Charlotte finished her last piece of popping lemon cake and then she leaned back in her chair. She watched as Alice put another slice onto her plate.
'I would have thought that this dessert was far too common for the likes of you?' Stef smirked.
'The lemon cakes served at home are made with only the finest lemons, that have been hand-picked from none other than the Magical Forest itself. But this cake will do, I suppose.'
'Right,' Stef rolled her eyes.
Bright lights shot out from the stage and all the girls looked over at Miss Moffat, who was standing next to the sheepish looking Mistress of Spells.
'Good evening girls, I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the food tonight was as exquisite as always,' she smiled. Anyway, it appears that our Spell Mistress has misplaced her wand.'
'It's as long as my two hands placed side-by-side,' the Mistress of Spells demonstrated the wand’s size with her hands. 'And it is black as a bat's wing but it twinkles a slight shade of silver when held in the right light.'
'Thank you,' Miss Moffat gave her a feeble smile. 'Now, if any of you happen to find this wand it is of great importance that you notify a member of staff or a prefect immediately. Under no circumstances should you touch it, as it is powerful as the witch who owns it and may be dangerous in foreign hands.
That is all for now, so carry on with your dinner,' she gave a nod of her head, before she turned back to the Mistress of Spells.
'She's hopeless, imagine if we lost our wands?' Alice huffed. 'We'd end up in heaps of trouble.'
'She's a valued member of staff though, the same rules don't apply to her,' Charlotte whispered, as she checked to make sure her wand was still in her skirt pocket.
'It makes her seem more normal, now I know that even experienced witches misplace their stuff sometimes,' Gerty said.
Charlotte looked up at the stage where a frantic looking Mistress of Spells was in deep conversation with Miss Moffat and Miss Firmfeather. As she looked away from the stage her eyes stopped on Margaret, who was sitting with a group of second years. She had a devious look on her face.
'I wonder where she put it?' Stef asked.
'Maybe she put it in the wash by mistake?' Gerty smiled.
'My grandma put the television controller in the washing machine by mistake once,' Charlotte said.
'Maybe it's an old people thing, the Mistress of Spells must be hundreds of years old, even if she looks like she's in her twenties,' Stef said.
'I forget that she's that old sometimes, she always looks so beautiful,' Gerty sighed, as she pulled at a strand of her frizzy blonde hair.
'You always look lovely too,' Charlotte smiled at her.
'Thanks, so do you,' Gerty smiled back.
The girls finished off their pudding and then left the great hall, talk soon faded from the Mistress of Spells’ wand and instead moved onto Alexander’s College and when they'd next have a school dance.
Charlotte couldn't shake off the uncomfortable feeling that had settled in her stomach and she hoped that whatever was going on, that Margaret wasn't behind it.
***
Straight after dinner Demi and Destiny rushed back to their room, grabbed their laptops and some study books and hurried over to the library.
The library door was locked and a closed sign was on it. Destiny knocked on the door and waited, anxious about what the Mistress of the Books reaction would be when she saw Demi.
The Mistress of the Books opened the door and looked from Destiny to Demi.
'What is she doing here?' she scowled.
'She knows,' Destiny muttered.
'Then this isn't going to work,' she went to close the door.
'Wait, Destiny didn't tell me, I followed her here and I heard you both talking. I was the fly you nearly swatted, remember?' Demi said.
The Mistress of the Books thought this over before she gave a nod and beckoned them into the library.
'How do I know I can trust you both?' she questioned.
'You can, honestly,' Demi said nervously. 'I too don't feel like I don’t fit in here and I would love to read the Book of Dragons. We aren't going to tell anyone, we promise.'
'She helped me get this,' Destiny held up the Mistress of Spells’ wand.
'Fascinating,' the Mistress of the Books said, as she took it off her and held it up in front of her face. 'Interesting, I've always wanted to touch this wand ever since I was eleven and saw it sparkle in the choosing room. Naturally that woman beat me to it,' her smirk vanished. 'I prefer my wand, so I suppose that it all turned out for the best.'
'You were in the same year as the Mistress of the Spells?' Demi asked.
'Many moons ago,' she sighed. 'Let's see if this thing works,' she looked down at the wand.
The girls followed her past row-upon-row of books and stopped when they reached the door with the dragon’s head handle.
'Are you girls ready?' she asked them.
'Yes, we're ready,' Destiny said and Demi nodded.
'Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt,' the Mistress of the Books aimed the wand at the door.
The door sounded like thunder as it creaked open and bolts of light shot past them like lightening. They all stepped into the room where the book was rested on top of a black velvet covered table.
'How I've longed for this moment,' she said, before she reached out and took the book, clutching it tightly to her chest.
The girls watched on as tears trickled down her cheeks. Their normally terrifying librarian had been reduced to tears and they didn't know how to react to this.
She placed the book carefully back down on the table and turned to the girls.
'Prepare yourself, this book is not for the faint of heart,' she gave a sly smile, before she turned to face the book.
'Memores acti prudentes futuri,' she said, as she placed the wand in the middle of the book.
A small silver pinhole appeared beneath the wand. The girls peered over it with intrigue but the Mistress of the Books pushed them back. A bright crimson light shone through the minuscule hole, it began to spin anti-clockwise, as it grew larger and larger.
'What's happening?' Demi asked.
'Shush,' the Mistress of the Books said abruptly, as she stared at the book with alarm.
The pinhole stopped spinning and a long, dark claw broke through it. The girls jumped back and the Mistress of the Books stood in front of them...the 'borrowed' wand raised.
The book lit up as brightly as a beacon on a lighthouse and the girls shielded their faces with their arms. There was a loud grunt and a puff of smoke and with that the dragon appeared.
It was small in size but with a shake of its body it began to grow-and-grow until it knocked over the table with the book on it and its head scraped against the ceiling.
The enormous dragon looked down on the three witches cowering in the corner and it let out a grunt.
'You call yourself witches,' it bellowed. 'You are pathetic and weak,' it flinched its head towards them and they all jolted back and ducked their heads.
The dragon let out a laugh before it stretched out its wings and flew out of the room, knocking over bookshelves as it zoomed through the library and then it smashed straight through the glass window at the end of the hallway.
The three witches moved out into the hallway and stood there in shock, none of them quite believing what had just happened.
'Nobody must know about this,' the Mistress of the Books announced, as she pressed the Mistress of Spells’ wand into Destiny's hands.
'What am I supposed to do with this?' she asked with a shaky voice.
'Hide it. Someone will have heard the glass smash, go now!' she snapped.
The girls nodded before they stepped over the broken glass and hurried back to their room.
The Mistress of the Books used a spell to restore the broken window before she rushed back into the library to mend the dragon's destruction.
She hurried back out into the hallway and quic
kly grabbed a glass vase off a bronze stand and pushed it onto the floor, where it shattered like an impossible jigsaw puzzle.
Soon afterwards Miss Firmfeather appeared around the corner and looked from the broken vase to the Mistress of the Books.
'I'm so sorry for disturbing you,' the Mistress of the Books forced a smile. 'I've been so clumsy of late.'
'So it appears,' Miss Firmfeather looked unconvinced.
'Restituere.' the Mistress of the Books flicked her wand at the vase and the pieces flew up into the air and began to slot back into place. 'No harm done.'
'I suppose not,' Miss Firmfeather muttered, before she walked back up the hallway, turning once to look back at the Mistress of the Books.
Chapter Six
The evening was still and undisturbed. Alexander's College stood high and proud.
The stillness sought it out and the stillness changed. Red eyes came alive and scaled skin chose it as a suitable target.
A heavy weight landed on top of the tallest tower. The dragon liked it up there as it could witness the world with no harassment.
The dragon took this moment to think back, it had been years, so many years. Time had ticked by and all the while it had been trapped within the confines of words on paper. There was no room to stretch out its legs. Books, the dragon despised books, it wanted to burn them all into crisp nothingness.
An anger welled up inside of the dragon and turned to fire, it stretched out its wings and flew into the air. With a precise aim it breathed a heavy ball of light straight at the tower. It immediately glowed amber and rouge, the flames engulfed the tower, until it crumbled in on itself.
The dragon laughed, a laugh that carried like thunder across the still night. Dots appeared, dots that grew larger. They flew on their brooms towards the dragon, their wands raised. Spells bounced off its scales, they didn't stick. The dragon was too powerful for the likes of them, the dragon couldn't be stopped by just anyone.
It looked back at the magic folk on their pieces of floating wood and it let out an echoing roar, before it flew off into the Dark Forest.
Chapter Seven
Miss Moffat sat in her office, she was looking over paperwork and taking sips from her self-stirring mug of hot honey tea. A thud at the door disrupted her thoughts and she tutted to herself.
'Come in,' she said loudly.
The door opened and her flushed-looking receptionist ushered someone into the room, Miss Moffat's eyebrows furrowed when Alexander stepped in.
'Oh, it's you,' she thought out loud.
'A charming welcome as always,' he grinned, before he walked across the room and sat down in the chair opposite her.
'Hot honey tea, hazelnut infused coffee, rainbow juice?' the receptionist asked?
'Just a plain old black coffee would be excellent, two sugar rocks please,' he smiled over at her.
'Your teeth will rot,' Miss Moffat commented.
'Then it's a good job that I know a most excellent spell for teeth restoring,' he gave a full toothed smile.
'Riveting. As fascinating as talking to you about teeth is, I presume you're here for a more pressing reason.'
'Yes, I fear that I am,' he sighed.
He fell silent as the receptionist scurried back into the room and placed a self-stirring mug of black coffee in front of Alexander.
'Thank you, it smells divine,' he grinned.
The receptionist blushed before she hurried out of the room. Alexander aimed his wand at the mug and made it fly up into the air.
'Well, go on? I'm sure you're as busy as I am, so let's not waste time,' she took a sip of her drink.
'As you wish,' he chuckled. 'My highest tower was burnt down last night, the perpetrator was driven off into the Dark Forest. Alas I was away on business at the time, but several of my teaching staff have all told me the same thing; they saw a dragon.'
Miss Moffat spurted a mouthful of tea all over her paperwork. She quickly flicked her wand and fixed it with a spell before she looked back at Alexander.
'A dragon, are you sure it wasn’t something else? A troll perhaps or a bored gargoyle?'
'No, it was most definitely a dragon. I have to ask, have you opened the Book of Dragons recently?'
'Yes,' Miss Moffat blushed. 'To record the Golden Wand victory, I can assure you that it was securely locked away.'
'We are going to search the Dark Forest tomorrow, and we are hoping Witchery College will join us. The more of us there are to search, the sooner we can return the dragon back to the book.'
'We'll be there.'
'Good, good. The meeting point is at my College, the search shall begin at sunrise. I suggest that you equip your students with the right spells needed to survive in such an environment and make sure that they wear a coat, it can be rather chilly at first light.'
'I can assure you that my girls already know spells that will be of great value to them in the Dark Forest, after-all, it was my girls who won the Golden Wand Trophy.'
'Yes, but you also managed to misplace an extraordinarily powerful dragon,' he scraped back his chair and rose to his feet.
'Rest assured I will get to the bottom of this.'
'I'm in no doubt that you will.'
'Goodbye Alexander.'
'Good day,' he gave her a wink, before he left the room.
'And good riddance,' she said under her breath.
Miss Moffat was furious, how could the dragon have escaped? She trusted the Mistress of the Spells and knew that she would have secured the Book of Dragons away properly, so she was puzzled by how this situation had come to be. Worst of all she'd been made a fool of...and by Professor Alexander of all people. She watched through the window as Alexander flew off. She felt in shock, how had this catastrophe happened?
Then she marched out of her office and headed for the Mistress of Spells’ classroom.
She didn't knock, instead she marched straight into the classroom and looked straight over the heads of the fourth years who were sitting in there.
'Can we have a word?' she glared at the Mistress of Spells.
They both stepped outside and Miss Moffat filled her in on what Alexander had said.
'I am in absolutely no doubt that I secured the book,' she announced.
'I know you would have,' Miss Moffat sighed. 'It is vital we find your wand, do you have any idea where it could be?'
'I haven't found it yet, it's probably under a book in my classroom somewhere.'
'Perhaps, but I have a feeling we will find it somewhere else. I need to talk to Miss Maker, come and find me after your lessons and we shall sort this problem out.'
The Mistress of Spells nodded before she returned to her classroom. Miss Moffat gave a thoughtful sigh before she briskly walked up the hallway towards Miss Maker's classroom.
***
Miss Moffat sat behind her desk, the Mistress of Spells was sitting opposite her and in front of her was the greenish-blue looking potion that Miss Maker had made for her.
'What is it?' the Mistress of Spells asked.
'It's a finding spell, Miss Maker has assured me that it's the finest of its kind and that it brings with it no uncomfortable side effects.'
'She said that about the feline sense potion she made for me, yet I was coughing up hairballs for a week afterwards,' she shuddered at the memory.
'Yes, well, we are left with little choice. Someone in this Academy has betrayed us and I intend to find out exactly who that someone is,' she lifted up the potion and drank it all in one go.
Something unexplainable was telling her exactly where to go, as if she'd swallowed a map.
'Follow me,' she abruptly stood up and strode across her office.
Miss Moffat led the way towards Demi and Destiny's bedroom and stopped outside the door. She exchanged a look with the Mistress of Spells before she opened the door and they both stepped inside.
She stopped in front of Destiny's bed and lifted up the mattress revealing a black wand beneath it.
> The Mistress of Spells reached out and grabbed the wand, she lifted it up into the light so that its silver shimmer became visible. She gave a relieved sigh on seeing that it wasn't damaged.
Books for Girls - WITCH SCHOOL - Books 2-6: Book 1 is FREE! Page 23