by Em Lynas
I decide to ban all future worrying thoughts! I shall keep my brain totally thoughtless until it stops thinking bad things.
A bell rings. Oh dungpats.
“Oh no!” says Shalini.
“Breakfast time!” says Jess. “And we’re on the top floor!” She starts to run. We follow.
I limp. My toes hurt. I think my boots have shrunk with the wetting and then the drying. I ignore the pain because Ms Thorn has a new rule. Anyone late for lessons or meals has two whole ticks, for each five minutes of lateness, removed from the Boards of Embarrassment in the dining hall. The boards that show how many ticks each person has earned in a day, a week, a month, a year. Having your report on the wall for everyone to see every single day is NOT a good thing.
I run-limp. I must not lose ticks! Ticks mean pies!
“Last one there eats gloop!” shouts Jess.
“Ms Sage said to mind the walls,” shouts Shalini from behind me as I bump into one and there’s a shower of granite dust. “You know the school is falling to bits!”
“It isn’t my fault,” I shout back. This may not be tech-nic-ally true.
“I didn’t say it was,” says Shalini. She overtakes me.
We race down flights of rickety stairs and along landings that threaten to trip us up with frayed carpets and uneven floorboards.
We are not first to arrive at the dining hall but we’re not last either. We queue up to pay our respects to the witchwood roots entwined around the double doors. Nearly everyone in front of us has been running too, they’re red-faced and panting. When it’s our turn Jess goes first, then Shalini, then me.
This is one of my favourite moments of the day. I touch the Celtic patterns of twisted roots and a fizzingle fizzes through my fingers. I am the only one the witchwood tree fizzingles because I am the only witch descended from Greats-Grandma Ursula who founded the school and planted the tree. Plus, I am the bearer of the tree charm and I am part-witchwood – my thumb – so I have a very special magical bond with the tree. It likes me.
A fizzingle is the best feeling in the whole world of feelings. It’s like being flooded with fizzy lemonade but without the threat of burps. I am always reluctant to let go but I can’t live my life attached to a tree and there is the promise of delicious food for breakfast so I say, “I give thanks to the witchwood,” and pull my hand away.
It won’t come. My witchwood thumb has attached itself to the Celtic knots with tiny threads of witchwood.
“Blimey,” says Jess, inspecting my thumb and the connection. “That doesn’t usually happen.”
Shalini’s doing the curious-eyebrow look. Her left eyebrow is always the one to lift. The other is usually hidden under the floppy brim of her hat. So tech-nically she could be lifting both and I would not know. “Curious,” she says.
I pull and the root threads make tiny snapping sounds as my thumb is released. My thumb feels odd, like a prickly fizz has been left inside, just under the nail. I try to shake the feeling away as we enter the hall.
There are witchwood cats dozing in the roots around the walls. Oddbod’s there. He sees me and jumps down. He saunters towards us doing the walk of Cat Who Owns The Room. He’s more cat than kitten now. He’s growing fast. Maybe too fast.
Shalini loves the whole witchwood cat born-again thing but I am dreading Oddbod’s regeneration. What if he turns to cat-ash and we don’t find his pile of cat-ash in time to return him to the witchwood? What if he doesn’t regenerate?
Oddbod rubs his head on my boot. He’s sniffing my leg.
What if he forgets me? I shall be witchwood catless. I put that thought away because it is another bad thought and I must focus on the Train Ms Thorn To Smile Plan. That has priority.
Ms Thorn is at the teachers’ dining table. She is not dining. She is watching everyone enter and she’s glancing at the grandfather clock at the back of the stage. We must have run fast. There’s five minutes to go before time’s up and ticks are taken. Success! Our ticks are safe.
Ms Thorn is a very straight person. It’s as if she doesn’t allow her joints to bend without permission. She’s taken to wearing the same suit every day now that she’s deputy headmistress. A red one with a high collar holding her chin up. It’s like her very own school uniform. Fangus is clinging on to her hat, wings spread wide. The black bat on the red hat looks like a warning: Do Not Approach. So I Don’t.
Dominique and Arwen are already at our table. They look disappointed to see us. I suspect they were hoping we would lose ticks.
Ms Thorn glances at us. I put Plan A into operation. The training shall begin! I smile a smile with just the right amount of smile. Not so wide it could be considered overenthusiastic. Not so small as to be confused with a sneer. I hold it in place and whisper to my friends out of the corner of my mouth, “We should sit down immediately to show we are Pupils of Perfection.”
I attempt to walk a walk of Watch Me Being Obedient but my boots are pinching even more and it turns into a walk of Ouch. Ms Thorn looks away because more girls have arrived.
Jess gasps and grabs my hand. It’s the type of gasp that’s always followed by an “uh-oh”. It is my least favourite of all of the gasps.
“Uh-oh,” she says, as predicted. “Look at your thumb!” She’s holding up my thumb. “This doesn’t usually happen either.”
She’s right. I can’t help it. I gasp too. So does Shalini. My thumbnail is ac-chew-ally growing. It’s growing and twisting into a witchwood root. It’s making a knot, like the knots around the door.
Oh warty boils and pimples!
This is a TRAGEDY!
I think I am ac-chew-ally turning into A TREE!
Summary:
This is a DISASTER! How can I act my Bottom if I turn into a tree! How can I act a WALL if I turn into a tree! If I turn into a tree the only thing I will ever be able to act will be – A TREE!
I briefly wonder if this will make Ms Thorn smile. This is unlikely.
We stop walking. We make a circle. We inspect my thumb-twig. Oddbod is trying to climb up my leg.
“Does it hurt?” says Shalini. She touches it with her fingertip as if she’ll feel any hurt through her fingers. “Can you feel it growing?”
“It’s prickling.”
Jess studies it. “Oooh, look.”
It’s growing a bud. I shake my hand in the hope it will STOP GROWING! It doesn’t. I act not panicking but then I think Why am I not panicking?! Panicking is completely justified. Panicking is exactly what I should be doing. So I do panic.
I grab Jess. I hiss-whisper loudly into her face. “What am I going to do? What if the tree takes over until I am mostly tree?! What if it takes over until I am ALL TREE?!”
Some of the girls turn around.
“Calm down, Twink,” says Shalini.
“Calm down!” I can’t believe she’s said that to a person turning into a tree. “Shalini! Look!”
“I know,” she says, holding her hand under the twig that is now three times longer than my thumb should be. “But I saw Ms Thorn’s leg grow a twig once and she hasn’t turned into a tree.”
“Hasn’t she?” says Jess, glancing over at the teacher. “It could explain how straight she is.”
“And the lack of emotion.” I say this with horror. “Maybe her heart has turned to wood! Maybe I will ac-chew-ally turn into a Ms Thorn! I shall be EMOTIONLESS!”
“Stop it,” says Shalini. “Both of you,” she adds, as Jess is about to say something else. “We should go and see the expert on all things growing. Ms Lobelia. Plus, she has a witchwood finger—”
“Her little finger,” says Jess. She waves her little finger on the left.
“—so she should be able to help. Perhaps it’s normal.”
I give Shalini a look from The Book of WHAT?!
“For people with witchwood bits,” she says. “Like Ms Lobelia and Ms Thorn.”
Ms Thorn does not have a witchwood bit. Her entire left leg is all witchwood. My thumb was bitten of
f by a couple of nasty little scarabites and that was PAINFUL. I would definitely not like to have a WHOLE LEG bitten off.
“Maybe it just needs pruning,” says Jess.
I hide my hand inside my shirt and we walk through the tables, towards the Garden of Doom. Oddbod is by my side. He’s meowing. I think he’s trying to reassure me. It’s not working.
I am now doing the Walk of Hurrying While Pretending Not To Hurry and I daren’t turn round to see if Ms Thorn is watching because becoming a tree may come under disrupting the school. Dominique and Arwen are watching, though. They’re both doing the curious-eyebrow look.
My cheeks feel red. I am flushed. I feel like all eyes are on me. I check. They’re not. The girls are watching the Boards of Embarrassment, waiting for the tick updates and the new comments.
Maybe the witchwood dolls that line the wall opposite the Boards of Embarrassment are watching me? Can they? Are they following me with their tiny dead eyes? They’re not moving. I move. We reach the French doors, they’re open.
I hear Ms Lobelia singing before I see her. It’s not difficult to hear Ms Lobelia. Her voice is as big as she is. She’s stacking cauldrons. Five high. They’re wobbly. She starts a new song just as we get there.
“Oh, the jolly witch of Googleheim, she had a hairy nose, and every time she blew it, the hairy hairs did groooow…”
I suspect Ms Lobelia is part garden. Her hair is a bush, her hat is a trellis of ivy leaves, and her jacket and trousers are always covered with splodges of pollen. The splodges are purple today from the giant purple flower in her lapel. It’s big like a chrysanthemum with stamens that curl and uncurl. I don’t trust it. The smell is yucky, like mouldy cheese.
Sniffler, her Toadspit creature, is jumping about in a tree that has dark-red curly leaves, like fingers. The leaves are trying to catch him and failing. He chitters at us and dances on the branch. Then suddenly he’s caught. He squeaks and wriggles.
“Oh no!” says Jess. She aims her spoon and sings the deep “Eeeeeowww” of the weedkiller note. The leaves let go and the tree shudders from top to bottom.
Ms Lobelia stops singing. “Oh, my goodness, Jessica! Stop! You’ll ruin the blooms,” she booms. She strokes the tree trunk. “Shhhhhhhh,” she murmurs. “Shhhhh.” The tree stops shaking and Ms Lobelia relaxes.
“We never use the weedkiller note unless it’s an absolute emergency, Jessica. A life and death situation. A no-other-choice scenario. Sniffler was in no danger from the redwillow. Watch.”
Sniffler allows himself to be caught and tickled by the leafy fingers. He escapes and then gets caught again. His squeaks are funny.
“So,” says Ms Lobelia, turning back to us. “Have you all come to volunteer to plant the boggleweeds after breakfast?” She takes a trowel out of her tool belt and waves it at a line of plant pots. “The seedlings are ready but you will need a pair of sturdy gloves each.”
The plants turn their long spiky leaves towards us. As if they’re listening for the answer.
“No, Ms Lobelia,” says Shalini. “Twink has a problem.”
Jess holds up my thumb. “We think she needs pruning,” she says.
“Oh,” says Ms Lobelia. “How wonderful!” She says this with a rather big smile. Personally, I think it’s a bit of an odd response to the fact that I am growing a BRANCH!
She puts the trowel back in her belt and pulls me over to her deckchair. It’s blue and white stripes. Or it was. The colours have either faded in the sun or worn away from her bottom.
“Sit,” she says. I sit. Oddbod jumps on to my knee. He licks my thumb; it tingles. Jess and Shalini stand behind me and peer over the top of my head as Ms Lobelia takes a large magnifying glass from her top pocket.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” she says. She inspects my thumb from every angle. “Has anything else grown?” I must be looking puzzled. “Clothes too tight? Shirt collar rubbing? Boots don’t fit?”
“Boots,” I say. “My boots are tight. I thought it was because they got wet.”
She shakes her head. “You’re having a growth spurt, Twinkle, and you share witchwood DNA. So because you’re growing, it’s growing.” She returns the magnifying glass to her pocket.
“So I’m not going to turn into a tree?” I am hopeful she will say no.
She laughs and gives me one of her giant squishy hugs. Oddbod is squashed between us. He meows a complaint and she lets go. “Of course not. No. You just have to learn how to control it. Show it who’s boss. That should be easy for our one and only seventh of seven witch!” She laughs her booming, cheerful laugh.
I do not laugh. Her expectations regarding my unknown potential are far too high.
“Off you go,” she says to Shalini and Jess. “Go and have your breakfast. I’ve got this.” My friends are reluctant. She shoos them away.
“Good luck,” says Shalini.
Jess gives my shoulder a squeeze. “You can do this,” she says. They leave.
“What do I do?” I say to Ms Lobelia.
“You just have to think it back to normal,” she says.
I don’t think the word JUST is appropriate. Thinking your thumb back to normal is not a normal thing to JUST do. I must be doing a look from The Book of Not Liking That Solution because she gives me another big squishy hug. I suffocate briefly. She lets go.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “The cure is simple. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes and imagine your thumb, as it is now, in your zen space. See the witchwood atoms. See the space between them. Think the space smaller.”
I repeat that. “Think the space smaller?” She nods, as if this makes perfect sense.
Not turning into a tree is becoming URGENT. My thumbnail tree-twig is turning into a thumbnail tree-branch. It’s dragging my hand off my knee and down towards the floor. It’s heavy. I must follow Ms Lobelia’s instructions. NOW. I hug Oddbod with my free hand and close my eyes. I empty my mind. I add a picture of my current witchwood thumb to my zen space. It fills it.
“Do you have the picture?” says Ms Lobelia.
I do. I nod.
“Good. Now. Look at the atoms.”
I do.
“Look at the spaces.”
I do.
“Think them small.”
How?! I think the word small. I think the word tiny. I think the word minute. I feel my thumbnail tree-branch touch the floor. I think of small things, like poppy seeds and pinheads. Nothing works!
“Hmm,” says Ms Lobelia. “Maybe a rhyme will help. It’s best if you use one of your own. Maybe something with shrink in. Or shrivel. Or decrease. Or diminish. Contract, compress or waste away?”
They’re all good words, especially shrivel, but my mind is full of tree and I can’t think of a single rhyme and I am wishing Ms Lobelia was Ms Thorn because Ms Thorn would have TOLD me which rhyme to use and would not expect me to MAKE ONE UP. I am beginning to think panicky thoughts about FAILING and turning into a FOREST!
“Try something like this,” says Ms Lobelia. “Witchwood, witchwood, hear my plea, take a look at my thumb for me. It’s so big you must agree …”
“… I don’t want to be a TREE,” I say with feeling.
“Excellent, now do one of your own. This is between you and your witchwood.”
I try. “Witchwood thumb, please hear my plea … I don’t want to be a tree…” I think of the words Ms Lobelia suggested. “Shrink and shrivel … waste away … be the thumb of yesterday!”
I feel my thumbnail tree-branch shudder. I feel pins and needles in my hand.
“Excellent!” says Ms Lobelia. “The rhyme’s the solution! Say it again.”
“Witchwood thumb, please hear my plea, I don’t want to be a tree. Shrink and shrivel, waste away, be the thumb of yesterday!”
“Oh, well done, Twinkle!” says Ms Lobelia. “You’ve got the hang of it. Keep rhyming.”
I can feel it shrinking. The pins and needles run up my arm. I keep my arm absolutely still because pins and needles HURT i
f you move. I say the rhyme faster and faster and faster until the words are garbled and mashed together but I don’t care because I open my eyes and my thumb is a thumb. There is an absence of leaf, twig and branch and I am IN CONTROL!
Ms Lobelia claps her hands. “Oh, well done, you little twinkling star! It should stabilise over the next few weeks,” she says. “Just keep training it and you’ll be fine.”
“Training it?”
“Of course, Twinkle. Every time you have a growth spurt, the witchwood will have a growth spurt. You just have to train it to have a small one. And avoid any stress for a few weeks. Stress can be a huge trigger.”
What?! I have a sudden thought even though, as previously mentioned, I have banned thoughts. It is not a good thought. It is a thought beyond panic. It is a thought of TERROR! The thought is this…
Summary of my thought:
What if a tree branch grows out of my thumb while I’m on stage in front of Ms Thorn? THAT is a STRESSFUL situation! What will I do then? It would be a DISASTER!
I go back to the dining hall with Oddbod and I think of this and nothing but this until I spot the Boards of Embarrassment. They have clicked. I have lost four ticks! They’ve gone down to sixteen. Why have they gone down? This means I only have enough left for four pies or eight sausages or sixteen slices of toast. I calculate I only have two days of food left before I will be forced to eat GLOOP for breakfast, dinner and tea. I could be wrong. I’m an actress, not a mathematician.
Ms Thorn is watching me. She looks at the clock and then back at me then at a new board. It’s black. It says at the top – RULES. There is only one rule, so far.
This is so not fair! That rule was not there when we arrived. She’s added the being seated bit. I want to go over to her and demand that she puts my ticks back but instead I take a deep breath and walk a Walk of Obedience to our table and keep to the plan. I smile, but not a wide one, and wave, but not enthusiastically. I act apologetic for being late. She does not smile back. I wave my thumb hand at Jess and Shalini too so they can see I am cured, temporarily. Oddbod spots a mouse and leaves me to go mouse chasing.
