The Worst Witch Saves the Day Read online

  ‘I – um – er –’ mumbled Mildred wretchedly. ‘I was – um – er – I took a wrong turning and got a bit lost and – um – Tabby sort of fell off. He’s still feeling a bit delicate after the – you know – incident last night with the hair-growing spell.’

  ‘Oh yes, that,’ squeaked Miss Granite. She took a step closer to Mildred and, for some reason, Mildred felt a sudden chill. Perhaps it was the tinted glasses, which had a sort of blank look and seemed a little sinister. ‘I hope you weren’t snooping, Mildred Hubble. I hope you weren’t spying on me.’

  ‘Oh no, Miss Granite,’ said Mildred. ‘Not at all! It was just an accident that I was up there.’

  ‘You seem to have rather a lot of accidents, Mildred Hubble,’ said Miss Granite. ‘In fact, as far as I have seen, you’ve had some sort of accident every five minutes since term began, and from what I have heard, it’s been exactly the same for the entire two years you’ve been here. Anyway, just keep away from my room,’ she continued, ‘or you’ll be sorry. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Granite,’ mumbled Mildred, blushing. ‘But could I go and collect Tabby first?’

  ‘What did I just say, girl?’ exploded Miss Granite, sounding like an irate hamster. ‘Your ridiculous cat is perfectly safe where he is. I’ll bring him to you when I see fit. Until then, the subject is closed. Now then, girls –’ she turned to the rest of the class, who had gradually reassembled in the yard – ‘it’s time for your lunch, followed by an afternoon of chanting with Miss Bat. Good morning.’

  She disappeared just as the lunch bell clanged out across the yard.

  ‘Wow!’ said Enid. ‘What a change.’

  ‘That was really weird,’ said Mildred. ‘She’s still got that funny voice, but she sounded really terrifying – almost like H.B. What did you think, Maud?’

  ‘Perhaps she wakes up in a bad temper,’ said Maud. ‘She did say she was going to have a rest, didn’t she?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mildred, ‘at least Tabs is OK. She’ll probably give him to me later. Come on, let’s go and see what horrors await us at lunch. Someone said it was spinach with fried eggs on it today.’

  ‘Per-lease!’ laughed Maud.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  vening arrived and Miss Granite did not bring Tabby down from her room. Mildred tried to pluck up courage to ask if it would be possible to fetch him, but Miss Granite seemed very grumpy and unapproachable, and somehow Mildred could sense that she would go berserk if anyone suggested it.

  Everyone was sent to bed early that night. Miss Granite announced that she wanted them all asleep by eight thirty after their disgraceful behaviour the previous night. Miss Hardbroom materialized next to Miss Granite as she was in mid-rant at the girls, who were lined up nervously in the Form Three bedroom corridor.

  ‘I’m pleased to see that you are taking a firm line with these girls, Miss Granite,’ said Miss Hardbroom approvingly. ‘They really do need to be kept in order at all times. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile, as we saw yesterday – especially with Mildred Hubble in the class.’

  ‘I quite agree, Miss Hardbroom.’ Miss Granite nodded. ‘We’ve all decided to pull together, girls, haven’t we? No more nonsense. From now on it’s hard work and discipline all the way.’

  A while later, when everyone was supposed to be safely in their beds, Mildred crept from her room and knocked at Maud’s door.

  ‘Can I come in, Maud?’ she whispered. ‘Just for a sec.’

  ‘Do be careful, Mil,’ said Maud, opening the door just wide enough to let Mildred sneak inside. ‘Miss Granite seems to have had a personality transplant. All that easygoing stuff and now she’s turned into Attila the Hun!’

  ‘There’s something funny going on, Maud,’ said Mildred. ‘I don’t know what it is, but there’s something creepy about her. Her voice is so odd – I mean, I’ve met people with high voices before, but hers doesn’t sound real. And the way she isn’t giving us any lessons – it’s as if she doesn’t know how to teach. Maybe she isn’t a real teacher at all. Maybe she’s an impostor!’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,’ said Maud. ‘We’d better just keep out of her way and hope for the best.’

  ‘I’m worried about Tab,’ said Mildred. ‘Why hasn’t she given him back to me? Maybe she’s going to use his whiskers for some spell or other. I think I might sneak up and see if I can get him out.’

  ‘Don’t!’ said Maud flatly. ‘Just don’t. I’m sure he’ll be OK for one night. She’s probably just forgotten. Promise me, Mil – promise you won’t do anything silly.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Mildred. ‘I promise. ‘’Night, Maud.’

  Mildred climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The bats were all out on their nightly hunt and the room was silent and lonely without Tabby purring and kneading the covers on her chest. She couldn’t bear to lie there knowing her beloved pet might be longing to hear her voice, so she decided to risk disaster. Mildred crept into the corridor and set off up the three spiral staircases which led to the maze of corridors where the teachers had their rooms. As she paused at the foot of the second staircase, she heard someone coming downstairs and ducked behind a display cabinet with a large vase of dried flowers on top of it. It was Miss Hardbroom, wearing outdoor clothes and carrying her broom, with Morgana, her beautiful cat, skittering behind her, trying to keep up. Miss Hardbroom was off to visit her friend Miss Pentangle, who was headmistress of Pentangle’s Academy, a neighbouring witches’ school several mountaintops away. She was pleased that the irritating Miss Granite had turned over a new leaf and that the school was quiet and orderly for the night, just as it should be. She was also looking forward to an evening of interesting conversation, as well as a taxing game of chess and, possibly, just

  one glass of sherry, as she was in such a good mood. Mildred flattened herself against the wall and held her breath until she heard the heavy front door close several floors below with a resounding thud.

  All the rooms had neat brass name-card holders, with the teachers’ names inscribed in Gothic lettering, so it only took Mildred a few moments of silent slinking along the top corridor and peering at the name-cards before she found Miss Granite’s room. Mildred pressed her ear against the door – it was completely silent from the other side. She called, very softly, ‘Tabby! Tabs, it’s me.’ A loud miaow sounded immediately from the other side of the door. Mildred turned the handle and went in. Tabby was on the far side of the room in a cat-basket on the table.

  Mildred was so pleased to see him that she was halfway across the room before she realized that the miaow had come from immediately behind the door. She turned to look back, just as the door swung shut, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Miss Cackle standing behind her.

  ‘Oh, Miss Cackle!’ exclaimed Mildred. ‘It’s you! I’m sorry, I’ve just come to collect Tabby. I thought perhaps Miss Granite had forgotten.’

  ‘No, Mildred,’ said Miss Cackle, smiling kindly, as she always did. ‘Miss Granite knew that you would come back and collect Tabby – that’s why she decided to hold on to him for a little while longer.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Cackle,’ said Mildred. ‘Why would Miss Granite want to keep Tabby? He wouldn’t be any use to her – I don’t understand.’

  ‘Let me show you something, my dear,’ said Miss Cackle. She took Mildred’s arm and led her to a door which opened into a linen cupboard full of towels and sheets. Then, without any warning, she shoved Mildred inside, slammed the door and locked her in.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘iss Cackle!’ yelled Mildred. ‘Please let me out. I really don’t like the dark.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mildred,’ said Miss Cackle soothingly. ‘It won’t be for long. You didn’t guess, did you? Let me give you a little clue.’ There was a loud cackle of laughter and the voice suddenly changed into Miss Granite’s odd squeak. ‘Don’t you remember what happened last time we met in the middle of t
he wood, Mildred Hubble, when you turned us all into snails? Yes, Mildred, Miss Granite is none other than Agatha Cackle, your precious Miss Cackle’s twin sister – in a curly wig and hiding behind purple dark glasses. I can’t believe that none of you twigged!’ Her voice changed back to normal, sounding very like Miss Cackle. ‘I must say it’s wonderful not to have to put on that awful voice any more. Anyway, my dear, this time the plan’s a dead cert and tonight’s the night. The only person I was worried about was you, with your knack of always turning up at the wrong time, so with you in the cupboard my plan can’t fail. All I have to do is wait till everyone’s asleep in their beds. Then, at two o’clock precisely, the other members of my coven arrive at the entrance in the backyard and – hey presto! Abracadabra! – I just saunter down and let them all in and, quick as a flash, the school is mine. Miss Agatha Cackle’s Academy of Real Witchcraft. No more of this namby-pamby, play-it-by-the-rules, goody-two-shoes stuff! Now then, what can we turn them all into? It was going to be frogs last time, but you gave me an idea when you turned us into snails; they don’t move so fast – much easier to catch. There you are, Mildred. Just occasionally you do have an excellent idea. I can’t tell you what fun it’s been planning all this right under my dear sister’s nose – and that awful Hardbroom person! They both think they’re so clever, but they didn’t suspect anything. Well, my dear, just make yourself comfy in there. It’s going to be a long night!’

  She let out a horrible cackling laugh and Mildred could hear her move away from the door.

  Mildred took some deep breaths and tried very hard to calm down. She

  really was afraid of the dark (a great embarrassment for a trainee witch) and this was one of her worst nightmares – being trapped somewhere in the pitch-dark with an enemy outside the door. Half an hour passed by, during which time Mildred could hear Agatha muttering to herself and moving about. She racked her brains as she tried desperately to think of a way out. The shelves in the cupboard were set

  back a little way from the door and, as she perched on the edge of some towels, Mildred saw that there was a crack beneath the door where she could see a strip of light from the lantern and Agatha’s shadow moving around the room. Mildred realized, with horror, that she must think fast, as she would probably be the first snail! It suddenly dawned on her that if she could change herself into something small, she could sneak out under the door and seek help.

  Mildred was becoming something of an expert on the subject of transformation. In her first term she had changed Ethel into a pig by mistake. Next, Ethel had turned Mildred into a frog, and later on Mildred’s friend Enid had changed her own cat into a monkey. Mildred’s holiday project had been insect spells and she knew how to change herself into either an ant or a caterpillar. To tell you the truth, she wasn’t very keen on the idea of turning into either, but in the end she decided that an ant was the best idea. A caterpillar had all those legs to coordinate, plus it was slower and more noticeable. Also, if it was just at the stage where it was going to turn into a chrysalis (and, knowing Mildred’s luck, it would be!), the whole thing could get extremely complicated. She didn’t fancy the idea of being wrapped up immobile for several weeks, then turning into a butterfly, and by that time she’d have forgotten who she was and what she was supposed to be doing. An ant seemed the better choice. Mildred considered the Witch’s Code: ‘Spells are never to be used for trivial or selfish reasons.’ This was neither. The school, and everyone in it, was in immediate danger. She had never actually turned herself into anything before – although she and Maud had disappeared once when they were trying to make a laughter potion. That had been strange enough, being able to see right through yourself to the chair you were sitting on, but actually turning into something hundreds of times smaller than yourself was quite an unnerving thought. According to the Witch’s Code, if you transformed yourself into an animal, you could still change yourself back into a human again. However, this was not the case if someone else changed you. In that case you were trapped until the other person removed the spell. Mildred could see that there was really no choice. It was either a snail forever or a temporary ant. She chose the ant.

  Mildred braced herself and muttered the words of the spell, wrapping her arms round herself and flexing her fingers into little zaps of energy. It worked. First of all she had a peculiar tingling feeling all over, with a sensation of being pulled inwards very fast from all parts of her body – even her hair. Then, very suddenly, she was an ant – a whole centimetre lower than the base of the door. The transformation was not exactly pleasant, although it didn’t hurt and was so fast that she barely had time to panic.

  Mildred found that being an ant was very different to the way she had felt when Ethel had turned her into a frog. On that occasion she had still felt very much like herself, despite being hunched into a frog position and being able to jump like an Olympic athlete, but being an ant, she found herself fizzing with manic energy and the compulsion to start zooming about in a sort of frenzy. In fact, it was quite difficult to remember what she was supposed to be doing, as she set off like a rocket into the room. She

  narrowly avoided being trodden on by Agatha and scuttled under the bedroom door and out into the corridor. The best thing to have done would have been for Mildred to change herself back once she was safely out of Miss Granite’s bedroom, but she found it difficult to focus her ant brain on the intricacies of the reversal spell, especially as she had stumbled across a large cake crumb just outside the door and immediately felt an overwhelming desire to start dragging it back underneath the door towards the airing cupboard.

  ‘What on earth am I doing?’ thought Mildred wildly, pushing the crumb away. ‘I must get back to Maud and find help.’

  She beetled to the top of the stairs as fast as she could, desperately trying to stay focused on getting down the huge stone steps of the spiral staircases and back to the Form Three corridor. Her progress was unfortunately hindered by a trail of cake crumbs, some of them with microscopic smears of jam, and each time she came across

  one, Mildred experienced the same all-consuming need to start either eating the crumb (especially those with jam on) or tidying the crumbs back towards Miss Granite’s room.

  ‘Must get to Maud!’ said the ant-Mildred, clambering resolutely over a boulder-sized morsel. ‘Must get to Maud. Must get to Maud.’

  It seemed to be taking forever, what with her tiny size and the delicious array of crumbs. Each step on all three spiral staircases was as high as a mountain to an ant, even though it was quite fun to find that she could run down the upright part with complete ease. It was just taking such a long time.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ildred finally arrived at Maud’s door and skimmed underneath with a sigh of relief. At least there were no crumbs of any sort to distract her in Form Three’s bedroom corridor, as the pupils were never allowed any sweets or cakes in addition to their three daily meals. If Mildred hadn’t been so frantic in her mission to alert Maud, she would have been quite annoyed about the amount of cake crumbs she had encountered in the teachers’ wing of the school!

  Now she realized that she faced a big problem. How on earth was she going to wake Maud up? Maud was a very heavy sleeper and was actually snoring, which meant she was deeply unconscious. She had a wonderfully calm, straightforward nature and tended to fall asleep the moment her head hit the pillow (unlike Mildred, who was always worried about something she had, or hadn’t, done).

  By a useful stroke of luck, there was an almost-full moon lighting the room well enough for Mildred to see where everything was, so she zoomed up the bed leg and on to Maud’s pillow. The snoring was actually creating a hurricane-force wind as Mildred flicked her antennae against Maud’s chin.

  Maud obviously felt the antennae in her sleep, because she raised her hand to brush the ant-Mildred away. Fortunately, Mildred had proper ant-

  like reactions and zipped to one side before Maud’s hand touched her chin.

  ‘T
his is hopeless,’ thought Mildred. ‘Even if I do wake her up and she sees me, she’ll just think I’m an ant.’ She rested on her middle legs and absentmindedly combed her antennae with her front ones while she tried to work out how she could let Maud know that she was Mildred and not an ant.

  The same situation had occurred when Mildred had been turned into a frog by Ethel, but Tabby had recognized the frog-Mildred and cuddled up to her so that Maud had begun to wonder about things, especially as Mildred had gone missing. This time, Maud had no idea that Mildred was anywhere except in her own comfy bed next door. Mildred ran down the bedspread on to the floor and decided to skim up the leg of the small homework table under the window. By the light of the moon, Mildred could see that Maud had been in the middle of writing a letter. The pupils all had to write home once a week, telling their families what a happy and studious time they were having at Miss Cackle’s. Miss Hardbroom always read through the letters before she took them to the post, so it was difficult to write anything other than ‘I am very happy. The food is wonderful and I am doing lots of homework.’ Maud hadn’t got much further than, ‘Dear all, I am so glad to be back with my friends.’ The rest of the page glowed blue-white in the moonlight, next to the bottle of black ink, which was uncovered as Maud had forgotten to put the top back on.

  ‘It really is more like a prison than a school,’ reflected Mildred glumly. ‘Perhaps I ought to just stay as an ant and live upstairs eating all the crumbs from the teachers’ cakes for the rest of my life.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ack in Miss Granite’s room, Agatha still had quite a lot of work to do before two o’clock. She had put Tabby’s cat-basket on to a chair and assembled a neat pile of shoeboxes and jam jars on the table. The boxes were all labelled Form One, Form Two and so on, and the jam jars were individually marked with the teachers’ names in indelible black pen. Agatha sat at the table, busily cutting out circles of paper with air-holes punched in them to go on the jars. She had already jabbed holes in the lids of the boxes and had a big bag of leaves and grass on the floor ready to go into everything so that the snails would be comfortable while Agatha and her coven decided what to do with them. The military precision of the operation was chilling to watch.