Witch Week Read Free Page A

sing, and that he would be hit afterward if he did. And while Brian hesitated, the witch in 6B took a hand. One of the long windows of the hall flew open with a clap and let in a stream of birds. Most of them were ordinary birds: sparrows, starlings, pigeons, blackbirds, and thrushes, swooping around the hall in vast numbers and shedding feathers and droppings as they swooped. But among the beating wings were two curious furry creatures with large pouches, which kept uttering violent laughing sounds, and the red and yellow thing swooping among a cloud of sparrows and shouting “Cuckoo!” was clearly a parrot.
    Luckily, Mr. Brubeck thought it was simply the wind which had let the birds in. The rest of the lesson had to be spent in chasing the birds out again. By that time, the laughing birds with pouches had vanished. Evidently the witch had decided they were a mistake. But everyone in 6B had clearly seen them. Simon said importantly, “If this happens again, we all ought to get together and—”
    At this, Nirupam Singh turned around, towering among the beating wings. “Have you any proof that this is not perfectly natural?” he said.
    Simon had not, so he said no more.
    By the end of the lesson, all the birds had been sent out of the window again, except the parrot. The parrot escaped to a high curtain rail, where no one could reach it, and sat there shouting “Cuckoo!” Mr. Brubeck sent 6B away and called the caretaker to get rid of it. Charles trudged away with the rest, thinking that this must be the end of the games he had predicted in his journal. But he was quite wrong. It was only the beginning.
    And when the caretaker came grumbling along with his small white dog trailing at his heels, to get rid of the parrot, the parrot had vanished.

2

    T HE NEXT DAY was the day Miss Hodge tried to find out who had written the note. It was also the worst day either Nan Pilgrim or Charles Morgan had ever spent at Larwood House. It did not begin too badly for Charles, but Nan was late for breakfast.
    She had broken her shoelace. She was told off by Mr. Towers for being late, and then by a monitor. By this time, the only table with a place was one where all the others were boys. Nan slid into the place, horribly embarrassed. They had eaten all the toast already, except one slice. Simon Silverson took that slice as Nan arrived. “Bad luck, fatso.” From further down the table, Nan saw Charles Morgan looking at her. It was meant to be a look of sympathy, but, like all Charles’s looks, it came out like a blank double-barreled glare. Nan pretended not to see it and did her best to eat wet, pale scrambled egg on its own.
    At lessons, she discovered that Theresa and her friends had started a new craze. That was a bad sign. They were always more than usually pleased with themselves at the start of a craze—even though this one had probably started so that they need not think of witches or birds. The craze was white knitting, white and clean and fluffy, which you kept wrapped in a towel so that it would stay clean. The classroom filled with mutters of, “Two purl, one plain, twist two . . .”
    But the day really got into its evil stride in the middle of the morning, during PE. Larwood House had that every day, like the journals. 6B joined with 6C and 6D, and the boys went running in the field, while the girls went together to the gym. The climbing ropes were let down there.
    Theresa and Estelle and the rest gave glad cries and went shinnying up the ropes with easy swinging pulls. Nan tried to lurk out of sight against the wall bars. Her heart fell with a flop into her gym shoes. This was worse even than the vaulting horse. Nan simply could not climb ropes. She had been born without the proper muscles or something.
    And, since it was that kind of day, Miss Phillips spotted Nan almost at once. “Nan, you haven’t had a turn yet. Theresa, Delia, Estelle, come on down and let Nan have her turn on the ropes.” Theresa and the