The Worst Witch to the Rescue (14 page)

‘What’s that?’ asked Miss Hardbroom, suddenly peering out of the window.

‘What’s
what
?’ asked Miss Cackle,
getting up reluctantly from her comfortable armchair.

‘Look,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘There’s a light flickering over there.’

‘Where, Miss Hardbroom?’ said Miss Cackle. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘Just outside the gates,’ said Miss Hardbroom. ‘It’s disappeared now – no, there it is, higher up. It looks like a giant firefly.’

‘We don’t
have
any giant fireflies, do we?’ asked Miss Cackle hopefully.

‘They don’t actually exist, Miss Cackle,’ said Miss Hardbroom witheringly. ‘I’d better go and check.’

‘Surely not, Miss Hardbroom!’ exclaimed Miss Cackle. ‘You mustn’t go out there on such a night. I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘It looks like a definite
something
to me,’ said Miss Hardbroom sternly. ‘It keeps disappearing and then reappearing several metres higher up. Definitely “something” enough to investigate.’

ildred was hovering her way very slowly and carefully up towards the top of the trees outside the school gates. She couldn’t tell which one was the hollow pine yet, but figured that she might be able to see it by its extra height when she reached the very top. She knew it was right in front of the gates, which was a help. The wind was especially ferocious this far up, getting stronger the higher she rose, and
the valiant broomstick kept lurching every time it was hit by a particularly strong gust or a cannon-burst of rain. Mildred’s unsecured cloak didn’t help, billowing like a sail or suddenly twisting above her like a faulty parachute.

Every now and then, she ducked behind the front row of trees and held on to a branch to have a rest, out of the full force of the storm. The trouble was that if you tried to hover behind the first row of trees, you were blown into the ones behind, which grew very close together. The best way to ascend was, unfortunately, out in the open, even though it was very difficult to keep your balance.

During one such rest, gasping to get her breath back, Mildred suddenly felt a glow of pride that she was able to control a broomstick in these freak conditions.

‘It’s funny what you can do when it’s
an emergency,’ she thought. ‘Better get going again before my luck runs out.’

‘Einstein!’ she called. ‘Einstein! Where are you?’ But the wind whisked her voice away like thistledown.

Einstein was trying very hard (and not succeeding) to pull himself together. His head, legs and tail were zooming in and out of his shell like an insane cuckoo clock and he was muttering to himself, attempting to take his mind off the fact that the tree was now making ominous deep creaking sounds.

When he saw the flickering light from Mildred’s broom outside the entrance to the hollow, he thought it was lightning and this was the very last straw. Yelling one last, desperate ‘HELP!’ he pulled himself back into the deepest depths of his shell and switched off.

‘Einstein?!’ yelled Mildred, just catching the ‘Help!’ above the lashing rain. ‘Where are you?’

Mildred wobbled her way towards the place where she thought the voice had come from and the light from the lantern caught the edge of the hollow. She few to the entrance and hung on to the scrubby branches so that the lantern lit up the inside of the hollow and Einstein’s closed-up shell.

‘It’s all right, Einstein!’ Mildred exclaimed. ‘I’m here! I’ll have to button you inside my cardigan so you don’t fall. Don’t be scared. I’ll hold you very tightly. I won’t let you fall.’

Steadying herself by clutching the edge of the hollow with one hand, she gently lifted the terrified tortoise out with the other and peered into the deep cave-like area at the front of his shell, where he had retracted himself so far that he was invisible.

‘Say something, Einsy,’ she said affectionately, buttoning him tightly inside her cardigan in case the exhausted broomstick lurched in the wind and threw them both off. ‘You’re safe now. I’ll have you down in a jiffy. We’ll be back in the warm before you know it.’

oing down was so much more pleasant than going up, as the wind diminished in strength towards the forest floor. Mildred breathed a sigh of relief when her feet bounced on the grass and she could finally stand upright again, although she felt slightly unsteady rather like the feeling you have when you’ve been on a boat for a long time and finally reach land.

‘Come on, Einstein,’ she said, peering down the front of her cardigan. ‘Speak to me! You’re OK now, we’re on planet earth again. Isn’t this just my luck. The best broomstick handling I’ve ever done and no one to witness it.’

‘Just one witness, Mildred Hubble,’ said the most unwelcome voice that Mildred could possibly hear.

‘Miss Hardbroom!’ exclaimed Mildred, jumping right off her feet in horrified surprise as she saw her form mistress, wrapped in a sodden cloak standing close behind her, holding up a lantern. ‘Oh, Miss Hardbroom, I know this looks bad, but –’