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Katie, the ordinary witch, loses her spell book at school. This is bad enough, but then somebody starts using her spells to play tricks. Of course when magic happens at school, it’s only natural that people blame Katie. She must become a detective and discover who the theif is before things go too far.
Read by Natasha. Story by Bertie. Duration 19.47.
Katie had loads and loads of books. Books about stories, books about interesting places, books about famous people in history, books about weird but true facts, books about – just about anything you can think of. But the most important one of all was a special secret book that she had written herself. It was her spell book. And every time she learned a new piece of magic, that was where she wrote it down.
Normally, Katie kept her spell book at home and that was it stayed.
But just once, she took it to school to show it to her friend Isis. She let Isis have a very quick look, so that she could see how all her spells were written in beautiful letters, and how she drew pictures to explain the difficult parts. And then, as the geography class was about to begin, she quickly slipped the book into her bag with her other books. Normally she would have made all the writing inside it invisible, but it was against the rules to do magic at school, and she didn’t want anyone to hear her saying the invisible spell.
At exactly 12 o clock, the school bell rang six times. That meant it was a fire drill , and everyone had to go outside into the playground with running or panicking, and line up in their classes. Katie took her bag and started to walk quickly to the door. Her teacher, Miss Vile, said:
“Katie. Don’t run and leave your bag. It is not the procedure to take anything with you.”
And as Katie really, really didn’t want to leave the bag behind, she pleaded,
“But Please Miss Vile..”
“Katie. Answering back is holding everyone up and putting them in danger. Just put the bag back and follow the procedure.”
And although Katie thought it was a waste of time to put her bag back on the desk, she did as she was told.
There wasn’t really a fire. It was just a practice. And soon everyone allowed back inside to continue their lessons. It was only later that evening, when Katie got home and took out all her books, that she realised that the most important one of all was missing.
At first she couldn’t quite believe it. She looked through all her books again and again. But no. The spell book wasn’t among them. And then she thought back through he day.
“The Fire Drill!” she said out aloud to herself. “That was the only time the bag was out of my sight. Somebody must have stolen my book !”
And although she was very worried, she didn’t tell her mother because she knew she would be cross. Instead she said to hesself.
“I’ll just have to be a detective and discover who took it !”
Later that day, the whole class had to do a spelling test. Not a magic spelling test, but the ordinary sort where you have to write down tricky words. At the end, the children had to swap books with their neighbour and mark each others’ tests. Katie marked Isis’s book. And do you know what? She scored 10 out of 10.
And Katie thought: “Nobody could know how to spell all of those horrible words. She must have cheated with magic. Isis must have stolen my spell book !”
And as soon as the bell rang for the end of class she turned to Isis and demanded:
“Alright. Hand it over!”
“Hand over what?”
“You know perfectly well what. My spell book. You stole it yesterday during the fire drill !”
And Isis looked like she was going to cry. “katie. How could you say such a nasty thing. I”m your friend. And besides, I left for the drill before you and came back after you. So if anyone stole your book. It wasn’t me.”
And Katie remembered that it was true. Isis had left before her, and come back after her, so it couldn’t have been her that stole her book.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I’m sorry I accused you. But who could have taken my book?”
“I know who,” said Isis. “It was Isabelle. When you were showing me your book, she was kind of hovering around, pretending not to be interested. But she’s a nosy parker and she was listening in. She’s the one who took your book. I bet.”
Katie and Isis decided not to accuse Isabelle right away, because then she would be on her guard. Instead they watched her closely, to see if she gave herself away.
The very next day, Isis came into class very excitedly and whispered into Katie’s ear.
“Have you seen Isabelle yet? She’s smiling all over her criminal little face. Mrs. Hepworth has said that she can go on holiday two weeks during term time. Her Dad is going to California for his work, and he’s going to take the family with him to see Disney Land. Mrs. Hepworth never lets anyone take time off school. Isabelle must have put a spell on her.”
And Katie was sure that her friend was right. But then it turned out that it was all a mistake. Isabelle’s Dad had promised to take her to Disneland, but he hadn’t asked Mrs. Hepworth, who was the head teacher. And when he did ask her, she said “No. Not under any circumstances can Mickey Mouse be more important than Mathematics.” And Isabelle didn’t go to Disney land with her family. So it couldn’t have been Isabelle who stole the spell book.
And then some strange things started to happen around school. Mr. Cotton liked to put his gloves on the table. One time when he turned his back to write on the WhiteBoard, the glove stared to walk across the table on two fingers. When he turned round it flopped down again. The whole class started laughing, and Mr. Cotten said:
“All right. Will somebody let me in on the big joke?”
And Moyra said: “Katie did a spell!”
And Katie would have been in big trouble. Only Mr. Cotton was nice and didn’t tell Mrs. Hepworth.
And another time, when Mr. Corneau was teaching French, a marker pen drew funny faces on the white board behind his back. Everyone laughed again. But fortunately he was too confused to understand what had happened, because he didn’t speak very much English, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t have believed it.
Somebody was using Katie’s spells to play pranks. And Katie was extremely cross about it.
For a while she suspected Jemma, because she won a poetry competition and was invited onto TV to read her poem. But then it turned out that she had written her winning verse long before the spell book was went missing, and Katie understood that she hadn’t composed it by magic, but by skill.
And then Isis Suspected Paul because he suddenly grew taller and became quite good looking. But Katie thought it couldn’t be him, because he was too nice.
And then something serious happened. It was the evening of the school play, and the children, parents and school governors packed into the hall to watch it. Mr Appleton had been rehearsing with the drama society for weeks and weeks. Some of the teachers said it was the best thing the school had ever done. It was called Romeo and Juliet. And when they got to the famous part where Juliet stands on a balcony – in this case a stepladder – and says:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo replied:
“I’m here you silly bat. Have you gone blind or what?
That wasn’t anything like the right line. But Juliet carried on:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
What’s in a name? That which we call a sock
By any other word would pong like your feet
And Romeo said
What’s up Juliet? You weren’t supposed to say that.
And Mr. Appleton had to jump up on stage. And Juliet fell off her stepladder. And generally the evening was the biggest disaster in the whole history of the school.
Romeo and Juliet were played by Paul and Jemma. And normally they would have been in big big trouble. Like expelled from school type of trouble. But both of them swore that they didn’t mean to say those words. And Mrs. Hepworth believed them because they were both star pupils and always very well behaved. She thought that somebody had put a spell on them. And she suspected that that person was Katie. Because, you see, Katie was the only witch in school that she knew about.
Of course Katie understood right away that she was the prime suspect. She worked up all her courage and went to see Mrs. Hepworth in her study.
The headmistress said: “So. You have come to confess.” And she said it with such certainty that for a moment Katie felt guilty even though she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“No,” she said. “Truly, Honestly, I’m totally innocent. Somebody has stolen my spell book and is using it ! ”
Mrs. Hepworth did know whether or not to believe her pleas.
“Well Katie. I hope you are not telling lies,” she said. ” Because I shall find out the truth.”
And this is how she got to the bottom of the matter. Katie’s class was looking forward to a special treat at school. The Animal Man was coming with his traveling zoo. He was bringing rabbits, and guinea pigs, harmless snakes, big spiders, and colorful birds, and the children would be allowed to touch them and pick them up.
Unexpectedly, Mrs. Hepworth turned up in place of their usual teacher. Under her arm she held a file on which was written.
“Questions and Answers.” She told the class:
“We are going to do a test. And if anyone gets less than seven out of ten they won’t go be seeing the animal man tomorrow. Instead they will stay in with me and do mathematical problems.”
And the whole class felt gloomy, because this was a nasty surprise.
Things got worse. The questions were really hard and quite random. Like,
“What is the capital of Mongolia?”
And “Let ABC and DEF be two triangles in which angles B and C are equal respectively to angles E and F; If AB is not equal to DE, then one of them is greater?”
And
“Who was the seventh president of the United States of America?”
Katie did not know the answer to a single question. She looked at Isis. She could see her pen hovering above the paper.
“Katie,” said Mrs. Hepworth. “Stop copying your friend.”
And Katie thought: “What’s the use copying Isis? She’s as stumped as I am.”
At the end of the text, Mrs. Hepworth collected all the papers and made everyone read quietly while she did the marking.
At the end of the lesson, Isis asked. “Please Mrs. Hepworth. Did anyone past the test?” And Mrs. Hepworth gave a reply that nobody understood. She said:
“Which is the wicked witch that wished the wicked wish? Soon we shall find out.”
When she was gone, Isabelle was saying to her friends: “It’s all Katie’s fault. We’re being punished because she put a spell on the school play.”
And several people said. “Yeah. Katie, you should stop doing spells.”
As Katie was about to go home later that day, Mrs. Hepworth caught up with her in the corridor and asked her to step into her study.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
And Katie saw that on the head teacher’s desk was something very precious. It was her book of spells.
“I promise I haven’t looked at any of your spells,” said Mrs. Hepworth. and then she looked a bit guilty because head teachers aren’t supposed to tell fibs. “well just a little peak,” she admitted.
She handed the book to Katie.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hepworth,” said Katie. But how….?”
And Mrs. Hepworth explained.
“The test I set today wasn’t an ordinary one. It was a witch test. A certain somebody answered all the questions. And that certain somebody used magic spells: your magic spells which he or she stole.”
“But isn’t that unfair?” asked Katie. “What if that person was just brilliant and knew all the answers?”
The headmistress tapped her nose and her lips formed a smug smile:
“You see they didn’t give the right answers. They gave the wrong answers. But not just any old wrong answers. They wrote down the very same wrong answers that were in my file. And the only way they could have seen what I had in my file was by magic.”
And Katie understood that `Mrs. Hepworth had played a very clever trick. Although she wouldn’t say who the “certain somebody” was, Katie waited to see who got expelled. But in fact, nobody did. Because Mrs. Hepworth thought that if the school governors learned about her special test, they might accuse her of going on a witch hunt, and witch hunts are supposed to be wrong in this day and age. And so the certain somebody went unpunished. But Mrs. Hepworth knew who that person was, and she was watching them.
And that’s the story of the Witch Who Lost her Spells.
And Bertie says he hopes that you never lose anything important. And if you do, he hopes you find it again with out any resort to magic.
And there are loads more stories about Katie at Storynory.com. Stories like: The Witch Who Got into Trouble at School and The Valentine Witch. And of course we have stories on just about every subject. So until next time….
Text Copyright Hugh Fraser 2009
86 Comments
love it.
I’m so glad that one of my favorite character in this story is come back! I hope Bertie will remember that Katie is one of my favorite character! Keep in touch! That’s ecstatic!
Emma~
I am 1st!
AGAIN! 
cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
thank u i love new storys coooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!
o ya and the time is not right
Hi Rachel, glad you like the story. The time is set to London time.
Hi Hannah, many thanks ! Sorry you can’t always see when somebody has commented before, if I haven’t approved the comment yet.
Hello Emma, yes, I’ll remember that Katie is one of your favourites ! Thanks.
NICE AND LOVELY
That’s nice strory!
^_^
this story is really good but on the next one can u tell us how it is
i love storynory and new sories
Dear Rachel, Natasha has already made me promise that the next Katie story will reveal who it was.
it another nice story. congratulations!!!
here’s a fake bertie!!!!
!!! Guard’s!!!!! Arest
them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey there, have you hered this song?
somtimes I walk a little faster in the school hallway just to get next to you
Some days I spend a little extra time in the morning just to impress you
Guess you don’t know this guess you don’t know me Why ya not saying it what’ya messing
In the outside shadin’ away In the inside dying to say….
If anyone knows this song’s title, please comment the answer.
Bye~~
Dear Hannah Montana, thanks for the nice song. I hadn’t heard that before.
Thanks Adem
Thank you Natasha for this a wonderful magical story and hopfully we will get more as you always do.
best regards
Ali
Dear Hannah Montana, i know that song. It’s “Rockstar Lyrics by Miley Cyrus”
I heard that song on this month!
I hope it’s right!
Emma~
sweet
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet
Dear Ali, Many thanks. There will always be more stories !
Emma, that’s right~!
Visit me on my site(You’ll be happy you did!)
Dear Hannah Montana, yay!!
Okay! I wish i be Hannah Montana’s biggest fan in the world…
Emma~
SO Good Thank you to hear
weird i went to Disneyland California and asked for Katie.
i love this story! It is great! Keep up the work!
Dear Cattien, you probably right but there are alot ‘Katie’ in the world (Mostly in USA).
Yup, I saw other Katie, too. Also, she’s was my classroom last year but she’s not witch. :]
Princess Emma,
Please go check Gladys and the chix reunited. I have wrote a letter and i want you to read it.
Lily
I’m going to look
for more of Katie’s stories!
who did it
dear spring,
there are more katie
storys in the
orignal stories.
It’s really a very nice story
I enjoyed reading it
bertie have you been in a band please reply
It’s very interesting.
I like it.
wow i love this story
whodunnit?
hi evry one this is a cool story
Dear Flora, I was in a band long ago.
LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~:0
Nice dude! It rocks to the max!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iloooooooooooooooooooooove it so much icould just grab aaaaaaaaall of your stories
i hope you write the next one soon
Dear Bertie,
I really love storynory. i listen to the new stories every night before i go to bed. i especially love this one. The Katie stories are my favorites. I really hope that next time we get to find out who stole Katie’s spell book!
yours truly,
Andi
P.S i hope you get turned back into a prince soon so you can marry Beatrice.
Can we have a new gladys story soon? It’s been quite a while since we had one.
Please reply.
Loyal fan,
Michelle^^
Thank you Andi and others.. The answer to the mystery should be with us soon, but I’m sorry, hot this week.
Dear Michelle, I’m conscious that we are behind with the chiX. Thanks for your message.
Bertie, you said hot instead of not.
I WANT A NEW GLADYS STORY!!!!!
DON’T DELAY! MAKE! ONE! NOW!!! THIS MINUTE! SCRAM! MOVE IT! WRITE!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Michelle, It’s nice that you want the new Gladys. We’ve currently got two pressing commitments. One is the next Gladys, the other is to tell people who stole Katie’s spells. We are recording on Monday. We’ll probably have one of those two stories ready by Monday night here in London, or at worst, Tuesday morning. This is the fullest answer I can give right now. But keep hanging on !
wow!!! wonderfull story,i am completely enchanted.
i cannot wait until the next Katie story!keep up the great work!!!!!!i love storynory!
that was a great story. thanks natasha for lovely reading
Hello, Bertie
This, is just a FABULOUS story!!
Bertie, how,how, how DO you write these storys?
Michelle^^~
P.S. I am planning to enter a writing contest soon. Have any tips? Ideas? ANYTHING to help me with this?
P.S. Please, oh pretty please, reply to this. It WILL be a great help to me if you answer my P.S.
i love this story and a love katie
Bertie, REPLY! Please!
yo bertie
Hi Michelle – the follow up to The Witch Who Lost her Spells is written, it’s being recorded today, and I’m going to try and get it on the site by evening London time today, Monday.
Thank you very very very much for this story. I really like it.
Thank you once again.
i know the song it’s rockstar
miley your the best singer in the world iam a singer too but your way better than me.buytheway i love the climb my class is going to present it so which me good luck
katie i love you can you please help in a way
hello this is bushra omg i totally love this story for now from me bushra bye bye
I love it
Goooooooooooooooooood
thats a nice one
you are a good storyteller
Dear Saeha Many thanks. I’m really glad you like the Katie the Witch stories.
wow that’s long!:(:);):.(
this story was awesome
what a story *****
AWSOME AWSOME AWSOME !!!!!!!!!!!
Will you please write more about her
spell book ?????? It was very interesting !!!!!!! I am a bit upset for
Isabelle !!!!
Will you considor it !!!!
Thanks
Cutie Pie
FABULASE Story !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Honey Girl there will be more Katie stories. Glad you like this one !
good. like it
When will the new Katie story going to be out?
P.S. Did you notice vile is a real word?
P.S. Did you also notice vile has the same letters as evil?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ANSWER THE COMMENT ABOVE!!!!!
Hi Cattien, I hadn’t noticed that Evil and Vile have the same letters – but well spotted – you would be good at crosswords. I did realise that Vile was a real word though. Thanks !
it so fun i relly like it so far i think it is so cool
i like this sorty and itis so nice i love it
great story its one that when im older
i’ll tell my chrildren
i THINK IT WAS GOOD
kaity is a bit differant but it is not her foult ROCK ON