Salfón was a roofcleaner. The last roofcleaner.

He would start sweeping with the sun and he would not stop until the light failed, when every roof was shining …

Every roof ?... Not quite every roof. There were two roofs Salfon was affraid to clean:

- the bell tower of the Church, which was falling down, and

 - the roof in Ruberta´s house, a witch, as people used to say

On a very hot afternoon, Salfón finished his work really flushed. He was resting when, suddenly, Ruberta invited him to have a drink in her house. He was so thirsty that he accepted despite the fact he was just a little frightened.

Ruberta lived in an old, untidy and leaky house.

"I have got such a dirty roof…", she justified.

They spoke for a long time and Salfón thought she was very nice. So, he wanted to know her real story and he dared to ask her:

"Are you a witch, as people say?"

Ruberta felt realy offended because:

- since when have you ever seen a witch dressed in pink skirt?

- since when have you ever seen a witch who owns a canary instead of a crow?...

- And what about having fairy tale books instead of black magic codexes ?...

But what really convinced Salfón about Ruberta not being a witch, was her kitchen. He could not find a single track of whistling kettles to prepare potions there, nor of skulls or rare tiny creatures, and, the main thing of all, there was not even a single track of brooms.

Even though it was already late, Salfón got down to work and he cleaned the roof of his new friend.

Salfón and Ruberta became very good friends. From that moment on, every noon Salfón would rest in Ruberta´s roof and they talked. To Salfón that was the happiest moment of the day. To Ruberta, it was happy too.

One day, Salfón did not find Ruberta at the window. He thought she might be in the attic so he went up to look through the dirty glasses of the loophole. What he saw left him petrified...

There were all the tiny creatures and objects Salfón never wanted to relate to Ruberta.

He went in and found a collection of brooms. Slowly he got onto one of them thinking it would be the final proof. If he went out flying there would be no doubt: only the witches have flying brooms...

Salfón shot out. He was so much alarmed that, if he had had hair, it would have made his hair stand on end..

Little by little he seemed to take the control. For a moment, he felt like a bird, he, the one who had never removed his feet from the roofs...

But when he began to savour that incredible journey, the broom restored him to Ruberta´s loft .

With a tremendous crash, he ended up inside a dusty kettle.

It did not take long for Ruberta to appear.

Outraged, she went wild with Salfón:

"How dare you nose about MY attic without MY authorization?"

Not less irritated, Salfón answered her:

"And how dare you to cheat me? You are a witch! A fair and square witch!"

They went down the lounge and, Ruberta now relaxed told Salfón the story of her family . It was a big family of witches and wizards in wich she had never felt comfortable.

"One day, I decided to take my stuff up to the attic and change my life".

"I went out the street to deal with my neighbours. I would have loved to be a friend of everybody, but nobody wanted to know anything about me".

"And so I ended up alone, locked up in my house, until I met you", Ruberta said.

Quickly Salfón thought and had an idea:

"Ruberta, your brooms are "special" and I think that only you could help me..."

The next day, Ruberta accomplished something that everybody had always wished and Salfón had never been able to do: to clean the roof of the bell tower of the church.

Roofs had never shone like that before. The whole village met at the square to acclaim Salfon. And Ruberta too. Now every roof was really clean. All of them.

The END