School of Witchery

Chapter 6

Arthur was rushing to get to class this morning. He got through the portal late because the girls were still getting dressed. He was excited because he was going to see his friends again that he had just met yesterday. Maybe this school of witchery wasn't such a bad idea after all. Or so he thought until he got to class and noticed that Tommy wasn't there. Where could he be? It was only the second day of class. Everyone else was there after he arrived. Miss Braxton was on her way into the classroom now which meant they were about to get started and Tommy still wasn't here.

Miss Braxton noticed Arthur looking around, then she glanced over at the seat Tommy should have been in.

"Don't worry Arthur, I know all about Tommy being out of class today. Something came up in his family and he has to stay home and take care of it. His father called me last night and explained everything to me. I also talked to Tommy and he told me to tell you not to worry about him. He will be back tomorrow." She laughed and then said, "he wants you to bring him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch tomorrow since yours looked so good yesterday. His words not mine."

The rest of the morning Arthur and Susie chatted with each other. It was fun, but Arthur still missed his buddy Tommy.

At lunch, Susie and Arthur had to eat a lot of stir-fried beef noodles because he had brought enough for three but Tommy wasn't there to help them. Arthur didn't want to take anything back home since he knew his grandmother would complain about wasting food. Luckily his mom was a great cook and Susie was an equally great eater. They laughed and joked all during lunch time and were pretty excited about today's class about magic arts. Today was going to be about transformation according to the homework they had last night. Both of them hoped they would get the chance to actually do some transformation today.

"I certainly hope we can do that," Susie said.

"I agree," Arthur said, "although I wasn't too keen on doing magic in the first place, it's still not a bad thing if I'm here. I might as well learn something, shouldn't I?"

"I totally agree, that's why we're here in the first place," Susie said, "I just wish Tommy was here so he can learn some too. This might be a pretty good spell to know."

"Well I'm sure this is not going to be the last time we talk about it in the classroom. I think spells, like everything else, you have to practice them or you will never get better."

"Yeah you're right. Oops there goes the bell I think it's time for us to get the class. Don't want to be late for magic arts. You know Mister Bumstead has high blood pressure."

They both laughed.

"I didn't know that," Arthur said, "but of course he has high blood pressure with some of the students he has to teach."

They laughed some more as they walked back to the classroom. When they got to the class there was a note written on the whiteboard -- "Please go to the magic arts classroom."

Bumstead was waiting for them when they arrived.

"Okay let's settle down, settle down. Today we're going to rearrange things a little bit because I don't want any more fires. Terry and his partner Johnny move up here to the front of the class right beside Arthur and Susie, and Tommy when he returns to class tomorrow." Pointing at two other students in the front row, "you two move back to where Terry and Johnny were."

There was grumbling and mumbling as the students gathered their things and moved to back.

"Well I don't want to be up here," Johnny said.

"Me either," said Terry.

Mr. Bumstead looked at them and said with a stern voice, "if you hadn't tried to set the classroom on fire yesterday we wouldn't be having to make these changes today. So you just need to live with it."