The Sorcerer's Apprentice

• Claire Bailey, Grade 4, Presbyterian Ladies College
• Short Story
• 2001

Finalist in the 'Zapped! 2001' competition

The sorcerer’s apprentice stood over the bubbling cauldron, stirring it impatiently. The sickly smell of roasting rat’s brains and sour bee spit only added to his misery. “All I need now,” thought the apprentice, “is a thunderstorm to hit.” Just then a flash of lightning lit up the darkened room.
The apprentice looked out the window and rolled his eyes.
“This isn’t working!” he complained to himself. He walked over to the shelf and dragged down a huge, worn, leather-bound book that had powerful spells in it. He flipped through the book and came to a page that he hoped would be right and began to chant:
“Tea leaves, turnips, turtle doves,
Be the thing my master loves.
Hot and strong, never sweet,
Never cold, full of heat!”
There was a high-pitched scream and jets of flames and out of the cauldron rose a blood-red demon. The demon was a tubby, squat thing with cruel, sharp claws and it had an ugly grin on its face.
“No,no,no,no!” yelled the apprentice.
Now his impatience had turned to anger.
“I’ve just about had enough!” he said as he shoved the demon back into the cauldron and poured the slimy mess down the drain to start again. “How many times have I done this today?” he cried. And he sat down on the floor to think again. Sooty, the sorcerer’s pet dragon, came over and put its head on his shoulder. The apprentice started to stroke the dragon’s rough, scaly back. He was getting worried now because his master would soon be awake. He started muttering to himself, something that he usually did when he was worried, but he didn’t know that he was actually muttering another spell:
“Death of a rat,
snout of a pig.
Toil of boil,
Terrible twig.”
Simmer, simmer. He heard a bubbling sound behind him and he turned and saw a giant stick insect with a snout of a pig and a tail of a rat slowly appearing through a shimmering mist of smoke. By now the apprentice had given up all hope of ever getting the spell right, so when he saw the walking twig coming towards him, he could only say, “You’ve got to be kidding!” and looked on as Sooty scorched the giant twig to cinders.
The apprentice walked over to the window and saw the sun slowly rising on the horizon, colouring the sky. He knew that his time was almost up and he had failed in his task. He sadly started packing away the spell book, the black, dirty cauldron and the now mouldy ingredients. Sooty blew sad smoke bubbles into the air and they both sat down to think up a god excuse to say to their mater when he awoke.
Suddenly, he heard his master’s groans. He heard the creaking floorboards as the master got out of bed. And he hid his face as his master boomed, ‘WHERE”S MY CUP OF TEA, LAD?”
The apprentice cried!