3. The orchestra

‘What I don’t understand,’ said Jody gloomily, ‘is why a witch should want to come to St Barty’s.’

‘Mr Majeika thinks it’s probably for the same reason that he came,’ said Thomas. ‘He says you can’t make any money as a magician these days. You’ve got to get some other job. But it’s an awful pity that she chose St Barty’s.’

They were walking across the playground to the school hall for the first rehearsal of Miss Worlock’s orchestra.

‘Here,’ shouted a voice, ‘give me a hand with my double bass.’ It was Hamish Bigmore.

Thomas and Pete, who only had recorders to carry, unwillingly picked up the big instrument. ‘Quick march!’ snapped Hamish. ‘Get on with it.’

‘You’re only carrying the little end,’ grumbled Pete.

In the hall, Miss Worlock was putting music on the music-stands. ‘Ugh,’ muttered Thomas, ‘I think she looks horrid.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hamish. ‘I think she looks very nice indeed. Not like silly old Mr Majeika.’

One by one, the other children arrived. ‘Quiet, everyone!’ called Miss Worlock when they were all there. ‘I am your new music teacher.’ She smiled a horrible smile. ‘You may like to know a little about my method. There are all kinds of ways of teaching music. There’s the Sol-Fa method. That means you learn the names of the notes: Doh, Ray, Me, Fa, Sol. That’s all rubbish, and I don’t want to waste time with it. There’s also the Suzuki method. That was invented by a Japanese person, and we’re not in Japan, so we don’t want to know about that. My method is called the So-Spooky method. Can anyone guess what that means?’

There was silence. Only Class Three knew that Miss Worlock was a witch, but everyone could see she was a thoroughly nasty person.

‘The So-Spooky method,’ went on Miss Worlock, ‘means that you’ve got to practise your instruments very hard, otherwise something oh-so-spooky will happen to you. Have you got that clear? Very well, let’s get on with the music.’

Everyone picked up their instruments.

‘This term,’ said Miss Worlock, ‘we’re going to learn a piece of music called “The Carnival of the Animals”. We’ll begin straight away. And I want you to play the right notes, or else…’

She sat down at the piano. ‘The first piece is a March,’ she called out. ‘Off we go. One, two, three, four.’

She began to play.

A terrible noise rose up all round the hall. Recorders squeaked like mice caught in a trap, violins scraped like rusty door-hinges, clarinets howled like dogs calling to the moon, trumpets blared like lorries hooting in a traffic jam. ‘STOP!’ shouted Miss Worlock after a moment. ‘That’s terrible! Didn’t you listen to

my warning? Now, play the right notes, or you’ll know what the So-Spooky method means soon enough. Off we go again. One, two, three, four.’

This time the noise was even worse. ‘Eee-ooo-uuu-iii-eee!’ squeaked the recorders. ‘Zzee-zzii-zzyy!’ scraped the violins. ‘Wwoo-wwuu-wwoo!’ howled the clarinets. ‘Raa-raa-raaaaaaaa!’ blared the trumpets.

‘That’s ENOUGH!’ screamed Miss Worlock. ‘Toads! That’s what I ought to turn you into! Horrid slimy toads, every one of you! I’ve never heard such a noise in all my life.’

A hand went up at the back. It was Jody. ‘Please, miss,’ she said, ‘it’s not our fault. You told us to get instruments, and bring them to school, but you haven’t taught us how to play them properly. Most of us have never done music before.’

‘That’s right,’ murmured everyone. ‘We just don’t know how to play.’

Miss Worlock glared at them. ‘Well then, teach yourselves!’ she snarled. ‘You’re not babies. Take the instruments home, and find out how to play them. If you can’t discover by yourselves, then get a book. You idiots! Any questions?’

‘Yes, miss.’ It was a rather cheeky girl from Mr Majeika’s class called Clare. ‘You’re the music teacher, so you’re supposed to teach us, aren’t you?’

‘Do you want to be turned into something very nasty?’ sneered Miss Worlock at her. ‘No? Then don’t be rude. Any more complaints?’

‘No complaints at all,’ said a voice from the back of the orchestra. It was Hamish Bigmore. ‘Anyone can play properly if they try. Look!’ And he began to saw away at his double bass, pom pom, pom pom, pom pom, pom pom. It was just the same two notes, again and again. He had propped the big instrument up in a corner, and was using two hands on the bow – he wasn’t nearly tall enough to reach the top of the strings and change the notes. Pom pom, pom pom, pom pom, pom pom.

Everyone began to laugh.

‘Silence!’ screamed Miss Worlock. ‘Well, at least there’s one person who takes his music seriously. Well done!’ she called out to Hamish Bigmore. ‘In fact it looks as if you’re going to be my star pupil.’

*

After that, Miss Worlock made the orchestra practise for hours and hours every morning, even though Mr Potter said that music was only supposed to be on Thursdays. But all he got for his trouble was a pocket full of black beetles. Miss Worlock told him she’d think of something nastier if he didn’t shut up. He went to his office and locked the door, to hide from the horrible music teacher. He tried to work out how he could find a hundred pounds to give her each week. In the end he decided to sack two of the dinner ladies, and give her their wages. But that meant that he had to serve out dinner himself.

The worst time for the children in the orchestra wasn’t, however, the practices with Miss Worlock, but the weekend. Thomas and Pete took their recorders home with them, because Miss Worlock had told the orchestra that everyone must practise hard on Saturday and Sunday. At first they forgot all about it and went off to play football, or on bike rides. However, by lunch time on Saturday, Pete complained to Thomas that his fingers were itching very nastily.

‘Mine too,’ said Thomas. ‘I wonder if it’s chickenpox.’

Then, almost by chance, Thomas picked up his recorder, when he was looking for something in the sitting-room, and the itching stopped. He called Pete, and Pete found that his itchy fingers stopped when he picked up his recorder.

‘Oh dear,’ said Pete, ‘I’m afraid that this is her So-Spooky method. She’s going to make us practise.’

Sure enough, on Monday morning everyone else complained that they’d itched all weekend, till they’d done at least two hours’ practice on their instruments.

Because everyone was working so hard at their music, the orchestra was quite a bit better on Monday, and most of the instruments sounded less like animals screaming. But it was still a fairly terrible noise and Miss Worlock looked as angry as ever.

‘ “Carnival of the Animals” indeed!’ she snarled, after they had tried to play the March yet again. ‘The best you’ll ever sound like is a herd of elephants.’ Then suddenly her eyes lit up. ‘Elephants!’ she cried. ‘ “The Elephant!” ’ And she turned to Hamish Bigmore. ‘You alone,’ she told him, ‘are making a nice noise on your instrument. And you shall be the star performer. You shall play the solo in the best of all the tunes in “The Carnival of the Animals”, the tune that’s called “The Elephant”. Listen!’

And Miss Worlock sat down at the piano and played a heavy, lumbering tune that

certainly sounded very like an elephant walking up and down: ‘Rum-tum-tum, tum-tiddle-iddle, um-tum-tum-tum…’

When she had finished, she turned to Hamish and said: ‘Do you think you can play that?’

Hamish grinned. ‘I’m sure I can,’ he said, ‘if I have some help. Give me two people to change the notes – they’ll do’ (and he pointed at Thomas and Pete) ‘and I’ll play “The Elephant” better than you’ve ever heard it!’

*

And so, much against their will, Thomas and Pete found themselves Hamish Bigmore’s slaves. ‘We have to do all the real work,’ grumbled Thomas, ‘while he just stands there and pulls his bow to and fro.’

They had to stand on chairs, one on each side of the double bass, and, while Hamish sawed to and fro with the bow, they had to do all the tricky work of putting the right strings down with their fingers. Naturally they often made mistakes, and Miss Worlock shouted and screamed at them, and threatened to turn them into toads and other nasty things. Meanwhile she petted Hamish Bigmore, and told him how marvellous he was.

‘What I can’t understand,’ Pete said to Hamish one morning, after they had been sweating for hours at ‘The Elephant’, ‘is why you’re being so nice to her. Can’t you see she’s a horrid old bag who means no good to anyone?’

‘Of course I can,’ grinned Hamish. ‘But just think what I’m going to get out of it. She’s told me that if I play well in the concert at the end of term, she’ll teach me everything.’

‘Teach you everything?’ repeated Thomas. ‘Do you mean music?’

‘No, idiot,’ sneered Hamish. ‘I mean magic. I’m going to get my revenge on Mr Majeika. By the time I’m finished, I’ll have learnt how to turn him into a frog. Just you see!’