Again, I don't know what's got into me as I haven't even been eating Chinese takeaway. There must've been more caffeine in that rice than I thought. Or it may have been something to do with the fact I haveGerman history to prep that's been sitting on my desk for nearly two weeks and I haven't done it yet... Anyway, enjoy!
Three
A Grim Diagnosis
Mildred could feel her heart racing as she padded along the corridors for the second time that night. It was so fast that she could hear the blood pounding in her ears, as loud and persistent as the downpour outside. Her candle simply didn't give enough light, and Mildred found herself jumping at shadows that she had not noticed on her first journey through the castle. Before, her mind had been preoccupied with thoughts of Maud and her mystery illness, and she had been concentrating on finding her way. Now, however, she knew exactly where she was going and she could think of nothing but the daunting task in front of her. Waking up the deputy headmistress by accident was bad enough, but doing it on purpose didn't bear thinking about.
A draught caught her ankles and Mildred gave an involuntary shiver. She wished she had brought Tabby along, for both warmth and company. She tried to imagine him, wound around her shoulders and purring like a foghorn, but it didn't work. Besides, she knew from experience that an imaginary Tabby was no substitute for the real thing. A noise made her start and she looked up, but it was only a bat fluttering across the rafters. I have every right to be here, she told herself firmly. I have every right to go and wake Miss Hardbroom up, because Miss Drill told me to. Finally she reached the corridor in which she had fallen over so spectacularly about half an hour previously and hesitated, getting cold feet in more than one sense of the word. Surely one of the other teachers would know how to treat witches' flu? After all, they were all witches themselves. She passed Miss Bat's door and stopped, thinking about it.
No, she decided. For a start, the chanting teacher would probably panic and wake the entire school if Mildred told her that Maud was ill, and one could never be fully sure that she wasn't in the staffroom cupboard. Time was of the essence, and Mildred didn't want to waste it by trying to wake up a woman who wasn't there. Maybe Miss Cackle would know what to do. She'd get anyone but her form-mistress...
Mildred shook herself crossly. Miss Drill had told her to get Miss Hardbroom, so it was Miss Hardbroom whom she was going to get. She continued along the corridor determinedly and stopped at the final door, taking a deep breath.
"You have nothing to fear except fear itself," she whispered aloud. And a sleeping teacher, she added mentally. Hell hath no fury like a woman woken up at half past one in the morning by her least favourite student.
Mildred knocked on the door tentatively.
"Miss Hardbroom? Please wake up."
There was no reply from inside the room. In fact, there were no sounds of life at all. Mildred was struck by a terrible vision of all the teachers being struck down by witches' flu and unable to help when she realised that she was once again letting her imagination get the better of her. She knocked again, slightly harder this time, and pressed her ear to the door to listen for signs of waking. All she could hear was purring.
"This isn't getting me anywhere." She tried to door but found it inevitably locked. "What's that spell again? Unlockus doorus? Open sesame? Kista pandemonium?" The lock clicked and the door swung open, Miss Cackle's voice echoing in Mildred's head – not perfect, but close enough to do the trick.
She ventured into the dark room with the same trepidation as a knight about to face a particularly scary dragon. Miss Hardbroom's cat, curled up on one end of the bed, opened one green eye and viewed her with suspicion as she got closer. What made matters worse, in Mildred's eyes, was that all she could see of her teacher was her long hair over the pillow. Things were always scarier when they were only half visible.
"Miss Hardbroom, please wake up, it's an emergency. Miss Hardbroom!"
There was nothing for a few moments, and then the lump of covers spoke in a tone which froze Mildred to the spot there and then.
"Mildred Hubble, this had better be an extremely good emergency."
Miss Hardbroom emerged, looking quietly furious that a second-year had had the temerity to break into her bedroom. It was almost the same expression of disdain that she had worn when Mildred had dropped the fire bucket over her head.
"I am waiting, Mildred."
Finding her tongue at last, Mildred shut her eyes and relayed the entire story without stopping for breath. She felt it wise not to let her teacher get a word in edgeways in case she jumped to the wrong conclusion.
"It's Maud, Miss Hardbroom, she's really ill and Miss Drill can't do anything because she says it's magical and she thinks it might be witches' flu..."
A firm grip on her shoulders cut her off. She opened her eyes to find Miss Hardbroom vertical and in rather close proximity.
"Mildred, pull yourself together. You sound as if you've been drinking blabbermouth. Tell me again what is going on."
"Maud's ill!" said Mildred, feeling herself well up again. "She's getting worse and nothing Miss Drill does is working. She thinks Maud might have witches' flu."
Miss Hardbroom searched Mildred's pleading, watery eyes and saw genuine worry in them. She finally released her vice-like grip on her student's shoulders and jumped up in search of suitable footwear.
"It is not witches' flu," she said. "Witches' flu has been eradicated for nearly fifty years and we would have noticed if she was coming down with it. It isn't witches' flu."
Mildred breathed a sigh of relief, but the feeling did not last long. If it wasn't the dreaded illness first thought, then what on Earth was it?
XXX
Neither witch spoke as they returned to Maud's room, until presently Miss Hardbroom asked:
"What sort of 'ill'?"
"What?" asked Mildred in return.
"What sort of 'ill' are we talking about? Is she sick? Feverish? Delirious? Hallucinating?"
"She's got a high fever and when we try to cool her down she gets too cold."
There was silence once more, but this time it was a silence fraught with tension and unspoken words.
"Do you know what it is?" probed Mildred anxiously.
"I have an idea," said Miss Hardbroom. "I only hope that I am proved wrong."
Miss Drill met them at Maud's door.
"She's got worse," she said darkly. Maud's breath was coming in ragged gasps. Mildred ran over and took her friend's cold, limp hand, willing the contact to miraculously make her better. She felt a gentle grip on her shoulders pull her away from the bed and could hear her teacher's voice snapping.
"Get out of the way Mildred."
Mildred watched with her heart beating hard in her mouth as Miss Hardbroom sat down on the edge of Maud's bed and began to check her pulse and breathing. After a few minutes of thorough examination she drew back slightly, her hand going to her face in an instinctive reaction to shock.
"What is it?" asked Miss Drill, who was still keeping her hold on Mildred's shoulders lest either of them do something drastic.
"As I thought. She's been poisoned."
The ensuing silence was overpowering. Mildred couldn't find the words to articulate the thoughts that were going through her head.
Poisoned? How? Why? Who?
"Can you do anything?" asked Miss Drill. She sounded as if she'd been choked. "Is there an antidote of some kind?"
"I don't know." Mildred could hear panic rising in Miss Hardbroom's voice for the first time in her two years at the school. "It could be anything. There are so many combinations of ingredients that form poisons with similar symptoms. Sometimes it can be a perfectly harmless potion until the quantities go wrong... too much bindweed for example. Everything has a different antidote, it's impossible to tell."
Mildred finally gave in to the tears that she had been holding in since she had first found her friend in her delirious state.
"There's one thing I could do," said Miss Hardbroom, although she didn't sound convinced of the fact. "The hair of the dog."
"I thought that was illegal," said Miss Drill.
"Well yes, it is, but it's the best option... it's the only option we have. It's the nearest that we can get to a perfect antidote in the time available."
"What's hair of the dog?" sniffed Mildred, gratefully accepting a handkerchief from the teacher behind her.
"It's an antidote to all poisons. It was outlawed a few years ago because it was held to be too dangerous. It uses the original poison as an ingredient, and the quantities have to be exact otherwise..."
No one finished the sentence.
"If we find the poison then I can make the hair of the dog. She'll be alright once she has it."
"So the only thing to do is work out what she was poisoned with."
Mildred found herself face to face with two quietly panicking teachers.
"Mildred?" asked her form-mistress. "Can you shed any light in this mystery?"
"I haven't poisoned Maud!" she exclaimed angrily."Why would I do such a thing? I wouldn't even poison Ethel!"
"It's alright Mildred, calm down," said Miss Drill. "We aren't accusing you of poisoning Maud; we just think that you're the one most likely to know what the poison is. Has she eaten anything odd for example?"
"No..." Mildred shook her head and frantically thought of what they'd had for dinner. "She had the same as me, the same as everyone. She was fine all day."
"Oh think Mildred, please!" pleaded Miss Hardbroom. "It could've been anything!"
"I am thinking!" said Mildred, tired, distraught and exasperated.
"Is there anything we can do to make her more comfortable?" asked Miss Drill pointedly, looking over at Maud's pale, shivering form. Miss Hardbroom nodded curtly and vanished. Mildred thought she felt the atmosphere in the room relax slightly with this departure. Miss Drill sank onto Maud's desk chair, lost in thought.
"If it wasn't something she ate then it must have been intentional. Someone must have slipped it to her," she said eventually.
"But why would anyone want to poison Maud? She wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I know Mildred. That's what makes this grim experience all the more chilling." There was no further discussion of the point as then Miss Hardbroom appeared, holding a box and a bottle.
"This is burning ice," she said, flipping open the box and taking out a perfect cube of opaque ice. "It will eventually melt," she explained as she placed the block on Maud's forehead, "but it will control her temperature and help her to breathe. There are ten blocks. Whilst she is burning through them, she is comparatively safe. Once the last block melts, our time is up. It's time to administer the antidote."
Mildred reached out and touched the ice, only to find it scorching. It had definitely earned its name.
"If she wakes up," Miss Hardbroom shook the bottle that Mildred presently recognised as wide-awake potion, grimacing at how little there was left. "We've got to keep her awake. Do not let her go back to sleep. I'm going to start the potion." She made to leave the room in the conventional manner but turned back at the door. "It makes you wonder how come such a thing happens in a school. Who could do something like this? Why?"
Fireworks exploded in Mildred's mind, all the fragmented pieces of the jigsaw finally coming together in a theory as she remembered snippets from the day's conversations
I was thinking about Ethel... She was holding something... It made me suspicious... You know Ethel... Is it me or does this semolina taste even worse than usual... She does look very worried... I wouldn't even poison Ethel...
It all fitted into place: Ethel coming in late to chanting from potions, hiding something, Sybil's worried look, Maud's semolina...
"Semolina!" she exclaimed to the surprise of her teachers. "It was in the semolina. Maud said it didn't taste right. Ethel put something in my pudding but Maud ended up eating it instead."
"What?" Miss Hardbroom began, in a tone that implied she didn't believe a word, but Miss Drill held up a hand to stop her.
"What did she put in it?"
"I don't know, I didn't see. I think it was something that she had after potions. She came in late to chanting trying to hide it."
Miss Drill looked at Miss Hardbroom as if to ask her opinion. The latter had gone paler than usual.
"The dangerous potions cabinet was unlocked," she murmured. "I knew I'd locked it at the end of the lesson. I knew it."
She vanished again, leaving the door half-open. Mildred looked at the empty space for a few seconds, feeling numb, still reeling from both the train of thought that had led her to the conclusion and the fact that her teachers actually believed her. A few moments of stunned silence followed until the potions teacher returned, looking grave.
"Your blabbermouth potion has gone, Mildred."
A/N: Ok, I really don't think that the next update will come so quickly because that German history isn't going to go away and I've just remembered a load of French grammar, but when university has stopped taking over my life I will give you the next chapter.