Her eyes stopped at Nelson Hamm. Nelson’s ears were bright red again, and sticking out particularly far today, due to an unfortunate haircut at Barber Bernie’s Hair Emporium last Saturday.
Nelson had been staring at Amy’s blond curls, and was far away in thought. He imagined saving little Amy from a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon. He was right at the critical moment when … Ms. Finch’s icy voice cut through.
“Mr. Hamm, what is the quotient for this problem?” She tapped the blackboard loudly to intimidate him.
Nelson had no idea what a quotient was and sputtered several times before finally guessing.
“Twenty?” he whispered.
He had the correct answer so Ms. Finch could only criticize his hesitancy. “Well, are you quite sure about that?” she snapped at him.
Nelson sputtered some more.
Ms. Finch turned her stony face toward Robert Hillman-Jones and softened a bit. Robert was her favorite. “Robert, I’m sure you know the answer to this problem and won’t have to equivocate.”
Robert Hillman-Jones wasn’t sure that twenty was the answer, either. And he definitely wasn’t sure what “equivocate” meant. But he figured it had something to do with sounding uncertain.
So he took a chance and answered boldly. What the heck, he thought, the weirdo teacher liked him anyway and he might score some more points with her if he were right.
“Ms. Finch, the answer to this problem is clearly twenty!”
Ms. Finch sent a rare smile in Robert’s direction. “Yes, Robert.”
Then she frowned at the rest of the class and added, “At least one student in this class has been paying attention.”
ElsBeth was ready to blow a gasket. For most of the day Hillman-Jones had been shooting dried wasabi peas through a straw at the girls.
The last thing he had been doing was paying attention. ElsBeth was not going to stand by silently while he got away with this. It was wrong! She started to huff.
Ms. Finch raised an over-plucked eyebrow in ElsBeth’s direction.
Fortunately, however, just at that moment, Sylvanas the cat, in all his feline majesty, plopped his fluffy black self on the windowsill, distracting ElsBeth from doing something she was sure to regret.
Sylvanas let out a distinct hiss aimed directly at Ms. Finch.
The teacher’s head snapped to the window. She jumped back behind her desk, panic stamped on her pinched face.
Sylvanas was quite satisfied with this reaction. Ms. Finch would not dare mess with ElsBeth, no matter the circumstance, when he was there to intervene.
His action on ElsBeth’s behalf complete, and having several other bits of mischief in mind to stir up elsewhere just then, he vanished from the windowsill, quicker than smoke. Only the little witch and the teacher had observed his mysterious and brief appearance.
ElsBeth cooled off. That was a close one. Disaster had been narrowly avoided. She owed Sylvanas. Again.
Chapter 6
Trouble Between the Witches
That evening, after another double work assignment, during which even she would have to admit her penmanship had improved nicely, ElsBeth again wound up in the garden with Bartholomew.
The huge frog leaned back against the maple tree, deep in thought. ElsBeth sat on the green garden stool and looked at her friend.
Before she said anything, the frog croaked sympathetically, “I know, Ms. Finch isn’t fair.”
ElsBeth was taken by surprise. “How did you know what happened, Bartholomew?”
“Sylvanas,” Bartholomew replied. No further explanation was needed.
ElsBeth and everyone else with the slightest magical perception for miles around were quite aware that Sylvanas was a compulsive gossip and meddler. Of course he would have passed on this juicy tidbit.
“Yes, well, she isn’t fair. What can I do, Bartholomew? I want to go to Boston. I’ve never been off Cape and everyone is going.” ElsBeth whined, quite unbecoming in a witch.
Bartholomew understood, though. “Don’t worry, little one. Ms. Finch won’t actually keep you here. She just enjoys making you and the other students feel upset. Unfortunately some people are like that.
“But I need to warn you,” the frog continued. “Not everywhere is like Cape Cod. There are things you will see in Boston that could frighten you. It is an old place — with many kinds of disturbing magic there.” He snapped out his tongue at a nearby mosquito.
What was happening here? Bartholomew had never before cautioned her about anything. ElsBeth knew he frowned upon cowardice above all else.
“What do you mean, Bartholomew? What should I be afraid of?”
Bartholomew just shook his head. “Nothing, little one, really. You should never walk in fear. But it is wise to pay attention when the storm clouds gather and the enemy grows strong.”
ElsBeth felt her eyebrows shoot up and wrinkle her forehead, completely confused.
“Just pay attention and you’ll be fine,” the frog summarized, in a tone that said that was that.
Now ElsBeth wondered what she was supposed to pay attention to. She looked at Bartholomew in the fading light. The frog sat very still, and for just a moment she saw him again as the handsome Native American prince he had once been. And his now deep brown eyes held many secrets.
ElsBeth blinked twice, and once more there was only a simple, though exceptionally large, green frog leaning against the tree.
Reminded of Bartholomew’s true nature, she felt better somehow after their little talk. She smiled at him and headed off for supper.
But as she skipped up the path toward the house, dark clouds swept in fast and low from the ocean. Very fast. Faster than fast.
The pink and lavender Victorian house, with its fancy curlicues, glowed in the sunlight that shined through towering storm clouds. Lightning played to and fro. ElsBeth stopped and stared.
Weather was unpredictable on the Cape, but she had never before seen a storm move in like this.
A fat drop of rain splashed on her nose, and in a moment she was drenched. She scooted up the steps onto the wide pine planks of her front porch and looked back.
Outlined by the lightning against the dark clouds was the faint form of a face. It reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who it was. She stood there dripping and puzzled over the image. Then the wonderful smell of Grandmother’s cranberry-orange bread pudding caught her.
She turned. “Grandmother, you made my other favorite!”
ElsBeth’s grandmother held a bowl of golden pudding with bits of red and orange fruit sticking out on top, and suddenly all else was forgotten.
“Yes, ElsBeth, I thought we should have a special dinner. And after that we need to talk.”
ElsBeth was too interested in pudding to notice the serious tone in her grandmother’s voice.
After dinner ElsBeth completed her homework and her chores. (Even witches have to do chores every day.) Then she and Grandmother curled up in the living room.
A small fire crackled. The welcoming scent of cedar perfumed the room. The evenings were still cool, and a fire took the chill off.
They settled in comfortable, faded-blue wing chairs