Witch Week (UK) by Diana Wynne Jones

Author:Diana Wynne Jones [Jones, Diana Wynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061757518
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10

THE NEXT MORNING, Brian Wentworth did not get up. Simon threw a pillow at him as he lay there, but Brian did not stir.

“Wakey, wakey, Brian!” Simon said. “Get up, or I’ll strip your bed off.” When Brian still did not move, Simon advanced on his bed.

“Let him alone,” Charles said. “He was ill yesterday.”

“Anything you say, Charles,” said Simon. “Your word is my command.” And he pulled all the covers off Brian’s bed.

Brian was not in it. Instead, there was a line of three pillows, artfully overlapped to give the shape of a body. Everyone gathered around and stared. Ronald West bent down and looked under the bed—as if he thought Brian might be there—and came up holding a piece of paper.

“Here,” he said. “This must have come off with the bedclothes. Take a look!”

Simon snatched the paper from him. Everyone else craned and pushed to see it too. It was written in capital letters, in ordinary blue ballpoint, and it said: HA HA. I HAVE GOT BRIAN WENTWORTH IN MY POWER. SIGNED, THE WITCH.

The slightly tense look on Simon’s face gave way to righteous concern. He had known at once that Brian’s disappearance had nothing to do with him. “We’re not going to panic,” he said. “Someone get the master on duty.”

There was instant emergency. Voices jabbered, rumors roared. Charles fetched Mr. Crossley, since everyone else seemed too astonished to think. After that, Mr. Crossley and monitors came and went, asking everyone when they had last seen Brian. People from the other dormitories crowded in the doorway, calling comments. Everyone was very eager to say something, but nothing very useful came out. A lot of people had noticed Brian was pale and cross-eyed the day before. Somebody said he had been ill and gone to the matron. A number of other people said he had come back later and seemed very busy writing. Everyone swore Brian had gone to bed as usual the night before.

Long before Mr. Crossley had sorted even this much out, Charles was tiptoeing hastily away downstairs. He felt sick. Up to last night, he had supposed Brian was trying to get himself invalided out of school. Now he knew better. Brian had run away, just as he had said he would. And he had taken the advice Charles had given him in the middle of the night before and confused his trail. But what had given Brian the idea of blaming the witch? Could it have been the shoes, and the sight of Charles muttering over some hairs from Simon’s comb? Charles was fairly sure it was.

As Charles pushed through the boys in the corridor, he heard the words “witch” and “Nan Pilgrim” coming from all sides. Fine, as long as they went on blaming Nan. But would they? Charles took a look at his burned finger as he went down the stairs. The transparent juicy cushion of blister on it was fatter than ever. It hurts to be burned. Charles went the rest of the way down at a crazy gallop.

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