With only five days left to complete the Impossible Task, Seven uses a highly risky and advanced spell to make the Witchlings look like elderly women so they can attend the town council meeting. Mr. Dimblewit is the first council member to speak, and he deplores that three towns’ Uncles have been abducted. He blames Spares for the recent cuco attacks because disasters struck during the last Impossible Task in 1965. He proposes that they be sent to Pollepel Island, where murderers are imprisoned, and used as forced labor.

The Witchlings swipe Mr. Dimblewit’s scarf so they can use the memory potion on it, but the aging spell wears off before they can exit the meeting. Mr. Pepperhorn seizes Valley and calls for the Gran’s imprisonment because preventing the town’s Witchlings from using illegal spells is her responsibility. Three council members whose families were attacked by cucos are absent, so the Gran’s opponents win the vote to send her to prison. As the security guards take her away, Gran tells the Witchlings, “You are capable of so much more than you know. Stick together, remember!” (243). Seven and her parents confront Mr. Pepperhorn for mistreating Valley, and he tries to use illegal combat magic on them.