Grace-Ella
Page 5
‘Now give me your best pout so that I can paint your lips purple,’ she said.
Bedwyr leaned forwards and puckered up his mouth. The brush tickled and he tried his best not to laugh, but ended up making hilarious raspberry noises which had Grace-Ella in giggles.
‘Ta-dah!’ she said when she was done. ‘The wickedest witch in St Winifred’s. Well, apart from Amelia that is.’
‘Hubble, bubble, boil some trouble,’ cackled Bedwyr as he looked in the mirror.
Grace-Ella turned her attention to Fflur. ‘Now, let’s see if we can get you looking a bit more like Mr Whiskins,’ she said, picking up her magic wand.
‘You are sure that you can un-cast the spell? As much as I like cats, I think I prefer to be human,’ said Fflur a little nervously.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll un-cast the spell after the party and you’ll be back to normal. Now, just stand still. Twitchy, witchy when the moon comes out, a tail and whiskers you shall sprout.’
The magic wand sparked at Fflur, who was standing with her eyes shut tight. The three friends waited for something to happen.
‘Oh, my face feels a little tingly,’ said Fflur after a few seconds.
Grace-Ella and Bedwyr watched open-mouthed as out of Fflur’s cheeks sprouted some long silky whiskers.
‘Oh … um … my bottom’s tingling now…’
She turned her head to look behind her. They stared in amazement as a long fluffy black tail began to grow. It grew longer and longer until it curled gracefully up her back.
Her nails changed next, transforming into cat-like claws. Her eyes took on a bright yellow glow and narrowed into a feline shape. The cardboard ears turned furry and twitched on her head.
‘Oh … my … kitty-katkins,’ remarked Bedwyr.
‘Purrrfect,’ purred Fflur, admiring herself in the mirror.
‘Right, I think we’re ready,’ said Grace-Ella. ‘Let’s go. Oh, I nearly forgot. I just need to grab something.’
She hurried over to the shelves and pushed something into the pocket of her black cloak.
‘What’s that?’ asked Bedwyr.
‘You’ll see,’ she said winking.
Mrs Bevin was waiting for the children in the kitchen.
‘Ready?’ she asked. ‘Oh, I thought it was only you and Fflur. You didn’t mention any other friends.’
‘Sorry, I forgot. This is um … Beatrice. She’s new at school so I said she could come with us.’
Mrs Bevin peered closely at Bedwyr. ‘You look familiar. Do I know your parents?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Grace-Ella. ‘They’ve just moved here from … um…’
‘Hungary,’ said Fflur.
‘Oh goodness, Fflur. You can’t possibly be,’ said Mrs Bevin. ‘You’ve not long eaten tea. There’ll be food at the party.’
‘No, I’m not hungry,’ Fflur explained. ‘I said Hungary. Beatrice comes from Hungary.’
‘Oh, I see. How wonderful. Well, Beatrice, you must tell your mum about our “Coffi Cymraeg” every Thursday morning. It’s just a get together to help newcomers to learn some basic Welsh. We have a lot of fun and cake. She should come along and get to know some of us mothers from the school. Anyway, let’s get going. Don’t want you missing any of the party.’
Mrs Bevin looked suspiciously at Grace-Ella’s magic wand as they left the house.
‘I hope you’re not planning any funny business,’ she whispered.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Grace-Ella answered.
Chapter Eleven
Spooks, Ghouls and Dancing Shoes
Lanterns hung from the trees at St Winifred’s casting eerie shadows across the driveway. The school looked perfectly haunting under the dark night sky twinkling with stars and a full moon.
‘Oh, great,’ said Grace-Ella as they walked up to the school, ‘a welcoming committee.’
Standing in the archway was Amelia and her friends. Amelia clearly wanted everyone to comment on her costume as soon as they arrived. She was dressed as a corpse bride; her hair had been sprayed silver and her face painted porcelain white with dark sunken eyes and ruby red lips. She wore a torn and tattered white wedding dress with a long veil. Her costume did look professional.
‘Oh, you decided not to dress-up then, Gross-Ella,’ Amelia said smirking. ‘And you make a perfect fat cat, Fflur. And you…’ She frowned at Bedwyr.
‘Whoever you are, you look like some weird ballerina with some disgusting skin disease.’
Amelia and her friends cackled with laughter, like their very own witch’s coven.
‘Please can we sneak into her house one night and cast a shrinking spell on her so that I can keep her in a jar?’ begged Bedwyr as they walked inside.
The school had been transformed. Candlelit pumpkins were placed in the windows, the glistening gossamer of spiders’ webs hung from corners, bat bunting draped from the ceiling and spooks and ghouls were stuck onto the walls.
A selection of Halloween games had been set up – apple bobbing, hanging apples, pin the tail on the black cat and witch’s stew. Soon the school hall was full of witches and cats and ghosts and ghouls. Mrs Nag, dressed in a long red dress, a black cloak with a large spiked collar and carrying a devil’s fork, stalked around the room pointing her fork and ranting randomly. ‘Don’t spill your drink … not so loud, girls … no cheating…’
‘Mrs Nag needs to lighten up,’ said Fflur. ‘This is a party. Surely she can stop her nagging just for tonight.’
The disco started with the ‘Time Warp’. Miss Fitz, dressed as a not very scary pink fairy, flittered around urging everyone to dance. ‘Come on, girls. Let’s get the evening under way with the “Dancing Diva” contest.’
‘There’s no way that I’m getting up to dance,’ said Bedwyr. ‘I can’t possibly twirl about like you lot.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Grace-Ella. ‘I’ve prepared a little something for you.’ She pulled the bottle of Dancing Delight out of her pocket. ‘I’ll just sprinkle this onto your shoes and let the magic do its work. You’ll be a real “Dancing Diva”.’
‘Ok, let’s do it,’ said Bedwyr excitedly, taking a seat and sticking his feet out.
Grace-Ella unscrewed the lid and was about to pour the potion onto Bedwyr’s shoes when Amelia, overly-exuberant in her mission to win the contest, spun into Grace-Ella, knocking the potion clean out of her hands.
‘Out of the way,’ she snapped as she flung her veil back over her shoulders and continued her enthusiastic pirouetting around the room.
‘Never mind,’ said Bedwyr. ‘I’ll just sit here and watch and hope that the scary pink fairy doesn’t pounce on me and drag me off.’
But Grace-Ella didn’t hear. She watched in horror as the open bottle landed on the table. The potion seeped onto the cloth and dripped over the side, right onto the unsuspecting Mrs Nag’s shoes.
It didn’t take long for Mrs Nag’s foot to start tapping.
‘What on earth?’
Her foot took on a life of its own and started to tap out towards the dance floor. Mrs Nag, looking very uneasy, grabbed onto the edge of the table and tried to drag her leg back. But it was no use. Her arms flailed into the air and started waving about.
Unable to control her body, she sashayed and swayed into the middle of the room and was soon doing a very energetic ‘Time Warp’. The girls, spotting their usually stern teacher, stopped still and stared.
Song after song played and Mrs Nag continued to dance like she’d never danced before. She mashed to the ‘Monster Mash’, galloped around shouting, ‘Who are you going to call?’ with the Ghostbusters theme and demonstrated some tremendous twists and turns for ‘Thriller’.
Finally, the music stopped and the lights were turned on. Mrs Nag, whose dancing frenzy stopped as soon as the music did, stood in the centre of the room looking completely dazed, unable to believe what had just happened.
Miss Fitz, staring in wonder at her colleague, made her way up to the stage.
The room remained in stunned silence for a few seconds. Then slowly, the clapping began. It increased to a loud crescendo with lots of whoops and cheers. Looking completely bewildered, Mrs Nag walked unsteadily onto the stage to accept her prize.
‘Um … thank you very much, Miss Fitz … um … I’m not sure what came over me. I hope you’re all enjoying the evening … I … um … certainly seem to be. Anyway, it’s time for the judging of your costumes so if you’d like to take part, stand in a line and Miss Fitz and I will walk around. There’s a prize for the top three.’
Forgetting about their dancing teacher, the girls pushed and shoved to form a line.
‘Spread my veil out,’ Amelia ordered her friends. ‘And don’t stand too close to me.’
Miss Fitz and Mrs Nag (still flushed and a little disorientated) walked up and down the line of girls. After conferring quietly at the foot of the stage, Mrs Nag was ready to announce the results.
‘Right. We’ve chosen the top three. Well done to all of you, there are many excellent costumes. But I must say, there is one that really stands out and choosing the winner has been very easy for Miss Fitz and me.’
Beaming, Amelia flicked her hair over her shoulder.
‘So we’ll start with the third prize, which goes to … Jessica.’
The others clapped as Jessica walked onto the stage to collect her prize money.
‘The second prize goes to … Amelia.’
Amelia was busy fluffing out her veil, not yet listening to Mrs Nag as she was only waiting for the announcement of the winner.
‘Go on, you came second,’ said Ceinwen, nudging her best friend.
Amelia flinched. ‘What? They must have announced it wrong. I can’t possibly have come second.’
‘Amelia, please come up for your prize,’ said Mrs Nag impatiently.
Amelia marched onto the stage and snatched the envelope from Mrs Nag before rushing off to her friends for their condolences.
‘And the first prize, for the most realistic costume Miss Fitz and I have ever seen, goes to … Fflur Penri.’
‘Me?’ said Fflur.
‘Yes, you,’ laughed Grace-Ella. ‘Go on, go and get your prize.’
Fflur, who had never won anything in her entire life, felt like she was floating onto the stage. She bowed gracefully then took her prize from Mrs Nag. Grace-Ella and Bedwyr whistled and cheered as Fflur walked back to them.
‘Thank you, Grace-Ella,’ Fflur said, hugging her friend. ‘The three of us can share the prize money. We’ll go to the cinema or something. I feel a bit bad though, like I cheated.’
‘You didn’t cheat. Amelia had a helping hand from a make-up artist. You had a helping hand from a witch.’
‘Now before we tuck into the food,’ continued Mrs Nag, ‘Mrs Bun would like to announce the winner of the pumpkin pie contest.’
‘Yes, after a slightly disastrous lesson, I can now reveal that the best pumpkin pie was baked by … Amelia and Ceinwen.’
Amelia, forgetting her disappointment at the fancy dress contest, flounced onto the stage. Grabbing the microphone out of Mrs Bun’s hands, she said, ‘Thank you so much. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy my pie and will agree that my pie is the best pie you’ve ever tasted.’
Then she pushed Ceinwen back down the steps before she’d even had the chance to climb up.
With the music back on, Grace-Ella, Fflur and Bedwyr headed over to the food table. They couldn’t wait to tuck into the ghoulish buffet.
There were creepy cupcakes topped with eyeballs and spiders, messy meringue ghosts, disgusting vegetable fingers to dip in scream cheese, skull-shaped sandwiches, black liquorice bats, slimy worm jelly sweets and of course the prize-winning pumpkin pie.
‘Shame you wasted all that money on hiring a make-up artist,’ Grace-Ella said as she stood next to Amelia.
She glared firstly at Grace-Ella, then at Fflur, then at Bedwyr. With her eyes narrowed, she stared at Bedwyr, from the tip of his hat to the tip of his toes, frowning at his particularly large feet.
‘I have my eye on you lot, Grace-Ella. I don’t trust you one bit. I know that you and that fat cat cheated somehow. And there’s something very suspicious-looking about you,’ she said, prodding Bedwyr in his chest.
‘Erm … I think you’ve got an eye on yourself actually,’ said Fflur, staring at the cupcake on Amelia’s plate.
Amelia screamed as the eyeball cake topper on her plate swivelled from side to side then winked at her. The eyeball went flying through the air as she dropped her plate in fright, and it landed with a splash in Mrs Bun’s cup of tea.
Within seconds, the whole hall erupted into screams and squeals. The plastic spiders dropped from the cakes and scurried around; the jelly worms began wriggling and writhing and the vegetable dipping fingers tapped along the tables. The apples in the ‘apple-bobbing’ bowls bobbed frantically, splashing water onto the floor.
‘What on earth’s happening?’ whispered Fflur.
‘Um … I think it might be my fault,’ said Grace-Ella. ‘I think the Dancing Delight potion that I prepared for Bedwyr got onto the food when Amelia knocked it out of my hands.’
The three friends watched as a very flustered Mrs Nag tried in vain to reassure the hysterical girls.
‘Calm down, girls,’ she shouted over the music, ‘this is ridiculous. Stop throwing your food —’
She slipped in a puddle of water and landed on her bottom just as a messy meringue ghost came hurtling through the air and splattered into her face.
‘That’s enough,’ she shouted as she wiped the cream from her nose and eyes. ‘Mrs Bun, Miss Fitz will you help to get things under control…’
But poor Miss Fitz was standing trembling on a chair, petrified as spiders scuttled across the floor. And as for Mrs Bun, she was frantically flicking through her recipe books to see what on earth she had done wrong.
The Halloween party had turned into complete chaos. Drinks and food flew from one end of the hall to the other, showering the girls and their teachers with a sticky, spooky mess. They slipped and slid as they ran about in panic, landing on top of each other.
Ceinwen’s prize-winning pumpkin pie landed right on her head. Squealing, she ran around blindly, bumping into chairs and tables.
‘Come on,’ said Grace-Ella to her friends. ‘Let’s get out of here till the spell wears off.’
Amelia, who had been hiding in the toilets, not wanting her costume ruined by the flying food, saw the three friends hurry away down the corridor. Suspecting they were up to something and now certain that the mysterious friend was that bug-boy who lived next door to Grace-Ella, she followed, eager to catch them red-handed and get them into trouble.
Chapter Twelve
Fright Night
‘Don’t turn around, but I think we’re being followed,’ Grace-Ella whispered. ‘And I bet I know who it is. Quick, in here.’
They ducked into the library and hid behind one of the bookshelves.
Peeking through the books, they watched Amelia creep into the room. She tiptoed slowly around, crouching to peer between the shelves.
‘I know you’re in here, Grace-Ella. And I know that your mysterious friend is your disgusting bug boyfriend. Just you wait till I tell Mrs Nag that you’ve brought a boy here. You’re going to be in so much trouble. I bet you won’t be allowed out at break for the whole term. Actually, you’ll probably get expelled for breaking the rules.’
Fflur and Bedwyr looked worriedly at Grace-Ella. Grace-Ella clenched her fists as her anger brewed inside. Amelia was forever being horrible and never getting punished. She thought she could get away with anything. It was so unfair. But how could
she teach Amelia a lesson? How could she show her that she couldn’t behave like this?
Amelia grinned. ‘And I shall definitely insist that Fatty Fflur is disqualified from the dressing-up competition. That’ll serve you right.’
Unable to take any more, Grace-Ella signalled to Fflur and Bedwyr to stay where they were and stepped out from her hiding place. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had to do something. She wished that Mr Whiskins was there to help her, but this was something she was going to have to face by herself.
‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ demanded Amelia. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? You have brought that boy here.’ Smiling, she began chanting. ‘Grace-Ella loves the stupid smelly bug-boy.’
Grace-Ella was furious. How dare Amelia stand there making fun of her and her friends and expect her to just take it!
‘Do you know, Amelia, I’ve had about enough of your nasty, horrid, mean mouth. You’re always picking on me and Fflur and you think that you’re better than everyone at this school. You’re even mean to your own friends. I don’t know why they bother with you. You’re nothing but a nasty bully.’
‘What’s got into you this evening? A bit prickly, aren’t you,’ smirked Amelia.
‘You’re not going to get away with it for ever. What goes around comes around,’ said Grace-Ella, thinking back to Mr Whiskins’ words.
Amelia yawned exaggeratedly. ‘Oh, really. And what exactly are you and Fatty Fflur going to do? Is she going to smother me in chocolate and eat me?’ Amelia smiled. ‘Face it, Grace-Ella. There is nothing you can do to stop me.’
Grace-Ella’s fingers curled tightly around the wand in her cloak pocket. Her heart began to race. Could she do this? Could she use her magic to stop Amelia?
‘You’re a nasty piece of work and it’s about time someone taught you a lesson,’ she said, pulling out the wand.