Millie rubbed the warts on her hands. “Um, how?”
“THINK CAREFULLY. YOU JUST SAW ME DISPEL THE FREEZE SPELL ON GRUMPKIN. DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT I DID?”
Millie thought back. “Yes, I think so.”
“Go ahead, then,” Mistress Mallow encouraged her.
Millie focused on her warts. She felt a tingle start in the soles of her feet and spread through her body, up to her head. She took a slow, calm breath and said, “Katoa.” The tingle washed over her skin. The warts shrank and then vanished altogether. I did it! she thought. I actually did it!
Mistress Mallow turned to the other teachers. “See, I told you. If she hasn’t been able to cast spells before now, something has been interfering with her.”
Headmistress Pteria frowned. “Let’s leave that discussion until later. Millie, you know that you were forbidden from using magic in the school, especially on another student.”
Millie nodded, feeling tears begin to fill her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think. Am I expelled, too?”
Master Schist snorted. “Hardly.”
Headmistress Pteria smiled. “First of all, Cretacia was not a student. Secondly, you were defending a fragile life. And thirdly, you were upholding the honor of the school. Though you did not formally have permission, I believe under the circumstances, you were fully justified.”
“Then I’m not expelled?” Millie asked, trembling.
“No, you certainly are not,” Headmistress Pteria told her, “but I must caution you against using magic again until we have a better understanding of what has changed to allow you to cast spells. Also, I would like to meet with you and your mother together. Will you please ask her to come see me on Onesday morning?”
The gong rang. “TIME FOR CLASS,” Master Quercius announced. “I BELIEVE THE LAB IS NEEDED FOR THAUMATURGY NOW.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mistress Mallow. “May I recommend that Thea be moved to a safer location?”
“AN EXCELLENT IDEA,” the Dodonos replied.
Headmistress Pteria placed a gentle claw on Millie’s shoulder. “You’ve had quite a shock, Millie. Would you like to go home?”
Millie did, desperately. She wanted to be back in her cozy kitchen, baking something soothing and delicious. But she had to tell Max what had happened. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’ve really been looking forward to Thaumaturgy. May I stay?”
The Headmistress laughed, a soft roaring like the first rumble of a thunderstorm. “Of course you can stay. Mallow, please take Thea to my office. I’ll stay and have a word with Bertemious.”
“Certainly, Headmistress,” said Mistress Mallow. She swept out of the room with Thea and the warming slate.
An elderly salamander in yellow robes and a green teacher’s cap bustled in. “What’s all this? I have class now!”
“Simmer down, Bertie. We’re just leaving,” said Master Schist.
“A word, Bertemious?” said the Headmistress. She took the salamander aside. Master Schist stomped out, and Master Quercius’s face faded from view. After a moment, Headmistress Pteria nodded to Millie and left.
Mud Pies and Cupcakes
The other students filed in. Sagara rushed up. “Where were you? You didn’t come to the classroom.”
Max and Petunia came over. “You’re pale as a ghost,” said Max. “What happened?”
Quickly, as the other students filed in and took their seats, Millie told them what Cretacia had tried to do and how the teachers had reacted.
Petunia whistled. “What do you call a humiliated witch?” she quipped. “A snitchy witchy.”
Millie nodded miserably. “I’m sorry, Max. She’s sure to tell on you now.”
Max looked crestfallen. “You couldn’t help it, Millie. You did the right thing.” He poked her. “Hey, can I come to your house for dinner? I don’t think going home is a very good idea right now.”
Millie brightened and nodded. “Of course! I’m sure we can convince Mother to let you in.”
“Quiet!” yelled Master Bertemious. “You snivelling mob of miscreants. Sit down and shut up.”
Max sat with Millie, and Sagara and Petunia took the workbench next to them.
“Today,” the salamander boomed, “we shall discuss the properties of that very flexible material, mud, and how it can be applied to a wide range of spells.”
“Mud?” Max muttered. “Really? Could this be any more boring?”
Master Bertemious glared at him. “Tell me, Mister Salazar, what are the properties of mud?”
Max sat up straighter, rising to the challenge. “Mud is a proto-material, imbued with infinite possibilities, endlessly mutable...”
Millie hardly listened. Her mind was spinning. She’d done magic, real magic! And without any food involved at all. She actually was a witch, after so many years believing she wasn’t. It was such a tremendous relief, and yet Millie surprised herself by feeling a little disappointed. Did this mean she’d have to give up on cooking and focus on magic now? Still, she could hardly wait to go home and tell Mother.
But then she’d have to tell her about Cretacia, and Max. Millie was sure Cretacia would exact her vengeance on Millie’s brother, which was so unfair it made Millie beat her fists on her thighs. But what could she do?
PLOP. Millie jumped. A large lump of mud had landed on the workbench in front of her. Master Bertemious chuckled and dumped another lump in front of Max.
“What are we doing?” she asked Max.
“We’re supposed to turn the mud into marble,” he whispered back.
Millie raised her hand. “Um, Master Bertemious? Headmistress Pteria said I wasn’t to do magic until she said so.”
Master Bertemious harrumphed. “The Headmistress meant that you should not do magic unsupervised. I am present to prevent any more of your, ah, catastrophes.”
The class giggled.
Millie bit her lip. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant, sir.”
The elderly salamander glared at her. “This is my class, and while you are in my class, you will do as I say.”
“Just pretend,” Max whispered to her.
Millie nodded. “As you say, Master Bertemious.” But she had no intention of using any magic. She sunk her hands into the great messy glob and began kneading it absently. Marble was a ridiculous assignment anyway. The only marble she’d ever worked with was marble cake, chocolate and vanilla dough swirled together so that when it was baked and sliced, it revealed lovely marbled pattern. Frosted with chocolate buttercream frosting and dotted with white chocolate curls, it was both beautiful and delicious.
A heavenly aroma wafted through the room. Heads began to turn. Max nudged Millie. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
Startled, Millie looked at her mud blob. She had sculpted a layer cake, complete with frosting. As she watched, the frosting changed from the dull brown of mud to the rich, creamy color of chocolate.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Master Bertemious’s head swiveled around. “What is that?” he demanded, marching over to Millie’s workbench. “Is this meant to be a joke, Miss Noctmartis?” he demanded.
“No, Master,” Millie said. “I just made the wrong marble. This is a marble cake.”
“An illusion? This is thaumaturgy, girl,” the salamander spat. “I expect a physical change.”
“It’s no illusion, sir,” Max assured him. He was starting to drool, just a bit. “Millie used to do this all the time, making mud pies that were really pies. Taste it, you’ll see.”
“Max,” Millie hissed. “What are you doing?”
“Hmph.” Master Bertemious picked up a small knife and cut a slice of cake. All the students sighed as the aroma of cake rose and filled the room. Bertemious lifted the slice, examining the swirls and veins of chocolate and vanilla sponge, prodding it with one webbed finger, lifting it to his small slit nostrils.
Finally, he took a nibble. His golden eyes closed, and he breathed a sigh of pleasure. “Light, m
oist, rich. Subtle tones of vanilla countered by the bitter tang of chocolate. Excellent. One of the finest cakes I have ever eaten. Transformed from mud.” He opened his eyes. “I have never seen or tasted anything like it.”
“May I have some?” Max asked.
Master Bertemious’s eyes narrowed. “Is this a class or a party?”
“Why can’t it be both?” Sagara suggested. “We can give everyone a slice.”
The salamander looked unconvinced, but then he took another bite of the cake. His shoulders relaxed, and he began to smile. “Oh, why not?” he said. “Here, Miss Noctmartis. You do the honors.” He handed Millie the knife.
“This is a bad idea,” Millie said, but Master Bertemious seemed so happy, and the other students looked so eager, she didn’t have the heart to refuse.
Millie gave a slice to Max as the other students lined up, Sagara and Petunia first in line. One by one, she gave generous slices to each of her classmates, leaving just enough for herself at the end.
For a few glorious moments, the room echoed with the perfect silence of contentment. And then, someone said, “Can I have some more?”
“Sorry,” Millie said, swallowing her last bite. “There’s none left.”
“But you could make more,” said Terrence, the gryphon Millie partnered with in Elementary Potions.
“Hmm, yes. An excellent idea,” Master Bertemious said. “Please demonstrate your technique to the class. Use Mr. Salazar’s mud.” He swept away the last remaining crumbs of the cake and shoved Max’s mud over to her side of the worktable.
“Um, sure, I’ll try,” Millie said. “But I don’t really know what I did in the first place.”
“Come now, your brother says you’ve been doing this for years,” said Master Bertemious. “Just walk us through it. What do you do first?”
Millie considered. “Well, I think about a food I want to make, like the marble cake.”
“Could you make cookies?” asked Izzy the dryad.
“Yes, probably.” Millie began to knead the mud, trying to think of a good cookie recipe. Maybe gingerbread?
“What about fudge?” called out another student. “You could turn my mud into fudge.”
“I want fried chicken!”
“Cherry pie!”
“Meatloaf!”
“Elfcakes!” Sagara called out, then, “Ouch!” as Petunia elbowed her in the ribs.
Millie froze. “Wait!” she said. “I can’t make everything at once. We need to agree on something.”
“Start with more cake,” said Master Bertemious.
“No! I want fudge!”
“Croissants!”
“Toadstools!”
“Cupcakes!” Millie cried out desperately. “I’ll make cupcakes, all right?” She seized the mud in front of her and began shaping it. Cupcakes for everyone, she thought.
As Millie transformed her mud, some of the mud in front of each student began to transform. At each workbench, the mud reshaped itself into a cupcake for each student, and for each student, it was their favorite cupcake. White, golden, strawberry, peanut butter, butterscotch, red velvet, dark chocolate, pineapple, and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. For Master Bertemious, there was a molten chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting dotted with candied flies, and Sagara got a cupcake-shaped elfcake. Millie’s was maple bacon.
A reverent hush fell over the class. Then everyone immediately devoured their cupcake. Max smiled at her, and Millie giggled at his blue frosting mustache.
But then, someone said, “More.”
“Yes, more!”
“Please, Millie, that was wonderful.”
“You’re wonderful, Millie. Can I be your friend?”
“Millie’s the best!”
The students began to crowd around Millie’s workbench. Even Master Bertemious pressed forward. “Most impressive, Miss Noctmartis. You are clearly one of the finest students in this school, and I discovered you. Oh, they will sing our praises, you and I. Now, you must teach me your technique.” He reached for her.
Millie shrieked. Everyone was reaching for her, snatching at her hands, her hair, her clothes. “Stop, please,” she cried, batting away and picking off their hands.
“Back off!” Petunia cried. “Everyone stand back.”
Max tried to push the crowd back far enough to pull out his wand, but they pinned him against the workbench.
Sagara began doing rapid calculations on her fingers. “If x is the number of students and f is the force required to repel them...”
“No time!” Petunia shouted. Picking up a leftover lump of mud, she threw it hard, and it splatted against Izzy’s face.
“Hey!” Izzy shouted. She scooped up some mud and fired back at Petunia, who ducked. The mud hit a goblin instead, who scraped it off and fired it back. It sailed across the room and smacked Max in the shoulder, splattering several other students. Before he could even protest, the air was full of flying mud. Swiftly, Millie scrambled down and ducked under the worktable.
“Stop it! Stop throwing mud this inst-ARGLE!” cried Master Bertemious as a mudball hit him right in the mouth.
Max got under the worktable, too, smeared with mud. “What did you do?” he gasped. “It’s a mudtastrophe out there!”
Sagara scuttled over to join them. “I suppose elfcakes are out of the question now?” she asked.
“Yes!” Max and Millie yelled together.
“Where’s Petunia?” Millie added.
“TAKE THAT!” Petunia roared beside them before ducking under the table as well. Her acorn cap had been knocked off, and her hair, face, and dress were all thoroughly plastered with mud. “What do you call a mud fight in school?”
“Umm, earth science?” Millie guessed.
“FUN!” Petunia scooped some mud off the floor and ran off, hurling mudballs.
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Master Quercius thundered. “KATOA.”
The screaming and mud-slinging died down, stopping altogether when Headmistress Pteria swept back into the room. “Great scales! What happened? Master Bertemious?”
The salamander scraped mud from his mouth, spat, and said faintly, “Bogswater. What was I doing?”
“You were under the influence of a powerful charm,” the Headmistress told him.
Master Bertemious looked confused. “Absurd. No charm has gotten past my wards in over twenty years.”
“Nonetheless, you were charmed.” The dragon glanced over the classroom. “Do you know who’s responsible?”
“Noctmartis. It’s all that Noctmartis girl’s fault.”
“Millie?” the Headmistress called out.
Millie felt the blood drain from her face. She crawled out from under the workbench. Her classmates began to stare at her and mutter, some angrily. Sagara looked shocked and hurt.
Petunia raised her hand. “This is my fault, Headmistress. I started throwing the mud.”
The Headmistress raised an eye ridge. “And why did you do that?”
Petunia began twisting the muddy ends of her hair. “Well, because everyone was rushing at Millie. I thought they were going to crush her!”
“And you couldn’t have come up with a better way to stop them, such as summoning another teacher or Master Quercius?”
“Oh,” said Petunia in a small voice.
“Exactly. Detention today, Petunia,” the Headmistress said.
Millie cried out, “No, don’t! It’s not Petunia’s fault. She was just trying to help me.”
Headmistress Pteria frowned. “Petunia is responsible for her own actions, just as you are responsible for yours. Come with me, Millie. It’s time we had a serious talk.”
Max patted Millie on the back and Petunia clenched her fists, but Sagara refused to look at her. Millie trailed after the Headmistress to her office.
“What a day! Sit down, Millie,” Headmistress Pteria told her, taking her own seat and coiling her tail neatly around its legs. Millie sat gingerly, wringing her muddy hands. The Head
mistress stared down at her, golden eyes focused intently.
“I believe I told you not to use magic anymore,” Headmistress Pteria said.
“I tried not to,” Millie said. “Master Bertemious insisted that I could if he was supervising, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I wasn’t going to do anything, but it happened anyway. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sure what to make of you, Millie,” the dragon said slowly. “When your mother came to fill out your paperwork, she told me you were utterly hopeless. Yet, in just three short weeks, you’re creating charms so powerful, even your teacher was affected.” Pteria cocked her head. “That’s rather unusual. In fact, to my knowledge, Master Bertemious has never been bespelled by one of his own students, though he did catch the Polka Pox along with the rest of us a few years back, but that was let loose by a far more advanced student.
“So, I wonder if is this a hoax, some strange attempt by your mother to curry political favor by implying that school was a roaring success, when in fact you were a perfectly competent witch before you came here? Or are you honestly just coming into your power? Hmm?” She drummed her talons on the desk.
Millie gulped. “M-mother’s not trying to fool you, Headmistress. Honestly, I was hopeless before I came here. And I really didn’t mean to charm everyone. I just made cupcakes out of the mud because Max told me I used to do that when I was younger. I didn’t even know I was casting a charm.” She explained exactly what had happened in class.
“Let me get this straight,” Headmistress Pteria said. “Before you started at the Enchanted Forest School, you had never cast a spell successfully. Since then, you’ve had a few minor missteps, but also some impressive successes, such as Thea and the Dome of Silence. Now you’re making powerful charms.”
Millie shrank down in her seat. “Um, I guess so.”
The Headmistress sighed, then drew out her wand. “In general, I dislike using magic to get answers, but this muddle needs straightening out before you start turning people into cupcakes.”
Millie blanched. “I would never do that!”
“Not intentionally, perhaps.” The Headmistress pointed the wand at Millie and intoned, “Totuus.” Truth. A tingle washed over Millie, but otherwise she felt no different.
A Witch’s Kitchen Page 12
