Beswitched by Kate Saunders Read Free Book Online

do everything I can to help you.”
    “Me too,” whispered Dulcie.
    “And me, and I’ll start by giving you a word of warning,” Pogo said, in her posh, dry little voice. “If you don’t want to get in the most awful trouble, watch your language.”
    “Oh, Pogo—honestly!” Pete tossed her head scornfully. “You’re such a Victorian!”
    “No, I’m not. I’m stating the facts. Words like—like the ones you said just now—will probably get you expelled, and that would make things even worse.”
    Pete’s eyes gleamed at Flora through the dim light. “You’re right, that would be a catastrophe. You’d better listen to her, Flora—Rhoda Pugh heard me say ‘damn’ last term, and she was so boiling mad she gave me two ponies.”
    Flora did not want to be expelled. She didn’t like this awful place—but if she was expelled and sent back to India, that wretched spell would never be reversed. “OK, I’ll do my best not to say anything rude—but you might have to tell me.” She wriggled into her strange bed, with its smooth, slippery sheets, and absently picked up the bear. “ ‘Damn’ isn’t such a big deal where I come from.”
    Where did she come from? When she thought of home, she saw her bedroom in Wimbledon—but she also saw a hot room with wooden blinds, where the bed was shrouded in white nets. This must be the room of the other Flora, who had come from British India in 1935, and was now (lucky cow) reveling in the luxuries of Penrice Hall.
    From the next bed, Dulcie whispered, “Goodnight, Flora!”
    “Goodnight.” And Flora fell into an oddly delicious deep sleep.

6
The Carver
    “W ake up! Flora, wake up! Breakfast’s in twenty minutes!” A bell was clanging, and someone was shaking her shoulder. Flora groaned. She knew, before she opened her eyes, that she was still trapped in 1935.
    When she did open them, the first thing she saw was the rosy face of Dulcie. “Hello. Are you still—you know—from the future?”
    “Yes,” Flora said crossly. “You’d better start keeping your promise.” She rolled out of bed and put on the other Flora’s scratchy wool dressing gown and slippers. “What’s up with Pete?”
    “Miss Peterson doesn’t like mornings,” Pogo said, grinning. “Take no notice.”
    Pete sat slumped on the edge of her bed, her eyes invisible behind a mess of untidy hair. She looked as if she had spent the night in a wind tunnel.
    Flora wished Granny could see this. According to Granny, young girls in the past leapt eagerly out of bed at dawn and immediately jumped into an ice-cold bath. Pete had to be dragged off the bed by Pogo, and helped into her dressing gown like a sleepwalker.
    “Come on,” Dulcie said kindly, slipping her warm hand into Flora’s. “I’ll show you what to do.”
    Flora’s head was soon swimming with the strangeness of it all. Her first day at APS last September had been stressful enough (especially with Ella suddenly not being her best friend anymore), but at least she hadn’t had to learn the customs of an ancient civilization.
    First, there was the horror of the cloakroom. It was freezing cold and smelled of disinfectant. The doors of the toilet cubicles did not lock, and you had to sit there holding the door with one hand, to stop other girls blundering in. You had to queue for the sinks—and when Flora got to the front of the queue, a tall girl with bright yellow hair roughly shoved her aside.
    “Hey!” Flora protested. “I’m next!”
    “Not anymore, maggot!”
    “But I was before you!” Why weren’t the others doing anything to help? Furiously, Flora tried to elbow the horrible girl out of the way.
    Pogo quickly grabbed her arm. “Pax—pax! She’s new, and she’s really sorry!” She hustled Flora to the sink at the end of the row, muttering, “Don’t fight with her!”
    “But she’s a cow!”
    “Shhh! Just hurry up!”
    Flora wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time to do more than brush her teeth (the 1930s