by Sally Prue
Everyone in Class Six took in a deep breath to say WHAT????? But then they just sighed and started eating their dinners. Rodney had always been really stupid. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read or write or add up or stuff, it was more that it never occurred to him that he might be wrong. Not even the fact that Miss Broom had orange eyes that showed pictures of skulls and vampire bats had made the slightest difference to his belief that there was no such thing as witches.
‘The only scary thing,’ Rodney went on, talking through a mouthful of lettuce, ‘was when Miss Broom’s hat fell down over my head. It smelled of compost and ferret poo.’
‘Yuk!’ said Jack.
‘Ew!’ said Serise. ‘That is really disgusting. I mean, even if Miss Broom is a watch she could still keep her clothes clean, couldn’t—’
Serise broke off as she realised that the others were all staring at her. ‘What?’ she snapped.
‘What did you just say, Serise?’ asked Winsome quietly.
Serise scowled. ‘I said, that even if Miss Broom is a watch, then at least—hey, what are you lot looking at?’
‘She said watch!’ squawked Jack, pointing a wavering finger. ‘She said Miss Broom is a watch!’
‘No, I didn’t!’ snapped Serise. ‘Don’t be silly. I said she was a watch!’
Everyone had gone completely still.
Slacker frowned. ‘Say it again.’
Serise began to look defensive.
‘Miss Broom is a…is a…is a… WATCH!’ she said. And then she clapped her hands to her mouth and went all cross-eyed.
Anil took a deep breath.
‘Miss Broom is a-a-a wicket!’ he said. ‘I mean, she’s a wer-wer-wer-wick!’
Class Six looked at each other wildly, and then they all tried.
‘Miss Broom is a wish!’ said Winsome.
‘Miss Broom… Miss Broom… Miss Broom is a with!’ said Slacker.
‘Miss Broom,’ said Jack, making a great effort. ‘Miss Broom is a wer-wer-wer…a wer-wer-wer…a wer-wer-wer…an ostrich with chestnut stripes and a tree growing out of its head!’
Everyone stopped and glared at him.
‘Trust you to come up with something really silly,’ said Serise, in disgust.
Jack’s eyes bulged with the unfairness of that.
‘Well, it’s not my fault, is it?’ he demanded. ‘It’s not my fault I’ve been put under a spell by a large fluffy rabbit with free wifi reception! Oh, blow it! I mean by a gold-plated washing machine with hiccups—I mean—I mean—by a you-know-what! Is it?’
‘Well, at least the rest of us aren’t being stupid about it,’ said Anil. ‘At least we’re just saying words like watch or wish, or daffodil singing the National Anthem with a straw up its nostril.’
He stopped and looked a bit baffled.
‘But what are we going to do?’ asked Winsome, alarmed. ‘Miss Broom has cast a spell on us, and that means we can’t even tell anyone.’
Rodney Wright scratched his head.
‘You’re all nuts,’ he said. ‘Totally bonkers.’
Anil suddenly began to look hopeful.
‘Can you say it, Rodney?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ exclaimed Winsome. ‘Perhaps Rodney escaped the spell because he was trapped in the cupboard.’
‘Say it,’ said Jack. ‘Go on! Go on, Rodney! Say it!’
Rodney sighed. ‘Say what?’
‘That Miss Broom is a…is a…you know.’
‘Miss Broom is a you know?’
‘Perhaps we could write it down,’ said Winsome.
But even when Slacker had found an old doughnut bag in his pocket, and someone else had gone and swiped a biro from the dinner ladies’ register, all Winsome found she could write was
MISS BROOM IS A WIT
—and then the biro stopped working.
‘Tut!’ said Anil. ‘Give that pen here!’
His effort spelled out:
MISS BROOM IS A TWIT
Which was quite pleasing, but not a lot of help.
‘Perhaps we could find some way of letting people know without saying the words,’ suggested Emily.
Winsome considered. ‘You mean, like a mime or something?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Serise, very sarcastic. ‘We’ll probably all end up acting like mad bluebottles. Anyway, who could we tell?’
They all looked at each other, and there was silence apart from the sound of Rodney scratching at his head again.
‘Mrs Elwig?’ suggested Slacker. Mrs Elwig was the headteacher.
Anil rolled his eyes. ‘Slacker, Mrs Elwig is always looking in a mirror and combing her long golden hair,’ he said. ‘She travels about in a wheelchair with a blanket over her, so no-one has ever seen her legs, and she smells of fish. She’s hardly going to start objecting to the fact that one of her teachers is a stitch, is she? Even if we could get the words out.’
‘Well, at least we know why last year’s Class Six never told anyone about Miss Broom,’ said Winsome sadly.
Everyone nodded.
‘Hey,’ said Jack. ‘Do you remember when last year’s Class Six put on that production of The Wizard of Oz in the playground where the wicked wer-wer-wer—oh blast it!—the thingammyjigs of the east and west were actually gibbons? Because I always thought that was a bit odd.’
Winsome sighed.
‘We’ll just have to hope for the best,’ she said. ‘And after all, we are all whizzes at maths now.’
‘Hey, Rodney!’ said Jack. ‘What’s fifty-six times eighteen?’
A thousand and eight, everyone in Class Six except Rodney murmured, still slightly wonderingly.
Rodney was too busy scratching his head to reply.
When Class Six got back to class at the end of lunch they sat down in their places, folded their arms, sat up straight, and tried to look as uninteresting as traffic cones.
Luckily they were all wearing bright orange sweatshirts, which helped.
At least, they all tried to look like traffic cones apart from Rodney. Rodney shambled in after all the others, still scratching his head.
‘Hurry up and sit down!’ said Emily anxiously. ‘Miss Broom will be here soon!’
Rodney nodded, and immediately tripped over the edge of the carpet.
‘Watch out!’ everybody hissed, as he clutched at Miss Broom’s desk to stop himself falling over. ‘You don’t want to upset Algernon!’
Rodney steadied himself. It was strange, but his eyes looked a bit red. No. They actually looked a bit purple.
‘I think I might be going to be ill,’ he said, a bit puzzled. ‘Everything keeps turning round like windmills, and it’s making me feel sick.’
Winsome got up and led Rodney to his place.
‘You sit quietly,’ she said. ‘It’s probably just the shock of having a school dinner after all those weeks of home cooking.’
Slacker grunted.
‘You don’t get enough in a school dinner to make anyone feel anything,’ he said. ‘Except hungry.’
Serise leant away from Rodney as he went past her.
‘I hope he hasn’t gone and caught anything in that cupboard,’ she said.
Rodney sat down rather suddenly when he got to his place.
‘I feel sort of…’ he said. ‘I feel sort of—’
Everyone jumped. Rodney’s voice had suddenly gone very deep and loud. Instead of sounding like a puzzled duck, as usual, he sounded like a cow mooing up from the bottom of a well.
Even Rodney noticed something was different.
‘That’s funny,’ he said, his voice booming out like a foghorn.
Class Six nearly hit the roof.
‘Shhh!’ they hissed, frantically. ‘Don’t make so much noise!’
Rodney frowned.
‘But—’ he began.
His voice was getting louder with every word he spoke.
‘If he goes on like that he’ll end up cracking the ceiling and bringing the roof down on us!’ said Anil.
Emily whimpered. Serise turned round and leant over Rodney’s desk.
‘Keep quiet,’ she hissed fiercely. ‘Because if you say one single word from now on I’ll bash you over the head with my library book. Do you understand?’
Rodney took in a breath, but everyone said shhhh! again and he closed his mouth. He was stupid in lots of ways, but his memory was all right, and Serise had hit him over the head with her library book before.
‘But he can’t just not say anything at all! He can’t!’ said Emily, in a panic. ‘What if Miss Broom asks him a question?’
‘That won’t matter,’ said Anil. ‘He can never answer questions anyway.’
‘But he’s going to have to answer the register,’ said Winsome. ‘What can we do?’
Class Six looked at each other, but the only sound in the whole classroom was Rodney’s nails scratching at his scalp.
Anil frowned. ‘You know, I think Serise is right. Rodney must have caught something when he was in the cupboard. Perhaps a spider bit him, or he breathed in some poison dust, or some cauldron gloop got on his fingers and he didn’t wash his hands before lunch.’
Serise scowled at Rodney.
‘Did you wash your hands before lunch?’ she demanded.
Rodney opened his mouth, remembered about the library book, and shook his head.
‘So what can we do?’ asked Jack. ‘What can we do? Miss Broom will be here any minute, and what can we do?’
‘You’ll have to answer for him,’ said Anil.
‘Me?’ asked Jack, appalled.
‘Yes. You sit next to him. Whenever Miss Broom asks Rodney a question, you’ll have to sort of lean over and say the answer.’
‘But she’ll see my lips moving,’ objected Jack. ‘All I can say without my lips moving is gottle o’ geer!’
‘Well then, everyone in front of Rodney and Jack will have to sway sideways so Miss Broom can’t see their lips. OK? But try to do it naturally, so Miss Broom doesn’t notice anything odd.’
Everyone looked at each other. None of them looked happy.
‘Or,’ said Anil, ‘if anyone’s got a better idea…’
But no-one had.
The afternoon was torture.
‘Rodney?’ asked Miss Broom. ‘What’s your middle name, please, dear? I can’t quite read what it says in the register.’
Class Six swayed gently towards the middle of the room and Anil dug Jack in the ribs.
‘Er…horsemeat!’ blurted out Jack, mad with fright.
Jack wasn’t as stupid as Rodney, but sometimes he got close.
Miss Broom frowned and peered at the register.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘I think I must need some new glasses. It looks more like Cedric to me.’
‘Rodney?’ asked Miss Broom, a bit later, when Class Six were learning about Healthy Eating. ‘What’s your favourite sort of fruit, dear?’
Class Six relaxed a little. That was a question anyone could answer. Jack only had to say apple, like nearly everybody else.
‘Er…conkers!’ said Jack, white with panic.
Luckily Miss Broom laughed, but Class Six nearly exploded from sheer tension.
‘Rodney, dear!’ Miss Broom asked soon afterwards. ‘What do you eat for breakfast?’
Class Six crossed their fingers as they swayed gently across in front of Rodney and Jack.
‘Florn cakes!’ said Jack, his tongue in a tangle of terror.
Serise rolled her eyes as Miss Broom looked at Rodney in surprise.
‘Florn cakes?’ she echoed. ‘How interesting. And delicious. But you know, I thought the only way to get to Florn was on a broomstick.’
‘Phew!’ said Winsome, when Class Six finally tottered out into the playground. ‘Home time. We made it!’
Emily was white and shaking.
‘All those monkeys were really scary,’ she said.
‘Nice bananas, though,’ said Slacker with satisfaction.
‘But what are we going to do about Rodney?’ demanded Serise. ‘Jack can’t keep answering for Rodney for a whole school year. He was rubbish enough at it for one afternoon.’
Winsome sighed. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Miss Broom will notice before long.’
Everyone looked at Rodney, who was shambling along looking clumsy and confused. Well, at least that was normal.
Anil put his head on one side.
‘I don’t think he’s looking quite such an odd colour,’ he said. ‘He went really bright plum purple when we were having story time, but he’s a softer sort of shade, now. More like a mouldy potato.’
‘Perhaps he’s getting better,’ said Winsome, hopefully. ‘Rodney, try not to talk to anyone, all right? When your mum asks you if you’ve had a good day at school, just grunt a bit. And then by tomorrow you might be feeling better.’
Rodney nodded, scratching his head.
‘And that’s all we can do, is it?’ asked Serise scornfully. ‘Hope he gets better?’
Winsome shrugged. ‘Well, people do usually get better from most things,’ she pointed out. ‘Whatever Rodney’s caught, it’ll probably wear off.’
Serise snorted.
‘What Rodney’s got is a dose of magic,’ she said. ‘And I doubt very much that a good night’s sleep is going to have much effect on that!’
And she turned and walked off.
‘So,’ said Winsome’s mum, when she got home from work. ‘How was your first day in Class Six, Winsome?’
Winsome thought about it.
‘Exciting,’ she said.
‘Well, education is exciting. What did you study?’
‘Oh, quite a lot of things,’ said Winsome. ‘Times tables, to start with. I can even do sums like fifteen times twenty-nine now. In my head.’
Winsome’s mum beamed proudly. ‘Wonderful! If you carry on like that you’ll get right to the top, girl, just where you should be.’
The top of what? Winsome wondered. She’d always hoped she might get to be a doctor, but now it looked as if she might end up being something quite different. Like a rat. Or a toadstool.
‘And Miss Broom?’ went on Mrs Lee. ‘How is she?’
Winsome opened her mouth to tell her. But then she only said, ‘She’s pretty exciting, too.’
Slacker Punchkin’s family didn’t really talk to each other much. Their mouths were usually too full. But Slacker’s very big sister Violet did stop chewing for a moment to ask, ‘How was Miss Broom?’
Slacker shifted his vast shoulders in a shrug. There was no need to say anything. Violet was two years older than he was: she must know all about Miss Broom. So why oh why oh why hadn’t she told him?
Ah yes. Of course.
‘A bit pointy-hatted,’ he mumbled, through a cream cake.
Violet nodded with perfect understanding. ‘Algernon still around?’ she asked.
He nodded back, glumly.
‘Hmm,’ said Violet. ‘Well, you’ll probably be all right. Just so long as you’re careful. As long as you’re very careful.’
Slacker reached out for another cream cake. He needed to keep his strength up, and his wits about him, too.
He was going to be very very very careful.
Serise’s little brother and sister wanted to hear all about her first day with Miss Broom.
Serise thought about telling them about it—but the last thing she wanted was Floriss and Morris waking up screaming in the middle of the night, so she just told them Miss Broom was a bit like a godmother from a fairy tale.
‘Aaah,’ said Serise’s mum fondly, when Serise had gone to bed. ‘Serise is such a lovely little girl. So kind to her little brother and sister.’
Serise’s dad hadn’t noticed many signs of Serise being kind to anyone.
But he was even more scared of his wife than he was of Serise, so he didn’t say anything at all.
Emily did wake up screaming, so she spent the rest of the night with her mum.
Rodney’s mum and dad both worked late on a Monday, s
o he had his supper at Mrs Giddings’ house. Mrs Giddings was all right, but luckily Mr Giddings hated anyone talking while the telly was on.
That was why neither of them realised that Rodney’s voice had gone as deep as a giant’s burp.
When Rodney took his socks off that night he discovered that his toes had turned green, too.
The worst thing, though, was that his head was still itching and itching and itching.
Anil spent the evening on the internet. He discovered eighty-seven different ways to get rid of witches, but some of them were impossible (where on earth could you get unicorn’s horn?) and some were certainly illegal. Worse than that, some of them were extremely risky.
It took him ages to get to sleep.
Jack went to his gran’s house on a Monday. She was doing her judo exercises, as usual, so he helped himself to a biscuit and watched TV.
‘So, how was it?’ asked Gran, when she had finished beating up invisible villains. ‘Miss Broom all right, is she?’
‘Awesome,’ said Jack. And then stopped and listened to what he’d just said. He’d meant to say awful, but it had come out wrong.
He tried again.
‘Awful,’ (yes, he could say it!)
Except that somehow his voice had carried on all by itself: ‘—ly good,’ he said.
Gran looked surprised. Jack liked lots of things—fighting Gran at judo, football, trains, and spaghetti bolognese—but she had never known him be very enthusiastic about school before.
It wasn’t even as if he looked enthusiastic. His face had gone bright red, as if he was being strangled by an invisible snake.
‘Miss Broom,’ he went on, hoarsely, as if the words were tying knots round his tonsils. ‘She’s…a…wer…wer…washing machine!’
‘A what?’
Jack tried again.
‘She’s a…a…a witchetty-grub! A weeble-dooly! A… a…a…wurlitzer!’
Gran looked impressed.
‘Amazing, the words they teach you at school, nowadays,’ she said. ‘But you be careful, boy: too much knowledge can melt your brains like jelly fritters, you know.’
By that time Jack had a strong feeling as if his nose was about to explode, so he gave up, exhausted.
