(Josie Sayz: This is the sixth story, from mine and my friends ‘AMSND’ series that we wrote when we was 13 years old. This story actually was not written by me, but by the girl in the stories who goes my “Shada”. Although this is not my story, it follows in the series of the ‘AMSND’ stories, so I felt like I should include it. This story was based on Shakeapeeare’s Hamlet.
Although each story is a stand alone piece, you can find the rest of the AMSND
series here:
1) A Magic School’s New Dream: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/ansnd-1-magic-schools-new-dream.html
2) The War of Crooked Burrow School: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-2-war-of-crooked-burrow-school.html
3) Six Se’enarians Go To Sea: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-3-six-senerians-go-to-sea.html
4) The Arrival of a New Headmistress: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-4-arrival-of-new-headmistress.html
5) The Day Before the Last (Day of Term):
https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/amsnd-5-day-before-last-day-of-term.html .)
The Story of Crooked Burrow School
By Shada
It was nearly summer, and a light breeze blew around Crooked Burrow School. School had finished, but there were still a lot of people hanging about. Most of them were in the girl’s quad, having just come out of an Arian meeting, and were practising a bit of magic. Bert was standing on a picnic table, levitating a spoon. Ariel, Fred and Robin were watching him. Some of the others were the opposite side of the quad, waiting for Gertrude to come back with some Frandadis fruits so they could mix a confusion potion to put in their teacher’s tea or coffee tomorrow morning at breakfast, to make them forget to give them homework. Everyone was happy, because the Year Nines’ and Tens’ exams were over. Everyone that is except one person. Ms. Harris stood looking out at them all from the window of her classroom. She was thinking. She had been looking out of her classroom window a lot recently, for no apparent reason. She felt that there was something wrong. Suddenly, she noticed a bird swooping down to land in one of the trees in the quad. It was black and a bit bigger than a blackbird. Then it looked towards Ms. Harris. It called “tchak!” and flew off. Ms. Harris shook herself. “I must be going mad,” she said to herself. “Was it me – or do I know that bird?”
To forget about the bird she concentrated on getting her stuff ready to take to her car. She put her coat on, dumped her box outside her door and turned to lock the classroom. Through the window in the door she could see the reflection of the other side of the classroom. She saw the bird fly past the trees, and had a vague memory. She was flying – flying? – through the night air, with the bird just in front of her. She felt angry, but excited. At last something would belong to her… Then she shook herself again, and finished locking the door. She turned back around, picked up her box and walked down the corridor to go through the main entrance and out to her car. The bird was sitting on the roof of her car. “Shoo!” she cried, and waved her spare arm (the arm that wasn’t carrying her box) about. But it stayed there, preening its feathers. “Oh well,” she thought. “It will fly off when I start the engine.”
She was driving down the main road when she saw someone pointing at her car and laughing. She put her hand out of the window, reached up to the roof and felt about for the bird to shoo it away. That didn’t work; instead the bird pecked her. So she caught one of its legs, and pulled the bird down. The bird squawked and flapped and tried to get away and Ms. Harris nearly drove into a lamppost but she pressed the button to wind the window up with her elbow and carried on driving, putting the bird on the passenger seat where it sat there, looking at her. “Quit looking at me,” she snapped, and it looked down at its feet. “There’s something strange about you,” she said to it. “I have a funny feeling you understand me.”
“Of course I understand you,” it answered. “I’m your jackdaw, Jack. Don’t you remember me?”
By now Ms. Harris was home and had parked the car. She stared at the bird in disbelief. “But you’re a bird!” she exclaimed. “You can’t talk!” She shook herself. “What’s wrong with me? I'm talking to a bird. Teaching must be making me stressed.”
Jack shook his head. “What did they do to you?”
“Who? What are you talking about? Why are you even talking?”
“So many questions, so little time,” Jack sighed. “Okay, get your stuff and come inside.”
“A bird – inviting me into my own home and telling me what to do!” Ms. Harris gasped.
“Yes and you’d better believe it. We need to get your memories back, so we can continue with our plans.”
“What plans?”
“Why, our plans for world domination of course!”
Suddenly, in her mind’s eye Ms. Harris saw an old man with a long grey beard laughing evilly, and speaking in a slow, accented voice. He was saying, “Now all we need is one of the Frandadis fruits, and we will finally have our revenge! We will overthrow everyone, and take over the world!”
“Aaagh!” she screamed. “What was that?”
“What was what?” asked Jack, puzzled.
“Oh, nothing,” Ms. Harris replied.
Then Jack said excitedly, “It must have been a memory, a flashback! What exactly happened?”
“It was an old man talking about taking over the world!” Ms. Harris replied in a scared voice.
“Oh, now that must have been Albertus. Good, good, you still have one or two memories left.”
It was the next day and Ms. Harris was sitting at a computer at lunchtime in the EF, the school library, looking at all the information about the staff of Crooked Burrow School that she could get. Between her and Jack they had decided that it was probably one of the teachers who controlled the school’s magic, and they wanted to find out who it was, and if they could help Ms. Harris to get her memories back. As she was looking through Mr. Cartwheel’s information she spotted the fact that he graduated in “Use of Magic in the World Today” and when she looked him up on the Internet she found a family tree. According to it, Mr. Cartwheel was descended from Albertus, the Great (but evil) Magician. Ms. Harris knew what to do now. She closed everything on the computer down, logged herself off and headed towards the Staffroom where Mr. Cartwheel would probably be, talking to the other English teachers. She found him there, and soon they got chatting about magic. Ms. Harris found out that Mr. Cartwheel didn’t know much about memory spells. Just before she went back to teach her lesson (lunch was about to end) Mr. Cartwheel asked if she’d like to come over to his house to look at a specific magic book that might have something about memory spells in it. At first she said no, but then she changed her mind. It would be an excellent opportunity to get to know Mr. Cartwheel better (she thought he was kind of cute). And she might just find out something important from the magic book, so she could get her memories back.
“Ah, here it is,” said Mr. Cartwheel, taking an old, large book down from off his bookcase and blowing the dust off. It was now four o’ clock and they were in Mr. Cartwheel’s front room where he kept all his books. Mr. Cartwheel opened the book to the front page and scanned the contents. “Er…I think this page would help,” he suggested, turning to it. They quickly read the page together. The first paragraph read:
“The memory spells that are performed on people to erase certain memories can be overcome by the person having done the memory spell having also kept the memories in a small jar or bottle, as it reads in the instructions for that spell. They then take the memories from the container, and perform the spell to place the memories back into the person’s mind. There may however be after-effects, which can be controlled in the following ways:”
It then listed the ways in which after-effects could be controlled. Mr. Cartwheel snapped the book shut. “There,” he said. “Have you got any ideas who may have done this?”
“Well, not exactly. I was hoping you might be able to tell me. I have a feeling it may have been a teacher, at the school.”
“Hmmm,” pondered Mr. Cartwheel. “Well the teachers don’t really have much of a say as to what happens to do with the magic at our school.”
“Really?” asked Ms. Harris in surprise.
“Of course. It’s the students who decide what happens with the magic. I must say they’re very responsible about it. We’ve haven’t had many instances of students misusing magic. If there are any they’re only minor ones, like accidents with the magic juices, spells going wrong and doing the opposite, that kind of thing. Easily put back to normal.”
“I see,” said Ms. Harris.
“And it seems to give them a pride for school, and a sense of belonging, to be able to do some magic no matter how little. We don’t teach magic as a formal lesson here, like some schools do, instead allowing the students to experiment for themselves, rather like a cooking lesson in D.T. They have an after-school club, which happens twice a week, and they call themselves “Arians”. There’s a different type of “Arian” for each year – “Se’enarians” are in Year Seven, “Itarians” are in Year Eight, “Ninarians” are in Year Nine, “Tenarians” are in Year Ten and “Ellarians” are in Year Eleven. I think that’s right anyway. And then they have sort of leaders of each year – for example in Year Seven there’s the Best Se’enarian and Second-Best Se’enarian.”
“It all sounds fascinating,” Ms. Harris remarked, sounding bored.
Mr. Cartwheel didn’t notice that she sounded bored. “Yes it is, isn’t it,” he agreed and went on to tell her about some stories about magic he’d heard about, including one about a year ago just before a performance of “Romeo and Juliet”, when the face of the person playing Romeo had been deformed by accident.
Eventually when he had finished Ms. Harris got round to asking “And so who might be the person, the student, in charge of magic at school?”
“Oh, well you see I’m not quite sure. Mr. Foote might know better, you know, the Science teacher. He deals with the magic fruit deliveries direct from Frandadis, and with handing them out to the students. He would probably know who they’ve appointed as the Best Ellarian. The Best Ellarian is normally the one who is “in charge” of magic as you might say. I’m sorry I can’t help you further.”
“Oh that’s okay. I’m sure you have better things to do, so I’ll be off now,” Ms. Harris said as she walked towards the front door, which opened before she got there. Caleb walked in, smiling. Then he saw Ms. Harris and the smile disappeared. Mr. Cartwheel sighed. He knew what was coming next, so he said goodbye to Ms. Harris and told Caleb to come to talk to him in the living room.
“WHAT was she doing here?” asked Caleb furiously after she had gone.
“She just wanted to look at a magic book, to find out something about memories.”
“Was that how it started with you and Miss McBuff too?”
“There was never any “me and Miss McBuff”.”
“Yes there was. And look where she ended up – in jail.”
Mr. Cartwheel ignored the last bit. “No there was not. She was just a friend. And anyway it doesn’t matter if there was. Your mother and I are divorced. I can talk to anyone I want. I don’t tell you off about Gertrude, although I don’t always approve of you staying so late at school with her. I’m sure her parents would prefer her to be home, revising for her GCSEs that she’s doing soon.”
“We only stay late at school because of Arian meetings and stuff. We need to stay behind. You know we do. The others rely on us.”
“Hmmm, well. You leave me alone about Miss McBuff, Ms. Harris, and anyone else for that matter, and I’ll leave you alone about Gertrude and staying late at school.”
Caleb frowned. “Isn’t that kind of blackmail?”
“Not really. Well I’ve got a lot of marking to do, so off you go to do your homework.”
“Aww Dad, do I have to?”
“Yes,” Mr. Cartwheel replied firmly.
Ms. Harris had been secretly listening in through the letterbox. She smiled to herself, and walked away to go to her house.
A few days later Mr. Cartwheel was talking to Ms. Harris again at lunchtime in the Staffroom. They had become good friends and were always seen talking to each other, which really annoyed Caleb. “So, have you spoken to Mr. Foote yet?” Mr. Cartwheel asked Ms. Harris.
“No, not yet. I was hoping you could introduce me, because I don’t really know him that well,” Ms. Harris explained.
“Okay,” Mr. Cartwheel replied. “Look, there he is now. Mr. Foote,” he called. Mr. Foote came over from by the photocopier where he had been photocopying some Science exam papers for his GCSE classes.
“Yes, Mr. Cartwheel. What can I do for you?” Mr. Foote asked.
“This here is Ms. Harris, and she would like to ask you some questions about the magic system here.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Mr. Foote said politely. “What sort of questions?”
“Well, for a start I would like to know which student is in charge of magic here,” Ms. Harris began.
“Well I don’t really know. I just deal with their magic fruits. But you could always ask Caleb.”
“Who?” Ms. Harris asked innocently, although she knew who he was really, because of listening in to Mr. Cartwheel’s conversation with him a few days ago.
“Oh, Caleb is Mr. Cartwheel’s son. Caleb’s a Ninarian – that’s a person in Year Nine who–”
“I know what a Ninarian is,” Ms. Harris interrupted. “I must say I do think this magic system here is a bit laid-back, with not even the teachers knowing what the students are doing!”
“Well I quite agree, but the Head teacher doesn’t, and that’s what matters. So I keep my nose out,” Mr. Foote explained, shrugging.
“Hmmm. But maybe you should still check on them once in a while,” Ms. Harris replied, turning around and walking out of the Staffroom to go back to her lesson that she was teaching. She had Year Nines at the moment, and she taught Woody who was Caleb’s best friend, and who Caleb always waited for after his lesson of English had finished.
Her plan of speaking to Caleb didn’t work out quite as well as she’d planned, however. She was going to ask Caleb what he knew about memory spells, to try to get a confession out of him, but he told her that he didn’t know much about them and that he’d never performed one in his life. And he looked like he was telling the truth, and as she was a Drama teacher she could usually tell when people were lying. So she gave up on that, and thought of a new plan, using the information she’d found out from Caleb and Mr. Cartwheel’s conversation in their house a few days ago.
She had got Jack to find out where Caleb’s mother lived, and the next day she went to pay her a visit at about six o’ clock in the evening. She rang the bell and soon a nice-looking woman with long brown hair opened the door. “Hello,” Ms. Harris said. “I’m Ms. Harris, a teacher at Crooked Burrow School. Are you the mother of Caleb Cartwheel?”
“Yes,” Caleb’s Mum replied.
“I need to talk to you about your son,” Ms. Harris explained.
“What’s he done now?” Caleb’s Mum sighed.
“Well it’s quite serious I’m afraid,” Ms. Harris told her. “I suspect both him and Mr. Cartwheel to be involved in stealing my memories.”
“Oh, no! I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything like that!” Caleb’s Mum gasped.
“I have reason to believe they have,” Ms. Harris said firmly.
“I suppose you’d better come in,” Caleb’s Mum sighed, opening the door wider and allowing Ms. Harris to come in.
“Thank you,” she smiled. “I’m sorry to bother you like this, but it is a serious matter, and I’m wondering if you may have heard anything about this.”
“I don’t think so. Caleb’s always doing lots of stuff using magic. I always used to find it annoying, especially when he used to talk about magic with his Dad. They’d get carried away, and ignore me whenever I tried to talk to them.”
Ms. Harris looked at her sympathetically.
“So why do you think it’s Caleb?” Caleb’s Mum suddenly asked, sharply.
“Well for a start he is one of the best at magic in the whole school, and would have no problem with performing the memory spell, and when I asked him about it he looked very guilty, but wouldn’t tell me anything, and then he ran off. I asked Mr. Cartwheel about it too and he wouldn’t look me in the eye when he said he didn’t know anything about memory spells,” lied Ms. Harris.
“And how do you know you’ve actually lost your memory? You might just be forgetful.”
Ms. Harris sighed. “I definitely have lost certain memories. One of my closest friends recently asked me why I couldn’t remember an event that had definitely happened. I had absolutely no recollection of it, although we checked in my diary and found out it had happened. I’m also getting flashbacks of tiny parts of memories that I didn’t think I had, and that’s one of the symptoms of memories being stolen.”
“I see,” said Caleb’s Mum. “Well I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I’ve never heard Caleb talking about this, and I don’t know how you’d find out if he did it or not.”
“Why doesn’t anyone know anything about this?” screeched Ms. Harris, standing up and stretching her arms out. She was getting very frustrated with the whole thing. A violent wind swirled through the living room where they were. Jack, who had been sitting on the chimney pot, heard her shouting, and flew down the chimney to see what was going on. He saw Ms. Harris having a temper tantrum, and because she was a powerful witch a lot of bad things were happening accidentally, that is, Ms. Harris didn’t mean for them to happen. Books fell off a bookcase and flew everywhere. Caleb’s Mum was screaming hysterically. The light in the living room flickered and then went out.
“Stop it now!” Jack shouted. And Ms. Harris finally seemed to calm down. “Now turn the light back on.” She went to turn the light on. “And pick up all those books!” She bent over to pick them up and put them back on the shelves. Caleb’s Mum had stopped screaming, but was looking around for the person who was speaking. Then she spotted Jack.
“Aaargh! Get that bird out of here!” she shouted.
“Excuse me,” Jack said politely. “I just have to help my friend here.”
“You can speak?” she asked, and promptly fainted.
When Ms. Harris had finished putting the books back she and Jack discussed what to do with Caleb’s Mum. They knew they couldn’t leave her because she might tell someone, maybe Caleb or Mr. Cartwheel about what she had just told her, which of course were all lies. And she did not want anyone to know she was a liar. Not yet, at least. So Jack suggested making Caleb’s Mum forget their little meeting. But they hadn’t got a container to put the memory into. It was important to put the memory into a container, because if you didn’t it would go up into the atmosphere and go to destroy the ozone layer, which was very bad. Ms. Harris didn’t want the ozone layer destroyed, because then there would be no people for her to rule over, and she’d be dead too. But Jack told her there was an alternative to the spell. Instead she could will Caleb’s Mum to want to forget what had happened. This was different, because it was the person themselves’ choice to forget then, and Ms. Harris wouldn’t have to remove any memories. So Ms. Harris sat opposite Caleb’s Mum, trying to will her to forget what had happened. But the anger built up inside her and instead of gently persuading Caleb’s Mum to forget what had just been happening, a stab of rage entered into her mind. Caleb’s Mum crumpled to the floor, dead.
“What do we do now?” asked Ms. Harris, suddenly scared. A body was evidence.
“Let me think,” Jack said. “I’ve got it! We make it look like she killed herself.”
“What? Suicide?” Ms. Harris exclaimed. “That wouldn’t work – oh, yes it would,” she agreed. “But how?”
“Painkiller overdose,” Jack suggested.
The black hearse drew up in front of the cemetery, followed by a black limousine. Caleb and his grandparents (his Mum’s parents) got out of the limousine. He saw his best friend, Woody, in the distance and went over to talk to him.
“I can’t believe it,” Caleb said to Woody. “First she’s here, then she’s…gone.”
“Your Mum was so nice as well,” sighed Woody. “What made her do it?”
Caleb didn’t say anything for a while. Then he said, “Woody, I don’t think she killed herself. She was always going on about how scared she was of dying.”
“So, how else could she have died?” asked Woody, perplexed. “An empty box of painkillers was found by her body; doesn’t that suggest she wanted to commit suicide?”
“There’s another strange thing there,” Caleb pondered. “She didn’t like taking the normal painkillers; she just kept some for just in case. She didn’t like trying to swallow them.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“I know, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“So you’re suggesting,” Woody said slowly, “that she didn’t commit suicide, but someone else came and murdered her somehow and made it look like she had?”
“I don’t know. It sounds crazy. But no one wants their Mum to kill herself, so maybe I’m just making excuses. I don’t want to admit that I should have been a better son.”
“I’m sure you were a great son, Caleb,” Woody assured him. “Look, there’s Gertrude, talking to Ms. Harris. Let’s go say hi.”
“What’s she doing here?” Caleb asked in disgust.
“Who?” asked Woody.
“Ms. Harris of course. She’s evil.”
“How can you be so sure she’s evil? Just because her and your Dad are going out now.”
“I just know. She’s crafty, and always gets her own way. When my English teacher was away and made Ms. Harris do the marking she marked me down on my essay. I’m sure it was at least a B, and she gave me a D.” Woody laughed.
“It wasn’t funny,” moaned Caleb. They walked over to say hi to Gertrude. She was wearing a nice black dress, whereas Ms. Harris’ dress was almost see-through and her hat was really over-the-top with masses of feathers and beads.
“Hello boys,” beamed Ms. Harris. “What a lovely funeral! I know loads of people here. Look, there’s Mr. Wellington. I must go and speak to him, do excuse me.” Then she went off.
“Phew,” said Gertrude. “She talks too much.” Woody nodded.
“Gertrude, you know everyone says Mum killed herself…?” asked Caleb quietly.
“Yeah, my Mum did that too. It must have been because I was a naughty kid,” Gertrude smiled reminiscently.
“Oh, never mind,” said Caleb.
Later on at the funeral, Caleb was on his own, thinking. He was interrupted by a “Hello!” in his ear. He turned around to see who it was. It was Woody. “What’s up?” asked Woody. “You look really white, like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“It’s like I have,” replied Caleb. “Look.” He showed Woody a text he had just been sent. It was from his Mum’s mobile.
It read: “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s her fault – Ms. Harris. I think she killed me. But please don’t get yourself into trouble because of me. There’s something that I want you to do though – which is to see if you can find out if she did kill me, and also to split your Dad and her up somehow. I know I can trust you to do your best.”
“But…she’s dead!” exclaimed Woody. “How can she send texts?”
“I don’t know, but I want to get to the bottom of this. Either it’s true, it’s Mum’s ghost texting me, and she wants me to take revenge on Ms. Harris for her, or it’s someone playing a joke.”
“Not a very funny kind of joke,” Woody commented.
“No.”
“So, how are you going to go about finding out what’s happening?”
Caleb sighed. “I don’t know, Woody. How would you do it?”
“Hmmm,” thought Woody out loud. “I have Ms. Harris for English, so I could ask her some questions, casually, you know. Like ‘Isn’t it sad about Caleb’s Mum dying?’ and ‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’ and stuff like that. You never know, she might let something slip out.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Caleb said, and they went over to talk to Gertrude again.
The next day was Friday, and Caleb, Woody, Gertrude, Mr. Cartwheel, Ms. Harris, Mr. Wellington and everyone else who was at the funeral who belonged to Crooked Burrow School were now back at school. Caleb, Woody and Gertrude didn’t think this was fair, and said they needed more time at home to get over the death of Caleb’s Mum, but as usual the grown-ups got their own way. So everyone had to return to school. Caleb and Woody’s ‘plan’ was to be put into practice in the second lesson, as this was when they had English. They were discussing it in their favourite Music practice room when they were interrupted by an Itarian by the name of Shada. She knocked on the door and opened it. “Hi,” she said shyly, peering around the door. “I’m really sorry about your Mum, Caleb.”
“Thanks,” said Caleb. “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Shada blushed. “Erm…you live down the road that’s next to mine.”
“Yeah, I see you walking to school sometimes,” Caleb remembered.
“Aren’t you an Art?” Woody asked, looking suspiciously at Shada. “What are you doing up here in Music?”
“Leave her alone, Woody, can’t you see she’s just trying to be friendly?” Caleb frowned at Woody.
“Yes, but too friendly for my liking,” said a voice. “Run along, Shada. I’m sure you’ve got better places to be.”
“Actually no I haven’t,” huffed Shada turning around to face Gertrude. “But seeing as you’re here, I’ll find somewhere else.”
“What did you do that for?” asked Caleb when Shada had disappeared down the stairs towards her form room in Humanities.
Gertrude sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? She likes you, Caleb. You’d better watch out, she’ll be putting a love spell on you next.”
After English they had assembly in the Main Hall. Caleb walked into the Hall with Woody right behind him. As they sat down on the blue seats Caleb asked him, “So? Did you find out anything?”
“She behaved as normally as she normally does, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t do it,” replied Woody.
“Yeah…we’ll have to think of something else,” said Caleb.
But the Deputy Head, Mr. Wellington or Mr. Welly as all the students called him, was watching Caleb talking. “Right, you there! Stand up! Mr. Buttons, make sure he gets a C3!”
“I’m sorry, Caleb,” said Mr. Buttons, his Head-of-Year, who was standing by him. “But that’s a C3.”
“Oh, bother!” said Caleb as he stood up. “Me and Gertrude were going to start a new magic class next Tuesday.” It must be explained that the ‘C3s’ or detentions at Crooked Burrow School were done the next day, or two detention days (which were Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) after you received it. So Caleb would be doing his detention on the Tuesday of the following week, because the day you got the detention counted as a day as well.
“That’s it!” gasped Woody, earning him a detention too.
“What’s it?” asked Caleb in concern, as it must have been something very important for Woody to have risked himself detention for.
“You’ve got to learn extra protection magic, to protect you from Ms. Ha-…I mean Ms. Evil-person,” he quickly codenamed her. “And attacking magic, so you can defeat her, if she is actually the murderer.”
“Will you boys shut up? And you can sit down now,” bellowed Mr. Welly, because the teachers had finished their announcements, and it was time for the presentation part of the assembly. Today was Mr. Foote’s turn. He was a Science teacher, who everyone liked because he wasn’t very strict and taught in a fun way. Today Mr. Foote was talking on the subject of age. “Imagine…if you were old,” he whispered. Everyone was silent, so they could all hear him. “So old you could barely hear, or see, so old that you were always cold, so old you were bent almost double…or should be. Imagine…if you weren’t. Imagine if by the time in the future when you should be this old, they had invented an anti-ageing potion that meant if you drank it you would have eternal youth, and would live forever. Imagine what you could do with that. What would you do with that? Would you use it for good, or for bad? To help other people, or for your own selfish means? I wonder…” Then he went on to talk about good and bad people from the past, like Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler, and what they might have done if they had drunk an anti-ageing potion. This upset Caleb a bit, because if his Mum had drunk the potion before she had died if it had existed then she might not be dead right now. But it also made him think. Mr. Foote was good at making people think.
After the assembly Caleb and Woody went to their next lesson, Science. Caleb had Mr. Foote for his teacher. Woody was in a higher set for Science and really didn’t like his teacher who was boring most of the time. They only had one lesson of Science, and afterwards they had either Music or Art. Caleb and Woody, being in the same form had Music. At the end of Science, Caleb stayed behind to talk to Mr. Foote about the assembly, and also because Mr. Foote had asked him to stay behind. “Caleb…” he began. “My sincerest condolences about your mother. I knew her quite well, from Christmas parties and parent’s evenings. The thing I really want to ask you about is what do you know about her death?”
Caleb didn’t know what to say. Either Mr. Foote knew something suspicious about his mother’s death, or he was a spy of whoever had killed her.
“Well me and Woody find it very suspicious. We don’t think she committed suicide, because of various different reasons,” Caleb said, trying to choose his words carefully.
“I see,” said Mr. Foote thoughtfully. “But you don’t know how else she may have died?”
Caleb was silent.
“Maybe someone else murdered her. Someone who was jealous, perhaps? Or perhaps not,” Mr. Foote said quickly, seeing the expression on Caleb’s face of extreme confusion. He really didn’t know if he should trust Mr. Foote or not. “Well, let’s go up to Music then. That’s your next lesson, isn’t it?” he asked Caleb, who nodded. “I need to go and speak to Mr. Wye, so I hope you don’t mind if I come with you?” Caleb shook his head. They walked out of the Science classroom, and Mr. Foote locked the door behind him. Caleb saw that Woody was still waiting for him by their normal meeting place at the bottom of the Science stairs. So he went to walk up the stairs with him. Mr. Foote followed, talking to them both. “It’s Woody, isn’t it?” he asked Woody, who nodded. “I remember teaching you for the first few weeks in Year Seven.”
“Well that would be nearly three years ago, Sir,” replied Woody. “You must have a good memory.”
“Not really. I just remember some things well, that’s all.”
Soon they were in Music. The lesson had already started, so Mr. Foote went up to the front to speak to Mr. Wye, the Music teacher, and Caleb and Woody snuck in quietly and sat down at the back.
“Since when have that pair been friends?” asked Ben, one of their friends.
“And since when have you pair been late for Music?” asked Todd, another of their friends.
“It’s all Mr. Foote’s fault,” moaned Caleb miserably. “Oh, I don’t know what to do.”
“I know what would cheer you up,” remarked Ariel. “Bert and me are doing a Magic Show after school on Monday, wanna come? Tickets on the door cost a tenner, or you can get tickets from me for just a fiver. All the money goes towards more Frandadis fruits, of course.”
Woody elbowed Caleb who was staring into space. “Of course we want to come,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s just what we need. Cheers, Ariel!”
“And now everyone, let’s get back to Music,” Mr. Wye called over the noise of everyone chatting to their neighbours. Mr. Foote had gone now, and left Mr. Wye to teach his lesson with a big grin on his face.
Monday came eventually. Caleb, Gertrude, Woody and Elly, Woody’s girlfriend, all had tickets to see Bert and Ariel’s Magic Show and were looking forward to it very much.
“You know what?” Caleb said thoughtfully to Gertrude as they were walking into school.
“What?”
“Woody gave me this idea, and I’ve been thinking, and I feel it would be a good idea to learn some defence magic.”
“But why?”
“Just to be on the safe side. You never know what might happen,” Caleb shrugged.
“I guess you’re right,” Gertrude said. “After all, we know someone murdered your Mum, we just don’t know why or who. And they could be after you next,” she said worriedly staring into Caleb’s eyes.
Caleb smiled down at her. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he said, and kissed her on the lips.
At that moment Shada was walking past with Larissa, Bonnie and Samantha. She saw Caleb kiss Gertrude, and pushed past everyone hurriedly to go to her locker.
“What’s wrong with her?” Bonnie asked.
“Oh, she just fancies Caleb,” giggled Sam.
“Oh,” said Bonnie.
Gertrude had been watching out of the corner of her eye and smiled to see Shada’s reaction. “Come on, let’s go up to Music,” she said to Caleb.
It was late afternoon and nearly time for Ariel and Bert’s Magic Show that everyone had been eagerly anticipating. It was to take place in the Drama Studio, so everyone congregated there. Caleb, Gertrude, Woody and Elly took their seats near the front, because Ariel had reserved them for them. After all Elly was her best friend. Soon the Magic Show started with Bert levitating Ariel and them both doing lots of tricks while she was in midair. Partway through Caleb got another text from his Mum’s phone. It read: “I think Ms. Harris may be spying on you at this very minute. Be careful.” Caleb tried to look around inconspicuously but couldn’t see her, so he whispered to Woody “Have you seen Ms. Harris recently?”
“Um…no. Last time I saw her was in assembly today,” Woody whispered back.
“Oh,” Caleb replied. Then he turned to watch the rest of the show, but he was still thinking about Ms. Harris and whether or not she might be spying on him, and why she would even want to spy on him. What had he ever done to her? Nothing that he could remember. But she seemed to hate him for some reason.
Then, near the end of the Magic Show he saw the long black curtains to the side of the Drama Studio twitch. They were almost floor length, so a person could easily hide behind them if they kept their feet far back. What if Ms. Harris was hiding behind them, peering out through the holes in the fabric? It would make an excellent spying place. He suddenly had an idea. He would make her invisible, and scare her a bit. The last trick in the Magic Show was the one where you put someone in a box, and stick swords through the box. Caleb knew how this trick worked. Ariel would get into the box, and Bert would close the lid, and then Bert would make Ariel invisible (which meant that things could pass through her, like if she was a ghost) by just thinking it. So Caleb made whoever it was behind the curtain invisible just by thinking, like Bert had done to Ariel. Just before Bert slid the first sword into the box, Caleb performed the “swapping spell” which meant that Ariel had been swapped with the person behind the curtain. So whoever had been behind the curtain, was now in the box, and Ariel was now behind the curtain, still invisible of course, because Bert thought she was still in the box he was now poking a sword through and he wouldn’t want her to get hurt. Now Caleb had to concentrate very hard. He wasn’t particularly good at keeping people invisible, because you had to always be thinking about it. And if he forgot what he was doing even for one second then he would basically be murdering someone, and even if it was Ms. Harris it wasn’t worth it – he’d be getting Bert into big trouble. And Bert would probably guess it was Caleb who had done it anyway. So he tried very hard to keep thinking about keeping them invisible. But then Woody elbowed him. “She’s over there,” he whispered, pointing slightly. Caleb made the big mistake of looking, and suddenly a loud voice coming from inside the box shouted, “HELP!” In that split second Caleb knew that Ms. Harris had just entered the Drama Studio at the back and had gone to sit down next to his Dad, and also that whoever was in the box was now visible, and had lots of swords sticking through them. Bert quickly pulled the lid up and gasped in horror. Mr. Buttons was in there, dead!
“Ariel, where are you?” Bert asked. Ariel appeared from behind the curtains and rushed up to see who was in the box, because Bert hadn’t said.
“Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Not Mr. Buttons!”
“Who did this?” Bert demanded, looking out at the audience. “Please can a teacher go to the door and stop anyone from leaving. We need to find out what’s happened.” But no one got up to stop everyone from leaving the Drama Studio, because they were too shocked about what had just happened. “Fine!” Bert yelled. He made a barrier appear all around the Drama Studio, so no one could get out. But Caleb didn’t want to get caught.
“Come on, it wasn’t us. Let’s go,” he said quietly to Gertrude and Woody. Elly listened in too. He held Gertrude’s hand and Woody’s arm, and Woody quickly took Elly’s hand before they all disappeared. They reappeared just outside the school gates.
“Wow!” Elly exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could do that! That’s so cool!”
“It only works for a few metres really,” Woody told her. “And only for a few people.” And he continued to explain to her how it worked as they walked home.
However back in the Drama Studio Bert had seen Caleb, Gertrude, Woody and Elly disappear and had quickly explained to the teachers (there were only a few there) what he had thought had happened, that one of the people who had disappeared had been the one to do it. So they let everyone else go.
That evening Caleb got a text from his Mum saying, “I heard you killed your Head-of-Year. Stop being so violent! All I want is you to split your Dad and Ms. Harris up! Keep trying.”
The next day he was walking into school with the other three when Mr. Foote and Mr. Wye came to talk to him. The other three carried on to their lockers, and when they had gone Mr. Wye suddenly gripped his arm and hissed “We know it was you, Caleb. We’ve –”
“I’ll carry on now,” Mr. Foote said firmly. “Caleb, we have reason to believe that it was you who murdered Mr. Buttons, and now it’s our unfortunate duty to take you to a place.”
“Um…what sort of a place?” asked Caleb, scared.
“You’ll see when we get there,” Mr. Wye chuckled evilly. Caleb didn’t like the sound of that, so he kept quiet as Mr. Wye and Mr. Foote argued about whose car they should use. In the end they didn’t take Mr. Wye’s bright yellow sports car but instead got into Mr. Foote’s normal blue car and Mr. Foote took them to a small white building near to a park a long way away from school. They all got out and went inside. “This is Caleb Cartwheel,” Mr. Foote announced, pointing at Mr. Wye.
“What?” shouted Mr. Wye, looking very confused.
“Ms. Harris warned you he’d be like this, but this is definitely him,” Mr. Foote told the people in the white building, handing them a form which had a picture of Mr. Wye at the top. They nodded, and proceeded to strap Mr. Wye to a chair and take samples of skin and hair.
“What are they doing?” asked Caleb. “And why did you do that? What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain in the car,” Mr. Foote replied shortly. So they went back to Mr. Foote’s car and got in. Mr. Foote started to drive, and then said, “Both myself and Mr. Wye had been ordered, by Ms. Harris, to take you to that place to have some tests done to see if you were the person who stole her memories. However, I am pretty sure you didn’t steal her memories, and so I tricked them into taking Mr. Wye, who I feel has been getting too close to what I’ve been doing for the past few years.”
“Which was?” asked Caleb, confused.
“Secretly protecting Crooked Burrow School from evil.”
“Huh? What evil?”
“Well for example there was the time when Mrs. Raven was trying to take over the school with the help of her sister, Miss McBuff.”
“But you – you were never there during the whole thing! Me and Gertrude ended up rescuing Dad, we never saw you once.”
“Ah, but I secretly put the idea into your head to go and spy on him,” Mr. Foote explained.
“Oh,” said Caleb.
“And there was also just before Easter, when Ms. Harris tried to take over the world using the power of a magic lamp and a boy.”
“What?” asked Caleb, confused again.
“You mean to say you can’t remember what happened? Oh no, this is worse than I thought. So someone has taken your memories of that too. Caleb, who would you think might have stolen both yours and Ms. Harris’ memories? They probably go to Crooked Burrow School.”
“Well the only person I can think of is Bert, but he wouldn’t do anything like that, unless it was important that he did or something bad would happen.”
“Yes, well something bad did happen. But he still shouldn’t have stolen people’s memories. Instead he should have informed the police about Ms. Harris, and left you all to think about what had happened.”
“She was that bad?” Caleb asked.
“Yes, and that’s why I’m keeping an eye on her. I knew what had happened and I knew someone must have stolen her memories, as she had no idea what she’d done by the time she started at Crooked Burrow School on the day before the Easter holidays. But I didn’t know who. Now you have told me, I think I know what to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Go to Bert, tell him to give her her memories back and then phone the police, as I suspect she also killed your mother, and I am going to try to prove that this afternoon.”
“Oh,” Caleb said in shock.
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” Mr. Foote admitted. “But I shall try my best.”
They got back to school as his year was on their breakfast. “Oh, Caleb,” cried Elly as soon as she saw him coming up the stairs to Music, where they always stayed for breakfast (and lunch when they could). “Something really bad has happened. Where’ve you been all this time?”
“It’s a long story,” he sighed. “So what’s up?”
“It’s Gertrude. We don’t know what happened to her, and she won’t tell us. None of the teachers seem to think anything’s wrong with her though.”
“Where is she?” Caleb asked.
“In here,” Elly said quickly, opening the door to the second Music practice room. They went inside and Caleb saw Gertrude lying on the floor, looking at him.
“Caleb,” she whispered. “You came.”
“Gertrude, what’s wrong?” Caleb asked, worried.
“”It was her. Ms. Harris. Mr. Cartwheel told me he thought she was behind your mother’s death, oh, and also that he was the one who had been texting you using your Mum’s phone because he was so suspicious of Ms. Harris, and so I went to try and find out by asking Ms. Harris what she was doing that night, for a D.T. project. But she guessed what I was up to and cast some sort of spell on me. I couldn’t tell what it was though. And I feel really ill.”
“It could be that really evil spell, you know, the one Bert told us about, the one that eventually kills you,” Woody said.
“Don’t say that!” Elly sobbed. “You’ll get better, Gertrude, I know you will.”
“Woody, go and get Bert, oh, and Robin!” Caleb called as Woody ran out of the room to fetch Bert. “Gertrude, it’s going to be alright,” he whispered to her. She smiled up at him, and closed her eyes.
“I’m tired,” she told him.
“Whatever you do, don’t go to sleep,” he warned her. Elly bent down next to them. Then Gertrude opened her eyes again.
“Caleb, why did you kill Mr. Buttons?” she asked. Elly gasped. She had no idea it was Caleb who killed him.
“I didn’t mean to,” he told her. “I saw someone was spying on us all behind the curtains and I thought maybe it was Ms. Harris, so I wanted to give them a bit of a fright, you know, to put them in the box instead of Ariel so I swapped whoever it was with Ariel, but as you know I’m not that good at the making-people-invisible spell, and I kind of lost concentration.” He looked down at the carpet, ashamed.
“Oh well,” Elly comforted. “We didn’t really like him that much anyway. We’ll get a new Head-of-Year now, and they might be better.”
“Oh, so you didn’t like my Dad as your Head-of-Year?” demanded an Itarian by the name of Bonnie Buttons, who had been passing the Music practice rooms to find Mr. Wye to ask him about singing lessons (but she hadn’t been able to find him).
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Elly tried to explain.
“Oh, so what is it like then?” Bonnie asked meanly. Just then Woody came back, followed by Bert, Ariel and Robin. Ariel, who was in Robin’s class, had made Woody get her out of lesson too, so she could come up to see Gertrude. They all kind of knew that Gertrude wouldn’t live but they were still going to try to save her.
“Hi,” Ariel said to Bonnie, who turned around and left (because she didn’t like Ariel that much).
Bert, who had always got some magic juices hidden in his pockets or up his sleeves, mixed a few drops together to make a feel-better potion. He made Gertrude drink it, and she said she didn’t feel so ill anymore. Then they all tried to make a spell that would mean Gertrude would actually be better, but it didn’t work although they pretended to her that it did, and that it just took a little while to work. Then they sat down around her and waited. Caleb tried to keep smiling but it was getting difficult. Finally Gertrude breathed her last, and everyone cried. Even Bert shed a few quiet tears, because he hadn’t been able to save her despite being the best magician in the school.
“At least she died peacefully,” Robin said eventually.
“Yes, but she shouldn’t have died at all,” Bert pointed out. “Everyone, I must tell you that us lot are now…at war.”
“Who against?” asked Ariel in surprise.
“Ms. Harris,” Bert told them grimly.
“How do you know it was her?” Caleb asked him.
“Woody told me she had done this to Gertrude, and just before Woody came to my lesson Mr. Foote called me out –” Bert began but was interrupted.
“Mr. Foote?” Ariel asked, astonished.
“Yes, and he told me about it probably being Ms. Harris who killed your mother, Caleb, and he also asked me a strange question.”
“What did he ask you?” asked Caleb.
“He said, “So, where’ve you put them?”” Bert told them. “Now I have no idea what he meant. I couldn’t ask him because Woody came. Do any of you know?”
“Yes,” Caleb admitted. “He means Ms. Harris’ memories. He asked me whether I’d stolen them too. In fact Ms. Harris asked me if I’d stolen them too. I think she still thinks that I did steal them, but won’t admit it to her. But I had no idea what they were really going on about either. I mean, why would we steal people’s memories?”
Bert suddenly realised what had happened. “We must have had a previous battle with Ms. Harris,” he told everyone. “And then one of us must have stolen everyone’s memories about it so no one could remember what had happened, and so Ms. Harris would forget about being bad. She must have been bad because we were fighting her,” he explained because Elly looked confused.
“But which of us actually stole Ms. Harris’ memories?” Woody asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” said a voice at the door. They all turned round to see Ms. Harris standing there. Suddenly, the door slammed in her face. “WHAT?” she yelled. “Who did that?”
In fact it had been Mr. Foote slamming the door, using something called the School Protection System. This made the school protect people in it from anyone or anything attacking it. In this case it was Ms. Harris the school was protecting everyone in the school from. As a matter of fact, the school had protected itself against her before. This was just after Albertus, the great evil magician that Jack had told Ms. Harris about, had built Crooked Burrow School. Albertus had three children who he had been trying to teach to be evil like him, but they didn’t want to be evil, they wanted to be good and so when they were old enough they worked together to get rid of their father. At that time they were living in Crooked Burrow School, to which Albertus was trying to persuade the local people to make their children attend (so he could train them to be evil magicians too, but obviously without their parents knowing). Albertus’ children found a spell for a potion that would make a building have a personality. They made up the potion, adding in a lot of extra ingredients, one of which was ‘hate for evil’. Then they poured the potion around the school, but by accident they spilt a lot into the room which was now the second Music practice room (which created a feeling of magic-ness that Bert had felt as soon as he came to Crooked Burrow School, and so he started the after school magic clubs up there). However, Albertus’ children had a problem. The personality potion would only work for a short amount of time, and they didn’t want to have to keep making more. So they made a switch which when it was on allowed the personality potion to work. When they switched it off it would stop working and the school would be back to normal i.e. doors not shutting by themselves, pictures not jumping off the walls etc. Mr. Foote had found this switch in his secret room (where the magic fruits were stored and where he could see what was happening in every room in the school through tiny spying cameras that were fixed to top of the security sensors in each classroom) and had found out what the switch did through reading an old book which told him all about the last time it was used. This happened to be against Albertus…and also Ms. Harris. She had been Albertus’ servant nearly a hundred years ago, and while trying to protect her master had been accidentally pulled through time and ended up in this time. Of course the switch had never been used since, but now Mr. Foote thought that the time was right.
Bert, Ariel, Caleb, Woody, Elly and Robin were now trapped in the second Music practice room, with Ms. Harris trying as hard as she could to get inside. Bert had opened a small cupboard under the window that he used for storing things for the after school magic clubs and was taking everything out to see what they could use against Ms. Harris. He reached to the back and his hand found a large glass jar. He pulled it out and saw that on the jar there was a sticky label that said “Memories”. In the jar were lots of coloured pieces of what looked like floating string. He unscrewed the top, separated his out (they were blue and were labelled “Me”), pulled them out and then quickly screwed the lid of the jar back on before anyone else’s memories could come out. Then he performed the spell to put them back in his mind. “Aha!” he shouted. Everyone crowded round him to see what he’d found.
“At last!” cried Caleb, seeing that it said “Memories” on the jar.
Ms. Harris had seen through the window in the door that they’d found something. She began to get really angry. But no one paid her any attention.
“Okay,” said Bert. “I think I know what to do. We need to get Ms. Harris–”
“What about our memories?” asked Caleb.
“Yeah, can’t we have ours back?” Woody asked.
“What?” Bert blinked.
“Our memories, aren’t you going to give them us back?” Ariel demanded.
“Well, um, guys, you don’t actually need them,” Bert told them.
“What if we want them?” said Robin.
“Look, you lot can have them later, what we need to do now is–”
“I’m not helping you until I have my memories back which you stole,” Caleb reminded him.
“But – look, I did that to help you lot,” Bert said. “If you all have your memories back now you’ll just be thinking about them all the time, and not concentrating on getting rid of her.” He jabbed a finger at the window in the door through which Ms. Harris could be seen, looking very angry.
“And you’re not thinking about your memories now?” Ariel asked.
“Well no, I can concentrate on what I need to,” he told her.
“So suddenly you’re better than us and you need your memories but we don’t? I don’t think that’s fair,” she pointed out. The rest agreed with her.
“Okay everyone, just listen to me and I’ll explain what happened,” Bert shouted over them. “It was the day before the last day of term, and Ms. Harris, who was about to become an English teacher here, wasn’t just an ordinary teacher, she was also a powerful witch. She wanted a magic lamp and made Woody get it. Inside the lamp was Fred.” Everyone laughed.
“Fred?” Ariel laughed.
“Yes, Fred,” Bert replied. “He was imprisoned in the lamp as a genie. He had to grant everyone three wishes. But then Woody freed him.”
“Why would I do that? Wishes are good,” Woody said.
“Because you felt sorry for him. And we all worked together to finally defeat Ms. Harris, or so I thought. I took everyone’s memories because I wanted to give her a chance to be a better person, and if everyone’s memories were gone then no one would be able to let anything slip,” Bert finished.
“You know what, I don’t believe you,” Woody said.
“Me neither,” said Caleb.
Ariel looked from them to Bert and said, “Sorry Bert, but it does seem a bit far-fetched. I think I’m going to have to insist on having my memories back.” She moved to stand next to Caleb and Woody.
“No! Ariel, I can’t give you yours back. You don’t understand.”
“Of course I don’t understand. You won’t let me understand.”
Woody reached to snatch the jar of memories. This caught Bert by surprise, and he tried to hang onto it, but then it slipped out of his hands. Woody wasn’t expecting Bert to try to hang onto it, and they both watched as it dropped to the floor and smashed. The memories floated up and out of the open window.
“Look what you’ve done now!” Bert shouted. “Now you’re going to have to listen to me!”
Caleb had realised that even if they had managed to get the jar of memories, they would still have needed Bert to perform the spell to get them back into their minds, because Caleb wasn’t so good at that spell either. He was beginning to realise that there were a lot of things he wasn’t too good at, but Bert could do. So he told everyone that he thought they should all listen to Bert and do what he said. Ariel and Woody eventually agreed, and Elly, who hadn’t said anything throughout the argument over the memories, said that she’d try to help too.
Bert began to formulate a plan. “You two go next to the door there,” he told Elly and Ariel, pointing at the space next to the left side of the door. “And you two go the other side,” he told Woody and Caleb, pointing at the other side.
“Why, what will you do?” asked Caleb.
“I’m gonna try to cast a shrinking spell on her.”
“Don’t be stupid!” Caleb exclaimed. “They take ages to work! Let me stand in the middle, it’s me she wants.”
“Yeah, but what would you do?” Bert asked.
“Is this what I think it is?” Caleb asked, ignoring Bert’s question and pointing to what looked like a roll of cling film in the pile of things that Bert had taken out of the cupboard.
“It’s force field film,” Bert told him.
“Good good. You,” he threw the roll of force field film to Bert and continued, “can be ready to wrap her up in this while I cast a turning spell, to make her spin around. Go on, stand next to Woody.”
“Are you sure?” Bert looked at Caleb in surprise.
“Bert, just because you’re used to saving everyone doesn’t mean you have to do it every time,” Ariel told him.
“I’m not – I mean – oh, okay then,” he agreed.
“Right, I’m ready,” Caleb said. “Bert, open the door!” Bert tried to, but it wouldn’t open.
“Oh, of course!” he suddenly realised. “It’s what Mr. Foote was talking about. He said he was going to switch the switch on, which would make the school be protected, or something. I didn’t have a clue to what he was going on about, but I guess this is what he meant.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Ariel.
“Maybe we could try talking to the door?” Caleb suggested.
“Talk to a door?” Woody laughed.
“No, it might work,” Caleb insisted. So Bert tried to persuade the door that it wanted to open, so they could defeat Ms. Harris. Then he tried to open it, and this time it opened. Ms. Harris was still storming up and down the corridor. She saw the door had been opened, and rushed over to try to get into the room. She saw Caleb in the middle of the room and forgot about everyone else who was in the room who she couldn’t see from that angle anyway, so she began to walk towards him, and as soon as she got into the room Woody slammed the door shut and Bert began to wind force field film around her as Caleb made her spin around and around. Soon she was all wrapped up in force field film. “And now Ms. Harris, I must warn you that any spell you cast will bounce off this force field film and back to you,” Caleb said seriously. The others all cheered to see their enemy captured. Then Caleb levitated her out of the second Music practice room (which they had to persuade to open again) and down the Music stairs. Ms. Harris was squirming inside the force field film, but Bert had done a good job and it held. Then suddenly, as soon as they got to where the Humanities corridor started, Ms. Harris seemed to explode. She didn’t really; it was just her casting a spell (which unfortunately worked) to explode the force field film. She fell to the floor but before they could all reach her (everyone was following Caleb down the stairs) she had got up and ran off down the Humanities corridor. They all followed her, ignoring teachers telling them to stop running, and she ran down the English corridor and down the Haunted Staircase.
“We’re not going to be able to catch her now,” Ariel noted. “They’ll be too many teachers down there.” They stopped just next to the Year Nine notice board.
“Oh look,” said Woody. He pointed at a poster that read “Arm-wrestling Finals – Bonnie Buttons vs. Caleb Cartwheel. Drama Studio, Tuesday 15th June at 3pm.”
“Oh, great,” moaned Caleb, “just what I need.” He had got into the semi-finals of the arm-wrestling competition but didn’t think he’d get into the finals. But he’d forgotten that Gertrude was dead now. She was meant to be wrestling him in the semi-finals. But now she couldn’t, so that meant he was automatically against the other winner, who was obviously Bonnie. “D’you think they’d tell me off if I didn’t go?” he asked Woody.
“But haven’t we got detention?” Woody reminded him.
“Oh no, I’d completely forgotten about that!”
“Obviously,” Woody commented. It was coming up to Assembly time, so they went down the Haunted Staircase and into the Hall where some people in their year had already sat down on the blue seats at the back. They were about to join them when Mr. Welly stopped them.
“I see that you should be in the arm-wrestling finals,” he boomed at Caleb. “Well I must remind you that you also have detention. I have agreed with Mr. Cartwheel to allow you to first do your competition, and then, whatever the outcome, and whenever it finishes, you must come and do your C3 in the Hall for an hour afterwards.”
“Thank you Sir. Can my friend come to watch me?” Caleb asked, pointing to Woody next to him.
“Does he have detention too?” Mr. Welly barked.
“Well yes Sir, I do–” Woody began.
“Hmmm, you don’t look too naughty, I’ll let you watch your friend in the competition,” Mr. Welly told Woody. Then he turned and walked away from them both.
“Phew,” said Woody. “I didn’t think Mr. Welly would be that nice.”
“He must have had a change of heart,” Caleb decided.
By the end of the day Caleb had started to get very nervous. He knew Bonnie was really good. He didn’t want to lose but he didn’t want to win, either. Eventually it was the end of the school day (five to three) so Caleb, Woody and Elly all got their bags from their lockers and made their way to the Drama Studio. Bonnie was already there, talking to Larissa, Samantha and Shada. Shada blushed as Caleb walked in. Woody grinned at Caleb. “Looks like she’s definitely got a crush on you!” That reminded Caleb of Gertrude and her telling him to be careful of Shada, so he didn’t say anything. Then Woody and Elly went to sit next to Bert, Ariel, Fred and Robin who had come to watch Caleb. Caleb went over to Bonnie and shook hands with her. Then they went to sit at the table. At exactly three o’ clock the competition began. First it looked as though Caleb was winning, but then Bonnie slammed his hand against the table, lifting her elbow up. “Cheater!” Woody shouted. “Re-match!” Everyone agreed that there should be a re-match. Bonnie stormed outside sulkily, followed by Larissa, Samantha and, reluctantly, Shada (who had wanted to talk to Caleb, when she had seen that Gertrude wasn’t there).
“Doesn’t it look a bit shiny on one side of the table?” Woody asked Caleb. “Do you think that we should turn the table round to make it fair?”
“Yeah, why not,” Caleb replied, helping Woody to turn the table around.
After about five minutes Bonnie came back in and the re-match started. At first it looked like Bonnie was winning again, then Caleb slammed her hand down on the table, smiling because he had now won. Bonnie got up and ran out again. It looked like she was crying. Woody came over to congratulate Caleb and as he was giving him a high five he noticed something. Caleb’s hand was slightly floppy. “Erm, Caleb, what’s wrong with your hand?” he asked.
“Nothing, why?” Caleb replied, looking down at his hand. Then he saw that his fingers were bending backwards without him making them. “Aaargh!” he shouted. He waved his hand in the air and his fingers flopped backwards and forwards. Everyone crowded round him to see what was wrong. Then suddenly Ms. Harris walked through the Drama Studio doors. She went over to the table and began to wipe a cloth over it. “You!” shouted Caleb. “You’re not getting away this time! Robin, Fred and Woody you all guard the doors!” They all ran to do what he said.
“What are you doing?” Elly asked Ms. Harris curiously.
“Oh, just making sure nobody else has another little accident,” she said sweetly.
“What do you mean?” Caleb asked.
“Well you see earlier on I spilt a potion onto this table by accident,” she said.
“What sort of potion?” asked Bert.
“A special kind. One that destroys bone, but that can also go through a thin layer of skin,” she explained.
“Well it’s okay, it doesn’t hurt or anything,” Caleb said, moving his arm about.
“Think about it though, Caleb. That potion is gradually working further and further up your arm, and will eventually reach your ribcage, your spine, your skull…” Ms. Harris told him.
“You, you… you evil person!” Woody shouted.
“And I have another disappointing piece of information for you, Caleb,” Ms. Harris said.
“Oh, what’s that? Let me guess, you’ve accidentally found a way to blow up the world?” Caleb laughed sarcastically.
“No, but I shall do something along those lines soon. No, it concerns Mr. Cartwheel.”
“Dad? Why? What?” asked Caleb in confusion.
“I am sorry to tell you this but I caught him trying to phone the police to tell them about the death of poor Gertrude, so I had to get rid of him.”
“What do you mean ‘get rid of him’?” Caleb asked, although he was sure he knew the answer.
“You fool, he’s dead! What did you expect?” she cackled.
“But he wasn’t the one – didn’t Mr. Foote–” Caleb began.
“Ms. Harris!” Bert called over the top of him, to stop Ms. Harris from hearing Mr. Foote’s name. “Erm…Ms. Harris, I have some news for you too. You’ve been after the wrong person. It wasn’t Caleb who stole your memories.”
“But it must have been!” she shouted.
“It wasn’t him,” Bert insisted. “It was me.”
“YOU?” Ms. Harris cackled an evil laugh.
“Yes, me,” Bert replied staring her in the eye.
Bert looked at Caleb, who nodded. Then they each cast a spell at Ms. Harris that knocked her off her feet and into the wall at the back of the Drama Studio. She slid to the carpet and didn’t move. Woody slowly approached her. “Guys…she’s dead,” he whispered. Everyone except Caleb and Bert cheered. They just looked at each other in shock. They hadn’t expected their spells to have that effect.
“It must have been because they were combined,” Bert said eventually.
“So, what are we going to do now?” Caleb asked. “She’s dead. A dead body is evidence.”
“I know. We make it look like she killed herself,” Fred suggested.
“Yeah, great idea, how are we gonna do that?” Woody asked sarcastically.
“Well there’s some stage blocks with metal poles over there,” Fred said, moving them so they were next to Ms. Harris. “If anyone asks us, we weren’t here, but we know Ms. Harris came in here to tidy up the Drama Studio for her lesson tomorrow, and maybe as she was coming out she accidentally banged her head on these poles.”
“Hmmm, it might work,” said Bert. “We’d better tidy up here, if that story’s gonna work though.” They all piled the chairs up, and stacked them at the front. Then they finished cleaning the table up (Ms. Harris had left the cloth on it). After they had finished they put the cloth in Ms. Harris’ pocket. “Quick, let’s get outta here,” Bert said, seeing some teachers walking past the Drama Studio. “How are you feeling, Caleb?”
“My whole arm is floppy,” Caleb told him, waving it about. “And it’s not a nice feeling to know you’re going to die soon.”
“Well at least you know Ms. Harris is gone.” Caleb nodded. They had used the outside Drama Studio door, and as Bert was shutting it behind him he noticed a dead bird lying on the ground next to the door. It was black, and looked like a jackdaw. “Someone else will have to get rid of him,” Bert said.
“Who?” asked Caleb.
“That bird,” Bert said, pointing over his shoulder as they walked over to the small green door to go back inside. “It was Ms. Harris’ spy.”
“Oh,” said Caleb.
Woody was carrying Caleb’s bag for him. “Come on, let’s get to the Hall,” he said to Caleb.
“The Hall?” asked Caleb, confused.
“Yeah, to do our C3s, remember?” he reminded him.
“Oh yeah.”
“Well, I’m sorry this had to be the end,” Bert sighed. “You were a really good friend, Caleb. We did loads together, magic shows, defeating Ms. Harris…So I’ll say goodbye now, and thanks.”
“For what?”
“For taking the blame for stealing the memories. It should have been me she went after.”
“But we didn’t know who it was, and neither did she, so don’t worry! I guess I’d better go to C3 now,” Caleb said. “Goodbye Bert.” Then Caleb and Woody went into the Hall. Woody put their bags at the front, and they went to sit down. Mr. Foote was there, on C3 duty, along with a few other teachers who looked very bored. He noted the time that Woody and Caleb had come in, and told them to sit at the back. “You can talk to each other quietly if you want, but make sure you stop if Mr. Wellington comes in,” he told them.
“Thanks Sir,” Caleb said gratefully.
“Do you want to write a will?” Woody whispered to him.
“Haha! No, I don’t want to write a will. You can have anything of mine that you want, and maybe you could give Bert my magic books, and anything you don’t want.”
“Okay,” Woody said.
“I’m glad you’re here, Woody,” Caleb said closing his eyes. “I keep thinking of Gertrude. And how we just left her body, up there in Music. Will you make sure it’s brought down?”
“Of course,” Woody promised.
Caleb grimaced as he felt the potion working its way down his spine. “And Woody, before I die, promise me you’ll tell anyone who asks the real story, you know, about what happened over the past two weeks. Even teachers. We need to tell people the truth, not lie to them. It’s up to them if they believe or not.”
“I promise,” said Woody, and watched as Caleb fell to the floor, dead.
Mr. Foote hurried over. “What’s wrong with him, Woody?”
Woody didn’t answer. Mr. Foote turned Caleb’s body over. “He’s dead!”
“It was Ms. Harris,” Woody said sadly. “She killed him with a potion.”
“It looks like the same potion that killed Bonnie Buttons just a few minutes ago,” Mr. Foote told him. “They found her dead outside the lockers in the girl’s quad. Everyone in here was watching as they carried her past the window,” he pointed to the windows at the side of the Hall that looked out onto the girl’s quad. The curtains to these windows were open, unlike the curtains on the other side of the Hall, the ones that looked out onto the Drama Studio.
“Sir, you owe us, I mean, me, an explanation.”
“Oh?” Mr. Foote asked interestedly. “What about?”
“Ms. Harris said she caught Mr. Cartwheel phoning the police, but apparently Caleb thought you were going to do that,” Woody said.
“Oh yes. I’m sorry about that. Mr. Cartwheel and I were discussing everything earlier, and we decided to help each other to get to the bottom of the deaths of both your mother and Gertrude. Yes, we know Gertrude is dead too,” Mr. Foote told Woody, seeing his expression of surprise. “And Mr. Cartwheel kindly offered to phone the police while I went to turn the School Protection System on.”
“The what?” asked Woody, puzzled. Then he realised. “Oh, the thing with the door!”
“What door?” It was Mr. Foote’s turn to look puzzled.
“Never mind,” said Woody quickly. “So now Caleb’s Mum, Gertrude, Mr. Cartwheel, Bonnie, Ms. Harris and Caleb are dead.”
“Ms. Harris is dead too?” Mr. Foote asked.
“Yes. It was an accident, I mean,” he said remembering what Caleb had said about telling the truth. “Bert and Caleb cast spells at her and they threw her backwards and she died.”
“Well that’s certainly good news,” Mr. Foote said looking very relieved.
“You teachers seem sort of dopey,” Woody told him. “You don’t do enough to get rid of people like Ms. Harris. You’d rather sit in C3 duty than chase after her.”
“Actually, I think I was just scared,” Mr. Foote admitted. “Come on, you can help me carry Caleb outside,” Mr. Foote told Woody.
“But what if Mr. Wellington sees? Wouldn’t he be cross?”
“At what? A dead body, or you out of C3?” Mr. Foote laughed. “I think we can ignore Mr. Wellington and his stupid rules for now.”
“And we need to go up to get Gertrude’s body too,” Woody told him. “Caleb wanted me too.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Foote. And as they carried Caleb’s body out of the Hall, Woody told him the story of what had happened to him and Caleb over those few weeks at Crooked Burrow School.
The End
