“Who would pick us up when you weren’t able to then?” I questioned nervously.
“Well, Frances or Uncle Vic, I suppose.”
My heart sank. I know it sounds horrible, but I so did not want either of them to collect us from school. Usually it was only “believers” (in magic) who could see them, Frances once told me. But occasionally, they had to allow themselves to be visible to grown-ups in order to collect us from school, for example. How embarrassing would it be to have a cross-eyed, chubby man with a dirty-looking suit pick us up? People would think we had fleas or lived in a home for down and outs, and it would be just as bad if Frances came, especially if it was one of those days when she was wearing a short skirt that didn’t meet her knee-high pop socks. I’d much rather Dad collect us, but he worked long hours and always left the arrangements to Mum. He always got home after her, so we were never faced with having to explain what we were doing “home alone”.
We got into the school playground and Mum hung around until the bell went, so I didn’t really have a chance to corner my friend Adi and warn him that we needed a “big chat”.
“Hi, Rosemary,” he greeted me in that deadpan way of his.
He was the only one of my friends who called me by my full name. Everyone else called me Rosie. We were an unlikely friendship in many ways, as Adi didn’t like dancing or dressing up or playing dolls or creating new worlds on the computer. He was simply a maths genius and a Star Wars fanatic. If the teacher had a question about maths, Adi was always the first to put his hand up. He could calculate complicated sums in his head without writing them down or doing column addition or long division. He’s the maths equivalent of what JoJo Siwa is to girls’ hair accessories.
Adi was smaller than me, which I guess wasn’t that unusual as I am very tall for my age. He had lovely brown skin the colour of milk chocolate and unruly black hair. He wore large black-rimmed glasses that made him look a bit like an owl, and he was always having to push them up on his nose as they slipped down all the time.
Adi was a bit quirky in lots of ways. If he was asked by Miss to do something he didn’t want to, or if Miss told him off, he would put his hands over his ears and screw up his face whilst making a grunting noise rather like this: “uhhhhhhhhhhhh”.
At first, we were all a bit concerned that we might have another Spencer in our class, who was what the teachers might call “disruptive”. He would flip out for no reason and lose his temper over the slightest thing. He bit Miss Ulwin, our headmistress, on the arm. At least, I think he said arm. She hasn’t got much flesh on her, so I bet that really hurt.
But all Adi did was his hands-on ears trick. Apart from that he was very earnest and actually very kind. I was put next to him for Maths and I thought it was going to be really annoying sitting next to a boy and not next to my friends Mae and Gloria, but Adi helped explain how to do fractions, which I was really struggling to understand.
Adi always seemed to be solving some sort of puzzle or another. He also told me that on September 31st, 2025, all Maths geniuses would be called up to test drive a new rocket to the moon. Mum said Adi had been watching too many episodes of Star Trek. I was going to correct her, as it’s Star Wars he likes not Star Trek, but I thought she wouldn’t know the difference. Adi would be furious, so I’ve never mentioned it to him. He always says to me, “Rosemary, may the force be with you,” and then waits for me to reply with an expectant look on his face.
I don’t like to tell him I haven’t a clue what he means.
It’s lunch when I get any time alone with him. Unlike me, Adi had hot dinners, so the whole time I ate my sandwiches in the packed-lunch area of the hall, I kept a firm eye on how quickly Adi was eating his dinner. It looked like he had a meat pie with mash and veg. Yes, he was alone. Yes, he was eating a bit faster now I’d caught his eye and glared at him. I zipped up my lunchbox and took my biscuits with me to have outside on the bench furthest from the classrooms. I’d only been sitting as long as it took to eat three mini Maryland’s when Adi joined me.
“What’s the big news then, Rosemary?” he asked whilst scuffing his shoes back and forth on the playground.
“Adi,” I whispered, “you have to promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, just tell me.” Adi got a bit more intrigued. I could feel it.
I don’t know why I felt that I had to tell him, but I just had a feeling he would understand and not judge me.
I took a deep breath and blurted it out.
“My mum is a witch and we have other witches and wizards living with us, only we don’t know where in the house they go as we never see their rooms or anything, and last night I saw Mum disappear through the wall with one of them. When I questioned her about it, she avoided answering me. But I saw her. I definitely saw her go through the wall.”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down, Rosemary. Your mum went through the wall?”
“Yes, but listen, Adi. Phyllis, one of the Aunts, has disappeared and everyone seems to be pretending she’s just gone on her holidays, but I know something bad has happened to her. I can just feel it.”
Adi stared at me, his face unreadable.
“Mum’s not a witch like they are — I mean she can’t disappear or make herself invisible. She’s more of a modern-day witch. She calls herself a ‘wiccan’, I think. She just does spells for people using herbs and things. Only good spells. She’s not a bad witch. None of them are.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of wiccans. Interestingly, not all of them call themselves witches, but those that do believe in using the power of nature to create ‘spells’. And as for doing bad spells, well they would only come back on you times three,” Adi muttered wisely.
I nodded. I was impressed he knew all this.
“Right, okay.” Adi tilted his head upwards and his eyes went from left to right, then he screwed them tightly shut. “Anything else I need to know?”
I pondered momentarily whether to tell him about Dad’s cloud reappearing last night, which seemed to coincide with Phyllis’ disappearance, and all the colours I could see around people, but decided some things were better kept secret.
“My dad doesn’t see them. Well, no one can really see them unless they choose to show themselves, or unless you are a believer.”
Adi looked incredulous. “A believer in what?”
“In magic,” I replied, as if it should be obvious.
“But how can they live with you and your dad not know?”
“They are never there when Dad’s home. They just come and go, and it’s just always been like that. The other night Frances was up in the bathroom when Dad got home and when I dashed upstairs to warn her, she had gone, so I know she probably just made herself invisible. I’ve never really questioned any of it until now.” I paused. “So you don’t think it’s bad then, my mum being a witch?” I added in a small voice.
“No,” Adi turned toward me. My face must have looked dismayed. “No, it’s COOL, Rosemary. But what does worry me,” he continued, “is your mum disappearing through the wall and your aunt missing. I’m guessing this isn’t the first time your mum’s gone through the wall, so something serious must be going on to make her take the risk of being seen by you and your sister. It can only mean one thing.”