A Cleaning-Up Magic Spell!

By Flippy Binkles

Dolcy and Chinny lived in a big apartment complex named ‘Peep Ho Woods’, in a crowded city called Bingle Bo. The little kids were brother and sister and dearly loved their pretty cat, Cherry, who lived with them. Ginger, a cuddly and friendly outdoor cat, was a frequent visitor to their home: he would drop in almost every day for lunch.

The kids loved going to their school, which had a big playground. But the part of the city where they lived was very crowded, with many big cars, bikes, and even buses and trucks, that buzzed around all day on narrow lanes lined with rubble from construction sites and neglected heaps of garbage. Because of this, generally, the kids stayed home after school, rarely venturing out.

In the afternoons, when they had finished their homework, Dolcy and Chinny loved listening to songs, talks and quizzes on the radio. How much they learned about the world that way!

One day, while listening to the news on their radio set, Dolcy and Chinny heard that their city had topped the list of places with the longest traffic jams and the most pollution. As you can imagine, they were very sad on hearing this announcement.

“Do you think there’s anything we kids could do to make our city cleaner and less crowded?” asked Dolcy.

“Hmmm, let me think,” Chinny replied.

Now, Chinny had read many fairy tales, in which elves, goblins, pixies, witches and wizards made all sorts of magic spells. And so, after thinking for a bit, she exclaimed,

“I’ve got a brilliant idea! What about coming up with a magic spell to clean up our city?”

“Wuppy! That’s such a brilliant idea!” Dolcy said excitedly.

“I remember reading about a wizard who made a spell for cleaning up his castle. Maybe we could use that same spell to clean up our city, too,” Chinny explained. “But it needs many things that go into it, I have to say.”

“Oh do share the spell with me,” Dolcy pleaded.

“Hmmm, if I remember correctly, we need to collect two early morning paw marks of a six month-old brown puppy, the voice recording of the midnight meow of a tabby cat, a teaspoon of dawn-time dew from a bunch of four-leaf clovers, a patch of a moonbeam, some dust from a spider’s web, a few particles of pollen from a pond-lily, some sparkle left behind by a glow-worm and a few more such strange ingredients. These need to be mixed together in a pan, over which we need to recite some magic words, and then, all of a sudden, our city will turn spick and span and will look brand new!” said Chinny very authoritatively.

“Wow, Chinny, this sounds great! But, tell me, who’s going to put together all the many things that this magic spell requires?” Dolcy responded. “I know I can’t and won’t.”

“Oh don’t you worry,” Chinny calmly assured Dolcy. “We kids won’t have to do any of that. All we need to do is to share the idea with someone else, and they can arrange to get things done. So, we can write out the spell, put it in an envelope, along with a letter explaining what it is all about and how it is to be used, and post it to the mayor of our city. It’s our mayor’s job to see that our city is clean, and so, it’s for him to put together all the things that are needed for the spell to work.”

“Oh my! Chinny, really! I never knew you were so very clever!” Dolcy exclaimed. “Come, let’s rush to Mummy to share this plan of ours with her and get her to give us a pad to write out the magic spell and the letter for the mayor.”

“We better do this right away, or else I might forget one or other ingredient for the spell and then it won’t work!” said Chinny as she rushed to her feet.

The children together raced to the garden outside, where their mother was laying out their afternoon tea, to tell her all about their great idea for cleaning up their city!