Mr Majeika (2 page)

Never had Class Three been so quiet as they were for the rest of that lesson. They sat in absolute silence as Mr Majeika told them what work he planned to give them for the rest of that term.

Not that any of them was really listening to what he was saying. It actually sounded very ordinary, with stuff about nature-study, and the kings and queens of England, and special projects, and that sort of thing, just like all the other teachers. But they couldn't take it in. Each of them was thinking about just one thing: the magic carpet.

When break came, and they were all having milk and biscuits, they whispered about it.

‘I
saw
it,' whispered Pandora Green's best friend Jody.

‘So did I,' said Thomas and Pete together. ‘It
was
a magic carpet.'

‘If you ask
me
,' said Hamish Bigmore, ‘it was a mass hallucination.' Hamish Bigmore was always learning long words just so that he could show them off.

‘What's that mean?' said Thomas and Pete suspiciously.

‘It's when you think you've seen something and you haven't,' said Hamish Bigmore. ‘People get them when they're walking across the desert. They think they see a pool of water, and when they get there, there's only sand.'

‘But we're not in the desert, you idiot,' said Thomas. ‘And we didn't see water, we saw a magic carpet, and it turned into a bicycle. And we
all
saw it, so how could we have imagined it?'

‘That's why it's called
mass
hallucination,' said Hamish Bigmore grandly. ‘
Mass
means lots of people. So idiot yourself!'

And they might have believed him, if it wasn't for what happened at dinner.

Most of Class Three ate school dinner, but some of them were sent to school with
packed lunches which their mothers had made at home, and which they ate at a separate table. Thomas and Pete did this, and so did Jody.

So did Wim. He was Thomas and Pete's younger brother. He was in the nursery class, so Thomas and Pete only saw him at dinner time. He was really called William, but ‘Wim' was how he said his own name, so that was what everyone called him.

Wim was tucking happily into a piece of egg and bacon flan, which was his favourite lunch. Thomas and Pete were talking to Jody while they ate theirs. ‘What do you think about the magic carpet?' they asked her for the hundredth time.

‘Ssh, here he comes!' whispered Jody.

Mr Majeika was approaching their table. He sat down next to them. ‘Hello,' he said in a friendly manner. ‘Was there anything you
wanted to ask me about the lessons for this term?'

Thomas, Pete and Jody looked at each other. Of course there was something they wanted to ask him!

Suddenly there was a wail from Wim. He had dropped his egg and bacon flan on the floor.

Thomas and Pete looked gloomily at each other. They would have to give Wim some of their own dinner.

‘My poor chap, most unfortunate,' said Mr Majeika. He bent down and picked up the mess of egg and bacon flan. ‘We must see what we can do with this,' he said to Wim. ‘Tell me, my young friend, what is your favourite food?'

Wim thought for a moment. Then he said: ‘Chips.'

‘Ah,' said Mr Majeika, shutting his eyes
for a moment, and pointing at Wim's plate. ‘Chips.'

‘Oo!' said Wim suddenly. And no wonder, for on his plate, where the broken bits of flan had been, stood a huge pile of steaming hot chips.

‘Oh!' said Thomas, Pete and Jody.

‘Would you like some too, my young friends?' said Mr Majeika. Thomas, Pete and Jody nodded, and suddenly, out of nowhere, there were piles of chips on their plates too.

‘Gosh!' said Thomas, Pete and Jody.

Suddenly another voice broke in. ‘What's this? You know we don't allow chips here at dinner time.' It was Mr Potter.

He had come up behind Mr Majeika without anyone noticing. ‘It's a very strict rule,' he said. ‘Parents may send their children to school with sandwiches or other cold food, but I will not allow boys and girls to go out and buy chips during the dinner hour.'

‘But we didn't buy them,' began Thomas.

‘No, no,' interrupted Mr Majeika quickly. ‘They certainly didn't buy them. It was
I
who provided them, not knowing the school rules. It won't happen again.'

‘Well,' said Mr Potter crossly, ‘please don't let it.' He walked off.

Mr Majeika sighed. ‘Oh dear,' he said, ‘I think I've got a lot to learn in my new job.
You see, I'm not at all experienced at being a teacher. I've always worked as, well … something else.'

Thomas hesitated for a moment, then plucked up courage to say: ‘Do you mean you were a
wizard
?'

Mr Majeika nodded. ‘I might as well admit it,' he said. ‘I worked as one for years, but then I began to get a bit rusty on my spells, and recently there hasn't been much business. People don't believe much in wizards nowadays, so naturally they don't often pay them to do some work. So in the end I just had to get another kind of job. That's why I'm here. And now I really
must
remember that I'm a teacher, and not a wizard at all. And you must all help me. You mustn't try to persuade me to do any –' He hesitated.

‘Any magic?' said Pete.

Mr Majeika nodded. ‘You must let me be an
ordinary teacher
,' he said. ‘Do you promise?'

They all nodded. But each of them thought it would be a very difficult promise to keep.

By three-fifteen that day, when afternoon school was nearly at an end, nothing else out of the ordinary had happened in Class Three. In fact the afternoon would have ended very boringly if it hadn't been for Hamish Bigmore.

Hamish had been put to sit next to Melanie, which was a bad thing for Melanie, as Hamish liked nothing better than to make her cry.

Sure enough, when there were only a few more minutes to go, Melanie started to sob. ‘Boo-hoo! Hamish Bigmore is jabbing me with his ruler!'

Hamish Bigmore said he wasn't, but Mr Majeika moved fast enough to get to the scene of the crime before Hamish had time to hide the ruler. ‘Put it down!' said Mr Majeika.

‘Shan't,' said Hamish Bigmore.

There was silence, and everyone in Class Three remembered how Hamish Bigmore had refused to do as he was told by last term's teacher. It was mostly because of him that she had left the school.

‘Put it down,' said Mr Majeika again.

‘Shan't,' said Hamish Bigmore for a second time.

‘Then,' said Mr Majeika slowly, ‘
I shall make you wish very much that you had put it down
.'

And Hamish Bigmore screamed.

‘A snake! Help! Help!' he shouted. And there fell from his hand something that certainly wasn't a ruler.

It was a long grey-green snake with patterned markings and a forked tongue. Its mouth was open and it was hissing.

In a moment everyone else was shouting too, and clambering on to the desks, and doing anything they could to get out of its reach. But not Mr Majeika.

He stepped calmly up to the snake, knelt down, and picked it up. And as his hand touched it, it turned back into a ruler.

‘What are you frightened of?' he asked Hamish Bigmore. ‘This is only your ruler.
But perhaps next time you will do as you are told.'

He gave the ruler back to Hamish Bigmore, who dropped it fearfully on his desk and shrank away from it.

A moment later the bell rang, and school was over for the day. Class Three usually rushed outside as soon as they heard the bell. But today they were quiet as mice.

‘He
said
he didn't want to do any magic,' said Thomas to Pete on the way home.

‘I think he just forgets about that now and then,' said Pete. ‘After all, if you've been a wizard for years, it can't be easy stopping overnight.'

‘Mr Majeika …' said Thomas thoughtfully to himself. ‘Do you know, I don't think that's his real name.'

‘No,' said Pete. ‘I think he ought to be called Mr Magic.'

In fact for a long time after that Mr Magic, as all Class Three were soon calling him,
didn't
forget that he was meant to be a teacher, and not a wizard. Nothing peculiar happened for weeks and weeks, and the lessons went on just as they would have with any other teacher. The magic carpet, the chips, and the snake seemed like a dream.

Then Hamish Bigmore came to stay at Thomas and Pete's house.

This wasn't at all a good thing, at least not for Thomas and Pete. But they had no choice. Hamish Bigmore's mother and father had to
go away for a few days, and Thomas and Pete's mum had offered to look after Hamish until they came back. She never asked Thomas and Pete what they thought about the idea until it was too late.

Hamish Bigmore behaved even worse than they had expected. He found all their favourite books and games, which they had tried to hide from him, and spoilt them or left them lying about the house where they got trodden on and broken. He pulled the stuffing out of Wim's favourite teddy bear, bounced up and down so hard on the garden climbing-frame that it bent, and talked for hours and hours after the light
had been put out at night, so that Thomas and Pete couldn't get to sleep. ‘It's awful,' said Thomas. ‘I wish that something really nasty would happen to him.'

And it did.

Hamish Bigmore was behaving just as badly at school as at Thomas and Pete's house. The business of the ruler turning into a snake had frightened him for a few days, but no longer than that, and now he was up to his old tricks again, doing anything rather than listen to Mr Majeika and behave properly.

On the Wednesday morning before Hamish Bigmore's mother and father were
due to come home, Mr Majeika was giving Class Three a nature-study lesson, with the tadpoles in the glass tank that sat by his desk. Hamish Bigmore was being ruder than ever.

‘Does anyone know how long tadpoles take to turn into frogs?' Mr Majeika asked Class Three.

‘Haven't the slightest idea,' said Hamish Bigmore.

‘Please,' said Melanie, holding up her hand, ‘I don't think it's very long. Only a few weeks.'

‘
You
should know,' sneered Hamish Bigmore. ‘You look just like a tadpole yourself.'

Melanie began to cry.

‘Be quiet, Hamish Bigmore,' said Mr Majeika. ‘Melanie is quite right. It all happens very quickly. The tadpoles grow arms and legs, and very soon –'

‘I shouldn't think they'll grow at all if they see
you
staring in at them through the glass,' said Hamish Bigmore to Mr Majeika. ‘Your face would frighten them to death!'

‘Hamish Bigmore, I have had enough of you,' said Mr Majeika. ‘Will you stop behaving like this?'

‘No, I won't!' said Hamish Bigmore.

Mr Majeika pointed a finger at him.

And Hamish Bigmore vanished.

There was complete silence. Class Three stared at the empty space where Hamish Bigmore had been sitting.

Then Pandora Green pointed at the glass tank, and began to shout: ‘Look! Look! A frog! A frog! One of the tadpoles has turned into a frog!'

Mr Majeika looked closely at the tank. Then he put his head in his hands. He seemed very upset.

‘No, Pandora,' he said. ‘It isn't one of the tadpoles. It's Hamish Bigmore.'

For a moment, Class Three were struck dumb. Then everyone burst out laughing. ‘Hooray! Hooray! Hamish Bigmore has been turned into a frog! Good old Mr Magic!'

‘It looks like Hamish Bigmore, doesn't it?' Pete said to Thomas. Certainly the frog's expression looked very much like Hamish's face. And it was splashing noisily around the tank and carrying on the silly sort of way that Hamish did.

Mr Majeika looked very worried. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,' he kept saying.

‘Didn't you mean to do it?' asked Jody.

Mr Majeika shook his head. ‘Certainly not. I quite forgot myself. It was a complete mistake.'

‘Well,' said Thomas, ‘you can turn him back again, can't you?'

Mr Majeika shook his head again. ‘I'm not at all sure that I can,' he said.

Thomas and Pete looked at him in astonishment.

‘You see,' he went on, ‘it was an old spell, something I learnt years and years ago and thought I'd forgotten. I don't know what were the exact words I used. And, as I am sure you understand, it's not possible to undo a spell unless you know exactly what the words were.'

‘So Hamish Bigmore may have to stay a
frog?' said Pete. ‘That's the best thing I've heard for ages!'

Mr Majeika shook his head. ‘For you, maybe, but not for him. I'll have to try and do
something
.' And he began to mutter a whole series of strange-sounding words under his breath.

All kinds of things began to happen. The room went dark, and the floor seemed to rock. Green smoke came out of an empty jar on Mr Majeika's desk. He tried some more words, and this time there was a small thunderstorm in the sky outside. But nothing happened to the frog.

‘Oh, dear,' sighed Mr Majeika, ‘what
am
I going to do?'