Witch Week (2 page)

When he wrote
woodwork second lesson,
he meant that he had gone on to think about the second witch—which was a thing he did not think about so often.
Woodwork
was anything Charles liked. They only had woodwork once a week, and Charles had chosen that for his code on the very reasonable grounds that he was not likely to enjoy anything at Larwood House any oftener than that. Charles had liked the second witch. She had been quite young and rather pretty, in spite of her torn skirt and untidy hair. She had come scrambling across the wall at the end of the garden and stumbled down the rockery to the lawn, carrying her smart shoes in one hand. Charles had been nine years old then, and he was minding his little brother on the lawn. Luckily for the witch, his parents were out.

Charles knew she was a witch. She was out of breath and obviously frightened. He could hear the yells and police whistles in the house behind. Besides, who else but a witch would run away from the police in the middle of the afternoon in a tight skirt? But he made quite sure. He said, “Why are you running away in our garden?”

The witch rather desperately hopped on one foot. She had a large blister on the other foot, and both her stockings were laddered. “I’m a witch,” she panted. “Please help me, little boy!”

“Why can’t you magic yourself safe?” Charles asked.

“Because I can’t when I’m this frightened!” gasped the witch. “I tried, but it just went wrong!
Please,
little boy—sneak me out through your house and don’t say a word, and I’ll give you luck for the rest of your life. I promise.”

Charles looked at her in that intent way of his which most people found blank and nasty. He saw she was speaking the truth. He saw, too, that she understood the look as very few people seemed to. “Come in through the kitchen,” he said. And he led the witch, hobbling on her blister in her laddered stockings, through the kitchen and down the hall to the front door.

“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a love.” She smiled at him while she put her hair right in the hall mirror, and after she had done something to her skirt that may have been witchcraft to make it seem untorn again, she bent down and kissed Charles. “If I get away, I’ll bring you luck,” she said. Then she put her smart shoes on again and went away down the front garden, trying hard not to limp. At the front gate, she waved and smiled at Charles.

That was the end of the part Charles liked. That was why he wrote
but not for long
next. He never saw the witch again, or heard what had happened to her. He ordered his little brother never to say a word about her—and Graham obeyed, because he always did everything Charles said—and then he watched and waited for any sign of the witch or any sign of luck. None came. It was next to impossible for Charles to find out what might have happened to the witch, because there had been new laws since he glimpsed the first witch burning. There were no more public burnings. The bonfires were lit inside the walls of jails instead, and the radio would simply announce: “Two witches were burned this morning inside Holloway Jail.” Every time Charles heard this kind of announcement he thought it was
his
witch. It gave him a blunt, hurtful feeling inside. He thought of the way she had kissed him, and he was fairly sure it made you wicked too, to be kissed by a witch. He gave up expecting to be lucky. In fact,
to judge from the amount of bad luck he had had, he thought the witch must have been caught almost straightaway. For the blunt, hurtful feeling he had when the radio announced a burning made him refuse to do anything his parents told him to do. He just gave them his steady stare instead. And each time he stared, he knew they thought he was being nasty. They did not understand it the way the witch did. And, since Graham imitated everything Charles did, Charles’s parents very soon decided Charles was a problem child and leading Graham astray. They arranged for him to be sent to Larwood House, because it was quite near.

When Charles wrote
games,
he meant bad luck. Like everyone else in 6B, he had seen Mr. Crossley had found a note. He did not know what was in the note, but when he looked up and caught Mr. Crossley’s eye, he knew it meant bad luck coming.

Mr. Crossley still could not decide what to do about the note. If what it said was true, that meant inquisitors coming to the school. And that was a thoroughly frightening thought. Mr. Crossley sighed and put the note in his pocket. “Right, everyone,” he said. “Put away your journals and get into line for music.”

As soon as 6B had shuffled away to the school hall, Mr. Crossley sped to the staff room, hoping to find someone he could consult about the note.

He was lucky enough to find Miss Hodge there. As Theresa Mullett and Estelle Green had observed, Mr. Crossley was in love with Miss Hodge. But of course he never let it show. Probably the one person in the school who did not seem to know was Miss Hodge herself. Miss Hodge was a small neat person who wore neat gray skirts and blouses and her hair was even neater and smoother than Theresa Mullett’s. She was busy making neat stacks of books on the staff room table, and she went on making them all the time Mr. Crossley was telling her excitedly about the note. She spared the note one glance.

“No, I can’t tell who wrote it either,” she said.

“But what shall I do about it?” Mr. Crossley pleaded. “Even if it’s true, it’s such a spiteful thing to write! And suppose it
is
true. Suppose one of them is—” He was in a pitiable state. He wanted so badly to attract Miss Hodge’s attention, but he knew that words like
witch
were not the kind of words one used in front of a lady. “I don’t like to say it in front of you.”

“I was brought up to be sorry for witches,” Miss Hodge remarked calmly.

“Oh, so was I! We all are,” Mr. Crossley said hastily. “I just wondered how I should handle it—”

Miss Hodge lined up another stack of books. “I think it’s just a silly joke,” she said. “Ignore it. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching 4C?”

“Yes, yes. I suppose I am,” Mr. Crossley agreed miserably. And he was forced to hurry away without Miss Hodge’s having looked at him once.

Miss Hodge thoughtfully squared off another stack of books, until she was sure Mr. Crossley had gone. Then she smoothed her smooth hair and hurried away upstairs to find Mr. Wentworth.

Mr. Wentworth, as deputy head, had a study where he wrestled with the schedules and various other problems Miss Cadwallader gave him. When Miss Hodge tapped on the door, he was wrestling with a particularly fierce one. There were seventy people in the school orchestra. Fifty of these were also in the school choir and twenty of those fifty were in the school play. Thirty boys in the orchestra were in various football teams, and twenty of the girls played hockey for the school. At least a third played basketball as well. The volleyball team were all in the school play. Problem: How do you arrange rehearsals and practices without asking most people to be in three places at once? Mr. Wentworth rubbed the thin patch at the back of his hair despairingly. “Come in,” he said. He saw the bright, smiling, anxious face of Miss Hodge, but his mind was not on her at all.

“So spiteful of someone, and so awful if it’s true!” he heard Miss Hodge saying. And then, merrily, “But I think I have a scheme to discover who wrote the note—it must be someone in 6B. Can we put our heads together and work it out, Mr. Wentworth?” She put her own head on one side, invitingly.

Mr. Wentworth had no idea what she was talking about. He scratched the place where his hair was going and stared at her. Whatever it was, it had all the marks of a scheme that ought to be squashed. “People only write anonymous notes to make themselves feel important,” he said experimentally. “You mustn’t take them seriously.”

“But it’s the perfect scheme!” Miss Hodge protested. “If I can explain—”

Not squashed yet, whatever it is, thought Mr. Wentworth. “No. Just tell me the exact words of this note,” he said.

Miss Hodge instantly became crushed and shocked. “But it’s awful!” Her voice fell to a dramatic whisper. “It says someone in 6B is a witch!”

Mr. Wentworth realized that his instinct had been right. “What did I tell you?” he said heartily. “That’s the sort of stuff you can only ignore, Miss Hodge.”

“But someone in 6B has a very sick mind!” Miss Hodge whispered.

Mr. Wentworth considered 6B, including his own son, Brian. “They all have,” he said. “Either they’ll grow out of it, or we’ll see them all riding around on broomsticks in the sixth grade.” Miss Hodge started back. She was genuinely shocked at this coarse language. But she hastily made herself laugh. She could see it was a joke. “Take no notice,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Ignore it, Miss Hodge.” And he went back to his problem with some relief.

Miss Hodge went back to her stacks of books, not as crushed as Mr. Wentworth supposed she was. Mr. Wentworth had made a joke to her. He had never done that before. She must be getting somewhere. For—and this was a fact not known to Theresa Mullett or Estelle Green—Miss Hodge intended to marry Mr. Wentworth. He was a widower. When Miss Cadwallader retired, Miss Hodge was sure Mr. Wentworth would be head of Larwood House. This suited Miss Hodge, who had her old father to consider. For this, she was quite willing to put up with Mr. Wentworth’s bald patch and his tense and harrowed look. The only drawback was that putting up with Mr. Wentworth also meant putting up with Brian. A little frown wrinkled Miss Hodge’s smooth forehead at the thought of Brian Wentworth. Now there was a boy who quite deserved the way the rest of 6B were always on to him. Never mind. He could be sent away to another school.

Meanwhile, in music, Mr. Brubeck was asking Brian to sing on his own. 6B had trailed their way through “Here We Sit like Birds in the Wilderness.” They had made it sound like a lament. “I’d prefer a wilderness to this place,” Estelle Green whispered to her friend Karen Grigg. Then they sang “Cuckaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.” That sounded like a funeral dirge. “What’s a cuckaburra?” Karen whispered to Estelle.

“Another kind of bird,” Estelle whispered back. “Australian.”

“No, no,
no
!” shouted Mr. Brubeck. “Brian is the only one of you who doesn’t sound like a cockerel with a sore throat!”

“Mr. Brubeck must have birds on the brain!” Estelle giggled. And Simon Silverson, who believed, strongly and sincerely, that nobody was worthy of praise except himself, gave Brian a scathingly jeering look.

But Mr. Brubeck was far too addicted to music to take any notice of what the rest of 6B thought. “ ‘The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird,’ ” he announced. “I want Brian to sing this to you on his own.”

Estelle giggled, because it was birds again. Theresa giggled too, because anyone who stood out for any reason struck her as exceedingly funny. Brian stood up with the song book in his hands. He was never embarrassed. But instead of singing, he read the words out in an incredulous voice.

“ ‘The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she singeth as she flies. She bringeth us good tidings, she telleth us no lies.’ Sir, why are all these songs about birds?” he asked innocently. Charles thought that was a shrewd move of Brian’s, after the way Simon Silverson had looked at him.

But it did Brian no good. He was too unpopular. Most of the girls said,
“Brian!”
in shocked voices. Simon said it jeeringly.

“Quiet!” shouted Mr. Brubeck. “Brian, get on and sing!” He struck notes on the piano.

Brian stood with the book in his hands, obviously wondering what to do. It was clear that he would be in trouble with Mr. Brubeck if he did not sing, and that he would be hit afterward if he did. And while Brian hesitated, the witch in 6B took a hand. One of the long windows of the hall flew open with a clap and let in a stream of birds. Most of them were ordinary birds: sparrows, starlings, pigeons, blackbirds, and thrushes, swooping around the hall in vast numbers and shedding feathers and droppings as they swooped. But among the beating wings were two curious furry creatures with large pouches, which kept uttering violent laughing sounds, and the red and yellow thing swooping among a cloud of sparrows and shouting “Cuckoo!” was clearly a parrot.

Luckily, Mr. Brubeck thought it was simply the wind which had let the birds in. The rest of the lesson had to be spent in chasing the birds out again. By that time, the laughing birds with pouches had vanished. Evidently the witch had decided they were a mistake. But everyone in 6B had clearly seen them. Simon said importantly, “If this happens again, we all ought to get together and—”

At this, Nirupam Singh turned around, towering among the beating wings. “Have you any proof that this is not perfectly natural?” he said.

Simon had not, so he said no more.

By the end of the lesson, all the birds had been sent out of the window again, except the parrot. The parrot escaped to a high curtain rail, where no one could reach it, and sat there shouting “Cuckoo!” Mr. Brubeck sent 6B away and called the caretaker to get rid of it. Charles trudged away with the rest, thinking that this must be the end of the games he had predicted in his journal. But he was quite wrong. It was only the beginning.

And when the caretaker came grumbling along with his small white dog trailing at his heels, to get rid of the parrot, the parrot had vanished.