by Unknown
Maud sat down next to Mildred and found herself looking at the cat basket, which was half hidden under a heap of towels and nightclothes.
‘Aren’t you going to tell us what you’ve got in the cat basket, Mil?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re hiding something.’
‘Perhaps it’s a boa constrictor!’ laughed Enid. ‘Sorry, Mil, I know you didn’t do it – just a joke.’
‘If I tell you what it is,’ said Mildred, ‘you mustn’t tell anyone else.’
‘Promise,’ said Maud and Enid together.
Mildred pulled the basket out and put it on to the bed.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’s a tortoise.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
tortoise!’ exclaimed Maud. ‘Why on earth have you brought a tortoise to school?’
‘H.B. will have a brainstorm if she sees it,’ said Enid. ‘You know we can’t have any other pets except the cats.’
‘And bats, if any are roosting in the room,’ Maud reminded them, ‘but that’s it. Bats and cats. End of story.’
Mildred opened the wire door of the cat basket and brought out the surprise occupant, a sleeping tortoise. All they could see was the brown shell and the cave-like holes at the front and back where it had retracted itself.
‘He won’t be any trouble,’ explained Mildred. ‘He can trundle about in my room during the day when I’m at lessons and he only eats fruit and vegetables, so I can sneak stuff from the dining hall. Now they’ve all gone mad on healthy school dinners there’s a bowl of fruit and salad stuff on every table and there’s always loads left. He’s called Speedy.’
‘Oh, Mildred!’ said Maud wearily. ‘Why do you always set yourself up for disaster? Something’s bound to happen with a tortoise – A TORTOISE, for heaven’s sake!’
‘And we believe you about the snakes, Milly,’ said Enid. ‘But H.B. won’t and there’s no way you can prove it was Ethel, especially as she was being nice.’
‘Pretending to be nice!’ Mildred corrected.
‘Pretending to be nice then,’ agreed Enid, ‘but that scream wasn’t put on. Ethel sounded as freaked out as everyone else.’
‘Only because she didn’t realize the snakes were going to be quite so horrible,’ grumbled Mildred.
‘Look, Mil,’ said Maud, beginning to sound faintly irritated. ‘We’re just going round in circles here. We believe you. OK? You don’t have to prove anything to us – we’re your best friends – but keep your head down now and perhaps H.B. will relent on her pottery ban when she sees your super-duper holiday project.’
‘What made you want a tortoise in the first place?’ asked Enid. ‘They don’t do much and you’ve never said anything about tortoises before.’
‘I can’t tell you yet,’ said Mildred, ‘but I promise I’ll tell you very soon.’
‘Is it to do with the holiday project?’ asked Maud.
‘Sort of,’ said Mildred with a secret smile.
Mildred put Speedy back into the basket as he was still fast asleep and the three friends set off to the dining hall.
Lunch was supposed to be chicken and vegetable pie, but the pastry was like concrete (Mildred actually bent her knife trying to cut it) and there was only a small puddle of gravy inside after all the hard work of hacking through like a mining operation.
To make matters worse, the story of the rattlesnake incident had spread through the school like wildfire and everyone was calling out rude remarks and making jokes at Mildred’s expense. She tried to laugh it off good-naturedly at first, but after a while her eyes filled with tears.
‘Glad to ssssee you ssssurvived, Mildred,’ hissed Drusilla as she passed by, carrying pudding for herself and Ethel.
‘Don’t take any notice,’ said Maud soothingly.
‘Anyway, it’s nearly time to reveal your holiday project,’ said Enid. ‘That’ll show everyone.’
‘Hey, Mildred!’ called Ethel from the next table. ‘Ssssyrup ssssponge and cusssstard for afterssss!’
Mildred got up and pushed back her chair. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said to Maud and Enid. ‘I can’t stand any more of this.’
Blushing furiously, she hurried through the gauntlet of laughter, back to the peace of her room. Speedy was still fast asleep, so Mildred laid some carrot sticks and celery in the cat basket in front of him in case he woke up feeling hungry. Then she picked up the blue folder containing the precious holiday project and sat on the edge of her bed, holding it against her chest, feeling tempted to have one last look. She had been so worried she might mislay a page or, worse, put the whole thing down somewhere and lose it completely that she hadn’t opened the folder since she had packed it ready to take to school.
Maud and Enid knocked at her door.
‘Come on, Mil!’ said Maud cheerily. ‘Time for your big moment. Potions with H.B. and the best holiday project in the world.’
‘Well, perhaps not in the world,’ said Mildred, smiling.
‘Don’t start being modest now,’ said Enid. ‘We’re expecting to be greatly impressed.’
‘Greatly impressed you certainly will be,’ said Mildred. ‘Come on, let’s go and make H.B.’s day!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
iss Hardbroom was already seated at her desk in the potion laboratory with an all-knowing look on her face as Form Three fled in and took their places at their workbenches. She had an unpleasant knack of making every pupil feel that they might have done something wrong, even if they hadn’t – although in Mildred’s case there was usually some backlog of disasters, such as the snake incident, causing Miss Hardbroom to keep a close eye on her. This time Mildred could hardly wait to smooth things over by revealing the evidence of her hard work during the holidays.
‘Good afternoon, girls,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘This is always my favourite day of the whole term. Here you are, all rested and eager to improve your minds with another term of concentration and hard work, anxious to show your worthiness to be in a school as excellent as Miss Cackle’s Academy.’
Mildred gazed at Miss Hardbroom in awe. She was never sure if the terrifying teacher was joking when she gave them these little pep talks (which she did at least twice a day).
Surely even Miss Hardbroom couldn’t think that they were truly eager to rush back to lessons and concrete pie after a blissful holiday at home wearing their own clothes, eating normal food and doing whatever they wanted?
‘Now then,’ continued Miss Hardbroom, ‘holiday projects! Which one of you would like to be the first to entertain us?’
Ethel shot up a hand before anyone else had a chance.
‘I will, Miss Hardbroom,’ she said with a confident smile, brandishing a purple ring-binder. ‘Shall I bring it up to your desk or would you like me to read it aloud myself?’
‘Read it yourself, Ethel,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘You always read with such expression.’
Ethel held up the ring-binder and began to read. ‘During the holidays, I decided to invent a spell that had never been attempted before, as far as I know. It was a spell to make an animal speak. To do this I had to assemble various components of the spell, including chants, herbs etc., and to make things easier I decided to concentrate on animals which would fit into a space of twenty-five centimetres square and under. I could then formulate the correct amounts of all the ingredients for animals up to that size…’
Mildred’s jaw dropped as Ethel’s voice droned on, reading out word for word the spell which Mildred had spent the entire holiday researching and trying out. When Ethel got to the part where she had looked up everything in an ancient spell book at her local library with a magnifying glass, Mildred could stand it no longer and leapt up, pushing back her stool so forcefully that it fell over.
‘Ethel!’ she exclaimed furiously. ‘What on earth are you doing? That’s my spell!’
Ethel looked helplessly at Miss Hardbroom. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about, Miss Hardbroom,’ she said, sounding alarmed and upset at the same time.
‘Well, Mildred,’ snapped Miss Hardbroom, ‘what are you talking about? You surely don’t imagine that anyone in their right mind would believe that you could possibly have put in the amount of work needed to assemble – how many pages, Ethel?’
‘Fifteen,’ simpered Ethel.
‘Fifteen pages of a holiday project,’ continued Miss Hardbroom, ‘that obviously required a sharp brain, superb concentration and unbelievable patience. I don’t remember you ever displaying even one of these worthy characteristics, Mildred.’
‘But I did, Miss Hardbroom,’ spluttered Mildred, blushing bright red with embarrassment as the whole class turned to look at her. ‘Look! It’s all here in my folder.’
Miss Hardbroom gestured in a highly irritated fashion for Mildred to bring the folder up to her desk. Mildred watched as she opened it, drew out the pages and looked through them. The glance she shot at Mildred was so angry that Mildred was suddenly gripped by panic.
‘Is this your idea of a joke, Mildred?’ thundered Miss Hardbroom. She turned the pages around and held them up one by one for the class to see. On each page was a smiley face drawn in a different-coloured pencil.
Mildred was so shocked that she couldn’t speak.
‘Well, Mildred?’ raged Miss Hardbroom. ‘They’re not even good drawings and they certainly don’t represent hours of invention and concentration, which was the whole point of this project.’ She suddenly deflated and sounded tired. ‘Oh, go to your room, Mildred, for the rest of the lesson – again. Perhaps you could stay there for the rest of the term with that dreadful cat, while we all have some fun with Ethel’s fascinating idea.
‘Have you tried it out on any animals, Ethel?’ she asked, turning back to Ethel, who was poised to continue.
‘Yes, Miss Hardbroom,’ said Ethel earnestly, ‘there was a hedgehog, a shrew and a newt, but I’ve brought along a toad so we can try it out during the lesson.’
Mildred burst into tears.
‘Are you still here, Mildred Hubble?’ barked Miss Hardbroom. ‘Perhaps I could help you along.’
In front of the whole class, Miss Hardbroom muttered the words to a transference spell and Mildred found herself hurtling through a tunnel of air and whirling lights and hurled, as if she had been shot from a cannon, on to her bed, nearly fattening Tabby for the second time in one day.
CHAPTER NINE
eep beneath the bedcovers, Mildred had curled herself up in a ball, too shocked and upset even to cry any more. Tabby had got right inside the bedclothes with her and was lending his support by purring at the top of his purr and passionately kneading her with tiny claw-prickles as he flexed his paws against her arms.
To be ‘transferred’ was the most humiliating dismissal a teacher could possibly make. It was an even more insulting version of an adult saying, ‘Get out of my sight.’ Apart from the unpleasantness of being instantly pulled through a void as if by an invisible vacuum cleaner, it left the recipient feeling unceremoniously got rid of and swatted like an irritating bluebottle.
The bright new day had collapsed around Mildred’s ears as though she had walked into a line full of wet washing, and the more she thought about what had happened, the more weighed down and tangled up she felt. It all came back to her: the conversation with Ethel in the tree, where she had told Ethel every single detail of her wonderful idea, and the ‘accident’ when Mildred’s bag had fallen to the ground, followed by Ethel ‘helping’, taking ages to pick up all Mildred’s things – picking them up and switching Mildred’s project for a stack of empty paper.
As the hours dragged by, Mildred heard the bell for each change of lesson and finally the five long bells to signify the end of the school day. She rather hoped that Maud and Enid would come to commiserate with her, as they usually did, but half an hour later there was still no sign of them.
Just when she had given up listening out, there was a soft tap and Maud and Enid looked nervously round the edge of the door.
‘We’ve brought you some tea,’ said Enid. ‘It’s a scone –’
‘– or a rock cake,’ said Maud. ‘It’s hard to tell which – and a cup of tea.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mildred gratefully. ‘I don’t know whether H.B. expects me to stay here for the rest of my life or what.’
‘If I were you, I’d just keep out of the way tonight,’ said Maud. ‘She’ll be over it by the morning.’
‘Watch out,’ said Mildred, jumping off the bed and diving for Speedy, who was plodding determinedly towards the open door. She grabbed him and held him up so that her two friends could see him. ‘A t least now I can tell you why he’s here,’ she said. ‘I got him during the hols so that he could be my demonstration animal for the holiday project, but I couldn’t get him to speak at all. I think it’s because he was too big to fit the size criterion. It’s such a shame, because he looks so wonderful, especially when he’s blundering along – they can move quite fast, you know. I tried the spell three times, but I could see it hadn’t worked. He just carried on sitting there munching his piece of carrot, looking incredibly dim. I do think tortoises probably are incredibly dim. They look as if they only have about one brain cell, so I don’t expect he would have had an awful lot to say, but the animals generally say something. Even the newt told me he had a bit of a headache – you don’t imagine a newt having a headache, do you? Anyway, Speedy just looked completely blank, so either it hadn’t worked or he wasn’t bright enough to say anything, so I gave up, and then I didn’t like to leave him at home, so I brought him with me. You don’t believe a word of this, do you?’ she added sadly.
Maud and Enid were staring at her with eyes like saucers.
‘Oh, Mil,’ said Enid, putting an arm around her fondly. ‘I don’t know what to think this time. Ethel’s just so good at everything and you – well, you’ve never once come up with anything better than Ethel.’
‘Especially in the spell department,’ agreed Enid.
‘But we know you wouldn’t just tell a huge lie,’ added Maud hastily as she saw Mildred’s eyes fill with tears.
‘Why don’t we all have a nice quiet evening and an early night?’ suggested Enid. ‘Then we can talk it over in the morning.’
‘Good idea,’ said Maud, sounding rather over-jolly. ‘Shall we bring you a plate of supper later on?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mildred, trying not to sound hurt. ‘I think I’ll start my early night right now.’
Enid and Maud slunk out of the room, closing the door quietly behind them.
‘I feel awful,’ said Maud. ‘It sounds as if we think she just made it all up – that outburst about the holiday project. We’re her friends, for goodness’ sake. We ought to believe her.’
‘I know,’ said Enid glumly. ‘It’s difficult sometimes, though, isn’t it?’
CHAPTER TEN
sudden surge of anger swept over Mildred as she sat miserably on the bed, munching the scone/rock cake and contemplating the truly awful treachery of Ethel Hallow.
‘It’s so not fair, Tabs,’ she exclaimed to the faithful little cat, who was huddled on her knees. ‘No one’s ever going to believe my word against Ethel’s. She sounds so convincing that even I wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t know! The trouble is that no one else does know. No one else was there except you, and you can’t speak.’
‘I can,’ said a very small, slightly rasping voice from nowhere.
Mildred jumped. ‘Was that you, Tabs?’ she breathed.
Tabby purred louder, but said nothing.
‘Is someone there?’ asked Mildred, looking wildly around the room. ‘Where are you?’
‘Under the bed,’ rasped the reply.
Mildred swung herself on to her knees so that she could look over the side of the bed and see underneath. There she saw the usual pile of boxes and suitcases and Speedy, munching his carrot. ‘Was it you?’ asked Mildred faintly. ‘Did you speak?’
‘I did,’ said Speedy, turning to face Mildred.
‘But – I – how?’
gasped Mildred. ‘The spell didn’t work.’
‘It did actually,’ said Speedy. ‘You cast the spell three times and the third time I was so fed up with all your chanting and waving me around in the air that I’d gone inside my shell, which, if you care to fetch a tape measure, fits into a twenty-five-centimetre box with five centimetres to spare at the head or tail end, depending which way you look at it. It didn’t work when my limbs, tail and head were out, bringing my length to thirty-one centimetres, thereby rendering the spell utterly useless. Not that we tortoises know about anything at all, as we are well known to be incredibly dim, with possibly only one brain cell.’
Mildred sat back on her heels and gazed at the tortoise, who was gazing back at her with an amused smirk.
‘And another thing,’ he continued, sounding more grumpy as he went along. ‘I suppose you think it’s really witty to call a tortoise Speedy when we’re not quite so fast as, say, a cheetah. Practically everyone calls tortoises some sort of silly name for their own amusement. In fact, I won’t say another word unless you can think of a better name for me. I really don’t see why I should answer to a name which, frankly, I consider to be an insult.’
So saying, he briskly pulled in his head and front legs, followed by his back legs and tail, and the room fell silent.
‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Mildred. ‘Please don’t go to sleep!’
She groped under the bed, brought him out and laid him carefully on the bedclothes.
‘Would you kindly leave me alone,’ said the tortoise, sounding coldly polite.
‘Look, I’m so sorry about your name,’ grovelled Mildred. ‘And about the rude remarks. You’re quite right to be offended. I’m really, really sorry. What sort of name would you like? Is there anything you’d prefer? I mean, I’ve always wished I was called Miranda, so I do understand.’