Free Playschool by Colin Thompson

staff and students, there were dozens of witches and wizards who could send their thoughts out into the world and find things.
    This was how the school had become so immensely wealthy – so wealthy that it didn’t have a bank account in Switzerland, it actually owned Switzerland, though they kept very quiet about it. Quicklime’s economics teacher, Aubergine Wealth, had sent his thoughts out into bank vaults to look over people’s shoulders when they were putting in the secret numbers to open combination locks. Then, when everyone was asleep, he sent his body over to join his thoughts and robbed them all blind.
    â€˜I only do it for a great cause,’ he confided in Professor Throat. ‘I am robbing the rich to help the even richer … us.’
    There was only one place in the whole world where no one could send their thoughts, and that was into the dark forest.
    Everyone sat very still and concentrated. The fire in the grate burned down to ash, almost dying before Doorlock came in with armfuls of fresh logs.The school buses sat impatiently in the quadrangle and around the world parents began to wonder what was keeping their children. 24 Night fell in an enveloping silence while everyone searched the world high and low for The Toad. At midnight the children were all sent home and the staff made one final search.
    â€˜He has to be in the dark forest,’ said Professor Throat.
    He began to feel rather guilty. Maybe turning the boy into a toad had been too harsh a punishment. Maybe it had driven him over the edge. Though one thing didn’t quite add up.
    â€˜What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is that if he is in the dark forest, how did he get there? We all know it locks its branches against anyone who tries to enter.’
    â€˜Not everyone,’ said Matron. ‘Orkward Warlocktold me that Narled went into the forest. He said it opened its branches for him and then closed them again before they could follow him.’
    â€˜You can’t believe anything that boy says,’ said Prebender Glorious.
    â€˜You can when he’s had a dose of my cough mixture.’
    â€˜Ahh,’ said Prebender Glorious, remembering his own childhood at the school and Matron’s formidable pharmacy. ‘So maybe Narled has taken The Toad.’
    â€˜I’ve never heard of him collecting children before,’ said Professor Throat. ‘It’s usually iPods and socks and bits of paper.’
    â€˜And quite a lot of unfinished homework,’ Doctor Mordant laughed. ‘We’ve all heard that excuse, haven’t we?’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ said Professor Throat, ‘but never children.’
    â€˜But he isn’t a child, is he?’ said Matron. ‘He’s a toad.’
    â€˜I know. I know,’ said the Professor. ‘But I don’tthink Narled has ever taken any sort of living creature before.’
    They talked into the early hours and decided that at first light they would cover the valley from top to bottom to see if they could find The Toad or any way of getting into the dark forest.

When he looked back later, The Toad was never sure which bits of that night had been real and which bits had been a dream. It had been too wonderful to be real, but then it had been too wonderful to be a dream too. The Toad’s dreams usually involved hopping across a very, very wide road very, very slowly while a huge truck with fifty massive black tyres hurtled towards him going very, very fast.
    The last thing he remembered that he knew was real was tripping over a tree root.
    Lots of little arms lifted the sleeping toad gently off the damp leaves and carried him deeper into the forest. He remembered voices like babies talking, voices that seemed to be inside his head, twitteringbaby talk that didn’t make words, just joyful twittering noises. And he remembered feeling happier than he had ever felt before.
    Then he was in a cave on a bed of