The Pitchstone Witch

By Ella M Harris

This is the second Jimmy Joss adventure. The Pitchstone Witch has followed him from the Antiverse and is out to destroy him. Jimmy does some research to see what he can use to fight his enemy. In a book he reads how the hero fights Nance the witch with marigolds, a horseshoe and earth from his grannies grave. As Jimmy’s grannies are alive he uses dirt from the grave of his grannies dog, Dan. Jimmy also discovers that marbles are like the old glass balls that were used to protect the owner from witches. Micky asks his Grandma in Barbados to see the wise woman for help. She sends him a letter, coral powder and a piece of dried crocodile skin. Later a riddle appears on the back of the letter which the boys think is from Chitwe. With Micky’s cousin, Annie, and two school friends they set out to destroy the witch. Fighting on the friends side are Orangees, hedgehogs, moles, water rats and Dan the dog. The witch’s army consists of slugs, worms, spiders, rats and spiteful creatures like the Fungoids the boys fought in the Antiverse. Will the friends vanquish the witch or is she too powerful?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver Anderson Books
• Release date: Apr 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780956072979

Ella M Harris

Ella is accomplished in writing and has won prizes and acclaim for short stories and poetry. Jimmy Joss came about from a vivid imagination and telling bedtime stories to her grandchildren. Ella also devotes time to holding workshops for 8 to 12 Year old children in which she allows them to create characters and develop their story writing skills.

Book preview

The Pitchstone Witch

by Ella M Harris

Published by Oliver Anderson Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Ella M Harris

Cover illustrations by Lindsey Boon

Cover design by DerKit Graphics

www.oabooks.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-9560729-8-6

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedicated to my close family Tara, Tim and Mark for believing in me.

Jimmy Joss continues his adventures after his return from

Journey Through the Antiverse

He and his friends will be back in another adventure in 2012 when they try to stop

The Spirit Stealer

Chapter 1

Jimmy jumped awake. What had woken him? It must have just been a bad dream. His head was sweaty. His hands felt sticky. His heart was pounding. The drumming in his ears was so loud he was sure it would wake his parents.

‘There’s nothing to be scared about,’ Jimmy whispered while he carefully pushed his hand towards the lamp. His hand hovered for a moment then he banged his fist on the small button. As the light filled the room he pulled his hand under the covers again. He looked round the room, but everything seemed to be as it should. ‘See – nothing there. It was just a dream.’ He looked at his watch and gave a groan. ‘Two o’clock in the morning, oh no.’ He was wide awake and still scared. He picked up his library book. He thought, perhaps if I read for a little while I will feel sleepy. He had reached an interesting part where the boys had been captured by smugglers. When he opened the book he noticed something strange. There were blanks where some of the letters should be.

‘What a stupid thing to do,’ Jimmy said, ‘how is anyone supposed to read this?’ He flicked over the previous pages and discovered that letters were missing from all of them. ‘How weird, letters can’t just fall off a page.’ He got out of bed to find a pencil and paper and sitting cross-legged on the bed he wrote down the letters that were missing. Then he made words from the letters.

This took a lot of working out and when he had finished his list read: Pinch, cost, nit, cop, no stench, itch hop, stone pin, pitch nose, hop it, in the pot, step on it, open stitch.

None of this makes sense, thought Jimmy as he yawned and stretched. He placed the book, paper and pencil on his bedside cupboard and turned off the light. He was tired and ready to sleep, but the list was worrying him. He felt there was something he should have noticed. Lying in the dark, with nothing to distract him, he went over the words in his mind.

‘Oh no, it couldn’t mean…’ Jimmy switched on the light again and grabbed the list. There they were, just as he feared, pitch and stone. Jimmy shuddered as he remembered the evil old hag that had risen from a pitchstone boulder as they left the Antiverse. By accident Jimmy and his friend Micky had travelled to the Antiverse during the Easter holidays. Jimmy had made a poster of all the friends they had made there. He looked across to the poster and found another strange thing had happened; Chitwe the witch had disappeared. The last view Jimmy had of the Antiverse was of Chitwe and the other witches desperately trying to hold the Pitchstone witch down.

‘Has that rotten Pitchstone witch followed me here from the Antiverse?’ He said the words out loud and knew immediately it had been the wrong thing to do. The bed began to shudder slightly then to rock more and more violently. Jimmy clung to the bed and screamed loudly. It turned on its side and tipped Jimmy to the floor before righting itself as Jimmy’s parents came running in.

‘James what is going on?’ his mother questioned at the same time as his father asked, ‘Was that you screaming?’

As Jimmy untangled himself from the covers he tried to think of an explanation. He could hardly say, ‘I think a witch has just tipped me out of bed’ – his parents would think he was crazy.

‘I had a nightmare. I dreamt I was fighting something horrible.’ Jimmy thought it sounded a bit weak so he added, ‘It was really horrible and enormous.’

‘I think you’ve been watching too much television young man,’ his mother said.

His father winked at Jimmy and said, ‘Nightmares are awful aren’t they? If I make you a warm drink do you think you will be able to get back to sleep?’

‘I’ll try dad.’

His mother sat on the bed while his father went down to the kitchen. ‘Do you want to talk about your nightmare?’ she asked.

‘No mum, but can I keep the light on?’ Jimmy knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. He didn’t feel safe anymore. His father returned with a drink of warm, milky tea and handed it to him. His mother tucked the covers round him as he sat in bed sipping the drink. She combed her fingers through his hair. Jimmy fidgeted and wished his mum would stop fussing. Before his adventure in the Antiverse Jimmy had thought his mum didn’t even want him. Since his return she was always fussing over him, but she still insisted on calling him James. She thought Jimmy sounded common.

‘Ok, now Jimmy?’ his father said as he followed Jimmy’s mum out of the room. ‘We’re only next door if you need us.’

Jimmy lay in bed with the light on and wondered if any other strange things were going to happen. His eyes would close and he would be almost asleep then he would jump awake. Each time this happened he expected to see the witch, but there was nothing scary and he eventually fell asleep. When he woke up the following morning he saw the mug had been turned upside down. The book was balanced on top of it and the list he had written was torn into small pieces.

The lack of sleep made him edgy and bad-tempered for the next few days.

His mother got fed up with him being moody. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you at the moment,’ she complained, ‘you can have an early night tonight.’

If only Micky was around Jimmy would have someone to share the problem, but unfortunately he was staying with his grandparents in Barbados. Micky was the only one who would believe him. While they were in the Antiverse, Chitwe the witch had befriended them. She had given them a stone that was broken in half. By putting the two halves together the boys would appear on Chitwe’s television. They had been able to let Chitwe know where they were on their journey or if they needed help. Without Micky’s half of the stone Jimmy couldn’t even let Chitwe know about the Pitchstone witch.

Before supper one evening, Jimmy was in the garden on a bug hunt. His father had given him a small plastic box with a magnifying lid. Jimmy thought it was really cool. He placed a woodlouse in the box and closed the lid. ‘Wicked,’ he said as the insect became five times bigger. He gently up-ended the box on the ground and the woodlouse crawled out and rolled itself into a ball. The next insect he found was an earwig. He wasn’t very fond of earwigs and didn’t fancy picking it up so he held out a short stick for it to crawl onto and then transferred it to the box. ‘Yuck, you really are horrible,’ Jimmy said as the earwig grew under the magnifier. He thought the pincers on its bottom looked gruesome. Jimmy shivered and looked up at the sky. The sun was still shining and though there was a small breeze it hardly rippled the grass. ‘I do feel strange,’ Jimmy muttered. He didn’t feel ill exactly, just – strange. A trick of the light made the surrounding bushes look as if they were getting bigger and bigger and the sky was moving upwards. He had this odd feeling as if he was fading away. As he realized that things weren’t growing around him but that he was shrinking he yelled. Even to his own ears it sounded like the squeak of a very small mouse. Then he was trapped inside the box with the earwig that was now twice Jimmy’s new size. Luckily Jimmy was still holding the stick although it took all his strength to lift it. The monster reared up to look at Jimmy. It opened its pincers as it prepared to attack.

There were all sorts of thoughts going through Jimmy’s head. Thoughts like, mum’s making lasagne and I might not be around to eat it. As the earwig came towards him he raised the stick to defend himself and thought, is this monster going to eat me? The earwig got closer still and he knew he faced real danger. ‘If I lose,’ he said to the earwig, ‘I hope you get a horrible stomach ache.’ Seeing that the earwig could sense victory Jimmy prepared to fight for his life. With the stick he was able to keep the earwig from getting too close, but he was tiring as the stick seemed to weigh a ton. He pressed himself against the side of the box. It was green in the box as the sun shone through the grass that rose like tall trees around it. The earwig’s body gleamed with a slight greenish tinge and it looked like a dragon. Jimmy tried to give himself more courage by saying, ‘I’m St George ready to do some slaying.’ The trouble was, he was really scared. As the pincers closed on Jimmy he threw himself forward and rolled so that he was the other side of the creature. He jabbed his stick into it. The earwigs cry was like chalk scraped on a blackboard and magnified in the small space. The earwig turned and used its body to squash Jimmy against the side of the box. Struggling for air, Jimmy tried to lift the stick, but he didn’t have the strength to do so. An awful noise battered the box and the monster turned in alarm. Jimmy covered his ears. Where was the noise coming from? Had his parents turned the stereo up really loud? He imagined sound would feel like this if he ever got his head stuck in a loud speaker. It sent shock waves through the box and tickled the bottom of Jimmy’s feet. He realized it wasn’t music, but distorted words and so loud he couldn’t understand them. The earwig shook its head violently then crouched low with its eyes shut. Jimmy realized it might be his only chance to escape. He ran at the insect and used the force of his body to push the stick into the earwig’s side. It threshed around as it died, knocking Jimmy against the side of the box. The box tipped over and the lid fell off. Jimmy rolled out and sat rubbing his head. He could feel a big