The Worst Witch to the Rescue (8 page)

iss Hardbroom was already seated at her desk in the potion laboratory with an all-knowing look on her face as Form Three fled in and took their places at their workbenches. She had an unpleasant knack of making every pupil feel that they might have done something wrong, even if they hadn’t – although in Mildred’s case there was usually some backlog of disasters, such as the snake incident, causing Miss Hardbroom to keep a close eye on her.
This time Mildred could hardly wait to smooth things over by revealing the evidence of her hard work during the holidays.

‘Good afternoon, girls,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘This is always my favourite day of the whole term. Here you are, all rested and eager to improve your minds with another term of concentration and hard work, anxious to show your worthiness to be in a school as excellent as Miss Cackle’s Academy.’

Mildred gazed at Miss Hardbroom in awe. She was never sure if the terrifying teacher was joking when she gave them these little pep talks (which she did at least twice a day).

Surely even Miss Hardbroom couldn’t think that they were truly eager to rush back to lessons and concrete pie after a blissful holiday at home wearing their own clothes, eating normal food and doing whatever they wanted?

‘Now then,’ continued Miss Hardbroom, ‘holiday projects! Which one of you would like to be the first to entertain us?’

Ethel shot up a hand before anyone else had a chance.

‘
I
will, Miss Hardbroom,’ she said with a confident smile, brandishing a purple ring-binder. ‘Shall I bring it up to your desk or would you like me to read it aloud myself?’

‘Read it yourself, Ethel,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘You always read with such expression.’

Ethel held up the ring-binder and began to read. ‘During the holidays, I decided to invent a spell that had never been attempted before, as far as I know. It was a spell to make an animal speak. To do this I had to assemble various components of the spell, including chants, herbs etc., and to make things easier I decided to concentrate on animals which would fit into a space of twenty-five centimetres square and under. I could then formulate the correct amounts of all the ingredients for animals up to that size…’

Mildred’s jaw dropped as Ethel’s voice droned on, reading out word for word the spell which Mildred had spent the entire holiday researching and trying out. When Ethel got to the part where she had looked up everything in
an ancient spell book at her local library with a magnifying glass, Mildred could stand it no longer and leapt up, pushing back her stool so forcefully that it fell over.

‘Ethel!’ she exclaimed furiously. ‘What on earth are you doing? That’s
my
spell!’

Ethel looked helplessly at Miss Hardbroom. ‘I don’t know what she’s
talking
about, Miss Hardbroom,’ she said, sounding alarmed and upset at the same time.

‘
Well
, Mildred,’ snapped Miss Hardbroom, ‘what
are
you talking about? You surely don’t imagine that anyone in their right mind would believe that you could possibly have put in the amount of work needed to assemble – how many pages, Ethel?’

‘Fifteen,’ simpered Ethel.

‘Fifteen pages of a holiday project,’ continued Miss Hardbroom, ‘that obviously required a sharp brain, superb concentration and unbelievable patience. I don’t remember you ever displaying even one of these worthy characteristics, Mildred.’

‘But I
did
, Miss Hardbroom,’ spluttered Mildred, blushing bright red with embarrassment as the whole class turned to look at her. ‘Look! It’s all here in my folder.’

Miss Hardbroom gestured in a highly irritated fashion for Mildred to bring the folder up to her desk. Mildred watched as she opened it, drew out the pages and looked through them. The glance she shot at Mildred was so angry that Mildred was suddenly gripped by panic.

‘Is this your idea of a
joke
, Mildred?’ thundered Miss Hardbroom. She turned the pages around and held them up one by one for the class to see. On each page was a smiley face drawn in a different-coloured pencil.

Mildred was so shocked that she couldn’t speak.

‘
Well
, Mildred?’ raged Miss Hardbroom. ‘They’re not even
good
drawings and they certainly don’t represent hours of invention and concentration, which was the whole
point
of this project.’ She suddenly deflated and sounded tired. ‘Oh, go to your room, Mildred, for the rest of the lesson – again. Perhaps you could stay there for the rest of the
term
with that dreadful cat, while we all have some fun with Ethel’s fascinating idea.

‘Have you tried it out on any animals, Ethel?’ she asked, turning back to Ethel, who was poised to continue.

‘Yes, Miss Hardbroom,’ said Ethel earnestly, ‘there was a hedgehog, a shrew and a newt, but I’ve brought along a toad so we can try it out during the lesson.’

Mildred burst into tears.

‘Are you still
here
, Mildred Hubble?’ barked Miss Hardbroom. ‘Perhaps I could help you along.’

In front of the whole class, Miss
Hardbroom muttered the words to a transference spell and Mildred found herself hurtling through a tunnel of air and whirling lights and hurled, as if she had been shot from a cannon, on to her bed, nearly fattening Tabby for the second time in one day.

eep beneath the bedcovers, Mildred had curled herself up in a ball, too shocked and upset even to cry any more. Tabby had got right inside the bedclothes with her and was lending his support by purring at the top of his purr and passionately kneading her with tiny claw-prickles as he flexed his paws against her arms.

To be ‘transferred’ was the most humiliating dismissal a teacher could possibly make. It was an even more insulting version of an adult saying, ‘Get out of my sight.’ Apart from the unpleasantness of being instantly pulled through a void as if by an invisible vacuum cleaner, it left the recipient feeling unceremoniously got rid of and swatted like an irritating bluebottle.

The bright new day had collapsed around Mildred’s ears as though she had walked into a line full of wet washing, and the more she thought about what had happened, the more weighed down and tangled up she felt. It all came back to her: the conversation with Ethel in the tree, where she had told Ethel every single detail of her wonderful idea, and the ‘accident’ when Mildred’s bag had fallen to the ground, followed by Ethel ‘helping’, taking ages to pick up all Mildred’s things – picking them up and
switching Mildred’s project for a stack of empty paper.

As the hours dragged by, Mildred heard the bell for each change of lesson and finally the five long bells to signify the end of the school day. She rather hoped that Maud and Enid would come to commiserate with her, as they usually did, but half an hour later there was still no sign of them.

Just when she had given up listening out, there was a soft tap and Maud and Enid looked nervously round the edge of the door.