THE DANCING STAR - CHAPTER 3

 CHAPTER 3 of THE DANCING STAR

Without thinking even for an instant, they got on a very large bubble that was coming out of the device. It was one of the large scarlet bubbles checkered with large checkers. Then what had to occur occurred, and they rose up higher and higher. They saw the whole slope of the hill where Rice-Con-Gee was located, also the whale Emma Corsetdreams sunning herself, and a slide-shaped rainbow with quite many curves and loops. Roger Rococo Rose-Without-a-Thorn, Othello Meow, and Adelade the Star told the bubble to leave them at the beginning of the Rainbow Slide, which was tied to a moon, the moon called Specklepick Colourful. The slide was all in intense saturated shades. The yellow was very yellow, the colour of golden hair. The red was a fleshlike shade of ruby. The violet was leaning on purple, and purplish. The blue was the bluish cerulean cyan of the day sky.

All three launched downwards at breakneck speed, and, upon reaching the end of the slide, they proved that it was as easy to roll upwards as downwards. And then they rolled up towards the moon called Specklepick Colourful.

At the cheek of the moon they found two witches. These were not like the wicked witches in the thick books there were at home; they were so-called apprentice witches, but not much else. The great leader of all witches, the Wicked Witch of the North-by-Northwest, had absolutely forbidden them attendance to black masses and other witchy conventions where they talked about what hairstyle was in to wear beneath the pointed hat, or the fastest broomstick up to date..., long story short of their affairs. The two merry little witches were what we call troublemakers of the highest degree. They introduced themselves:

"We are two witches. I'm Claudia Almond-Nougat, and this is Clara Hazelnut-Sugarplum... well, we're not proper witches yet but soon we will be!"

"How can it be?" asked Adelade the Star.

"The Convention of Witches," said Clara Hazelnut-Sugarplum, "always tells us that we are not prepared yet."

The snag was that, on the one hand, the witch Claudia Almond-Nougat did not like at all to fly on the broomstick. Not that she did not like it, but that she was completely unable to keep herself on the broom. And that in spite of the fact that she was taking a crash course to learn to fly, but she always said in the end: 

"I have always liked to keep my feet on the ground; I'm the down-to-earth kind of person."

And, on the other hand, the witch Clara Hazelnut-Sugarplum messed up her own mind with words; it was never clear if she was tricking others or simply unable to keep her head on. She called the broomstick "cheese," she called cheese "home," and her home "towel," and the towel "umbrella..." and furthermore she said that this was the exact meaning of the words and, if it was not, at least she was having a great lark:

"I get on my cheese snacking on a chunk of home and I head for towel."