by Em Lynas
This book is dedicated
to Nancy and Tom.
The best parents a girl
could have wished for.
x
E. L.
TWINKLE TOADSPIT, the Shakespearean actress and witch of MEGA POWER and UNKNOWN POTENTIAL, must comply and conform if she is EVER to perform her very best Bottom.
Summary:
What I ac-chew-ally now know about me:
Fact One: I am currently a pupil at, and future owner of, Toadspit Towers, School of Witchcraft.
Fact Two: I am the wearer of the Rainbow Hat of Awesomeness. The bearer of the Witchwood Thumb. The possessor of the Witchwood Tree Charm that is currently dangling from my Toadspit bracelet.
Fact Three: I have made a Deal of Doom.
Fact Four: I am attempting to be a Pupil of Perfection. Here is the current update on my current life of tragedy: Being a Toadspit witch is boring and I am a failure as an actress.
I am acting patience. Jess and Shalini are with me but they are not acting patience. We are standing in the first-year bathroom, lighting up the gloom with our hat-lights.
There is no sign of Dominique or Arwen, the Best and Brightest and Most Annoying witches of Toadspit Towers, School of Conformity and Strictness. This is a good thing.
I am standing back, pondering on my life of disaster and the Deal of Doom. Shalini is watching Jess. Jess is peering into a toilet. Not the ac-chew-al toilet bowl. That would be foolish. A mistake with consequences. She’s peering into a toilet cubicle because some of the toilets have developed a habit of exploding and it’s our task to stop that happening. They don’t exactly explode like a bomb going off. They gush. Like volcanoes of icy water. Upside down waterfalls of ferocity. At inconvenient times.
Ms Sage suspects that my great-great-great grandma Marietta Toadspit’s cat-creature of catastrophe, Jacobus, hexed the plumbing before we trapped him. I suspect Ms Thorn has ordered us to remove the hexes as a punishment for letting the cat out in the first place.
This is the seventh cubicle we’ve checked, pre-breakfast, for magical mayhem and this is why being a witch is boring. I am an actress not a plumber.
Jess stops inspecting and stands up very straight.
“Step one,” she says. “Someone must trigger the spell by sitting on the toilet.” She sounds just like Ms Thorn. The deputy headmistress speaks as she looks, slow and emotionless. She points at me. “You must sit.”
“I wish you would stop pretending to be Ms Thorn,” I say. “It’s creepy.”
She shakes her head. “I shall not do as you ask until you have conformed and complied with my instructions, followed all my rules and been the most obedient witch in the school.”
I do not answer. I peer past her. I cross my eyes and stare at the toilet. “This one looks OK. Let’s move on.”
She pulls me back by my shirt. “You’re only saying that because it’s your turn to check,” she says in her own voice. She waves her witchwood spoon at me as if she’s about to poke me with it. She does. “And you know there is only one way to check for hexes. Sit.”
I look to Shalini for support.
She’s no help. “Sit,” she says. “You know what Ms Sage said. The toilet hex is spreading and if we fail to remove all the hexes today it will spread again tomorrow and we’ll have to start all over again.”
Oh pimples. I have no time to fix TOILETS! I have to fix my LIFE! I have to ponder on some Very Important Thoughts. Worrying thoughts. There are potential disasters to contemplate! My ac-chew-al acting career is in the DIREST DANGER! AGAIN!
I have almost completed the tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Ms Dench, Mr Marlow and my old drama group from St Bluebottle’s School of Creativity and Fun. I have successfully performed seven perfect performances of my Bottom in school halls across the land and it was AMAZING! My donkey’s head is now as comfy as my Hat of Awesomeness.
This afternoon we have a dress rehearsal. Tonight, we have our last ever performance only it won’t be performed in a school. It will be performed in a real theatre with real, proper theatre seats and a real, proper theatre stage with lighting and curtains and props.
This all sounds great BUT at our very last school performance, performed at The Pleasant Primary Academy a whole week ago … DISASTER struck! Ms Sage did not accompany me to the school. She was not there to clap her enthusiastic sea lion clapping.
Someone else came instead.
Ms Thorn, with her normal deputy headmistress’s face of emotional blankness, accompanied me to the school. She sat in the audience. The play began. I heard my cue. I walked on. Ready to perform. I glanced at her and her look had changed! From emotional blankness to a look from The Book of Disapproval and Criticism and I immediately FORGOT MY LINES! I FROZE! In front of an ac-chew-al AUDIENCE! This has never ever happened to me before and I keep reliving the moment of horror and I am TOTALLY TRAUMATISED! I have questions.
Question 1: Did Ms Thorn hex me? So that I would forget the lines and give up my acting career?
Question 2: Has becoming a witch altered my brain? Have I added so much witchy information into the zen space in the middle of my magical mind that my ordinary mind is now incapable of remembering lines?
Question 3: Will I freeze, lose the plot, dry up, or get the giggles of nervousness in this afternoon’s dress rehearsal?
Question 4: Why did I agree to the Deal of Doom? Why didn’t I say: I agree that a Toadspit teacher shall accompany me to each performance – any teacher except Ms Thorn?
Shalini interrupts my Very Important Thoughts.
“Stop pondering on your Very Important Thoughts, Twink,” she says, even though she knows how important they are because I have previously told her. Every day for the last seven days.
Jess has crossed her arms and she’s tapping her foot with impatience. “It’s nearly time for breakfast and we’ve only done six loos. SIT.”
I give in because they won’t give in. I plonk myself on the seat. If there is a hex there’s usually a warning gurgle followed by a whoosh of swirling water swooshing up the pipe. I wait for it. They wait for it. We all wait for it. There is no gurgle but suddenly the seat vibrates and WHOOSH! I scream.
“Aargh!”
I’m forced off the toilet by an Icelandic geyser of LIQUID ICE!
I fall sideways. Jess catches me. The gush hits the ceiling and splashes back down, soaking us. She screams too.
“Aargh!”
Shalini holds her witchwood spoon over our heads and shouts, “Witchwood, witchwood, do the deed. Change to be what I now need.” Her spoon changes into a giant umbrella that covers the three of us. It’s green to match her drenched and drippy witch hat. She’s laughing.
“It’s not funny,” I say. I stagger out of the cubicle. I blink the water out of my eyes and lift the brim. I am SOPPING! My Rainbow Hat of Awesomeness is now a soggy Rainbow Hat of Awesomeness and my hair has stretched to twice its normal length with the weight of the water. My shirt and skirt are completely soaked and my tights have gone wrinkly at the knees. This does not improve my mood.
Jess splashes us as she shakes her head like a wet dog, a wet dog with brown hair and a thick fringe. Her hat falls off and lands in the flood pouring out of the door. It floats like a pile of mushy green tea leaves.
“You laughed when I was gushed,” she says.
“And me,” says Shalini.
“That was different,” I say. I grab Jess’s hat, wring it out and plonk it back on her head. “That was you. This was me.”
The flood is flooding further. It’s soaking into my boots.
“Time for Team Toilet to go into action,” says Jess. She pretends to be Ms Thorn again. “Step two
: Once the hex has been triggered Twinkle must be the one to find and remove it. She requires practice at seeing beyond to develop proficiency.”
“I have practised!” I say. Ms Thorn has had me practising this particular activity of seeing beyond – “eyes crossed and look through the layers” – so much that I worry that my eyes will stay that way for ever. Maybe this is why I forgot my lines! My brain has become crossed inside!
My soggy friends are waiting. As previously mentioned, they are not acting patience. I give in, again, and cross my eyes. My vision shifts. I see a layer of atoms and the space between. I see the layers behind. Layers of colour and shape. I pull and push and slide the layers until the picture comes into focus like switching from two dimensions to three. I see the hex. It’s a bright-blue splodge on the side of the toilet bowl, like a raindrop. I imagine what I want to happen. I imagine the corner coming loose. I imagine the hex peeling away like sticky chewing gum. I imagine it blowing up, like a big blue bubblegum bubble. It bursts and pops into nothing. The gushing stops. I’m getting faster.
Maybe speed will impress Ms Thorn? Maybe my success will remove the look from The Book of Disapproval and Criticism and replace it with a look from The Book of Approval and Admiration?
I hear Ms Thorn say, “Step three,” and I blink my eyes uncrossed, thinking the teacher has arrived, but it’s Jess again. She’s looking down as if she’s talking to someone.
“Jessica Moss shall practise her drawing skills to drain the excess water. She will use the reality rune and only that rune. Failure to conform and comply will result in complications and possible catastrophe.”
Then she looks up as if she’s talking to someone. “I shall comply with your instructions, Ms Thorn,” she says in her own voice. There is a possibility she has caught “acting” from me.
She points her witchwood spoon at the floor. We are now up to our ankles in water. She sketches a plughole on the floor, through the water. It glows, as if she’s drawn it with a green-neon-light pencil.
“By the power of the witchwood, by the power of the spoon, make this drawing real, with the writing of this rune,” she says.
She draws the reality rune. It looks like half a pointy fir tree. The green glow changes to purple then grey and the image changes to a real plughole. I can see down into it, like looking down the drain in a sink, but bigger. The water gurgles and swirls around and around and into the pipe. The pipe shrinks and the drain disappears.
Jess’s drawings never last long. Just long enough to do the job. Unlike Greats-Grandma Ursula Toadspit’s scary spider drawings. Her Toadspit Terrors are still stalking the school after three hundred years. She must have used permanent ink. I don’t think they’ll ever disappear. Not that I’ve seen them since the night they tried to eat me. Maybe they’re hiding in the West Wing, waiting to pounce.
Jess acts Ms Thorn again.
“Step four: Shalini Chandra shall keep a record of which toilets were hexed and which hexes were successfully removed. Shalini must make a precise and detailed report that does not allow for any mistakes that could result in magical mayhem or—”
“Enough!” says Shalini. “I am complying.” She’s grinning. We both are. I am beginning to wonder if Jess has the Power of Positivity in the way the headmistress, Ms Sage, has the Power of Persuasion.
Shalini turns her spoon into a pencil, straightens her skirt and touches her Pocket of Usefulness. “Fetch map,” she says. A map pokes out of her pocket. She opens it out and ticks one of the toilets adding a note about the force of the gush – Force 10. She puts the map back. “Seven down, twenty-one to go,” she says.
Twenty-one! I sigh. Is this what my life will become if I fail at the rehearsal later? Shall I have to have a career as a magical plumber? Twinkle Toadspit: Toilets drained and toilets trained. Text TT if your loo’s been hexed.
I sigh again.
Jess shakes her head at me. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Twink,” she says. “Stop the sighing! You’ve been sighing all week!” She aims her spoon at me and mutters something.
“Of course I have,” I say. “I’m having to waste time on toilets while my BOTTOM is DOOMED and Ms Thorn—”
A blast of hot air shoots out of her spoon. I cannot speak. My mouth is full of air. It’s like being in a wind tunnel. I hold on to my hat.
“Maybe forgetting your lines was nothing to do with Ms Thorn,” says Shalini. “Maybe it was just stage fright. The sort everybody gets.” She’s standing with her arms out, letting the warm wind dry her clothes. The skin on her face is wobbling.
“Or,” says Jess. “Maybe it was the stress of being Ms Thorn’s Pupil of Perfection. You’ve been a mega obedient pupil with your ‘Yes, Ms Thorn’s and your ‘No, Ms Thorn’s and your ‘Three Bags Full, Ms Thorn’s for almost three whole weeks. Maybe it has affected your brain.” She peers at my forehead. She aims the dryer at my feet.
“But, Jess, what if Ms Thorn has hexed—”
Jess inspects my face. “I believe too much obedience has unnerved you.”
“But she might have cast a—”
“I believe you allowed Ms Thorn to fluster you.”
“I know but she’ll be in the audience this aft—”
“I believe you should ignore her.”
Shalini joins in with the annoying interrupting. “What if someone boos?” she says. “You’d definitely have to ignore that.”
What?! Why would someone boo me? Why would she make me worry about that! They are annoying me with their unhelpful suggestions so I talk fast. “But how can I ignore her look from The Book of Disapproval and Criticism? What if there’s also a look of TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE BOREDOM? There’ll definitely be an absence of SMILE and this is a COMEDY! People are supposed to smile.”
“I’m not sure Ms Thorn can smile,” says Shalini.
I am Living In The Land of Despair. “And if I fluff my lines Mr Marlow will DEFINITELY give MY BOTTOM to Deirdre Kempe for the very special evening performance and I will have to play her part. The part of THE WALL! Because THE WALL DOES NOT SPEAK! I cannot forget my lines if I have NO LINES!”
“Then there is only one solution,” says Jess. She dries her hair with one blast from her spoon.
I wait.
“You must make Ms Thorn smile before the rehearsal. Get her in a good mood for the performance.”
I gasp. That’s it!
“Jess, you are a genius!” I am inspired! “I have a plan. I shall train Ms Thorn to smile!”
“How?” says Shalini.
“By bombarding her with smiles,” I say. “A person who is smiled at has to smile back eventually. It’s like a yawn. If I yawn, you’ll yawn.” I yawn a huge yawn, with an added stretch of the arms to prove my point. They both join in and my point is proved.
“I shall name it Plan A: The Train Ms Thorn To Smile So That I Am Not Intimidated By Her Looks Plan.”
“It might help if you make her happy too,” says Jess. “Happy people smile.”
“Yes, but what makes her happy?”
“Rules,” says Shalini. “She loves rules.”
“But you got rid of those when you inherited the school after you deceased your Greats-Grandma Ursula,” says Jess. She aims the blower at her tights. “Ooooh, I know.” Her eyes light up as if she’s had another idea of genius. “Dominique makes her happy,” she says. “You must Be More Dominique!”
Urgh. The thought of being even a tiny bit Dominique makes me feel queasy. But it is true. Dominique is like a Ms Thorn clone and Ms Thorn does give her extra ticks, which is really not fair. I ponder on that as we move to the next cubicle.
Suddenly something drops down on to my hat with a thump and I think, Oh dungpats, not another one. This is beginning to get annoying!
Summary:
A statue has dropped on to my head. A little one. Not enough to hurt. It’s a statue of me. Someone, or something, is ac-chew-ally leaving tiny statues of me all over school. They’re like the marble ones in the West Wing, only s
mall. It’s embarrassing. Like having a stalker fan. Dominique and Arwen think I’m making them to show off. I’m not.
Jess picks the statue off the brim of my hat.
“Oh, this one’s brilliant,” she says. “Look.” She holds it out. A mini me is standing on her outstretched palm. “You have your hands on your hips and you’re doing a look from The Book of Annoyed. It’s so cute. Can I keep it?”
“You can keep them all,” I say crossly. “You can decorate your cauldron with them. You can fill up your cauldron cupboard with them if you like.”
“You can’t possibly fill up a cauldron cupboard,” says Shalini. “It’s impossible. It’ll just grow to—”
“Fit whatever’s in there. I know that,” I say. “I do ac-chew-ally sleep in one.”
“You don’t sleep in a cauldron cupboard,” says Jess. “You sleep in a—”
“Cauldron! I know.”
There is a hint, possibly more, of crossness in my reply because I am in an emotional turmoil and being precise about cauldrons and cupboards when I am in an emotional turmoil is impossible.
The reason for my emotional turmoil is this – even though I have Plan A, which is a plan of genius, I have just had a panic-creating thought which is slightly different to my other, earlier, worrying thoughts.
This thought is – If I don’t get to perform my Bottom in an ac-chew-al theatre tonight it might be my last chance to perform anything – EVER.
Because…
What if this is Mr Marlow’s very last performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and he starts rehearsing another play and I can’t be in it?
Because…
I am not a pupil at St Bluebottle’s School of Creativity and Fun. I am a pupil at Toadspit Towers, Witch School of Conformity and Strictness.
