Hilda - Cats Read Free Page B

outside the
smelly room again, as if they had not moved. Four yellow eyes,
bright as if there were little lights burning inside them, looked
up at the two people. Grim then meowed. The cats got up and walked
off.
    "Something tells me we should follow them,
William," Hilda said as she took his hand and pulled him out of the
room. They followed the two cats, who directly walked out of the
open door and away from the house. As the magical couple stepped
outside, they instinctively grabbed their brooms and stood where
the cats sat.
    It was as if the house had waited for them to
get out. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, the roof started to cave in.
As that was going, the door fell out of the walls falling down. It
took a few minutes for everything to collapse. After all the
falling had completed, Hilda, William and the cats had turned grey
by the dust clouds washing over them.
    "Now that was weird," William said,
rearranging the grey matter on his face with his hands.
    "The magic held it together. We took the
magic, so..." Hilda slapped her dress, making dust dance around
her.
    William nodded. The pieces of the puzzle did
fit, with some force applied. As a try he flipped out his wand.
"Sheesh." It was there faster, more swiftly than usual. "Did you
see that?"
    "What?" Hilda had been paying attention to
Grim and Obsi, who were sauntering towards the destroyed house
again.
    "Pop your wand, Hilda."
    She did. "Suck an elf. That's... different."
The witch stared at William and his wand. "This will take some
getting used to, William. We'd better be careful for a while, until
we know what else happened to us."
    "Do you think we should clean this up?"
William pointed at the house. "It looks nasty if we go home and
leave this place as the mess it is."
    Hilda shook her head. "Not to worry, sweet
wizard. The people in the nearby villages will come here soon
enough, and use the remains of the house for building material.
They'd be offended if we were to do something about it."
    William nodded. It made sense. He chuckled as
he realised that he was adjusting to this world just fine. Crazy
things here made more sense than normal things in his old world.
"What do you think they are doing?" He was referring to the two
cats who were patrolling the area of the collapsed house.
    "I don't know," said Hilda, "but I do think
we should be going home now. There's nothing more for us to do, I'd
say."
    William agreed. They called their cats as
they mounted their brooms. Hilda and William both grinned as they
saw how quickly and gracefully their pets came and leapt on their
front row seats. Swiftly the magical ones made the brooms rise up
into the air and started on their way back home.
    "It feels different," said William as they
were flying.
    "It does." Hilda had noticed it also. The
change was slight, but present. As if there was one hundred and
five percent of magic inside her. "It feels just strong enough to
make me feel drunk."
    William laughed, making Obsi look at him for
a moment. "That does not take much, sweet witch."
    "Oh, hush you." She wanted to say something
snappier, but then she pointed downward. "Look, there."
    William looked. "A stork. That is so neat. I
don't recall seeing one here before."
    "You haven't. They are very special." Hilda
looked closely where the stork was flying to.
    "Really? Why's that? Do they bring babies?"
William grinned.
    "Yes." Hilda was serious.
    William stopped grinning. "You're kidding me,
right?" He knew she wasn't. Their link told him so.
    "No. I am not. And I want to know where that
bird flies to. Come, let's follow it."
    They changed course and went after the
stork.

3. Follow that
stork

    "What's so special about storks here, Hilda?"
William asked. "In the other world there are stories about storks
delivering babies, but those are just that. Stories."
    "Well, they're not here. If you see a stork,
that means a woman is pregnant. And not just any woman. A
witch."
    "Oh. That's serious."
    "Precisely. That is why I want