Dan wondered how he'd spend the evening. He could listen to his friend Neil say 'I'm a coward and a frog' over and over again.

When she spoke about the witches who come out after dark he seemed nervous, so she changed the subject. She told him about the time her father proposed to her mother.

A monkey stole the engagement ring shortly after the proposal. The monkey went into a shed, and he threw nuts and bolts at anyone who tried to come in. They had to negotiate with him to get the ring back. He turned down an offer of two-thousand pounds, but he accepted an offer of a bottle of washing-up liquid.

Dan felt uncomfortable when she spoke about proposals. He thought she was trying to drop a hint, so he changed the subject. He asked her about the witches. She said they'd turn you into a strange creature if you crossed them. She could see that he was nervous, so she suggested they go into the house because she wanted his opinion on a mouse.

The mouse said, "I love what you've done with the dining room." They realised that he used to be a man, until a witch turned him into a mouse. He said his name was Oliver, and the witch had turned him into a mouse because he asked her if the spiders on her head had caught anything interesting that day. He was just trying to make small talk.

The witch suddenly appeared in the room. Dan tried to remember the advice his grandfather gave him about witches.

When his grandfather gave up on the witches he tried to make his fortune by making sheep. People would buy his sheep to count them at night. He said they were better than any sleeping pill.

Dan started playing the piano to make the witch dance, but instead of dancing she started singing. It was a sad song about the sweets and liquorice she used to eat when she was young. There were tears in her eyes.

At the end of the song she disappeared in a puff of smoke. After she had gone they realised that Oliver was a man again. He went over to Joan's cat and said, "Not so big now, are you?" But the cat just fell asleep. Oliver found this humiliating. He wished he was a mouse again, especially seeing as there was a mouse wrestling tournament in Joan's attic that night.

The witch re-appeared in the room. "Sorry," she said. "I forgot my handbag." Before she left she looked over at Oliver and said, "Y' know, you wouldn't keep saying stupid things if you didn't keep putting your finger in your ear."

Bertie: Maybe we should go to Karen's house for shelter.

Roy: Shelter. Yes.
Bertie: And of course she always pours a glass of something for her visitors.
Roy: Something. Yes. She lost count of the amount of people who called to congratulate her when her garden won a prize. I heard she got so drunk that she floated to the ground like a sheet of paper and she slid right under her front door. One of her neighbours had to fold her up and push her through the letter box. Ever since then she's been afraid of being folded up into a paper plane and then blowing away on the wind. This is why she always carries an anchor. This anchor is disguised as a handbag. It's full of phones, books, various odds and ends and a pineapple.
Bertie: The last time I met her she said something about... I'm not really sure what it was about.

Bertie: I think it was something about bags.

Grey  # 6:12 AM