Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

just before he suddenly threw chalk at people. Nan went backward to avoid the chalk which came next. But she forgot that her feet were pointing inward and sat down heavily on the floor. From there, she could see Mr. Wentworth’s surprised face, peering at her over the top of his desk. “What did that?” he said.
    “Please don’t throw chalk at me!” Nan said.
    At that moment, there was a knock at the door and Brian Wentworth put his head around it into the room. “Are you free yet, Dad?”
    “No,” said Mr. Wentworth.
    Both of them looked at Nan sitting on the floor. “What’s she doing?” Brian asked.
    “She says she’s possessed. Go away and come back in ten minutes,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Get up, Nan.”
    Brian obediently shut the door and went away. Nan struggled to her feet. It was almost as difficult as climbing a rope. She wondered a little how it felt to be Brian, with your father one of the teachers, but mostly she wondered what Mr. Wentworth was going to do to her. He had on his most harrowed, worried look, and he was staring again at the three papers on his desk.
    “So you think you’re possessed?” he said.
    “Oh no,” Nan said. “All I meant was it was like it. I knew I was going to do something awful before I started, but I didn’t know what until I started describing the food. Then I tried to stop and I couldn’t somehow.”
    “Do you often get taken that way?” Mr. Wentworth asked.
    Nan was about to answer indignantly No, when she realized that she had gone for Brian with the witch’s broom in exactly the same way straight after lunch. And many and many a time, she had impulsively written things in her journal. She fitted her shoe into a parquet block again, and hastily took it away. “Sometimes,” she said, in a low, guilty mutter. “I do sometimes—when I’m angry with people—I write what I think in my journal.”
    “And do you write notes to teachers too?” asked Mr. Wentworth.
    “Of course not,” said Nan. “What would be the point?”
    “But someone in 6B has written Mr. Crossley a note,” said Mr. Wentworth. “It accused someone in the class of being a witch.”
    The serious, worried way he said it made Nan understand at last. So that was why Mr. Crossley had talked like that and then been to see Mr. Wentworth. And they thought Nan had written the note. “The unfairness!” she burst out. “How can they think I wrote the note and call me a witch too! Just because my name’s Dulcinea!”
    “You could be diverting suspicion from yourself,” Mr. Wentworth pointed out. “If I asked you straight out—”
    “I am not a witch!” said Nan. “And I didn’t write that note. I bet that was Theresa Mullett or Simon Silverson. They’re both born accusers! Or Daniel Smith,” she added.
    “Now, I wouldn’t have picked on Dan,” Mr. Wentworth said. “I wasn’t aware he could write.”
    The sarcastic way he said that showed Nan that she ought not to have mentioned Theresa or Simon. Like everyone else, Mr. Wentworth thought of them as the real girl and the real boy. “Someone accused me, ” she said bitterly.
    “Well, I’ll take your word for it that you didn’t write the note,” Mr. Wentworth said. “And next time you feel a possession coming on, take a deep breath and count up to ten, or you may be in serious trouble. You have a very unfortunate name, you see. You’ll have to be very careful in future. How did you come to be called Dulcinea? Were you called after the Archwitch?”
    “Yes,” Nan admitted. “I’m descended from her.”
    Mr. Wentworth whistled. “And you’re a witch-orphan too, aren’t you? I shouldn’t let anyone else know that, if I were you. I happen to admire Dulcinea Wilkes for trying to stop witches being persecuted, but very few other people do. Keep your mouth shut, Nan—and don’t ever describe food in front of Lord Mulke again either. Off you go now.”
    Nan fumbled her way out of the study and plunged down the stairs.