Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Children
Publisher: Stirring Stick Publications
ISBN-10: 1497374383
Type: Fiction
Pages: 234
Copyright: June 2012
ISBN-13: 9781497374386
Price: $1.61 (eBook)
In ebook and print, a children's magical story, aimed at Middle Grade readers.
Tatty Moon has to rid Little Upham of thieving magpies; elf-devouring Gnomes; and the Queen's mad nephew. Not easy when you're only three-and-a-bit inches tall!
Can anyone help?
... Perhaps.
Excerpt
7
DESICCATED TOADS
The Council rubbish dump was lit by a full moon, so Agatha Pottage could see quite clearly. Her Familiar, Chorley, a raven, helped look for the bicycle too. The huge black bird circled overhead, wings swooping through the warm night air.
Agatha thought that as it had only been dumped that morning, the bicycle should still be near the surface and not yet buried in the rubbish. After only a few minutes, Chorley spotted it. He called to Agatha with a hoarse croak. She hurried over mounds of litter to where the shaggy-throated bird sat, perched upon one of the Chopper’s handlebars.
‘Well done, you clever, clever boy,’ she said, stroking his head.
Chorley hopped onto Agatha’s shoulder as she heaved the bicycle free. She laid it on its side and examined the wreckage, peeling a mouldy yoghurt lid off the saddle. ‘Dear, dear, dear, it’s in a right old state, isn’t it?’ Agatha tapped her chin. ‘Tatty wasn’t exaggerating when she said how damaged it was. Still, I’m sure we can sort it out.’ She reached into the pocket of her long, black, cardigan and brought out an object that was rather shrivelled and crisp-looking.
It was a toad.
Or rather, it had been once, long ago, but now it was so dried out that it was completely mummified. ‘This should do it,’ said Agatha, rubbing the corpse between her hands so that desiccated toad sprinkled over the bicycle. Her lips barely moved as she whispered the ancient incantation.
Once touched by toad flakes, the mangled bicycle uncurled like an arthritic spider waking after a long sleep. Clunking, popping and scraping made Agatha’s teeth hurt, and Chorley hid his head under one wing. Any damage from the accident was put right, while chipped and flaking paint from before remained as it was. Both burst tyres inflated with loud hisses. Within thirty seconds the yellow Chopper was fully restored.
Agatha stood back to admire her work.
‘Knew that toad would do the trick,’ she said to Chorley. The bird’s head cocked on one side as he listened. ‘It came from an amphora of toads that belonged to Cleopatra. They say she was a very powerful witch, you know.’
Chorley answered with a croaking, ‘Toaaaad.’
Agatha lifted the bicycle upright and waited for Chorley to hop into the front basket. Once he was comfortable, she pushed the Chopper over the rough ground until she came to a chain-link fence surrounding the landfill site. She stooped to fit through the hole she’d caused earlier. On the other side, she turned and pointed a long scarlet-painted fingernail at the ragged hole. Purple sparks streamed from her fingertip, landing on broken pieces of chain-link, pulling them back together so that the fence appeared perfect again.
‘Home,’ croaked Chorley.
‘Yes, home,’ said Agatha, hitching up her elegant black skirt and hopping onto the bicycle. She switched on the bike’s lights and set off down the country lane, until witch, raven, and Chopper, disappeared round a bend. A faint, ghostly whistling echoed in the wispy, swirling mist.
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