“And right you were to do so, Fred!” exclaimed Miss Blossom, addressing my pocket. “The hole in the ticket! That must be it! The punching of the ticket activated the bewitchment spell! Quickly, Rupert, let me have your ticket!”
I retrieved it from my pocket and handed it to her. She put a drop of the anti-bewitchment formula on it and handed it back to me. It sure was instantium. I shot up to her chin height faster than I could blink!
“I say it once again, Rupert, you have pets of the highest intellect. I must thank you, Fred!” said Miss Switch.
“My pleasure, Miss Blossom!” chirped Fred. “And I might add I’m now feeling much more myself.”
“Come along, Rupert,” Miss Blossom said, “we must proceed at once.”
“What is it you want me to do this time, Miss Blossom?” I asked. “Do you want me to distract everyone while you pick their pockets?”
“Not at all, Rupert,” she replied. “I’ll just tell each of my students I need to check to make sure they have their tickets, and they are properly punched. What I want of you is to help round up anyone who might have wandered off.”
I stayed with Miss Blossom to see the first anti-bewitchments take place. Nobody questioned Miss Blossom’s asking to see their tickets. They just handed them right over. Then I had the best example of the hand being faster than the eye that I’d ever witnessed when she put the drop of anti-bewitchment formula on the tickets. It was amazing! Nobody even seemed to notice their change in size. Maybe it was because the room was so dark, or maybe they didn’t want to say anything because it would sound a bit loony Like me talking to my shoelaces. You had to be careful about things like that in the sixth grade.
There turned out to be only one problem. A person was missing. You might have guessed it would be Billy Swanson. So I had to go looking for him, although I had some mixed feelings about this. The class might be improved if Billy Swanson and Melvin Bothwick both shrunk away to zero. On the other hand, they’d been around from the beginning, and we’d probably miss them. I found Billy standing and staring at a display of ancient Egyptian paper. Paper! Billy couldn’t stay away from it. Anyway, I decided I’d make it easier on Miss Blossom, who was still busy with everyone else, and take her Billy’s ticket. Then I’d return it to him.
“Billy,” I said, “Miss Blossom needs to check all our tickets. So please hand yours over.”
“I can’t,” said Billy
“You’d better,” I said.
Billy pulled half a ticket from his pocket and handed it to me.
“Where’s the rest, Billy?” I asked.
Billy shuffled around a bit, and then with a sheepish look, handed me a couple of chewed-up bits of pink ticket. Billy couldn’t resist. He had made himself some spitballs! He really was a serious spitballaholic. But my big worry then was how Miss Blossom was going to do any anti-bewitchment on a half a ticket and a bunch of spitballs.
However, Miss Blossom never even flinched when she saw what I handed her. She just put on a couple of extra drops of the formula. I handed the whole lot back to Billy and watched him shoot up to his regular size. He was still so deep into the ancient Egyptian paper display, I don’t think he even noticed.
One thing I couldn’t understand was why Miss Blossom didn’t do any shrinking, considering that she was walking around with a punched ticket in her own pocket. I managed to slip her the question after Billy had been taken care of.
“Bewitchments do not affect other witches,” she explained. “Well, except in one or two very, very rare cases. This isn’t one of them.”
And a good thing, too, I thought. Of course, how was I to know that before everything was over with, I was going to learn just what one of those rare cases was!
At any rate, the entire sixth grade was back up to size by the time we headed for outer space. I was able to enjoy it thoroughly because I knew that whatever was going to happen that day had now happened. It was actually a very neat field trip. The only people who wouldn’t think so would be Mr. Dorking and Miss Tuna when they saw the unshrunk sixth grade arriving back at Pepperdine.
I didn’t know what I was going to do with Fred the rest of the day, but as soon as we got back to school, Miss Blossom sent me on a round trip home with him. I think she would have pinned a medal on him if she could have.
When I dropped Fred off in my room, I told the pets I was really mad at him. I also told them he was a hero and had probably saved my life. Fred was okay with that.
But Miss Blossom informed me that we had another midnight session at Pepperdine. I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t think Saturna was through with us. Not by a long shot!
16
Midnight Rendezvous
Miss Switch flew by for me shortly after midnight. Bathsheba was with her, so she didn’t come in. She just waved to the pets as I grabbed my flashlight, climbed through the window, and boarded the broomstick. Then we took off.
“I swung by Pepperdine on my way here,” Miss Switch said. “No surprise to me that there was a dim light on in the computer room. I had no doubt who was in there, but I swooped down to have a closer look, anyway. Just then, the light went off, so I knew they
