Baby brother 7/9
By Geoffrey
- 378 reads
At long last the examination day arrived that nearly all the apprentices in the Home had been dreading. Little groups were wandering around trying to remember everything they’d been taught in the previous year. One or two of the boys teased Jennifer Jane when she arrived, saying that no human could ever learn the more difficult twiddles required from a third year apprentice.
Then a bell rang and all the children trooped into the assembly hall. One of the senior witches called out names and half of the assembly went down into the basement for their practical spell testing. Jennifer Jane was one of the remainder and they were all ushered into a classroom where each child found their own place. A set of papers had been placed on every desk and the witch in charge waited until they were all settled, before telling them to start.
It was a general knowledge paper that she found much easier than she’d thought. History and theory of magic were two of her favourite subjects. After all she’d actually been directly involved in both subjects during her recent adventures.
Some of the questions involved old-fashioned rural witchcraft and she was pleasantly surprised when she realised how much Esmerelda had taught her during the lessons she’d had over at the shop.
She was able to finish the paper quite quickly and sat back and read it through again. She spotted one or two silly mistakes that she’d made early on, when she was still feeling tense, but soon corrected them. She read through the paper once more and felt that she’d done rather better than she’d hoped. Now it all depended on the practical session when it would be her turn to go down to the basement.
The bell rang to call the end of the exam and the teacher in charge came round collecting the completed papers, at the same time putting a new set on each desk. Another teacher came into the room and lead Jennifer Jane’s group out to the castle side while the other group of children went into the classroom to take their theory paper. Then they were all lead down to the basement, where a witch was waiting in every shielded room to test their magical skills.
A witch looked up as she was shown into her room. Although Jennifer Jane knew her by sight, she’d never actually been taught by her, so wasn’t too sure what to expect.
“Ah yes,” she said with a frown,” you’re the human apprentice aren’t you!”
It wasn’t a very reassuring start to what was probably her worst examination subject. The next half-hour confirmed her fears. The witch seemed to know her weak points and was asking for demonstrations of all sorts of spells, which although she knew them to be simple, she found herself almost totally unable to remember.
She wasn’t helped by the fact that the witch was making obvious crosses on a form that she filled in every time she was given the answer to a question. However, at long last the page was turned and to Jennifer Jane’s great relief she was asked to demonstrate her T.K. powers.
“See if you can lift this book up to the ceiling.”
The witch grunted and rather grudgingly put a small tick down on the form, as she showed she could do that easily.
“Now try and slide one of the chairs over to the door.”
Jennifer Jane was beginning to feel annoyed with her examiner’s attitude. She hesitated a second. She was getting the feeling that whatever she did, she was going to be failed for not being able to demonstrate a lot of the silly baby spells that the first years were supposed to know. Well if she was going to fail anyway she might as well do it in style.
She picked up the witch and her chair and slid her gently over to the door. The witch showed her first sign of emotion as she glared at her.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you didn’t say which chair!”
However she was very relieved when she saw another tick being added to her form. After that the questions seemed to get easier and easier. She realised that she was well in advance of her expected standard in lots of areas and was able to surprise her examiner by demonstrating a boundary spell, before enlarging an object placed on the table.
She was absolutely horrified when she suddenly received a glass of water right in the face. Without even thinking, she reacted by becoming invisible, dumping a huge chocolate Swiss roll on her examiner’s head and sitting in mid air just above her. Two twiddles later, the witch had cleaned herself up and made Jennifer Jane become visible again. Then she began looking round to see where she’d hidden. She even stood up and walked slowly round the room as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. At last Jennifer Jane took pity on her. “I’m up here ma’am,” she said.
The witch didn’t say anything, but just pointed to the chair. However, another tick was placed on the form much to Jennifer Jane’s relief.
Although she was still showing no sign of emotion, the witch put a large cross through the rest of the paper, wrote a few words then turned it over and signed the back.
“You may go now apprentice Bell!”
Jennifer Jane wasn’t sure whether she’d passed or failed. She hesitated for a moment and began to apologise for the way she’d treated the witch.
“Just go!” The witch pointed towards the door.
Several other apprentices were already upstairs as she arrived. They were gathered in groups, talking about their exams. They were horrified when she told them what she’d done during the attack test.
“You’ve failed for sure,” said one of the boys who had teased her earlier. “I always said you would didn’t I!”
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