The Witches Chapter 15 Summary

The Mouse-Burglar

  • Their plan works, and Grandmamma successfully lowers our narrator onto the GHW's balcony. Into her room he goes.
  • Other than a nasty smell, there isn't anything unusual about the room. Oh, except for the three frogs jumping around.
  • After a few minutes of rushed thinking, our narrator-mouse concludes that the bottle he's looking for must be hidden somewhere unusual – under the mattress, perhaps?
  • Sure enough, he's right – almost. The bottles are hidden inside the mattress, so he tears away at it (good thing he's a mouse) and out a bottle comes, the FORMULA 86 DELAYED ACTION MOUSE-MAKER.
  • As he's about the leave the room with it, though, the door opens and he has to hide. He scurries behind a bedpost while the frogs, who aren't as quick or agile, just hide under the bed.
  • In walks the GHW who basically tells the frogs that she's going to kill them later. Great.
  • Not knowing what's going on below, Grandmamma begins to worry and shouts down to her grandson. Hearing this, the GHW goes to the balcony to see who's calling.
  • Luckily, Grandmamma is quick with her thoughts. She claims that she just dropped her knitting and that she had been shouting to her grandson who was in the bathroom.
  • Not so luckily, the GHW shuts the balcony door behind her, and our narrator-mouse's escape route is blocked.
  • Just then, there's a knock on the door – it's the older witches coming to get their bottles of Mouse-Maker. As the door is opened, our narrator manages to shuffle out unseen and back up to the fifth floor. Phew.
  • He calls to his grandma, who lets him in, and together they rejoice that he successfully got the Mouse-Maker potion and that he came out of it alive. Of course, they talk once again about the creepiness that is the GHW.