Free Beswitched by Kate Saunders Page A

towards the light from the lamp. On the first page, she could make out the outline of a name, written very faintly in pencil—“W. Beak.”
    “Hey, look at this.” She showed it to Pogo. “Does that have anything to do with Dame Mildred Beak, d’you think?”
    Pogo and Dulcie were both fascinated. Pete stayed stubbornly quiet behind her cubicle curtains, but Flora somehow knew she was listening.
    “This house was the home of the Beak family, before Dame Mildred turned it into a school,” Pogo said. “W. Beak must be her father, Sir Wilberforce Beak—there’s a portrait of the old chap above the library fireplace. I wonder if he was the person who collected all those books about magic.”
    “Gosh,” Dulcie said. “Do you think Dame Mildred knew?”
    “I think she did—and it’s rather obvious why she felt she had to hide them away when she opened a school,” Pogo said ruefully. “She must’ve thought they’d be safe in the secret room. Oh, I wish she’d been right! Well, there’s nothing else for it—we’ll have to go back. It’s all we can do. We’re not going to find any magic anywhere else.”
    “Good,” Flora said, “I’d like to take a look at that room. When shall we do it?”
    “Well, next time there’s a rainy half holiday—”
    “But this is urgent! I can’t wait till then!”
    “Terribly sorry and all that, but it looks as if you’ll have to. It doesn’t help anyone if we get ourselves expelled, does it?”
    This was perfectly reasonable, and there was no point in arguing. “OK.”
    “Look, shut up,” a voice snapped behind the curtain. “Some people are trying to read!”
    “I told you,” Pogo said. “Ignore her.”
    Flora wished she could ignore Pete. After lights out, lying drowsily in her smooth, warm bed, she wondered what she had to do to make Pete accept her. The trouble was that Pete behaved like royalty. Dad would have called her “the Queen of Entitlement.” She must be monumentally spoiled at home.
    “Flora!” Dulcie whispered from the next bed. “Are you awake?”
    “Yes,” Flora whispered back.
    “I forgot to ask—what’s ‘pollax’?”
    “What? Oh, you mean bol—I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
    “Is it—rude?”
    “Yes.”
    Dulcie giggled softly. “Goodnight, then.”
    “Goodnight.”
    Dulcie said she was spoiled by her grandmother. But Dulcie was sweet and considerate, and did not behave like a spoiled person. Not like Pete, who always expected to get her own way.
    And not like Flora.
    On that terrible holiday in Italy, Flora had complained to Mum about the burden of looking after Ella.
    “I thought it would be more fun if she was here too—and all she does is ask silly questions. And she’s always reading!”
    Mum had said, “It wouldn’t do you any harm to read a book occasionally.”
    “Yes, but Ella reads when I want to talk to her!”
    “She’s your guest,” Mum had said, “and it’s not her job to amuse you.”
    Flora wished she had listened to this. It was too late to say sorry now, even if she did manage to get home.

8
Sink or Swim
    H arbottle the Horrible began next morning’s lesson with a massive attack on Pete. “Daphne Peterson, this is the absolute LAST STRAW! I ask for a simple exercise, and I get a tattered mess covered with blobs of ink!”
    She was in a truly evil mood. Every girl in the class was shaking. Never had Flora missed APS so much. Modern teachers could be nasty, but not like this—Harbottle was going off like the villain in a James Bond film.
    “For the whole of last term I endured work that looked like the trail of a DRUNKEN SLUG! This term I will make no more allowances!”
    Flora stared down at her hands, clenched on top of her desk.
    This is my fault
, she thought uneasily.
Pete’s homework wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t had to do mine as well
.
    “Careless! Slovenly!” Miss Harbottle chucked Pete’s exercise book across the classroom like a Frisbee. “You will do it