Too Much Witch

by Nicki Greenberg

  Saturday 31 May

  Briony came over to lend me her sleeping bag and waterproof jacket. She also brought me another book: Rugged Witchcraft: Emergency Spells for Tough Terrain. And she insisted that I take her precious Swiss Gadget Knife, which is like twenty teeny-weeny tools all folded up together.

  I know she’s trying to be helpful, but all this ‘rugged’ and ‘tough’ and ‘emergency’ stuff is only making me even more anxious.

  She and Steve then spent an hour talking about their favourite types of tent pegs, laughing about the joy of digging your own toilet, and bragging to one another about all the trails they’ve walked. Steve told her that trekking the Himalayas was nothing compared to taking twenty kids on a basic bushwalk. Great.

  I still need to call Mother and get her to look after Barnaby while I’m away. I hope she doesn’t mention Biggins. I do not want to hear the revolting details. She’s probably out with him now, on some sort of date. I’ll call in the morning. Early in the morning.

  Sunday 1 June, 7.13am

  Of all the heartless, uncaring witches! Would you believe, Mother said no! She refused to take Barnaby! And wait until you hear why: because ‘Biggs’ is allergic to cats! Biggs!! How utterly nauseating! And how rude. Abandoning her own daughter’s companion because Biggs might get the sneezes! What is it with this guy? First he’s allergic to kids, now he’s allergic to cats…

  Well, he’s clearly allergic to work. He was there at her place when I rang – probably lounging in Barnaby’s favourite armchair and eating his stash of treats. I hope he’s itching all over!

  Sunday, 10.30am

  Amanita says she can’t take Barnaby (new leather couch, doesn’t want it ruined). Jessamyn won’t have him either (writing to a deadline, can’t be distracted). I wasn’t going to ask Briony, but I had no other choice. I can’t send him to stay with a non-witch; he’d never forgive me. Although he may not forgive me for making him bunk in with Meditating Melvin, either.

  Briony, generous as ever, said of course Barnaby was more than welcome to stay. She has to go to a dentists’ conference for part of the time, but Melvin can easily take care of things while she’s away.

  I’m grateful, but I’m not confident that either Melvin or Briony will find things quite so easy once the reality of living with Barnaby sinks in.

  Sunday, 3.30pm

  I finally worked up the courage to tell Barnaby where he’ll be staying while I’m on camp. Talk about overreacting: he puffed himself up like a spiky black sea urchin and then ripped down all the living room curtains. Now he’s hiding in the wardrobe. I told him it wasn’t my fault, it was Mother’s: she’d chosen her new boyfriend over us. That didn’t help.

  Sunday, 6.40pm

  Barnaby refuses to leave the wardrobe. Steve made sushi for him – salmon and avocado rolls – and he won’t even come out for that. I think he’s genuinely wounded by Mother rejecting him, although of course he’d never admit it.

  Sunday, 8.30pm

  Clever me! I had a brilliant idea for cheering Barnaby up and solving the rats-in-the-roof problem all in one go!

  Barnaby let a good ten minutes go by after I explained it through the wardrobe door. Then he sashayed out with his nose in the air, trying to look like he wasn’t all that keen but would do me the favour of playing along. I know he’s excited, though. He loves catching rats. The prospect of dozens of them all in one place would be irresistible.

  The school buildings are unlocked at 7.30am. We’ll sneak Barnaby in as soon as they open and get him up into the roof cavity. He’s a fast worker: by the time the bell goes, there won’t be a rat in the place. Genius.

  Monday 2 June

  I am a complete and utter gerbil.

  Well, to be fair, today’s debacle wasn’t entirely my fault. Melody ‘No Rats In My Roof ’ Martin is at least half responsible for what happened. But naturally everyone thinks I’m the one to blame. And there’s no way MM is going to stand up like a decent witch and tell them the truth.

  You know where I really went wrong? I should have listened to her. When she said she couldn’t smell anything weird in my classroom. When she denied we had rats. I should have realised the sneaky witch was hiding something. Instead, I went blundering in with poor old Barnaby and caused a stink-storm of epic proportions. Brilliant work, Zelda. Absolutely sterling job.

  It might not have been so bad if we’d started early like I’d planned. But it was one of those mornings where nothing goes right. For starters, we couldn’t find the ladder. It wasn’t in the storage room, so Steve and I wasted nearly an hour creeping around the school like thieves looking for it. Barnaby skulked in the cardboard box under my desk, sharpening his claws and cursing my incompetence.

  The ladder was in the art room, of all places. We almost wiped out a table of clay turtles trying to manoeuvre the silly thing through the door. By the time we got it out, the hallways were clogged up with parents all competing to nab a teacher so they could discuss the urgent matter of Madeleine’s homework or Lachie’s lost hat. We finally made it to the classroom, locked the door, closed the blinds, pulled out one of the ceiling panels, and sent in the great rat hunter, all just in time for the bell. Then we joined the others trooping out for assembly and left Barnaby to his work. Mission accomplished. Or so I thought.

  Principal B opened the assembly reading out the Students of the Week. He didn’t seem to have any idea who most of them were, and he was still quite nervy about shaking their hands. He’d just got to Danny (‘for showing initiative and cleaning the classroom ceiling’) when the commotion began. A scrabbling, screeching, banging commotion, coming from the roof of Building B, right above Principal B’s head. Every face swivelled up in unison, and – smash! – the first red roof tile popped out of its place, skittered down the slope and exploded on the ground below, right between Danny and Principal B.

  Smash! Smash! Smash! Down they came, an avalanche of falling tiles. Principal B ducked and ran, stumbling over a row of Preps as he fled. MM yanked Danny safely out of the way and called out for everyone to keep well back. She’d hardly spoken the words when out of the hole in the roof shot Barnaby. He was covered in dust and cobwebs. Yowling with terror. And pursued by a tornado of shrieking bats.

  Bats. The only thing I know of that actually scares Barnaby. The one creature that gives him the screaming heebie-jeebies. The sky was black with their leering faces and leathery wings, wheeling and flapping, shrieking and swooping and bombarding the terrified crowd with pellets of poo. The sound was pure murder. And the smell was breathtaking.

  Everyone ran. Teachers drove their students towards whatever shelter they could find. I grabbed Steve under one arm to keep him from being trampled and yelled at my class to huddle under the shade sails. I looked for Barnaby, but my poor, bat-scrambled cat had vanished.

  It was all over in a matter of minutes. The bats took off over the park, leaving the yard strewn with black poo-pellets and broken twigs and abandoned hats and shards of tile. Kids and teachers emerged from their hiding spots, their eyes darting for danger – and then searching for me. The school witch. Because who else would have summoned up a raging storm of bats? Every eyeball in the school rolled to rest on my face. There was nothing I could say.

  MM saved me – sort of. She strode out into the middle of the yard and directed everyone to return to their classrooms. She declared the quadrangle out of bounds until the roof could be secured and the bat ‘residue’ cleaned away. She didn’t look at me but I could see that her eyes were cold with anger and her hands were clenched into bony fists.

  She knew right away that it was me who let her bats out. She recognised Barnaby the moment he came screaming out of the roof. My cat is burned into MM’s memory after what he did to her apartment last term. But she didn’t say anything to me, just left me to bubble away in a stew of worry, salted and peppered by my class’s relentless questions. Where did all those bats come from? What are they doing in the school roof? How long have they been up
there? Are they vampires? Was that your cat?

  Apart from the one about Barnaby (which I pretended not to hear), I could truthfully answer I don’t know to every single question. Not that anyone believed me.

  Nobody was dead by home time, but I was feeling sick with dread. I had to speak to MM and find out how she was planning to manage this latest disaster. All we need now is for one parent to complain – or one kid to get some highly contagious bat germ – and I am cooked. I’m the only known witch at the school. And I’m the one who let the bats out. If MM denies having anything to do with them – which I bet she will – then all the blame is going to be on me.

  It took some courage to knock on MM’s door. She was smouldering. She glared at me exactly the way Barnaby does after a visit to the vet. I wanted to turn around and run away, but I was determined to get some answers.

  I did not get answers. I got a blistering telling-off for poking my nose yet again into things that don’t concern me.

  MM wouldn’t say why the bats were in the roof. In fact, she was careful not to say anything that might connect her with the bats at all.

  But guess what? MM slipped up. As I was leaving, I saw something that proves she was hiding those bats. On the little table by the door, she’d left her bag sitting open, and I caught a glimpse of something inside. A dark blue glass bottle, the kind that potions are kept in. I could only see the first three letters written on the label in MM’s tight script: Nid.

  I looked it up in one of Mother’s spell manuals as soon as I got home. Nidoscura. For masking odours. Vaporise a small amount and diffuse into the air as required. Effect on Ordinaries: excellent. Effect on witches: may vary.

  And that explains why nobody else at school could smell those bats. I wish MM had used something stronger. I’d be in a whole lot less trouble if I’d never sniffed out her secret in the first place.

  Monday, 10.30pm

  No sign of Barnaby. What if he’s hurt? He might have been bitten. And I’m late with his vaccinations, because the vet said she wouldn’t see him again after he nearly clawed her nose off last time! Oh, Barnaby!

  Steve says not to worry, it’s probably just a case of injured pride. He says the mighty hunter will return once his dignity has recovered a bit. Or when he gets hungry enough. I hope he’s right.

  I told Steve about MM being a witch, and made him promise not to tell anyone else. He had his suspicions anyway, what with Phoebe’s performance in her office. But he has no more idea than I do what she’s up to with the bats.

  Tuesday 3 June

  Kids have the worst timing. Even really smart, switched-on kids like Phoebe Martin. Quiet, thoughtful Phoebe, who chose today of all days to blow her cover and reveal to the class that she is undeniably a witch.

  I wasn’t in the room when it happened. I had to take Rose to sick bay with yet another tummy ache: this time she was sure she’d caught the dreaded bat virus. I might have been worried, except that Rose has complained of a tummy ache of one kind or another almost every day as camp approaches.

  When I got back from sick bay, the class was in an uproar. ‘Phoebe disappeared!’ ‘She’s invisible!’ ‘I KNEW she was a WITCH!’

  I banged my ruler on the desk for ages before they finally stopped groping around the room for their invisible classmate and sat down. Then I delivered an awkward speech about respecting one another’s privacy. Awkward, because I didn’t know whether Phoebe was still somewhere in the classroom, watching us talk about her. My heart was hammering: was she distressed? Frightened? Did she need my help? I tried to imagine what I would have done in her place. Made myself visible again and faced the tirade of questions? Or fled the room and never come back? I don’t know. At Phoebe’s age, I couldn’t turn myself invisible. I still can’t.

  I was stumbling through my little speech when the entire class gave a simultaneous gasp and rose to their feet. I spun around, and there she was, right behind me, blushing and grinning like a capuchin monkey. Her little fists were shaking, but her eyes were wide and bright. Her decision was clear: she was out of hiding, and ready to show her peers what she could do.

  Just what I need right now.

  The class clamoured around Phoebe, plucking at her with questions and begging her to do it again. And Phoebe – quiet, modest Phoebe – swelled with pride in the warmth of their adulation. She closed her eyes, raised her arms dramatically and disappeared again in a slow fade. The kids went Oooooooooooohhh! A moment later she was back, hovering in a perfect swan dive above my desk, her chest heaving with the thrill of it all.

  The class went wild.

  At this point I’d given up even trying to control the chaos in the room. I just stood there and watched in horror, wondering how I was ever going to ‘manage’ this new development. It was Marlo who brought me back to business. She cried out, ‘Make us fly, too, Phoebe!’, and the class cheered and screamed and leapt up onto their desks.

  I yelled, ‘STOP!’ Nobody listened. I got up on a chair and shouted at Phoebe to get down, her behaviour was totally unacceptable, and there would be no flying and no invisibility at school, full stop.

  Phoebe floated down and slid back into her seat. It was probably the first time a teacher had ever told her off. She dropped her eyes and bit her lip. Even so, she couldn’t quite get the smile off her face. The others turned to gaze at her in wonder, leaning closer as if they wanted to breathe in the magic radiating off their extraordinary friend.

  The rest of the day was a shambles. The only decent work I could squeeze out of them was a piece of writing on the theme, ‘If I could be invisible…’ Now that I’ve read their essays, all I can say is, thank Hecate I’ve only got one witch in my class and not twenty.

  I caught Phoebe after the bell and asked her why on earth she’d suddenly chosen to reveal herself like this. She insisted that she didn’t mean to: she was daydreaming, and before she knew it, she just faded out. Like dropping off to sleep, except that she dropped out of sight. But once her secret was out, she figured she might as well share it with pride.

  There was no point telling her she’d been careless. The important thing is how she handles herself from now on. I warned her that being known isn’t easy. That it changes the way people see you, and opens you up to a whole lot of new pressures.

  The relentless curiosity. The suspicion and fear. And the expectations: to behave like a perfect Ordinary one minute, and to perform like a prodigy the next.

  But Phoebe was still soaring high on her classmates’ admiration. She assured me she’d be perfectly all right. ‘Like you, Ms Stitch. Everyone knows about YOU, and you’re fine!’

  Oh, Phoebe. If only you knew.

  News spreads through a school faster than a bat virus. When I walked through the quadrangle before final period, I saw that someone had written my name and Phoebe’s in thick black paint-pen on two of the orange witch’s hats marking off the area around the broken roof. Brilliant. Aunt Melody is going to totally lose it when she finds out.

  PS – Still no Barnaby. No trace of the bats, either.

  Wednesday 4 June, 7.30am

  Barnaby is back! I woke up to the sound of him pillaging the pantry. He doesn’t look sick at all, just furious. And he does smell distinctly batty. He’s been washing himself nonstop for the past hour, trying not to gag as he licks the oily stink off his fur. No wonder he isn’t speaking to me.

  Wednesday, 5pm

  There can only be one explanation for Phoebe’s behaviour today. Aunty M is on the case. MM must have given our wayward witchling a proper blast last night. Because this morning, all Phoebe’s bravado had disappeared. I am very, very relieved. The kid has already hexed two staff members – and that was when she was trying to keep her powers under wraps!

  She came in this morning with her head down and her notebook clutched to her chest. I haven’t seen her carrying that little book all term, but today she was gripping it with both hands like a talisman against the hungry throng. As soon as she stepped inside, th
e others crowded around her, elbowing and tugging and asking, asking, asking, as if she were some sort of wish-granting genie. And toad’s tonsils, the things they wanted her to do!

  Phoebe stood firm. Firmer than I did when they pestered me. She blushed and smiled and shook her head, and still they kept coming at her. By the end of the day she looked like a chewed-up drinking straw. I bet she would have loved to just close her eyes and disappear.

  Welcome to witchhood, Phoebe Martin. Better hold onto your broomstick. The ride has only just begun.

  Thursday 5 June

  Phoebe is learning the hard way: Ordinary children can be fickle creatures. Once they know you’re a witch, they want you to perform like one. And if you disappoint them, they might not want you at all. It’s like what happened to me at the start of term when I cut out the party tricks – except that Phoebe isn’t a grown-up and they aren’t her students. They’re her friends.

  They weren’t exactly mean to her, and I don’t think they set out to deliberately exclude her. But they seemed…offended when she wouldn’t do any magic for them. As if she owed them something and was unfairly holding it back. Once they realised that their nagging and cajoling wasn’t working, they just sort of pulled away from her. Stopped looping her into their conversations. Didn’t ask who she wanted to share a bunk with on camp. Forgot to wait for her when they ran out to lunch. Regular Phoebe Martin just isn’t enough for them anymore. Now she has to be Phoebe Martin, super-witch. Or else be nobody much at all.