Well, I wouldn't want to live there. It's an awful place. They have bathrooms in every house, soap in every room and they wash every day. Every day, whether they need it or not!?
Evilyn spoke from the depths of the wardrobe where she was hanging upside down, her long thin legs hooked over the clothes rail, her arms folded across her chest and her red hair trailing. She was talking to Goodrun, her elder sister by two years, who was busy packing a suitcase.
"And don't expect me to visit you," said Evilyn. "It's bad enough having a sister that's only half-witch, without having to explain to my friends that she's gone to live in the mortal world, and with a batty old aunt who doesn't know a good spell from a plate of cabbage."
"I wish you'd stop moaning and do something
useful," said Goodrun.
"Like what?" asked Evilyn, who thought being useful was about as boring as being sensible.
"Like helping me pack," said an exasperated
Goodrun, suddenly throwing a pile of clothes into the air. "I'll never get all this in." She punched her hips. "I'm fed-up with packing."
"I don't know why you're bothering." Evilyn sniffed. "Only a mortal would pack things."
"All right!" Goodrun's patience was thinning rapidly, "Since you're so clever, what do you suggest??
Evilyn shrugged her shoulders. "I'd just go as I am and conjure up what I wanted when I got there. NOT," she added with great emphasis, "that I intend coming with you, in spite of what Mother says."
Goodrun sighed. "But I can't rely on my powers. They don't always work properly. I was never good at magic."
"Unlike your brilliant sister," crowed Evilyn, "who got her witches? diploma with double-black honours. Mother and Father were extremely pleased with me."
"You don't have to show off to me. I'm your sister, remember??
"Half-sister. And one who failed her final exams. Who was it who flooded out the Academy? Who destroyed hundreds of years of research into evil, and got herself expelled??
"Me. OK? Satisfied now??
"No. I'm enjoying myself." Evilyn began to swing to and fro on the clothes rail. "And," she continued, "you've been expelled from the witch world, too. You know, of course, that you'll never be able to come back."
"You can be really nasty at times," said Goodrun, stuffing a load of socks into a corner of her case.
"Yes, I can. I'm pleased to say. Your trouble is that you aren't nasty enough. Do you realize you're the first member of the Badmanners family to be nice and it's not something I'm proud of."
"But I'm not a Badmanners," said Goodrun. "Blackheart Badmanners is your father, not mine. My father was Cornelius Smith and I shall use his name from now on."
)
