The Courage of Cat Campbell (2 page)

“I can't bear to think about such a thing,” Poppy said, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “You cannot possibly understand how that makes me feel.”

“I think I can understand what it would be like to have a passion you couldn't follow,” Tristram said gently. “Imagine how unhappy you'd be if you didn't bake, Poppy. And I'd be miserable if you wanted me to stay home all the time and get a regular job, give up my research.” He scratched his compass tattoo and said, “I love discovering new species of plants and exploring different parts of the world.”

Poppy sighed, but she didn't reply, and they both watched Cat, who was clearly trying to put a spell on one of the chickens that was pecking around the yard, waving her stick in front of its face. “I love what I do, and you love what you do,” Tristram continued, “and right now poor Cat can only pretend. She can't do what she loves. But if the day ever comes when she can, you're going to have to be prepared, Poppy.”

“I don't want to talk about this,” Poppy said, turning away from the window.

As the years passed by, Cat's passion for magic grew, even though it became clear that she hadn't inherited the magic gene. It was so unfair, Cat thought as she blew out her birthday candles year after year. Her mother was, or had been, a witch long ago—a pretty good one too, according to her grandparents. And yet she had given it all up to become a baker.
A baker!
How boring was that? Standing in a hot kitchen all day, spending hours and hours making things that would disappear in a couple of bites. What a waste of time, when you could buy a perfectly good cake from Super Savers Market. And how wonderful it must have been to be magical. Her grandmother often told her how they had first discovered Poppy had the gift of magic—how when she was a baby she had blown beautiful multicolored bubbles and how, just by waving her baby fists around, wonderful iced cakes would appear. Cat sometimes tried blowing bubbles in front of the mirror, but try as she might, all she managed to produce was a colorless bit of drool down her chin. That's what Cat thought so unfair—her mother had the gift and didn't appreciate it at all, while she, Cat, who really, really wanted it, couldn't even manage a magical dribble.

“Why on earth doesn't Mum just use magic?” Cat would sometimes ask her father, when the bakery had been particularly busy and Cat's mother was exhausted from a day spent baking batch after batch of delicious cakes and cookies.

“Take a look at
The Compendium of Witchcraft Cookery
sometime, Cat,” her father would reply with a grin. “You don't want to know what goes into those cookie spells. They say they always use all natural ingredients, but really . . . a smear of snail's slime, a wisp of worm's wind. . . . Let's be thankful Mum likes to do it the hard way. Nothing beats butter.” And he'd take another large mouthful of caramel crunch cookie.

“I'd use magic all the time if I had the gift,” Cat would say wistfully, waving a wooden spoon around the kitchen. “Abracazam!” she'd cry out, but nothing ever happened.

Most days, after school, Cat loved to watch the Ruthersfield girls come swooping along the canal path on their broomsticks, propping them outside the bakery as casually as if they were umbrellas. They'd swan through the door in their smart purple uniforms, magic wands sticking out of their backpacks. Ruthersfield Academy was the only accredited school for magic in the country, and it was right in the center of Potts Bottom. Cat would have traded her last bag of jelly beans to go there. She'd hear the girls groan about spell tests and potions class as they bought bags of sticky buns, and the longing inside Cat would grow so intense it became almost a physical ache. She had tried talking to her mother about Ruthersfield, about what it was like when she had gone there, but Poppy refused to discuss it at all.

“Magic made me miserable, Cat.” That was all she would say.

“But didn't you love flying on a broomstick, Mamma, and mixing up potions?”

“I hated Ruthersfield,” Poppy would snap with such force that Cat always let the conversation drop.

One day, unable to help herself, Cat climbed onto a smooth chestnut broomstick leaning against the side of the bakery. The teacher it belonged to came every week to buy a loaf of her mother's walnut bread. She didn't look much older than some of the year-twelve girls, with her bouncy brown curls and smooth skin, but instead of a uniform she dressed in the long purple gown the teachers wore.

“Fly,” Cat ordered the broomstick, jumping off the ground. She imagined how it would feel, soaring through the air, and Cat jumped again and again, but each time she landed with a thud.

“Do you think I might have my broomstick back, please?” the woman said, coming out of the shop, a bag of warm bread in her arms.

“Gosh, I'm so sorry,” Cat apologized, blushing with embarrassment as she handed the broomstick over. “I was very careful with it. I just wish I could fly.”

“It is fun,” the woman admitted, holding out her hand. “I'm Clara Bell, by the way. I teach magical history at Ruthersfield. And your mother makes the best bread in Potts Bottom. Actually she makes the best bread I've ever had.”

“Yes, she's an excellent baker,” Cat agreed with a sigh. “But baking is so boring. I want to be a witch, just like you. My mum got the gift, but she doesn't use it anymore, and my great-great-grandmother Mabel was an amazing witch. She invented all kinds of brilliant things.”

“Well, don't give up yet,” Clara Bell said, tucking the bread into her satchel. “I was ten when I showed my first sign of magic. A Late Bloomer,” she added with a smile.

“What happened?” Cat said eagerly, bouncing up and down. “How did it feel?”

“I was taking a shower, and I remember thinking what a boring color water was, and all of a sudden it started to run this lovely shade of lavender.” Clara Bell laughed at the memory. “I felt all tingly inside, as if my magic was fizzing.”

“Oh, I wish that would happen to me.”

But by the time Cat turned eleven, it was clear she had not inherited her mother's magical gene, although every time she blew out her birthday candles or saw a shooting star, that was the wish Cat made.

“Never mind, Cat, love,” her father said, giving her one of his big bear hugs. “When you're a little bit older you can come with me on some of my research trips. Being a botanist may not be magical, but it's full of excitement. I'd never have discovered that new species of moss if I hadn't got lost on a mountain in Tanzania.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Cat replied, unable to quite give up on her dream.

Her mother was relieved. Cat knew that. Poppy couldn't hide her feelings toward magic, although she hated seeing her daughter so sad. “We'll find you a passion you can do,” Poppy suggested, buying Cat ice skates, a paint set, and a tennis racket. She signed her daughter up for gymnastics classes, horseback riding, and rock climbing. But although Cat had fun and enjoyed trying new things, nothing could take away her desire to be a witch. The one thing in the world she couldn't have.

C
AT BURST THROUGH THE DOOR
of the bakery, bringing with her a swirl of crisp November air. “We're doing a project at school, Mamma,” she called out. “We have to dress up as the person from history we most admire and write a biography on them.”

“Oh, what fun!” Poppy said, handing Maxine Gibbons a bag of warm almond cakes. Maxine had lived next door to Poppy's parents in their little brick house on Pudding Lane for almost fifty years, and knew everything there was to know about the family. In fact, Maxine Gibbons knew everything there was to know about most people in Potts Bottom.

“Who are you going to choose?” Maxine asked, tucking the cakes in her basket. Her dark eyes gleamed with interest, and the whiskers on her chin quivered through their dusting of powder. Cat saw her mother glance at the door and knew she wanted Maxine to leave, but Maxine obviously had no intention of budging. She looked straight at Cat and gave a sly smile. At least it looked sly to Cat. “I'll never forget when your mother was at Ruthersfield, Cat; she had to do a biography project too. Remember that, Poppy?”

Poppy slammed the till shut and glared at Maxine. “I'm surprised you do. That was a long time ago.”

“Oh, I remember it like it was yesterday,” Maxine said, giving a little shiver. “You did yours on Madeline Reynolds, didn't you? The most dangerous witch in the world. I get chills just thinking about her.”

“Mamma, is that true?” Cat said in alarm. “You actually chose Madeline Reynolds?”

“Maxine!” Poppy fumed. “Was that really necessary? Or do you just enjoy frightening Cat by bringing up Madeline Reynolds? Because this wouldn't be the first time, would it?”

“All I said—” Maxine began, but Poppy cut her off.

“I know what you said. And have you forgotten that it was you who scared Cat to tears when she was only four years old? Four!” Poppy shouted. “Right here in the bakery. She hadn't even heard of Madeline Reynolds, but you had to go and tell her in vivid Maxine detail all the awful things she'd done. How she'd washed away half of Italy with one of her spells.” Cat's mother rarely lost her temper, but the way she swished her braid over her shoulder and grabbed a croissant made Cat wonder if she was about to throw it at Maxine. “Do you know I still have to check under Cat's bed sometimes, just to make sure Madeline Reynolds isn't hiding there? Which by the way is impossible,” Poppy added, “because Madeline Reynolds is locked up in Scrubs Prison and is never ever getting out.” She put her hands on the counter, crushing the croissant, and took a couple of deep breaths. “Honestly, Maxine, I have never understood why you felt the need to tell Cat about her in the first place.”

Cat noticed the look Maxine gave her mother, as if they both shared a secret and weren't saying. “Well, I thought Cat should know,” Maxine said with a huff. “Having such a big interest in magic the way she always has.”

“You gave her nightmares for years,” Poppy shouted, as Marie Claire came hobbling out of the kitchen. “So why you'd go and mention her again is beyond me.”

“Is everything all right?” Marie Claire said. She slipped an arm around Cat's waist. “What is going on?”

“Maxine was just leaving, weren't you?” Poppy snapped, marching over to the door and opening it.

“Well, really!” Maxine said, and clutching her basket against her, she scurried out of the bakery.

Cat gave a nervous laugh. “I thought you were going to throw that croissant at her head, Mamma! You looked so mad.”

“Honestly, Maxine drives me nuts,” Poppy said, managing a smile at Cat. “Always stirring the pot. Let's not waste another breath on that woman.”

“And I haven't had nightmares about Madeline Reynolds for years,” Cat pointed out. “I just like you to check under my bed sometimes because it's part of our old routine.”

Marie Claire cleared her throat. “So how was school today?” she asked in her softly faded French accent, tactfully changing the subject. She had lived at the bakery with Cat and her parents for as long as Cat could remember, helping her mother with all the cooking and keeping them company when Cat's father, Tristram, was off having one of his adventures.

“I have to dress up as my favorite person in history and write a paper about her,” Cat said.

“And who will you choose?” Poppy asked, straightening a row of cupcakes.

Cat wanted to say Mabel Ratcliff, her great-great-grandmother who had invented a way to harvest star power and had helped design one of the first rocket broomsticks to fly to the moon. But what she was most well-known for was her amazing quick-growing hair potion that came in a wonderful array of colors. Curly autumn leaf, which was a lovely deep red, and burnt caramel, which looked all glossy and smooth and made you want to lick it. Because of Mabel Ratcliff's hair invention, baldness was a thing of the past, and even though Cat hadn't inherited the family magic gene, she was still unbelievably proud of her great-great-grandmother. “I'm not sure yet,” Cat began, knowing that if she mentioned Mabel Ratcliff, her mother's face would get that tight, stressed look, the way it always did whenever Cat brought up anything to do with witchcraft. And she hated upsetting her mother. They could talk about everything else in the whole world, except Cat's love of magic.

“Maybe Antonia Bigglesmith?” Cat said, thinking her idea out loud. “She was the first woman to fly an airplane all the way across the Indian Ocean, all by herself.” The shop bell tinkled and a group of Ruthersfield girls walked into the bakery. Cat couldn't help staring at their smart purple uniforms with the thin gold trim around the edges. “Antonia Bigglesmith was an adventurer just like Dad,” Cat continued quietly.