Witch Week (UK)

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Simon protested at this. He had great plans for the future. “Now, look here!” he said. And of course Nirupam did. He looked at Simon with such intensity that Simon blinked as he went on with his protest. “But I’ll fail every exam I ever ta-a-a-ake—!” His voice faded out into a sort of hoot, as he realized what he had said. For Simon loved passing exams. He collected A’s and ninety percents as fervently as he collected honor marks. And what he had just said had stopped all that.

  “Exactly,” said Nirupam. “Now you’ve got to say it. Nothing I say—”

  “Oh, all right. Nothing I say is going to come true in the future,” Simon said peevishly.

  Nirupam let go of him with a sigh of relief and went back to pick up his desk. Everyone sighed. Charles turned sadly away. Well, it had been good while it lasted.

  “What’s the matter?” Nirupam asked, catching sight of Charles’s doleful face as he stood his desk on its legs again.

  “Nothing,” Charles said. “I—I’ve got detention.” Then, with a good deal more pleasure, he turned to Simon. “So have you,” he said.

  Simon was scandalized. “What? I’ve never had detention all the time I’ve been at this school!”

  It was explained to him that this was untrue. Quite a number of people were surprisingly ready to give Simon details of how he had rendered himself mindless and gained an hour and a half of detention from Mr. Crossley. Simon took it in very bad part and stormed off muttering.

  Charles was about to trudge away after Simon, when Nirupam caught his arm. “Sit on the back bench,” he said. “There’s a store of comics in the middle, on the shelf underneath.”

  “Thanks,” said Charles. He was so unused to people being friendly that he said it with enormous surprise and almost forgot to take Mr. Towers’s awful book with him.

  He trudged towards the old lab, where detention was held, and shortly found himself trudging behind Theresa Mullett. Theresa was proceeding towards detention, looking wronged and tragic, supported by a crowd of her friends, with Karen Grigg in addition.

  “It’s only for an hour,” Charles heard Karen say consolingly.

  “A whole hour!” Theresa exclaimed. “I shall never forgive Teddy Crossley for this! I hope Miss Hodge kicks him in the teeth!”

  In order not to go behind Theresa’s procession the whole way, Charles turned off halfway through the quadrangle and went by the way that was always called “around the back.” It was a grassy space which had once been a second quadrangle. But the new labs and the lecture room and the library had been built in the space, sticking out into the grass at odd angles, so that the space had been pared down to a zigzag of grassy passage, where, for some reason, there was always a piercing wind blowing. It was a place where people only went to keep out of the way. So Charles was not particularly surprised to see Nan Pilgrim loitering about there. He prepared to glare at her as he trudged by. But Nan got in first with a very unfriendly look and moved off around the library corner.

  I’m glad it wasn’t Charles Morgan who wrote me that note, Nan thought, as Charles went on without speaking. I don’t want any help from him.

  She loitered out into the keen wind again, wondering if she needed help from anyone. She still felt a strong, confident inner witchiness. It was marvelous. It was like laughter bubbling up through everything she thought. She could not believe that it might be only Simon’s doing. On the other hand, no one knew better than Nan how quickly inner confidence could drain away. Particularly if someone like Theresa laughed at you.

  Another person was coming. Brian Wentworth this time. But he scurried by on the other side of the passage, to Nan’s relief. She did not think Brian could help anyone. And—this place seemed unusually popular this evening—here was Nirupam Singh now, wandering up from the other direction, looking rather pleased with himself.

  “I took the spell off Simon Silverson,” he said to Nan. “I got him to say nothing he said was true.”

  “Good,” said Nan. She wandered away around the library corner again. Did this mean she was no longer a witch then? She poked with one foot at the leaves and crisp packets the wind had blown into the corner. She could test it by turning them into something, she supposed.

  But Nirupam had followed her around the corner. “No, wait,” he said. “It was me that sent you that note.”

  Nan found this extremely embarrassing. She pretended to be very interested in the dead leaves. “I don’t need help,” she said gruffly.

  Nirupam smiled and leaned against the library wall as if he were sunning himself. Nirupam had rather a strong personality, Nan realized. Though the sun was thin and yellow and the wind was whirling crisp packets about, Nirupam gave out such a strong impression of basking that Nan almost felt warm. “Everyone thinks you’re a witch,” he said.

  “Well I am,” Nan insisted, because she wanted to be sure of it herself.

  “You shouldn’t admit it,” said Nirupam. “But it makes no difference. The point is, it’s only a matter of time before someone goes to Miss Cadwallader and accuses you.”

  “Are you sure? They all want me to do things,” said Nan.

  “Theresa doesn’t,” said Nirupam. “Besides, you can’t please everybody. Someone will get annoyed before long. I know this, because my brother tried to please all the servants. But one of them thought my brother was giving more to the other servants and told the police. And my brother was burned in the streets of Delhi.”

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t know,” said Nan. She looked across at Nirupam. His profile was like a chubby hawk, she thought. It looked desperately sad.

  “My mother was burned too, for trying to save him,” Nirupam said. “That was why my father came to this country, but things are just the same here. What I want to tell you is this—I have heard of a witches’ underground rescue service in England. They help accused witches to escape, if you can get to one of their branches before the inquisitors come. I don’t know where they send you, or whom to ask, but Estelle does. If you are accused, you must get Estelle to help.”

  “Estelle?” Nan said. She thought of Estelle’s soft brown eyes and soft wriggly curls, and of Estelle’s irritating chatter, and of Estelle’s even more irritating way of imitating Theresa. She could not see Estelle helping anyone.

  “Estelle is rather nice,” said Nirupam. “I come around here and talk to her quite often.”

  “You mean Estelle talks to you,” said Nan.

  Nirupam grinned. “She does talk a lot,” he agreed. “But she will help. She told me she likes you. She was sad you didn’t like her.”

  Nan gaped. Estelle? It was not possible. No one liked Nan. But, now she remembered, Estelle had refused to come and threaten to drown her in the bathroom. “All right,” she said. “I’ll ask her. Thanks. But are you sure I’ll be accused?”

  Nirupam nodded. “There is this, you see. There are at least two other witches in 6B—”

  “Two?” said Nan. “I mean, I know there’s one more. It’s obvious. But why two?”

  “I told you,” said Nirupam, “I’ve had experience of witches. Each one has their own style. It’s like the way everyone’s writing is different. And I tell you that it was not the same person who did the birds in music and the spell on Simon today. Those are two quite different outlooks on life. But both those people must know they have been very silly to do anything at all, and they will both be wanting to put the blame on you. It could well be one of them who accuses you. So you must be very careful. I will do my part and warn you if I hear of any trouble coming. Then you must ask Estelle to help you. Do you see now?”

  “Yes, and I’m awfully grateful,” said Nan. Regretfully, she saw she did not dare try turning the dead leaves into anything. And, in spite of her promise to the old broom, she had better not ride it again. She was quite frightened. Yet she still felt the laughing confidence bubbling up inside, even though there might not be anything now to be confident about. Watch it! she told herself. You must be mad!

  9
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  THE OLD LAB was not used for anything much except detention. But there was still a faint smell of old science clinging to it, from generations of experiments which had gone wrong. Charles slid onto the splintery back bench and propped Mr. Towers’s awful book against the stump of an old gas pipe. The comics were there, stacked on the shelf underneath, just below a place where someone had spent industrious hours carving Cadwallader is a bag on the bench top. The rest of the people in the room were all at the front. They were mostly from 5B or 5C, and probably did not know about the comics.

  Simon came in. Charles gave him a medium-strength glare to discourage him from the back bench. Simon went and sat haughtily in the very middle of the middle bench. Good. Then Mr. Wentworth came in. Not so good. Mr. Wentworth was carefully carrying a steaming mug of coffee, which everyone in the room looked at with mute envy. It would have to be Mr. Wentworth! Charles thought resentfully.

  Mr. Wentworth set his cup of coffee carefully down on the teacher’s bench and looked around to see who was doing time. He seemed surprised to see Simon and not at all surprised to see Charles. “Anyone need paper for lines?” he asked.

  Charles did. He went up with most of 5B and was handed a lump of someone’s old exam. The exam had used only one side of the paper, so, Charles supposed, it made sense to use the other side for lines. But it did, all the same, seem like a deliberate way of showing people how pointlessly they were wasting time here. Wasting wastepaper. And Charles could tell, as Mr. Wentworth gave the paper out, that he was in his nastiest and most harrowed mood.

  Not good at all, Charles thought, as he slid back behind the back bench. For, though Charles had not particularly thought about it, it was obvious to him that he was going to use witchcraft to copy out Mr. Towers’s awful book. What was the point of being a witch if you didn’t make use of it? But he would have to go carefully with Mr. Wentworth in this mood.

  The door opened. Theresa made an entry with her crowd of supporters.

  Mr. Wentworth looked at them. “Come in,” he said. “So glad you were able to make it, all of you. Sit down, Delia. Find a seat, Karen. Heather, Deborah, Julia, Theresa, and the rest can no doubt all squeeze in around Simon.”

  “We haven’t got detention, sir,” Delia said.

  “We just came to bring Theresa,” Deborah explained.

  “Why? Didn’t she know the way?” said Mr. Wentworth. “Well, you all have detention now—”

  “But, sir! We only came—!”

  “—unless you get out this second,” said Mr. Wentworth.

  Theresa’s friends vanished. Theresa looked angrily at Simon, who was sitting in the place she would otherwise have chosen, and carefully selected a place at the end of the bench just behind him. “This is all your fault,” she whispered to Simon.

  “Drop dead!” said Simon.

  It was, Charles thought, rather a pity that Nirupam had managed to break the Simon Says spell.

  Silence descended, the woeful, restless silence of people who wish they were elsewhere. Mr. Wentworth opened a book and picked up his coffee. Charles waited until Mr. Wentworth seemed thoroughly into his book, and then brought out his ballpoint pen. He ran his finger and thumb down it, just as he had done with Simon’s hair, down and down again. Write lines, he thought to it. Write five hundred lines out of this book. Write lines. Then, very grudgingly, he wrote out the first sentence for it—“What ripping fun!” exclaimed Watts Minor. “I’m down for scrum half this afternoon!”—to show it what to do. Then he cautiously let go of it. And the pen not only stood where he had left it but began to write industriously. Charles arranged Mr. Towers’s book so that it would hide the scribbling pen. Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, he fetched out one of the comics and settled down as comfortably as Mr. Wentworth.

  Five minutes later, he thought a thunderbolt hit him.

  The pen fell down and rolled on the floor. The comic was snatched away. His right ear was in agony. Charles looked up—mistily, because his glasses were now hanging from his left ear—to find Mr. Wentworth towering over him. The pain in his ear was from the excruciatingly tight grip Mr. Wentworth had on it.

  “Get up,” Mr. Wentworth said, dragging at the ear.

  Charles got up perforce. Mr. Wentworth led him, like that, by the ear, with his head painfully on one side, to the front of the room. Halfway there, Charles’s glasses fell off his other ear. He almost didn’t have the heart to catch them. In fact, he only saved them by reflex. He was fairly sure he would not be needing them much longer.

  At the front, he could see just well enough to watch Mr. Wentworth cram the comic one-handed into the wastepaper basket. “Let that teach you to read comics in detention!” Mr. Wentworth said. “Now come with me.” He led Charles, still by the ear, to the door. There, he turned around and spoke to the others in the room. “If anyone so much as stirs,” he said, “while I’m gone, he or she will be here for double time, every night till Christmas.” Upon this, he towed Charles outside.

  He towed Charles some distance up the covered way outside. Then he let go of Charles’s ear, took hold of his shoulders, and commenced shaking him. Charles had never been shaken like that. He bit his tongue. He thought his neck was breaking. He thought the whole of him was coming apart. He grabbed his left hand in his right one to try and hold himself together—and felt his glasses snap into two pieces. That was it, then. He could hardly breathe when Mr. Wentworth at last let go of him.

  “I warned you!” Mr. Wentworth said, furiously angry. “I called you to my room and purposely warned you! Are you a complete fool, boy? How much more frightened do you have to be? Do you need to be in front of the inquisitors before you stop?”

  “I—” gasped Charles. “I—” He had never known Mr. Wentworth could be this angry.

  Mr. Wentworth went on, in a lifting undertone that was far more frightening than shouting, “Three times—three times today to my knowledge—you’ve used witchcraft. And the Lord knows how many times I don’t know about. Are you trying to give yourself away? Have you the least idea what risk you run? What kind of a show-off are you? All the shoes in the school this morning—”

  “That—that was a mistake, sir,” Charles panted. “I—I was trying to find my spikes.”

  “A stupid thing to waste witchcraft on!” said Mr. Wentworth. “And not content with a public display like that, you then go and cast spells on Simon Silverson!”

  “How did you know that was me?” said Charles.

  “One look at your face, boy. And what’s more, you were sitting there letting the unfortunate Nan Pilgrim take the blame. I call that thoroughly selfish and despicable! And now this! Writing lines where anyone could see you! You are lucky, let me tell you, boy, very lucky not to be down at the police station at this moment, waiting for the inquisitor. You deserve to be there. Don’t you?” He shook Charles again. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Charles.

  “And you will be,” said Mr. Wentworth, “if you do one more thing. You’re to forget about witchcraft, understand? Forget about magic. Try to be normal, if you know what that means. Because I promise you that if you do it again, you will be really in trouble. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Charles.

  “Now get back in there and write properly!” Mr. Wentworth shoved Charles in front with one hand, and Charles could feel that hand shaking with anger. Frightening though that was, Charles was glad of it. He could barely see a thing without his glasses. When Mr. Wentworth burst back with him into the old lab, the room was just a large fuzzy blur. But he could tell everyone was looking at him. The air was thick with people thinking, I’m glad it wasn’t me!

  “Get back to your seat,” Mr. Wentworth said, and let go of Charles with a sharp push.

  Charles felt his way through swimming colored blurs, down to the other end of the old lab. Those crooked white squares must be the book and the old exam paper. But his pen, he remembered, had fallen on the floor. How was he to find it, in this stat
e, let alone write with it?

  “What are you standing there for?” Mr. Wentworth barked at him. “Put your glasses on and get back to work!”

  Charles jumped with terror. He found himself diving for his seat, and hooking his glasses on as he dived. The world clicked into focus. He saw his pen lying almost under his feet and bent to pick it up. But surely, he thought, as he was half under the bench, his glasses had been in two pieces? He had heard a dreadfully final snapping noise. He thought he had felt them come apart. He put his hand up hurriedly and felt his glasses—there was no point taking them off and looking, because then he would not be able to see. They felt all right. Entire and whole. Either he had made a mistake, or the plastic had snapped and not the metal inside. Much relieved, Charles sat up with the pen in his hand.

  And stared at what it had written by itself. I am Watts down scrum Minor ripping this fun afternoon. I fun Minor am half this afternoon Watts . . . and so on, for two whole pages. It was no good. Mr. Towers was bound to notice. Charles sighed and began writing. Perhaps he should stop doing witchcraft. Nothing seemed to go right.

  Consequently, the rest of the evening was rather quiet. Charles sat in devvy running his thumb over the fat cushion of blister on his finger, not wanting to give up witchcraft and knowing he dared not go on. He felt such a mixture of regret and terror that it quite bewildered him. Simon was subdued too. Brian Wentworth was back, sitting scribbling industriously, with one eye still turned slightly inward, but Simon seemed to have lost his desire to hit Brian for the time being. And Simon’s friends followed Simon’s lead.

  Nan kept quiet also, because of what Nirupam had said, but, however hard she reasoned with herself, she could not get rid of that bubbling inner confidence. It was still with her in the dormitory that night. It stayed, in spite of Delia, Deborah, Heather, and the rest, who began on her in their usual way.