The Witch Who Lost Her Spells

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 thief is before things go too far.

This is a two-part story. Part Two is Here

Story by Bertie
Illustration by Bertie with Midjourney
Read by Natasha

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 learnt a new piece of magic, that was where she wrote it down.
Normally, Katie kept her spell book at home and that was where it stayed.

But just once, she took it to school to show 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 without 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 was allowed back inside to continue with 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 the day.

“The Fire Drill!” she said out loud 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 herself:

“I’ll just have to be a detective and discover who took it!”

The next 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:

“All right. 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 for 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 Disneyland. 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 Disneyland, 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 Disneyland 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 white board, the glove started to walk across the table on two fingers. When he turned round it flopped down again. The whole class started laughing, and Mr Cotton 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 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 head teacher 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 not 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 travelling zoo. He was bringing rabbits, and guinea pigs, harmless snakes, big spiders, and colourful 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 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 which 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 test, Mrs Hepworth collected all the papers and made everyone read quietly while she did the marking.

When the lesson was over, Isis asked: “Please Mrs Hepworth. Did anyone pass 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 head teacher 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 learnt 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.