Thomas and Pete found it very difficult to sleep that night. Early the next morning, they went down the road to the newspaper shop. Sure enough, the headline on the front page of the Moon was: ‘WOULD YOU WANT YOUR KIDS TAUGHT BY THIS MAN?’ The picture showed Mr Majeika waving his magic wand. Beneath it were these words:
‘Ace reporter of the Moon, Dennis Prott, has discovered WITCHCRAFT being taught to LITTLE CHILDREN in one of Britain’s most innocent-looking SCHOOLS. He watched while evil sorcerer Mr Majeika waved his MAGIC WAND and chanted FOUL SPELLS over the CHILDREN, turning them into VICIOUS-LOOKING WITCHES AND WIZARDS. He listened while Mr Majeika taught his VICTIMS to play NASTY TRICKS on OLD LADIES. He gasped in amazement while this WICKED WIZARD passed on to the children the SECRETS of his BLACK ART.
‘The Moon asks, HOW LONG CAN THIS BE ALLOWED TO GO ON? The Moon says, NOT A DAY, NOT AN HOUR LONGER. The Moon demands, SACK MR MAJEIKA NOW!!!’
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Thomas, ‘it’s even worse than we expected. What do you think we should do?’
They went home and phoned Jody. She had already seen the Moon. ‘Do you think we should phone Mr Majeika and warn him, before he gets to school?’ she asked.
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Pete. ‘But does anyone know his home telephone number?’
‘I wouldn’t bet that he’s even got a telephone,’ said Jody. ‘He doesn’t seem the sort of person who would.’
‘Maybe we could get in touch with him by telepathy,’ said Thomas.
‘By what?’ asked Pete.
‘Telepathy,’ said Thomas. ‘It’s when somebody thinks something, and they manage to make somebody else know what they’re thinking.’
‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ said Jody on the phone. ‘You’re just wasting time – it can’t possibly work.’
‘You never know,’ said Thomas. ‘It won’t take a moment to try it. Let’s practise before we try to contact Mr Majeika. I’ll think hard,’ he said to Pete, ‘and you’ve got to tell me what I’m thinking about.’
Thomas thought hard. He thought about a car – a big, red, shiny sports car. In his imagination, he thought about himself driving it very fast, at a hundred miles an hour. The car had its roof folded down, so that the wind was roaring through Thomas’s hair. He was having a wonderful time.
‘What was I thinking about?’ he asked Pete.
‘You were thinking about eating a banana,’ said Pete.
Thomas was very disappointed. ‘It didn’t work,’ he told Jody down the telephone.
‘We must stop wasting time,’ Jody said. ‘Let’s get to school as quickly as possible, so that we can try to keep Mr Majeika out of trouble.’
They hurried off to school. As soon as they got there, they saw a big crowd of men and women around the gates. All were holding cameras, microphones or notebooks. And in the middle of them were Dennis Prott and Hamish Bigmore.
‘Hi there, kiddiewinks,’ said Dennis in
his Lulubelle voice. ‘Look at all the friends I’ve brought with me today. They’re all waiting to talk to your naughty teacher – he’s going to be on lots of radio and TV programmes, and in all the other newspapers.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Thomas.
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Jody. ‘He’s going to get into awful trouble – it’s the worst thing that Hamish Bigmore has ever done to him.’
Hamish grinned nastily at Jody, and waved Dennis’s ‘Lulubelle’ wig in the air. Pete grabbed it from him, and tried to tear it in half. Then he changed his mind, and ran off with it, calling to Thomas and Jody to follow him.
‘Listen,’ he said, when they had caught up with him, ‘I’ve got an idea. If we can find Mr Majeika and stop him before –’
‘Here I am,’ said Mr Majeika. He was walking past them on his way to school. ‘What a lovely sunny morning it is,’ he said cheerfully.
‘It may be sunny,’ said Jody, ‘but it’s not lovely at all, Mr Majeika, at least not for us.’ And she explained to him what had happened.
Five minutes later, they put Pete’s idea into action.
Pete pushed through the crowd of reporters and TV and radio people and shouted rude things at Hamish Bigmore, until Hamish lost his temper and tried to hit Pete, who ran away. Hamish ran after him. This was what Pete had wanted – it was important to get Hamish out of the way before his plan could be carried out.
Then Thomas and Jody walked up to the crowd at the school gates, with a third person walking between them.
‘Let us through, please,’ said Jody. ‘This is our dinner lady, Mrs Maggs, and she’s not feeling very well this morning.’
The reporters and TV and radio people let them through, but Dennis Prott had a suspicious look on his face, so they hurried across the playground as quickly as possible, and in through the main door of the school. Too quickly, because Mr Potter was just inside the door and he bumped straight into ‘Mrs Maggs’, whose
hair fell off – because she was, of course, Mr Majeika, disguised in Dennis Prott’s Lulubelle wig. Fortunately, the reporters couldn’t see what was happening indoors.
‘Ah, Majeika,’ said Mr Potter, ‘I was just looking for you. The governors of the school are holding a special meeting and they want you to come to it.’
‘Can we come too, Mr Potter?’ asked Jody.
Mr Potter shook his head and led Mr Majeika off by the arm.
‘It’s all right,’ said Pete. ‘They’re meeting in Mr Potter’s office, which is next door to Class Three, and if you go into the big cupboard in the classroom, there’s a hole in the wall, and you can see and hear what’s being said in the office.’
They hurried into the classroom. There was only room for one person in the cupboard, so Jody went into it and told the others what she could see and hear through the hole.
‘There are just two governors,’ she said in a whisper. ‘One of them is a very old man with a long beard, who seems to be asleep, and the other is – oh no! – it’s Hamish Bigmore’s mum!’
‘What’s she doing in there?’ said Thomas.
‘She became a school governor last term,’ said Pete.
‘Shh!’ said Jody. ‘Mr Potter is introducing Mr Majeika to the old man, who’s fallen fast asleep again already. And now Mr Potter is reading out bits from the Moon about Mr Majeika doing magic, and Mr Majeika is looking very unhappy. Mrs Bigmore is getting very angry and saying that Mr Potter ought to sack Mr Majeika right away. And now –
oh, bother – Mr Potter has taken off his jacket, and hung it on a hook just above the hole in the wall, and I can’t see or hear anything any more. We’ll just have to wait until Mr Majeika comes out.
They had to wait for a long while, and when Mr Majeika finally came into Class Three, he looked very miserable.
‘Have you been given the sack, Mr Majeika?’ asked Thomas.
Mr Majeika shook his head. ‘Not quite,’ he answered. ‘Mrs Bigmore wanted Mr Potter to fire me at once, but instead he’s told me that I can go on teaching if I promise to give up all magic. So I’ve promised that I’ll break my magic wand, and burn my spell book.’
‘That’s terrible, Mr Majeika,’ said Jody. ‘Worse than the sack.’
Mr Majeika nodded. ‘It means I can never be a wizard again, for the rest of my life. And I’ve promised to do it right away.’ He took his wand out of the drawer, shut his eyes and bent the wand double, so that Jody, Thomas and Pete were certain it would break. But instead, it vanished!
‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Majeika, ‘I must have said a vanishing spell over it by accident.’
‘Well, you tried to break it, Mr Majeika,’ said Jody.
‘I suppose so,’ said Mr Majeika anxiously. ‘But I’ll have to make sure my spell book really does catch on fire. Here it is,’ he said, pulling it out from its hiding place under his desk. ‘Has anyone got a box of matches?’
Nobody had. ‘Surely, Mr Majeika,’ said Jody, ‘you could do a fire spell to make it burn?’
Mr Majeika nodded. ‘That’s a good idea,’ he said. He shut his eyes and waved his hands over the book.
Just at that moment, Hamish Bigmore barged noisily into the classroom. ‘Yah, boo, sucks!’ he shouted at Mr Majeika. ‘You’ll never be able to turn me into anything again, now that you’ve had to give up doing magic. Serves you right, silly old Mr Majeika.’ Then suddenly Hamish yelled ‘Ouch!’ because the spell book had risen up in the air, and come down on top of him with a big thump.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Majeika, ‘I didn’t mean to do that at all – I must have used the wrong spell again.’
The book went on thumping Hamish, and when he tried to run away, it chased him round the classroom. At this moment, the door opened, and in came Mrs Bigmore, followed by Mr Potter.
‘What is going on?’ shrieked Mrs Bigmore.
‘He’s done another of his spells,’ yelled Hamish, who was trying to hide from the spell book by squeezing under one of the desks. The book found him there quickly, and began to smack him on the bottom. ‘Ow! Ow!’ shrieked Hamish.
‘That proves it!’ said Mrs Bigmore. ‘Mr Majeika obviously doesn’t have the slightest intention of giving up magic. He’s going to go on doing horrid magical things to my poor little Hamish. Sack him at once, Mr Potter! Sack him right now!’
Mr Potter nodded gloomily. ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ he said to Mrs Bigmore. ‘Mr Majeika, you must leave the school at once, and never come back.’