She repeatedly tells Earwig that she is only there to be an extra set of hands, forcing the girl to do laborious chores and sometimes even threatening not to feed her if she doesn’t do them well. Earwig also gets angry when people coming to adopt children obsess over the cute babies, stating that children aren’t dolls or ornaments for their viewing pleasure.īella is often cruel to Earwig. And when Custard says that he actually wants to find a family, she meanly tells him that nobody will ever want him. She also pinches a man’s belly and tells him to consider dieting.Įarwig tells Custard to make weird faces when adoptive parents come to the children’s home, so he won’t get picked. She purposely gets Bella Yaga into trouble with the Mandrake (though it could be argued that Bella deserved it due to her mistreatment of the girl). She coerces both Thomas and an orphan boy named Custard to help her in shenanigans (which involve lying and stealing) even after they express their discomfort. Two children talk about whether or not Martians are real.Įarwig’s desire to be in control is often to the detriment of her friends. We hear a song about witches, fairies and demons. Earwig reads about a spell to spoil a church fete. Children dress up as ghosts and play in the cemetery, which has several cross tombstones. The children’s home has a cross on its steeple. And even though it appears to be a small cottage from the outside, there are cathedral-like libraries and catacombs within the structure. The garden plants come to life to prevent Earwig from running away. Sometimes the bathroom next to Earwig’s room actually leads to the Mandrake’s den. (Earwig is also not surprised when she sees it’s Number 13 on the street.) Doors mysteriously appear and disappear. The house that Bella and the Mandrake live in seems to be magical as well.

We also see a woman turn a strand of her own hair into worms to stop the engine of a car (with a magical chomping mouth on the hood) chasing her. (We also see Bella’s wrecked workshop after she angers him.) However, he dotes on Earwig, commanding his demons (which somewhat resemble fat bats) to bring her food, books and other pleasant things.Įarwig and Thomas manage to create a few spells of their own, smearing their bodies in a protective potion to stop Bella from giving them worms and using a voodoo doll to make the woman grow extra hands from her forehead and back. We see him transform into a large, fire demon when angered, set things on fire and walk through walls. All Bella will tell Earwig is that he does dreadful things when disturbed.

The Mandrake, however, is a slightly different story. However, as Earwig learns from Bella’s familiar Thomas (a talking black cat), the threat of worms is very real and quite uncomfortable. She mixes potions (using plants, dead animals and magical words spoken in a foreign language) for a select clientele to do silly things like win dog shows or make the neighbor’s prized dahlias wither. And for the most part, her spells are harmless. She just needs to find the right mixture of cunning, adorableness and just a tiny bit of magic.Īs I said in the introduction, Bella Yaga is a witch. But Earwig believes she can make them do her bidding just like she did with the people at the orphanage. Sure, Bella Yaga is constantly threatening to give the girl worms, and the Mandrake is a powerful warlock commanding a small army of demons. And if you think their names are weird, that’s because the matron was wrong: Witches are real, and now Earwig is living with them. It also doesn’t hurt that Earwig has the matron wrapped around her finger, catering to her every whim.īut with much groaning and derision, Earwig packs up against her will and heads off to live with Bella Yaga and the Mandrake. She quite likes the children’s home: There’s plenty of sunshine thanks to all its large windows, and the cook’s shepherd’s pie is delicious. Of course, when that day finally comes, Earwig doesn’t want to leave. And she raises Earwig with the hope that one day, the girl will be adopted into a loving home. After all, there’s no such thing as witches.

The matron of the orphanage, of course, believes that’s all nonsense. She left a note explaining that she needed to shake off the 12 witches hunting her down, but that she would one day return to collect her daughter. When Earwig was just a wee babe, her mother dropped her off at a children’s home.

Earwig and the witch