la bruja novata

London orphans Charlie, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins are among a flood of kids evacuated to country villages--in their case, Pepperinge Eye, where a lack of host families means they're assigned to loner Miss Eglantine Price "for now". They discover that she's an apprentice witch by correspondence and promise to keep her secret only if they're allowed to join in the fun. Paul is given a spell to make her late father's brass bed fly them anywhere by means of a magical knob. Unwilling to miss out of the last spell, "Substituary Locomotion", they track down founding Professor Emelius Browne in London. He's a crook who never believed his spells would work, but he eagerly joins the band in the hunt for the other half of the magic book from which he borrowed, but "modernized". It means flying to the magical "Isle of Naboombu" in search of the powerful Star of Astoroth. It's to be put to use in the war effort, just in time as the Germans land in the coastal town for a terror surprise mini-invasion, only to be fought off by a magical army.