Flying Lessons. Nathan Reed

past clutching their bags of Halloween goodies. Large pumpkin lanterns with jagged mocking teeth grinned at her from windowsills. There seemed to be an amazing number of cats out and about. Big fluffy marmalades, sleek Siamese, silver tabbies and black moggies did figures-of-eight around her legs. They sniffed at her broom and mewed loudly. “Miaou, miaou, miaou,” they said. It sounded awfully like “Happy Birthday, Jessica.”

      At home, Jessica hurried into the kitchen and rummaged about under the sink until she found a roll of large black bin liners. She fetched Sellotape and scissors and paints. Half an hour later, she was standing in front of the long mirror in the hall wearing her new witch’s cape and her pointy hat, now painted black with gold stars. She picked up the broom and put one leg either side of it.

      “Thank you, Miss Strega,” she said to her reflection.

      And then, although she was really a very sensible sort of a girl, she opened the front door, pointed the end of the broom at the sky and said, “Vroom, vroom.”

      Nothing happened.

      “I knew it wouldn’t work,” she said, stepping off and making a funny face at herself in the mirror. She straightened her hat, stood to attention and seized the broom by its birch bristles. Just for a second, the broom twitched. It bucked forward and then lifted her clean off the ground. Jessica sprang away from it, as if it had given her an electric shock. The broom fell to the ground, shivered for a moment and then lay still.

      “HELP!” yelled Jessica, staring at the broom suspiciously. “What happened then? Oh well,” she giggled, “at least you didn’t carry me off to the top of the Eiffel Tower!”

      The Halloween party was in full swing when Jessica arrived at the park. There were goblins handing out burgers and hot dogs. The Addams family were running the hot punch stall, as they did every year. A fat frog called Ribbit was setting up an apple-bobbing competition. There were ghosts and headless monsters and Draculas everywhere.

      “Attention, attention,” announced DJ Frankenstein. “The firework display will start in five minutes.”

      Jessica moved off with the rest of the crowd to watch. A gorilla was patrolling behind the rope barrier. “Please stand well clear,” he growled at the spectators, but everyone ignored him and pressed forward.

      Moments later, the fireworks exploded, lighting up the night sky in a dazzling display. Every face was upturned, “oohing” and “aahing” as showers of purple and gold sparks fell back to the earth. Rockets with long tails arced across the sky. Catherine Wheels spun and a stream of silver stars tumbled out of the moon.

      Jessica was waving her broom by the handle, spiky end up.

      “Look here,” said one of the ghosts. “Can you put the broom down? You’re spoiling our view.”

      Jessica sighed. She certainly wasn’t going to put her new broom down on the grass where people could trample on it and break it. But just to let the ghost know she was trying to help, she bunched the long twigs together in a bundle to make it look smaller.

      The next thing she knew, she was propelled backwards at top speed through the crowds, with her feet barely touching the ground.

      “Hey,” people shouted, “mind where you’re going.”

      “No need to push!”

      “Ouch, get off, that’s my foot.”

      Just as Jessica thought she was going to go into orbit, she came to a complete halt and fell over.

      “Oops,” she said to a luminous green skeleton who kindly helped her up. “Sorry. Terribly sorry.” And she scuttled off before she could get into any more trouble.

      Hiding behind the goblins’ burger stall, she peered into the spikes of the broom. She turned it upside down and round and round. She pressed her fingers along the handle and tweaked the twigs. It certainly didn’t look as if it could fly. It was just a plain old-fashioned broomstick.

      “But,” said a voice inside her head that sounded very much like Miss Strega, “flying is not as easy as it looks. Even one lesson can make all the difference.”

      “That’s silly,” said Jessica, “brooms can’t fly. They can’t drag people around the place.”

      At that moment, the ghost came around the corner with the gorilla. “There she is!” she shouted. “That little witch is a troublemaker.”

      “Oh dear,” muttered Jessica, “I wish I was back home.”

      The words were hardly out of her mouth when the broom began to buck like a rodeo horse. It took off at a gallop, with Jessica hanging on to the handle. It soared up over the bandstand, over the duck pond and the tennis court.

      “Stop!” she yelled, but the broom took no notice. It hurtled on, faster and faster, heading straight for the houses at the top of the hill.

      “Help!” she yelled as it skimmed over tree tops and rushed past chimney pots with only inches to spare. “Help!”

      At the corner of Jessica’s street, the broom stopped sharply. The twigs twitched to the right and left, like a dog listening for a signal. Jessica clung on grimly, hanging motionless above the orange glow of the streetlamp. She closed her eyes.

      Then the broom started to move forward again. She could feel it dropping down gently and gliding up the street between the houses like a small plane approaching a runway.

      Bump, bump, bump.

      Jessica opened her eyes. She had landed on her bottom on the grass in her front garden.

      “Bother,” she said, and looked at the broom lying beside her. “Flying Lessons are extra.”

Chapter Three