Puddlebrain

Chapter One

Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Lig of legwort and bald man's stubble. So the witches' cauldron bubbled.

"Is that soup ready yet?"

"Quit yer whining! It'll be ready when it's ready. Until then it won't."

"But I'm hungry!"

"I'm not surprised! It's been a whole ten minutes since you last stuffed your face!"

Edna, Gemini and Puddlebrain. Three sisters. Three witches. Three right royal pains in the posterior. They bickered and twittered and argued almost constantly, but such was their way. Let any man dare to even so much as raise his voice and they'd show him! In the flick of a finger he'd be turned into a frog, make no mistake. Then he'd learn.

Well, no they wouldn't. Actually they wouldn't turn him into anything at all. The witches would not so much as make his hair purple or plonk a great big hairy wart on the end of his nose, looking like it was ready to jump off and grow another person

But they'd not be very happy, rest assured!

The witches were sitting around their kitchen table, a rickety old heap of rough-hewn logs that looked as if it was held together simply because it couldn't decide whether or not to fall apart. It was thirteen o'clock and it was lunch time. Gemini was hungry, but this wasn't unusual. As Edna had pointed out, or had at least thought of pointing out, it could have been three minutes past seven on a Sunday morning and Gemini would be hungry. It could be twenty-four minutes to fifteen or seventy-five minutes past thirty-four and she would still be hungry. Gemini was forever hungry. She didn't always eat, but she always felt like she wanted to. This led to her being in permanent grumblemode which, on occasion, got on her sisters nerves. It didn't matter, though, because everything the sisters did got on the other ones' nerves.

They liked it that way.

None of them could tell the time. They couldn't grasp the idea of there only being twenty four hours in a day. It just didn't give you enough time to do anything. Why not have sixty or ninety five hours? Whose duffered idea was it to have a daft number like twenty four? They couldn't understand it, so simply didn't take any notice. Thirteen o'clock was always about half way through the day, and it was always lunch time, much to Gemini's delight. They had lived around four hundred years apiece (well, three hundred and fifty two in the case of Puddlebrain, the baby, bless her) and had never given Time more than a passing nod of recognition. As long as they kept out of each other's way, that was fine by them. Mostly that's what happened.

Well, there was that one time...

"Is the soup ready yet?" whined Gemini.

"It wasn't ready two minutes ago and I doubt very much if it's going to be ready in two minutes time," Edna sighed. She was the cook of the family and was fair rushed off her feet trying to cope with her sister's perpetual appetite. "Why don't you chew your toenails for a while until I serve it up? You haven't had a good chew for ages and they look like they could do with one."

Gemini looked down at her bare feet. Her sister had a point. Her toenails could do with a good munch. The thing was, it meant she had to bend over to reach them, and she wasn't as trim as she used to be. It took effort and her stomach was already protesting at having to wait so long for food. Maybe Puddlebrain would do the honours. Gemini asked her.

Puddlebrain had been dozing. She was becoming increasingly tired of the constant arguments that bounced around the house like a crazed ping pong ball, full of energy and tightly contained destruction. She hadn't had a good night's sleep for over a century and just wanted to flake out somewhere dark and quiet. Just an hour or seven, that'd be nice. She thought about her sister's request. If it would keep the peace for even a few minutes, it was probably worth it. Trouble was, toenails always got caught in your teeth. Puddlebrain hated that.

"Oh, just magic them short!" she replied.

Edna and Gemini looked at her as if they'd been slapped across the face.

"Just magic them short!" Edna repeated, snorting through her nose (an unpleasant habit she'd developed after an accident with a broom thirty years earlier).

"Ner nerner ner ner!" Gemini repeated the repeat.

"Very funny," said Edna, obviously not thinking it was funny at all.

"Indeed," said Gemini, obviously thinking the same.

Puddlebrain sighed. It was Halloween soon. Maybe this year would be different.

"Maybe this year will be different," she said out loud, not needing to be more specific. Her sisters would know exactly what she was talking about.

"Yes. Maybe this year will be different. Maybe it will." Edna snorted again, making it clear she was actually thinking 'And pigs can swim backwards! Of course it won't be different. It'll be exactly the same as every year. Halloween will come and go and our powers will stay gone.'

"Ner nerner ner ner!" Gemini said again. She wasn't the fastest mop in the bucket and couldn't always be relied on to think of something witty and intelligent to say. Generally she stayed with the reliable last clever remark she'd chanced upon.

The sky outside had spent the morning trying to decide whether or not to rain and looking like it couldn't really be bothered to do either. Now it seemed to have made up its mind and started to hammer at the window in great blobs that splatted like spit on a broomstick.

"Oh, shut up!" Edna shouted at the air.

The rain suddenly eased to a more sedate drizzle. The sky was dark. It was definitely sulking, but Edna ignored it. She just couldn't be doing with huffy weather. Halloween was only a few days away and they still had to boil their soup over an open fire. Long gone were the days of flicking a finger and having a nice three course meal plonked down in front of you before you could say "I'm a dingdong." Nowadays a simple snack took... well, normal time! It just wasn't on. Edna decided to join the sky in a spot of sulking.

It wasn't fair. Thanks, Puddlebrain, for being a right puddlebrain and reminding them all of that.

Puddlebrain took the frown and stuck-out lower lip of her sister as a cue to be elsewhere. She stood up.

"I'm going to bed," she said.

"It's only thirteen o'clock! What about your food?" Gemini asked.

"You have it." Puddlebrain told her as she walked through to her room.

"I suppose I'll chew my own toenails then?" Gemini called.

There was no answer, but Gemini had forgotten about it already. Edna was pouring large ladies of chicken and bladderwrack soup into a dish. Gemini wasn't that keen on chicken – it kept her awake at night thinking she should crow when dawn came. The problem was Dawn, the sugar-and-spice-and-all-things-nasty-and-slimy lady, only called on a Thursday afternoon, which meant Gemini had a sleepless night for nothing. No matter. The bladderwrack, with its festering products boiled to just the right temperature, was more than enough to take the edge off the broth.