by Sally Prue
‘Perhaps you’d prefer a sit-down in the Blood Donation Tent,’ he suggested, smoothly. ‘We serve free tea. Afterwards...’
‘Well, that sounds –’ began Mrs Knowall, but before she could say any more, Winsome grabbed her arm and pushed her through the flap of Miss C Weed’s tent into the cool stinky darkness.
‘Mr Ogersby’s bound to want to know all about the fortune-telling,’ Winsome told her.
Mrs Knowall looked round, disapprovingly, but she sat down on a stool.
Miss C Weed tapped gently on the goldfish bowl with her knobbly knuckles.
‘Barr-y!’ she cooed. ‘Here’s someone who wants their fortune told!’
Barry opened his mouth wide in what might have been a yawn, and then, almost too quickly for the eye to follow, his head shot out of the bowl and picked up one of the cards that were scattered about the table.
Miss C Weed took the card reverently from Barry’s mouth, turned it over, and read it out loud.
‘HAS SHE PAID?’ she read.
‘I’ll pay,’ said Winsome, quickly, afraid that Mr Bloodsworth’s relative might still be prowling about outside. ‘But I’ve only got a pound.’
Miss C Weed took it happily.
‘You can have twenty minutes fortune-telling for that,’ she said. ‘All right, Barry?’
Barry reared up out of his bowl and looked Mrs Knowall straight in the eye. Then he shuddered slightly and made three lightning strikes at three more cards, which he placed in Miss C Weed’s scaly hands. Then he ducked back under the water and appeared to go back to sleep.
‘There’s a love,’ said Miss C Weed, fondly. ‘Right, so this is your fortune, ma’am, as told by Barry, the one and only eel of fortune!’
* * *
‘A total fraud!’ snapped Mrs Knowall, as she shouldered her way out of the tent and into the sunshine. ‘I shall report her to the police!’
Winsome’s heart sank. It was going to be bad enough having the District Chief Inspector investigating the school, without having the Fraud Squad joining in, too.
‘I don’t think it was a fraud, exactly,’ she ventured.
‘Not a fraud?’ snapped Mrs Knowall. ‘When the eel predicted that in a few minutes I’ll see a member of the royal family turn into a frog?’
‘Well,’ said Winsome, helplessly, ‘that is quite surprising, but –’
‘– and that the mayor will win the wellie-wanging competition, even though I know for a fact that he’s on holiday on some Pacific island?’
‘Well –’
‘And that there’ll be white flakes falling within the hour? Snow? On the hottest day of the year? How can that be anything but a fraud?’
Winsome opened her mouth and then closed it again.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, in a small voice.
Mrs Knowall snorted.
‘I suppose there is a policeman on duty?’ she asked.
‘Um –’
‘Hey, you!’ Mrs Knowall shouted. ‘Boy who looks like a bald gerbil!’
Jack looked as scared as if he’d come face to face with a vampire – which was odd, because actually coming face to face with a vampire earlier hadn’t bothered him.
‘Find me a policeman!’ Mrs Knowall ordered. ‘Quickly!’
Jack made a noise like a dying turnip and ran away as fast as he could. Winsome watched him go with envy as Mrs Knowall glared round at the happy crowds.
‘Ah,’ she said, with some satisfaction. ‘There’s my friend Mr Prince. He’s a judge. He’ll do!’
Mrs Knowall stormed across the field past the crocheted toilet-roll covers on the tombola stall and Winsome ran after her.
‘What’s up?’ asked Anil. He was making a tour of the field to make sure the unicorns hadn’t deposited anything anyone could trip over. ‘Mrs Knowall hasn’t noticed that the dinosaur slide is actually a dragon, has she?’
Winsome explained about the eel of fortune.
‘But we can’t have the school taken to court!’ said Anil, in horror. ‘We’ll be fined – and we’ll probably all end up in jail. Where’s this Mr Prince?’
Mr Prince was at Slacker’s cake stall.
‘Delicious!’ he said, through some crumbs. ‘Marvellous! Wonderful! Six more, please.’
Slacker shook his head regretfully.
‘I think you’ve had enough, Mr Prince,’ he said.
‘No, no, it’s all right,’ said Mr Prince. ‘I’m wearing an elasticated belt. And these cakes are so delicious!’
‘Yes,’ said Slacker, patiently. ‘But as well as all those Lean Tarts you’ve had four of the More-on-Top Cakes, haven’t you. Any more and you’ll be getting side-effects.’
Slacker turned to serve another customer just as Mrs Knowall arrived at Mr Prince’s side.
‘Mr Prince!’ she snapped. ‘I wish to report a fraud!’
‘Really?’ said Mr Prince, absently, taking the opportunity while Slacker’s back was turned to help himself to three more Lean Tarts. ‘Mmm! Superb! Have you tried one of these, Mrs Knowall?’
‘No I haven’t,’ she said. ‘And what’s more I –’ she broke off and looked at Mr Prince closely. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Because you’re looking a little... green.’
‘He does, too,’ said Serise, wandering up. ‘And his eyes have gone all high-up and bulgy.’
Mr Prince suddenly let out a resounding burp. He clapped his hand to his mouth in embarrassment – and that was when they saw that his fingers were even greener than his face. They were webbed, too. And not only that, but –
‘He’s shrinking,’ gasped Anil. And he was: he was soon as short as Anil, and then as short as the table, and then...
‘Eek!’ screamed Mrs Knowall, jumping backwards, because instead of a full-sized judge all that was left was a heap of clothes with something jumping about inside it.
Slacker looked round.
‘Oh, is that another one?’ he asked. ‘Honestly, people won’t be told, will they? Here, write PRINCE on this label, will you? I’m bundling their clothes up and putting them under the table for safekeeping.’
A small green nose wearing Mr Prince’s glasses appeared from under a vest.
‘And what about the... er... frog?’ asked Anil, once the clothes were bundled and labelled.
‘Oh, he’ll be back to normal in a couple of hours,’ said Slacker. ‘Just put him in the washing-up bowl with the others.’
Mrs Knowall was looking nearly as green as Mr Prince.
‘Hey, it’s a good job you didn’t say anything to Mr Prince about the eel of fortune being a fraud, isn’t it, Mrs Knowall,’ Anil told her, cheerfully. ‘He’d probably have put you in prison for slander.’
‘But – but – but – that was only one prediction!’ blustered Mrs Knowall, a bit cross-eyed. ‘That could have been a simple coinci –’
There was a great cry of watch out! and everyone ducked as a boot flew over their heads.
‘Look at that,’ said Anil. ‘Rodney’s wanged the wellie miles.’
Serise, running up to find the wellie, shrugged.
‘He still won’t beat the mayor,’ she said. ‘The mayor wanged his wellie nearly as far as the Trifle Range.’
Mrs Knowall jumped as if someone had plugged her into a socket.
‘The mayor?’ she yelped. ‘But he’s away on holiday in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!’
There was an awkward pause as a pair of goblins with tape measures ran out, measured the length of Rodney’s throw, and then signalled a thumbs-down.
‘I told you the mayor would win,’ said Serise, as the centaur running the wellie-wanging presented a silver cup to a very tanned man wearing a knotted handkerchief and a glittering chain of office. ‘Trust him to go on holiday to the island where the Treasure Hunt is taking place. Though I don’t think those pirates should have let him travel on a Treasure Hunt ticket, myself.’
Mrs Knowall was very pale. She kept looking up at the sky as if expecting to be carried off by a giant eagle.<
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‘Good, Barry the eel of fortune, isn’t he,’ said Anil, pointedly. ‘A bargain, too, at a pound for twenty minutes.’
‘Especially when it was my pound,’ said Winsome, sighing.
Mrs Knowall was definitely looking cross-eyed, now.
‘You’d better take her somewhere quiet,’ advised Anil. ‘I don’t think she can stand much more excitement. It’s a pity the trolls have eaten all the tins of prunes on the tombola, or you could have taken her there.’
‘I’ll take her round behind the helter-skelter,’ suggested Winsome. ‘There’s not much going on there now the jelly-dancers have finished.’
‘Everything’s nearly finished,’ said Jack, sadly, wandering up. He was wearing a paper bag over his head. Presumably it made him feel safer with Mrs Knowall around. ‘The last sea-serpent trip has set off,’ he went on, ‘and the last Thirty-Eight-Point-Eight-Nine-Two Kilometre Boot Tour has gone as well. Oh, and look, there’s Emily taking the unicorns their home-time buckets of fairy cakes. Still, it’s been brilliant, hasn’t it? We’ve made tons and tons of money.’
Winsome and Jack led Mrs Knowall to a bench. A group of fairies was occupying it, but they disappeared hastily – instantly – when they saw Mrs Knowall. To be fair, though, they may have been disturbed by the approach of a huge and extremely grubby troll, who was coming along carrying the biggest dustbin any of them had ever seen, filled to the brim with rubbish for his supper.
The troll gradually realised he’d entered a dead end, and slowly wondered what to do (trolls are notoriously slow thinkers). He looked around, puzzled, scratching his head... and then suddenly Mrs Knowall let out a squawk like a hen laying a square egg.
Because it was snowing. Large white flakes were drifting down lazily from the clear blue summer sky, swooping and dipping to lay themselves delicately on the ground.
Jack raised his paper bag a few inches so he could see better.
‘But it’s really hot,’ he said, in bewilderment, ‘and there’s not a cloud in the sky. How can it be snowing?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Winsome, just as puzzled.
‘Hey, and that’s not the only funny thing,’ said Jack. ‘What’s that noise that sounds like someone rubbing a hedgehog against a fence?’
They all looked up and down, and left and right, and discovered that it was only snowing just by the bench: the rest of the field was quivering with heat.
Serise came trotting round the corner and stopped short when she saw the circle of snow.
‘Ew!’ she said. ‘That’s just disgusting!’
‘Disgusting?’ said Winsome.
‘Yes,’ said Serise. ‘Completely disgusting. You’re not going to tell me you like standing there with that troll scratching his horrible bristly head and covering you in his revolting dandruff!’
Winsome and Jack squawked and ran hastily out of the dandruff shower – but Mrs Knowall only swayed a bit, blinking, as the snowy flakes pirouetted round her. First she went nearly as white as the dandruff itself (it was amazing how such white dandruff had come off such a grubby head), and then she went pink, and then she went red. And then – though this was surely impossible – Serise, Jack and Winsome all agreed afterwards that her ears started steaming.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Knowall?’ asked Winsome.
Mrs Knowall’s eyes began bulging as if there was some great pressure building up inside her.
As the children began to back cautiously away, Slacker and Emily and Anil spotted them from across the field and rushed up to join them, flushed with the success of the afternoon.
They arrived just in time to see Mrs Knowall go completely bananas.
Chapter Twelve
Mrs Knowall took in a huge breath that swelled her horrible snot-coloured dress to bursting point and then she let out a roar like a rampaging rhinoceros: ‘Magic!!!’ she bellowed.
‘Hmm,’ Anil said. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t such a good thing that the eel of fortune’s predictions came true, after all.’
‘Now she’ll report us to Mr Ogersby,’ said Jack, from inside his paper bag. ‘And he’ll sack the teachers, and then the place will turn into an ordinary school!’
‘What can we do?’ asked Emily, in despair.
‘Blackmail?’ suggested Serise. ‘Feed her lots of cakes, and then threaten to post a photo on the Internet of her turning into a frog?’
‘We can’t do that!’ said Winsome.
‘No,’ said Slacker. ‘There aren’t any cakes left.’
‘Do you think the fairies could magic her away?’ whispered Emily.
‘Fairies? You’d need a troll to move Mrs Knowall,’ said Serise.
‘Well, a troll, then,’ suggested Anil.
‘No,’ said Winsome, firmly. ‘We couldn’t possibly.’
‘Why not?’ asked Jack.
‘Because Winsome’s a goody-goody,’ said Serise.
‘Because even trolls have standards,’ said Winsome.
The echoes of Mrs Knowall’s roar had died away and she was taking in another long breath. The children braced themselves.
‘You just wait until my friend Mr Ogersby the District Chief Inspector of Schools gets to hear about this!’ Mrs Knowall bellowed. ‘Eels of fortune! Poisonous cakes –’
‘They weren’t poisonous –’ objected Slacker, but his words were swept away in a tide of fury.
‘Mayors thousands of miles away from where they should be! Judges turning into frogs! Dandruff-infested giants –’
‘That was a troll, actually,’ Anil pointed out, and then said ouch! when Serise gave him a dig in the ribs.
But it was too late, Mrs Knowall had heard him.
‘A troll?’ she shouted, shaking her fist in the air. ‘A troll? What business has a troll got at a respectable school?’
‘They’re really good at eating the rubbish,’ said Jack, helpfully. ‘Even non-recyclable stuff like polystyrene and dragon scales and greasy paper bags.’
‘They don’t even mind if the bags have got wasps in them,’ Slacker added. ‘They just munch everything up, ring-pulls and all. It’s really eco-friendly.’
Mrs Knowall turned her eyes incredulously to the sky – and then she began doing her nut again.
‘What are all those things flying about?’ she shrieked.
Class Six looked. Most of the things flying about were gnats, but there were also several fairies and one or two ladies on broomsticks who were best not even thought about.
‘What things?’ asked Jack, innocently, pulling his paper bag back down firmly over his eyes.
‘Those things with tall pointy hats!’ howled Mrs Knowall, as Rodney strolled up happily. ‘And those things sprinkling glitter all over the place from their wands!’
‘Oh, don’t worry about the glitter,’ said Emily, with surprising bravery. ‘The unicorns will clear that up.’
‘Unicorns????’
Rodney gave one of his slow patient smiles.
‘There’s no such thing as unicorns,’ he told Mrs Knowall, kindly. ‘Those are just popsicle solutions.’
But Mrs Knowall wasn’t listening. Now that her mind had been opened she was suddenly seeing magic everywhere. Those short men with the beards walking along singing hi-ho hi-ho... that group of tall dark people with red-tipped fangs... and that man over there with the fluff of fur sticking out of the bottom of his trouser leg...
Her next words were more of a scream than a bellow: ‘Mr Wolfe is a werewolf !’ she screamed, and then, as Serise was muttering something about the clue being in the name, unfortunately the dinosaur-slide dragon walked past on his way home with his ladder over his shoulder.
Mrs Knowall gasped twice, and then once more – and then her bones all suddenly seemed to turn to rubber, and she folded down on to the ground in a dead faint.
Class Six waited until they were sure she wasn’t going to leap up again and start biting them, and then they stepped cautiously closer.
Winsome, who was ridiculously sensible and kind, took hold of Mrs Knowall’s wrist.
‘She’s still alive,’ she said.
Serise sighed.
‘Ah well,’ she said. ‘I suppose you can’t have everything.’
‘We’d better tell a grown-up,’ said Emily.
The others looked at each other.
‘I suppose we should,’ said Anil, reluctantly, and went over to where Mr Bloodsworth and Miss Elwig were supervising the taking down of the marquee. There was someone else with them, a stout, red-haired man in a checked suit. Even though it was the hottest afternoon of the year, he had a scarf wrapped round his face and he was wearing brown leather gloves.
That was quite odd – but then quite odd was hardly noticeable among the crowds of people making their happy way home bearing gold doubloons, or jam jars containing baby octopuses.
‘Please, Mr Bloodsworth,’ said Anil. ‘Mrs Knowall’s fainted.’
The red-haired man looked round. ‘Mrs Knowall?’ he said, his voice rather muffled and growly. ‘Do you mean Mrs Pomposa Knowall?’
Miss Elwig sighed.
‘That’s her,’ she said.
The red-haired man frowned.
‘I’ve had an absolute pile of letters from Pomposa recently,’ he said.
Mrs Elwig gulped.
‘Um... what did they say?’ she asked, running her hand nervously through her hair and disturbing a small cod and several chips.
‘Oh, I haven’t opened them,’ said the red-haired man. ‘They’ll be complaints. That’s all Pomposa ever does, complain. Dreadful woman! What on earth is she doing at your school fair?’
Mr Bloodsworth murmured something about her wanting to become Chairman of the School Governors.
‘But the woman’s a complete menace!’ said the red-haired man, appalled. ‘Why, she hates children!’
‘Grown-ups, too,’ said Miss Elwig, sadly.
‘Well, you must make sure she doesn’t get the job,’ said the red-haired man.
‘But we can’t,’ said Anil, earnestly. ‘Mrs Knowall is friends with Mr Ogersby, the District Chief Inspector of Schools, so she’s bound to get the job. And when she does, she’ll change everything!’
‘But why on earth would she want to do that?’ the red-haired man asked. ‘I’ve never seen so many people at a school fair. Or such happy, clever children. Why, the boy running the cake stall seemed to know all his times tables up to at least his nine hundred and ninety-nines.’