Friday is the same for witches as Sunday for other people. Just as ordinary people are not supposed to work on Sundays, witches must not cast spells on Fridays. If they do cast spells in spite of the rule and get caught they have to pay the penalty.
The little Witch was particularly careful not to work on Friday. She was determined not to let anything tempt her.
On Thursday evening she put the broomstick away and shut the Book of Witchcraft up in the table drawer – better to be safe than sorry.
She usually slept late on Friday mornings. Anyway, if she couldn’t cast spells in the morning there wasn’t much else to do. After dinner she generally went for a little walk, or she sat idle in the shade behind the oven.
“If I had my way,” she often grumbled, “there’d be only one Friday every six weeks. And that would be plenty!”
It was a Friday in late summer. As usual the little Witch was sitting behind the oven feeling bored. She would much rather have been casting spells. She never wanted to cast spells nearly so much any other day of the week.
All at once she heard footsteps. Then there came a knock at the door.
“Here I am!” cried the little Witch. “Just coming!”
She jumped up, full of curiosity, and ran to see who was knocking.
Two children, a boy and a girl, were standing in front of the witch’s house holding hands. “Good afternoon!” they said when they saw the little Witch coming.
“Good afternoon,” said the little Witch. “What do you want?”
“We’re lost,” said the boy, “so we wanted to ask you the way to the town.”
“We were looking for mushrooms,” the little girl explained.
“Well, well – looking for mushrooms,” repeated the little Witch.
She took the children into the witch’s house. There she gave them cocoa, and they each had a piece of her special Friday cake. The little Witch asked their names.
The boy was called Thomas and the girl Veronica. They turned out to be brother and sister. Their parents owned the great inn, The Yoke of Oxen, opposite the well in the market-place.
“I know it,” said the little Witch.
“And what about you?” Thomas asked, looking over the rim of his cup. “Who are you?”
She chuckled. “Guess …”
“How can I guess? You’ll have to tell us.”
“I’m a witch, and this is my witch’s house.”
The little girl was frightened. “Oh!” she cried. “Are you a real witch – can you cast spells?”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the raven soothingly. “She’s a good witch. She won’t hurt you.”
“No, of course not,” said the little Witch. She poured cocoa out for them both. “Shall I show you some magic?” she asked.
“Wait a minute!” Abraxas interrupted. “Have you forgotten it’s Friday? Don’t you dare!”
It didn’t take the little Witch long to think of a way out. “We’ll just close the shutters,” she said. “Then no one will see us.”
She closed and bolted the shutters on all the windows. Then she began to cast spells. She made a guinea pig, a hamster and a tortoise appear on the kitchen table. The hamster and the guinea pig got up on their hind legs and danced, but the tortoise didn’t want to.
“Come on!” said the little Witch. “You too.”
So the tortoise had to dance whether he liked it or not.
“Wonderful!” said Thomas and Veronica. “How clever you are!”
“That was just a beginning,” said the little Witch.
She made the guinea pig, the hamster and the tortoise disappear again, and cast more spells. She worked many other pieces of magic to amuse the children. She made the stove sing a song, and flowers appear in the coffee pot. The wooden whisk and ladle acted a Punch and Judy show on the dresser.
The children never grew tired of watching. “Do some more!” they begged over and over again.
So for two whole hours the little Witch cast one spell after another. Then she said, “There, that’s all. You must go home now.”
“Already?”
“Yes, and high time too. You want to be home before dark, don’t you?”
For the first time the children realized that it was getting late. They picked up their mushroom baskets.
“Oh!” said Thomas in surprise. “But we’d hardly found any – and now our baskets are full of mushrooms!”
“Fancy that,” said the little Witch, pretending to be surprised too.
Quickly she set the children on their way.
“Thank you very much!” said Veronica as they parted. “Suppose you came to see us one day? We’ll take you all over the inn, and show you the kitchen and the cellar, and Corbinian the ox in his stall.”
“Who’s he?” asked Abraxas.
“He’s our pet,” said Thomas. “We can ride on his back! Will you come, then?”
“We’ll come,” said the little Witch. “When would it suit you?”
“Two weeks on Sunday,” Thomas decided. “That’s the day of the shooting match. We’ll meet on the shooting ground.”
“Right,” said the little Witch. “We’ll come two weeks on Sunday, then. Run along now!”
Thomas and Veronica held hands and ran off towards the town. The little Witch turned home. I wish all Fridays went so fast! she thought.
When she got home, there was a pitch-black cloud hovering over the roof of the witch’s house.
“You’ve done it now!” croaked Abraxas. “Rumpumpel the storm-witch was watching. Down the chimney, I suppose.”
“It might just be an ordinary black cloud,” suggested the little Witch in confusion. “I can’t see a broomstick, at any rate …”
But secretly she was very worried. Suppose it really was Aunt Rumpumpel? What bad luck! She would complain to the Head Witch at once that the little Witch had been casting spells on a Friday.
“Let’s wait and see what happens,” she said meekly. She waited for a whole week, day by day. But nothing happened. She wasn’t summoned before the Head Witch for punishment.
So it wasn’t Aunt Rumpumpel after all, then, thought the little Witch in relief.