The Courage of Cat Campbell (18 page)

“Come on.” Cat squeezed Peter's hand, more for her benefit than his. “Follow me.” They wove their way around rows of desks. A large crystal ball sat on the teacher's table, and a cabinet full of miniature crystal balls stood behind it. There was a poster of a hand on one wall, with dotted lines marked across the palm.
This must be the fortune-telling class,
Cat thought, and for a brief moment she imagined herself sitting at one of those desks, learning how to divine the future.

“Cat, are you all right?” Peter whispered, and Cat realized she had come to a stop.

“Yes, I'm fine.” Cat shook her head. This was not the time to get all wistful and daydreamy. She couldn't afford to lose her focus.

Cat crept over to the door and opened it slowly, trying to stop any creaking. She peered out into the corridor, but it was dark and quiet, although plumes of smoke were drifting down the hallway to the left. “This way,” Cat mouthed, motioning with her head. They tiptoed along following the curls of smoke. Cat stopped midstep as a tremendous crash exploded up ahead, followed by another colossal bang. Something buzzed from inside Peter's pocket, and he pulled out a small metal box with a red light flashing on the top.

“My earthquake detector,” he whispered. “It works!”

“That is not an earthquake, Peter.” Cat's eyes were huge, and she gripped Peter's fingers hard.

“But it picked up the vibrations, which is great.” The sound of glass breaking shattered the air, and Peter's alarm started to buzz again.

“Will you turn that off?” Cat hissed, pulling him to a halt. “Right now!” Her whole body shook and it took all her willpower not to turn and run the other way. Suddenly, a whirlwind of black smoke swirled out of a classroom to their right. Cat glimpsed the bald head of Madeline Reynolds at the center of the tornado, and she watched in horror as the witch swept off down the corridor, not even glancing in their direction. What frightened Cat the most was that she had been clasping a wand. Not a difficult thing to find in a school for witchcraft, especially when you had been a student here for seven years and knew where the wands were kept.

Still holding hands, Cat and Peter walked up to the classroom leaking black smoke. They stood in the doorway staring at the destruction in front of them. “I think this was a spell room,” Cat said, taking in the devastation. Tables and chairs had been upturned, cauldrons knocked over, and broken glass scattered everywhere. A pungent smell hung in the air, herbal and sweet, as spell ingredients pooled on the floor, their bottles smashed to smithereens.

“I don't think she has very good memories of this place,” Peter murmured. “Your mum was right about that.”

Until this moment, it hadn't occurred to Cat that maybe this was what her mother had been like, sweeping about in clouds of black smoke, causing destruction wherever she went. It was not a pleasant image, and for the first time Cat realized how sad her mother must have been. How hopeless she must have felt to behave in such a manner.

“Cat, are you all right?” Peter whispered again. “Because I'm fine to leave any time you want.”

Cat shook her head. She turned and started walking down the corridor. If they didn't get this over with soon, she wasn't going to have the courage to go through with it. “Let's tie her up right now,” Cat said, “before she does any more damage.”

“Cat, what if your magic goes wrong?” Peter said. “I hate to bring this up, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to lasso her. And could you please stop squeezing my hand quite so tightly?”

“You can't be a doubter,” Cat whispered, trying to loosen her grip. “Clara Bell believes in me. I believe in me, and I need you to as well, Peter.”

The trail of smoke led them down the hallway and up a flight of stairs. As they climbed, another huge crash sounded and Cat dropped Peter's hand, grabbing him by the arm. Being this brave was exhausting. The stairway lit up for a second as lightning streaked across the sky, and then a torrential downpouring of rain could be heard, pattering against the windows.

“It's just thunder,” Cat said shakily. “From that cloud above the building.”

“She's brewing a storm,” Peter wailed softly. “She's going to wash Ruthersfield away, isn't she? She'll probably wash the whole of Potts Bottom away.”

Cat could hear his teeth chattering. She forced herself to remain calm. “I doubt our Maddie has that kind of power anymore,” she said. She didn't really believe this at all, but she knew it was what Peter needed to hear. It was what she needed to hear too. “Come on, let's keep going,” Cat said, giving him her best attempt at a smile.

They followed the smoke up to the third floor and along another hallway, passing two more classrooms, another laboratory, and a narrow purple door with
BROOM SUPPLY CLOSET
on it. At the end of the corridor the smoke turned into a small classroom; beautiful scrollwork letters on a plaque above the door read
HONORS STUDENTS
. Cat wondered if this was Madeline Reynolds's old class. She and Peter hovered in the hallway keeping to one side, so Madeline Reynolds wouldn't see them. As Cat peeked through the opening, she didn't know what she expected to find, but it certainly wasn't the world's most evil witch sitting at a desk in the third row, staring straight ahead as if she were waiting for class to begin. She looked so small and frail and wrinkled. It was hard to believe that she was dangerous. They watched her open the desk and peer inside. Madeline Reynolds looked at whatever was in it for a long moment before closing the lid.

Then, with a howl of anger, she zapped her wand furiously around the room. Desks exploded, spilling out pens and papers in a haze of purple smoke. There was a cracking sound and the blackboard shattered into pieces, crumbling to the floor as if it were a broken jigsaw puzzle. Posters melted off the walls, and a shelf of books flew into the air, the pages ripping loose, fluttering down like confetti.

Surveying her destruction, Madeline Reynolds seemed to slump, as if she had run out of energy. With a raspy sigh, she rested her bald head on top of the desk. Hunched over in her boilersuit, she looked like a bag of bones.

“I think she's taking a nap,” Peter mouthed after four or five minutes had gone by. A soft, snoring noise could be heard, and Cat nodded in agreement. This was the time to catch her.

“Right, I'm going in,” Cat whispered, stepping bravely through the door. She walked up to the teacher's desk with Peter right behind her. Madeline Reynolds lifted her head off the desk, staring straight at Cat. Her eyes were rheumy and unfocused, and she seemed a little disoriented.

“Do it,” Peter whispered. “Now!”

But Cat completely froze. This was Madeline Reynolds in front of her. Madeline Reynolds who had given her nightmares for years. Cat felt her courage slip away like quicksand. She held the wand in her hand, but her arm wouldn't move and she couldn't remember the spell. Panic buzzed in Cat's ears, and she stared at the witch, paralyzed with fear. For a brief moment Madeline Reynolds looked startled at seeing anyone else in the room. She abruptly pushed her chair back, and something vulnerable passed through the old witch's eyes. Then they grew hard and angry, fixed on Cat with such hatred that Cat gave a silent plea, her legs turning soft as molasses.

“Cat, the spell,” Peter cried, but although Cat heard him, her brain wasn't responding. She watched in a trance as Madeline Reynolds flung the desk aside, looking like a wild animal as she overturned it. “Maddie,” Peter croaked in a hoarse voice, “can we talk about this?”

The old witch pointed her wand at them, sending out a jagged bolt of lightning. And that's when Cat screamed.

Peter pushed her to the floor as the lightning whizzed over their heads, singeing his frizzy hair. “Get under the desk, Cat,” he said, fumbling for the rope. “I should have stayed home and watched television. That would have been so much smarter.”

He scrambled back up and waved the lasso once around his head, then let it fly toward Madeline Reynolds. It was a good aim. A really fantastic aim. And for a second Cat thought it was going to reach its target. But the old witch sent out another lightning bolt, which met the rope in midair.

“Awwwh!” Peter screamed, as a zigzag current of electricity traveled up the rope, sending him stumbling backward. His hair stood on end and his body glowed green for a second. He was unable to hold on to the lasso, and it jerked out of his hands, flew across the room, and deftly tied itself into a knot. Baring her teeth, Madeline Reynolds hissed with loathing.

“Get over here,” Cat sobbed, waving Peter back under the desk. “This was such a bad idea.” Her mind had gone completely blank and she couldn't think what to do. But she had to get to Peter, who appeared to be suffering from shock, slumped on the floor and still glowing faintly green. Crawling toward him, Cat saw Madeline Reynolds raise her wand in the air again. “Hurry, Peter, grab my hand,” Cat screamed, as the witch let fly a jumble of words.

But it was too late. Jagged lightning bolts shot toward them, and Cat dived back under the table. There was a burst of orange smoke where Peter had been sitting, followed by a powerful smell of wet fur. As the smoke cleared Cat saw a ginger-and-white guinea pig cowering behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The glasses belonged to Peter. . . .

But Peter was nowhere in sight.

It took Cat a moment to understand what had happened, and as the truth slowly sank in, she covered her mouth in shock. Peter had been turned into a guinea pig. Cat watched him scuttle under the supply cupboard. A sick, dizzy feeling swept over her, followed by a powerful wave of fury. It was like watching your friend disappear down a drain, or vanish into a black hole. You couldn't quite believe he was gone.

“How dare you,” Cat screamed, leaping to her feet and staring right at Madeline Reynolds. She had never felt this sort of rage before, flooding through her in a red-hot torrent, like a volcano about to explode. Cat wasn't scared anymore. Not one tiny bit. She was furious, and waving her wand in a fast spiral motion, she yelled, “Intratangledcacoono” at the top of her lungs.

At the same moment Madeline Reynolds pointed her wand at Cat, but Cat was too fast for her. She jumped out of the way as the lightning bolt zipped by, hitting a terrarium of frogs on a table behind her. Cat heard glass shattering, but she didn't look round because she was watching streams of white thread shoot out of her wand and spin toward Madeline Reynolds. The old witch couldn't move quickly enough, and in a matter of seconds, the threads wound around her from the shoulders down, tying her up in a sticky white cocoon. Her arms were bound to her sides and her legs pressed together. The only visible part of Madeline Reynolds was her head, which looked as small and withered as an old apple. She gave Cat a long, cold stare before closing her eyes. There was no fear in the old witch's face. Just a deep, fierce hatred, although for a moment before her lids drooped, Cat was sure she glimpsed sadness as well.

“Serves you right!” Cat said shakily, sinking down on the teacher's chair. She felt so light-headed she thought she might faint. Frogs were hopping everywhere, but Cat ignored them. She gave a soft sob, taking no pride in the fact that her spell had worked brilliantly. What did it matter? She had risked Peter's life and now he was a guinea pig. Who knew if she'd even be able to find him again? Peter had believed in her, and she had let him down. She had failed her friend in the worst way.

Cat gave her nose a hard blow. Sitting and crying wasn't going to help matters when she should be looking for Peter. His glasses were still on the floor, and Cat picked them up as she walked over to the supply cupboard, slipping them into her pocket for safekeeping. She bent down and peered underneath the cabinet. “Peter, are you there?” Cat called out. There was no answer, which was not surprising considering Peter was now a guinea pig.

It was also difficult to see much. The only light in the room came from outside, and Cat looked around for a light switch. She couldn't see one, but there was a lamp on the teacher's desk. Trying not to step on frogs, Cat hurried over and unplugged it, carrying it back to the supply cupboard. She plugged it in again and shone the lamp under the cabinet, and there, cowering against the back wall, was Peter.

“It's all right,” Cat said, using her gentlest voice. “Don't be scared. I've tied her up so she can't escape.” Peter didn't move from his spot, but Cat was sure he shook his furry little head. “Honestly, Peter. It's quite safe. Please come out.” Cat was just thinking about using a long pole or something to prod him out with, when two of the escaped frogs hopped underneath the cabinet. They were about the same size as Peter. As soon as he saw them, he gave a series of little squeaks and charged toward Cat, his ginger bottom swaying as he ran.

Cat scooped him up and gave his whiskery little face a kiss. She stared into the guinea pig's shiny currant eyes. “I will figure this out, Peter. I promise.” She kissed his nose again. How Cat was going to figure this out she had no idea. But one thing was clear. She couldn't take Madeline Reynolds directly to Uncle Tom's, not with Peter being a guinea pig. Auntie Charlie and Uncle Tom would be devastated. Peter was their only child, and even though they were very fond of guinea pigs, they would not appreciate having Peter as one.