AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
When the narrator, a young boy, is just seven years old, his parents (Norwegian immigrants to England) die in a car crash while the family is visiting the child’s maternal grandmother, Grandmamma. Grandmamma, a kindly woman with a habit of chain smoking cigars, takes the boy in. And, because she is both Norwegian (and Norway is rife with witches) and a former witchophile herself, Grandmamma begins to teach the boy about witches. Witches look like ordinary women, but they are devilish fiends intent on ridding the world of children, whom they find extremely stinky. All witches are bald, lack toes, and have claws instead of fingernails. Unfortunately, they’re able to disguise most of these signs by wearing wigs, gloves, and pointy shoes. The witches of each country have an annual convention, during which the Grand High Witch of All the World visits and gives them instructions.
Due to the terms of his parents’ will, the boy and Grandmamma must move back to England, where the boy soon discovers that there’s a witch living in their neighborhood. Fortunately, thanks to Grandmamma’s lessons, he’s able to evade her. But when the boy and Grandmamma find themselves vacationing at a hotel in Bournemouth, the boy accidentally stumbles into the annual convention of the English witches.
Get the entire The Witches LitChart as a printable PDF.
From a hiding place in the ballroom where the witches have gathered, the boy watches as the Grand High Witch criticizes the English witches for their low rate of child-squashing, fries a witch who dares to disagree with her, and reveals her plan to turn all the English children into mice with her new Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker potion. She demonstrates this potion by turning an objectionable little boy named Bruno Jenkins into a mouse. Unfortunately, the witches discover the boy and turn him into a mouse, too.
Grandmamma is surprised to discover the change in her grandson, but she soon rallies. Together, they hatch a plan to give the witches a taste of their own potion. With Grandmamma’s help, the boy breaks into the Grand High Witch’s hotel room and steals a bottle of the potion, then sneaks into the kitchen and laces the soup for the witches’ banquet with it.
Back in the dining room, Grandmamma reunites Bruno with Mr. Jenkins just as the witches transform into mice. Hotel staff and panicking patrons attack and kill every last one. Calmly, Grandmamma and the boy leave the hotel—and England—for good.
Back in Norway, Grandmamma makes her home comfortable and accessible for the boy in his new mouse form. She estimates that he has about nine years to live—much longer than a regular mouse but less than a human. She also tells him that she was finally able to discover the location of the Grand High Witch’s lair, which isn’t too far from where they live in Norway. Together, grandmother and grandson plan to infiltrate the lair, poison the witches there with Formula 86, and feed them to cats. Then, they’ll raid the Grand High Witch’s records to discover the names and locations of witches around the world. They decide to spend their remaining years tracking down and disposing of witches all around the world in the same way.
