Dear Aunt Hortense,

Mother told me to write and thank you for my birthday present – the nearly-new ghost trap was terrific, but was that real blood on the hinges or just some gloopy old rusty make-believe stuff? A girl does like to know what she’s showing off, you know.

What’s new? Well!

The whole neighbourhood’s been in a right old tizzy, what with old Mr Carter getting his hormonal rejuvenation spells mixed up and Mrs Jenkins catching the virus left over from the Raise the Dead festival. But nothing compares to the turmoil Sis caused trying to hide her latest pet – Mum almost turned her back to stone for that one…

One of our Spell Nights went a bit, well, a lot, wrong really. We invited that stupid hairy Harry, so Sis didn’t concentrate on the right thing at the right time. She’s had this thing for Harry since the Werewolf convention – I’ve tried telling her that hair is only skin deep, but will she listen to me? Oh no, just because I’m a couple hundred years older than her, she thinks I’m past it already – kids!

Anyway, we were trying that old human Rabbit in the Hat routine (it was kindergarten night, what can I say), and instead of the usual crocodile, we ended up with Dizzy. I should have guessed there was a problem when the hat got hot and started to glow around the edges just before he appeared – come to think of it, the purple smoke was a bit thick, too – but he was an adorable baby. He had the shiniest little black scales, tipped with purest silver. And sharp little gold claws. And a perfectly pointed tail. But you should have seen his gold-flecked green eyes with those long purple lashes, Aunt Hortense. What a hot piece of stuff!

Sis tried to keep him in the hat at first – I did try to get her to tell Mum straight away, but you know, little sisters. She hid the hat under her bed. Dizzy was small then, and Mum didn’t notice the charred socks and underwear that Dizzy nibbled on. He was starting to teethe his flame; Mum probably thought it was one of Dad’s foot fetish spells again. But baby dragons, especially males, grow fast, and after he burned down the bed one night (Sis told Mum it was one of my lightning bolts gone wrong – thanks, Sis!), we thought we’d better move him down to the swamp in the basement.

That foul-smelling wetland is still there, Aunt Hortense, left over from one of your drunken experimental spells with the Bog Beasts. It was the start of the rainy season in the swamp, so there was plenty of water around to put out most of the small fires that Dizzy started. Apparently, dragons must practice their flame-throwing every day as they approach puberty – we did have a few more roasted alligator BBQs than usual. Still, Mum probably just thought it was hunting season again.

Even then, things would have been fine without that old bat of a nosey neighbour, Wilma. She’s been suspicious of us ever since her husband flew off with that Amazon woman parrot that Dad conjured up one day – I still think he and Mr. Wilma did it for a bet… Anyway, she’s always coming over to get an extra cup of moon juice or borrow the spell book – as if she could spell anything worthwhile anyway – and then taking the opportunity to be nosey and poke around in everything.

So, the other day, while Mum was carefully measuring out some

Space atoms for her – you know how expensive those things are – she snuck off, crawled down the basement, and started nosing around. Sis happened to notice her and thought she’d better follow, what with Dizzy being down there.

Dizzy was just waking up from his nap – that’s the other thing puberty dragons do a lot of sleep – and she really startled him – well, how would you like to wake up and see that old, wrinkled bat flapping over you?! So poor Dizzy, still half-awake – dragons sleep very deeply, you know – reverted to some ancient Transylvanian habit and tried to flame-catch the old mammal.

Anyway, his flame got long and hot (he’s definitely been practising), and it caught Wilma right on the edge of her wing, with she having just finished her latest manicure.

Her ends curled up and went all charred and funny-looking, with rotten-smelling little wisps of yellow smoke curling off them. She slid and flopped her way down the wall, finally plopping down into the shallow bit of the swamp.

Sis thought the mud cooled her down a bit, but by then, Dizzy’s little reptile brain (good-looking dragon but not much up top) thought she was playing a game and flame-teased old Wilma again. She flew at him – a bit lopsidedly, mind you – and tried to bite his neck. However, his scales had become as hard as diamonds by then, and Wilma broke one of her longest fangs on him. She screeched back up to the brewing room, where Mum was trying to cook supper. Wilma caromed past in her tizzy; Mum clung to the ceiling in a sudden panic, the iguana seized the opportunity to climb out of the pot, and the live snakes slithered speedily back into the walls. That got Mum real mad ’cos Dad loves his iguana roast…

Anyway, that was It as far as Mum was concerned – Dizzy had to go.

It’s not that she really cares what Wilma could do – the old bat’s well past her prime, all she sucks on now is old, withered mice and the occasional dead seagull – but it’s the rest of the family that can be a right nuisance, hanging about the rafters and squeaking, and making proper pests of themselves.

So, with Sis in tears and me trying not to look smug, we started looking through all the Planet/Time/Space guides. We finally found a place we thought would be great for Dizzy – no humans to bother him, lots of his own kind on a young planet full of volcanoes and molten everything.

It would have been great if Sis hadn’t got the Time part of the spell wrong. I was doing the Planet bit, and at least I got that bit right, but Harry stomped by, flinging his hair everywhere, and Sis had her eyes so full of it she tangled up the spell. So, Dizzy finally left, but we lost track of exactly When.

Again, Mum was mad at us, and she cut Harry’s hair. But she relented and cast about in her crystal ball to find the missing Dizzy. She finally discovered him swimming happily in some dark, deep water. We put him at the wrong time, though, because he likes to play games with the planet’s human inhabitants and scares them terribly.

Mum said if Sis and I can work hard together and work out the proper spells, we’ll visit him next Halloween. So far, all we know is it’s in a place called Scootland or something and in Lucky Noss Pond. I guess we’ll have to call him Nossie now.

Anyway, Aunt Hortense, that’s all the news for now. We’re having a spelling bee at school next week, so cast one for me.

Love and hate,

your niece,

Magica.