Granny Goodwench, pudgy and ugly, sat grimly on the green room bench, awaiting her summons. Her opponent, Preston Judd, a middle-aged man dressed in worn coveralls, sat nearby. They did not speak to each other.

 

Next door, in a large courtroom with television cameras and plenty of seats for a live audience, Judge Jessie was haranguing the defendant in a small claims suit in a hilarious fashion. Everyone in the courtroom, even the defendant, was laughing in appreciation of her patented scolding.

 

Once she pronounced her judgment, the defendant and plaintiff were whisked off into a hallway to be interviewed about their predictable feelings. Then Granny Goodwench and her nemesis were summoned to the courtroom.

 

All the introductory information showed up on the monitors, so Judge Jessie turned to Granny Goodwench for an explanation of her complaint. Granny pointed to her only exhibit: a hand carved stick, four feet long with the streamlined housing of a small jet on one end and a joystick on the other. “It’s me broom,” she said. “It won’t fly.”

 

“Suppose you tell us the whole story,” suggested Judge Jessie. “What do you have against Mr. Judd?”

 

“Well, he’s a repairman, isn’t he?” asked Granny. “He’s got a big sign outside his shop that says so. I took my broom to him, told him it wouldn’t fly, and he said he could fix it. He charged me six thousand dollars!” She strode over to the table where the broom rested. “Look at it. All I wanted was for it to fly, but he’s turned it into a space age monstrosity!”

 

Judge Jessie turned to Preston Judd. “Mr. Judd, what’s your side of this story?”

 

Judd nodded and began. “This woman came into my shop complaining that her broom wouldn’t fly. She said it used to fly, that she’d been ill for several months, and now it wouldn’t. Could I make it fly, she asked. I said I could, but it would be expensive. It was work that is out of my usual line.”

 

“What is your usual line?” asked Judge Jessie.

 

“Toasters, microwaves, sometimes a television or remote” answered Judd. “Anyway, she said to do whatever it took, and not to worry about the cost. So I did.”

 

“I thought he was just going to renew the spells on it!” interrupted Granny indignantly. “He never said he was turning it into a fancy machine!”

 

“Does it fly?” Judge Jessie asked her.

 

“No. I give it my usual commands, and it just sits there. And it’s too heavy for me to lift!”

 

“It does, too, fly!” interrupted Judd. “I spent whole days on it.” He took a deep breath. “The actual flight was easy, with a small anti-gravity generator and a small jet for propulsion, but stabilizing it without wings was really tough. I had to use a computerized gyroscope with twenty-eight micro-nozzles for adjustments. Look!” Judd strode over to the table and pressed a button on the joystick. A soft hum began, and the broom floated up above the table and hovered there. “It’s got a small matter transference engine, so all she has to do is drop a small dirt clod or something in the hopper, and it’s good for a week,” he added.

 

  “It appears to fly,” Judge Jessie remarked, looking significantly at Granny.

 

“He’s ruined my broom!” Granny wailed.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I can’t lift it. I can’t sweep with it. It won’t obey any of my commands. It’s ruined!”

 

Judge Jessie looked pointedly at the broom floating comfortably above the table. “It doesn’t appear to need carrying. And since you apparently rely upon this for transportation, not using it for sweeping would seem reasonable—that might damage it. Get a vacuum cleaner. But the question of commands is a good one.” She looked at the defendant. “Mr. Judd?”

 

Judd nodded. “The joystick is the most simple and reliable I could find. There are two buttons: an on-off switch, and a trigger as an accelerator. The knob is sensitive to hand pressure: pull up, you go up; push down, you go down; left is left, right right.” He continued proudly, “It won’t back up, but it turns within its own length. Top speed is about forty, and its load capacity is over three hundred pounds, so she could hang groceries or whatever from it in a cargo net without straining the engine at all.“

 

“Did you give the plaintiff that information when she picked up the broom?”

 

“I can’t pick it up!” cried Granny.

 

“Right,” agreed the Judge. “When she took possession of her broom?”

 

“Yes, I did. I gave her a written copy of the instructions, and even demonstrated it.” He hesitated a moment. “That’s when she went into hysterics.”

 

“Not when you gave her the bill for all this work?” asked Judge Jessie.

 

“No, she’d already paid the bill before I showed it to her. There wasn’t any problem with that.”

 

Judge Jessie looked over at the plaintiff. “Ms. Goodwench, I don’t see the problem here. You needed the broom to fly, you took it to Mr. Judd, and he made it fly. You paid the bill without any fuss. What is your complaint?”

 

“It doesn’t obey my commands.”

 

“Surely the joystick is simple enough?”

 

“I’m a witch,” Granny said proudly. “I don’t do joysticks.”

 

“Ah!” Judge Jessie nodded with sudden understanding. “You are a magic user, not a technician.”

 

“Yes, exactly.”

 

“But you took the broom to a technician for repairs. What sort of repairs did you expect?”

 

“His sign just said ‘Repairs;’ it didn’t say what kind.”

 

“You didn’t ask?” questioned the Judge. “Who do you usually go to for repairs?”

 

“I’ve always done my own,” said Granny. “But I’d been sick. So I looked in the phone book under ‘repairs.’”

 

Judge Jessie looked startled. “You have a phone?”

 

“No. But I do have a phone book,” said Granny. “It’s the only book I know that lists the people and businesses in the community.”

 

“So when you found Mr. Judd’s business, and saw his sign, you didn’t ask what kind of repairs he does?” inquired the Judge.

 

“I’d never needed someone else to do repairs before.”

 

“It seems to me you might have asked. Did Mr. Judd strike you as a magic user?”

 

“If he’d tried, I’d have turned him into a frog.”

 

“Of course,” said the Judge. “Silly question.” She turned to Mr. Judd. “Mr. Judd, didn’t it seem strange to you that someone like Ms. Goodwench would come to you for repairs to a broom that had no technical components? That was just a stick with bristles tied to one end?”

 

“If the broom had been like that, you’re right, it would have been strange. But I noticed as soon as she showed it to me that the bristles contained a static field generator to help collect dust and particles.”

 

“To improve its sweeping ability, in other words.”

 

“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Judd.

 

Judge Jessie turned back to Granny. “Well, Ms. Goodwench, what about this? How is it a magic user has a broom with technical components?”

 

Granny frowned. “It was a gift from me son,” she admitted. “He’s got no magic, poor fool. He thought the broom could use the help.”

 

Judge Jessie thought. “So when you were ill, the metals in the static field generator broke down the spells used for flying.”

 

“Aye.  And I’ve been weak enough that I couldn’t put me own spells back on it. I’m better now.”

 

Judge Jessie nodded again. “But the broom, as it has been altered by Mr. Judd, is beyond the reach of most magic.”

 

“Aye. Now you see.”

 

Judge Jessie paused dramatically for several seconds, then abruptly whacked her gavel on the desk. “Ms. Goodwench, it seems to me that you have a choice before you. You made a legal business transaction with Mr. Judd, and he has dealt with you in good faith. Ignorance is no excuse. You should have asked. Caveat emptor. Stop whining and buy or make a new broom! As for Mr. Judd, he owes you nothing.” She whacked the gavel again, and announced, “Case closed!”

 

Granny’s face had turned from its usual unpleasant puce to an angry burgundy as Judge Jessie gave her judgment. She began muttering angrily, then her strange words grew louder, ending in a shriek as she suddenly flung her right arm out to point directly at Judge Jessie. With a deafening crack, a lightning bolt zigzagged from Granny’s hand across the room—only to fizzle when it struck the Judge’s gown.  Judge Jessie calmly examined the smoldering spot on her gown, frowned, then raised her arm and made an arcane gesture with her right hand. There was a soft popping sound, and Granny’s grubby form became shorter and fluffy white, with four legs.

 

Unsurprised, the bailiff draped a rope around her neck and led Granny out to be interviewed about her predictable bleatings.

 

“Why is it always,” Judge Jessie asked, “the magic users found in contempt of court?”