Jennifer Jane takes to the air 1/4

Jennifer Jane was bored. It didn't happen very often but she had been to visit the goblin village and for once, everyone was too busy to spend any time with her.

She had been to see the giant but for some reason, he hadn't noticed her and she knew that she wouldn't be able to make him hear her, no matter how loudly she shouted, unless he'd seen her first.

Using one of her three wishes for the day, she had been to the Wish Warehouse. Lieutenant Moonshine had been very firm, "I'm sorry, Jennifer Jane but we're far too busy today for sight-seeing or idle chat."

"Could I go and see the Clerk of the Weather then, please?" asked Jennifer Jane politely.

"Well, you can if you really want to but he's just as busy. It's the change of the season you know and we're all rushed off our feet."

"Perhaps I'd better not go there then," said Jennifer Jane sadly.

"Never mind," said Lieutenant Moonshine kindly; "I'll send you back to the magic clearing without using any more of today's wishes."

So that's where she was, wondering what to do next. ‘I think I'll go home and see if it's time for elevenses,’ she thought and started off on the path home.

She'd only walked a few yards when she noticed something strange sticking out of one of the bushes.

"It looks just like a birch broom growing out of the top." She went over and pulled and out came a very old, battered witch’s broom.

Jennifer Jane suddenly remembered, "this must be Abigail's old broom which was left behind when she crashed here. I got her a new one and this one's been here ever since."

Well, she wasn't bored any more. "It's still got a little bit of glittery paint. I wonder if I could make it fly?"

She sat astride the broom and tried lots of commands. "Rise up. Fly. Gee-up. Go, broom, go."

Not a movement.

'Oh dear,' she thought, 'there's probably not enough glitter left and now it's just an ordinary broom again. I wish I knew how to make it fly. It would be such fun.'

Well, that was her second wish for the day.

She suddenly realised that you didn't talk to a broom to make it fly, you just had to think what you wanted to do and the broom did it for you. She sat on the broom again and carefully thought herself about three feet up in the air. Up she went. Then she flew slowly round in circles for a moment to get the feel of things.

"I know what I'll do; I'll go and see Barnacle Bill. He will be surprised!"

She flew carefully through the wood to the giant's pool and waved to him as she flew past but he still didn't seem to notice her. Following the stream, she entered the magic fog.

"Therdle Estuary, please," she called out and a few seconds later she was flying over the water towards Barnacle Bill's island harbour.

By now, she was getting used to flying and she went higher and higher, until the estuary was spread out below her, so that it looked just the same as it did on Dad's map. Over to her right, she could see the goblin boatyard and even further away, the open sea. She noticed a rather large sailing boat on its way out to sea and thought she'd fly over and have a quick look before going to see Barnacle Bill.

The broom flew towards the boat and dropped lower so that Jennifer Jane could have a good look. The closer she got, the more she became convinced that it was the boat she had seen being built when she was last at the goblin boatyard. It had two masts, with ordinary looking sails on the back mast and square sails on the front, not at all like the yachts that she had seen before on the river.

All the sailors waved as she flew past and that made her sure that it was the Davy Jones' brig, as she was quite certain that she would be invisible to ordinary people while she was flying on a witch's broomstick.

She had just started to turn round to fly past the brig and go back to see Barnacle Bill, when the broom began to wobble. Too late she remembered Abigail saying how often it had let her down. The broom flew slower and slower and wobbled even more and then suddenly, splash, both the broom and she fell into the sea.