One day Winnifred the Witch was happily flying through the forest on her broomstick when...
She flew into something!
She picked herself up off the ground, made sure her glasses weren’t broken and that her wand was still in one piece and then looked around to see what she had flown into. She couldn’t see anything!
Winnifred started to walk forward waving her arms around to try and feel what she had walked into. She felt something hot, and scaly, and huge! “Hmm,” said Winnifred, “that feels like a dragon.”
“Oh, hello Winnie,” said a loud, sad voice coming from nowhere. “I didn’t see you there.”
“And I can’t see you at all, Diana Dragon!” said Winne, recognising the voice. “What happened?”
“Well, the wizard in the tower by the lake, he said I was ruining his view. He said he likes to look out his window over the lake and see the water and the trees and the castle and the mountains and the island and the mist, but all he could see was a great big, giant dragon, so he turned me invisible.”
“That just won’t do!” cried Winnie, “turning my friends invisible like that! I’ll just put together a potion to change you back, and then we’ll go have a talk with that wizard!”
“Hmm,” said Winne, consulting the potion book she kept in her pocket. “Anti-gravity potion, no, antibody potion, useful but not for this… ah here it is, anti-invisibility potion. We need blue paint, a blueberry dummy, mermaid scales and goblin hair.”
“Oh dear,” said Diana, “that sounds awfully complicated. Will it take a long time to gather?”
“No time at all! I have it all in here.” Winnifred the witch took off her pointy hat and stuck her arm into it, right up to the shoulder, much deeper than should fit in a hat that size. She rummaged around a bit, then said “Aha!” and pulled out all the ingredients she needed one by one, followed by a large cauldron that could never have fit in the hat, and some firewood, that appeared to actually be on fire, though nothing was burning.
Diana the Dragon might have been looking on in amazement, but as she was invisible, it was hard to tell.
Winnie put the fire down on the ground, where it started burning away happily. She arranged the cauldron over the fire, and poured water into it from her hat before adding the blue paint, blueberry dummy, mermaid scales and goblin hair. The mixture turned blue, then purple, then green and finally pink. Winnie took her wand and stirred it carefully three times clockwise, and the potion turned clear and invisible. “Perfect,” she said. “Now hold still.”
She put out her hand to make sure she knew where Diana was.
"Hubble Bubble,
That Wizard's in trouble!
His mischief I'll mend,
Let me see my friend!"
said Winnie, pouring the potion on the invisible dragon.
And just like that, Diana was visible again.
“Right then,” said Winnie, “Time to go deal with that wizard!”
The two of them marched off towards the tower by the lake.
The tower was very tall, and in the middle of a courtyard, surrounded by a high wall with a gate on one side. Winnie and Diana went up to the gate. Diana put out a claw a jiggled it. “Locked,” she said. “No getting in that way. Can we fly over the wall?”
“Not a good idea,” said Winnie, pointing to all the soldiers with bows standing on the wall. “We’d get turned into pincushions.”
“I know someone who can help us! She is very good at sneaking in and out of places!” said Diana. “My friend, Princess Peasblossom. We can go see her and ask to use the things in her magic wardrobe.”
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Princess Peasblossom was only too happy to help them. Her parents were away, so there was no problem with Diana and Winnifred coming into the castle. Besides, no one wanted to upset a witch! If she said she was coming in, and so was the dragon, it was probably better for an ordinary castle guard just to salute and agree.
Princess Peasblossom opened her magic wardrobe. “Hmm, how about these?” she suggested, holding up some headbands with mouse ears. “We can turn into mice and sneak in under the gates.”
“We?” asked Winnie, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, we,” said Peasblossom, firmly. “I’m coming too. Diana is my friend and I’d be very sad if she was invisible. Anyway, this sounds exciting.”
The three of them walked back to the wizard’s gate, where they all put on their mouse ear headbands and turned into mice.
Diana made rather a large mouse, but even she was able to fit between the bottom of the gate and the ground with a bit of wriggling.
Unfortunately, when she and the others wriggled out on the other side of the gate, they were met by two very hungry looking leopards!
“SQUEAK!” said Diana mouse.
“SQUEAK!” agreed Winnie mouse.
Peasblossom mouse was too scared to squeak, those leopards had very big pointy teeth!
All three promptly turned around and wriggled back out of the gate again, with the leopards’ teeth snapping shut just behind their tails.
“Bother,” said Winnifred, after taking the mouse ears off and becoming a witch again. “We shall have to try again.”
“We clearly need protection from those leopards,” said Princess Peasblossom when they had got back to her room in the castle. “How about the suits of armour?”
Winnie and Peasblossom put on suits of armour, but Diana struggled, she was a bit big for armour. Eventually she settled for putting the helmet on the horn on her head, and wearing the shield on her back. Winne made sure to put her witch's hat back on.
They marched off back to the tower, slower and slower as the armour was very heavy. As they approached the gate, the soldiers on the walls started getting very worried. “Attack!” they shouted. “We’re under attack by knights! And, um, a dragonknight!”
They all pointed their bows and arrows at the approaching ‘knights’. “FIRE!” yelled the commander of the soldiers, and arrows flew out towards the princess, the witch and the dragon.
“Oh oh,” said Diana.
“Eeep!” squeaked Peasblossom.
“Bother,” said Winnie, waving her wand quickly and turning all the arrows heading for them into butterflies. “Back to the castle,” she said. “Time to think again.”
Diana peered interestedly into the magic wardrobe. “How about these?” she asked, holding up some pink ballet shoes. “They’re really pretty.”
“No!” said Princess Peasblossom, alarmed. “Not those, they’re really dangerous, they make you dance!”
But it was too late, Diana had put the pink ballet shoes on a couple of her claws and had started dancing uncontrollably!
She danced through the castle, to the amazement of all the castle guards. She danced through the forest, and all the squirrels clapped as she pirouetted past their trees. She danced all the way to the wizard’s tower, with Winnie and Peasblossom hurrying after her.
The soldiers on the wall around the wizard’s tower all fell down laughing at the sight of a dragon ballet dancing! “Have you ever seen anything so silly?” they said to one another in between chortles and guffaws. They laughed so hard they dropped all their weapons, and didn’t even notice Winnie or Peasblossom.
The ballet dancing Diana jumped over the locked gates with a particularly spectacular ballet jump. The leopards were so frightened by this, all their fur stood on end and they hissed and ran away as fast as they could.
“Quick, the mouse ears!” said Winnie. The princess and the witch put on their mouse ears and ran under the gate while everyone was distracted.
Once on the other side, they took the mouse ears off, then ducking around the dancing, managed to get the ballet shoes off Diana
They had made it to the wizard’s tower.
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The door to the wizard’s tower wasn’t locked. “That’s strange,” said Princess Peasblossom. “I guess he was relying on the leopards and things to keep people away.”
They climbed up the stairs to the top of the tower, Diana with a bit of difficulty as she was almost too big for the narrow staircase.
At the very top of the tower, in a room full of books and crystal balls and wizardly things, they found the wizard. He was a small man, with a bushy beard (all wizards must have beards, it’s in the wizards’ rule book) and a face that scowled a lot. He was wearing green robes with stars on (another wizard rule is the wearing of robes) and a pointy hat (also in the rules).
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“Harrumph,” he said, grumpily, when he saw them. “I suppose it was you making all the noise? Well you can just go away. I don’t know, kids these days, making lots of noise and spoiling my view. Harrumph. Now go away before I cast spells at you!”
Winnifred the Witch stood up very tall and shook her finger at him. “You are a naughty little wizard, turning my friend invisible. Don’t you go bossing us around and expecting us to do everything you say. What sort of wizard are you anyway?!”
“A very great wizard! I turned her invisible to teach her not to get in my way. She was blocking my view of the magic plum trees, and I couldn’t think of a plan to get a plum with a great big dragon blocking my view,” shouted back the angry wizard, his face starting to turn red.
“You say sorry right now, or… I’ll turn YOU invisible!” said Winnie, pointing her wand at him.
“Fine, if you’ll all go away and stop bothering me. Oh, and bring me a purple plum. I need it for my magic.”
“A purple plum?” asked Princess Peasblossom, confused.
“Yes, they grow on very tall trees, on an island in the middle of the lake. Only dragons can reach them. I need a dragon to go get me one. I worked out that plan once I turned the dragon invisible and I could see the trees again.”
“Um,” said Diana. “You could have just asked me to go get you a plum. There was no need for you to turn me invisible.”
“Ask?!” shouted the wizard, going bright red and with sparks coming out of the top of his pointy hat. “I don’t ask, I command! You WILL go get me the plum, or I shall turn you invisible again!”
“Ahem,” said Winnie, pointing her sparkling wand at the wizard.
“Ok, fine. Whatever. How about go get me that plum and I won’t turn you invisible?” tried the wizard.
“Closer, but not quite,” said Princess Peasblossom. “You are more likely to succeed in life if you are friendly, Mr. Wizard.”
“Yes, we got in here because we asked our friend for help,” agreed Diana.
“So…” prompted Winnie.
“Fine…” sighed the wizard. “I’m sorry I turned you invisible, now will you please go get me a purple plum from the island in the middle of the lake?”
“Sure,” said Diana, smiling and showing off all her sharp pointy dragon teeth, “no problem.”
They all went down to the courtyard, where Diana put on her special swimming goggles (for just in case she fell in the water) and flew out to the island, got a purple plum off the tallest tall tree, and flew back. It only took a few minutes. She presented it to the wizard.
“Well,” said the wizard “I was going to use this plum as part of a spell to turn everything else in the forest into monsters to serve me and do my bidding.”
"Err ," said Princess Peasblossom, Winnifred the Witch and Diana Dragon, giving each other wary looks.
“But since we’re friends now,” continued the wizard, “I think I’ll use it to make delicious plum pudding instead.”
And he did, and they all had a very tasty dinner and dessert with their new friend.
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