Beware! by R.L. Stine

Author:R.L. Stine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

THE WITCHES

by Roald Dahl

THE MEETING

Now that the Manager had gone, I was not particularly alarmed. What better than to be imprisoned in a room full of these splendid ladies. If I ever got talking to them, I might even suggest that they come and do a bit of cruelty-to-children-preventing at my school. We could certainly use them there.

In they came, talking their heads off as women always do when you get a whole bunch of them together. They began milling around and choosing their seats, and there was a whole lot of stuff like, “Come and sit next to me, Millie dear,” and “Oh, hel-lo, Beatrice! I haven’t seen you since the last meeting! What an adorable dress you have on!”

I decided to stay where I was and let them get on with their meeting while I got on with my mouse training, but I watched them for a while longer through the crack in the screen, waiting for them to settle down. How many were there? I guessed about two hundred. The back rows filled up first. They all seemed to want to sit as far back from the platform as possible.

In the middle of the back row there was a lady wearing a tiny green hat who kept scratching the nape of her neck. She couldn’t leave it alone. It fascinated me the way her fingers kept scratching away at the hair on the back of her neck. Had she known somebody was watching her from behind, I’m sure she would have been embarrassed. I wondered if she had dandruff. All of a sudden I noticed that the lady next to her was doing the same thing!

And the next one!

And the next!

The whole lot of them were doing it. They were all scratching away like mad at the hair on the backs of their necks!

Did they have fleas in their hair?

More likely it was nits.

A boy at school called Ashton had had nits in his hair last term and the matron had made him dip his whole head in turpentine. It killed the nits all right, but it nearly killed Ashton as well. Half the skin came way from his scalp.

I began to be fascinated by these hair-scratching ladies. It is always funny when you catch someone doing something coarse and she thinks no one is looking. Nose picking, for example, or scratching her bottom. Hair scratching is very nearly as unattractive, especially if it goes on and on.

I decided it had to be nits.

Then the most astonishing thing happened. I saw one lady pushing her fingers up underneath the hair on her head, and the hair, the entire head of hair, lifted upward all in one piece, and the hand slid underneath the hair and went on scratching!

She was wearing a wig! She was also wearing gloves! I glanced swiftly around at the rest of the now seated audience. Every one of them was wearing gloves!

My blood turned to ice. I began to shake all over. I glanced frantically behind me for a back door to escape through.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.