Witch's Broom Read online

  Also by Ruth Chew

  MAGIC IN THE PARK

  NO SUCH THING AS A WITCH

  THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC

  WHAT THE WITCH LEFT

  THE WITCH AT THE WINDOW

  THE WEDNESDAY WITCH

  THE WOULD-BE WITCH

  THREE ADVENTURE TALES

  (AN EBOOK OMNIBUS):

  LAST CHANCE FOR MAGIC

  MAGIC OF THE BLACK MIRROR

  SUMMER MAGIC

  THREE SHRINKING TALES

  (AN EBOOK OMNIBUS):

  DO-IT-YOURSELF MAGIC

  EARTHSTAR MAGIC

  MOSTLY MAGIC

  THREE WISHING TALES

  (AN EBOOK OMNIBUS):

  THE MAGIC COIN

  THE MAGIC CAVE

  THE WISHING TREE

  THREE WITCH TALES

  (AN EBOOK OMNIBUS):

  THE WITCH’S BUTTONS

  WITCH’S CAT

  THE WITCH’S GARDEN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1977 by Ruth Chew

  Cover art copyright © 2015 by David Hohn

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in the United States by Scholastic, Inc., New York, in 1977.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web!

  SteppingStonesBooks.com

  randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chew, Ruth, author, illustrator.

  Witch’s broom / by Ruth Chew ; with illustrations by the author. — First Random House edition.

  p. cm

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Originally published: New York : Scholastic, Inc., 1977.

  Summary: A new broom and an unusual blue jay involve Amy and her friend in magical adventures.

  ISBN 978-0-449-81578-6 (trade pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-449-81577-9 (ebook)

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Brooms and brushes—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Blue jay—Fiction. 5. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 6. Witches—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C429Whs 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2014032384

  eBook ISBN 9780449815779

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Ruth Chew

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Excerpt from The Wednesday Witch

  To Elsa Dunbar

  CRASH!

  “Amy! Why must you always run in the house?” Mrs. Perkins bent down to pick up her button box. Buttons were rolling all over the dining room floor.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.” Amy got down on her hands and knees to pick up the buttons.

  “See if you can find a button to match your blue skirt,” her mother said.

  Amy picked up all the blue buttons she could see and gave them to her mother.

  Mrs. Perkins sat at the dining room table and held each button in turn against Amy’s skirt. “Why don’t you sweep up the rest of the buttons, Amy? You can try out the broom I found in the back yard today.”

  “In the back yard?” Amy stood up. “Someone must have thrown it over the fence.”

  “That’s what I thought,” her mother told her. “I asked all the neighbors. Nobody knew where the broom came from. So I kept it. We need a new one anyway. Our old broom looks like something only a witch would want.”

  “Where did you put the one you found?” Amy asked.

  “It’s in the laundry room, next to the old broom.” Mrs. Perkins picked up a button, looked at it, and put it down again.

  Amy raced through the kitchen and down the basement stairs to the laundry room. In the corner by the washing machine were a dustpan and one scraggly broom. Amy was sure it was the old broom. She looked all around the laundry room. But this was the only broom she could find. She went back upstairs.

  “I couldn’t find the new broom,” Amy told her mother. “You must have put it somewhere else.”

  “Maybe I did,” Mrs. Perkins said. “Use the old one. It’s better than nothing.”

  Amy went down to the laundry room again. She stared at the corner by the washing machine. Now she saw two brooms there!

  How could she have missed it? It was such a pretty little broom, with a brown wooden handle and bright blue bristles. Amy picked up the dustpan and the little blue broom. She took them upstairs and began to sweep.

  “I see you found the new broom.” Mrs. Perkins went on looking for a button to match Amy’s skirt.

  Amy swept and swept. There always seemed to be more buttons on the floor.

  “Aren’t you finished yet, Amy?” Her mother stood up and took the little broom. She swept it three times across the floor. “There’s something caught in it.”

  “It’s a button.” Amy bent over and tried to pick it out. The bristles seemed to keep snapping back over the button.

  Her mother turned the broom upside-down. She grabbed the button with her thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. “Look at this, Amy!”

  Mrs. Perkins held the button up to the light. It sparkled like a jewel. “Do you think it’s too fancy, Amy?”

  “It’s beautiful!” Amy said.

  Her mother smiled. “This is a magic broom,” she said. “It found just the right button for you. I’d better sew it on before it gets lost.” She handed the broom to Amy and went to get a needle and thread.

  Amy set to work to sweep up the rest of the buttons. But now the blue bristles seemed to be all soft and limp. Amy couldn’t get the broom to work at all. At last she carried it back to the laundry room and put it in the corner by the washing machine. She took the old broom up to the dining room to finish the job.

  Amy’s mother and father had both gone to work. It was summer time. Amy didn’t have to go to school. She sat and looked out of the kitchen window.

  It was nice to have a garden in the middle of Brooklyn. Amy watched a family of starlings splashing in the birdbath.

  The doorbell rang. Amy ran to answer it. Her friend Jean Remsen stood on the front stoop.

  “Come in, Jean,” Amy said. “I was just watching the birds take a bath.”

  Jean followed Amy through the house and out into the yard. As soon as the back door opened, all the starlings in the birdbath flew up into the apple tree. They sat there, shaking their wings to dry them.

  Jean walked over to the bird feeder in the peach tree near the back fe
nce. “It’s empty.”

  “There’s some birdseed in the laundry room,” Amy told her.

  The birdseed was on top of the clothes dryer in a large plastic bag. Jean helped Amy carry it up the basement stairs and out the back door.

  Neither of the girls was tall enough to reach the bird feeder. Amy went to get the kitchen stepstool. Jean climbed up on it and took the roof off the bird feeder.

  There was a scoop in the bag with the birdseed. Amy handed Jean a scoopful of seed to fill the feeder.

  A little brown sparrow was sitting on a high branch on the peach tree. When he saw what Jean was doing he let out a high-pitched whistle. Amy heard another whistle, farther off. Then another. Before Jean had finished filling the feeder, the peach tree was crowded with little birds.

  Jean climbed down and picked up the stepstool. At once the bird feeder was covered with fluttering sparrows. Birdseed sprayed out into the air around the feeder. It fell to the ground where some of the birds picked it up.

  Amy was carrying the bag of birdseed. At the back door she turned to look at the birds. “My mother calls them flying pigs,” she said. “They eat so much.”

  Jean took the stepstool into the kitchen. She came back to help Amy carry the heavy bag of birdseed down to the laundry room. “There must be a hole in the bag,” Jean said. “It’s leaking.”

  Amy looked. Birdseed was pouring all over the steps. “Hold your hand over the hole, Jean.” She ran to the kitchen and came back with a big green trash bag.

  The girls put the birdseed bag into the trash bag. Then they carried it down to the laundry room and put it back on the clothes dryer.

  “It won’t take long to clean up the spilled seed,” Amy said. “We have two brooms.” She picked up the dustpan from the corner.

  Jean took a broom. It was the old one. Amy looked for the new broom. She couldn’t see it anywhere. She had put it right there by the washing machine. But it was gone!

  “That’s funny,” Amy said.

  “What is?” Jean asked.

  Amy told her about the new broom.

  “Your mother moved it,” Jean said.

  The girls searched all over the house, upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement. At last Amy caught sight of something blue behind the furnace.

  It was the little broom, standing among the garden tools. The blue bristles were almost hidden by a spade. The brown handle was the same as those of the fork and the rake. If the spade had been a little wider, Amy wouldn’t have been able to find the broom.

  Amy was sure her mother would never have put the broom among the dirty tools. “It’s just as if it’s hiding from us,” she told Jean.

  “Don’t be silly, Amy.” Jean picked up the new broom.

  The two girls went to work to clean the back stairs. Every time they thought they had swept up the seed, they found more. At last Jean put down the blue broom. “I give up.”

  Amy swept up the rest of the seeds with the old broom. Then she picked up the blue broom to put it away. “Jean!” Amy whispered. “The broom is shaking! I think it’s laughing at us.”

  “Oh, stop your fooling, Amy.” Jean grabbed the blue broom. “Let’s go look at the birds.”

  Amy and Jean were looking out of the kitchen window. The sparrows were still fighting for first place at the feeder. A pair of graceful mourning doves pecked away at the seed on the ground.

  “Oh, look! Isn’t that bird pretty!” Jean pointed to a little brown bird with a rosy chest and a rosy patch on its back.

  “That’s a purple finch,” Amy told her. “We only have one pair that comes to the feeder.”

  Suddenly a beautiful bird with blue wings and a crested head swooped down. It landed on the tree.

  “That’s the best-looking bird yet,” Jean said. “It’s bigger than the sparrows but not as big as the doves.”

  “That’s a bluejay,” Amy said. “Mother doesn’t like them. She always chases them away. They have a cry that sounds like Thief! Thief! Mother says they’re the ones who are the thieves. She says other birds are afraid of them. The bluejays steal their eggs. I don’t believe it. They’re so beautiful I can’t help liking them.”

  “I think your mother is right,” Jean said. “My mom says beauty is as beauty does. I’m going to drive that bird away.” Jean was still holding the blue broom. She rushed out into the yard and waved the broom at the jay.

  “Thief! Thief!” the jay screamed. It flew straight at Jean.

  The back door was open. Amy was standing in the doorway. She just had time to jump out of the way before Jean came rushing through into the kitchen. The bluejay was close behind her.

  Amy slammed the door shut to keep the bird from flying into the house. She turned to Jean. “Why did you come in here in such a hurry? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a bird!”

  Jean was stretched out on her stomach on the kitchen floor. She was holding on to the broom with both hands. For a minute she didn’t say a word.

  Then Jean stood up. “Come and get your broom, Amy,” she whispered. “You’re right. There is something funny about it. It pulled me into the house!”

  “What do you mean?” Amy stared at the broom.

  Jean held on to the back of a kitchen chair to steady herself. “The broom flew back into the house. I was holding it and I got dragged along.”

  “Mother was right,” Amy said. “She told me it was a magic broom. But she was only joking. She didn’t know it could fly.” She thought for a moment. “I wonder if we could ride on it.”

  “You go first,” Jean said.

  “I don’t think it likes me. I can’t even get it to sweep.” Amy picked up the broom.

  “Maybe it just doesn’t like sweeping,” Jean said.

  Amy straddled the broomstick. “Come on, Blue Boy, let’s go for a ride.”

  The broom seemed to quiver. Suddenly it began to jog around the kitchen. The blue bristles dragged on the floor. So did Amy’s feet.

  “Ow!” Amy’s ankle banged against one of the kitchen chairs. She held tight to the broomstick and tried to yank it upright. “Up, Blue Boy, up!”

  Without any warning the broom zoomed up into the air. Amy ducked her head just in time to keep it from crashing into the ceiling. “Steady, Blue Boy, steady!”

  The broom bounced up and down. It seemed to be trying to throw Amy to the ground. She wrapped her legs around the stick and hung on with both hands. “Easy, Boy, easy!”

  Jean started to laugh. “You look like a cowboy on a bucking bronco.”

  “Maybe you think you can do better,” Amy snapped.

  At this the broom glided to the floor. Amy got off. She handed the broom to Jean. “Your turn.”

  Jean stroked the broom handle. “Nice Blue Boy,” she said. She patted the blue bristles. Then she sat down on the bristles and waited. The broom lay quiet on the floor. “Please, Magic Broom,” Jean said, “won’t you take me for a ride?”

  Still the broom lay on the floor.

  All at once Amy had an idea. “Maybe it’s a girl!”

  Jean stood up. She turned the broom over and held it with the bristles up. “What a pretty broom it is! Of course it’s a girl.”

  Very slowly the broom swayed back and forth.

  “Look, Jean,” Amy said. “She’s trying to nod. And I think she likes to have her bristles up.”

  Again the little broom nodded.

  “No wonder she was angry with me,” Amy said. “I was holding her upside-down!”

  “If she’s a girl, we can’t call her Blue Boy,” Jean said. “And Blue Girl sounds awful.”

  Amy was running her fingers through the blue bristles. “What about Wispy? Would you like to be called Wispy, pretty broom?”

  The broom stood still, as if she were thinking. Then she swayed back and forth. Amy gave the bristles a little hug.

  The broom did a tap dance on the floor with the end of her broomstick. She flew, bristles up, once around the room. Then she glided down in front of Jean and Amy an
d floated, with her stick level, about two feet above the floor.

  “You mean you want to take us for a ride now, Wispy?” Amy asked.

  The broom tipped back and forth as if to nod. The whole broom leaned forward, not just the bristles. It wasn’t exactly like a nod, but Amy and Jean knew what it meant.

  “Can you carry both of us?” Jean wanted to know.

  The broom nodded again.

  Amy sat down on the broom, facing the bristles. She held on to the broomstick with both hands. Jean sat behind her and put her arms around Amy’s waist.

  “Okay, Wispy,” Amy said. The broom rose in the air. She flew out of the kitchen into the dining room. Then she circled round and round the living room. She flew up the stairs, down the upstairs hall, and in and out of all the bedrooms.

  The broom went up and down and round and round the house. At last she flew into Amy’s room and landed on the bed. Amy and Jean got off.

  The little broom still lay on the bed.

  “I think she’s tired, Amy,” Jean said.

  Amy pulled the covers over the broomstick. She tucked the pillow under the blue bristles. Then she closed the venetian blinds. The two girls tiptoed out of the room and closed the door.

  Jean looked at the kitchen clock. “I’d better go home for lunch.”

  “Let’s have a picnic,” Amy said.

  “I’ll go ask Mom,” Jean said.

  Amy let Jean out of the front door and then went back to the kitchen. She looked through the window. The bluejay was still sitting on a low branch of the peach tree. The sparrows were all over the bird feeder.

  That’s funny, Amy thought. Sparrows are usually afraid of bluejays.