The Worst Witch Strikes Again (7 page)
Read The Worst Witch Strikes Again Online
Authors: Jill Murphy
company had been very unpleasant indeed, especially as Ethel
would
keep going on about how dreadful Mildred was.
As Maud and Ethel passed by the cupboard, Ethel turned the key and locked the door.
‘Ethel!’ said Maud as they marched on into the Assembly Hall. ‘That was mean. You’ll get them into trouble. Miss Cackle said she’d expel Mildred if she did anything else.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ethel triumphantly.
‘I think you’re a beast,’ said Maud. ‘I’m going to creep back and let them out.’
But at that moment Miss Hardbroom swept along the corridor and escorted Maud’s section of the line into the hall, so there was no way in which she could get back to unlock the cupboard door.
Inside the cupboard, the two young witches heard the key turn.
‘I knew it,’ said Mildred. ‘We can’t get out now and it’s the last day of term. We’ll
have to bang on the door when they all come out of the hall or we’ll be in here for the whole of the holiday. They’ll open the door at the beginning of next term and all they’ll find will be a little heap of bones.’
Mildred burst into tears at this distressing thought.
‘Oh, Mil, I am sorry,’ said Enid. ‘I’ll tell them it’s my fault. Don’t cry. You won’t be expelled, I promise.’
HEN
their eyes had become accustomed to the dim light in the cupboard, Mildred and Enid looked around and saw that they were in a very large, high-ceilinged room which was obviously used for storing old furniture. The light was filtering in from an arched window high up in one corner.
‘We’re saved!’ shrieked Enid, snapping her fingers. ‘There’s a window. All we have to do is get up there.’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Mildred sarcastically. ‘It’s only about ten feet up the wall. Why don’t we fly?’
‘Perhaps we could pile some of these things and climb up,’ said Enid desperately, rummaging through the old desks, broken benches and cardboard boxes full of rubbish. ‘Look, Mildred!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a broomstick!’
She hauled from a wooden chest an ancient broomstick, almost snapped in two but for a few splinters of wood still holding it together. Enid took off her sash and bound it as tightly as possible.
‘There!’ she said. ‘Now we
can
fly up. The window looks big enough for us both to squeeze out of. Come on.’
They commanded the broomstick to hover, which it did, and the two worst witches in the school balanced them
selves on it. Enid sat in front and Mildred hung on round her waist. They made the broom rise like a helicopter which is done by saying, ‘Up, up, up!’ over and over again until you get as high as you want to go. It is a very jerky process and the two witches found it very hard to stay on, but at last they reached the window-sill.
‘What can you see on the other side?’
asked Enid, concentrating on keeping the broom steady.
Mildred peered through and saw a long indoor wall and part of a ceiling stretching away before her.
‘That’s odd,’ she said to Enid, ‘it isn’t an outside window. It seems to lead into a huge stone room.’
‘Well, we’d better go through before this broom gives up on us,’ said Enid sneezing from the dust and cobwebs draped all over
them. ‘Duck your head as we go through.’
‘I wonder where we’ll come out?’ mused Mildred as they flew awkwardly through the window.
ILENGE
had been called in the Great Hall. Maud, who was the first performer, stood on the stage with Miss Cackle and all the mistresses behind her and the rest of the school facing her in the lower part of the hall. She was so worried about Mildred being locked in the cupboard that she could not remember the beginning of the poem though she had been rehearsing it for weeks. As she stood
there wildly searching her memory, there was a loud sneeze and a strange scuffling sound at the back of the hall, and suddenly from a high window in the far corner Mildred and Enid came sailing out, covered in dust and holding on for dear life. The pupils all turned to look, and the teachers froze.
It took a split second for Maud to realize that she was not imagining things and that the window must face into the cupboard. Quick as a flash she cleared her throat.
‘Miss Cackle and staff!’ she announced importantly, her voice trembling. ‘I am proud to announce a surprise item from Mildred Hubble and Enid Nightshade. A double broomstick display on a solo broomstick!’
She waved an arm in the direction of Mildred and Enid who looked positively thunderstruck when they realized exactly what they had flown into.
‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Mildred,
