I used to love the Worst Witch when I was little and went as HB for Halloween 1999, since she is uber awesome. Anyway, to cut to the chase, I recently saw 'The Inspector Calls' and Miss Hardbroom's panic combined with my interest in wanting to know what characters are thinking in certain scenes resulted in this. Enjoy!
I don't own WW except some very battered 12 year old copies of the books.
You've been taught from an early age to keep your composure in any situation. At first it wasn't an easy thing to do but if you kept your emotions under strict control nobody would be able to exploit your feelings in any way. And it made you feel stronger.
It proved to be a useful skill when Mistress Hecate Broomhead became your mentor. All the physical abuse was met not with screams of pain but with determined silence and the many screaming, shrill and spirit crushing scoldings were met not with tears but with a blank expression that gave no indication of the cocktail of emotion inside you, of anger and frustration and hatred and fury and terror,mixed up and served with a cherry for good measure, as you knew that one did not have to put up with this to be a good witch.
There are only two times you ever remember relaxing or losing control of your emotions. The day you left witch training college, you sang when you walked out of the gates and out of Mistress Broomhead's way, forever.
At least that's what you thought. You never realised that a) she would become a school inspector and b) a school inspector coming to Cackle's.
The panicky gasp and the warning for your colleagues in the staffroom should not have happened. But it did, and as you met Miss Drill's eyes, you could read the surprise in them that Miss Ice Queen did have a breaking point, that underneath the black and strict persona she was just like everyone else.
You regain control of yourself for Mistress Broomhead's arrival, and refuse to panic once throughout her visit, not even when she enters Miss Bat's room (already off to a bad start with her name) and walks into a plethora of stickers. But when she asks for Mildred Hubble, it's a different story. You are outwardly indifferent but inside you worry for the girl. She is very like you were the day you met Mistress Broomhead and you don't want another spirit to be ruthlessly crushed.
But of course, you reveal nothing of this on your face. The only way anybody would know how nervous you were over her arrival was the way your face became ever so slightly relaxed as she walked out of the front door, all ready to pass the Academy with flying colours, and with a bit of luck, hopefully out of your life for the final time.