Witch Week (9 page)

Charles got out of bed. He unhooked his glasses from his bedrail, hooked them on his ears, and thumped across to the flurry of pillows.

“Can I borrow the emergency candle for five minutes?” he said loudly to Simon.

Simon of course was dormitory monitor. He paused in belaboring Brian and became official. “The candle’s only for emergencies. What do you want it for?”

“You’ll see if you give it to me,” said Charles.

Simon hesitated, torn between curiosity and his usual desire never to give anyone anything. “You’ll have to tell me what you want it for first. I can’t let you have it for no reason.”

“I’m not going to tell you,” said Charles. “Just give it to me.”

Simon considered. Long experience of Charles Morgan had shown him that when Charles said he was not going to tell, nothing would make him tell, not pillows or even wild horses. His curiosity, as Charles had hoped, was thoroughly aroused. “If I give it to you,” he said righteously, “I shall be breaking the rules. You owe me compensation for risking getting into trouble, you know.”

This was only to be expected. “What do you want?” said Charles.

Simon smiled graciously, wondering how great Charles’s need was. “Your pocket money every week for the rest of term,” he said. “How about that?”

“Too much,” said Charles.

Simon turned away and picked up his pillow again. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “That’s my final offer.”

“I’ll take it,” said Charles, hating Simon.

Simon turned back to him in astonishment. He had expected Charles either to protest or give up asking. His friends stared at Charles, equally astonished. In fact, by this time, nobody was hitting Brian anymore. Here was something really odd going on. Even Brian was staring at Charles. How could anyone want a candle that much? “Very well,” Simon said. “I’ll accept your offer, Charles. But remember you promised in front of witnesses. You’d better pay up.”

“I’ll pay up,” said Charles. “Every week when Mr. Crossley gives us our money. Now give me the candle.”

Simon, with busy efficiency, fetched his key ring from his blazer and unlocked the cupboard on the wall where the first-aid kit and the candle were kept. If a miracle happened, Charles thought, and the inquisitors did not come for him after all, he had put himself in a true mess now. No pocket money until Christmas. That meant he could not pay for new running shoes. He would have to write five hundred lines every day for Mr. Towers. But he did not really believe he would be around to do that very long. Everyone said the inquisitors found witches whatever they did.

Simon put the candle in his hands. It was unlit, in a white enamel candle holder. Charles looked at it. He looked up to see Simon and all the other boys, even Brian, grinning.

“You forgot to ask for matches,” Simon pointed out.

Charles looked at him. He glared. He did more than glare. It was the nastiest look he had ever given anyone. He hoped it would shrivel Simon on the spot.

All that happened was that Simon stepped backward from him. Even so, he looked as superior as ever. “But I’ll give you the matches free,” he said. “It’s all part of the service.” He tossed a box of matches toward Charles.

Charles put the candlestick down on the floor. With everyone staring at him, he struck a match and lit the candle. He knelt down beside it.
It hurts to be burned,
he thought.
It hurts to be burned.
He put out his finger and held it in the small yellow flame.

“Why on earth are you doing that?” asked Ronald West.

Charles did not answer. For a second, he thought the flame was not going to burn him. It just felt warm and wet. Then, quite suddenly, it was hot and it hurt very much indeed. It hurt, as Charles had expected, in quite a different way from cutting yourself or stubbing your toe. This was a much nastier pain, sharp and dull together, which brought Charles’s back out in goose pimples and jangled the nerves all the way up his arm. Imagine this all over you, he thought.
It hurts to be burned.
He took hold of his wrist with his other hand and held it hard to stop himself snatching his finger out of the pain.
It hurts to be burned.
It did hurt too. It was making sweat prickle out just beneath his eyes.

“It must be for a dare or a bet,” he heard Simon saying. “Which is it? Tell, or I’ll put the candle away again.”

“A bet,” Charles answered at random.
It hurts to be burned. It hurts to be burned.
He thought this over and over, intent on branding it into his brain—or into whatever part of him it was that did magic.
It hurts to be
—Oh, it hurts!—
hurts to be burned.

“Some people,” Simon remarked, “make awfully stupid bets.”

Charles ignored him and tried to keep his jerking finger steady. It was trying to jump out of the flame of its own accord. The finger was now red, with a white band across the red. He could hear a funny noise, a sort of tiny frizzling, as if his skin were frying. Then, suddenly, he could bear no more. He found himself snatching his finger away and blowing out the candle. The boys watching him all let out a sigh, as if they had been holding their breath.

“I suppose,” Simon said discontentedly, as Charles handed him the candle back, “you make more money on this bet than you owe me now.”

“No, I don’t,” Charles said quickly. He was afraid Simon would be after that money too. Simon was quite capable of telling Mr. Crossley about the candle if Charles did not pay. “I don’t get anything. The bet was to burn my finger right off.”

The monitor on duty appeared in the doorway, shouting, “Lights out! No more talking!”

Charles got into bed, sucking his burned finger, hoping and praying that he had now taught himself not to work magic by accident. His tongue could feel a big pulpy blister rising between the first and second joint of his finger. It hurt more than ever.

Simon said, out of the darkness, “I always knew Charles Morgan was mad. What a brainless thing to do!”

Ronald West said, “You don’t expect brains in an animal.”

“Animals have more sense,” said Geoffrey Baines.

“Charles Morgan,” said Simon, “is a lower life form.”

These kinds of comments went on for some time. It was perfectly safe to talk because there was always such a noise from the next dormitory. Charles lay and waited for them to stop. He knew he was not going to sleep. Nor did he. Long after Simon and his friends had fallen silent, long after two monitors and the master in charge had come along and shut up the boys next door, Charles lay stiff as a log of wood, staring up into the shadows.

He was frightened—terrified. But the terror was now a dreary long-distance kind of terror, which he was sure he was going to feel all the time, for the rest of his life now. Suppose by some miracle, no inquisitors came for him; then he was going to be afraid that they would, every minute of every day, for years and years. He wondered if you learned to get used to it. He hoped so, because at this moment he felt like springing out of bed and confessing, just to get it over. What would Simon say if Charles jumped up shouting, “I’m a witch!” Probably he would think Charles was mad. It was funny that Simon had not disappeared too. Charles sucked his finger and puzzled over that. He certainly hated Simon enough. He had not hated Mr. Wentworth at all really—or only in the way you hate any master who gives you a black mark you do not deserve. Perhaps witchcraft had to be sort of clinical to work properly.

Then Charles thought of his other troubles. Two black marks in one day. No running shoes. No money. Five hundred lines a day. And none of it was his fault! It was not his fault he had been born a witch, either, for that matter. It was all so unfair! He wished he did not have to feel so guilty about Mr. Wentworth on top of it all.
It hurts to be burned.

Charles’s thoughts slowly grew less connected after this point. He realized afterward that he must have been asleep. But if it was sleep, it was only a light horrified doze, in which his thoughts kept on clanking about in his head, as if he were a piece of machinery with the switch jammed to ON. But he did not know he had been asleep. It seemed to him at the time that he sat up in bed after thinking things out in a perfectly orderly way. It was all quite obvious. He was a witch. He dared not be found out. Therefore he had to use some more witchcraft in order not to be found out. In other words, he had better go somewhere private like the toilets downstairs and conjure up first Mr. Wentworth and then his running shoes.

C
HARLES GOT UP
. He remembered to put on his glasses. He even thought of arranging his bedclothes in heaps to make it look as if he were still in bed. He could see to do that by the dim light shining in from the corridor. By that light, he could see to creep past the sleeping humps of all the other boys. He crept out into the corridor, which seemed light as day by comparison.

There was a lot of noise coming from the next dormitory. There was rustling, and some heavy thumps, followed by some giggles hurriedly choked off. Charles stopped. It sounded as if they were having one of their midnight feasts in there. The thumps would be the floorboards coming up so that they could get at their hidden food. It was a bad time to wander about. If the master in charge heard the noise, Charles would be caught too.

But the corridor remained empty. After a while, Charles dared to go on. He went along the corridor and down the dark pit of the concrete stairs at the end. It was cold. The heating, which was never warm anyway, was turned down for the night. The chill striking up through Charles’s bare feet and in through his pajamas served to wake him up a little. He wondered if it was the pain in his finger which had awakened him in the first place. It was throbbing steadily. Charles held it against the cold wall to soothe it and, while his feet felt their way from stair to cold stair, he tried to plan what he would do. Mr. Wentworth was obviously the most important one to get back—if he could. But he did need those running shoes too.

“I’ll practice on the shoes,” Charles muttered. “If I get those, I’ll try for Mr. Wentworth.”

He stumbled off the end of the stairs and turned left towards the toilets. They were in a cross-passage down at the end. Charles was halfway to the corner, when the cross-passage became full of dull moving light. A half-lit figure loomed there, swinging a giant torch. The moving light caught the small white creature trundling at the figure’s heels. The caretaker and his dog were on their way to inspect the toilets for vandals.

Charles turned and tiptoed the other way. The passage promptly filled with a shrill yap, like one very small clap of thunder. The dog had heard him. Charles ran. Behind him, he heard the caretaker shout, “Who’s there?” and come clattering along the passage.

Charles ran. He ran past the end of the stairs, hoping the caretaker would think he had gone up them again, and went on, with his arms out in front of him, until he met the swinging door beyond. Gently, he pushed the door open a small way. Softly, he slid around it, holding the edge of the door so that it would not thump shut and give him away. Then he stood there hoping.

It was no good. The caretaker was not fooled. A muzz of light grew in the glass of the door. The shadow of the stair rails swung across it and fell away, and the light went on growing brighter as the caretaker advanced.

Charles let the door go and ran again, thumping along dark corridors until he had no idea where he was and could hardly breathe. He shook off the caretaker, but he lost himself. Then he ran around a corner and blinked in the orange light from a far-off streetlight shining through a window. Beyond the window was the unmistakable door of the lower school boys’ playroom. Even in that dim light, Charles knew the kick marks at the bottom of the door, and the cracked glass in the upper panel where Nirupam Singh had tried to hit Dan Smith and missed. It seemed like home just then. There were worse places to practice magic in, Charles thought. He opened the door and crept in.

In the faint light, someone else jumped around to face him.

Charles jumped back against the door. He squeaked. The other person squeaked. “Who are you?” they both said at once. Then Charles found the light switch. He moved it down and then back up in one swift waggle, dazzling both of them. What he saw made him lean against the door, confounded, blinking green darkness. The other person was Brian Wentworth. That was odd enough. But the oddest thing, in that dazzling moment of light, was that Charles had clearly seen that Brian was in tears. Charles was amazed. Brian, as was well known, never cried. He shrieked and yowled and yelled for mercy when he was hit, but he had never, ever been known to shed tears. Charles went very quickly from amazement to horror. For it clearly took something out of the ordinary to make Brian cry—and that thing must be that Brian had discovered his father was mysteriously missing.

“I came down to make it all right again,” Charles said guiltily.

“What can
you
do?” said Brian’s voice out of the dark, thick and throaty with crying. “The only reason you’re better off than me is because you glare at people and they leave you alone. I wish I had a dirty look like yours. Then I could stop them getting at me and hitting me all the time!”