His mother put down her bowl. “Rupert?” When he didn’t answer her, his mother’s eyes began to water.
She began to cry, and she pulled him close to her, holding him tight. He hugged her back and tried to comfort her, but it was hard when he didn’t understand why she was crying.
When she calmed down, he tried again, “What did you take, Mom?”
She hugged her knees and stared off into the sea. “This is important — which witch have you been talking to, Rupert?”
“None of them! Honest!” And it was the truth. Technically, Witchling Two wasn’t a witch… yet. Rupert took a deep breath. “I was walking near Digglydare Close, and I overheard two witches talking,” he paused. “But I didn’t talk to them, and I wasn’t on the witch street.”
“But you were lingering by it?” She took his hand. “Don’t ever do that again,” she scolded, but it sounded more like pleading. “How many times have I told you, stay away from that side of town.”
“Why?” Rupert said. “Why do I have to stay away from the witches? And what did you steal? And why did you do it? And why do we stay in Gliverstoll if you hate the witches so much? Why do you keep all these secrets?”
She stood up and walked over to the porch swing. “I’m trying to protect you, Rupert.”
“I don’t want that. I just want answers.”
When it was clear she wasn’t going to discuss the witches any longer, he walked into the house. For hours, he listened to his mother rocking back and forth in her porch chair. When he finally went to bed, she was still rocking.
Turning in the Essay
ON MONDAY, FOUR DAYS BEFORE WITCHLING Two’s exam, Rupert walked into class with 200 words of his 500,000 word essay. He clutched his paragraph in his right hand and a water bottle of emerald glossy potion that Witchling Two had made him in his left. He’d let the potion sit for five days, and it was ready for use… whatever it did. Witchling Two still wouldn’t tell him what potion she had brewed for him, and knowing her, he had no idea what to expect. He felt like he was going to vomit.
He looked to his left and saw Kyle Mason-Reed struggling to keep his stack of spiral notebooks from toppling. Rupert thought that he must have used twenty-five notebooks — he tried to count, but he kept messing up the numbers. Rupert looked to his right and saw an exhausted-looking Allison Gormley. Rupert had overheard Kaleigh whisper to Millie just before class that Allison’s facial hair from Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s potion had fallen out five hours after she had taken the potion, but until then Allison had spent the day hiding in the bathroom stall, wailing that she was going to have to join a circus. And Rupert had overheard Bruno tell Francis that Hal had stopped vomiting worms one hour after he drank the potion. Rupert was relieved that at least Allison and Hal were back to normal. Manny, unfortunately, was still trapped in his jar on the windowsill.
But Manny’s punishment was nothing compared to what Rupert feared would happen to him today.
He looked at Allison again. She stroked her neat stack of typed printer paper. Her pile was even taller than Kyle’s, and Allison sat straight in her seat, looking rather pleased with herself.
Rupert looked around the rest of the classroom. His classmates looked positively ghoulish: pale skin, droopy eyes, solemn faces. A few people struggled to stay awake, and Rupert watched as Hal and Kaleigh slept with their chins tucked to their chests — and then violently jerked their heads upward to wake themselves.
Rupert felt completely out of place. He was the only well-rested one and the only one who hadn’t done the assignment. Everyone — Allison, Kyle, Kaleigh, Hal, Millie, Francis, and even Bruno — was fiddling with a giant pile of papers. Rupert placed his single sheet of paper on his desk with a sickly wince.
Mrs. Frabbleknacker kicked the door open. “Children,” she said, as though she was saying something truly awful like Morning Breath or Snot Pudding. “Today is a very special day. A day of science for some,” she looked straight at Rupert’s desk.
Rupert gulped. His hands clutched his water bottle even tighter.
Mrs. Frabbleknacker walked down the first row of students, her shoes clip-clopping in time with Rupert’s nervous pulse. He looked away from Mrs. Frabbleknacker for a quick moment, and his gaze rested on Manny, who was calmly nibbling a leaf inside his jar on the windowsill.
“Too few words,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said as she walked past Bruno’s desk. She picked up Bruno’s essay and whacked him on the head with it. “Too many words,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said as she walked past Allison’s desk. She punched Allison’s papers, and the entire stack fell with a swoosh all over the floor. Allison blinked in disbelief. Then she ran from the classroom crying.
Rupert used the distraction as the perfect opportunity to bring the water bottle up to his lips and gulp down a few sips of Witchling Two’s potion. He thought intensely about Mrs. Frabbleknacker — about the way she terrified him with every clomping step, the way she made every lesson into a dangerous task, and the way he would never ever smell bananas or belly-button lint in quite the same way again. When Rupert had taken five glugs, he quickly lowered the bottle and licked his lips. The potion tasted like bubble gum and mint and cinnamon all mixed together, like extra tangy mouthwash. Which was not what he was expecting, since Witchling Two had said it tasted like cabbages and gravy.
Rupert brought the bottle down to his knees and watched as scribbly handwriting suddenly appeared on the side of the water bottle. Sand Potion, it said. Rupert had no idea what that was — or what that could even be.
He slipped the water bottle in his backpack and waited for something amazing to happen. But the problem was that Rupert didn’t feel any different. No tingles, no fuzzies, no change whatsoever. And that was a problem because Mrs. Frabbleknacker was right behind him, and he had no backup plan.
Mrs. Frabbleknacker flicked a match and lit Manny’s notebooks on fire. She threw her head back and laughed until his essay crumbled into dusty ash. Then she turned to Rupert.
Rupert clutched his two hundred words with both hands, trembling. Mrs. Frabbleknacker hovered above him, her long neck twisted like a floor lamp. Slowly and meekly, Rupert looked up into her eyes.
Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s eyes slipped and stumbled — her gaze was glued to the floor. She tried to bring her eyes upward to meet Rupert, but she couldn’t keep her eyes locked on him. She grew redder and redder — the more she tried to look at Rupert and realized she couldn’t — and madder and madder.
Her thin lips twisted into an ugly snarl, and her pointy nose cringled up.
“RUPERT CAMPBELL!” she shouted, looking like she was about to pop. Her voice echoed throughout the classroom. Kyle leaned over and patted Rupert’s hand sadly. I’ll always remember you fondly, his expression seemed to say.
Mrs. Frabbleknacker grabbed the edge of Rupert’s desk, but Rupert slipped out the side just before she threw the desk against the wall. It broke into four pieces.
“Tell me class,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said, steaming. “One minute a lazybones little boy is sitting in his desk — and the next minute he’s gone!”
Rupert’s classmates looked at Mrs. Frabbleknacker as though she was insane. Rupert inched against the chalkboard with a finger to his lips, warning his classmates not to look at him or point him out.
“But you aren’t gone, are you?” Mrs. Frabbleknacker spat. “Rupert Campbell. I may not see you, but I can smell you. I can hear you. And I can feel you—”