Witch Week (23 page)

“Er, leave Brian, I think,” Chrestomanci said quickly.

“You will have plenty of time to reconsider in detention,” Mr. Wentworth finished. Nan, Estelle, Charles, and Nirupam all scrambled hurriedly to their feet. And as soon as they were standing up, they found they were wearing school uniforms. They looked around for Brian, but he did not seem to be there.

“I’m invisible again!” Brian said disgustedly, out of the air.

Chrestomanci was smiling. “Not bad, sir,” he said to Mr. Wentworth. Mr. Wentworth looked pleased, and, as he shepherded the four of them to the door, he smiled back at Chrestomanci in quite a friendly way.

“Why is Brian allowed to stay invisible?” Estelle complained, as Mr. Wentworth marched them back toward the classroom.

“Because he gives Chrestomanci an excuse to go on staying here as an inquisitor,” Nirupam whispered. “He is supposed to be finding what the witch has done with Brian.”

“But don’t tell Brian,” Charles muttered, as they arrived outside the door of 6B. “He’d spoil it. He’s like that.” The truth was, he was not so sure he would not spoil things himself if he got the chance. Nothing had been changed. He was still in as much trouble as ever.

M
R. WENTWORTH OPENED
the door and ushered the four of them into the classroom, into a blast of stares and whispers. “I’m afraid I had to kidnap these four,” Mr. Wentworth said to Mr. Crossley, who happened to be teaching the rest. “We’ve been arranging my study for the inquisitor to use.”

Mr. Crossley seemed to believe this without question. 6B, to judge from their faces, felt it was an awful letdown. They had expected all four of them to have been arrested. But they made the best of it.

“Mr. Towers is looking for you two,” Simon whispered righteously to Nirupam and Charles. And Theresa said to Estelle, “Miss Phillips wants you.” Nan was lucky. Miss Phillips never remembered Nan if she could help it.

They had arrived back so late that there was only a short piece of lesson left before lunchtime. When the bell rang for lunch, Charles and Nirupam kept to the thickest crowds. Neither of them wanted Mr. Towers to see them. But Charles had his usual bad luck. Mr. Towers was on duty at the door of the dining hall. Charles was very relieved when he slipped past without Mr. Towers showing any interest in him at all.

Nirupam nudged Charles as they sat down after grace. Chrestomanci was sitting beside Miss Cadwallader at high table, looking bland and vague. Everyone craned to look at him. Word went around that this was the divisional inquisitor.

“I don’t fancy getting on the wrong side of him,” Dan Smith observed. “You can see that sleepy look’s just there to fool you.”

“He looks feeble,” said Simon. “I’m not going to let him scare me.”

Charles craned to look too. He knew what Simon meant, but he was quite sure by now that Chrestomanci’s vague look was as deceptive as Dan thought. Mr. Wentworth was up at high table too. Charles wondered where Brian was and how Brian would get any lunch.

Charles turned back to the table to hear Theresa saying, “He is so super looking, he makes me feel quite weak!”

To everyone’s surprise, Estelle jumped to her feet and leaned across the table, glaring at Theresa. “Theresa Mullett!” she said. “You just dare be in love with the inquisitor and see what you get! He’s mine. I met him first and
I
love him! So you just dare!”

Nobody said a word for a moment. Theresa was too astonished even to giggle. Everyone was so unused to seeing Estelle so fierce that even the monitor in charge could not think what to say.

During the silence, it became clear how Brian was going to get lunch. Charles and Nirupam felt themselves being pushed apart by an invisible body. Both of them were jabbed by invisible elbows as the body climbed onto the bench between them and sat. “You’ll have to let me eat off your plates,” whispered Brian’s voice. “I hope it’s not stew.”

Luckily, Simon broke the silence just as Brian spoke. He said, in a jeering, not-quite-believing way, “And what took you all so long to arrange for Mr. Feeble Inquisitor?”

From the way everyone looked then, Nan knew nobody had believed Mr. Wentworth’s excuse for an instant. She could see most of them suspected something like the truth. Help! thought Nan. “Well we had to put a lot of electric wiring into the study,” she invented hastily. “He has to have a bright light arranged to shine into people’s faces. It helps break them down.”

“Not for electric shocks at all?” Dan asked hopefully.

“Some of it
may
have been,” Nan admitted. “There were quite a lot of bare wires, and a sort of helmet thing with electrodes sticking out of it. Charles wired that. Charles is very good with electricity.”

“And what else?” Dan asked breathlessly. He was far too fascinated by now to notice he was talking to a girl.

“The walls were all draped in black,” invented Nan. “Estelle and I did that.”

Lunch was served just then. It was potato pie. This was fortunate for Brian, who dared not use a knife and fork, but not so lucky for Charles and Nirupam. Both of them gave grunts of indignation as a large curved chunk vanished from their plates. Brian had taken a handful from each. They were more annoyed still, when lumps of potato began to flop down between them.

“Don’t waste it!” snapped Nirupam.

“Can’t you tell where your mouth is?” Charles whispered angrily.

“Yes. But I don’t know where my hands are,” Brian whispered back. “
You
try, if you think you’re so clever!”

While they whispered, Nan was being eagerly questioned by Dan, and forced to invent more and more inquisitor’s equipment for Mr. Wentworth’s study. “Yes, there
were
these things with little chromium screws,” she was saying. “I think you’re right—those must have been thumbscrews. But some of them looked big enough to get an arm or a leg in. I don’t think he stops at thumbs.”

Nirupam dug Brian’s invisible side with his elbow. “Listen to this!” he whispered. “It all has to be there if he calls Dan in.”

“I’m not a fool,” Brian’s voice retorted with its mouth full.

“And of course there were a lot of other things we had to hang on the wall. All sizes of handcuffs,” Nan went on. She was inspired now and her invention seemed boundless. She just could not seem to stop. Charles began to wonder if one small study could possibly hold all the things she was describing—or even only the half of it that Brian managed to remember.

Fortunately, Estelle, who was far too busy watching Chrestomanci to eat, caused a sudden diversion by shouting out, “Look, look! Miss Cadwallader’s only using a fork, and
he’s
using a knife and a fork! Oh, isn’t he
brave!
”

At that, Nirupam seized the opportunity to try and shut Nan up. He gave her a sinister stare and said loudly, “You realize that the inquisitor will probably be questioning every one of us very searchingly indeed, after lunch is over.”

Though Nirupam meant this simply as a warning to Nan, it caused a worried silence. A surprising number of people did not seem very keen on the treacle tart which followed the potato pie. Nirupam seized that opportunity too. He took third and fourth helpings and shared them with Brian.

Straight after lunch, Mr. Wentworth came and marshaled the whole of 6B into alphabetical order. The worried silence became a scared one. From the looks they saw on faces of the rest of the school, the scare was catching. Even seniors looked alarmed as 6B were marched away. They marched upstairs and were lined up half in the passage and half on the stairs, while Mr. Wentworth went into his study to tell Chrestomanci they were ready. Those at the front of the line were able to see that the wavy glass in the door was now black as night.

Then it turned out that Chrestomanci wanted to see them in reverse alphabetical order. They all had to march up and down and around again, so that Heather Young and Ronald West were at the front of the line instead of Geoffrey Barnes and Deborah Clifton. They did it with none of the usual grumbling and scuffling. Even Charles, who was quite certain that they were only marching to give Chrestomanci time to put all Nan’s inventions in, found himself a little quiet and queasy, with his thumb rubbing at that blister. Heather and Ronald looked quite ill with terror. Dan Smith—who was third now that Brian was missing—asked Nirupam in an urgent whisper, “What’s he going to do with us?”

Nirupam had no more idea than Dan. He had not even known that Chrestomanci really was going to question them. He tried to look sinister. “You’ll see.” Dan’s face went cream-colored.

Chrestomanci did not see people for the same length of time. Heather disappeared into the study for what seemed an endless age, and she came out as frightened as she went in. Ronald was only in for a minute, and he came out from behind the darkened door looking relieved. He leaned across Dan and Nirupam to whisper to Simon, “No problem at all!”

“I knew there wouldn’t be,” Simon lied loftily.

“Quiet!” bellowed Mr. Wentworth. “Next—Daniel Smith.”

Dan Smith was not gone long either, but he did not come out looking as if there were no problem. His face was more like cheese than cream.

Nirupam was gone for much longer than either Nan or Charles had expected. When he came out, he was frowning and uneasy. He was followed by Simon. There was another endless wait. During it, the bell rang for afternoon lessons, and was followed by the usual surge of hurrying feet. The silence of lessons which came after that had gone on for so long before Simon came out that there was not a soul in 6B who did not feel like an outcast. Simon came out at last. He was an odd color. He would not speak to any of the friends who were leaning out of the line wanting to know what had happened. He just walked to the wall like a sleepwalker and leaned against it, staring into space.

This did not make anyone feel better. Nan wondered what Chrestomanci was doing to people in there. By the time the three girls who came between her and Simon had all come out looking as bad as Heather Young, Nan was so scared that she could hardly make her legs work. But it was her turn. She had to go. She shuffled around the dark door somehow.

Inside, she stood and stared. Chrestomanci had indeed been very busy while 6B marched up and down outside. Mr. Wentworth’s study was entirely lined with black curtains. A black carpet Nan had forgotten to invent covered the parquet floor. Hung on the walls and glimmering against the black background were manacles, a noose, festoons of chains, several kinds of scourge, and a cat-o’-nine-tails. There was a large can in one corner labeled
PETROL, DIV. INQ. OFFICE, FOR USE IN TORTURE ONLY.

Chrestomanci himself was only dimly visible behind a huge glittering lamp, which reminded Nan uncomfortably of the light over an operating table. The light from it beamed onto Mr. Wentworth’s desk, draped in more black cloth, where there was a sort of jeweler’s display of shiny thumbscrews and other displeasing objects. The wired-up helmet was there. So was a bouquet of bare wires, spitting blue sparks. Behind those was a pile of fat black books.

“Can you see anything Brian forgot?” asked the dim shape of Chrestomanci.

Nan began to laugh. “I didn’t say the carpet or the petrol!”

“Brian suggested a carpet. And I thought that corner looked a little bare,” Chrestomanci admitted.

Nan pointed to the pile of black books. “What are those?”

“Disguised schedules,” said Chrestomanci. “Oh—I see what you mean. Obviously they are Acts of Parliament and Witchcraft Edicts, torture manuals, and
The Observer’s Guide to Witch-Spotting.
No inquisitor would be without them.”

Nan could tell from his voice that he was laughing. “I accuse you of enjoying yourself,” she said, “while everyone outside gibbers.”

“I confess to that.” Chrestomanci came around the desk under the light. He pushed the spitting bunch of wires casually aside—it did not appear to give him any kind of shock—and sat on the black-draped desk so that his face was level with Nan’s. She suddenly found it almost impossible to look away. “I accuse you of enjoying yourself too,” he said.

“Yes, I have!” Nan said defiantly. “For about the first time since I came to this beastly school!”

Chrestomanci looked at her almost anxiously. “You enjoy being a witch?” Nan nodded vigorously. “And you’ve enjoyed making things up and describing them—thumbscrews and so on?” Nan nodded again. “Which did you enjoy most?” Chrestomanci asked.

“Oh, being a witch,” Nan declared. “It’s made me feel—well—just so confident, I suppose.”

“Describe the things you’ve invented so far to do as a witch,” said Chrestomanci.

“I—” Nan looked at Chrestomanci, lit from one side by the strong light of the lamp and, from the other, by the flickering wires, and was rather puzzled to find how little she had done as a witch. All she had done, when you came down to it, was to ride a broomstick and to give herself and Estelle the wrong kind of clothes and some decidedly odd collecting tins. “I haven’t had much time to do things yet,” she said.

“But Charles Morgan has had about the same amount of time, and according to the things people have been telling me, he has been very inventive indeed,” Chrestomanci said. “Wouldn’t you say that, now that you’ve been a witch, and got your confidence, you might really prefer describing things even to witchcraft?”