The next morning when Polly wakes up, the sun is streaming through her window. Polly feels sure this means it’s going to be a good day.

Just to be on the safe side, she takes exactly five hops to get to her wardrobe to put on her uniform. She knows it’s eleven hops from her wardrobe to the bathroom. She tells herself if she only does an odd number of hops all morning until breakfast, then this will be a one-hundred percent guarantee that nothing will go wrong. How could it, on a day as chirpy and sunny as this?

But when she gets to the bathroom door, Winifred is in there. Polly wobbles a little in the doorway on one foot. She puts her other foot down slowly, carefully, just the toe point, so she is not exactly standing, but not exactly hopping either.

It is too late. Winifred has seen.

‘Are you hopping?’ she sneers.

‘No,’ says Polly quickly.

‘Mum!’ Winifred yells. ‘Polly is doing that hopping thing again.’

‘Don’t do the hopping thing, Polly,’ their mum calls out in her tired-and-not-really-interested voice.

What she is really saying is that it’s way too early for her to be dealing with their arguments.

‘I’m not!’ Polly yells.

‘She is!’ Winifred yells.

‘That’s enough!’ their mum yells out from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Get dressed and come downstairs for breakfast. Right. Now.’

‘Why do you care anyway?’ Polly hisses.

She turns around and tries to hop away from her sister with as much dignity as she can manage.

‘You’re weird!’ Winifred snarls. ‘And you’re embarrassing! How do you think it feels being sister to the weirdest witch at school?’

‘Three, four, five …’ Polly counts, ignoring her.

All she has to do is make it to the top of the stairs in nine hops, then she can slide down the bannister and her made-up spell will be complete. She may not be good at real spells, but that doesn’t mean she can’t invent a few of her own.

‘Six, seven, eight …’

She is almost at the stairs.

She reaches for the bannister, but before she can touch the wood, her standing foot is knocked out from under her and she tumbles onto the carpet.

‘Winifred!’ she yells. ‘Why are you so mean? Now you’ve ruined everything!’

‘Mum said to stop,’ Winifred says, her eyes narrowing to slits.

Then she marches back to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Polly rubs at the carpet burn on her knee. Hot tears prickle her eyes. She pulls herself up with the help of the bannister but even with her last wobbly hop, she knows her happy-day spell is ruined. As if to confirm her fears, a dark cloud rolls slowly across the sky and the jolly patch of sunlight on the landing disappears.

She slides slowly down the bannister, Gumpy galumphing beside her.

The family sits down to breakfast. Polly picks unenthusiastically at her mother’s homemade muesli of dried lizard flakes and bark shavings, then collects her lunchbox from the kitchen bench. Even without peering inside, she knows her mother will have prepared something healthy for them like boiled snake eggs and pickled herring. Or last night’s leftover mealworms with wilted greens.

She wishes she could just occasionally have a simple pumpkin-paste sandwich and a packet of turnip chips like the other witches in her class.

Winifred marches ahead of Polly to the bus stop. Buster is already waiting there, his great big bottom taking up almost all of the space on the bench. When Winifred stands in front of him, her hands on her hips, Buster jumps up apologetically so that she can sit down.

‘Sorry about my sister,’ Polly mumbles as she sidles up beside him.

‘That’s OK,’ he grins kindly. ‘I was tired of sitting anyway.’

He makes a big show of stretching out his stumpy legs. Despite Polly’s heavy heart, Buster looks so ridiculous she can’t help giggling.

Encouraged by her laughter and hidden from view behind the bus shelter, Buster launches into a full exercise routine, complete with

When he bends over to touch his toes he tumbles right over, and Polly snorts with delight.

‘Polly!’ Winifred warns from where she is seated on the other side of the shelter.

Polly claps her hand across her mouth, her shoulders jiggling up and down with laughter.

‘Stop it!’ she giggles, pulling Buster to his feet and brushing dirt off his big hairy knees. ‘The bus is coming!’

Buster gives Polly a quick hug before the bus is close enough for them to be seen. ‘In the tree?’ he asks.

‘At half past three,’ Polly answers.

‘Just you and me?’

‘As it’ll always be,’ Polly assures him, as always.

Then Buster stands to one side to let the witches get on first, just as his mother has taught him. And just as his mother taught him, he is careful to pick a seat at the back with the other monsters – not in front, where the witches like to sit.

After all, a monster must always know their place.