along similar lines to this. Gertie
began to hope it didn’t rain very often.
        The one who seemed most impressed by Bat, was Fang. Fang also
lived in the village, and was a little older than Gertie. They could perhaps
have been friends, but Fang had a very superior way about him. He made it clear
he was too important to mix with the other little witches and warlocks. He said
he was destined for much better things than any of them. He often told Gertie,
one day, he would grow up to be a great warlock. Gertie believed him. You only
had to look at him to be immediately convinced. Fang spoke proudly about going
to the ‘Academy’ when he was older. Gertie didn’t want him to know she had no
idea what he was talking about, so she simply nodded. Whatever it was, it
sounded very important.
        ‘Even as a baby he had the biggest fangs we had ever seen,’ said
Fang’s mother in pride when Gertie and Ma Grimthorpe met up with them in the
street one day. ‘We had to name him after such an important feature.’
        He did have the most amazing teeth. Gertie wondered how he ever
closed his mouth, and then decided he probably didn’t.
        ‘There are so many little witches in the Vale,’ his mother
continued to brag, ‘and so few young warlocks. Fang will be so bad he’ll make
us very proud of him one day.’
        It did seem true there were far more witches than warlocks in
Vile Vale. Gertie asked Granny Grimthorpe about this later.
        ‘It’s just the way of witches,’ Gertie was told. ‘They always
have more girls than boys.’
        Gertie secretly wished she had been born a boy. At least it
would have meant there was something a bit special about her.
        Since that day, Gertie had been a little in awe of Fang. She was
especially pleased therefore when he heard Bat spluttering and complaining, and
asked to borrow him. Gertie gladly agreed.
        ‘Not a bad spell, for a witch,’ Fang admitted grudgingly. ‘Especially
one who doesn’t even look like one,’ he added, once the umbrella had been
handed over.
        It was days before Gertie managed to get Bat back. She only did
then because Fang’s mother brought it to her home muttering something about it
insulting ‘Great Uncle Gore’
        Gertie learned to her dismay that in his absence, Bat had
learned a whole new vocabulary of naughty words and insults. More than ever
now,