The Imposter 8/9

Jennifer Jane invited the lady back to her room at the parsonage. Then as soon as she’d had a bath, they settled down quietly for their talk.

“My name is Ermintrude, I’ve always been embarrassed about being so tall, the children in my village used to laugh at me and ask if it was very cold so high up and was there any snow on my head?” she told Jennifer Jane.”

She shivered a little at the memory. “When I grew up I decided to become an apprentice witch, so that people wouldn’t laugh at me any more, but the witch wasn’t very nice and I gave up after a few months. Then one day I found the young dragon. His parents were among the last to be killed before you made all the dragons eat coal and he’d nowhere to go. I said I’d look after him, so that he wouldn’t be killed as well and we got along fine at first. Then the people in my village started saying that he’d have to be killed before he grew too big, so we ran away.”

The witch looked sad at the memory. “That’s when I got the idea of impersonating you, so that we could live for nothing by travelling around the countryside. You see the only spell I ever really leant to do well was that fireball, I’m jolly good at lighting fires to keep us warm at nights, if we can’t find a place to sleep indoors.”

“What’s the dragon’s name?”

“I don’t know his real name, I just call him Fred. He never learnt to talk and I don’t know how to teach him, so I just treat him as a pet and we get along very well. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t be Jennifer Jane any more can I?”

Jennifer Jane smiled. “I’ve had a few ideas while you’ve been talking. I think I know how to settle you and your pet near the Witches’ Home. That is if you’d like to come back with me. It’s only an hour or so on my scooter, if you don’t mind riding pillion. I suppose Fred can fly?”

So it was that afternoon, that the two ‘Jennifer Janes’ and a dragon called Fred, flew off from the village on the scooter. Most of the villagers turned out to wave them goodbye. Jennifer Jane noticing that the parson and the blacksmith were still looking suspiciously sticky round their mouths.

Long before sunset, they all landed near the woods just opposite the Witches’ Home. Esmerelda and Dulcibella were looking sadly at a small heap of sticks smouldering under their cauldron, while one of the witches from the Home was flying back towards the Gate.

“Oh lor’, more trouble,” said Esme.

“Yers ‘sprobably right,” grunted Dulce.

“Still having problems with smoky fires I see,” said Jennifer Jane brightly, as she got off her scooter.

“Brilliant, you must be psychic!” said Esme sarcastically.