Read Witch Week for Free Online Page B

in music yesterday!” This caused shocked gasps from the rest of 6B.
    Miss Hodge listened, fascinated. This was real feeling all right. And what had Charles said? It was clear to her now why the rest of 6B had clustered so depressingly at the bottom of her list of suspects. Nan and Charles were at the top of it. It was obvious. They were always the odd ones out in 6B. Nan must have written the note, and Charles must be the witch in question. And now let Mr. Wentworth pour scorn on her scheme!
    “Please, Miss Hodge, the bell’s rung,” called a number of voices.
    The door opened and Mr. Crossley came in. When he saw Miss Hodge, which he had come early in order to do, his face became a deep red, most interesting to Estelle and Theresa. “Am I interrupting a lesson, Miss Hodge?”
    “Not at all,” said Miss Hodge. “We had just finished. Nan and Charles, go back to your places.” And she swept out of the room, without appearing to notice that Mr. Crossley had leaped to hold the door open for her.
    Miss Hodge hurried straight upstairs to Mr. Wentworth’s study. She knew this news was going to make an impression on him. But there, to her annoyance, was Mr. Wentworth dashing downstairs with a box of chalk, very late for a lesson with 3A.
    “Oh, Mr. Wentworth,” panted Miss Hodge. “Can you spare a moment?”
    “Not a second. Write me a memo if it’s urgent,” said Mr. Wentworth, dashing on down.
    Miss Hodge reached out and seized his arm. “But you must! You know 6B and my scheme about the anonymous note—”
    Mr. Wentworth swung around on the end of her clutching hands and looked up at her irritably. “What about what anonymous note?”
    “My scheme worked!” Miss Hodge said. “Nan Pilgrim wrote it, I’m sure. You must see her—”
    “I’m seeing her at four o’clock,” said Mr. Wentworth. “If you think I need to know, write me a memo, Miss Hodge.”
    “Eileen,” said Miss Hodge.
    “Eileen who?” said Mr. Wentworth, trying to pull his arm away. “You mean two girls wrote this note?”
    “My name is Eileen,” said Miss Hodge, hanging on.
    “Miss Hodge,” said Mr. Wentworth, “3A will be breaking windows by now!”
    “But there’s Charles Morgan too!” Miss Hodge cried out, feeling his arm pulling out of her hands. “Mr. Wentworth, I swear that boy recited a spell! Worms and custard and scummy potatoes, he said. All sorts of nasty things.”
    Mr. Wentworth succeeded in tearing his arm loose and set off downstairs again. His voice came back to Miss Hodge. “Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails. Write it all down, Miss Hodge.”
    “Bother!” said Miss Hodge. “But I will write it down. He is going to notice!” She went at once to the staff room, where she spent the rest of the lesson composing an account of her experiment, in writing almost as round and angelic as Theresa’s.
    Meanwhile, in the 6B classroom, Mr. Crossley shut the door behind Miss Hodge with a sigh. “Journals out,” he said. He had come to a decision about the note, and he did not intend to let his feelings about Miss Hodge interfere with his duty. So, before anyone could start writing in a journal and make it impossible for him to interrupt, he made 6B a long and serious speech. He told them how malicious and sneaky and unkind it was to write anonymous accusations. He asked them to consider how they would feel if someone had written a note about them. Then he told them that someone in 6B had written just such a note.
    “I’m not going to tell you what was in it,” he said. “I shall only say it accused someone of a very serious crime. I want you all to think about it while you write your journals, and after you’ve finished, I want the person who wrote the note to write me another note confessing who they are and why they wrote it. That’s all. I shan’t punish the person. I just want them to see what a serious thing they have done.”
    Having said this, Mr. Crossley sat back to do some marking, feeling he