Moonlight Mischief. Nathan Reed

      Jessica blinked and blinked but, every time that she opened her eyes, there it was, bluer than ever.

      “Come on,” said Miss Strega, climbing through the attic window and clambering aboard her broom. “We must fly. We don’t want to miss the opening ceremony.”

      The sky was very busy. Witches were streaming in from every direction – east, west, north and south and all points in between. Jessica had never seen so many – nor in so many different shapes and sizes and colours. There were huge giant witches with hooked noses and greasy, wide-brimmed hats; there were small twinkly witches with currant-bun faces; there were even some old-fashioned witches flying their broomsticks the Wrong-Way-Up. But best of all, she noticed excitedly, there were several other witches-in-training.

      “Hi!” she yelled, taking both her hands off her control twigs to wave at them.

      She was practically fizzing with excitement by the time the moonlit walls and roof turrets of Coven Garden came into view.

      Jessica had often been to the witches’ headquarters at Coven Garden before, even travelling back in time to see Dame Walpurga of the Blessed Warts, the witch who had invented the Modern Witch’s Right-Way-Up Broom. In Dame Walpurga’s time, Coven Garden was no more than a little cottage with a well and a hawthorn tree, but now it was enormous, like a walled city, bristling with towers and arched gateways. It had always seemed a bit scary-looking to Jessica (perhaps because she had had to take her Flying and Spelling Tests there too!), but tonight, in the light of the blue moon, it looked fantastic. She could hardly wait to descend on to the roof.

      Unfortunately, there was only one narrow landing strip between the chimneypots, and the witches who were in charge of Flight Control were having a bad day.

      So many broom riders were approaching the roof at the same time that there were long hold-ups. Everyone had to stack up on top of one another and circle around on their brooms until Flight Control called them down.

      “Great honking goose feathers!” Miss Strega muttered impatiently. “If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s queueing. If only we could find out how many witches are ahead of us.”

      “Hu-eet,” whistled Jessica’s mascot nightingale, Berkeley, her usual helpful self. She popped out of Jessica’s cloak pocket in a cloud of biscuit crumbs and bird seed and sped off to find out what was going on.

      When she returned a few minutes later, she was all a-flutter.

      There had just been a very nasty crash, she told them. Some witch-in-training had got fed up waiting in line and had hurtled towards the rooftop at the same time as another was landing. Boom! Crash! They collided at full speed, banging their heads and toppling off their brooms in a heap of legs and twigs and cloaks and helmets and squealing mascots.

      “Come on, Jessica!” said Miss Strega. “Press your Emergency Descent twig! They may need help.”

      Sadly, by the time Miss Strega and Jessica had landed on the parapet, things had got much worse.

      The crashed witches-in-training had managed to disentangle themselves but they were now having a colossal row.

      “You blinking road hog!” shrieked one of them, picking her scrunchie off the floor and gathering her long hair back into it.

      “Call yourself a broom rider!” the second one spat back. “I’ve seen fish flying better than you.”

      Then, as Jessica and Miss Strega looked on, appalled but fascinated, the two witches-in-training started putting transformation spells on one another.

      “You’re no better than a spiky old hedgehog,” screamed Ponytail.

      “You’re nothing but an old bat,” the other cackled back.

      And as if that weren’t bad enough, they started putting spells on anyone who tried to stop them. And then they started putting spells on anyone who got in their way.

      Soon, the roof was crawling with giant cockroaches and honking hogs, while monstrous moths and old bats and horseflies buzzed and flitted around the roof tiles. Miss Strega and Jessica quickly fled for cover behind a chimneypot and peeped around it.

      “By Walpurga’s Blessed Warts!” exclaimed Miss Strega. “What a lot of hocus pocus! All this – and the Games haven’t even started.”

      “Who are those witches-in-training?” Jessica was flabbergasted. “They’re a bit scary, but I wish I could spell as well as they can. They’re lightning fast.”

      As she spoke, a very distinctive and blood-chilling sound brought everyone to their senses. It was the President of the W3, Miss Shar Pintake, noisily drawing in her breath and sucking her teeth as the doors of the glass lift slid open and she stepped on to the roof. She looked very presidential and imposing in her ceremonial dress – black velvet cape, tall witch’s hat, turquoise and yellow stockings and a sash in the W3 colours of sage and purple – but she was clearly hopping mad.