'I know a great many secrets,' she said, and suddenly she smiled. It was a thin icy smile, the kind a snake might make just before it bites you. 'Come over here to Grandma and she'll whisper secrets to you.'
George took a step backwards, edging closer to the door.
'You mustn't be frightened of your old Grandma,' she said, smiling that icy smile.
George took another step backwards.
'Some of us,' she said, and all at once she was leaning forward in her chair and whispering in a throaty sort of voice George had never heard her use before. 'Some of us,' she said, 'have magic powers that can twist the creatures of this earth into wondrous shapes . . .'
A tingle of electricity flashed down the length of George's spine. He began to feel frightened.
'Some of us,' the old woman went on, 'have fire on our tongues and sparks in our bellies and wizardry in the tips of our fingers . . .
'Some of us know secrets that would make your hair stand straight up on end and your eyes pop out of their sockets . . .'
George wanted to run away, but his feet seemed stuck to the floor.
'We know how to make your nails drop off and teeth grow out of your fingers instead.'
George began to tremble. It was her face that frightened him most of all, the frosty smile, the brilliant unblinking eyes.
'We know how to have you wake up in the morning with a long tail coming out from behind you.'
'Grandma!' he cried out. 'Stop!'
'We know secrets, my dear, about dark places where dark things live and squirm and slither all over each other . . .'
George made a dive for the door.
'It doesn't matter how far you run,' he heard her saying, 'you won't ever get away . . .'
George ran into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
The Marvellous Plan
George sat himself down at the table in the kitchen. He was shaking a little. Oh, how he hated Grandma! He really hated that horrid old witchy woman.
And all of a sudden he had a tremendous urge to do something about her. Something whopping . Something absolutely terrific . A real shocker . A sort of explosion. He wanted to blow away the witchy smell that hung about her in the next room. He may have been only eight years old but he was a brave little boy. He was ready to take this old woman on.
'I'm not going to be frightened by her ,' he said softly to himself. But he was frightened. And that's why he wanted suddenly to explode her away.
Well . . . not quite away. But he did want to shake the old woman up a bit.
Very well, then. What should it be, this whopping terrific exploding shocker for Grandma?
He would have liked to put a firework banger under her chair but he didn't have one.
He would have liked to put a long green snake down the back of her dress but he didn't have a long green snake.
He would have liked to put six big black rats in the room with her and lock the door but he didn't have six big black rats.
As George sat there pondering this interesting problem, his eye fell upon the bottle of Grandma's brown medicine standing on the sideboard. Rotten stuff it seemed to be. Four times a day a large spoonful of it was shovelled into her mouth and it didn't do her the slightest bit of good. She was always just as horrid after she'd had it as she'd been before. The whole point of medicine, surely, was to make a person better. If it didn't do that, then it was quite useless.
So-ho ! thought George suddenly. Ah-ha! Ho-hum ! I know exactly what I'll do. I shall make her a new medicine, one that is so strong and so fierce and so fantastic it will either cure her completely or blow off the top of her head. I'll make her a magic medicine , a medicine no doctor in the world has ever made before.
George looked at the kitchen clock. It said five past ten. There was nearly an hour left before Grandma's next dose was due at eleven.
'Here we go, then!' cried George, jumping up from the table.
George Begins to Make the Medicine
George took an enormous saucepan out of the cupboard and placed it on the kitchen table.
'George!' came the shrill voice from the next room. 'What are you doing?'
'Nothing, Grandma,' he called out.
'You needn't think I can't hear you just because you closed the door! You're rattling the saucepans!'
'I'm just tidying the kitchen, Grandma.'
Then there was silence.
George had absolutely no doubts whatsoever about how he was going to make his famous medicine. He wasn't going to fool about wondering whether to put in a little bit of this or a little bit of that. Quite simply, he was going to put in EVERYTHING he could find. There would be no messing about, no hesitating, no wondering whether a particular thing would knock the old girl sideways or not. The rule would be this: whatever he saw, if it was runny or powdery or gooey, in it went.
Nobody had ever made a medicine like that before. If it didn't actually cure Grandma, then it would anyway cause some exciting results. It would be worth watching.
George decided to work his way round the various rooms one at a time and see what they had to offer.
He would go first to the bathroom. There are always lots of funny things in a bathroom. So upstairs he went, carrying the enormous two-handled saucepan before him.
In the bathroom, he gazed longingly at the famous and dreaded medicine cupboard. But he didn't go near it. It was the only thing in the entire house he was forbidden to touch. He had made solemn promises to his parents about this and he wasn't going to break them. There were things in there, they had told him, that could actually kill a person, and although he was out to give Grandma a pretty fiery mouthful, he didn't really want a dead body on his hands. George put the saucepan on the floor and went to work.
Number one was a bottle labelled GOLDEN GLOSS HAIR SHAMPOO. He emptied it into the pan. 'That ought to wash her tummy nice and clean,' he said.
He took a full tube of TOOTHPASTE and squeezed out the whole lot of it in one long worm. 'Maybe that will brighten up those horrid brown teeth of hers,' he said.
There was an aerosol can of SUPERFOAM SHAVING SOAP belonging to his father. George loved playing with aerosols. He pressed the button and kept his finger on it until there was nothing left. A wonderful mountain of white foam built up in the giant saucepan.
With his fingers, he scooped out the contents of a jar of VITAMIN ENRICHED FACE CREAM.