The journey downstairs was a nightmare. She had to jump down each single step of the staircase, and by the time she reached the bottom she was very tired. She could hear her mother doing things in the kitchen, but she decided not to call out. Even if her mother heard her, she would be so frightened and upset by what had happened that she wouldn’t be much use.
Jody decided she must somehow get to school by herself, then Mr Majeika wouldn’t get in trouble for putting the shrinking spell on everyone by mistake.
By a stroke of luck, someone had left the front door open a crack – which for Jody, in her tiny state, was as wide as a whole doorway. She was still in her pyjamas, which had shrunk with her, and her feet were bare. Fortunately, it was a warm, sunny day, so she would not get too cold on the way to school.
It usually took her five minutes to walk to school. Today, because she was so tiny, it was almost an hour. She picked her way along the huge pavement. Its surface usually seemed quite smooth, but now it appeared to be made up of big sharp rocks and it was hard to find somewhere that she could safely put her feet. And she had to make her way round giant bits of rubbish.
Now and then, something huge and brown would fall out of the sky. At first she didn’t know what it was. Then she saw that the brown things were falling leaves.
A black and white cat the size of a tiger hissed at her from a driveway. Further down the road, she was terrified when she came face to face with a monster with enormous teeth, clutching a huge rock. Then the monster ran up a giant tree and Jody realized it was a squirrel holding a nut.
Then she had to cross the road, knowing that no driver could see her. Two cars, each as big as the Titanic, roared past before she dared to run across, and she made it to the other side only a few seconds before another of the enormous machines rumbled by.
When she finally got to school, Mr Majeika – tall as a giant – was standing in a corner of the playground, looking very worried, and turning the pages of his spell book. All the rest of Class Three were standing around his huge feet, hoping that soon he would get them back to their ordinary size. The only person whom Jody couldn’t see was Hamish Bigmore.
Suddenly Mr Majeika snapped his fingers. “I’ve found it!” he said. “I’ve found a spell which will get things right again. Let’s try it at once.” He waved his arms and muttered some words.
Nothing happened. “Oh dear,” said Mr Majeika. “I’ll have to try again.”
At that moment, along came Hamish Bigmore. He wasn’t tiny like the others. He was still as big as he had been the day before after drinking the green drink.
“Hello, tinies,” he said to them all. “That’ll teach you all to laugh at me. Well, I’m not tiny. I kept some of the green drink and when I got home last night I drank it, so that I’ve got big and tall again. My parents were very surprised! Now I’ll pick you all up and put you in my pockets, and I’ll take you to the school dustbin and throw you all in, and the dustmen will come and you’ll be tipped into the town rubbish tip. Yah boo sucks!”
He bent down to pick up Thomas, Pete and Jody. But at that moment, Mr Majeika’s spell to make them all bigger suddenly worked.
They began to grow. Not just back to their ordinary sizes or as big as they had been the day before, but far, far bigger. They were turning into real giants.
“Help!” said Thomas, as his neck grew longer and longer. “It’s like going up in a lift – except that my feet are still down there at the bottom.”
“Hello, clouds,” said Pete, poking them to see if they were really made of cotton wool. “And doesn’t the school look titchy, from so high up?”
“I suppose this is better than being very, very small,” said Jody, “but I’m not sure.”
“Help, Mr Majeika!” Thomas called. “Please stop us growing any more or we’ll get to the moon.”
Down on the ground, Mr Majeika was scratching his head again, while Hamish Bigmore, who had arrived too late for the giant spell to be put on him, was staring up at the rest of Class Three. They were now several times bigger than him.
“If’s going to be us that pick you up, Hamish, and put you in the dustbin,” shouted Thomas.
“Hush!” called Mr Majeika. “I must get you all back to your proper sizes, before anyone sees.” He turned the pages of his spell book. “Ah, here’s an emergency spell for shrinking,” he said.
He waved his arms and muttered the spell and all of Class Three began to shrink again.
So did Hamish Bigmore.
All the others shrank back to their ordinary sizes. Hamish shrank as much as they had. This meant, of course, that they looked normal, but Hamish was very, very tiny.
“What have you done, you silly old wizard?” he shouted furiously at Mr Majeika. “Turn me back to my right size at once.”
“Oh, I think that can wait a bit, Hamish,” said Mr Majeika. “And perhaps you might like to spend the rest of school today in the rubbish bin yourself, just to see what it’s like? No? Then you can just sit quietly in a corner, while everyone else writes down what their jobs were like. Oh, and by the way, somebody has phoned the school, asking for Jody to do some modelling in London. And Thomas and Peter, I’ve had a note from a Mr Shambles, saying that your record is selling very fast and you might be in the top ten next week. It sounds as if your work experience has been a great success!”
Mr Majeika and the School Trip Page 4
