ElsBeth and the Pirate's Treasure, Book I in the Cape Cod Witch Series. J Bean Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ him away, Sylvanas yawned widely. He slowly arched his back, stuck his nose in the air, and plopped rather theatrically onto Amy Clark’s desk.

      Amy, a small timid girl with pale hair and pale eyes and dressed in pink frills, was so alarmed she pushed back away from her desk. And her chair abruptly tipped over into Nelson Hamm.

      Nelson, a skinny kid with glasses, was at that moment wholly entranced by Amy in all her pinkness, and because of this was completely startled.

      He jumped up, too quickly, and tried to catch Amy, but missed by a long shot, and proceeded to knock his desk into Frankie Sylvester beside him.

      Frankie was chunky, but a solid fellow, and was always more than ready to get into a fight.

      Nelson’s clumsiness called for action. Frankie immediately shot up into a classic boxing stance and shoved his puny classmate over.

      Unfortunately, Nelson’s thin body presented little resistance to his powerful classmate, and Nelson flew in a slow, graceful curve — directly into Veronica Smythe.

      Veronica, at that particular moment, was pleasantly daydreaming about being a teenager, with make-up, hip clothes and a boyfriend.

      She was not happy to be reminded she was still only in second grade, and being bumped into by a skinny boy with glasses whose ears stuck out the sides of his head.

      Veronica let out a surprisingly loud shriek for a second-grader, at which the rest of the class, until then unaffected, jumped up and began to run around in circles, in the general belief that a mouse must have gotten loose in the classroom.

      This idea was transmitted by Veronica’s piercing shriek, and Carmen Alverez’s cry, “Aaah! It’s a mouse!”

      Carmen, being deathly afraid of the little grey creatures, was always on the alert, and naturally assumed when Veronica panicked that she must have seen one.

      The rest of the class quickly separated into three camps.

      Most of the boys wanted to catch the mouse and turn it into a class project.

      There was a group of the more squeamish girls, led by Carmen, who leapt onto their desks to avoid the nasty rodent, while their squeals rose up and bounced off the walls.

      And a third group, consisting of several of the most serious students in the class, including ElsBeth, Lisa Lee and Johnny Twofeathers, followed the action with keen interest as events unfolded.

      THE CAT IS SATISFIED

      The mischievous cat was apparently satisfied that he had caused enough excitement for the moment in ElsBeth’s boring arithmetic class.

      He propelled himself back to the windowsill and surveyed the class, with a pleased look on his flat cat features.

      He licked his lips, gave ElsBeth a slight nod, and took off to find some other dull spot in town that needed his special touch to liven things up.

      ElsBeth vowed then and there that Sylvanas would be getting a large bowl of the richest cream she could find for dinner tonight.

      She owed him one for rescuing her from Ms. Finch’s unnerving attentions.

      THE FINCH

      Ms. Finch’s iron control had been temporarily lost with this chaotic behavior in her normally perfectly obedient and disciplined classroom.

      The teacher was somewhat dazed by it all, but gradually began to recover.

      She started to get the students back in line. Then the slightly confused look on her face turned into a fixed glare, as her sharp little eyes fell on ElsBeth — the girl was smiling.

      As to ElsBeth, she was only thinking about how wonderful Sylvanas could be.

      But Ms. Finch once more swept down ElsBeth’s row.

      The students sensed the sudden change and fell silent under Ms. Finch’s completely scary scowl.

      All eyes again turned to ElsBeth.

      Ms. Finch spat out, “I recognized that cat. You brought him to school and called him in here. Admit it, young lady.”

      ElsBeth wasn’t sure how Ms. Finch knew Sylvanas was a member of her family, but she managed to blurt out, “He’s ours, but I didn’t bring him to school.”

      Ms. Finch ignored ElsBeth’s answer. “Don’t lie to me, girl. You will write, ‘I promise not to lie, tattle or disturb the class’ on the blackboard three hundred times.”

      “Neatly!” she added, with emphasis.

      With this pronouncement of punishment, Ms. Finch seemed done with ElsBeth, for now, and strode back to the blackboard. She chalked in:

      7 x 6 = 42

      7 x 7 = 49

      She whacked the blackboard with the wooden pointer while pronouncing each equation crisply.

      WHAT TO DO

      Later that afternoon ElsBeth walked home with drooping shoulders, her eyes rarely leaving the sidewalk. She wasn’t sure how she could stand school anymore.

      Then she got a great idea. Maybe her grandmother could take her out of school and homeschool her. She’d heard the Nye twins were being homeschooled.

      Not everyone had to put up with Ms. Finch! Yes, that was the answer.

      Chapter 3

      The Garden at Six Druid Lane

      With the notion of this much more pleasant future, ElsBeth began to cheer up.

      She turned down Druid Lane toward the rambling, old Victorian house that was home. And by the time she arrived at the front yard, she was smiling again and skipping along as she often did.

      ElsBeth was most usually a cheerful witch.

      And she soon found her grandmother out back in the herb garden.

      ElsBeth’s grandmother was a well-respected Cape Cod witch. Nevertheless, Hannah Goodspell was not a grand figure.

      Plump, with fluffy grey hair pulled up into a bun and delicate wire-rimmed glasses, most people assumed the older witch was just another helpless, dear, sweet old lady. Hah!

      ElsBeth, however, was well aware that Hannah Prudence Goodspell was not a witch to be trifled with.

      ElsBeth was not really afraid of her grandmother. Truly, she loved her to pieces. But she did want her grandmother to always be proud of her.

      The young witch hadn’t quite figured out how to explain today’s events at school in exactly the best light — so that Grandmother СКАЧАТЬ