The Worst Witch to the Rescue Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  The Worst Witch to the Rescue

  Jill Murphy started putting books together (literally with a stapler) when she was six. Her Worst Witch series, the first of which was published in 1974, is hugely successful. She has also written and illustrated several award-winning picture books for younger children.

  Books by Jill Murphy

  (Titles in reading order)

  THE WORST WITCH

  THE WORST WITCH STRIKES AGAIN

  A BAD SPELL FOR THE WORST WITCH

  THE WORST WITCH ALL AT SEA

  THE WORST WITCH SAVES THE DAY

  THE WORST WITCH TO THE RESCUE

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2007

  Published in this editon 2008

  1

  Copyright © Jill Murphy, 2007

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author/illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by

  way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

  prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a

  similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  978-0-14-192083-2

  JILL MURPHY

  PUFFIN

  CHAPTER ONE

  t was early in the morning on what promised to be a fine day in March, a bit blustery but a perfect start for the first day of Summer Term at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches.

  Dawn had only just broken when a lone figure on a broomstick came swooping and diving through the flocks of early-morning birds, soaring among them with such confidence that from a distance it almost looked like another bird.

  The pilot was Ethel Hallow, top student at Miss Cackle’s Academy, early as usual and eager to be the first pupil to alight in the schoolyard.

  She slowed to an easy pace and hitched her suitcase more securely on to the broom, as it had shifted during a rather ambitious nosedive. Her cat, Nightstar, was wedged between the suitcase and a bundle of box fles, one leg in the air, doing some serious washing without a care in the world.

  Ethel dropped down a little so that she was skimming the top of the forest which surrounded the academy for several kilometres. She could see the school now, misty on the horizon. There was no one else about, she was sure to be the first – she could take it more slowly from here.

  Unusually, Ethel was anxious. The whole class had been set a holiday project and, for once, she hadn’t been able to get to grips with it. Normally, the project would involve pupils looking things up in their Spell Sessions book and learning some complicated new spell that they hadn’t been allowed to tackle before. However, this one was different. Miss Hardbroom, their extremely strict and exacting form mistress, had given them a completely free rein and simply told them to come back with something unusual and interesting.

  ‘That doesn’t mean you just give it five minutes’ consideration on your way back here next term!’ Miss Hardbroom had warned them on the last day of the previous term. ‘You’ve all been here long enough, so I’m expecting you to have a little self-motivation and imagination by now.’

  Imagination – or the lack of it – was the trouble where Ethel was concerned. It was her only weak point and she found herself in the unheard-of (for her) position of doing exactly what Miss Hardbroom had told them not to do – trying to think up a brilliant project in five minutes fat on the way back to school.

  Something caught her eye below and she saw, to her surprise, a tabby cat in the topmost branches of a beech tree. It miaowed pitifully as she dropped lower and Ethel realized that she could see the top of a school hat, slightly bent, and a figure partly hidden by the tangled branches. That hat! That cat! It could only be Mildred Hubble.

  ‘Mildred?’ called Ethel, hovering expertly like a helicopter above the little cat’s upturned face. ‘Is that you down there? Are you OK?’

  The hat leaned back, revealing Mildred Hubble’s face. ‘Oh hi, Ethel,’ she said. ‘You’re early. I just stopped here for a little rest – well, actually, Tabs fell off and I came down to save him and then we stopped for a rest. He’s done quite well so far, considering how scared he is of flying. It’s so difficult now that we have to keep them on the brooms all the time. Flying was so much easier when we could just bung them in their baskets.’

  ‘Easier for you, you mean,’ said Ethel, hovering down through the branches until she found a space next to Mildred. ‘Nightstar was just born to fly. She was brilliant from day one.’

  ‘Hmm,’ mumbled Mildred. ‘Yes, well, you’ve always been the lucky one, Ethel. It wasn’t my fault I was given Tabby – though he’s got a lovely nature and he’s the perfect pet, even if he can’t do anything else.’

  Ethel arranged her broom and luggage carefully behind a cluster of branches which grew from the trunk like a giant upturned hand.

  ‘Budge up,’ she said, sitting down next to Mildred. ‘What’s that in your cat basket?’ she asked, peering inside the basket, where there was definitely something lurking at the far end.

  ‘Oh – er – nothing!’ said Mildred brightly. ‘Just some bits and pieces I couldn’t fit into my suitcase. The cat basket was empty for the fight, so I thought I’d use it for extra stuff – you know. How did you get on with the holiday project by the way?’ she added, swiftly changing the subject.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Ethel, ‘the holiday project. Well, it was quite a challenge, wasn’t it? How did you get on?’

  A shy smile spread over Mildred’s face. ‘Quite well, as a matter of fact,’ she replied. ‘I had a really good idea. In fact, it was the best idea I’ve ever had in my whole life! Then I looked up all the relevant bits in an ancient spell book in our local library. It’s an amazing old book, tiny print – you actually need a magnifying glass – and hardly any pictures, so it’s a bit boring, but it’s got everything in it. Anyway, I’ve got it all written down, so for once I can’t wait to get to school and show everyone. Makes a change, eh?’

  ‘What exactly is the spell?’ asked Ethel casually.

  ‘Well,’ said Mildred proudly, ‘it isn’t actually a known spell. I sort of made it up by myself. It’s to make an animal able to speak. Not like when a human turns into an animal, because, when that happens, the human sort of becomes the animal and can talk as the animal would. No, this is to make a small animal under twenty-five centimetres square able to have
a conversation with a person. The animal has to be a maximum size because you have to make an exact formula for a particular body area – which means that it has to be correct down to the last detail. I tried to get it bigger, because I was dying to have a chat with Tabby, but I couldn’t get the equation right for the larger size, so I gave up trying. Anyway, I’ve actually managed to work it all out for twenty-five centimetres and under – all the incantations, and the herbs and how to mix it – so you could have a chat with, say, a toad or a field mouse. Oh, and it only works for two weeks on each animal and after those two weeks you can never get it to speak again. Weird, isn’t it?’

  ‘How do you know it only lasts for two weeks?’ asked Ethel, intrigued. ‘I mean, if you invented the spell, how do you know?’

  Mildred smiled.

  ‘Well, actually I have tried it,’ she said. ‘I tried it on a shrew and a young hedgehog and a newt, who all fitted the size criterion – I don’t know why I’m telling you all this Ethel, I expect your project is a zillion times more interesting.’

  Ethel did her best to look admiring and pleased for Mildred.

  ‘Gosh, Mildred,’ she enthused, ‘you really have come up with a winner there. My idea’s nothing compared with that. What did the shrew and the hedgehog say?’

  ‘Not much actually,’ said Mildred. ‘The hedgehog was quite quiet and shy, just asked if it could have a saucer of milk and be directed to the nearest slug-infested flowerbed, but the shrew was really quite nasty – very bad-tempered and complaining about everything. I was glad when the two weeks were up and it suddenly went back to squeaking. I noticed that both of them stopped being able to talk bang on fourteen days at noon and that, however hard I tried, I couldn’t get them speaking again. So I used the formula on a newt and it worked, though newts aren’t very chatty either – just for two weeks again, so it’s been properly tested. I’ve written it all up and put it in this special folder. Look, fifteen pages! H.B. won’t believe it until she sees how well it works.’ She held up a neat blue folder.

  Mildred suddenly felt slightly uneasy, sitting there in a tree with Ethel, having what appeared to be a normal, pleasant conversation. Up until this point the two girls had never had any conversation longer than two minutes without an argument developing.

  ‘Come on then,’ she said, putting the folder back into her school bag and beginning to gather her things together. ‘We’d better set off or we’ll be late after our early start. Thanks for listening, Ethel. I must admit I’m quite proud of myself, for once.’

  ‘And with very good reason,’ Ethel said, smiling. ‘It’s an excellent idea. I wish I’d thought of it myself.’

  As they pulled themselves up on the branches, gathering their cats and bags, Ethel lurched sideways, knocking Mildred’s overstuffed school bag. It was still unfastened and everything went tumbling down through the branches in a cascade of pages and folders. At the same time, her pencil tin flipped open and her twenty brand-new sharp-pointed coloured pencils clink-clinked down the tree, bouncing through the twigs and buds.

  ‘Oh no!’ exclaimed Mildred as Tabby scrabbled further up the tree, miaowing with fright at the commotion.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mildred,’ said Ethel. ‘You grab Tabby and I’ll pick everything up for you.’

  Ethel climbed down the tree, painstakingly picking up all the paperwork and the pencils and carefully putting everything back into the bag.

  ‘I’m so sorry not to help,’ called Mildred. ‘I’m trying to keep hold of Tabby or he’ll be off and I’ll never find him up here. Have you got everything?’

  ‘Nearly everything!’ called Ethel, who was out of sight at the base of the tree. ‘How many coloured pencils were there?’

  ‘Twenty!’ called Mildred.

  ‘Hang on!’ Ethel shouted. ‘They’re scattered all over the place.’

  For several minutes, Mildred heard Ethel rustling about in the bushes, then it went quiet. ‘Are you all right, Ethel?’ she called, holding on tightly to the struggling Tabby.

  ‘Yep!’ called Ethel. ‘Got the very last one – the red one! Coming right back up now!’

  Ethel appeared through the branches with the bag across her shoulder and Mildred could see that it was nicely full, with the precious blue folder slightly sticking out between books and exercise books. Ethel patted everything neatly down into the bag and fastened the straps. ‘There you go!’ she said, handing it over, sounding really glad to have helped.

  ‘Thanks so much, Ethel,’ said Mildred. ‘This is such a great way to start a new term, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it just!’ said Ethel. ‘Come on, race you to school!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  y the time Ethel and Mildred had rearranged their belongings and launched themselves from a suitable cluster of branches, the morning was well under way and little knots of pupils could be seen converging on the school from all directions.

  ‘You don’t mind if I zoom on ahead, do you?’ asked Ethel. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that you are still a bit slower than me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ said Mildred cheerily. ‘Thanks for helping when I dropped everything.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Ethel, who shot off like a bullet and was out of sight in seconds.

  Mildred bobbed along slowly towards the school feeling delightfully light-hearted. She could hardly wait to see the class turn in their seats, gazing up at her with admiration as she read out her well-researched notes, then gave a demonstration of how the spell worked. Best of all, she imagined the expression on Miss Hardbroom’s face, unsure at first, then fascinated and finally deeply impressed as she realized how hard the worst witch in school had been working during the holidays and how much she had improved.

  The school bell began to clang in the distance and Mildred urged the broomstick on as fast as she dared, with Tabby yowling on the back.

  ‘Hang on, Tab,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Nearly there now. Gosh, I can hardly wait!’

  Mildred almost literally bumped into Maud and Enid, her two closest friends, as they approached the school, which rose up ahead of them in the most sinister way, like a cross between a castle and a top-security prison. Mildred looked upwards at the seemingly endless grey stone walls, which blotted out the sunny sky, and headed for the schoolyard wall.

  ‘Hey Mildred!’ yelled Maud, waving enthusiastically. ‘Over here.’

  ‘Hi, Milly!’ called Enid. ‘Here we are again.’

  ‘Great to see you,’ said Mildred, putting a protective hand behind her to keep Tabby firmly in place as they hovered down the wall on the other side and landed among the throng of pupils.

  All around there was a loud hum of voices chatting, laughing, calling out to friends and exchanging tales of the holidays.

  ‘So, what’s new?’ asked Mildred, sitting down on her suitcase and giving Tabby a calming cuddle.

  ‘I had a holiday job most of the time,’ said Enid. ‘Fixing handles on cauldrons at a cauldron-maker’s. It’s a bit like a blacksmith’s, but of course I wasn’t allowed to do any of the interesting work at the furnace – health and safety, you know. I just did the fiddly bits, fitting the handles – very fiddly on the smaller ones for schools. It was grim really – incredibly hot and hardly any pay – but I managed to save up a bit for the summer hols. What about you, Maud?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much,’ said Maud. ‘Just being at home and trying to come up with something good for the holiday project – NOT! Couldn’t think of anything stupendous, though. In the end I just rehashed an old spell from Year Three Spell Sessions. H.B.’s bound to notice where it really came from. How about you, Mil? What did you come up with?’

  Mildred beamed at her friends.

  ‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ she said mysteriously.

  ‘Oh, go on, Mil,’ said Enid. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do tell,’ agreed Maud.

  ‘Nope,’ laughed Mildred. ‘I’m unveiling my project to the world at the proper momen
t. That is, when we have the first potions lesson this afternoon. All I will say is – prepare to be astounded!’

  After that, neither Maud nor Enid could get another word on the subject out of their friend and soon they were busy unpacking their clothes and going down to breakfast, followed by assembly.

  Usually, they all met up in Mildred’s room for a quick chat before the first lesson, but Mildred was being uncharacteristically secretive. At one point, Maud opened Mildred’s door to see if she had five minutes to spare and found Mildred muttering into the cat basket. She obviously wasn’t chatting to Tabby, because the little striped cat was draped around her shoulders in his usual position, like a shawl. Mildred jumped up as soon as she heard the door open.

  ‘What?’ she asked, sounding flustered.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Maud. ‘I just wondered if you were free for a little natter. What’s in the basket, Mil?’

  ‘Basket?’ asked Mildred. ‘Oh – that basket. Nothing. Why?’

  ‘You were talking into the basket,’ said Maud, ‘and it obviously isn’t Tabby.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Mildred. ‘Er, yes, well, I was just practising the words to that new chant. I keep getting them muddled up.’

  Maud looked at Mildred, eyes slightly narrowed.

  ‘And there’s some extra stuff from home in the basket,’ Mildred blundered on. ‘I sort of used it as an extra suitcase for the journey – there’s the bell!’ she exclaimed, sounding heartily relieved. ‘See you in the art room, Maud. It’s pottery. What a brill way to start a new term.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  aud and Enid made their way up one of the winding staircases which led to the art room. ‘She’s up to something,’ said Maud anxiously.