A Potion to Beat All Potions
WHEN RUPERT GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL, WITCHLING Two was busy cutting up the rhubarb from her collection of ingredients. She hardly even looked up when Rupert came in.
“Guess what?” she said.
“What?”
“There’s a Council meeting tomorrow!”
“Uh… great?”
Witchling Two put down her dicing knife. “You know what this means?” she said, grinning.
“That… the witches are going to meet?”
“Nope. Well, yes… but nope! It means that we’re going to be able to sneak into the Witches Council lair tomorrow!”
Rupert perked up. “Really?”
“Of course, sillyshorts! If they’re in a Council meeting, all of them will be occupied for forty minutes, and we’ll get a peekity peek at those WHATs.”
“Tomorrow!” Excitement — or nervousness — was churning in his stomach.
“Yes, yes. The day after this one,” Witchling Two said. “Hold your britches—”
“Horses,” Rupert corrected.
“Right!” she said. “In the meantime, help me with this potion, will you?”
Rupert shed his jacket, snapped on some latex gloves, and walked over to where Witchling Two was chopping with a very sharp kitchen knife. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, tell me a story.”
“A story?” Rupert said. He tried to remember one of the bedtime stories his mother used to tell him, but the only one he could think of was Runny Bunny Steals Your Money, the story of a kleptomaniac bunny who sneaks into houses in the night and runs away with humans’ wallets in his mouth. Somehow, he thought Witchling Two might not appreciate that one.
“Yes, a story. Tell me what Mrs. Fribbleknickers did today — you’re looking off.”
Rupert leaned against the table and explained the day’s events to Witchling Two, recounting every detail of the poisonous potions that he could remember. As he talked, he held open a plastic bag for Witchling Two as she shoveled the rhubarb into it.
“Hmm,” Witchling Two said, when Rupert had finished speaking. “She really does seem like a witch, doesn’t she? Sounds like she had some really powerful juice.” She wiped her hands on her floral apron. “Speaking of powerful juice, Rupert, I think we’re ready to brew our first potion together.”
Rupert smiled. They still hadn’t brewed any potions yet. Instead, he and Witchling Two hunted for ingredients and organized them into boxes and jars every day. Now that Witchling Two finally wanted to make a potion, Rupert felt a squirmy sensation in his stomach. Part nervousness, part thrill.
“What kind of potion do you want to make?” Rupert asked.
“I don’t know,” Witchling Two said. “What do you want to make? We could do a sleeping potion, a forgetfulness potion, a flying potion, an invisibility potion, a brain-switch potion, or an egg salad potion, if you want.”
“What’s an egg salad potion?”
“A potion that tastes like egg salad.”
“Why would I want that?” Rupert paused. Something was nagging at him. “Actually, I don’t know if I even have time to help you,” he said. “Mrs. Frabbleknacker assigned a five-hundred-thousand-word essay, due next week.”
Witchling Two wrinkled her nose. “That’s a lot of words. I think. That’s probably like ten dictionaries worth of words. Or even a penguin’s worth!”
“Is that a lot?”
She nodded vigorously.
Rupert slumped down at the table and took out a notebook and pen. “Start working on whatever potion you want, and I’ll join you later.” Rupert tapped his pencil against his notebook. Then he tapped it against his teeth, enjoying the clicky noise of clatter-bumping. Then he tapped it against his head, which is a proven way to get your brain to move faster.
Then he got a burst of inspiration and started scribbling:
There are many kinds of worms. One type is a glowworm. They glow. There are also wiggly worms. And fat worms. And squirmy worms. Those are the kind my mom hates. There are long worms and short worms. If you cut a worm in half, it becomes two worms. If you cut a worm in thirds, it becomes three worms. But you shouldn’t cut worms because they have feelings, too. You also shouldn’t step on a worm because it will smush on your shoe, and it will take a long time to clean its guts off. Worms are not spaghetti.
Rupert counted the words. One hundred. He only had four hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred words to go.
He wrote another sentence, and frowned. How in the world was he going to write so much about worms? He was already running out of things to say.
He felt Witchling Two’s hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up at her face, she was leaning over him, craning to see what he was writing. She made a hmmm noise and crumpled her nose again.
“You got that part from me,” she said, pointing at the part Rupert had just written. Rupert leaned over his paper and read the last few sentences over again:
Do you ever notice that words sound funny if you say them too many times? Especially Worm. Worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm, worm.
“Well I’m just trying to fill up space,” Rupert said. “Five hundred thousand words…” he said wistfully.
Witchling Two banged her hands on the table, and Rupert jumped. Then she threw her head back and cackled, as all good witches do. Rupert patiently waited while she laughed so hard that she lay on the table and panted. He was starting to grow fond of her surprises — she always said the oddest things and never did what Rupert expected her to do. That was one of the reasons he loved being her apprentice.
When Witchling Two stopped panting, Rupert said, “Why are you laughing like that?”
“Because!” she said. “Put your books away — you’re going to help me with this potion.”
“What about my paper?” Rupert asked.
“Don’t write it… you won’t have to.” Witchling Two tied her hair up in a ponytail. “We’re brewing something to help you with Mrs. Frabbleknocker.”
Rupert walked over to her cauldron and peered inside. It was big, copper, deep, and completely empty.
“What do we need?” Rupert asked.
Witchling Two put a hand to her temple — in serious-beyond-serious thought. “We’re going to need some of the ingredients I brought from my special supply. Hmm… we’ll need… a goose egg! Aaaaaand a moose leg! Aaaaaand a loose peg!”
Rupert fetched a goose egg from a cardboard box and an enormous moose leg from a giant jar in the corner of the room — though he was almost too horrified to touch the preserved leg. It was extremely heavy, and Witchling Two needed to help him drag it across the basement. Eventually, with her help, he threw both the egg and the leg into the cauldron. “What is a loose peg?” Rupert asked. “I don’t think we have any of those.”
Witchling Two walked over to a stool in the corner of the basement, flipped it over, and wiggled the legs. On the third try, the leg creaked. Witchling Two hoisted the stool above her head, marched over to the cauldron, and tossed the entire chair in.
Then she grabbed a canoe paddle from Rupert’s mother’s old boat and stirred the potion until it started to crackle. Rupert and Witchling Two stood over the sizzling, sputtering, spitting cauldron. It hissed and coughed like a choking possum. Witchling Two dipped a finger into the dark oily potion and stuck her finger in her mouth.
“Delicious! Like cabbages in gravy! With a hint of pickles.”