The Worst Witch Strikes Again (6 page)
Read The Worst Witch Strikes Again Online
Authors: Jill Murphy
‘We’re
bound
to come last,’ said Enid despairingly.
‘We don’t have to,’ said Mildred, stroking the tabby cat’s head which was sticking
out of the top of her shoe-bag. ‘We’re taller than everyone else, we
ought
to be better than them.’
‘
Exactly
,’ said Enid miserably. ‘But we aren’t. What we need is a touch of magic.’
‘Oh, Enid,’ said Mildred anxiously. ‘I can’t even do
that
properly. You weren’t here when I made the wrong potion in the potion-lab and Maud and I disappeared. It was dreadful.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Enid with disarming confidence.
Mildred watched as her friend took the two poles to the window and waved her arms around them muttering words under her breath.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Mildred.
‘Shhh,’ said Enid. ‘You’ll mess up the spell.’
A minute later, Enid handed Mildred’s pole back to her…
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ll beat the lot of them now.’
Mildred felt distinctly uneasy as they joined the contestants for the pole-vault. She looked up at the bar which seemed to be at least a mile high.
‘I’ll never get over that,’ she whispered to Enid.
‘Mildred Hubble!’ announced Miss Drill.
‘Oh, no!’ gasped Mildred. ‘I’m first.’
‘Just jump,’ said Enid with a wink. ‘You’ll be all right.’
So Mildred jumped. She charged along the run-up strip, banged the pole on to the ground and, as she did so, an extraordinary thing happened. The ground suddenly seemed to be made of a strong, springy material, and both Mildred and the pole went soaring up into the air.
From somewhere far below she heard Enid shout, ‘Let go of the pole!’
Glancing down, Mildred saw to her horror that everything was way below her, including the pole-vault bar and the school
walls. She was so shocked that she hung on even more tightly and saw that a turret was looming up in front of her with gathering speed. Like a guided missile,
Mildred and the pole shot straight through one of the windows (fortunately the castle-like school did not have glass in any of them) and crash-landed in the middle of a table all set out ready for somebody’s tea.
Lying dazed on the floor amid shattered teacups and pools of milk, Mildred saw to her dismay that she had hurled herself into Miss Hardbroom’s private study. The pole
was neatly broken in two with one half embedded in a portrait of Miss Hard-broom, and the other half in the cat basket, having just missed Miss Hardbroom’s cat, now snarling and spitting on top of a cupboard.
It wasn’t very long before the door
opened and Miss Hardbroom, Miss Cackle and Miss Drill all came bursting in through the door. The terrified cat leapt on to its owner’s shoulders with a yowl.
‘Nice of you to drop in, Mildred,’ sneered Miss Hardbroom. ‘However, it was hardly necessary to use such an unorthodox method of getting here. Everyone else seems to find the stairs perfectly adequate.’
‘I’m sure I do not have to remind you, Mildred,’ said Miss Drill, ‘that it is against the rules to use magic in any sporting event.’
‘I just cannot understand it,’ sighed Miss Cackle, removing a squashed jam tart from Mildred’s hair and absentmindedly feeding it to Miss Hardbroom’s cat.
‘I can hardly believe that one of my girls would cheat, and that poor new girl witnessing such an example. Shocking, shocking.’
Mildred silently ground her teeth when she thought of the number of times ‘the poor new girl’ had got her into trouble since term began.
‘This
must
be positively the last time that
anything of this sort happens,’ said Miss Cackle sternly. ‘You are disqualified from the rest of the events, and if I see you in trouble even once more this term then I shall have to disqualify you from the school itself.’
Mildred gasped.
‘Yes, Mildred,’ Miss Cackle continued, ‘I shall be forced to expel you if this reckless behaviour continues. Now go to
your room for the rest of the day and ponder upon all I have told you.’
Mildred was only too glad to escape to her room. She curled up on her bed with the little cat and listened to the rest of the school laughing and cheering outside as Sports Day continued.
‘It’s impossible, Tabby,’ she said. ‘I shall never get right through to the end of term without
anything
happening.’
There was a tap at the door and in came Enid.
‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Where did you land?’
‘Oh, it was awful!’ said Mildred. ‘I ended up in Miss Hardbroom’s study. Miss Cackle said she’ll expel me if I do anything else this term. What about you? Did you go too high as well?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Enid. ‘I realized that I must have over-magicked the poles, so I pretended to faint and got sent off to the
rest-room. I’ll have to nip back in a minute. Did you get hurt?’
‘Not much,’ said Mildred ruefully. ‘Just twisted my ankle a bit. I’m all right.’
‘Well, cheer up,’ said Enid brightly, opening the door. ‘At least nothing else can go wrong today. I’ll see you later.’
Mildred managed a weak smile as Enid disappeared into the corridor.
‘Oh, Tabby,’ she said miserably to the little cat. ‘We’ve got one more chance, that’s all.’
ILDRED
had not felt so anxious about being expelled since the day when she had ruined the broomstick formation team at Hallowe’en. She remembered all the promises to her family about being good, and thought how dreadful it would be if she arrived home with her cat and suitcases to break the dreadful news to them. She looked at her calendar and decided to struggle through each day as it came, making every effort to reach the end of term without any more incidents.
Enid tried to tempt her to every imaginable escapade during the weeks
that followed, but with admirable strength of mind Mildred resisted. Ethel was being particularly provoking because Maud was still her friend, but Mildred withstood all teasing and managed to battle through to the last week of term without any more trouble at all.
Miss Cackle’s birthday celebration was to be held as usual on the last day of term and each class had chosen a little chant or poem to be performed on the day. Maud had been chosen to represent Form One and Mildred was relieved not to be involved apart from having to sit and listen.
‘This is going to be awful,’ announced Enid as they sat in class waiting to be called to the Great Hall. ‘Why don’t we skip it? I don’t know if I can stand a whole morning of recitation.’
‘No,’ replied Mildred flatly.
‘Oh, go on, Mil,’ said Enid persuasively. ‘You aren’t any fun any more. No one is
going to see if we sneak off. The whole school’s there. No one will notice if
we
aren’t.’
‘They will, and I’m not,’ said Mildred. ‘I’ve only got another three or four hours to get through, then I can go home for the holidays without being expelled. I just can’t risk it.’
‘Oh, all right,’ agreed Enid sounding very disgruntled.
Miss Hardbroom appeared in the doorway and signalled the class to march down to the Great Hall. As they filed down the corridor Enid suddenly grabbed Mildred’s arm.
‘Quick!’ she hissed. ‘In here!’
They were passing a store cupboard at the time, and before Mildred knew what had happened Enid had dived inside, pulling Mildred with her.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ whispered Mildred as Enid hastily closed the door.
‘Shhh,’ said Enid. ‘All we have to do is to stay in here till they’re all in the Assembly Hall, then we can go off and spend the morning as we like.’
‘But — oh, Enid!’ said Mildred hopelessly. ‘We’re bound to get caught.’
Meanwhile outside, Ethel’s eagle eye had seen Mildred and Enid vanishing into the cupboard; so had Maud, who secretly wished she had been with them. Life had been such fun with Mildred as her best friend, and a whole term in Ethel’s