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sitting in bed, wearing a pair of black-and-grey striped pyjamas and dropping off to sleep every few minutes. Maud was curled up on the end of the bed enveloped in a grey flannel nightdress and a black woollen shawl. Each pupil had the same type of room: very simple, with a wardrobe, iron bedstead, table and chair, and a slit window like the ones used by archers in castles of long ago. There was a picture-rail along the bare walls from which hung a sampler embroidered with a quotation from
The Book of Spells
and also, during the day, several bats. Mildred had three bats in her room, little furry ones which were very friendly. She was fond of

    animals and was looking forward to the next day when she would have a kitten of her own. Everyone was very excited about the presentation, and they had all spent the evening ironing their best robes and pushing the dents out of their best hats. Maud was too excited to sleep, so had sneaked into Mildred’s room to talk about it with her friend.
    ‘What are you going to call yours, Maud?’ asked Mildred, sleepily.
    ‘Midnight,’ said Maud. ‘I think it sounds dramatic.’
    ‘I’m worried about the whole thing,’ Mildred confessed, chewing the end of her plait. ‘I’m sure I’ll do something dreadful like treading on its tail, or else it’ll take one look at me and leap out of the window.
Some
thing’s bound to go wrong.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Maud. ‘You know you have a way with animals. And as for treading on its tail, it won’t even be on the floor. Miss Cackle hands it to you, and that’s all there is to it. So there’s nothing to worry about, is there?’
    Before Mildred had time to reply, the door crashed open to reveal their form-mistress Miss Hardbroom standing in the doorway wrapped in a black dressing-gown, with a lantern in her hand. She was a tall, terrifying lady with a sharp, bony face and black hair scragged back into such a tight knot that her forehead looked quite stretched.
    ‘Rather late to be up, isn’t it, girls?’ she inquired nastily.
    The girls, who had leapt into each other’s arms when the door burst open, drew apart and fixed their eyes on the floor.
    ‘Of course, if we don’t want to be included in the presentation tomorrow we are certainly going about it the right way,’ Miss Hardbroom continued icily.
    ‘Yes, Miss Hardbroom,’ chorused the girls miserably.
    Miss Hardbroom glared meaningfully at Mildred’s candle and swept out into the corridor with Maud in front of her.
    Mildred hastily blew out the candle and dived under the bedclothes, but she could not get to sleep. Outside the window

CHAPTER TWO
    HE presentation took place in the Great Hall, a huge stone room with rows of wooden benches, a raised platform at one end and shields and portraits all round the walls. The whole school had assembled, and Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom stood behind a table on the platform. On the table was a large wicker basket from which came mews and squeaks.
    First of all everyone sang the school song, which went like this:
    Onward, ever striving onward,
    Proudly on our brooms we fly
    Straight and true above the treetops,
    Shadows on the moonlit sky.
    Ne’er a day will pass before us
    When we have not tried our best,
    Kept our cauldrons bubbling nicely,
    Cast our spells and charms with zest.
    Full of joy we mix our potions,
    Working by each other’s side.
    When our days at school are over
    Let us think of them with pride.
    It was the usual type of school song, full

    of pride, joy and striving. Mildred had never yet mixed a potion with joy, nor flown her broomstick with pride – she was usually too busy trying to keep upright!
    Anyway, when they had finished droning the last verse, Miss Cackle rang the little silver bell on her table and the girls marched up in single file to receive their kittens. Mildred was the last of all, and when she reached the table Miss Cackle pulled out of the basket not a sleek black kitten like all the others