One day, the scary seawitch was feeding her pet turtle, Twinkletoes, a piece of sea-lettuce and a slice of sea-cucumber.

  “Someone is calling,” intoned the looking-glass, tucked away in a shadowy recess of the cave.

  The scary seawitch gave Twinkle-toes a stroke of the head, and went to the mournful looking-glass.

  It showed the gruff wizard. “Hello there, my dear. Would you care to step through? We have a spot of bother and we could do with your expertise.”

  “Of course,” said the scary seawitch, and took the hand that the wizard held out for her. “Where are you now?”

  “We are at the hippie magician’s residence.”

  The scary seawitch stepped through the looking-glass and alighted in a large room: the library of the magician’s mansion.

  “Urgghh! What is that smell!” exclaimed the seawitch wrinkling her nose. “What’s dead in here?”

  “Nothing yet, as far as we can tell,” said the gruff wizard, pointing to a gooey brown mess on the carpet.

  “What in the name of One Ocean is that? It’s hideous!”

  “That, my dear scary seawitch, is a magic love potion gone wrong,” explained the gruff wizard.

  “Ahh!” said the seawitch, “I always said he’d get it one of these days. Rot, pot and caboodle! Always experimenting and whatnot! So, this is the hippie magician?”

  “No,” said the gruff wizard, “this is the apprentice. Over there is the hippie magician. And the hippie enchantress.”

  The seawitch went to examine two more bubbling brown lumps just inside the door.

  “Most unfortunate,” said the glamorous sorceress. “We need your help to make a potion to reverse this mess.”

  “It certainly is a mess,” said the seawitch. “I don’t know where to begin. Mightn’t it be best to simply wait for the effects of the potion to wear off?”

  “We don’t know how long that will take,” said the grey witch. She was in a corner of the library studying the magician’s potion book. “It could be … forever.”

  “That would be tragic,” said the scary seawitch. She sniggered. “Well, what do we have to work with?”

  “Look into the crystal globe. It has a record of everything that happened in the mansion over the last few days. We can use it to figure out what went wrong and then work out the reversal potion,” said the grey witch.

  The scary seawitch shuffled over to the crystal globe. The gruff wizard said the magic password, “Lovely jovely,” and waved his hands over the globe, and said, “Potion laboratory.”

  The mist swirled and parted.

  And the seawitch saw what had happened –

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The hippie apprentice was in the laboratory brewing the love potion, reading from the book which lay open on the podium.

  Shortly after he finished the last step of the instructions, the hippie magician entered the room and had a look.

  “Did you remember the mistletoe?” asked the magician.

  “Yes, master,” replied the apprentice.

  “Simmered for 21 minutes?”

  “Yes,” replied the apprentice.

  The hippie magician sniffed the potion. “Aroma. Excellent. Colour. Good. Now, the final touch: take a goblet of the liquid, add nutmeg and stir – Nutmeg to spice it, a pinch, no more; too much is poison, and the potion flawed.”

  The apprentice followed the master’s example.

  The liquid in the goblet fizzed and turned gold. Green smoke curled around the goblet for a bit. Then it went clear.

  “Now, the potion must be poured into two measures.” The hippie magician poured his potion into two test tubes. “A word of caution here: the two halves must be equal or the love spell will not balance. If there is no balance, the love will not be true.

  The apprentice did as the magician did.

  “Now,” said the magician, “drink one half.”

  The apprentice obeyed.

  “How does that feel?”

  The apprentice put his hand on his heart, and said, “That feels fantastic! I am warm and tingly all over. I have this wonderfully mad urge to wish for rain so I can go outside with no coat, and no umbrella, and start singing.”

  “Excellent. Now, all you have to do is think carefully about whom you will give the other half to. You will find that the love potion affects people in different ways, but once two people are in love, only an anti-love potion can break the spell. I want you to store away the rest of this cauldron. Put the philtre into twin phials and label them.”

  The apprentice nodded happily. “Right-o!”

  “Now then,” said the hippie magician, as he held up his test tubes. “I shall go and enjoy this with my lady, the lovely hippie enchantress.”

  The hippie apprentice raised his eyebrows. “But, master, you and the enchantress are already in love.”

  “Ahh, my young apprentice. You can never have too much love. In fact, the world would be a much better place if there was more love in it, don’t you agree?”

  The hippie magician skipped away, and the apprentice carried on with his task.

  A few hours later, when the cauldron was empty, the apprentice picked up the book and left the room.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “Library,” said the gruff wizard, waving his hands over the crystal globe.

  The mist swirled and parted –

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The hippie apprentice entered the library and put the book back in its place on the shelves.

  He started to feel unwell. He clutched his stomach. He noticed that his skin had gone purple.

  Just then, the hippie magician burst into the room followed by the hippie enchantress. Their skin had gone purple and wrinkly with humongous red and yellow spots.

  The hippie magician pointed at the apprentice and shouted, “Did you put mandrake in the potion?”

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  “Yes, after I put in the pomegranate seeds and before the moon-dust charm stirring clockwise with the unicorn’s horn. What’s happening?” asked the apprentice, feeling very frightened.

  “You imbecile! Haven’t you learnt anything about how my spells are written! It’s not what you put in; it’s what you leave out!”

  “But … but …”

  “The code is clearly written on the left-hand margin. I told you how it should be read! Weren’t you paying attention!”

  “Er …”

  “Clearly not! Well! Don’t just stand there. Grab a pen and paper and write down exactly what you did! I’ll go and make a start on the anti-love potion, and then I’ll make the adjustments to counteract your mistakes.”

  The apprentice went to the writing desk, and picked up a pen. Then, he blinked. “Help! Master, I can’t see.”

  “What!”

  “I’ve gone blind!”

  “Ahh!” said the enchantress. “They say love is blind.”

  “Er, yes. Thank you for that input!” said the magician. “It’s worse than I thought. Quickly now, tell me everything you put in and exactly how you brewed the potion – maybe I can do something about it before I lose my sight as well!”

  “Er …”

  The hippie magician blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  “Too late,” said the enchantress.

  “Thank you for stating the obvious,” said the magician. “Well, I know the lab like the back of my hand. I shall feel my way. Now, come on! Foolish boy! What did you put in the potion?”

  “Oops, will you look at that?” said the hippie enchantress. “You can’t? Me neither, I’ve just lost my vision as well! Goodness gracious me!”

  “My dear –”

  The hippie enchantress waved her hands and started to sing, “Hickory dickory dock, blind wizards by the clock. The clock strikes one, they turn into buns. Hickory dickory dock. The clock strikes two, they turn into goo –”

  “My dear,” said the hippie magician struggling to keep his temper. “Will you please face up to the seriousness of the situation for one teeny tiny moment, please, thank you.”

  The apprentice muttered. Then he coughed and a bubble went out of his mouth and floated to the ceiling.

  “Excuse me, did you say something? Speak up!” said the hippie magician.

  “Nothing,” said the apprentice. “Well, actually … see … I don’t see … er … What I meant to say was, I don’t understand why you had to make the written instructions so complicated in the first place! There’s no reason for it!”

  “No reason!” yelled the hippie magician, throwing up his hands in horror. “No reason! You say! By Jove! By thunder! Blisters and Barbie dolls! And what would you say if someone came in here and stole all my spell books and used my magic to create all sorts of havoc in the world?”

  “Well … if you were so afraid of that, maybe you shouldn’t write the spells down at all!” said the apprentice.

  “Idiot! If I could remember every single spell in the whole wide world, I wouldn’t bother to write it down now, would I? Would I!”

  “If it was a spell you use a lot of, wouldn’t it make more sense to just remember it …” muttered the apprentice.

  “Remember it! Of course I remember it! The point was for you to learn it!”

  “And … if you are so scared of people nicking your spell books, why not booby-trap them? … you must know lots of horrible enchantments you could put on the books.”

  “How dare you answer back!” shouted the magician. He shook with rage, but managed to control himself. “Stop wasting time, you nincompoop, and tell me what you did!”

  There was a thud as the apprentice slumped onto the floor.

  “It won’t make any difference, master. Even if I could remember all the details, you won’t be able to do anything with it. I can’t move any more, and that means you will lose control of your limbs … any minute now …”

  “Oh help!” the magician cried. “Can’t see. Can’t move. We are going to turn into blobs!”

  “Mmnhh,” said the apprentice.

  “Pardon?” said the magician. He slumped onto the floor with a thud.

  “I think he has just lost his voice,” said the enchantress. “Oh my goodness! What a calamity! Gosh! Ha ha! I always wanted to say that! Alas! Alack! La-de-dah!” She slumped onto the floor with a dainty thud.

  “Quick, you can still wriggle your fingers. Summon help before it’s too late!” said the magician.

  “Izzy bizzy get gruff wizzy,” chanted the enchantress. She wriggled and wiggled her fingers.

  There was a bang and a great cloud of smoke. The gruff wizard appeared in the middle of the carpet.

  He shook the soot off his frock. “What’s this!”

  “Help!” squeaked the hippie magician. “The crystal globe will show you what happened – the magic password is –” then he lost his voice and disintegrated into a blob.

  “What! What is the magic password?”

  “He’s lost his voice. I’m going to lose mine in a minute. The secret password is –”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “That’s all there is!” said the gruff wizard. He waved his hand and the crystal globe clouded over.

  “The hippie enchantress lost her voice and turned into a blob before she could tell me what the magic password was and it has taken me three days to figure it out. Since then, they’ve just bubbled and got more slimy and messy and smelly. I can show you the apprentice in the laboratory again, but I am not as good as you with the potions.”

  “Can’t you take the globe back to when the magician did the original potion?” asked the seawitch.

  “No, the globe only has room for recording one week’s worth of events,” said the wizard. “Not very helpful in this situation, but there we are!”

  “Right,” said the seawitch. “Let’s have a look in that fangled book.”

  She studied the recipe for the love potion. “Ah, yes. It looks like a variation of the friendship charm. So, clearly, no root of mandrake. Definitely no leaf of purple or green midnightshade … yes, yes, plenty of fairy dust …”

  The seawitch read through the recipe making notes. “Ah, yes, I think I know how the code works. Let us hope the stupid hippie has the same code for the anti-love potion – bless his twisted secretive soul. Right, I will need to see how the silly boy made up that batch of potion and see what he did wrong.”

  After the seawitch had made her notes and worked out the remedy, the four of them went to the laboratory.

  The seawitch brewed the new potion. The grey witch and the glamorous sorceress helped to find the ingredients while the wizard read out the procedure.

  When it was finished, the scary seawitch decanted two goblets of the liquid and set them on the workbench to cool. Then each goblet was poured into two test tubes.

  “That’s it!” said the scary seawitch.

  “Are you sure?” asked the grey witch.

  “I’ve done my best,” said the scary seawitch.

  “There’s only one way to find out!” said the wizard.

  He took the potions to the library and poured one set onto the blobs by the door.

  The two blobs immediately began to fizz and smoke. When the smoke cleared, the magician and the enchantress were restored to their original shapes.

  “Thank you!” shouted the hippie magician. “Thank you!” exclaimed the hippie enchantress. “Thank goodness!”

  The magician poured one of the remaining test tubes onto the remaining blob. Nothing happened.

  “It is definitely the right potion. Why doesn’t it work for the apprentice?” asked the glamorous sorceress.

  “It takes two you know,” said the hippie magician. “A lady is going to have to drink the bad love potion and turn into a blob for it to work.”

  The wizard went to the laboratory to get the other half of the apprentice’s bad love potion.

  “I’m not going to do it,” said the hippie enchantress. “Once is quite enough!”

  “I don’t want to turn into a blob,” said the glamorous sorceress.

  “Don’t look at me,” said the scary seawitch. “I’ve done my bit.”

  “Oh, give it here! I’ll do it,” said the grey witch. She took the potion and the remedy, one in each hand. She drank one, then the other.

  Immediately, the last blob fizzed and smoked. The apprentice jumped up and felt himself all over with tremendous relief. “Whew! I am in no hurry to do that again, I can tell you!” he exclaimed.

  “You didn’t turn into a blob!” said the hippie enchantress to the grey witch. “Why not? You are supposed to turn into a blob first!”

  “Who says?” asked the witch, “I drank the remedy first.”

  “I say! That is clever!” said the sorceress.

  “Well done!” said the wizard, clapping his hands.

  “Humph!” said the scary seawitch. “Don’t all rush to ‘well done!’ and applaud me!”

  “Oh, and well done you! Of course!” said the wizard to the seawitch. “We couldn’t have done it without you! Absolutely! No way!”

  The seawitch grinned. “Well, that’s sorted. I’ll be off then. Twinkletoes needs a bath.”

  She chanted a spell and stepped out of the room, and through the looking-glass; back to her seaside cave.

  “What a day, what a day,” she said to her pet turtle. “Let me tell you all about it …”

  THE END