10. Two Alarming Incidents

The first alarming incident concerned Squeezjoos.

They had never really gotten to the bottom of why Squeezjoos had gone a little crazy and attacked Queen Sychorax’s army all on his own. He seemed fine again once he got to Pook’s Hill, so they didn’t worry too much about it.

But then one day, Squeezjoos came to them all and said, in a slightly wobbly voice:

“I iss feelings a little bit funny…”

“Is it my imagination,” said Caliburn, “or is Squeezjoos looking a little more green than the rest of us?”

“And he’s behaving very oddly—he keeps gobbling up my spellsss!” said Tiffinstorm.

“I doesss not!” said Squeezjoos. “Is liess, all liess… Ooh, is that a pixy over there?”

Tiffinstorm jumped and drew her wand, a sharpened thorn, and whirled around in the air to face the imaginary pixy. And while she was distracted, Squeezjoos reached out, bit one of the spells off her belt, and zipped off again.

“Don’t eat that! It’s a fire spell!” hissed Tiffinstorm. But it was too late. Squeezjoos had already swallowed the spell.

“I’ss hassn’t eaten anything,” said Squeezjoos, blinking with huge innocent bug eyes and shaking his little head so vigorously that smoke came out of his ears. But then—Oh! He went cross-eyed and, “hIC!” he accidentally hiccuped, and a great spout of flame came out of his mouth and set fire to one of the leaves of Tiffinstorm’s dress. She hastily put it out.

“Ooh!” said Squeezjoos, putting a little hairy hand over his mouth in surprise. “Peppery!”

“Squeezjoos, stay still for a second, we need to have a look at you,” said Xar.

“I isss fine! I iss fine! I iss fine!” chanted Squeezjoos, nipping out of the way, but Xar eventually caught him in his cupped hands. And when Xar opened his hands a smidgeon, they got a good look at Squeezjoos, and his fur was definitely tinged with a deep hint of emerald that was darker than it ought to be, and you could even see a slight lime tint to his little spotty eyeballs.

“I isss FINE, let me go!” said Squeezjoos crossly, letting out little tongues of flame every single time he opened his mouth, and then when Xar didn’t let him go immediately, his little eyeballs suddenly flashed a very bright, pure green and he leaned down and bit Xar.

“OW!” yelled Xar, dropping the little hairy fairy.

The green disappeared as quickly as it had flared, like sheet lightning, and Squeezjoos was mortified, for he hero-worshipped Xar. “I isss so sorry!” whimpered Squeezjoos with huge horrified eyes. “Forgives me, Masster… I don’t knowsss whatss came over me. It was an accident.”

He went cross-eyed. “Hic…!” said Squeezjoos in surprise, shooting out a flame and then putting his hand over his mouth again. “OOOh!… Spicy!” And then he shot this way and that, with a “Hic! Ooh! Scorchy…” and a “Hic! Ooh… Sweltry!” and “Hic! Ooh!… Zesty!” Until finally he collapsed on his back on Wish’s shoulder, moaning, “Squeezjoos feeling so sick…”

And then he threw up, so violently and fierily that they had to rush him to Perdita’s tree office to give him urgent medical attention, wrapping him up in one of Xar’s flameproof handkerchiefs to get him there.

You would never have thought that one little sprite could have eaten so many spells, but Squeezjoos threw up love spells, invisibility spells, stink spells, curse spells, every kind of spell you could think of. When he was throwing up the invisibility spells he disappeared for a moment, but they still knew where he was from the “Hic! Ooh!… Gassy!” noises. Eventually he got to the water spells, and that was good because they seemed to quench everything else, and by that time the little sprite was so exhausted he fell asleep, snoring loudly. Every now and then little mustard-colored snot balloons drifted out of his nose, up into the air, where they burst, spraying the remains of stink spells all over everybody.

Wish explained to Perdita that Squeezjoos had been stained with the Witchblood trying to save Xar long ago in the forest, and how they had put him on the Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic, but that Xar may have taken him off a little too quickly.

Perdita gave the little sleeping sprite a thorough examination, and when she finished she looked very grave. Even looking at Squeezjoos through her rose-colored spectacles wasn’t really helping.

“Is he going to die?” whispered Xar.

“No, no,” said Perdita hastily, “he’s just sleeping. Look, he’s waking up!”

Squeezjoos sat up, shaking his head, and a few little mustard bubbles fell out of his ears, and a great big bubble of a stink spell burped out of his mouth.

“Yes…” said Perdita, “if the little hairy fairy put his hand on the Stone-That-Takes-Away-Magic, that will have gotten rid of most of the bad Magic, so he won’t die… but the Witchblood is giving him a craving for power which is why he is eating all these spells, and there is this remote possibility that he may—”

“Fly off to join the Witches at some point,” Caliburn finished the sentence for her.

“NO!” gasped Xar. “Squeezjoos would never leave me and fly away, would you, Squeezjoos?”

“I’s bets he wouldn’ts. You isss lovely, Master, best masster in the world. Who iss he, this Squeezjooossss? Who are we talking about?” asked Squeezjoos in an interested sort of way, hovering in front of Xar.

“What do you mean who is he? He is you! You’re Squeezjoos!” said Xar in alarm.

“I isss not!” sang Squeezjoos happily, kissing Xar on the nose. “I iss SOOJZEEKS!”

“I believe ‘Soojzeeks’ may be Witch-speak for ‘Squeezjoos’ spelled backward,” said Perdita, looking very worried indeed, “which is not a good sign, but I will start administering my most potent antidotes, and we shall just have to hope for the best. On the plus side, he does seem awfully fond of you all…”

The remains of one of the love spells were still fizzing around Squeezjoos’s little hairy fairy bloodstream, and so he was buzzing around trying to kiss everybody, squealing, “Soojzeeks lovesssss YOU… and YOU… and YOU… and YOU!”

“Oh dear,” sighed Perdita. “This explains why there have been so many Witch sightings near the school recently…”

“What?” said Wish sharply.

“They can’t get into this school,” said Perdita soothingly. “My Magic is invulnerable, but they may sense that you are here and that Squeezjoos is turning toward them.”

It was all very well to say “don’t worry,” but it was a horrible feeling to think that the Witches were gathering, hissing invisibly in the darkness, sharpening their talons, whether they could actually get in or not. And even worse to think that adorable little Squeezjoos might end up going over to the dark side.

So that was the FIRST incident that gave Wish and Xar an anxious feeling that they were no longer safe in the school and that they really should be leaving and getting on with the quest to find the Nuckalavee so they could get rid of the Witches forever and save Xar and Squeezjoos at the same time.

The next incident was, if anything, even more alarming.

One morning, Perdita was giving Xar, Wish, and Bodkin a “catch-up” lesson on trees, in her study, because they were a bit behind the other pupils in this subject.

Xar found these kinds of lessons boring. He much preferred the ones where they turned into birds or deer or different kinds of fish. Fidgeting wildly, his eye landed on a bottle marked “Interesting Transformation Potion, Treat With Extreme Caution,” poking out of one of Perdita’s many pockets. Perdita was distracted, excited about telling them how trees secretly talked to one another by sending each other chemical messages. Xar winked at Squeezjoos, who giggled and picked the pocket of Perdita, giving the bottle to Xar, who put it in his waistcoat. Only Bodkin saw him do it.

When they left the room, Xar showed Wish and Bodkin the bottle and said he was going to taste it.

“Xar, don’t be stupid,” said Wish.

“We should give that back to Madam Perdita,” said Bodkin.

“Oh, are you going to tell on me?” said Xar jeeringly.

“We’re not going to tell on you. We’re trying all the time not to get you expelled!” said Wish in exasperation. “Didn’t you learn anything from the whole Witch-stain disaster?”

“But this isn’t Witchblood. It’s just some old transformation potion. Aren’t you interested in what the Interesting Transformation Potion might be?” said Xar. “I dare you, Bodkin, to taste it with me… Go on, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud old hob for once!”

To do Xar justice, he said this quite affectionately—he just thought he was teasing Bodkin, but Bodkin was in a sensitive mood.

Underneath his brown fur, Bodkin was turning very red. “I am not a stick-in-the-mud old hob,” said Bodkin.

“Of course you’re not!” said Wish. “Don’t listen to him, Bodkin. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Does anyone have a spoon they can lend me?” teased Xar, uncorking the bottle. The Enchanted Spoon buried himself very firmly in Wish’s waistcoat.

“No way!” said Wish.

“Okay, I’ll just swig it straight from the bottle, very cautiously of course,” said Xar. “And then Bodkin, you can have a taste afterward… or are you Warriors too scared?”

“I am not scared!” said Bodkin furiously, absolutely purple under the fur, if anyone could have seen it. “And I am NOT a stick-in-the-mud old hob!”

Wish closed her eyes and held her head in her hands as Xar tipped back his head and drank very incautiously indeed from the bottle, then handed it to Bodkin, who defiantly took a good swig himself. There was a loud BOOM! But when Wish opened her eyes again, expecting to find two Graxerturgleburkins in front of her, or worse, there was only one Bodkin and one Xar, looking entirely unchanged, if a tiny bit traumatized.

“Phew!” said Wish. “It hasn’t worked… You probably have to boil it up or something. But you were both still incredibly stupid to try it, and I’m getting fed up with you squabbling all the time. And have you forgotten that we’re all on a quest together? I thought I could rely on you, at least, Bodkin, to be a bit sensible, and—”

But she was interrupted by Bodkin.

“Oh, it’s worked all right,” said Bodkin.

“And it’s certainly interesting,” said Xar.

“This is a disaster!” said Bodkin, who looked like he was panicking somewhat. “This is a total, bronze-bottomed, fire-breathing, howling, hairy disaster!”

“What on earth do you mean?” said Wish. “Nothing’s happened… you look exactly the same.”

“Except that Bodkin’s turned into me, and I’ve turned into the stick-in-the-mud old hob!” said the boy who looked like he was Bodkin, but who was in fact Xar. “We’ve switched places!”

“Ah,” said Wish.

“Now that IS interesting,” said Caliburn.

“We have to tell Madam Perdita immediately so she can get us the antidote!” said Xar.

But Wish wouldn’t hear of that, particularly once she had read the small print on the other side of the bottle that Xar hadn’t bothered to read. “No way,” said Wish. “You’ve been in such trouble already, Xar. At any other school they’d have expelled you ages ago… And it says here that it’s perfectly safe as long as you don’t drink the whole bottle, and the effects will wear off after twelve hours or so.”

“A whole DAY being Bodkin!” said Xar in horror.

“A whole DAY being Xar!” echoed Bodkin, equally appalled.

Unfortunately, once Wish had established that they were perfectly safe, she wasn’t a bit sympathetic. “Maybe it’ll be good for you,” she said. And the sprites thought it was hysterical.

So…

Bodkin and Xar had to go through the day being each other.