‘The man presented Tituba with his book again and demanded her to sign it with her blood. When she looked through the pages of the book, she noticed there were nine other names signed in blood. Some of the blood was red, some yellowish. Two of the names she noticed were Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Tituba asked the two women she recognised why they had signed the book and they replied, “He is our master now, for he has promised us a life of luxury once we have served him.”
‘Tituba again refused, and the man threatened to do much damage to Betty and Abigail before leaving.
‘By the time it was late February, it was clear that the man had kept his word, because Betty and Abigail hadn’t improved, they had worsened. They cried of headaches, threw fits and sometimes their bodies seemed so weak it was as if they had no bones in them. It was on 25th February when Tituba had had enough of seeing Betty and Abigail in this state and decided to take it upon herself to kill the demon that was tormenting them. She made a cake using the girls’ urine, for she believed that the demon lived inside the girls, and by taking the urine out of their bodies, it would mean taking out the demon. If Tituba could get an animal to eat the urine baked in the cake, it would mean the animal would be eating the demon.
‘She gave the cake to a dog and the dog lapped it up nicely. But later that day the girls’ condition had worsened. They blamed Tituba for their pain. Their necks and backs had twisted into unusual positions.
‘By Monday 29th February, Tituba had been arrested for witchcraft. However!’ Miss Snippings snapped, causing everyone in the hall to jump, ‘Tituba was not sentenced to death. This is where it gets interesting!’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Tituba was innocent. Tituba did not sign herself over to the devil. And yet, do you know what she did?’ Miss Snippings asked, before sniggering into her scarf. ‘She confessed! That’s it – she confessed.’ Miss Snippings’ sniggering turned into outrageous laughter. ‘Poor little Tituba confessed to witchcraft and she was let off. Who confesses to a crime they didn’t commit?’ Miss Snippings was now holding her stomach tightly. Miss Snippings was laughing hysterically. Some of those in the hall started to laugh with her, uncomfortably, because they felt that if they didn’t… they would be in trouble.
‘And what do you think of that then?’ she asked, her mood a little bitter now.
‘I said, what do you think of that?’ she snapped impatiently, leaving her voice to echo around the room. The pupils’ laughter faded a little as Miss Snippings’ tone became more serious.
‘Right… okay… the next part I’m not going to tell you,’ she said to the children, who were growing restless. ‘I’m going to act it out. We are going to act it out. Yes, that’s it. We are going to act it out!’ said Miss Snippings fervently. Miss Snippings looked as if she had just come up with a cunning plan. ‘I need two volunteers to come up and act it out!’ she barked. ‘I’m going to pick!’ she said excitedly as all those in the hall trembled with fear. ‘Who wants to be my guinea pig!’ she shrieked. ‘I know! The Tipple twins! Who would like to see the Tipple twins act out the next part of the story?’ Miss Snippings cried even more excitedly. It was as if she was about to burst. ‘Come up! Come up to the stage!’
Jenna and Jessica got up off their chairs and walked towards Miss Snippings. Jenna, who was struggling to control her anger as she got closer to the head, began biting her lip to prevent herself from making rude remarks. Jessica, on the other hand, stared at Miss Snippings. She lost focus when she caught a glimpse of a gap in Miss Snippings’ teeth and wondered how many pennies she could fit in it.
‘Quickly, quickly!’ Miss Snippings cried. Jenna and Jessica stood by Miss Snippings, who was now looking as if she had cooked herself up a tasty treat. ‘Do you know what happened to a witch after she was tried for witchcraft? Do you know what the punishment would normally be?’ asked Miss Snippings. ‘Tituba was lucky, she got off, but others accused of witchcraft were executed, sentenced to death! They were sent to Gallows Hill, where they each met their end.’
Jenna and Jessica just stared at the audience in front of them.
‘I’m going to be the judge. You two are the witches.’ Miss Snippings couldn’t contain herself. She was already in the moment. ‘I sentence you, Jenna and Jessica, to be hung! Now go to Gallows Hill!’
Jenna and Jessica looked up at Miss Snippings, puzzled.
‘Go!’ she cried. ‘Stamp your feet! You have just been sentenced to death! Now go to Gallows Hill!’
Jenna and Jessica stamped up and down, pretending to walk to Gallows Hill.
‘Now jump in the air! Cry out your innocence!’
‘What?’ asked Jenna angrily.
‘Jump up and down, up and down!’
Jenna and Jessica jumped up and down.
‘Now spin around! Spin around! The rope is tight!’
‘But…’
‘I said spin!’
Jenna and Jessica spun.
‘Faster!’
They spun faster.
‘You’re not doing it properly! You’re not choking!’
Jenna and Jessica gagged a bit.
‘MORE! MORE!’
‘We can’t!’
‘I SAID MORE!’
Jenna and Jessica gagged and spun, and before they knew it, they felt their toes being raised from the ground. Gasps came from the audience as they rose higher and higher.
‘Look!’ cried a child.
‘They’re flying!’ cried another.
‘They are witches!’ said a few.
‘No, Miss Snippings is! Miss Snippings is the witch!’ someone screamed.
Jenna and Jessica dropped to the ground suddenly when Miss Snippings looked out at the audience.
‘Who said that?’ she asked everyone in the hall. ‘Somebody called me a witch. Who was it?’
‘It was me, Miss,’ said a plump boy with ginger hair. Jenna and Jessica recognised him as someone from the year below them.
‘Stand up!’ shrieked Miss Snippings.
The ginger boy stood up.
‘Are you telling me you are accusing me of being a witch?’
‘No, Miss,’ said the boy.
‘Then why did you say it?’
‘I don’t know, Miss,’ said the boy twiddling his hands around his sides.
‘And what would you say if I told you this was set up?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss.’
‘I mean it has been staged. Jenna and Jessica weren’t flying in the air, they were held up by pieces of string. It’s something we planned together before this assembly began. Isn’t that right?’ said Miss Snippings, as she shot a cold look at the twins.
Jenna and Jessica had to lie. They weren’t held up by string – this hadn’t been planned or rehearsed. But could they turn on Miss Snippings? Not if they valued their lives.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ they said together.
Miss Snippings began sniggering in her scarf again. She began laughing at the twins and they knew why. It was the same reason she’d laughed at Tituba – for admitting to something they hadn’t done, to free themselves from evil.
Miss Snippings laughed and cackled, and cackled some more, until everyone in the hall joined in and laughed along with her. Chumsworth students were pointing and laughing and laughing and pointing.
Jenna and Jessica could take it no more. Jessica ran off the stage and Jenna ran after her.
Reaching the toilets, Jessica flung herself into the nearest cubicle.
‘We can’t hide in here. I think Miss Snippings has released everyone from assembly. I can hear footsteps,’ said Jenna, peering out of the cubicle door. ‘This place is gonna be packed really soon.’
‘I know,’ said Jessica, blowing her nose before a group of girls came in and stared at Jessica’s tearful face.
‘Serves you right,’ said t
he taller one. ‘After what you’ve both been doing in people’s homes.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Jenna.
‘You know what you’ve been doing. That’s probably why Miss Snippings hung you out to dry on that stage,’ said the girl, and she walked back out with her group behind her.
‘Girls, come on,’ said Tommy, barging in. ‘Jessica, I know you’re upset, but don’t let Miss Snippings win. She can’t keep doing this to you. First of all the hole of black, then this. It’s not on. Don’t let her know it bothers you.’
Jessica looked at Tommy. He was right.
‘But what about those girls? One of them said something about us doing things in people’s homes?’
‘People’s homes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I ain’t got a clue, but we gotta get out of here quick. I can’t be seen in the girls’ loos.’
Jenna, Jessica and Tommy darted out of the toilets and spent the rest of the day isolating themselves by sitting at the back during carpet time and huddling in corners during lunch. They didn’t see Miss Snippings for the rest of the day. This wasn’t any comfort to Jenna and Jessica. They knew it was only a just matter of time before they saw her again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
*
VANISHED
When Jenna and Jessica finished their day at Chumsworth they couldn’t get home quick enough. They needed the safety of their bedroom and the warmth of their family and they needed it now.
‘It happened, didn’t it?’ said Boo, trembling by the window as the twins entered their bedroom. ‘You know… the suffocating.’
‘Yes. Yes it did,’ the twins said together. They thought that perhaps that’s what Boo had meant when he had his little panic attack – that night in their room, when he wailed on about somebody suffocating. That moment Miss Snippings made them act out being hung.
‘Are you going to go back?’ said Boo wearily.
‘Of course we are,’ said Jenna.
‘I don’t think that’s wise,’ said Boo.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ said Jessica as she slumped on her bed. She knew it was normal for children to despise school, but this was on another level. Not only were they paranoid about what Miss Snippings might do next, but they were now worried about what others were saying.
Was this really happening? Were they going mad? And yet there was no way out. Jenna and Jessica both felt they had to put up and shut up.
*
It was now the first of December. It was dark outside in the early hours of the morning, and Oliver had barked and barked until eventually Mrs Tipple got out of bed.
When she peered through a half-open eye, she saw that the time was four thirty in the morning. Oliver barked even more now knowing she was awake, and she plodded through the living room and slipped over a puddle of wee in the hallway before letting him outside. Oliver ran out into the foggy mist before she had a chance to shout at him. She then closed the door quickly before letting in any more crisp air from outside.
It was five o’clock in the morning when Oliver returned from his walk. He marched straight past her into the kitchen and drank her coffee that she’d made.
When she finally put Oliver’s dog food in a bowl for him, he tossed it aside and began making his very own fry-up while listening to the radio.
Exhausted, she snatched the eggs and bacon from under Oliver’s nose and reached across the table to switch the music off. ‘Bad Oliver!’ she yelled, and Oliver stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
He sulked upstairs for twenty minutes until he decided he wanted to return. He came down the stairs wearing a baseball cap and a bomber jacket and started making the most awful noise by the front door. He was building his very own cat flap.
At ten o’clock, the twins couldn’t believe their luck when their mum and dad got the Christmas tree out of the loft. Mrs Tipple wanted to put it up before Aunt Maud and Uncle Patrick returned, in case they interfered.
Oliver ran around the living room wearing a Christmas hat, while the twins and Beatrice covered him in tinsel and chased after him.
When all the decorations were up, Mr Tipple moved the tree right in the corner by the window, its lights beaming into the shadows of the room.
By the time Aunt Maud and Uncle Patrick arrived, it was three thirty in the afternoon. Aunt Maud didn’t knock this time. She stood outside, soaking wet and shivering with her face planted against the living room window. When Mrs Tipple finally went to the door to let them in, Aunt Maud barged past her, her orange skin outshining the Christmas lights, her face resembling an angry pumpkin.
‘What have you done to my Beatrice?’
Mrs Tipple began to explain, only to be interrupted by Aunt Maud.
‘She’s nearly double the size of me and is the first thing you see through the window! I want my daughter to look like an angel, the star above the tree… NOT FATHER CHRISTMAS!’ Aunt Maud collapsed onto the sofa, squashing Oliver under her peachy bum and her wet bags. ‘I don’t know who she looks like more, Patrick, I really don’t. It’s either Santa Claus himself or his sack of presents.’
‘Well, sack of presents, Maud. Does she look jolly? Can’t you see her clothes hugging her figure like a bag of potatoes?’
Aunt Maud stuck her finger out in front of her and struck Beatrice with incredible force. Beatrice coughed at the smoke that lingered around her and saw she was her skinny self again. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said, as she headed off into the kitchen to fetch a bowl of chocolates. Oliver had escaped from beneath Aunt Maud’s bottom and ran outside.
*
A little later, when they were halfway through eating the dinner in the living room, somebody knocked on the door.
‘Oliver?’ Mrs Tipple said, as she wondered who it could be.
Jenna stood up and pressed her nose against the cold window. ‘No, Mum, he’s hanging around with teenagers on bikes.’
Mrs Tipple then went and answered the door, and when she came back she looked all flustered. A policeman walked in behind her. Aunt Maud spat out her mashed potatoes and kicked Uncle Patrick in the ribs. (who was eating his dinner sat on the floor whilst playing on the PlayStation). The Tipple twins recognised the policeman straight away. They had seen his dark hair, sharp nose and chubby body before. It was PC Dilks, the officer in charge of Caitlyn’s disappearance.
‘You might want to sit down,’ he said, looking seriously at Mr and Mrs Tipple.
They sat down holding each other’s hands. When they were as comfortable as they could be, Mrs Tipple plucked up the courage and asked weakly, ‘What is it? What have you found?’
‘This isn’t about Caitlyn, I’m afraid.’
‘No?’ Mrs Tipple said.
‘No?’ Aunt Maud repeated, giving sharp looks to PC Dilks and Uncle Patrick.
Uncle Patrick kicked the PlayStation that was sprawled across the floor underneath the telly with his left foot and smiled at PC Dilks. ‘So, you all ready for Christmas then?’ he said.
Ignoring Uncle Patrick’s question, PC Dilks continued talking to Mr and Mrs Tipple.
‘I’m afraid we’ve had some complaints.’
‘What about? I’ve done nothing wrong!’ Uncle Patrick snapped.
‘No, neither have I,’ Aunt Maud butted in.
‘It’s about Jenna and Jessica,’ PC Dilks said to no one in particular.
‘What about them?’ Mrs Tipple said, raising an eyebrow and dropping Mr Tipple’s hand. Beatrice stared at the twins intently while they twiddled with their fingers and toes.
‘We’ve had numerous complaints from parents. Is it correct you attend Chumsworth?’ PC Dilks asked the twins.
‘Yes,’ they said, gulping.
‘Mrs Tipple, I’m afraid your daughters are being accused of breaking into other people’s homes in the middle of the nigh
t and appearing in other children’s bedrooms… other children from their school.’
It all made sense to the twins now – the girl in the toilet. But why? How?
‘That’s insane,’ Mr Tipple said, grabbing the arm of his chair tightly.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Tipple. We’ve got quite a backlog of complaints, starting from October. It seems your girls have been appearing in children’s bedrooms and asking them to sign a book for them. To join some sort of gang, for children to sign themselves over to them. It’s quite disturbing actually.’
‘What utter nonsense. My girls are tucked up safe in their beds all night. How dare you come in here telling me otherwise!’
‘Mrs Tipple, I would like to point out to you that your daughters are currently learning about the witches of Salem at school… and it’s looking very likely at this time that they’re imitating the behaviour they’re learning about.’
‘Rubbish. Do you not think you should be paying attention to something of more importance? Like my other daughter? Like… Caitlyn?’
‘Mrs Tipple, I know this is a very sad time for you and your family, and we are doing our best to find her, but I need to make you aware of the fact that we’re going to have to make your daughters suspects in this case. They’re showing signs that appear to be the same as this “black figure” everyone’s talking about. Your daughters may think it funny appearing in rooms and trying to recreate the past, but they’re putting themselves at great risk. It certainly doesn’t help that they were the last to be with Caitlyn before she disappeared.’
‘I was there too!’ Mrs Tipple said, jumping up out of her chair and grabbing her hair. ‘I saw that black… thing standing before her… I saw the light flashing in front of my eyes when it took her. My other daughters were crying, screaming for help. Does it not occur to you that that thing tried to take Jenna and Jessica as well?’
‘Please, Mrs Tipple, if you could just…’ PC Dilks said, until something stopped him midway. With a terrified face, PC Dilks looked out of the window. ‘Why… what in the…?’ he said, pointing outside.
The Tipple Twins and the Gift Page 7