Beswitched (6 page)

“Not as crazy as it sounds,” put in Pogo. “The gutter’s more like a small balcony with a stone rail—even Dulcie managed it.”

“Oh, don’t—it was so awful!”

“Anyway,” Pete went on, “we got the window open, and it was pretty easy to climb into the hidden room—though everything was absolutely covered in dust. The room was empty, except for three big trunks. They weren’t locked, so we opened them. The first was full of books—really old books. The second was just papers and writing, and the third was just sort of chemistry stuff—glass tubes and things.”

“The books were full of odd pictures,” Dulcie said. “Birds with men’s heads, funny little diagrams of suns and moons—”

“Most of them had queer writing we couldn’t understand,” said Pogo. “But one was in English, and we took it away with us—I’ll show you.” She jumped out of her bed and went over to the rug beside the window. She pulled this back and lifted up one of the floorboards underneath. “This is our secret hiding place, by the way. You mustn’t tell anyone about it.” She took something out and brought it over to Flora.

It was too dark to see more than an ancient, moldy-smelling book with rough, floppy pages. In the dim light, Flora made out pictures of people in weird clothes. The writing on the first page was so large and black that she could read it: “An Olde Wife’s Compendium of Remedies, Spells and Enchantements.”

“It’s such a scream,” Pete said. “There’s a cure for lovesickness, there’s a spell for making bread rise, and there’re heaps of spells for making rain or sunshine—not that any of them worked when we tried them—mainly because they all seemed to need things like snails’ horns and cobwebs gathered at dawn.” She grinned wickedly. “We even cast a spell to make our worst enemy go bald, but, unfortunately, her golden locks remained firmly attached to her evil head. Such a disappointment.”

“And we tried turning the lead from our pencils into gold,” said Pogo. “That didn’t work either. You’re our first success.”

Flora frowned. “Success” was the wrong word for a disaster like this. “I still don’t understand—why did you bring me here?”

“It was called a summoning,” Pete said. “There’s a whole chapter of them. We chose a spell that would ensure the blessing of a happy life by summoning a helpful demon from the future—I must say, you’re not my idea of a demon. I’m glad you don’t have horns and a pitchfork.”

“It obviously doesn’t mean the horrid sort of demon,” Dulcie said quickly. “This demon is supposed to know all the bad things that are going to happen to you—like being struck by lightning, or run over by a tram—and stop them happening.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” said Pogo, “but I don’t think you’re what we ordered—unless you’ve come to warn us about lightning, or something.”

“Of course not!” Flora hissed furiously. “I’ve no idea what’s going to happen to any of you—and I don’t bloody care!”

The others were shocked. Dulcie gasped.

“Don’t you see what you’ve done to me?” Flora was shaking with anger. “You fooled about with old spells—and thanks to you, my life’s ruined! Send me back right now!”

The three girls exchanged looks of dismay.

“What’s stopping you? I have to get back to my own time. Do the reversing spell, or whatever it is—light the candles and put the sheets on your head—and I don’t care if you all get bloody ponies, or whatever you call them.”

All three girls gasped aloud at this. Pete’s eyes had a gleam of fascination.

“The thing is,” Pogo said slowly, “there isn’t exactly a reversing spell. We—well, we’re frightfully sorry, and all that—but we haven’t the faintest idea how to send you back.”

“But you must!” Flora cried. “Or I’m stuck here in the past!” The terrible sense of loneliness swept over her again, as it had done in the head’s study. She didn’t cry this time, but she felt cold and afraid. “Don’t you see what this means? I’ll have to stay here and grow up with someone else’s parents—my own parents haven’t even been born yet. Thanks to you and your stupid magic, I’ve lost my friends, my home—everything!”

The three girls were silent for a long time. They were starting to understand the seriousness of what they had done.

“We never dreamed it would work,” Pete said.

“We didn’t think the demon would be a real girl,” Dulcie whispered.

“I’m your responsibility now,” Flora said. “You brought me here, so you’d better find out how to get me back.”

“But how?” Dulcie asked.

“That’s your problem. Right now, you all have to help me as much as possible.”

“Of course we will!” said Pete.

“I’m not doing any homework,” Flora snapped—why were they all taking it so lightly? “I was on my way to a modern school where they don’t have any homework.”

“Crikey, I’ve heard about schools like that,” said Pete. “Are your people vegetarians?”

“And there are swimming pools, and you can order takeaways …” Flora sighed, thinking of Penrice Hall, which now seemed like Paradise. “And you call the teachers by their first names.”

Dulcie giggled. “You’re telling stories!”

“We’d have to call Bradley Mavis,” said Pete.

Pete, Pogo and Dulcie burst into an explosion of giggles.

“I’m not doing any kind of work while I’m here.” Flora was impatient. What was there to laugh about? Didn’t they get that they’d ruined her life? “And I expect you lot to work twenty-four/seven till you find out how to send me home.”

The three girls were silent for a moment.

Pete said, “I’m sorry, Flora. This whole thing is mostly my fault—it was all my idea. I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

“Me too,” whispered Dulcie.

“And me, and I’ll start by giving you a word of warning,” Pogo said, in her posh, dry little voice. “If you don’t want to get in the most awful trouble, watch your language.”

“Oh, Pogo—honestly!” Pete tossed her head scornfully. “You’re such a Victorian!”

“No, I’m not. I’m stating the facts. Words like—like the ones you said just now—will probably get you expelled, and that would make things even worse.”

Pete’s eyes gleamed at Flora through the dim light. “You’re right, that would be a catastrophe. You’d better listen to her, Flora—Rhoda Pugh heard me say ‘damn’ last term, and she was so boiling mad she gave me two ponies.”

Flora did not want to be expelled. She didn’t like this awful place—but if she was expelled and sent back to India, that wretched spell would never be reversed. “OK, I’ll do my best not to say anything rude—but you might have to tell me.” She wriggled into her strange bed, with its smooth, slippery sheets, and absently picked up the bear. “ ‘Damn’ isn’t such a big deal where I come from.”

Where did she come from? When she thought of home, she saw her bedroom in Wimbledon—but she also saw a hot room with wooden blinds, where the bed was shrouded in white nets. This must be the room of the other Flora, who had come from British India in 1935, and was now (lucky cow) reveling in the luxuries of Penrice Hall.

From the next bed, Dulcie whispered, “Goodnight, Flora!”

“Goodnight.” And Flora fell into an oddly delicious deep sleep.

6
The Carver

“W
ake up! Flora, wake up! Breakfast’s in twenty minutes!” A bell was clanging, and someone was shaking her shoulder. Flora groaned. She knew, before she opened her eyes, that she was still trapped in 1935.

When she did open them, the first thing she saw was the rosy face of Dulcie. “Hello. Are you still—you know—from the future?”

“Yes,” Flora said crossly. “You’d better start keeping your promise.” She rolled out of bed and put on the other Flora’s scratchy wool dressing gown and slippers. “What’s up with Pete?”

“Miss Peterson doesn’t like mornings,” Pogo said, grinning. “Take no notice.”

Pete sat slumped on the edge of her bed, her eyes invisible behind a mess of untidy hair. She looked as if she had spent the night in a wind tunnel.

Flora wished Granny could see this. According to Granny, young girls in the past leapt eagerly out of bed at dawn and immediately jumped into an ice-cold bath. Pete had to be dragged off the bed by Pogo, and helped into her dressing gown like a sleepwalker.

“Come on,” Dulcie said kindly, slipping her warm hand into Flora’s. “I’ll show you what to do.”

Flora’s head was soon swimming with the strangeness of it all. Her first day at APS last September had been stressful enough (especially with Ella suddenly not being her best friend anymore), but at least she hadn’t had to learn the customs of an ancient civilization.

First, there was the horror of the cloakroom. It was freezing cold and smelled of disinfectant. The doors of the toilet cubicles did not lock, and you had to sit there holding the door with one hand, to stop other girls blundering in. You had to queue for the sinks—and when Flora got to the front of the queue, a tall girl with bright yellow hair roughly shoved her aside.

“Hey!” Flora protested. “I’m next!”

“Not anymore, maggot!”

“But I was before you!” Why weren’t the others doing anything to help? Furiously, Flora tried to elbow the horrible girl out of the way.

Pogo quickly grabbed her arm. “Pax—pax! She’s new, and she’s really sorry!” She hustled Flora to the sink at the end of the row, muttering, “Don’t fight with her!”

“But she’s a cow!”

“Shhh! Just hurry up!”

Flora wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time to do more than brush her teeth (the 1930s toothpaste tasted of chalk), splash her face with water and drag a comb through her stupid new hairstyle.

“Why didn’t you stick up for me?” she demanded, when they were back in the bedroom. “You must’ve seen her pushing me!”

Pogo briskly pulled her gymslip (which was what they called the boxy black pinafores) over her head. “We ought to have warned you—that’s Consuela Carver.”

“The one we tried to make bald,” Dulcie added.

“Yes, and if she’d heard you calling her a cow, she’d have got you into no end of trouble.”

“What could she do to me?”

“She says such mean things,” said Dulcie, trying to dress herself and help Flora at the same time. “And she finds ways to spoil your work.”

“Why don’t you just tell one of the teachers?”

Dulcie was shocked. “You can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Pogo said firmly, “they’ll think you’re a beastly sneak.”

“A sneak?”

“You know—a telltale.”

Flora was impatient. “So you just let that cow push you around? Oh, all right! I won’t use that word. But what’s her problem, anyway?”

“Me,” said Pete, scrabbling at the buttons on her inky white blouse. “I accidentally whacked her on the bottom with my hockey stick last term, and she wouldn’t believe it was an accident—oh, BLOW! My top button’s come off!”

“In this bedroom, we’ve made a vow of ‘All for one and one for all!’—like the Three Musketeers,” Pogo said. “If the Carver is Pete’s foe, she’s our foe. Now that you’re one of us, you must avoid the Carver as much as possible. Also her guards and toadies—Mary Denby, Gladys Pyecroft, Wendy Elliot—”

“This is ridiculous!” snapped Flora. “If the teachers refuse to do anything about the dreadful bullying problem here, you should complain to your parents!”

For some reason, the others seemed to think this was silly.

“Crikey, no!” said Pogo. “I’d only get a lecture about standing up for myself.”

“So would I,” Pete said, looking at Flora rather scornfully. “And I’d jolly well deserve it—imagine writing to your people to tell them you’re a coward!”

“Pete, come on,” Pogo said. “There isn’t time to fiddle with your button—just hoist up your tie—we don’t want to start Flora off with a pony for being late!”

Pogo was a sensible little thing, Flora thought; far sharper than Pete, though Pete was convinced she was the leader in this bedroom. It was Pogo who led them all down to breakfast. They joined the crowd of girls in identical black gymslips,
trooping along the corridor and down the big staircase—all spookily quiet, except for a few sleepy whispers.

What time was it, anyway? Practically dawn. Flora had a second of intense longing for the mornings she had at home, in the twenty-first century. She could almost smell her passionflower shower gel, and Dad’s coffee, and almond croissants warmed in the microwave. There was a smell of food here, but it was like boiled blankets.