GRISELDA CASTS A SPELL OR TWO

Griselda reveals a second side to herself

Never was such an agonized scream heard anywhere on planet Earth than when Griselda Entwhistle, a superior grin splitting her craggy old face, zoomed through her cottage’s front door aboard her third best broomstick, her ancient backside scrunching against a knobble in the shaft where she sat and a smartly dressed parish councillor perched precariously behind her.

It was that parish counsellor that was making all the noise, with the exception of a subtle whee-whiz from Griselda herself.

“I don’t like this!” wailed Bumptious Tiddles, the Parish Councillor as Griselda sought an altitude sufficient to almost guarantee that nobody would notice her if they chanced to glance skywards as she raced towards the nearby town of Brumpton. “I’ve got no head for heights, I’m going to fall off, this’ll be the death of me, oh woe is me, and I haven’t even written my will yet...”

“Calm down!” rapped Griselda, “this is fun!”

“I’ve never had less fun, not in all my natural, and I had some pretty miserable times back when I was a kid and Mr Harris thrashed me for being late for history and I was only late because Jonathan Darby pinched my school cap and lobbed it onto a bus shelter and it took me ages to get it back, but it hurt did that thrashing, but it was a million times funnier than this… Oh woe is me, death is just round the corner, or rather, down there on the ground….”

“Now you’re being dramatic!” chided Griselda over her shoulder. Whee-whiz! Just feel the breeze on your face and the wind in your hair...”

“I haven’t got any...”

“What?”

“Hair. I haven’t got any! My toupee just blew off and landed on an old lady’s egg basket down there… I wish I was dead!”

“No you don’t, you silly boy. My old ma used to tell me to be careful of what I wished for because I just might get it...” hissed Griselda. “But if you feel as bad as you say you do we’ll take a break at the pub. Thomas the Greek will have opened up by now and I’ll introduce you to my gorgeous young niece! She’ll calm you down, she will! There never was a prettier sight than that young lady, and the moment you look at her you’ll know you’ve looked at true beauty and your beer will bubble and froth inside you until you’re filled with never-ending fearlessness!”

“I don’t like pretty girls, I prefer young men!” shouted Bumptious, letting his personal cat out of the bag for the first time ever and astounding the old woman with her toupee-enhanced egg basket who looked up and squawked well I never, a gay counsellor on old mother Entwhistle’s third best broomstick at the top of her voice!

“I don’t have any nephews, so my niece will have to do!” screeched Griselda, “now hang on tight, me hearty, this might be a juddery landing!”

Bumpy closed his eyes and prayed. He prayed to no particular deity but to all of them, particularly the Mayor of Brumpton who was renowned for his wicked wit when it came to casting aspersions and verbal caustic dewdrops onto the backs of his underlings, especially on the rare occasions when they were actually in the wrong.

Oh mighty spirit in the heavens, he wittered, I know I’ve been a naughty boy, what with being late for history and all, and not forgetting what I called Amelia Greatheart when she wet her knickers in Geography, so forgive me and take my hand and guide me towards the light…

And as he reached the word light Griselda landed on the car-park of the Crowne and Anchor with a mighty judder.

“Cripes, she’s back,” muttered Thomas the Greek inside the pub, as he was busy diluting the lager with fresh water from a tap in the gents toilets. “I thought I’d got rid of her last time!”

But he hadn’t, because the she he was referring to was Griselda Entwhistle and there could be no doubt that she was back as she marched into the tap room of his pub, closely followed by a very bedraggled and weeping Parish Councillor.

“What’s wrong with him, then?” asked Thomas in his usually surly voice, “you been giving him a ride on that there broomstick of yours?”

“He needs to get to Brumpton and he missed the bus. Give him a pint of your best … not the stuff you were watering down when I landed but the real McCoy, and I’ll pay when I get back from the ladies,” said Griselda, and she made her way to the ladies convenience.

Now there has long been a debate in Swanspottle and its environs concerning the undisputed fact that nobody had ever claimed to see the old crone Griselda in the same room at the same time as her ravishing niece. Some said it was blind stupid coincidence and others wondered whether magic might be involved. It is up to the reader to decide.

But when when Griselda arrived in the ladies toilets she locked the door and whispered a few mysterious things to nobody. At least neither she nor anyone else (had anyone else been anywhere near) would have seen who she was muttering to. She was just muttering. And as a kind of reaction or response to that muttering things started to happen to her. For starters, her flesh lost every single wrinkle that was the product of age and the passing of too many years on Earth. Her bosom heaved and became ridiculously pert, her legs shaped themselves until the reflection of them in the mirror almost excited her. Then her clothing, the old-woman stuff she was clad in, shrivelled and shrank and morphed into the tiniest little skirt you ever did see, a necessary accompaniment to the most gorgeous pair of legs anyone ever cast lascivious eyes upon. Her woollen jumper changed as if by some miracle into a low-cut and very pretty sleeveless top that revealed an almost indecent amount of curvaceous cleavage.

And, having looked at herself in the toilet mirror she grinned a radiant grin revealing the sort of teeth a Hollywood goddess would pay goodness-knows how many dollars for and wiggled her way out of the ladies room and back towards the bar where a still shuddering and shivering Parish Councillor was trying to sip his lager without spilling it, and almost impossible task seeing that he was still shaking like a fig leaf.

“Has anyone seen my Auntie Griselda?” she asked in a voice that sounded as if it ought to be inviting someone, anyone, to join her in bed.

“Pull another one, Griselda,” muttered Thomas under his breath. He’d sussed the truth, that this apparition in feminine ecstasy and the old crone Griselda were, by some kind of deceit, one and the same person. But he wasn’t going to tell anyone, no sir, not him: both the old crone and her eccentric ways and the beautiful apparition currently grinning at a bedraggled councillor, were exceptionally good for trade, and he needed trade in much the same way as the cloth he was polishing his wine glasses with needed a darned good wash.

“Oh,” sighed the nymphet Griselda, smiling a smile that must have been cunningly crafted from meringue and best honey, and moving as close to Bumptious Tiddles as was in any way decent, and then a little bit closer, “who do have have here, then? What a sweet little fellow you are… come and sit with me, big boy, and tell me the story of your life...”

And she led him to an alcove that hadn’t been there a moment earlier, and sat him down and fixed her most perfect eyes on him before allowing the tip of her tongue to emerge sweetly between two absolutely perfect lips…

“Now this is cosy,” she smiled.

© Peter Rogerson 30.01.18