Help! I'm Trapped at Witch School! (eBook)

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....