Help! I'm Trapped at Witch School

by Em Lynas

  She nods as if she’s thinking, There, that’s you sorted, and then realises we are watching her. Jess and I are doing similar looks. They’re from The Book Of This Is Unexpected Behaviour.

  “Shalini!” says Jess. “That was so cool! You looked like a Warrior Witch.”

  Shalini grins. There’s a jingle from her bracelet. “I’ve won the rune charm,” she says. She holds up the charm. “I defeated the beastie! On my own!”

  We smother her in a hug.

  “Of course you did,” I say. “Because you are awesome!”

  The red door swings open. Dominique runs out. She’s flushed, her shirt’s hanging out and she’s covered in splashes of potion. There is absence of neatness. There is a complete absence of trim and tidy.

  Arwen backs out, swishing a broom at a Toadspit Terror that’s trying to follow. She misses. It sees me and stops. I shake my head. It scuttles back into the room and the door slams shut.

  I hear Jess whisper to Shalini, “Twink is the Queen of the Spiders now and Scary is called Bruce. Don’t tell Dominique. Or Arwen.”

  Shalini looks puzzled. The word whizzing round her brain is probably WHAT?

  “Now do you see why we should help each other, Dominique?” says Jess. She looks Dominique up and down and shakes her head in sympathy. This is possibly acting. “We could have told you what to put in each potion and you would not be in the mess that you’re in now.” She wags her finger at Dominique. “I told you – wanting to prove you’re the Best and Brightest is going to get you into bother.”

  “I do not require your advice, Jessica Moss,” says Dominique. She looks Jess up and down and finishes with a sneer; this seems to be her favourite look today. Jess is also the opposite of neat and tidy. Her face is smeared with stingernipper dust. “You are consistently at the bottom of the green board therefore you cannot assist a witch such as I.”

  There’s a massive grumble that sets my teeth on edge and Clump dooms, “THE ROOMS ARE BEING RESET. YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO CHOOSE THE NEXT TRIAL. TEN.”

  “Excellent news, Clump. Can’t wait,” I say. “Bring it on.”

  “NINE.”

  I huddle in the middle of the room with Jess and Shalini. “This time we will stay together and get out of here as fast as we can.”

  We scan the doors.

  Shalini points to the red door. “I haven’t done potions,” she says.

  “We have,” says Jess.

  “EIGHT.”

  “And we’ve all done singing,” I say.

  “And I’ve done runes,” says Shalini. We’re all talking really fast.

  “What about the orange one?” says Jess. Arwen is standing in front of it so we can’t see the rhyme. Jess leaves us and peers over Arwen’s shoulder. “It’s a zen challenge. We should do that. You’re good at zen stuff,” she says, looking at me.

  “SEVEN.”

  Arwen puts her hand on the zen door as if she owns it. “You can’t go in there. I haven’t done this one yet and Dominique might want to do it.”

  I read the rhyme on the green door, next to the orange door.

  “Dog and frog, bat and cat,

  Bog and log, hat and mat.

  Which witch words,

  Will match with that?”

  That sounds easy.

  “We could do this one, Jess. We’re all good at rhymes.”

  “SIX.”

  Dominique is at the next door, the purple door. She appears to be pondering. Coming up with a plan to defeat all of us. Possibly.

  Jess is still arguing with Arwen. “Well, we haven’t done zen either, Arwen,” she says. “And you’re not the boss of the doors.”

  “FIVE.”

  “Well, you’re not coming in with me,” says Arwen, standing with her back to the door.

  “You are not in charge,” says Jess.

  “FOUR.”

  Dominique says. “No. Ms Thorn put I in charge. And I have made my choice. Shalini shall enter the rhyming room with I. You,” she points at me, “shall enter the zen room with Jess and Arwen.”

  She is being The BIGGEST AND BOSSIEST and she’s trying to use Shalini to win! Again!

  “I will not,” I say.

  “THREE.”

  The doors open.

  Shalini glares at Dominique. “I won’t go in the rhyming room with you, Dominique. I’m going in with Twink and Jess.” She steps through the door.

  “Dominique,” says Arwen. She’s still blocking the zen door and she’s doing a look from The Book of Rejected. “We should go in here, together.”

  “TWO.”

  We are running out of time. I stand in the rhyming doorway with my arms out, side to side, stopping Dominique from entering. She is not pleased.

  “Jess!” I shout. “Get in here.”

  Jess tries dodging round Dominique and it’s like a game of netball without the ball but Dominique is really good at blocking and Jess can’t get past.

  “ONE.”

  “I will not allow it,” says Dominique. “This room is for Shalini and I.”

  “Get out of the way, Dominique,” shouts Jess. “Quick, before we have no choice.”

  “FAILURE TO CHOOSE HAS RESULTED IN – NO CHOICE.”

  Jess grabs Dominique and tries to lift her out of the way but Dominique is taller and heavier and she pushes Jess off and Jess stumbles back across our door and lands on Arwen as Dominique falls backwards on to the flagstone that is tipping towards the purple door and she clings to the edge but her fingers slip and she’s tipped in.

  Then Jess screams, “Twink!” and Arwen screams, “Dominique!” as they slide through the zen door.

  SLAM. SLAM.

  I am experiencing severe annoyance! We were supposed to stay together! Shalini pulls me backwards into the rhyming room as our door slams shut just missing my thumb. I am shocked!

  “Oh dungpats, Shalini. Jess is with Arwen! That does not bode well. What if she fails? What if Arwen stops her winning by being … Arwen? What if…” I daren’t think of any more what ifs. Shalini is trembling.

  “We have to get out,” she says. “We have to save her!”

  “Then we have to win the trial as fast as we can,” I say. “It’s the only solution.”

  I turn away from the door and inspect the room. The floor is like a chess board. Eight squares by eight squares. There’s a word on each tile. That’s … a lot of words! The walls are smooth, which I take as a good sign. No cracks means no creatures bursting through. I hope. “It looks pretty simple,” I say. “We just match the words.”

  “Nothing in the East Wing is that simple,” says Shalini.

  “ATTENTION, WITCHES. SAY THEM, TOUCH THEM, HAVE A THINK, THEN SAY ONE MORE TO BREAK THE LINK.”

  A tile near my foot glows red. The word is yonder. It’s in black. I am feeling rushed. These trials are relentless. There’s no time for thinking, no time for pondering. No time for thinking about Ms Thorn and whether Plan A will succeed. No time to think about how much time has passed and whether I have ac-chew-ally run out of time.

  “Say them, touch them…” says Shalini.

  I bend down and touch the yonder tile. I can feel a weird tingle coming through my fingertips. “Can you feel that?” The tingling grows into a vibration.

  “I think we should start the task,” says Shalini, just as the tile fizzes with energy and turns brown.

  “I think we’re too late,” I say. We jump as the tile goes CRACK and suddenly it’s like a tray of toffee smashed with a toffee hammer. We whizz round as another tile behind us does the same. The word is ponder. The tiles fizz some more as if the stone is turning into popcorn. They crumble away, leaving two large holes. We hear lots of little plops as the stones fall. Plop, plop, plop.

  Shalini kneels on the charm tile and peers into the yonder hole. “Uh-oh,” she says, which is ANNOYING. “Is that what I think it is?”

  I kneel on need and peer in too.

  Oh dungpats!

  I see THE HORROR THAT LIES
BENEATH THE TILES!

  I see…

  GLOOP!

  “It’s a lake of GLOOP!” I say. “An ac-chew-al LAKE OF GLOOP!” It’s thick and bubbling and extra gloopy and lumpy.

  Shalini sits back. She’s doing a look from The Book of Scared. “So if we fail, we’ll fall in and drown in GLOOP!” she says. She gulps. “I don’t want to drown in GLOOP!”

  I feel another tingle, under my knees. I stumble back. Need turns red.

  “Quick,” says Shalini. “Find a rhyme!”

  We scan the tiles for a matching one. I can’t see one. Then I do. “There.” It’s three tiles away. Feed

  “Say them, touch them,” says Shalini. She stands on need. I stand on feed. Maybe this is going to be easy after all. No! The tiles under our feet turn brown. They fizz.

  “Uh-oh,” says Shalini. “We’ve done something wrong.”

  CRACK! CRACK!

  We jump off. The tiles turn to popcorn and crumble. They PLOP into the gloop. We’ve failed and now there are two more giant holes in the floor and this increases our chance of drowning in gloop by … a lot! I cannot think because I am PANICKING. AGAIN!

  “What else did the instruction say?” says Shalini quickly.

  “I can’t remember. Say them, touch them, have a think…”

  Another word lights up. Snooze. Shalini leaps on it.

  “Say one more to break the link.”

  I see choose. I jump across a gloop hole. My toes hurt as I land. These shoes really are too small.

  “Shoes!” I say, adding a rhyme. I am hopeful. We have obeyed the instructions. We have complied.

  We wait. Then. DISASTER!

  FIZZ! FIZZ! CRACK! CRACK! POP! POP!

  We jump off. Snooze and choose crumble and plop into the gloop. The plops are bigger, louder than the last plops.

  “What! Why did that happen?” I am experiencing annoyance again. “We’re going to be swimming in gloop before we work out what to do!”

  “Drowning in gloop,” says Shalini.

  A word glows, in the corner. Spell. I dash over and put my foot on it. Two tiles away I see bell. I put my other foot on that and shout, “Smell!”

  We wait. The tiles turn blue. They do not crumble! Success!

  “That’s it,” says Shalini. “Only one of us has to connect the rhymes. With our body. Like Twister!”

  Toad lights up. It’s near her. She stands on it and scans around.

  “There,” I point. Road is three tiles away. She stretches her right leg towards it. “I can’t reach,” she says. She stretches. She almost does the splits. Her face is red. There’s fizzing. The tip of her toe almost touches the edge of the tile when … it turns brown. “Noooo,” she shouts.

  FIZZ! CRACK! POP! Both tiles crumble. PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! Shalini’s foot disappears into the toad hole. She falls forward and her head drops into the yonder hole. She jerks it out. “Twink! The gloop is rising!”

  I look into the nearest hole. She’s right. It’s bubbling and steaming and making gloopy plopping noises. Things are worse than they were before!

  Shalini jumps to her feet. She wobbles. She balances on witches and spells. She’s surrounded by holes. “Twink, look!” She points.

  There’s a glow under my feet. Bubble is red. I whizz around. There’s rubble. FOUR tiles away. Not THREE. FOUR. This trial is impossible! I cannot do the splits either. PLUS. There’s a gaping gloop hole between the two rhymes.

  “Lie down,” says Shalini, and I think, Why didn’t we think of that before?

  I lie down. I have one foot on bubble and I stretch my arm to rubble. My fingers tingle. My head is over the gloop hole. The gloopy smell hits me and I am LIVING IN THE LAND OF DISGUSTING! I groan.

  “Twink, think of the extra rhyme,” shouts Shalini.

  Fubble? Hubble? Gubble? Touble? “Trouble!” I yell, because that is exactly what I am in. The fizzing under my fingers stops. The tile turns blue. I look back. Bubble is blue too.

  “YAY!” shouts Shalini. “Success!”

  I get up, avoiding the hole in front of me. There’s a red flash to my left. There is no rest. Lotion lights up. I spot potion in front just as Shalini shouts, “Motion, just behind you.”

  Dungpats! “There are too many. Is it motion or potion?”

  “Do all of them,” shouts Shalini.

  I put one foot on lotion and one foot on potion and one hand on motion then Shalini shouts, “I see commotion!” I look up. She’s pointing to my right. She is correct. There is another otion!

  I stretch my right hand out. I am like a four-legged spider with my bottom in the air. I reach commotion. If there is another rhyme I am doomed. I have no more appendages! The tiles are tingling. They’re fizzing!

  “Add a rhyme, Twink,” shouts Shalini. “Potion, lotion, commotion… Think, Twink.”

  “I can’t think,” I shout back. “My current emotional state is one of PANIC. And who can think when their current emotional state is PANIC.”

  “Twink, you twit.” Shalini is grinning. “EMOTION.”

  The tiles are vibrating. They’re turning brown as I shout, “EMOTION!!”

  The vibrations stop. The brown turns blue. The tiles DO NOT fizz. The tiles DO NOT crumble into the Gloop of Foulness.

  We’ve got the hang of it. Shalini matches witch, switch, rich and glitch with twitch. I match ever, never, endeavour and forever with clever. We keep going until all the tiles left have been matched but we don’t know whether we’ve won or lost. Do we lose points for the broken tiles? Surely we’ve won if we’re not drowning in gloop?

  “YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR THIRD TASK.”

  “Yay!” cries Shalini. The door opens. The last question mark charm on our bracelets changes to an R for rhyme as we tiptoe around the gloop holes, out of the door and into the choosing room. I am exhausted. The room is empty.

  There is no Jess.

  Summary:

  We have been alone for minutes. I do not know how many minutes because I do not have a clock. We have listened at each door. We have heard nothing. We have banged on each door. Nothing has happened.

  “How long has it been?” says Shalini.

  I do not answer because, as previously stated, I do not know.

  “What if Jess is dead in the zen room?” she says.

  This is not a helpful thing to say.

  “What if we never get out of here?”

  Neither is this.

  “Shalini, you have to stop—”

  I am interrupted by the purple door swinging open. Dominique strides out with a giant pencil-spoon. She changes it back to a charm and hooks it back on her bracelet. She does a look from The Book of Surprised when she sees us.

  “You survived,” she says.

  “We did,” I say.

  She looks around for Arwen and Jess.

  “THESE WITCHES HAVE FAILED,” dooms Clump.

  A picture appears in the mirror.

  “It’s Jess!” says Shalini.

  “And Arwen,” says Dominique.

  Jess is sitting cross-legged on top of a Bubble of Safety. She’s doing a look from The Book of Very Annoyed. Arwen is inside the Bubble of Safety. She’s looking nervously at the swirling mist that is rising up around the bubble. Shapes are rising and falling. Spooky hands are reaching up. It’s a mist of monsters! Poor Jess! What will happen if they reach her? And why isn’t she in the Bubble of Safety?

  “That is typical Arwen,” I say to Dominique. “Wraps herself in a bubble and leaves Jess to Death By Monster. If Jess dies it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.”

  The image disappears. Clump’s back.

  “THE REMAINING WITCHES MUST COMPETE FOR THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST CHARM.”

  There’s a tingle on my wrist. I look. There’s now another question mark, next to the rhyme charm.

  “YOU MUST ENTER THE BLACK DOOR.” It swings open.

  Oh dungpats. “But what about Jess?” I shout. Even though I don’t expect it to work I attempt Ms Sage’s smi
le of persuasion on Clump. “You MUST open the zen door,” I say in an impression of Ms Sage. “You MUST release the witches. You MUST obey me.”

  “You are wasting your time,” says Dominique. She’s already at the black door. “The task must be completed.” She steps through.

  “Twink,” says Shalini. “She’s right. We have to do the task. What if Dominique wins and doesn’t save Jess? What if she’s frozen in the swirling, whirling, scary mist? What if we end up stuck in here forever because Dominique won and we didn’t?”

  Oh, warty boils. “You’re right,” I say.

  “I know,” says Shalini. She drags me away from the mirror and through the black door.

  Summary:

  We have to win the last task or Jess will DIE! And I am bound to get the blame and it will definitely mean detention with some terrible witch punishment that will include NO PERFORMANCES!

  Dominique is standing in the middle of the room. She has her back to us. She does not turn around.

  The room is bare. Plain white walls, floor and ceiling. No tiles, cracks or beasties embedded in the plaster. Which does not mean there aren’t any.

  “What was the rhyme on the door?” I whisper to Shalini.

  “There wasn’t one,” she whispers back.

  “Then what do we do?” I say.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Wait for an instruction?”

  Dominique is ignoring us. She is feeling the wall in front of us.

  I move to the wall on the left and copy her. Shalini joins me. I run my fingers over the smooth plaster, trying to get a clue. There is a snort of derision from behind me. It does not come from Shalini.

  I turn around expecting a sneer and I get one. Dominique has her witchwood spoon in her hand. She raises it and smiles a Smile of Certainty at me. “You are not the Best and Brightest,” she says. “You are the Dumb and Dullest. Only I know how to win this task.”