Witch Is When Everything Went Crazy Read Free

for her words to sink in. Surely she couldn’t mean what I thought she meant.
    “So? What do you think?” she asked.
    “Well. That sounds—I mean it’s obviously—”
    “Come on, girl. Spit it out. What do you think?”
    “Does that mean—?” Please no—anything but this. “Does that mean you’re planning to open a shop in Washbridge?”
    “Exactly.”
    “A wool shop?”
    “I can see why you’re a private investigator. Nothing gets past you, does it?”
    “Do you have the time to run a shop? I mean—err—I know how busy you are already.”
    “Haven’t you heard the saying: ‘If you want something doing ask a busy man’?”
    “Didn’t Benjamin Franklin say that?”
    “No, I did, just now. Didn’t you hear me?” She turned towards the outer door. “Now come on.”
    “Me?”
    “Who else?”
    “Where are we going?”
    “I’ve set up a number of viewings. You can come along and give me a second opinion.”
    “Viewings? Of shops?”
    “No, of camels. Of course, of shops. Now, are you coming or what?”
     
    The young man who showed us around the various properties had a lot to say—too much if Grandma’s expression was anything to go by.
    “This property has only recently come onto the market. It is ideally situated—”
    I’d been daydreaming, but was suddenly snapped back to earth.
    “That’s better,” Grandma said.
    “What have you done to him?”
    The man was frozen like a statue—his mouth open mid-sentence.
    “He was giving me a headache,” Grandma said.
    “Will he be alright?”
    “Of course. It’s not permanent. The ‘freeze’ spell will only last for a few minutes. We’ll be gone before he comes around.”
    I’d completed my level one witch training, and was about to embark on the next level. I was looking forward to it, but not to the lessons with Grandma. There were six levels in all. My cousins, Amber and Pearl, were on level two, and they’d been in training since they were born, so I guessed I was doing okay. I had a long way to go to catch up with Grandma though. As a level six witch, she was as powerful as they come.
    “Are you coming or not?” Grandma was waiting by the door.
    I glanced back at the frozen man, and then followed her outside.
    “So? Which one do you think?” she asked.
    “I think this one is the best we’ve seen.”
    “So do I. It’s just the right size. Now, all I have to do is come up with a name. How about ‘Yarnstorming’? Or ‘Ever a Wool Moment’? What do you think?”
    “What about ‘Stitch Slapped’?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” I said. “You aren’t getting any—” Whoa! What was I saying? Did I have some kind of death wish?
    “You were saying?” Grandma’s gaze burned into me.
    “I was just—I mean—nothing. This one is the right size, and it’s in a good location on a busy street. There’s only one thing—”
    “The bus stop?”
    “Yeah.” The bus stop was located right outside the shop. While we’d been looking around, the queue of people at the stop had blocked the window. “It’s a pity because everything else is fine.”
    “I can sort that out.” Grandma turned back to face the bus stop, and before I could ask what she was going to do, she did it.
    The bus stop slid along the pavement until it was in front of the bookmaker’s, two doors down from the future wool emporium.
    “That’s better,” she declared, happy with her work.
    I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone seemed to be going about their business as if it was the most natural thing in the world to see a bus stop relocate itself. I must have looked puzzled because Grandma said, “I cast the ‘move’ spell together with the ‘mask’ spell. Both are level four. The second spell is used to hide another spell. That’s why no one noticed the bus stop moving.”
    The more I learned about magic, the more intrigued I became. I couldn’t help but wonder what