Daddy's banana nose disappeared and was replaced with his own
nose, which was not too handsome but certainly better than a
slightly squeezed banana. Mommy's milk-bottles were replaced
with her own pink hands.
Best of all, Naomi and Joe stopped crying. They began to smile,
then they began to laugh! Then the Prince of New Hampshire
began to laugh Then Daddy and Mommy began to laugh The
Prince danced with Mommy and Naomi and carried Joe on his
shoulders. He shook hands with Daddy and said he had admired
Daddy's books before he had been turned into a woodchuck.
AlI five of them went back to the nice house by the lake, and
Mommy made tea for everyone. They all sat at the table and drank
their tea.
'We ought to do something about that witch,' Mommy said. 'So
the can't do something wicked to someone else.' . -
'I think that is true.' said the Prince. 'And it so happens that I
know one spell myself. It will get rid of her.'
He whispered to Daddy. Ha whispered to Mommy. He whispered
to Naomi and Joe, and they nodded and giggled and laughed.
That very afternoon they drove up to Witch Hazel's haunted house
on the Secret Road. Basta, the cat, looked at them with his big
yellow eyes, hissed, and ran away.
They did not drive up in the Kings' pretty red Cadillac, or in the
Prince's Mist Grey Mercedes 390SL. They drove up in an old, old
car that wheezed and blew oil.
They were wearing old clothes with fleas jumping out of them.
They wanted to look poor to fool Witch Hazel.
They went up and the Prince knocked on the door.
Witch Hazel ripped the door open. She was wearing a tall black
hat. There was a wart on the end of her nose. She smelled of frog's
blood and owls' hearts and ant's eyeballs, because the had been
whipping up horrible brew to make more black magic cookies.
'What do you want?' she rasped at them. She didn't recognize
them in their old clothes. 'Get out. I'm busy!'
'We are a poor family on our way to California to pick oranges.'
the Prince said. 'What has that to do with me?' The witch
shrieked. 'I ought to turn you into oranges for disturbing me! Now
good day!'
She tried to close the door but the Prince put his foot in it. Naomi
and Joe shoved it
back open.
'We have something to sell you.' Daddy said. 'It is the wickedest
cookie in the world. If you eat it. It will make you the wickedest
witch in the world, even wickeder than Witch Indira in India. We
will sell it to you for one thousand dollars.'
'I don't buy what I can steal!' Witch Hazel shrieked. She snatched
the cookie and gobbled it down 'Now I will be the wickedest witch
in the whole world!' And she cackled so loudly that the shutters
fell off her house.
