Читать книгу ElsBeth and the Pirate's Treasure, Book I in the Cape Cod Witch Series - J Bean Palmer - Страница 4

ElsBeth Amelia Thistle was, at this moment, feeling more than a little upset.

Now that she was in second grade, she was discovering several things not exactly to her liking.

First of all, her teacher Ms. Finch was a mean old fogy.

Last year ElsBeth had the cotton-candy-sweet Mrs. Bottomley, and that had worked out just fine. But Ms. Finch was a horror.

This teacher was like something out of those scary movies ElsBeth’s grandmother would never let her watch.

And to make matters worse there was this annoying boy Robert Hillman-Jones, who was absolutely driving her crazy.

The worst part of it was that ElsBeth was a witch — granted a small one — but nevertheless a broom-toting, card-carrying, bona fide witch.

ElsBeth, though only seven years old, knew several excellent spells, and if anyone ever deserved to be made into a frog, Robert Hillman-Jones was it.

But she was not allowed to do anything about it. Spells were only to be used for good. And she wasn’t supposed to use any magic without supervision.

It was so frustrating.

“Ouch!” squealed ElsBeth, as Hillman-Jones poked her in the ribs for about the tenth time during arithmetic, the one class where Ms. Finch tolerated not the least bit of inattention.

Ms. Finch went to great pains to ensure the students took arithmetic very SERIOUSLY and were ABSOLUTELY SILENT throughout.

At this unheard-of outburst, Ms. Finch turned slowly away from the blackboard, screeching the chalk for what seemed like ages.

The class held their breath as one.

The teacher’s beady eyes looked up behind her thick glasses, black and horn-rimmed, and chained to her head with multi-colored plastic beads.

Ms. Finch was what some people unkindly referred to as “tough on the eyes.”

“What was that, Miss Thistle? Did you have something to add to today’s lesson in multiplication, perhaps?” Ms. Finch hissed this question sarcastically through tight, thin lips.

All heads turned to ElsBeth.

“No, Ms. Finch,” replied ElsBeth.

But before she could stop herself she let slip, “Robert Hillman-Jones jabbed me in the ribs.”

At this forbidden backtalk, Ms. Finch leapt forward at an alarming speed and swept down the row of shocked students, mouths open like train-wreck observers. She stopped short at ElsBeth’s seat.

“I heard that. Apologize at once,” she said.

“I will not have children in my class telling tales. And trying to get perfectly innocent, dear, young boys into trouble.”

ElsBeth pressed her lips firmly together and sat hard on her hands — so she didn’t say anything that would inflame Ms. Finch further. Or worse yet, cast a spell in the middle of arithmetic class.

ENTER THE CAT

Fortunately, at just that moment, her grandmother’s unnaturally large, inky-black cat Sylvanas chose to make an appearance on the windowsill.

The impressive feline sent a sharp, taunting hiss of his own in Ms. Finch’s direction.

The schoolteacher, thoroughly distracted by this newest interruption to the seven’s multiplication table, forgot about ElsBeth for the moment.

Ms. Finch stepped cautiously toward the window, nervously flapping her fingers and calling out, “Scat!”

In response to this ridiculous effort to shoo him away, Sylvanas yawned widely. He slowly arched his back, stuck his nose in the air, and plopped rather theatrically onto Amy Clark’s desk.

Amy, a small timid girl with pale hair and pale eyes and dressed in pink frills, was so alarmed she pushed back away from her desk. And her chair abruptly tipped over into Nelson Hamm.

Nelson, a skinny kid with glasses, was at that moment wholly entranced by Amy in all her pinkness, and because of this was completely startled.

He jumped up, too quickly, and tried to catch Amy, but missed by a long shot, and proceeded to knock his desk into Frankie Sylvester beside him.

Frankie was chunky, but a solid fellow, and was always more than ready to get into a fight.

Nelson’s clumsiness called for action. Frankie immediately shot up into a classic boxing stance and shoved his puny classmate over.

Unfortunately, Nelson’s thin body presented little resistance to his powerful classmate, and Nelson flew in a slow, graceful curve — directly into Veronica Smythe.

Veronica, at that particular moment, was pleasantly daydreaming about being a teenager, with make-up, hip clothes and a boyfriend.

She was not happy to be reminded she was still only in second grade, and being bumped into by a skinny boy with glasses whose ears stuck out the sides of his head.

Veronica let out a surprisingly loud shriek for a second-grader, at which the rest of the class, until then unaffected, jumped up and began to run around in circles, in the general belief that a mouse must have gotten loose in the classroom.

This idea was transmitted by Veronica’s piercing shriek, and Carmen Alverez’s cry, “Aaah! It’s a mouse!”

Carmen, being deathly afraid of the little grey creatures, was always on the alert, and naturally assumed when Veronica panicked that she must have seen one.

The rest of the class quickly separated into three camps.

Most of the boys wanted to catch the mouse and turn it into a class project.

There was a group of the more squeamish girls, led by Carmen, who leapt onto their desks to avoid the nasty rodent, while their squeals rose up and bounced off the walls.

And a third group, consisting of several of the most serious students in the class, including ElsBeth, Lisa Lee and Johnny Twofeathers, followed the action with keen interest as events unfolded.

THE CAT IS SATISFIED

The mischievous cat was apparently satisfied that he had caused enough excitement for the moment in ElsBeth’s boring arithmetic class.

He propelled himself back to the windowsill and surveyed the class, with a pleased look on his flat cat features.

He licked his lips, gave ElsBeth a slight nod, and took off to find some other dull spot in town that needed his special touch to liven things up.

ElsBeth vowed then and there that Sylvanas would be getting a large bowl of the richest cream she could find for dinner tonight.

She owed him one for rescuing her from Ms. Finch’s unnerving attentions.

THE FINCH

Ms. Finch’s iron control had been temporarily lost with this chaotic behavior in her normally perfectly obedient and disciplined classroom.

The teacher was somewhat dazed by it all, but gradually began to recover.

She started to get the students back in line. Then the slightly confused look on her face turned into a fixed glare, as her sharp little eyes fell on ElsBeth — the girl was smiling.

As to ElsBeth, she was only thinking about how wonderful Sylvanas could be.

But Ms. Finch once more swept down ElsBeth’s row.

The students sensed the sudden change and fell silent under Ms. Finch’s completely scary scowl.

All eyes again turned to ElsBeth.

Ms. Finch spat out, “I recognized that cat. You brought him to school and called him in here. Admit it, young lady.”

ElsBeth wasn’t sure how Ms. Finch knew Sylvanas was a member of her family, but she managed to blurt out, “He’s ours, but I didn’t bring him to school.”

Ms. Finch ignored ElsBeth’s answer. “Don’t lie to me, girl. You will write, ‘I promise not to lie, tattle or disturb the class’ on the blackboard three hundred times.”

“Neatly!” she added, with emphasis.

With this pronouncement of punishment, Ms. Finch seemed done with ElsBeth, for now, and strode back to the blackboard. She chalked in:

7 x 6 = 42

7 x 7 = 49

She whacked the blackboard with the wooden pointer while pronouncing each equation crisply.

WHAT TO DO

Later that afternoon ElsBeth walked home with drooping shoulders, her eyes rarely leaving the sidewalk. She wasn’t sure how she could stand school anymore.

Then she got a great idea. Maybe her grandmother could take her out of school and homeschool her. She’d heard the Nye twins were being homeschooled.

Not everyone had to put up with Ms. Finch! Yes, that was the answer.