Puddlebrain

Chapter Twelve

The cellar was a long low room. Well, it was more half a room – the bottom half. It was impossible for anyone (except perhaps Billy) to stand upright without scooping a hole out of the ceiling and having your head used as an ornamental coffee table in the room above. It was mostly bare apart from a few boxes and bags containing a collection of long forgotten heirlooms and junk. The cellar wasn't filthy, but nor was it as tidy as the rest of the house. Edna had decided that cellars are just meant to be dusty. It was in their nature. They wouldn't feel right without a nice layer of grit to clog your nostrils. The cellar was only too eager to agree and fulfilled the ideal admirably.

"What now?" asked Puddlebrain after the obligatory sneezing had subsided. She was crouched to one side, away from the door. Edna and Gemini had claimed the only two stools in the room so she had to resort to squatting. It felt very unladylike, but Puddlebrain had never been one to worry about being mistaken for a lady. She left that to Edna. Anyway, now was not the time to worry about such trivialities.

Edna was sitting opposite her youngest sister. It normally fell to her to come up with 'the plan' or make 'the decision'. Unfortunately, she had only had to face annoyance and frustration from the odd villager before. This mass hysteria was entirely new to her. The inhabitants of Little Whimsy had never bothered to bother with anything before. She didn't know what to say.

Gemini was perched on the edge of her stool, rocking backwards and forwards, humming softly to herself. She often did this, singing tuneless songs, when she was trying not to think of something. Except this time it wasn't working. She was worried verging on frantic and was desperately hoping Edna would come up with something to make things better. She liked better. It tasted nicer than the sour flavour of the cellar's dusty air.

The trio sat in silence, staring at the floor in the centre of the cellar, each waiting for the other to speak. Well, Gemini was waiting for supper too.

"Well," said Billy finally.

He stepped into the triangle of so-called witches and stood with his hands on his hips, his head cocked to one side. It was a pose full of sarcasm and derision and any other time Edna would swipe him across the back of his head for his insolence. Now, she simply looked at him, not even noticing his stance.

"This is a fine to-do, ain't it?" he scowled. "Three all-mighty witches reduced to hiding in their cellar for something they haven't even done. If there was a prize for the most unfortunate unfortunates, I reckon you'd be giving your acceptance speeches right about now. I'd like to thank my mother and father, but most of all you lovely people for hunting me down."

Edna frowned.

"What are you talking about? Shut up!"

They didn't need this. The gnome had helped them, granted. More than that, he'd saved them. But they didn't deserve this.

"Shut up? Shut up? Is that the best you can do?" Billy stepped forward, a little leap that got right up Edna's nose, along with a kick-full of dust. She coughed, he taunted. "Oh powerful one," he whined, "please don't hurt me. Please don't smite me down with your wicked words."

He sprang back to the middle and turned his attentions to Gemini.

"You going to sing something to tap our tired feet to there?" he said. "You going to get some rhythm going? Go on, you sing and I'll dance. Let's have a party!"

Gemini came out of her daze long enough to tell Billy to "Shut up!" before sinking back within herself.

"Shut up! Shut up!" whimpered Billy as he turned to Puddlebrain. "Oh so scary! What can you come up with?" he asked her. "Can the baby scream louder than the big 'uns? Or do you want to slink into a corner and suck your thumb? Boo-boo ga-ga bib-bib-bib?"

He reached up and tweaked Puddlebrain's cheeks. She slapped his hand away.

"Shut up," she mumbled.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" cried the gnome. He threw his hands up in the air and danced a jig as he shouted it over and over. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

Edna, Gemini and Puddlebrain stared at him with disgust. He'd helped them so they felt they owed him something, but now he was reverting to type – a nasty little gnome. It was no wonder he'd been thrown out of Templemead. If they had dared venture back upstairs, they'd gladly throw him out of their house. Without thinking, each of the sisters raised their hands at the same time and pointed at the current object of their displeasure.

"Shut UP!" they shouted, hurling a bolt of magic at, where a second before had danced the gnome.

The bolts, crackling whips of white light, smashed into each other in the centre of the triangle and splayed back out, hitting each of the witches simultaneously. They were thrown backwards, the wind knocked out of them, and lay gasping on the cellar floor.

"It's about time!" Billy said with a smile.