The Marvelous Magic of Miss Mabel

by Natasha Lowe

  “Because she stole my invention,” Mabel said, her lip quivering. “She made me think she had invented something too, and I wanted to see what it was, so she took me up here. I was scared she might have stolen my idea. I never expected her to steal my actual invention.” Mabel watched the color literally drain from Ruby’s face. She had pale skin to begin with, but it looked like someone had dipped her in a bucket of bleach. “And that’s not the worst of it, Ruby,” Mabel whispered. “She took all my wind samples too.”

  “What does that mean?” Ruby said, staring at Mabel.

  “It means Winifred is about to unleash a wind that is so concentrated and strong it could . . .” Mabel paused a moment. “Well, I don’t know how bad it will be because I never tested past a number five. That was powerful enough to tug laundry off a line, so imagine what a ten could do. Which is the bottle Winifred’s planning to open. She thinks it’s my best spell,” Mabel explained. “And it’s been sitting so long, it will be desperate to get out. Trapped wind is much more dangerous than I realized,” Mabel admitted in a small voice. “You have to handle it very carefully.”

  “This is bad,” Ruby whispered, screwing up her face in anguish.

  Mabel hurried over to one of the windows. She could see the podium down on the field where the teachers and guests were already starting to gather. Lord Winthrop Delacy sat next to Miss Brewer, wearing a gray top hat, and there was Angelina Tate from the Society of Forward-Thinking Witches, talking to Miss Seymour. The rest of the teachers were taking their seats, and a brass band had assembled in front of the school steps. Mabel could hear them playing a rousing rendition of the Ruthersfield song, “Spells of Glory.” She watched as the girls filed out class by class, filling the chairs in front of the podium. Winifred walked demurely to her seat, giving a low curtsy to the podium before sitting down. She was holding a glass bottle in her hands, and Mabel gave a howl of frustration.

  “We have to get out of here,” Mabel said, pushing up the window. “Help,” she yelled, waving madly. But the attic was too far away, and no one was looking up at the window to see them. Besides, the band played so loudly they would never be heard over the noise. “We’d break our necks if we jumped,” Mabel said, looking at the ground.

  “Can’t you float down, Mabel? You said you floated as a baby.”

  “Not anymore. Not for years. And I’m certainly not going to risk it by throwing myself out an attic window.”

  “Wait a minute. Look over there,” Ruby said.

  Turning around, Mabel saw that Ruby was pointing at an open window on the far side of the attic. “It’s still a thirty-foot drop, Ruby.”

  “Not down,” Ruby said. “We go up, Mabel. See, the cats are getting in from somewhere.” As she spoke, a black cat leaped through the window.

  Mabel peered across the attic, slowly beginning to smile. “It might work, Ruby. You’re a genius!” Picking her way over to the window, Mabel yanked it up as high as it would go and stuck her head out. There was a narrow ledge they could stand on, and craning her neck upward, Mabel saw that it was possible to climb right onto the roof from here. That way they could reach the iron drainpipe at the back of the building and climb down it to the ground.

  “I’ll go first,” Mabel said, stepping out onto the ledge.

  “Wait, Mabel,” Ruby cried. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll help you.” Holding on to the gutter, Mabel pulled herself up. “Don’t look down,” she panted, her hands growing sweaty as she grabbed at the slates. Kicking and scrabbling, Mabel managed to haul herself onto the roof, ripping her stockings in the process. She took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. “All right, Ruby. I can pull you up now.”

  “Mabel, I’m really not sure I can do this,” Ruby whimpered.

  The band had stopped playing, but Mabel couldn’t see across the roof from here, so she had no idea what was going on, until Miss Brewer’s distinctive voice drifted toward them. It was impossible to hear exactly what the headmistress was saying, but Mabel caught the odd word or two. “Welcome,” and “our honor,” and “it’s a pleasure to have you.” Then the girls started clapping, and another woman, who Mabel guessed to be Angelina Tate, began addressing the crowd.

  “Ruby, we have to hurry,” Mabel said. “The girls are going to start demonstrating their inventions next, and I bet Winifred is one of the first.”

  “I’m scared of heights,” Ruby whispered.

  “Do you want to stay here and I’ll go alone?” Mabel offered.

  “No, I’m coming.” Ruby slowly inched her way onto the ledge. “I can’t let you do this by yourself.” She gasped as a cat jumped out next to her, leaping onto the roof.

  “Take my hand,” Mabel said, reaching down. She grasped Ruby’s fingers, which were damper than her own, and drawing on strength she didn’t even know she had, Mabel yanked her friend toward her.

  “These ridiculous petticoats,” Ruby panted. “They just get in the way.”

  “Come on,” Mabel said, scrambling up the gently sloping roof. At the top, she could see the assembly again. Cressida Williams in year three had stepped up to the front and appeared to be demonstrating a magic duster that was floating about the podium, brushing the guests’ hats. Mabel could hear faint bursts of laughter. “Please, Ruby. We need to hurry.” Ruby nodded but she didn’t move. “You can do this. I know you can,” Mabel encouraged her. “It’s not that steep.” Nodding again, Ruby slowly began to climb. As soon as she was near enough, Mabel leaned over and grabbed her hand. Holding tight to each other, the girls picked their way along the roof ridge and over to the heavy iron drainpipe that was fastened to a corner of the wall.

  Looking down, Mabel saw that every few feet there was an iron band holding the drainpipe in place. “Right, Ruby. You’re going to use the bands to place your feet on,” Mabel said, reaching for the top of the pipe. “Just go slowly and follow me.” She began to descend. Ruby was whimpering softly behind her, and Mabel prayed that they would make it in time. Halfway down there was a creaking sound. Mabel stopped climbing. She held her breath. After a few moments, she moved again, more cautiously this time, her hands so slippery she found it difficult to hold on. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Mabel started to run, desperate to get to Winifred before she opened the bottle. There was another round of applause. As Mabel dashed across the grounds, she saw Winifred make her way to the front of the podium. She had strung a clothesline between two trees, and a frilly wet petticoat hung from it.

  “I call my invention ‘clothes dryer in a bottle,’ ” Winifred began, addressing the crowd in a loud, confident voice.

  “No,” Mabel yelled, charging over the grass. She lunged at Winifred, but Winifred dodged out of the way. Mabel lost her footing and fell. “Don’t open it,” Mabel gasped.

  “Mabel Ratcliff,” Miss Brewer roared. “How dare you disturb this event in such a manner, stampeding in here, covered in dirt. This is not how a Ruthersfield girl behaves.” She banged her cane on the podium. “You should be ashamed of such behavior. Brawling like a fishwife.”

  Mabel scrambled to her feet. Her braids had come undone, but she didn’t care. “Please, Miss Brewer. That is not Winifred’s invention.”

  “Papa,” Winifred broke in, “this is the girl who got suspended. The one the Cranfords were telling us about.”

  Lord Winthrop Delacy rose from his seat and pointed a finger at Mabel. His face boiled with heat and his hand shook. “That child should be expelled. Accusing my daughter . . .”

  “You will go straight to my office,” Miss Brewer said, with another bang of her cane. “Now.”

  Miss Reed, the flying teacher, marched down from the podium and took Mabel’s arm in a vicelike grip. “I will accompany the child.”

  “Thank you, Miss Reed.” Miss Brewer turned back to Winifred. “Please continue, Winifred.”

  “No,” Mabel screamed. “It’s the wrong bottle, Winifred. Don’t open it.”

  “W
ait!” Miss Seymour jumped up. But it was too late. Winifred was pulling out the cork.

  With a loud whooshing sound, a black funnel-shaped tornado spun out of the bottle. Mabel stumbled backward, knocked over by the force of the wind. It howled in fury, tearing the clothesline from the tree and spinning straight at the podium. There was a gasp from the assembled girls as they watched the tornado swoop under the canvas roof and pick up the whole structure, lifting the entire Ruthersfield faculty and all the guests into the air. It spun the podium in wild circles. Top hats, canes, and glasses came pouring down, followed by a shower of knitted wand cases, the wands scattering all over the grass. Trapped in their seats, the teachers and guests held on tight. One minute they were sitting there in a mass of purple gowns and finery, the next they were all gone. Every single one of them. Except for Miss Reed, who had let go of Mabel and was waving her smelling salts in front of her face, blubbering out a stream of nonsense. In numb shock, Mabel watched the podium hurtle across the sky. The wind taking it away had come from the coast, and that was probably where it was heading, Mabel guessed. Back out to sea.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  * * *

  The Chase

  A NUMBER OF THE GIRLS had fainted, falling gracefully to the ground one after another. Florence had been the first, setting off a chain reaction of collapsing students. Miss Reed wrung her hands, looking around in distress, as if searching for someone to tell her what to do. “All the teachers,” she kept mumbling. “Every last one of them. And Lord Winthrop Delacy as well.”

  “Miss Reed, shouldn’t we go after them?” Mabel said. “Before it’s too late.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Miss Reed whispered, not making any move to go.

  Taking the initiative, Mabel ran to the shed and grabbed an armful of broomsticks. She raced back and tossed one to the flying teacher, throwing the rest on the ground. “We can’t waste time. We have to go now,” she shouted. “Please, everybody, grab a broom.”

  “But what can we do?” Violet Featherstone cried. “There’s no way to stop them. They’ll end up getting swept out to sea and drowned.” A great wail of despair went up from the girls at this, and the air was thick with the scent of smelling salts.

  “Where’s my cat?” Miss Reed moaned, perching sideways on her broomstick. “Kittypuss, Kittypuss, here, pretty kitty,” she called in a thin, quivery voice.

  “No time for cats,” Mabel yelled, hitching up her petticoats and flinging one leg over her broomstick. “Who’s coming with me?” There was no answer from the girls, just the sound of hysterical sobbing.

  “Where’s my papa?” Winifred wailed. “What have you done with him, Mabel?”

  “Get a broom and let’s go,” Mabel ordered, whereupon Winifred collapsed on the grass in a faint.

  Ruby was calling for her cat, but Mabel shook her head. “No, Ruby. Leave him. Ride like this; it’s much faster.”

  Copying Mabel, Ruby lifted her petticoats as she swung her leg over. “My mother would be horrified, seeing me fly this way,” Ruby said, swooping into the air.

  “She’ll be even more horrified if she hears we’ve lost the entire staff of Ruthersfield, including Lord Winthrop Delacy and the mayor.”

  “Oh, Mabel, too high,” Ruby gasped, following Mabel up past the trees. “We’re not supposed to fly this high, and I really do have a fear of heights.”

  “Forget the rules. Just don’t look down,” Mabel said. And aiming west, she sped off toward the coast, hunched low over the handle for a more streamlined ride.

  There was no sign of the teachers, and Mabel scanned the sky, worrying about what would happen if they were never found. The school would have to close down while the board of governors replaced them all and found a new headmistress. Except that wouldn’t work, Mabel realized, because most of the board of governors had been swept away too. This was a catastrophe of the highest order. Mabel groaned, terrified that they wouldn’t be able to stop the teachers from blowing all the way over to Greenland, which seemed to be the direction they were heading in.

  “I smell salt,” Ruby shouted. “We must be near the coast.”

  There was a definite saline tang to the air, and glancing down, Mabel saw the Melton Bay pier. Mr. Miller’s donkeys had escaped again and were running along the sand, and Mabel wondered if the sight of a flying pavilion had scared them.

  “There they are,” Ruby suddenly screamed. “By the cliffs.”

  Far down the beach, the jagged white rocks rose out of the sea, signaling danger to ships and swimmers. Huge breakers crashed against them, and gusting over the top of the cliffs was the pavilion, which looked more like a fast-moving thundercloud. It was dark and purple, as if brewing an enormous storm, except Mabel knew it wasn’t rain that would come pouring down on the ocean, but a tempest of tumbling witches.

  “Do you have your wand with you, Ruby?” Mabel shouted. “I’ve lost mine.” The wind took her words and tossed them away, and Mabel had to repeat herself three times before Ruby heard.

  “Yes, I do,” Ruby yelled back, and Mabel nodded. There was a spell they had learned last term called the Stop It Now Spell. It was meant to halt fast-moving objects and was the only thing Mabel could think of that just might work. They had gone outside and practiced it on hares, which always seemed plentiful in the meadows around Potts Bottom. Mabel had had no difficulty with the spell, and it had been great fun making the hare stop and start as it hopped across the field. But casting it while flying was another matter entirely, because you needed an extremely steady hand.

  She flew as close to Ruby as she dared. Mabel didn’t want to get too close, because if she lost control of her broomstick (which was entirely possible at the speed they were flying), they would crash into each other. And neither of the girls could swim.

  “Get ready,” Mabel yelled, slowing down slightly for the transfer. With a great deal of wobbling, Ruby managed to get the wand out of her pocket, and Mabel reached across with one hand, feeling for the first time like this whole awful matter might not end in disaster. As the girls leaned toward each other, a sharp gust of wind knocked against them. Before Mabel could get a good grip on the wand, Ruby grabbed for her broomstick to steady herself, and they both let out a howl as the wand slipped through Mabel’s fingers and plummeted toward the water.

  “Oh, blast it all,” Mabel swore, diving after the wand as fast as she could. But she wasn’t quick enough, and with a cry of despair, Mabel watched it hit the waves and sink out of sight.

  The girls stared at the water, waiting for Ruby’s wand to reappear, bounce back up, but of course it wouldn’t. Even though their school wands were made of black walnut wood, the handles were weighted with unicorn hoof. This helped ground their spells and give them stability, but it also meant that the wands didn’t float.

  “Now what?” Ruby said, starting to cry.

  “I don’t know,” Mabel croaked. She thought of all those strong Ratcliff women her mother had told her about. They wouldn’t give up so easily. “Come on, Ruby. We have to keep flying. We can’t lose sight of them, otherwise we may never find them again.”

  “I’m so tired,” Ruby sobbed, but she flew on beside Mabel. “Are you sure you don’t have your wand, Mabel?”

  Mabel had checked in her pocket at least six times, but she checked again, because she couldn’t believe it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out on the roof.

  “Empty,” Mabel shouted, shaking her head. There was nothing in her pinafore pocket except a sticky mess of cobweb stuck to the lining. She had forgotten all about her cobweb experiment, and wondered if the growing powder had worked on it. Well, they had nothing else to try. It was worth a go. “Ruby, I need your help,” Mabel yelled, peeling the web free. “You’ve got to stop crying and concentrate. I have a plan, but I can’t do it alone.” Ruby nodded, tilting her head down quickly and wiping her eyes on her shoulder. “We’re going to use this cobweb as a net,” Mabel said. “If we can fly in front of the podium, we’ll stretc
h this out between us and trap them in it.” Mabel panted for breath. Talking and flying at the same time was difficult. “Once their momentum has been stopped, the wind will die down and we can tug them back to shore.”

  “It’s a cobweb,” Ruby yelled. “This will never work.”

  “We don’t have another choice.” Mabel held out her hand. “Take a corner, Ruby, and do not let go.”

  “Won’t it rip?” Ruby said, doing exactly what Mabel told her.

  “I hope not,” Mabel shouted. “I’ve been experimenting with it.”

  The girls slowly flew apart, and Mabel gave a satisfied cry as the cobweb started stretching. It did seem unbelievably strong, with the texture of India rubber, which must have something to do with the lion breath she had added to her strengthening potion, and the growing powder had clearly worked. The cobweb stretched across the sky, as if a giant spider had spun it.

  “Now go as fast as you can,” Mabel panted. “We have to get in front of them.”

  After fifteen minutes of flying, they were gaining slowly on the whirlwind of teachers, but Mabel had never been so tired, and she was nervous Ruby might fall off her broomstick from exhaustion. “Come on,” Mabel encouraged. “We can do this, Ruby.”

  Ruby had started to cry again, tears slipping down her cheeks and falling into the ocean. The girls refused to give up though, using every last ounce of strength as they sped toward the purple mass.