Witch Week (14 page)

It was nearly time for the bell before Charles sorted all this out. Hastily he scrawled:
Our shoes all went to play games. I thought about potatoes having hair hanging on a rope. I have games with a bad book.
As Mr. Crossley told them to put away their journals, Charles thought of something else and dashed it down.
I shall never be hot again.

Nan wrote nothing at all. She sat smiling at her empty page, feeling no need to describe anything. When the bell went, as a gesture, she wrote down the date: October 30. Then she shut her journal.

The instant Mr. Crossley left the room, Nan was surrounded. “You got my note?” People clamored at her. “Can you make it that whenever I touch a penny it turns to gold? Just pennies.”

“Can you make my hair go like Theresa’s?”

“Can you give me three wishes every time I say Buttons?”

“I want big muscles like Dan Smith.”

“Can you get us ice cream for supper?”

“I need good luck for the rest of my life.”

Nan looked over at where Simon sat, hunched up with cunning and darting shrewd, stupid looks at Nirupam, who was sitting watchfully over him. If it was Simon who was responsible, there was no knowing when he would say something to cancel her witchcraft. Nan refused to believe it
was
Simon, but it was silly to make rash promises, whatever had made her a witch.

“There isn’t time to work magic now,” she told the clamoring crowd. And when that brought a volley of appeals and groans, she shouted, “It takes
hours,
don’t you understand? You don’t only have to mutter spells and brew potions. You have got to go out and pick strange herbs, and say stranger incantations, at dawn and full moon, before you can even begin. And when you’ve done all that, it doesn’t necessarily work right away. Most of the time, you have to fly around and around the smoking herbs all night, chanting sounds of unutterable sweetness, before anything happens at all. Now do you see?” Utter silence greeted this piece of invention. Much encouraged, Nan added, “Besides, what have any of you done to deserve me going to all that trouble?”

“What indeed?” Mr. Wentworth asked, from behind her. “What exactly is going on here?”

Nan spun around. Mr. Wentworth was right in the middle of the room and had probably heard every word. Around her, everyone was slinking back to their seats. “That was my speech for the school concert, sir,” she said. “Do you think it’s any good?”

“It has possibilities,” said Mr. Wentworth. “But it will need a little more working up to be quite good enough. Math books out, please.”

Nan sank down into her seat, weak with relief. For one awful moment, she had thought Mr. Wentworth might have her arrested.

“I said math books out, Simon,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Why are you giving me that awful cunning look? Is it such a peculiar thing to ask?”

Simon considered this. Nirupam, and a number of other people, doubled their legs under their chairs, ready to spring up and gag Simon if necessary. Theresa once more jumped to her feet.

“Mr. Wentworth, if he says another word, I’m not staying!”

Unfortunately, this attracted Simon’s attention. “You,” he said to Theresa, “stink.”

“He seems to have spoken,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Get out and stand in the corridor, Theresa, with a black mark for bad behavior. Simon can have another, and the rest of us will have a lesson.”

Theresa, redder in the face than anyone had ever seen her, raced for the door. She could not, however, beat the truly awful smell which rolled off her and filled the room as she ran.

“Pooh!” said Dan Smith.

Somebody kicked him, and everybody looked nervously at Mr. Wentworth to see if he could smell it too. But, as often happens to people who smoke a pipe, Mr. Wentworth had less than the average sense of smell. It was not for five minutes, during which he had written numerous things on the board and said many more, none of which 6B were in a fit state to attend to, that he said, “Estelle, put down that gray bag you’re knitting and open a window, will you? There’s rather a smell in here. Has someone let off a stink bomb?”

Nobody answered. Nirupam resourcefully passed Simon a note, saying,
Say there is no smell in here.

Simon spelled it out. He considered it carefully, with his head on one side. He could see there was a trick in it somewhere. So he cunningly decided to say nothing.

Luckily, the open window, though it made the room almost as cold as Simon’s Ice Age, did slowly disperse the smell. But nothing could disperse it from Theresa, who stood in the passage giving out scents of sludge, kippers, and old dustbins until the end of afternoon school.

When the bell had rung and Mr. Wentworth swept from the room, everyone relaxed with a groan. No one had known what Simon was going to say next. Even Charles had found it a strain. He had to admit that the results of his spell had taken him thoroughly by surprise.

Meanwhile, Delia and Karen, with most of Theresa’s main friends, were determined to retrieve Theresa’s honor. They surrounded Simon. “Take that smell off her at once,” Delia said. “It’s not funny. You’ve been on her all afternoon, Simon Silverson!”

Simon considered them. Nirupam leaped up so quickly that he knocked over his desk, and tried to put his hand over Simon’s mouth. But he got there too late. “You girls,” said Simon, “all stink.”

The result was almost overpowering. So was the noise the girls made. The only girls who escaped were the lucky few, like Nan, who had already left the room. It was clear something had to be done. Most people were either smelling or choking. And Simon was slowly opening his mouth to say something else.

Nirupam left off trying to pick up his desk and seized hold of Simon by his shoulders. “You can break this spell,” he said to him. “You could have stopped it straight away if you had any brain at all. But you would be greedy.”

Simon looked at Nirupam in slow, dawning annoyance. He was being accused of being stupid. Him! He opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t
say
anything!” everyone near him shouted.

Simon gazed around at them, wondering what trick they were up to now. Nirupam shook him. “Say this after me,” he said. And, when Simon’s dull, cunning eyes turned to him, Nirupam said, slowly and loudly, “Nothing I said this afternoon came true. Go on. Say it.”

“
Say
it!” everyone yelled.

Simon’s slow mind was not proof against all this yelling. It gave in. “Nothing I said this afternoon came true,” he said obediently.

The smell instantly stopped. Presumably everything else was also undone, because Simon at once became his usual self again. He had almost no memory of the afternoon. But he could see Nirupam was taking unheard-of liberties. He looked at Nirupam’s hands, one on each of his shoulders, in surprise and annoyance. “Get off!” he said. “Take your face away.”

The spell was still working. Nirupam was forced to let go and stand back from Simon. But, as soon as he had, he plunged back again and once more took hold of Simon’s shoulders. He stared into Simon’s face like a great dark hypnotist. “Now say,” he said, “ ‘Nothing I say is going to come true in the future.’ ”

Simon protested at this. He had great plans for the future. “Now, look here!” he said. And of course Nirupam did. He looked at Simon with such intensity that Simon blinked as he went on with his protest. “But I’ll fail every exam I ever ta-a-a-ake—!” His voice faded out into a sort of hoot, as he realized what he had said. For Simon loved passing exams. He collected A’s and ninety percents as fervently as he collected honor marks. And what he had just said had stopped all that.

“Exactly,” said Nirupam. “Now you’ve
got
to say it. Nothing I say—”

“Oh, all right. Nothing I say is going to come true in the future,” Simon said peevishly.

Nirupam let go of him with a sigh of relief and went back to pick up his desk. Everyone sighed. Charles turned sadly away. Well, it had been good while it lasted.

“What’s the matter?” Nirupam asked, catching sight of Charles’s doleful face as he stood his desk on its legs again.

“Nothing,” Charles said. “I—I’ve got detention.” Then, with a good deal more pleasure, he turned to Simon. “So have you,” he said.

Simon was scandalized. “What? I’ve never had detention all the time I’ve been at this school!”

It was explained to him that this was untrue. Quite a number of people were surprisingly ready to give Simon details of how he had rendered himself mindless and gained an hour and a half of detention from Mr. Crossley. Simon took it in very bad part and stormed off muttering.

Charles was about to trudge away after Simon, when Nirupam caught his arm. “Sit on the back bench,” he said. “There’s a store of comics in the middle, on the shelf underneath.”

“Thanks,” said Charles. He was so unused to people being friendly that he said it with enormous surprise and almost forgot to take Mr. Towers’s awful book with him.

He trudged towards the old lab, where detention was held, and shortly found himself trudging behind Theresa Mullett. Theresa was proceeding towards detention, looking wronged and tragic, supported by a crowd of her friends, with Karen Grigg in addition.

“It’s only for an hour,” Charles heard Karen say consolingly.

“A whole
hour
!” Theresa exclaimed. “I shall never forgive Teddy Crossley for this! I hope Miss Hodge kicks him in the teeth!”

In order not to go behind Theresa’s procession the whole way, Charles turned off halfway through the quadrangle and went by the way that was always called “around the back.” It was a grassy space which had once been a second quadrangle. But the new labs and the lecture room and the library had been built in the space, sticking out into the grass at odd angles, so that the space had been pared down to a zigzag of grassy passage, where, for some reason, there was always a piercing wind blowing. It was a place where people only went to keep out of the way. So Charles was not particularly surprised to see Nan Pilgrim loitering about there. He prepared to glare at her as he trudged by. But Nan got in first with a very unfriendly look and moved off around the library corner.

I’m glad it wasn’t Charles Morgan who wrote me that note, Nan thought, as Charles went on without speaking. I don’t want any help from
him.

She loitered out into the keen wind again, wondering if she needed help from anyone. She still felt a strong, confident inner witchiness. It was marvelous. It was like laughter bubbling up through everything she thought. She could not believe that it might be only Simon’s doing. On the other hand, no one knew better than Nan how quickly inner confidence could drain away. Particularly if someone like Theresa laughed at you.

Another person was coming. Brian Wentworth this time. But he scurried by on the other side of the passage, to Nan’s relief. She did not think Brian could help anyone. And—this place seemed unusually popular this evening—here was Nirupam Singh now, wandering up from the other direction, looking rather pleased with himself.

“I took the spell off Simon Silverson,” he said to Nan. “I got him to say nothing he said was true.”

“Good,” said Nan. She wandered away around the library corner again. Did this mean she was no longer a witch then? She poked with one foot at the leaves and crisp packets the wind had blown into the corner. She could test it by turning them into something, she supposed.

But Nirupam had followed her around the corner. “No, wait,” he said. “It was me that sent you that note.”

Nan found this extremely embarrassing. She pretended to be very interested in the dead leaves. “I don’t need help,” she said gruffly.

Nirupam smiled and leaned against the library wall as if he were sunning himself. Nirupam had rather a strong personality, Nan realized. Though the sun was thin and yellow and the wind was whirling crisp packets about, Nirupam gave out such a strong impression of basking that Nan almost felt warm. “Everyone thinks you’re a witch,” he said.

“Well I
am,
” Nan insisted, because she wanted to be sure of it herself.

“You shouldn’t admit it,” said Nirupam. “But it makes no difference. The point is, it’s only a matter of time before someone goes to Miss Cadwallader and accuses you.”

“Are you sure? They all want me to do things,” said Nan.

“Theresa doesn’t,” said Nirupam. “Besides, you can’t please everybody. Someone will get annoyed before long. I know this, because my brother tried to please all the servants. But one of them thought my brother was giving more to the other servants and told the police. And my brother was burned in the streets of Delhi.”

“I’m sorry—I didn’t know,” said Nan. She looked across at Nirupam. His profile was like a chubby hawk, she thought. It looked desperately sad.

“My mother was burned too, for trying to save him,” Nirupam said. “That was why my father came to this country, but things are just the same here. What I want to tell you is this—I have heard of a witches’ underground rescue service in England. They help accused witches to escape, if you can get to one of their branches before the inquisitors come. I don’t know where they send you, or whom to ask, but Estelle does. If you are accused, you must get Estelle to help.”

“Estelle?” Nan said. She thought of Estelle’s soft brown eyes and soft wriggly curls, and of Estelle’s irritating chatter, and of Estelle’s even more irritating way of imitating Theresa. She could not see Estelle helping anyone.

“Estelle is rather nice,” said Nirupam. “I come around here and talk to her quite often.”

“You mean Estelle talks to
you,
” said Nan.

Nirupam grinned. “She does talk a lot,” he agreed. “But she will help. She told me she likes you. She was sad you didn’t like her.”

Nan gaped. Estelle? It was not possible. No one liked Nan. But, now she remembered, Estelle had refused to come and threaten to drown her in the bathroom. “All right,” she said. “I’ll ask her. Thanks. But are you
sure
I’ll be accused?”

Nirupam nodded. “There is this, you see. There are at least two other witches in 6B—”

“Two?” said Nan. “I mean, I know there’s
one
more. It’s obvious. But why
two?
”