Polly runs through the star-speckled gloom, along their neat garden path lined with nodding clawflowers, out the tall black iron gates and along the street until she reaches the identical black gates of the house next door. She creaks them open and her sodden heart lifts a little when she sees the welcoming glow coming from the windows of Buster’s crumbling old mansion.

It’s been a while since Polly has visited Buster’s family. These days, she and Buster can only meet secretly. Luckily, the old morpett tree that leans up against the high stone wall between their two houses is the perfect spot.

But when Polly was little, she spent almost as much time at Buster’s house as her own – especially after her dad died. Sometimes, during that long, sad winter, Polly’s mum wouldn’t get out of bed, not even to eat the soup that Buster’s mum had cooked for her. When Polly and Winifred’s mother was ghostlike with grief, and only just floating through each day as best as she could, Polly and her big sister would go over to Buster’s house. The three of them would play hidey or hunt snails in the ramshackle garden. They would perch up at the kitchen bench and dip jamcakes fresh from the oven into bowls of warm honeyed milk.

Now that Winifred is thirteen and head witch in her class, she wouldn’t be seen dead with a monster.

Polly strides up the wonky stone path that cuts through Buster’s overgrown garden. She knocks on the enormous wooden door. Heavy footsteps approach and the porch lantern is switched on.

‘Oooh, it’s Polly!’ Buster’s mum squeals happily.

She stretches out her big knotty hands and scoops Polly up into her arms. Buster’s mother is not the most attractive monster in town, but when she smiles it’s like the sun is shining right out of her.

Buster appears in the hallway behind his mother.

‘Mum! Be careful!’ he says protectively. ‘She’s not a monster, you know!’

Buster’s mother plonks Polly back down on the stone porch and flattens her ruffled hair with her big, calloused fingers.

‘Oh, look how big you’re getting!’ she coos. ‘How are you, my little witchling? It’s so nice to see you!’

‘I’m OK,’ Polly says, laughing and wiping something sticky off her cheek. ‘It’s nice to see you too, Mrs Grewclaw.’

‘Oh, you know to call me Patsy, my dear smootchkin!’ she cries. ‘No need for formalities between us. Bruce! Look who’s here! It’s Polly, from next door. Buster’s little witch-friend!’

‘Well, bring ’er in!’ Buster’s dad roars from the other room. ‘Don’t leave her standing out in the cold!’

Patsy rolls her eyes. ‘As if I’d do that,’ she says, placing her hands on her broad hips and shaking her head. ‘Come inside, munchky. Have you eaten? We’re having a cheeky flummery cake in the drawing room, if you’ll join us?’

Polly’s tummy rumbles with pleasure. She was happy to have avoided eating the mealworms at dinner, but now she realises how hungry she is. ‘Yes, please!’ she says.

‘Are you all right?’ Buster whispers, as Polly steps inside and his mother closes the door behind them. He has turned a little grey with worry.

Polly shrugs. ‘I just needed to get out of the house for a while. Is that OK?’

‘Of course!’ Buster’s mother says. ‘As long as you don’t mind a bit of company? We have a few monsters staying with us at the moment. But there’s plenty of room for more!’

Polly smiles. Patsy is always looking after other monsters. Sometimes they are baby monsters who are naughty and troublesome. They climb into cupboards and eat all the food, mess up the house and break her best crockery.

Other times they are old, broken monsters with worn-down teeth, bent over with sadness from never having been loved. The old ones are cranky and fill up the room with dampness and smell.

‘They’re driving Dad nuts,’ Buster tells Polly. ‘As usual.’

‘Well, someone has to look after them, don’t they?’ his mother says, turning to walk down the corridor towards the back of the house. ‘It’s all very well to love monsters who are loveable, but it’s the unloveable ones who need it the most.’

Polly and Buster follow Patsy down the dark hallway, careful not to trip over all the junk that has collected there. Generations of Buster’s relatives peer down at them from ornate wooden frames hung crookedly along the walls. At the entrance to the drawing room, Patsy kicks a massive pair of leather boots to one side and leads them in.

A higgledy-piggledy collection of old armchairs has been moved into a semi-circle around the enormous fireplace, where flames hiss and roar. Buster’s father, Bruce, is leaning over a low table where a towering flummery cake teeters precariously on a pretty china plate.

It is topped with bilberries and slathered with cream.

Bruce is lanky and skinny and only half Patsy’s height. He has scaly skin, not fur, and a huge hooked nose that Buster was lucky not to have inherited. Bruce looks permanently cross and frowny, unlike Buster’s sunshiney mother. But even though he grumbles about her all day long, there is no-one in the world who adores Patsy more than Bruce does. Even if she does fill the place with all manner of annoying monsters who eat them out of house and home.

This evening, there are three old monsters by the fire, crammed into the threadbare floral armchairs. Each monster is balancing a little china plate with a big wedge of flummery cake on their wobbly knees. When one monster opens his mouth to pop a forkful of cake in, a great gust of stinky air rolls out.

Polly has to wipe away the tears that spring into her eyes and stop herself from gagging.

‘Bernie hasn’t eaten in a while. It makes his breath a little stinky, I’m afraid,’ Patsy whispers to Polly and Buster. ‘How’s the cake, Bernie?’ she calls out to the old monster.

Bernie nods happily and gives them a great gap-toothed grin. Another wave of fetid air rushes towards them. He lifts the china plate and licks the cream off it with a big pink tongue.

Then he makes to pop the plate in his mouth, too.

‘Oh no! Not the plate, please, dear,’ Patsy says, rushing over to Bernie’s side. ‘I’m a bit short on crockery as it is. Here, have some more tea instead. Charlie, Graham, would you like some more, too? Polly! Come over, pippikin, and have some cake. You can sit on the footstool in front of the fire. Don’t worry, they don’t bite. Oh, except Maggie. But only if she’s startled. Maybe don’t sit too close to her.’

Polly heads towards the fireplace with Buster and turns to look at the monster Patsy is referring to. Maggie sits on her own in a dark corner, scowling and grunting, her bony knees tucked up under her chin. When she sees Polly looking at her, she hisses and sticks out a long purple tongue at them.

‘Maggie’s family kicked her out because she kept biting the grandchildren,’ Patsy explains in hushed tones. ‘Poor dear. Now she has nowhere to go.’

‘Just as well we don’t have any grandchildren in the house,’ Bruce grumbles. ‘Cake, dear?’ he says, handing Polly a plate.

Polly and Buster sit side by side on the little footstool by the fire, scoffing Patsy’s glorious cake. ‘Oh, this is so yummy!’ Polly sighs, licking cream off her fingers. ‘I wish my mum would make cakes like this. She only lets us eat healthy sweets, like chickweed tart and wormwood loaf.’

‘Well, your mother has always been a lot more … conscientious … about her cooking than I am,’ Patsy says tactfully.

‘Do you want another piece?’ Buster asks.

Polly rubs her tummy, where three pieces of flummery cake are now digesting, and burps. The monsters in the room all roar appreciatively.

Polly giggles. ‘No, I’d better get back soon. Mum will be worried about me.’

‘Do say hello to your ma, dear,’ Patsy says. ‘And tell her that cup of tea I promised over the fence all those years ago is still on offer!’

‘I will,’ says Polly, even though she will do no such thing.

Polly knows her mother would be more likely to fly to the moon than be seen sharing a pot of tea with a monster. Witches just don’t mix with monsters. Especially witches like Polly’s mum who care a great deal about what other witches think of them.

‘Buster, you’ll see Polly home, won’t you?’ Patsy says. ‘And keep an eye out for Maggie, dear. She must have slipped outside while we were eating. I don’t think she’d bite Polly, but it’s probably better to be on the safe side.’