The truth is that I’ve been avoiding Phoebe. I know it’s not right. But I just can’t see how I can talk to her about what happened. I can’t tell MM’s niece that her classmate is a witch.
Tuesday 4 March
Well, after years of dodging it, I’ve finally been trapped into reading Jessamyn’s stupid ElfinFire books. There’s no getting out of it – Ben absolutely insisted that I borrow his own precious set of them (the ones from the library are all out on loan, of course). He rode his bike home at lunchtime to get them for me, because apparently I can’t live for one more day without reading them. So now I’ve got this huge, fat stack of five books sitting on my bedside table, and Ben made me promise that I’d start the first one tonight so I can tell him what I think tomorrow. Urrghhh. Page one starts with – I am not joking – a wise old wizard with a long white beard and ‘twinkling eyes’. Yep, the cheesiest, corniest, most annoying ‘magic’ character you could possibly imagine. And I have to get through, what, 2,500 pages of this???
I got into this mess because Ben asked me at lunchtime which book character I was planning to dress up as for the Fair. And of course I had forgotten all about the costume business, so when he suggested that the library crew should all dress up as characters from ElfinFire I didn’t have an excuse ready. I couldn’t hide the look of ewwww on my face. But nobody noticed, because they were all too busy jumping up and down and squealing about what a great idea this was and how much they all LOVE ElfinFire etc, etc. Adeline had actually read them in French and in English. Then Mara said, ‘Omigosh Zelda you have to go as Ophira!’ and the others squealed even more, but of course now they were looking at my face, and they could see that I didn’t have the slightest idea who or what Ophira was.
When I admitted that I hadn’t exactly read any of the ElfinFire series, the five of them went into total meltdown. And then Ben told them all that Jessamyn is a friend of mine, which caused mass hysteria. Shrieking, gasping, all talking over the top of one another like they were competing to see who could persuade me the fastest that I had to read the books immediately. If my students behaved this way, I’d give the entire class detention. Anyway, from all this babble I gleaned that Ophira is this ‘awesome’ witch with long red hair who is ‘just like’ me. Ha ha. The irony is almost unbearable.
PS – Just to top it off, Ben asked if I’d get Jessamyn to sign his books for him, and of course I couldn’t refuse. She still doesn’t know that I’ve never read any of them.
Wednesday 5 March, 7am
So…Wow.
I’m a little bit speechless.
I’ve been up all night. I started ElfinFire Book 1 when I went to bed at nine, and I finished the last page of Book 3 (The Stone Valley – definitely my favourite) at five o’clock this morning. Then I had exactly one hour’s sleep before my alarm went off at six. I know it’s crazy, but I just could not stop reading those books. I even seriously considered calling in sick today so I could read Books 4 and 5 as well.
I feel like I should apologise to Jessamyn for all the snide remarks I’ve made about warts-and-cauldrons etc. Her books are fantastic. And Ophira is incredible. I mean, I know that she’s a total fantasy witch, but what a character. Powerful, super-smart, and she’s funny, too. I love how she never does what people expect. I am definitely dressing up as Ophira for the Fair. I don’t even care if it’s kind of risky. Actually, it’s probably the smartest thing I could do: like Jessamyn said, I’ll be hiding in plain sight.
I can’t wait to talk to Ben and the others at lunch. Guess I’m part of the fan club now!
Wednesday, 5pm
I cannot believe my own stupidity. Now it really is over, and it’s all my stupid, stupid fault.
I threw a spell at school, and MM saw me do it.
After all the near misses, all the slips and stumbles, the one time that I throw a real blaster, I do it right in front of MM’s face. Worse: right in her face.
It hardly seems possible. I keep replaying it in my head, pointlessly, over and over, hoping that maybe it might end differently. But of course it ends the same way every time: the stream of sparks, the explosion, and then MM’s snooty face staring at me through the smoke, twisted with contempt.
The thing is, I really thought that I was over my spider phobia. I thought Jeremy had cured me. I’d actually been looking forward to finding a spider at home so I could show Barnaby that I’m not a total coward any more. But as it turns out, I am.
I was tidying up the room after class when I saw Jeremy, squatting on the window out to the hallway. He gave me a good startle, but I couldn’t help laughing. I was glad that the class had started up our little joke again. And then I had a brilliant idea. I’d give them a Jeremy-scare in return. I could tuck him into the stack of workbooks, or hide him in with the lunch orders. I was snorting away to myself, thinking about how I’d turn the tables on the class, when I reached up to grab Jeremy – AND HE RAN ONTO MY HAND!
The hair! Those clinging feet! And the weight of that swollen body scuttling up my wrist. I felt my guts leap into my throat, and a scream leap out.
Electricity blazed from my hands, and Jeremy – or whatever it was – was flung against the window and vaporised in a burst of rotten-smelling blue smoke. And then, as the wisps curled away, I saw something even worse. MM’s face, cold and unmoving, sneering at me through the glass.
She looked at me with absolute disgust, like even speaking to me might contaminate her with witch-germs. ‘Unacceptable.’ That was all she said. Then she stalked off down the corridor.
I stood there in the empty classroom with the stink and the shame soaking into me. Unacceptable is right. Everything about me is hopelessly, miserably unacceptable. Unacceptable to Ordinaries, and unacceptable to self-respecting witches.
Look at Grizelda, wetting her pants over a harmless little spider.
I felt numb for the rest of the day, numb in class, numb on the train home. I can’t even say exactly how I got through the afternoon sessions. I didn’t see MM after lunchtime, but it’s pretty much certain that she’s already gone to tell Principal Biggins about me and tomorrow I’ll get the sack for sure. Barnaby is out somewhere again, so I’m just sitting here by myself wallowing in my own humiliation. I can’t even write about it any more. I’m going to bed.
Thursday 6 March
I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Everything is weirdly, creepily normal at school. It’s eerie: as though I opened a crack in the world, but nobody else has noticed. I caught a glimpse of MM before school and she gave me a haughty look, but she didn’t say a thing. And nor did anybody else. No summons from the principal’s office, no whispers in the staff room, nothing out of the ordinary at all. I kept feeling prickles of fear along my neck and down my back, expecting that any minute it would all come crashing down. But nobody seemed to notice a thing. Well, none of the teachers, anyway. The children can tell when something is going on. They sense weakness. And then they play up.
I wasn’t paying attention. How could I be? And before I knew it, the class slipped out of my control. Shoving. Snorts of laughter. Animal noises. Bickering. Owen and Danny had a fight over a pair of scissors, and I was so preoccupied, I didn’t even see them until Owen let out a scream, and I thought he’d been stabbed in the eye. In fact he’d been snapped on the ear by a rubber band, flicked by Blake. I didn’t know whether to thank Blake or give him a warning.
Things were dangerously quiet in Zinnia’s corner of the room – and then I saw that she’d braided Lucy and Matilda’s hair together to turn them into a flailing, giggling back-to-back monster. At this point I was beyond caring whether she might somehow zap them and make their transformation permanent.
I restored some sort of order, but I’m ashamed to say I did it with a low and gutless lie. I played them for sympathy. I said that Pom Pom had been very unwell, and that I was worried about him. At the end of the day, Amelia gave me a heartbreakingly adorable get-well card that she’d made for him. I almost cried at schoo
l.
PS – Ben asked me if I’d started reading ElfinFire yet. I said I hadn’t – I felt way too on-edge to have any sort of proper conversation about it. Plus, it made me feel sick to think of Ophira, and what a miserable specimen of witch-hood I am by comparison. I can’t even bear to call Briony and tell her about what happened. It’s just too humiliating. I haven’t even told Barnaby.
Friday 7 March
I still have no idea what MM is planning to do with me. I spent the entire day torn between wanting to hide from her, and wanting to keep her in my sight. I went to the main staff room instead of the library at lunchtime in the hope that watching her might give me some clue about her plans. But MM is a master of the expressionless face. She just sat there with her lips pressed together like a stuck-down envelope. Is she deliberately leaving me in suspense to torment me? Or could she possibly be keeping my secret to give me another chance?
I have to go and get changed. I’m meeting the gang at Pixies in less than an hour. I really need their advice. Again. They are going to be appalled – but probably not surprised – by my total inability to do anything right.
Friday, 11pm
As if I didn’t have enough of MM during school hours, now she’s invading my weekend as well. She was at Pixies! And I know she saw me, even though she pretended she didn’t.
I was in the middle of telling the gang about the whole MM debacle – Amanita laughed so hard I thought she would choke, but the look of pity on Briony’s face was worse – when something familiar caught the edge of my vision. I looked left, and three tables away I saw it. That ponytail. She had her back to me, but I recognised MM straight away.
So much for deciding to be brave. I went cold all over. All I wanted to do was get out. I spun around to look for a back exit, but there was no door, only horrible old Madame Cackle cooking up green smoke in her cave. I swear she was laughing at me over her cauldron.
The others told me not to be such a panic merchant. They all turned around in their chairs to gawk at the back of MM’s head, while I got more and more squeaky and desperate, begging them to stop. Then two of MM’s friends started pointing in our direction and grabbing one another’s arms. MM twisted around in her seat to find out what the excitement was about, and I saw her face go mean and hard. She didn’t smile or nod hello, just turned quickly back to her friends.
Meanwhile, the two who had been pointing at us were on their way over, bumping and squeezing between the tables to get to us. I was ready to race for the bathrooms, but Amanita held my arm and hissed at me to act normal for once! And of course as soon as the two of them descended on our table, it was clear that they weren’t interested in me at all. They were after Jessamyn. Her ‘biggest fans’, no less.
Jessamyn was totally charming. She listened to them rave about their favourite ElfinFire characters, and autographed some serviettes for them. And she had them hopping with excitement when she whispered that she was working on a new book. She even gave a little flutter of her left hand to wave them goodbye, like she was casting a spell. Wow. Talk about hiding in plain sight.
After they’d gone, Amanita kept looking over at MM, trying to catch sight of her face. She was sure that she recognised MM from somewhere, but she couldn’t put her finger on where. Eventually she said that MM had probably been a customer at Amanisse Beauty. Which is kind of alarming, because it means that Amanita would have pulled her mirror trick on MM. She’s still doing it, even though we’ve all told her she should stop. She gets the customer to try on a bit of moisturiser or whatever, and then throws a spell onto the mirror to make their reflection look all glowing and gorgeous. It never fails: the customer gets excited about how great they look, and buys a whole lot of expensive goop – which, of course, has no beautifying properties whatsoever. Amanita has been lucky so far; nobody has come back to complain. But now that MM has seen her with me, she could easily put the pieces together and work out that Amanita is a witch too.
Amanita wasn’t worried at all. She says that no Ordinary will ever be a match for her, no matter how smart they might be.
I wish I had Amanita’s confidence. She was totally breezy about my MM situation, and said that it probably wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought.
The others agreed. They all insisted that the thing to do is lie low. Wait and see what MM does next. And don’t do anything that could make things worse.
Ha ha. Making things worse seems to be my greatest talent.
Saturday 8 March
I’m feeling quite choked up looking at our class photo. The photos arrived yesterday, but I was too preoccupied to open the envelope until this morning. All those kids with their say-cheese smiles. And Zac, with the biggest grin of all, showing off his fake black eye. I’m having a bit of laugh-cry remembering that. I wasn’t laughing at the time, though. In the photo I look like I’ve just got off the Ghost Train. That was the day I zapped Blake’s head lice. And then swore I’d never, ever do another spell at school. So much for that promise.
It’s amazing how much has changed since that photo was taken. I hardly knew the kids at all then. But now I can recognise each of their voices before I even look up. I know them by their handwriting. I know their favourite hobbies, their football teams, what makes them laugh and which spelling words trip them up. I’ve helped Eleanor find some friends, and Blake has lost that scared-mouse look when he has to speak in class, and Tom and Harry have made huge leaps in their reading. All of them are working together so amazingly for the performance, and Zinnia– well, Zinnia hasn’t hexed anyone.
They’re pretty great kids.
I don’t want to lose them.
Maybe I need to be brave. Go and speak to MM. Tell her how much my work means to me, and show her how well our class is doing. Because they really are doing well. I’m proud of them, and I’m proud of my work, too. I may be a pretty shoddy witch, and I might not be exactly winning in the staff room, but in the classroom I think I’m doing a good job. And MM needs to see that.
Right. I’m going to do it. I’m going to talk to her on Monday.
Sunday 9 March, 4.35am
Brain. Totally. Exploding.
Amanita just called me – yes, at four in the morning – to tell me that Melody Martin is a witch. MM, Ms Ordinary Extraordinaire, is apparently a brilliantly disguised and super-powerful witch.
Obviously this kind of news couldn’t wait until a reasonable hour. Amanita said it had bugged her all evening, trying to work out why MM looked so familiar. So before bed she cooked up a dream-snare spell, and at four in the morning the picture just snapped into focus in her brain. She’d seen MM at the Full Moon Party.
I said this was impossible, because I definitely would have recognised MM if she’d been at the party. Amanita was positive, though. They were in the bathroom at the same time, both standing in front of the mirror. MM was wearing a hooded cape and a mask, and when she pulled the mask down to fix her hair, Amanita saw her face. But it wasn’t her face that made Amanita stop and stare. It was the face in the mirror. Because that face was completely different!
The mirror-face belonged to some kind of terrible creature. It was covered in glittering green feathers, and it had yellow-gold eyes like a snake. Amanita was flabbergasted. She sneaked another look at MM’s real face, to see if she had made a mistake. It was completely ordinary. No feathers. No snake-eyes. Just a regular-looking witch, putting on her lipstick. But when she looked at the mirror again, there it was, flicking out its forked tongue to tidy the lipstick on its scaly mouth. For possibly the first time in her life, Amanita was too gobsmacked to speak. She just stood there and goggled while MM fitted the mask back in place and swished out the door. Amanita could still see two burning gold spots in the mirror where the snake eyes had been.
I’ve got the shivers just thinking about it. My boss is a gorgon-faced witch with off-the-scale powers. And she’s taken a serious dislike to me.
Sunday, 7am
I waited as long as I could bear and then
called Briony at six am. Of course she was already up, doing yoga with Melvin. Can you imagine Barnaby doing yoga??? Or anything at six in the morning?
I could tell from Briony’s voice that she was still upside-down. Melvin must have brought her the phone so as not to interrupt her Downward Asparagus pose or whatever. Maybe it was all that blood flowing to her head, but Briony was amazingly upbeat about my dire situation.
Her theory is that even though MM knows I’m a witch, she doesn’t know what kind of a witch I am. For all MM knows, I could be much more dangerous than she is. That’s why she hasn’t dobbed me in: because she’s afraid of what I might unleash on her in return.
Briony does have an annoying way of being right about things, but I still find it hard to buy this. I mean, look at me. I am the most ridiculously Ordinary witch I know. I’m scared of spiders. And toads. It’s almost impossible to imagine MM being afraid of me.
Briony got mad with me when I said that. She thumped down onto the floor and told me to stop whining and start behaving like a proper witch. ‘If you act pathetic, you’ll be pathetic,’ she said. ‘And if your powers need some work? Well, you’ll just have to fake it until you make it, Grizelda.’
She’s right. As usual.
So first I’ve got to fake it. Make MM think I’m the toughest witch in the woods – while also pretending to everyone else that I’m not a witch at all. Piece of cake! And that’s the easy part. Then I actually have to make it. I have to learn some proper magic, so that when MM comes for me, I’m ready.
The Cursed First Term of Zelda Stitch. Bad Teacher. Worse Witch. Page 5
