Witch Week

  Simon turned away and picked up his pillow again. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “That’s my final offer.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Charles, hating Simon.

  Simon turned back to him in astonishment. He had expected Charles either to protest or give up asking. His friends stared at Charles, equally astonished. In fact, by this time, nobody was hitting Brian anymore. Here was something really odd going on. Even Brian was staring at Charles. How could anyone want a candle that much? “Very well,” Simon said. “I’ll accept your offer, Charles. But remember you promised in front of witnesses. You’d better pay up.”

  “I’ll pay up,” said Charles. “Every week when Mr. Crossley gives us our money. Now give me the candle.”

  Simon, with busy efficiency, fetched his key ring from his blazer and unlocked the cupboard on the wall where the first-aid kit and the candle were kept. If a miracle happened, Charles thought, and the inquisitors did not come for him after all, he had put himself in a true mess now. No pocket money until Christmas. That meant he could not pay for new running shoes. He would have to write five hundred lines every day for Mr. Towers. But he did not really believe he would be around to do that very long. Everyone said the inquisitors found witches whatever they did.

  Simon put the candle in his hands. It was unlit, in a white enamel candle holder. Charles looked at it. He looked up to see Simon and all the other boys, even Brian, grinning.

  “You forgot to ask for matches,” Simon pointed out.

  Charles looked at him. He glared. He did more than glare. It was the nastiest look he had ever given anyone. He hoped it would shrivel Simon on the spot.

  All that happened was that Simon stepped backward from him. Even so, he looked as superior as ever. “But I’ll give you the matches free,” he said. “It’s all part of the service.” He tossed a box of matches toward Charles.

  Charles put the candlestick down on the floor. With everyone staring at him, he struck a match and lit the candle. He knelt down beside it. It hurts to be burned, he thought. It hurts to be burned. He put out his finger and held it in the small yellow flame.

  “Why on earth are you doing that?” asked Ronald West.

  Charles did not answer. For a second, he thought the flame was not going to burn him. It just felt warm and wet. Then, quite suddenly, it was hot and it hurt very much indeed. It hurt, as Charles had expected, in quite a different way from cutting yourself or stubbing your toe. This was a much nastier pain, sharp and dull together, which brought Charles’s back out in goose pimples and jangled the nerves all the way up his arm. Imagine this all over you, he thought. It hurts to be burned. He took hold of his wrist with his other hand and held it hard to stop himself snatching his finger out of the pain. It hurts to be burned. It did hurt too. It was making sweat prickle out just beneath his eyes.

  “It must be for a dare or a bet,” he heard Simon saying. “Which is it? Tell, or I’ll put the candle away again.”

  “A bet,” Charles answered at random. It hurts to be burned. It hurts to be burned. He thought this over and over, intent on branding it into his brain—or into whatever part of him it was that did magic. It hurts to be—Oh, it hurts!—hurts to be burned.

  “Some people,” Simon remarked, “make awfully stupid bets.”

  Charles ignored him and tried to keep his jerking finger steady. It was trying to jump out of the flame of its own accord. The finger was now red, with a white band across the red. He could hear a funny noise, a sort of tiny frizzling, as if his skin were frying. Then, suddenly, he could bear no more. He found himself snatching his finger away and blowing out the candle. The boys watching him all let out a sigh, as if they had been holding their breath.

  “I suppose,” Simon said discontentedly, as Charles handed him the candle back, “you make more money on this bet than you owe me now.”

  “No, I don’t,” Charles said quickly. He was afraid Simon would be after that money too. Simon was quite capable of telling Mr. Crossley about the candle if Charles did not pay. “I don’t get anything. The bet was to burn my finger right off.”

  The monitor on duty appeared in the doorway, shouting, “Lights out! No more talking!”

  Charles got into bed, sucking his burned finger, hoping and praying that he had now taught himself not to work magic by accident. His tongue could feel a big pulpy blister rising between the first and second joint of his finger. It hurt more than ever.

  Simon said, out of the darkness, “I always knew Charles Morgan was mad. What a brainless thing to do!”

  Ronald West said, “You don’t expect brains in an animal.”

  “Animals have more sense,” said Geoffrey Baines.

  “Charles Morgan,” said Simon, “is a lower life form.”

  These kinds of comments went on for some time. It was perfectly safe to talk because there was always such a noise from the next dormitory. Charles lay and waited for them to stop. He knew he was not going to sleep. Nor did he. Long after Simon and his friends had fallen silent, long after two monitors and the master in charge had come along and shut up the boys next door, Charles lay stiff as a log of wood, staring up into the shadows.

  He was frightened—terrified. But the terror was now a dreary long-distance kind of terror, which he was sure he was going to feel all the time, for the rest of his life now. Suppose by some miracle, no inquisitors came for him; then he was going to be afraid that they would, every minute of every day, for years and years. He wondered if you learned to get used to it. He hoped so, because at this moment he felt like springing out of bed and confessing, just to get it over. What would Simon say if Charles jumped up shouting, “I’m a witch!” Probably he would think Charles was mad. It was funny that Simon had not disappeared too. Charles sucked his finger and puzzled over that. He certainly hated Simon enough. He had not hated Mr. Wentworth at all really—or only in the way you hate any master who gives you a black mark you do not deserve. Perhaps witchcraft had to be sort of clinical to work properly.

  Then Charles thought of his other troubles. Two black marks in one day. No running shoes. No money. Five hundred lines a day. And none of it was his fault! It was not his fault he had been born a witch, either, for that matter. It was all so unfair! He wished he did not have to feel so guilty about Mr. Wentworth on top of it all. It hurts to be burned.

  Charles’s thoughts slowly grew less connected after this point. He realized afterward that he must have been asleep. But if it was sleep, it was only a light horrified doze, in which his thoughts kept on clanking about in his head, as if he were a piece of machinery with the switch jammed to ON. But he did not know he had been asleep. It seemed to him at the time that he sat up in bed after thinking things out in a perfectly orderly way. It was all quite obvious. He was a witch. He dared not be found out. Therefore he had to use some more witchcraft in order not to be found out. In other words, he had better go somewhere private like the toilets downstairs and conjure up first Mr. Wentworth and then his running shoes.

  6

  CHARLES GOT UP. He remembered to put on his glasses. He even thought of arranging his bedclothes in heaps to make it look as if he were still in bed. He could see to do that by the dim light shining in from the corridor. By that light, he could see to creep past the sleeping humps of all the other boys. He crept out into the corridor, which seemed light as day by comparison.

  There was a lot of noise coming from the next dormitory. There was rustling, and some heavy thumps, followed by some giggles hurriedly choked off. Charles stopped. It sounded as if they were having one of their midnight feasts in there. The thumps would be the floorboards coming up so that they could get at their hidden food. It was a bad time to wander about. If the master in charge heard the noise, Charles would be caught too.

  But the corridor remained empty. After a while, Charles dared to go on. He went along the corridor and down the dark pit of the concrete stairs at the end. It was cold. The heating, which was never warm anyway, was turned down for
the night. The chill striking up through Charles’s bare feet and in through his pajamas served to wake him up a little. He wondered if it was the pain in his finger which had awakened him in the first place. It was throbbing steadily. Charles held it against the cold wall to soothe it and, while his feet felt their way from stair to cold stair, he tried to plan what he would do. Mr. Wentworth was obviously the most important one to get back—if he could. But he did need those running shoes too.

  “I’ll practice on the shoes,” Charles muttered. “If I get those, I’ll try for Mr. Wentworth.”

  He stumbled off the end of the stairs and turned left towards the toilets. They were in a cross-passage down at the end. Charles was halfway to the corner, when the cross-passage became full of dull moving light. A half-lit figure loomed there, swinging a giant torch. The moving light caught the small white creature trundling at the figure’s heels. The caretaker and his dog were on their way to inspect the toilets for vandals.

  Charles turned and tiptoed the other way. The passage promptly filled with a shrill yap, like one very small clap of thunder. The dog had heard him. Charles ran. Behind him, he heard the caretaker shout, “Who’s there?” and come clattering along the passage.

  Charles ran. He ran past the end of the stairs, hoping the caretaker would think he had gone up them again, and went on, with his arms out in front of him, until he met the swinging door beyond. Gently, he pushed the door open a small way. Softly, he slid around it, holding the edge of the door so that it would not thump shut and give him away. Then he stood there hoping.

  It was no good. The caretaker was not fooled. A muzz of light grew in the glass of the door. The shadow of the stair rails swung across it and fell away, and the light went on growing brighter as the caretaker advanced.

  Charles let the door go and ran again, thumping along dark corridors until he had no idea where he was and could hardly breathe. He shook off the caretaker, but he lost himself. Then he ran around a corner and blinked in the orange light from a far-off streetlight shining through a window. Beyond the window was the unmistakable door of the lower school boys’ playroom. Even in that dim light, Charles knew the kick marks at the bottom of the door, and the cracked glass in the upper panel where Nirupam Singh had tried to hit Dan Smith and missed. It seemed like home just then. There were worse places to practice magic in, Charles thought. He opened the door and crept in.

  In the faint light, someone else jumped around to face him.

  Charles jumped back against the door. He squeaked. The other person squeaked. “Who are you?” they both said at once. Then Charles found the light switch. He moved it down and then back up in one swift waggle, dazzling both of them. What he saw made him lean against the door, confounded, blinking green darkness. The other person was Brian Wentworth. That was odd enough. But the oddest thing, in that dazzling moment of light, was that Charles had clearly seen that Brian was in tears. Charles was amazed. Brian, as was well known, never cried. He shrieked and yowled and yelled for mercy when he was hit, but he had never, ever been known to shed tears. Charles went very quickly from amazement to horror. For it clearly took something out of the ordinary to make Brian cry—and that thing must be that Brian had discovered his father was mysteriously missing.

  “I came down to make it all right again,” Charles said guiltily.

  “What can you do?” said Brian’s voice out of the dark, thick and throaty with crying. “The only reason you’re better off than me is because you glare at people and they leave you alone. I wish I had a dirty look like yours. Then I could stop them getting at me and hitting me all the time!”

  He began crying again, loud jerky sobs. Charles could hear the crying move off into the middle of the playroom, but he could not see Brian at first for the green dazzle. He really could not believe Brian minded being hit that much. It happened so often that Brian must be thoroughly used to it. By this time, he could see that Brian was crouching in the center of the concrete floor. Charles went over and crouched down facing him.

  “Is that the only thing that’s the matter?” he inquired cautiously.

  “Only!” said Brian. “Only thing! What else do you want them to do? Tear me apart limb from limb or something! Sometimes I wish they would. I’d be dead then. I wouldn’t have to put up with them getting at me then, hour after hour, day after day! I hate this school!”

  “Yes,” Charles said feelingly. “So do I.” It gave him wonderful pleasure to say it, but it did not help bring the subject around to the disappearance of Mr. Wentworth. He took a deep breath to encourage himself. “Er—have you seen your father—?”

  Brian broke in, almost with a scream. “Of course I’ve been to my magicking father! I go to him nearly every day and ask him to let me leave this place. I went to him this afternoon and asked him. I said why couldn’t I go to Forest Road School, like Stephen Towers does, and you know what he said? He said Forest Road was a private school and he couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t afford it!” Brian said bitterly. “I ask you! Why can’t he afford it, if Mr. Towers can? He must get paid twice as much as Mr. Towers! I bet he earns almost as much as Miss Cadwallader. And he says he can’t afford it!”

  Charles wondered. He remembered the threadbare hearthrug and the holes in Mr. Wentworth’s slippers. That looked like poverty to him. But he supposed it could be meanness. And that brought him back to his guilt. With Mr. Wentworth gone, Brian would have to stay at Larwood House forever. “But have you seen your father since then?” he asked.

  “No,” said Brian. “He told me not to keep coming whining to him.” And he began to cry again.

  So Brian had not found out yet. Charles felt huge relief. There was still time to get Mr. Wentworth back. But that meant that it really was only being got at which was making Brian so unhappy. Despite the evidence, that surprised Charles. Brian always seemed so perky and unconcerned.

  Brian was talking again, through his sobs. “Whatever I do,” he said, “they get at me. I can’t help my father being a teacher here! I can’t help being good at things! I didn’t ask Mr. Brubeck to give me a solo to sing. He just did. But of course magicking Simon Silverson thinks he ought to sing it. That’s the thing I hate most,” Brian said vehemently. “The way everyone does what Simon Silverson says!”

  “I hate him too,” said Charles. “Badly.”

  “Oh it doesn’t matter how we feel,” Brian said. “Simon’s word is law. It’s like that game—you know, Simon Says—where you have to do things if they say Simon Says first. And what is he anyway? A stuck up—”

  “Prat,” said Charles, “who sucks up to teachers—”

  “With golden hair and a saintly expression. Don’t forget the smug look,” said Brian.

  “Who could?” said Charles. “He kicks you in the pants, and then looks as if it’s your fault his foot came up.”

  He was enjoying this. But he stopped enjoying it when Brian said, “Thanks for stopping them from hitting me this evening. What gave you the idea of burning your finger like that? And trust Simon Silverson to rip you off all your money just for a candle!” Brian hesitated a second and then added, “I suppose I’d better pay you half of it.”

  Charles managed to stop himself backing away. That would be really unkind. But what was he to do now? Brian clearly thought Charles had come downstairs in order to comfort him. Probably he would expect Charles to be his friend in the future. Well, Charles supposed, he had deserved it. This was what you got for putting the Evil Eye on people’s fathers. But quite apart from Mr. Wentworth, quite apart from the fact that Brian was lowest of the low in 6B, even quite apart from the fact that Charles did not like Brian, Charles knew he could not be friends with anyone now. He was a witch. He could get anyone who was friends with him arrested too.

  “You mustn’t pay me anything,” he said. “You don’t owe me a thing.”

  Brian seemed distinctly relieved. “Then I’ll tell you something instead,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this place. If my father won’t t
ake me away, I’m going to run away.”

  “Where to?” said Charles. He had thought about running away himself, a while back, but he had had to give up the idea because there was nowhere to run away to.

  “No idea,” said Brian. “I shall just go.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Charles. This was one friendly thing he could say at least. “You have to plan it properly. If you just go, they’ll call in tracker dogs and bring you straight back. Then you’ll be punished.”

  “But I’ll go mad if I stay here!” Brian said hysterically. Then he appeared to stop and consider, with his teeth chattering. “I think I see a way,” he said.

  By this time, both of them were shivering. It was cold in the playroom. Charles wondered how he could make Brian go back to bed without going himself. He could not think of a way. So they both went on crouching face to face in the middle of the concrete floor, until there was a sudden little pattering outside the cracked door. Both of them jumped.

  “Caretaker’s dog,” whispered Charles.

  Brian giggled. “Stupid creature. It looks just like Theresa Mullett’s knitting.”

  Charles, before he could stop himself, gave a shriek of laughter. “It does! It does!”

  “Shut up!” hissed Brian. “The caretaker’s coming!”

  Sure enough, the cracked glass of the door was showing misty torchlight. The dog began yapping furiously on the other side of it. It knew they were there.

  Brian and Charles sprang up and fled, through the playroom and out its other door. As it thumped shut behind them, the cracked door thumped open and the hollow playroom echoed with the dog’s little thunderclaps. Without a word, Charles ran one way and Brian ran another. Where Brian went, Charles never knew. He heard the second door thump open as he ran, and the patter of tiny feet behind him. Charles held his glasses on and ran desperately. It was just like the seniors in the shrubbery. What made everyone chase him? Did he smell of witch, or something?