Jody Richards and The Secret Potion (8 page)

“Yes, Elsa,” said Zenda. “We want you to try out the magic powers we have given you by flying to Augustine The Awful’s castle. Go into his storeroom and bring back some special ingredients that are kept inside it.”

“The ingredients are in barrels,” Huffy said, pulling her cloak around her as a gust of cold wind blew through a gap in the roof, causing some flakes of rock to fall in front of her.

Ignoring Zenda’s look of disgust, Huffy stressed: “Bring a drop of the ingredients from each barrel. But don’t take too much – nobody must know you have been there.”

“You can make yourself invisible to help you get into the castle,” said Zenda.

“Yes,” Elsa confirmed. “That will be no problem. Being invisible, I could even ring the castle’s door bell and walk straight in when they open it to find nobody there!”

“No. I’ve got a better idea,” Huffy told her. “Use your black magic to reduce yourself in size, Elsa, until you are as small as a bee. That will enable you to fly straight into the castle storeroom through the window. Once you are inside the storeroom you can revert to your normal size. You can then magic up two small bottles, put the special ingredients in them and transport yourself back here.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent plan, mother,” Zenda agreed.

“Your old mother isn’t senile yet my dear,” Huffy chided. “But I have almost completed a witch’s normal life span and unless I find the secret of eternal life soon then I will die. So will Aunt Leppe and some of our friends. We must get our hands on that formula.

“I might have already come up with the missing potion, but a silly girl jumped off a wall on top of me today and broke the glass tubes in which I was carrying some samples.

“I told her she had caused my special potions to be destroyed, but she was more concerned about losing her whistle.”

“Who was this girl, mother?” Zenda asked, her grey eyes opening wider to express her concern.

“I don’t know, dear,” Huffy confessed. “She had long brown hair and told me her name was Jody. She was looking for her brother. The two goblins I met from the castle think her brother is one of the boys working for Augustine The Awful, but…”

She was interrupted by six of her clocks chiming.

“That girl could be trouble,” Zenda muttered.

Two more clocks suddenly chimed. Then the cuckoo clock joined in. Zenda glared at her mother. “Why was she jumping off a wall?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea,” Huffy scoffed. “She was coming from the back of the tavern in which I met the goblins. She recognised me as a witch so I taught her a lesson for knocking me over and destroying the potions.

“I made her nose grow half an inch and it will continue to grow by the same measure unless she tells everyone she meets that she is a very naughty girl who cannot be trusted. I don’t think anyone will take seriously anything she tells them.”

Zenda looked alarmed. “Even so, this Jody might know too much and could be a threat to our plans,” she insisted.

Elsa looked up, eager to help. “Perhaps you would like me to take care of her, mistress?” she asked.

“That would be a good idea,” Huffy told her. “She is about ten years old, quite pretty despite her longer nose, and has brown hair which is...”

Zenda interrupted her. “But your main task, Elsa, is to go into the castle and get us the ingredients for everlasting life from the storeroom.”

“What shall I do if I see the girl on the way?” asked Elsa, keen to serve her mistress well now that she had been entrusted with her first solo mission.

“Put a spell on her,” said Huffy. “Use your powers to send her straight here.”

Chapter Twelve

“WHAT are you doing here Milo and who is this girl?” Augustine The Awful demanded, glaring at the Bag Man and Jody in anger. His black eyes, which were blazing with even more menace than his brother’s, narrowed and his pointed chin jutted out to register his displeasure.

Turning to glare at Jody, he told her: “I am Augustine Toby and I am the most powerful wizard in the whole of Tamila. Now tell me who you are young lady.”

Jody was so terrified that she was trembling. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Finally, she managed to mumble: “I am a very naughty girl who cannot be trusted.”

“Don’t start that again,” implored the Bag Man. Although he looked frightened, too, he whispered to Jody: “Leave this to me. I’ve been reading a book on being assertive.”

“Assertive?” Jody asked in a whisper.

“Confident and bold.” The Bag Man looked Augustine The Awful straight in the eyes – which meant craning his neck – and said in a calm voice: “There’s no problem. We were just walking through the woods and came across this young man.”

“Oh, yes,” snapped Augustine The Awful, sarcastically through rubbery lips which hardly parted as he spoke in threatening undertones. “You’ll be telling me next that you were just passing the time of day with him. And I suppose my dogs just happened to take a nap?

“No, Milo, you don’t fool me. You are obviously up to no good.”

“So much for your book on assertiveness,” Jody said, trying to hide her fear behind a lame joke.

Augustine The Awful now turned his anger on the plump goblin. “I blame you, Bodger, for my dogs being put to sleep. If you had patrolled this area more diligently this would not have happened.”

“I’m sorry, master,” mumbled Bodger, showing a set of badly discoloured, uneven teeth that had not been brushed for a long time. “But I patrol the whole of the land around your castle as well as keeping an eye on these boys for you. As soon as I noticed one of them had stopped work and was talking to intruders I called you on my voice box and suggested you come at once.”

“I don’t want to listen to excuses,” Augustine The Awful told him. “It seems to me, Bodger, you have lived up to your name and bodged things up. Do you know what I did to the last guard who lived up to his name... a fellow called Stinky?”

“Yes, master,” Bodger said, bowing his head in shame and dread. “You covered him in gallons of perfume until he drowned.”

“Exactly,” gloated the wicked wizard. “So be warned! Do you know what I need from you, Bodger, to prevent you suffering a similar fate?”

A desperate Bodger was obviously trying to come up with an answer, but could think of nothing to say. Jody guessed that whatever Augustine required, the wretched goblin wished with all his heart that he could give it to him.

“I need 100 per cent loyalty and obedience. If you fail on either of those counts again you will not be drawing any more wages, Bodger. In fact, you will not be drawing any more breaths.”

Bodger gulped and trembled. But Augustine The Awful was no longer paying attention to him. Instead, he stroked his pointed chin as he pondered. “The first thing I need to decide is what to do with the Bag Man and this girl.”

“I have a suggestion, master,” said Enoch, speaking for the first time.

“Which is?” Augustine The Awful demanded.

“As the Bag Man and the girl have put your dogs to sleep why not turn them into dogs themselves?” Enoch replied, chuckling and revealing teeth even dirtier than those of his fellow guard. “That way their punishment would be appropriate for the crime they committed.”

“An excellent idea,” Augustine chortled. Delving inside his costume, he produced a large black wand and prepared to cast a spell.

James suddenly intervened. “Couldn’t they help us, instead?” he asked, gesturing over to the other two boys who were looking on from their trees.

“Mind your own business, young man,” snarled Augustine The Awful. “I’ll make the decisions if you don’t mind.” He started to wave his wand, but this time Jody interrupted him.

“Hold on a moment,” she shouted. “It is not us who you should turn into dogs, but your two guards.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Augustine The Awful demanded.

“Because they have been plotting to steal from you,” Jody said, speaking over a thumping noise, which she suddenly realised was her own heart pounding.

The two guards could hardly believe their ears and cringed with fear. Enoch tried to protest but was overcome by a sneezing fit.

“That’s nonsense,” insisted Bodger.

“Yes,” spluttered Enoch, in between sneezes. “She is just saying that to try to fool you, master. But you are too clever to be fooled by a silly girl.”

“Indeed, I am,” said Augustine The Awful. “Especially as the girl has already told me she cannot be trusted. Now, young lady, I am about to make you and the Bag Man barking mad.”

Jody made one last attempt to convince him. “If I was trying to fool you I wouldn’t know what it is you have that they want to steal would I?” she exclaimed.

“So what is it that they want to steal?” said Augustine, now becoming curious.

His eyes were so intense she had to avert her gaze for a split second. But she bravely turned back to face him.

“I heard them saying that you have found the formula for everlasting life. The two main ingredients are in your castle storeroom and when you have mixed all the potions together they intend to steal some of the formula from you. They were talking in the tavern in the town and they didn’t know I was there.”

Bodger and Enoch were horror struck. But try as they might they could not prevent the guilt showing on their faces, which turned a sickly purple.

Jody seized the initiative. “One of them,” she said, nodding towards Enoch, “was waiting to meet a witch to sell her the formula. The witch brought some potions of her own with her, but I knocked her over by accident and broke the tubes she was carrying the potions in. That is why she put a spell on me to make my nose grow and it will continue to get even longer unless I tell everyone I am a very naughty girl who cannot be trusted.”

Augustine The Awful was furious. “SO!” he boomed, glaring at the quivering goblins. “You were plotting to steal from me were you? You both need to be punished – and I can’t think of anything better than this young lady’s suggestion. Instead of you having eternal life you will have a dog’s life.”

He waved his wand and clicked his fingers. Immediately the two goblins disappeared. In their places were two dogs – one with extremely dirty teeth and a mass of unruly fur, and the other plump, with a bald patch on his head. To show Augustine The Awful had a sense of humour, albeit a warped one, the goblins’ black boots, now reduced drastically in size, were fitted snugly to the dogs’ rear paws.

James and the other two boys, who by now had come down from the tall trees they had climbed to pick berries, looked on open-mouthed in utter astonishment. Jody was also dumbfounded, but she and The Bag Man felt an enormous sense of relief – that it was not them who had been changed into dogs!

Augustine The Awful simply chuckled callously and put his wand away in his costume.

He then addressed a very frightened Bag Man. “Talking of lessons, Milo, obviously you didn’t learn yours when I took away your powers. I think I had better lock up you and the girl in my castle until I find out what’s going on.”

Before Jody could protest Augustine The Awful clapped his hands together twice and muttered a magic phrase.

Immediately Jody and the Bag Man were transported from the woods into a cell in the east tower of the evil wizard’s castle.

Chapter Thirteen

ELSA, the apprentice witch sent by Huffy and Zenda to find Jody and the ingredients for everlasting life, had been flying over the woods on her way to Augustine The Awful’s castle when she spotted a group of people gathered below her.

One of them looked remarkably like the evil wizard himself and another seemed to be The Bag Man. There was a boy and a girl there, too – could it be the girl her mistress had described to her?

“Is that the girl my mistress wants?” Elsa said to herself. “Surely I can’t be so lucky as to have found her already. I’d better take a closer look, but first I’ll make myself invisible.”

She circled around, chanted the words “zecram, kazam,” clapped her hands, and became invisible.

Elsa’s eyes lit up with glee as she zoomed down. The closer she got the more certain she became that this was the girl Huffy wanted.

Yes, it was the troublesome Jody, all right. Her shoulder-length hair and long nose confirmed it.

Elsa was about to utter a spell that would send Jody straight to Huffy’s cave when the strangest thing happened.

She saw Augustine The Awful clap his hands twice and immediately Jody and The Bag Man, who had been standing next to her, both disappeared.

Elsa, unable to believe her bulging eyes, cursed in frustration. “Damn, damn, damn,” she cried out, almost flying into a tree in her fit of rage.

She had to make a sudden change of course to steer her large frame away from the outstretched branches, but could not avoid one of them clipping her ear a painful blow.

As her head cleared, Elsa began to realise what had happened.