The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner

  The Great Train Robbery

  The Truly Terrible Toothache

  The Frozen Feud

  Darby and the Submarine

  The Sheep Rodeo Scandal

  An Ant Called 4179003

  The Fire Opal

  Lord Cake and the Battle for Banwen’s Beacon

  The Time-travelling Television

  The Blackbury Park Statues

  Wizard War

  The Extraordinary Adventures of Doggins

  Rincemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor

  About the Author

  Also by Terry Pratchett

  Extract from Dragons at Crumbling Castle

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Poor Mr Swimble is having a bad day.

  Rabbits are bouncing out of this hat, pigeons are flying out of his jacket and every time he points his finger something magically appears – cheese sandwiches, socks…even a small yellow elephant on wheels!

  It's becoming a real nuisance – and he’s allergic to rabbits.

  His friends at the Magic Rectangle can’t help, but the mysterious vacuum cleaner he saw that morning may have something to do with it…

  Fourteen fantastically funny stories from master storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett, full of food fights, pirates, wizards and crooks!

  And so the journey begins, young Terry.

  Who knows where it will take you?

  Enjoy the ride!

  Terry Pratchett

  Salisbury, UK

  INTRODUCTION

  Do you believe in magic? Can you imagine a war between wizards? An exciting journey in an airship, or down in a submarine? Would you like to meet the fastest truncheon in the Wild West?

  If yes, then these stories are for you. There are all of the above, as well as a witch flying about on a vacuum cleaner, some walking talking statues, a rebel ant – and a massive pie! One of these stories was even the birth of the idea which led later to my longer book, Truckers.

  The stories were written way back when I was a lad working as a junior reporter, and they were published weekly in my local newspaper. The young readers then weren’t like you in lots of ways – they had no computer tablets or games consoles and fish and chips was the only takeaway in town. But they were exactly the same in that they wanted to read about other worlds, about strange creatures and characters, about extraordinary journeys and magic battles.

  I’ve tinkered here and there with a few details, added a few lines or notes, just because I can – and because as I’ve got older my imagination has got even bigger so I can’t stop myself adding bits and bobs. But the stories in this collection are all mostly as they were first printed.

  And enjoyed.

  By anyone with an imagination . . .

  Terry Pratchett,

  Wiltshire 2015

  THE WITCH’S VACUUM CLEANER

  Mr Ronald ‘Uncle Ron’ Swimble liked birthdays because they meant parties, and since he was a part-time conjuror that meant engagements. He could make eggs appear out of nowhere, pull flags of all nations out of people’s ears, do fifty different card tricks and was generally very good at the sort of magic that’s learned by hard practice in front of a mirror.fn1 He was President of the Blackbury Magic Rectangle too.

  Uncle Ron had a parrot called Mimms who could pick cards out of a hat and liked to shout, and a daughter called Lucy who generally stood on the stage saying very little, but who took his cloak and handed him Mimms in a cage and so on.

  All three were very happy until the night of Jimmy Waddle’s tenth birthday party at the town hall.

  Uncle Ron walked onto the stage, and all the children bellowed, ‘Hello, Uncle Ron!’ and then his hat fell off and three rabbits tumbled out.

  He bent down to pick them up and a flock of pigeons burst out of his jacket, a daffodil shot out of his ear and his bow tie began to revolve at high speed. It was all very entertaining, and young Jimmy Waddle was wide-eyed with amazement, but the most surprised person in the hall was Uncle Ron. They weren’t his tricks, and anyway, he was allergic to rabbits.

  He tried to carry on, but his act went all to pot. He did plenty of tricks, like turning a top hat into a vase of flowers and making a table disappear. But he didn’t mean to. Every time he moved his hands something appeared or vanished. He was almost in tears by the time he reached for his pack of cards, and when that turned into a glass of wine he ran off the stage.

  ‘That’s a new lot—’ began Lucy.

  ‘They’re not mine! I don’t know what’s happening! I haven’t even got any pigeons!’

  ‘Cake!’ screamed Mimms.

  The audience was still clapping, and Ronald had to go and take two bows before he could say any more. Everyone was shaking his hand and asking him how he did it.

  Finally he reached his dressing room and locked the door.

  ‘I don’t know how it happened,’ he said. ‘But it was as if all I had to do was point my finger at something, like that cupboard there, and say “Turn into a hat stand” and—’

  It turned into a hat stand.

  ‘Jam!’ screamed Mimms.

  Ronald pointed his finger at his hat.

  ‘Vanish,’ he said hoarsely. It did.

  They went home by taxi. Every now and again Ron would point his finger at things on the pavement, just to see if the magic was still there – and three lampposts were turned into a stork, a small yellow elephant on wheels, and a baby’s buggy.

  The trouble came when he paid the taxi driver. Because although Uncle Ron could turn things into other things, he didn’t have much control over what might change, or what something would turn into. So when he took his wallet out of his pocket it suddenly became a cheese sandwich. Lucy had to pay the fare out of her lunch money and the taxi driver drove off hurriedly.

  ‘The front-door key is in my waistcoat pocket,’ said Ron through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t think I can touch things any more. You’d better unlock the door in case I turn it into something unmentionable.’

  ‘Gloves!’ said Lucy. ‘That’s it! Put a pair on, and then you’ll be able to touch things again.’

  ‘I haven’t got any,’ Ron said miserably. ‘And if I had they’d turn into something as soon as I touched them.’

  Lucy fetched a pair of her red woolly ones, with daft rabbits embroidered in odd colours on the back. Sure enough, as soon as Ron touched them they changed – into socks. That gave her an idea. She went and got a pair of her father’s socks, and sure enough again, these changed into red woolly gloves as soon as he put them on his hands.

  Ron slumped down onto a chair and picked up the phone. He asked some of his fellow conjurors from Blackbury Magic Rectangle to come round at once, and soon the little house was filled with people.

  ‘Watch this,’ Ron told them, taking his gloves off and pointing at a little potted cactus. It turned into a bowl of marbles! Everyone gasped satisfactorily except for one woman, who had just looked out of the window and seen a small wheeled elephant trundling by towing a stork on a baby’s buggy.

  ‘It’s not trickery,’ said Ron. ‘It’s the real thing – proper magic.’

  ‘Marmalade!’ Mimms screeched.

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ scoffed Amir Raj, who did card tricks.

  ‘It’s all illusion,’ added Presto Changeo, who sawed his assistant in half twice nightly.

  ‘Sandwich!’ screamed Mimms, rapping his beak against his cage.

&
nbsp; Ronald turned the table into a lawn mower.

  ‘What can I do?’ he said. ‘I could make my fortune, I suppose, but I don’t want to have to wear gloves all the time. And anyway, I might turn something good into something dreadful.’

  ‘Could it have been anything you’ve eaten? Did anything unusual happen today?’ asked Presto.

  ‘Let’s see now . . . not much. The only thing unusual that I can remember is knocking over an old lady’s vacuum cleaner when I went to work this morning. It was in the car park – no idea why. She went on something dreadful about it, but she had leaned it against my car.’

  ‘Was it a small lady with a brown coat and a sort of flowerpot hat full of hat pins?’ asked Lucy, who had been listening to all this. ‘It was? Oh dear, oh dear – I never thought of that. That’s Mrs Riley, and she’s a witch.’fn2

  ‘Biscuits! Crisps! Ice cream!’ came from Mimms.

  ‘You mean she’s put a spell on me?’ said Ron, ignoring his parrot.

  ‘That’s ridiculous, magic doesn’t exist—’ began Presto Changeo, and stopped when Ron turned a pencil into a small banana.

  ‘I think that just proved otherwise,’ said Ron, picking up the banana and absentmindedly peeling it. ‘The question is, what can we do about it?’

  ‘Go round and plead with her,’ said Presto practically.

  So Uncle Ron and the other Blackbury conjurors set out for Mrs Riley’s house, which was No. 3 Dahlia Crescent, and didn’t look much as though it belonged to a witch – there were lots of pretty flowers in the front garden, for instance.

  Lucy rang the bell twice, and Presto hammered on the door. They peered through the windows, but couldn’t see very much as she seemed to have a small forest of houseplants on the sill inside.

  ‘It’s no good, she must be asleep or out,’ said Ron.

  There was a noise above them like a vacuum cleaner. It was a vacuum cleaner, and it was hovering in the air with Mrs Riley straddling it. A jet of dust was shooting out, keeping it aloft.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Swimble,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’ve come round to beg me to take the spell off?’

  ‘If you don’t mind—’ began Ron, staring at the vacuum cleaner.

  ‘I certainly do! Anyway, you’re a conjuror, always making out that you can do magic – so get rid of the spell yourself!’

  ‘We don’t do that kind of magic, ma’am,’ said Presto.

  She peered angrily at him. ‘You don’t even believe in it!’ she snapped. ‘Cats’ teeth! Card tricks and rabbits out of hats? You’re a lot of arrogant usurpers!’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘She means you’re intruding where you’re not wanted,’ said Lucy. ‘Come away, Dad, before she gets too angry.’

  The vacuum cleaner roared and started to rise again.

  ‘What a remarkable lady,’ said Ron admiringly, watching the witch zoom away over the rooftops. ‘Is there a Mr Riley? Oh, he got lost at sea, eh? Well, well, she sure is a fine woman.’

  That night Ron found it was very uncomfortable to sleep wearing woolly gloves, but he couldn’t take them off in case he turned the bed into a knife rack or a horse.

  What on earth am I going to do? he wondered. Ron had to take the next day off his ordinary job because of his magic hands. Lucy phoned up the factory where her father worked, and said he had flu, because she thought it was better to tell his boss that than the unbelievable truth.

  Presto Changeo came round at lunch time. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Can’t we get the vicar to do something?’

  ‘Mrs Riley is in the choir, and she’s embroidered thousands of kneelers,’ sighed Lucy. ‘Reverend Cowparslie would never believe she’s a witch. Anyway, she’s a nice old soul at heart, just a bit bad-tempered. I quite like her, actually.’

  ‘Perhaps if I went round to see her with a box of chocs and some flowers she might forgive me,’ said Ron, blushing.

  ‘Bananas!’ screamed Mimms.

  ‘And to think I see her every week when she comes in to change her library books,’ said Presto, who worked in the library. ‘They’re not even magic books, either. Just novels about doctors – you know the sort, Doctor Fingdangle and the Angel of Ward Ten or Love Among the Bedpans – and books on gardening, like My Troublesome Fig and Other Terrible Torments. If I hadn’t seen her on her vacuum cleaner, I’d never have believed she was a witch.’

  ‘Pizza!’ added Mimms.fn3

  ‘Gardening, eh?’ murmured Ron, who knew his nettles from his nightshade.fn4 ‘I have an idea . . .’

  After lunch he put on his best clothes, polished his top hat, stuck a few tricks in his pockets and set out for Mrs Riley’s neat little house.

  She opened the door a fraction after he’d knocked umpteen times.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Go away before I—’

  ‘Mrs Riley, I want to see you,’ he said. ‘Please let me come in or I shall take my gloves off and turn your door knocker into a penguin!’

  ‘Wipe your feet, then.’

  Sitting among the tiny tables and highly polished furniture in her little front room, peering at the witch through her little jungle of pot plants, Ron said: ‘Mrs Riley, you see before you a bewildered man. Everything I touch won’t stay the same. It’s getting on my nerves, and I’m very sorry, and, erm . . . erm . . . Mrs Riley, will you marry me?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Mrs Riley, as Ron produced a small Purple Passion houseplant out of mid-air.

  ‘Ever since my dear wife died I’ve been looking for another lady who really understood magic,’ said Ron, producing a box of chocolates from his top hat. ‘Marry me, Mrs Riley, and I’ll be the happiest conjuror in Blackbury – and if you could see your way clear to taking your spell off me I’d be glad.’

  Mrs Riley blew her nose. ‘Well, this is sudden,’ she said.

  ‘Say yes, Mrs Riley, or I will throw myself into the Blackbury Municipal Boating Lake!’ cried Ron.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  The wedding was a quiet one, and Presto Changeo, who was Best Man, lost the ring but produced a string of flags of all nations, a box of eggs, pigeons, a pack of cards, glasses and ping-pong balls from his pockets instead.

  Then the happy couple walked out of the church under an archway of top hats and broomsticks. The Rev. Arnold Cowparslie, the vicar, thought that was a bit unusual but said nothing – even when Ron and his new wife rode off on a vacuum cleaner decorated with tin cans and ribbons.

  Led by Lucy, everyone cheered.

  Except for Mimms.

  ‘Brussels sprouts!’ he screeched loudly.fn5

  THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

  I dare say you all know about the Wild West. But what many people don’t know is that there were two Wild Wests, and the wilder one by far was in Britain. Of course, this rough, tough, rip-roaring, gun-slinging place I’m referring to is Wales, and to prove it, here is the story of Police Constable Bryn Bunyan, he fastest truncheon west of the River Severn.

  The town of Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo was very small, and hardly on the map at all,fn1 until the Great Coal Rush of ’81. No sooner had an old prospector come running down the High Street with a lump of coal in his hands, shouting, ‘Coal! It’s coal! There’s coal in them there hills, look you!’ than the town was packed with people eager to strike their claim.

  Soon it had three pubs, a billiard hall and a brand-new Temperance Hotel.

  And every night there were fights between the sheepboys (like cowboys, only this is Wales) and the prospectors. Soon the place became known as ‘the toughest town in the West’.

  And so it remained, for nigh on a hundred years.

  Then one day, with the sunlight glinting on the silver star on his helmet, a tall figure in blue pedalled down the High Street of Llandanff.

  The people in the public bar of the Lump o’ Coke peered round the door as the stranger dismounted and tied his bike up outside the old police station.

  ‘It’s a policeman!’ hissed Davies the Poacher, gulpin
g down his beer and hurrying off to hide his ferrets.fn2

  The news spread like wildfire. Soon it reached the ears of Big Dai Evans,fn3 sheep-stealer, poacher and thief, who was playing billiards. He was the biggest bandit in Llandanff (which is saying a lot) and people wondered how he would take the news.

  It also came to the notice of Gorsebush Jones, a young sheep farmer and poacher.

  Later that day there was a knock on the police-station door.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked PC Bunyan, as a rather scrawny lad entered.

  ‘Look you,’ said Gorsebush hurriedly. ‘Big Dai Evans is after you . . .’ He looked quite frightened, and the wispy hairs on his chin were quivering.

  Now Gorsebush knew there was a reason why Dai Evans didn’t want any police around. He was planning to rob the noon train to Cardiff as it went through Llandanff Halt!

  Poor old Gorsebush knew about this, and his old granny was on that train and he didn’t want to see her get hurt. Pausing every few moments to peer over his shoulder, he told the policeman all about it.

  PC Bunyan listened hard, and made some calls. Then he decided to go and see for himself. Ask a few questions.

  And there was more trouble to come. Because when PC Bunyan made his rounds a few minutes later, with Gorsebush following him, he happened to go past the Lump o’ Coke.

  There was a bike outside. Swiftly testing it, the policeman found that neither the brakes nor the lights were working. He went in to find the owner, while Gorsebush sat trembling outside, then turned tail and scuttled off. You see, he knew that bike belonged to Big Dai.

  There was dead silence as PC Bunyan pushed open the door.