Puddlebrain

Chapter Nine

A hush fell on the crowded room as if either Brenda had held up her hand, which she had not, or someone had stuffed the occupants' mouths with cotton wool, which they hadn't either. Everyone looked guiltily at everyone else.

"That's what I thought," said Brenda. That was the straw that broke the dam, unleashing a cacophony of shouts and yells, all with one thing in common.

The witches.

Suddenly, it was what everyone had thought but, for some reason, no one had wanted to say. Ignoring the fact that it was widely known that they'd lost their powers many years before, it had to be them. Disregarding the way people actually, mostly, liked the witches, it simply had to be them!

The tea room went through a strange metamorphosis then. It changed from an incident room concerning the disappearance of a headmaster into a war office with the sole intent of making some witches disappear. Some people even went so far as attempting to smash tables so they could use the legs as stakes.

"Stake through the heart. It's the only way."

Brenda put a stop to those shenanigans.

"Touch my furniture and you won't have to worry about the witches. You'll have to worry about me. And it's vampires, not witches. With witches, you burn them at the stake, not put one through their hearts."

That was all that was needed. The tea room emptied in seconds and a mob of angry villagers, excited and enraged in complete contrast to their usual demeanour of not really caring about much in general, set on a stampede aimed directly at the far end of Shadowmoss Lane. A handful of men broke off from the pack to start erecting a podium in the centre of the Town Square. Hardly a coherent word was spoken that could be heard above the rabble, yet everyone was moving as if with one mind.

The Square was a serene place normally. It was beautifully landscaped with wooden benches set out randomly. The horde tore up the benches and uprooted shrubs and bushes, kicking, throwing and snapping them. The larger pieces were lashed together to create the post. The smaller scraps of wood were strewn about its base for the kindling. By the time it was done, the rest of the crowd had reached Shadowmoss Lane and were descending on the sisters' home.

Windermere peered out from his dusky front room, aroused from his afternoon kip by the noise. He peered out of his grimy windows and shook his head. It had to happen, he thought. Sooner or later. He didn't want to witness the inevitable, so he turned and shuffled back to bed.

The mob stopped at the garden gate in a scene that strangely mirrored a certain Mayor decades before. They looked at each other, their heads whipping about like rabid dogs, waiting for someone to take control. Naturally, it was Brenda. She pushed open the gate and strode forward. The path thought briefly about guiding her back to where she started, but thought better of it. It realised nothing so simple would stop the raging madwoman.

A rational thought managed to struggle to the surface in the mind of not-so-merry Mrs. Mead. "What if they, you know, do something to you?"

Mrs. Mead no longer cared that she and Edna shared the same love for teapot collecting. Brenda happily chatted to all three sisters on their frequent visits to her shop. She knew Edna and Gemini took two sugars in their tea but Puddlebrain took none because, bless her, she was sweet enough. Well, that sweetness left a distinctly bitter taste in her mouth now. She wished she had said that thought out loud. It was witty and sharp and nasty enough to be proud of. Oh well. She filed it away. Maybe she could use it later and impress the jury as the witches burned.

"They wouldn't dare!" she hissed.

Inside the house...

"I am not chewing your toenails!" shouted Puddlebrain. "Last time, you still had fluff in them from those stupid stripy socks you always wear!"

"My stripy socks are not stupid!" Gemini shouted back. "They just didn't have a very good education. It isn't their fault. They can't help it if..."

"What are you on about?" Puddlebrain clenched her fists by her side. Oh for a spell right now!

"You were having a go at my poor socks! That's not fair. I only asked if you'd trim my toenails for me."

Puddlebrain made a strangled uurrrrghhhh sound and went to storm off to her room. She was interrupted by a harsh rapping at the front door.

"Who's that?"

"Well, if we still had our magic, I might be able to tell you," Edna sneered. "But as we don't, why don't you answer it!"

Puddlebrain thought briefly about commenting on their lack of magic, and why exactly they had a lack of magic, but the banging on the door was repeated.

"Why don't you!" she snapped.

"You!"

"No, you!"

"Oh, I'll answer it!" Gemini shouted above the rapidly rising noise. She stood and stomped over to the door, yanking it open. "Yes?"

Outside the house Brenda had heard the muffled yells from within. Though she wasn't the arrogant fool Mayor Harper had been so many years previously, she was still so full of herself she was fit to burst at the seams. She quaked a little at the prospect of the witches being angry, and the possibility of that anger being directed at her, but it was only a little. She was she, and woe betide any who might forget that little fact.

OK, so she was as arrogant as Mayor Plumptious, but he was her grandfather on her mother's side, so perhaps that explained things a little.

When Gemini snatched the door open it took Brenda by surprise. Granted, she had been knocking, somewhat vigorously, on it at the time, but it still made her gasp. When Gemini's plump little head appeared, right in her face, she took an involuntary step back.

"Oh," said Gemini. "It's you. Sorry about that. How are you?"

Brenda frowned. Surely the witches wouldn't be so calm and friendly if they had really taken Mr. Bopsidy? They'd be hiding behind twitching curtains or come out with fingers a-blazing. They wouldn't just say 'Hi.'

Ah, but what if that was what they wanted you to think? What if they knew you'd figure that so did the opposite to put you off the smell. Clever. Sneaky. Well she wouldn't fall for that old one. The smell stunk as far as she was concerned. She'd show them. Play it cool. That was the way.

"Grab 'em!" she yelled.