73 pages 2 hours read

Quentin Blake, Roald Dahl

The Witches

Fiction | Novel | Published in 1997

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Chapters 10-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary: “Bruno Jenkins Disappears”

To prove to the witches that her recipe works, the Grand High Witch uses a boy, Bruno Jenkins. Yesterday, she met him in the lobby. Bruno loves to eat, and the Grand High Witch gave him a chocolate bar containing the mouse recipe. She adjusted it so that the alarm clock goes off at 3:30. She told the boy she’d give him six additional chocolate bars if he came to the ballroom at 3:25.

Bruno knocks on the door, and the witches let him in. The narrator doesn’t like Bruno. Aside from stuffing his mouth with food, the boy brags about his dad’s wealth and burns innocent ants.

The Grand High Witch begins a countdown. At 3:30, the narrator sees Bruno shrink and grow a tail and whiskers. Bruno is a tiny brown mouse, and the audience applauds the Grand High Witch. She takes out a mouse trap, but Bruno hides.

Chapter 11 Summary: “The Ancient Ones“

The Grand High Witch tells the witches over 70 to raise their hands. These witches can’t climb a tree to get gruntle eggs, they can’t run after the catsprrringer, and they can’t get the parts from the other strange creatures needed for the recipe. The Grand High Witch doesn’t want the older witches to be left out, so she made them the mouse potion, and the older witches are thankful.