Hocus Pocus in a Janitor’s Closet
The folding chairs in the Pepperdine auditorium were still being set up when we arrived. That’s because my mother insisted on being early enough to grab a front-row seat.
Some other sixth graders were gathered where we were all supposed to stay until the business meeting was over, when we were to file out while the parents were having punch and cookies. Miss Blossom was with them, and she caught sight of me.
“Who’s that waving to you, Rupert?” my father asked.
“That’s Miss Blossom,” I said.
“Your … your teacher?” My mother’s eyebrows rose up to meet her hairline.
“That’s the one,” I said.
“How is it you’ve never—er—explained her to us, Rupert?” my father asked.
I merely shrugged. I mean, how could anyone explain Miss Blossom?
“Does—does she always look like that, dear?” my mother asked.
“Worse,” I said, which was the truth. Miss Blossom had actually improved herself a little, even though I knew she couldn’t do too much to herself without blowing her cover. Her eyelashes, however, had been clipped a couple of millimeters, and she had another dress that wasn’t quite as wild as the first one. The yellow beehive on top of her head unfortunately remained the same.
“I can’t quite tell from here,” said my mother, “but her dress looks almost as if—as if—well, as if it was something left over from a yard sale.”
“Probably was,” I said.
“Is she in—in strained circumstances, dear?” my mother asked sympathetically
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I do know she helps out a lot of kids.”
“How generous!” murmured my mother.
“Maybe we should help her out a little,” said my father. “You know, hold a benefit for her or something of that sort.”
“I think I’d leave it alone,” I said.
Then, before I could be asked to explain that further, I made a hasty departure from my parents.
When I reached Miss Blossom, I raised an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head and hissed under her breath, “Nothing!”
Then Mr. Dorking finally arrived. He came marching down the aisle to seat himself at the table up front with Mrs. Fanna and the other members of the PTA committee. All the ladies present were in a sudden state of swooning. Mrs. Fanna was fluttering to such a degree when he sat down at the table, I thought she’d flutter right out of the auditorium. My mother, of course, was sitting with my father, right in front of Mr. Dorking. I didn’t even want to think about that situation.
But Mrs. Fanna finally managed to pull herself together and start the meeting. The first thing she did, of course, was introduce our acting principal. Mr. Dorking then stood up and said a few words. A very few words. The fewest possible words he could get away with, because Miss Tuna wasn’t sitting up there at the front table to prompt him. But for all it mattered to the ladies in the audience, he could have been up there reciting “Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle” instead of announcing how happy he was to be at the meeting of the Pepperdine Elementary School PTA. There was a general breeze in the auditorium as all the ladies started fanning themselves with their programs.
I was amazed at how much business finally got conducted despite all this. I couldn’t help wondering, though, how things would have gone if it had been known that a witch and a warlock were present, which naturally is not usual for a PTA meeting. Anyway, they got through such matters as fixing the swings, repairing leaky faucets, painting the playground equipment, including the monkey bars, and other things equally fascinating before the meeting ended. The ladies all then clustered around Mr. Dorking as the men made a dive for the punch and cookies.
Miss Blossom quickly herded us behind the stage curtain. I ducked into the janitor’s broom closet, removed my jeans and sweatshirt, and threw on my cape and shower cap. I braced myself for the clever remarks I’d get when I reappeared, but there weren’t any Everyone was too busy gulping down cookies and punch in small paper cups that Miss Tuna had delivered to the stage. I was really grateful for the punch, as I needed it to oil my tonsils, which had gone very dry.
Then the sixth-grade make-believe audience climbed onto their make-believe theater benches. Juliet, aka Jessica Poole, climbed up the make-believe balcony, a ladder draped in a sheet painted with green leaves and roses. I, Romeo, aka Rupert P Brown III, stood surrounded by some artificial potted palms, poised to climb a short ladder in front of it. The orchestra began playing the unrecognizable piece they’d been rehearsing. Then the curtain was pulled.
My heart now began racing a mile a minute as I waited for something terrible to happen. I mean witchcraftwise, not actingwise. Only nothing did. I could see Miss Blossom hovering in the wings, but Mr. Dorking wasn’t hovering at all. He was just sitting in the audience with a vacant look on his face, watching the proceedings. It began to look as if Miss Switch and I had guessed all wrong, and nothing was going to happen after all. It was some other play Saturna was talking about. But at that moment, I had to concentrate on being the great actor. The applause died down, and Romeo was up to bat.
I began to speak. “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!”
Or at least that’s what I thought I was saying. Those were the words I’d rehearsed. Those were the words that had left my brain cells and traveled to my mouth. But what actually came out was the following:
“What’s the big deal up there at the window? Is that you, Julie, baby? Come on out. Don’t be such a shrinking violet. Let your big hero have a look at you.”
Juliet shook her head as if she’d just dreamed what she heard, and needed to wake up. Then she began her speech. “Romeo, Dodeo, where are you, you big wimp! Why don’t you tell Daddy where to get off? Go get your name changed, you dummy I might consider changing mine, but I’d better have something in writing about your great feelings for me. Don’t think just swearing is going to do you any good.”
By now I was getting a distinct feeling about what was happening. Jessica wasn’t, of course, and I saw her clutching the ladder to keep from falling when she heard what was coming out of her mouth. Now, it was clear to me that all this was Saturna at work. But, it somehow didn’t relate to those scare words in her so-called poetry. Was this as bad as it was going to get, just making us look ridiculous in front of the PTA? Well, I couldn’t stop to consult with Miss Blossom about it, so I just charged on.
“Am I going to have to listen to more of this drivel?” I shouted.
“If you want me, you’re going to have to,” Juliet shouted back. “Some things have got to be straightened out. If changing a name does it, then that’s what we’ll have to do. Personally, I don’t care. If you were a cabbage, you’d still smell like a cabbage.”
“Hey,” I said, “I didn’t come here to get insulted. I came here to woo.”
“Well, it’s my way, or no way So boo hoo to you,” said Juliet.
As we went on trading insults, the sixth-grade “audience” started shouting, and pelting us with crushed paper punch cups and chocolate chip cookies.
“You’re no hero, Romeo. You’re just a big old dodeo do!”
“You’re all wet, Juliet. You’ll never snag him—wanna bet?”
“Go get her, Romeo!”
“Go get him, Juliet!”
As Juliet and I ducked the flying paper cups, I could see that things were getting seriously out of hand. I didn’t dare look out into the PTA audience to see what they were thinking, especially my parents in the front row. I did look for Miss Blossom, but she had disappeared from her position in the wings. I couldn’t believe she would just leave her sixth grade to go for a little flight on her broomstick around the block, but where was she?
Then suddenly, there was Miss Blossom determinedly pulling on the curtain cords. As the curtains closed, everybody onstage froze for a few seconds. Then they all came back to life, and stared at one another, and shrugged. Nobody really knew what had happened to them. At the same time, we could hear Miss Blossom’s voice on the other side of the curtain.
“Well, members of the PTA,” she said in a voice ringing with good cheer and enthusiasm, “the sixth grade hopes you’ve enjoyed their little original surprise this evening. They know it isn’t exactly what Shakespeare had in mind for his balcony scene, but they had lots of fun with it, and hope you did, too. Thank you.”
The PTA was probably too stunned at first to do much but sit there glassy-eyed. Then two or three parents started to clap, and finally they all began to clap. I guess I would have to say they just about brought the house down. Later, when everyone was milling around, I heard comments such as, “very humorous,” “pretty clever,” “really contemporary.”
Mr. Dorking, though, stood looking as if he didn’t know what had hit him. While milling around with everyone else, I managed to break away from my parents and mill myself over to Miss Blossom.
“May I have a word with you, Miss Blossom?” I asked. “I know this isn’t the time or the place, but I have a homework question.”
“Any time or place is the right time or place when it concerns homework, Rupert,” said Miss Blossom, smiling sweetly. We put several yards between the nearest PTA members and ourselves.
“What do you make of the whole thing, Miss Blossom?” I asked under my breath.
“What I make of it, Rupert,” she replied, “is that dimwit Dorking couldn’t come up with anything better than the twisted tongue bewitchment. I knew it the moment the first words came out of your mouth. It’s one of the simplest bewitchments going. He cast a spell on the punch served to the class.”
“But it didn’t taste any different to me, Miss Blossom,” I said. “Just plain old grape.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rupert,” said Miss Blossom. “You can’t taste a spell. Well, perhaps in strawberry, but never in grape. But, fortunately, I had with me a few of your basic emergency anti-bewitching aids, and while you were onstage, I dipped into the janitor’s closet to perform the appropriate hocus-pocus.”
“So that’s where you were!” I said. “But how did you manage to—um—unbewitch all of us the moment the curtain was closed?”
“Nothing to it,” replied Miss Blossom. “All I had to do was sprinkle … but we haven’t time to go into that here, Rupert. I just want to warn you that I don’t believe this is what Saturna had in mind for you and the sixth grade. She must have had a mental lapse when she agreed to any surprise spell from that dumbbell Dorking. Well, she’ll be surprised all right when he tells her what actually happened.”
“What if he doesn’t tell her?” I asked.
“Oh, he’ll tell her, all right,” said Miss Blossom. “He’ll have to.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Vibrations,” replied Miss Blossom. “Or witch’s vibes, as we call them. How do you suppose I knew you might be in the kind of trouble where my expertise was needed? Vibrations, Rupert, vibrations! Saturna’s vibrations will tell her that her brother fell on his handsome face, so he might as well confess what happened.”
“Well, what are we going to do about it, Miss Blossom?” I asked.
“Check computowitch.com,” replied Miss Blossom grimly “I’m coming back here later tonight to pay a visit to the computer room myself. Then we’ll both be checking it. We’ll compare notes tomorrow. But I expect that at midnight tonight, when Saturna learns how that lamebrained brother of hers has fallen on his gorgeous nose, the fur will fly. She’ll be furious—and even more dangerous!”
I didn’t like the sound of this at all. I had been hoping the worst was over, but it looked as if it was just beginning! At that moment, though, I did have another minor problem on my mind. “Miss Blossom,” I said, “what am I going to say to my parents about what happened tonight? What are any of the sixth graders going to say to their parents?”
“No need to say anything,” replied Miss Blossom. “By the time everyone leaves Pepperdine tonight, no one but you, and of course Pepperdine’s beloved principal, will remember that anything out of the ordinary went on. The sixth grade will think everything happened just as they rehearsed it, and the parents will believe that’s what they saw. It’s all part of the anti-bewitchment package. Now, you’d better run along—and get a good night’s sleep. You have to be ready for your math test tomorrow.”
Math test! Now just how was I supposed to be thinking about a math test when I knew a furious Saturna was still out there dangerous and armed with witchcraft!