The Missing Spellbook, page 8
part #1 of Witch Lessons Series
“If you put that way.” He shrugged.
“Well, that seems the most likely, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. If you say so. It’s not my fault. Please, miss. I need this job.”
“Well, have you noticed anyone in your workshop or anywhere around any of the places where you might have lost the key?”
Barnaby shrugged. “No one in particular. Just the usual. Teachers coming to get stuff fixed. A few kids.”
“Which ones?”
He shrugged again, and she could see in his eyes that what he said next might start off the next flood of complaints from parents.
“Well, there was one kid I spent a lot of time talking to because he was miserable, being teased and all that, but honestly, you don’t really think that any of the little ones…” His voice trailed off.
“Which kid?” Veronica repeated.
“You know I’m bad with names, Miss, but you would know the one. He’s in your class. He’s very small and very shy. He likes coming here and talking to me, but honestly, Miss, he’s not going to be your thief.”
“I would still like to talk to him. Maybe he saw something.”
And she could also make a few guesses about who this kid was. It sounded like Quincy.
Chapter Seventeen
When Veronica left the herb garden, the midday break had started. The kids were all in the playground. Most of them sat on the grass or the garden wall surrounding the playground, but quite a few were running around and playing ball games.
It took Veronica a while to find Quincy. He sat on the low wall that separated the playground from the sports field. He was alone and was reading a book.
A great many kids looked at her as Veronica weaved her way between the groups of playing students and went to sit next to Quincy. He looked up from his book.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
He held up the book. It was one recommended for older years.
“Did you borrow that from the library?”
He nodded. It was not the kind of book that she would have expected him to enjoy, or to be able to read, really, seeing as he struggled with reading and writing. More like something the librarian—without any knowledge of his problems—would have told him to read.
“Is that homework?”
He looked up, and she saw a world of pain in his eyes. “I need to finish reading it. The teacher will ask me questions about it.”
“Do you understand it?”
He shook his head.
“And you’re not very good at reading?”
He shook his head.
“All right. I won’t take you away from the book for too long, but I have to ask you some questions and maybe you can help me. Barnaby has told me that you like talking to him.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Do you feel lonely at school?”
Quincy shrugged again and looked at his knees. “The kids tease me.”
“So you talk to Barnaby instead.”
“He treats me like I am. He doesn’t treat me like I should be smart, like my father or my brother.”
“But you are smart.”
“The kids don’t think so.”
“But what about you? What do you think?”
“Writing and reading is really hard. I don’t know how the other kids just seem to get it right and I just make too many mistakes and they’re silly mistakes because I can see it when the other kids point them out to me but when I’m just looking at the page and the letters all jumble into each other and I can’t make out what the word says.”
She figured that he held the book he was supposedly reading, just using it to impress his classmates and hoping that they would see that he was not as dumb as they said he was.
“Quincy, I need your help with something smart. I’m here because Barnaby Green misplaced the key to the spellcraft tower. You know how are we were going to have an excursion to look at the spellbook? Well, the spellbook has been missing and somebody got into the tower and stole the book.”
Quincy looked down at his knees.
“Well, I’d like to know if you remember the bunch of keys in Barnaby’s room and if you remember him doing anything with it? He says that you’re one of the students who spent a lot of time in his workshop and the keyring is right there on the wall, or rather, that used to be on the wall. You would have seen it. And he says he lost it.”
Quincy continued to look at his knees.
His shoulders shook, and then he put his face in his hands.
“Quincy?”
“Look, I am stupid. I can’t even do this. I tried the spellbook to make me better at spelling, because that is what it’s about right? Spellbook helps with spelling. But it doesn’t help at all!”
“So, you have the book at home?”
He nodded once. “But it doesn’t work. It’s just another stupid book I can’t read.”
“Oh, silly Quincy. That’s not at all the kind of spells that the book deals with.”
“I’m going to be in so much trouble, aren’t I?”
“Well, only for a little bit. The most important thing is that the book is found. Let’s go and get it.”
Chapter Eighteen
And so, Veronica got the book. She went to visit the Bramble household, and Quincy retrieved the treasure from under his bed.
Quincy‘s parents were very embarrassed and kept apologising to her for the inconvenience.
Over a cup of tea, she needed to make them promise not to punish Quincy too badly.
“What the poor boy really needs is a good tutor, who can help him with his writing and reading. It is clearly a big source of worry for him.”
Mrs. Bramble looked at her. “Since he trusts you, why don’t you become his tutor? You can come here after work. We will pay you well.”
Veronica took the book in a big bag and carried it into the school to Mrs. Everhart’s office.
Mrs. Everhart admitted to being surprised to see it.
“To be honest, I didn’t think that you’d be successful. I was already planning to order a new book. This is just as well, because they are a lot more expensive than I’d expected. And that only cemented my feeling that it must have been stolen and sold on the market.”
“While all the time it was just a boy who felt lonely and misunderstood and wanted to find a spell to help him with spelling.”
The most difficult thing was that she had to apologise to Jasper.
Veronica waited until all the other staff had gone home to see him.
“I’m sorry for having been so stupid,” she said. “I should have believed you. I shouldn’t have thought that anything you did was suspicious.“
“I guess that’s one of the effects of the truth potion, that people start saying embarrassing things.”
“So are you embarrassed about what you said, or do you want to retract those words?”
“No, the truth potion makes you tell the truth, and the truth has not changed.” He looked into her eyes. “I do think you’re the most amazing woman. But I’d like to make it up with you and I’d like to try again. Let’s just forget about all this business with our parents. How about I will take you to the tea house?”
“Tea is always nice.”
All this meant that Veronica went back home in the afternoon with the news that she had gotten extra well-paid work, and her parents need not to be worried about not being able to pay the rent. They could stay in their nice house and grow vegetables and sell them at the markets. One day, there might be jobs supervising magic harvesting machines, but for now, they didn’t have to worry.
Thank you for reading The Missing Spellbook. In book 2 of this series, The Rabbit In The Hole, Mrs. Marsh’s rabbit goes missing from the animal house. What’s the fuss about a rabbit? There are hundreds in the school grounds.
But it’s a special rabbit that, when discovered loose in the school, might endanger the school’s attempt to be accredited as an institute of Pure Magic and damage its reputation.
About the Author
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Her career started in earnest when her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis, before making the move to independent publishing.
Patty has written over fifty novels in both Science Fiction and Fantasy, including the Icefire Trilogy and the Ambassador series.
pattyjansen.com
More By This Author
Quick link to all Patty Jansen’s books
In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
The Far Horizon (For younger readers)
AMBASSADOR
Seeing Red
The Sahara Conspiracy
Raising Hell
Changing Fate
Coming Home
Blue Diamond Sky
The Enemy Within
The Last Frontier
The Alabaster Army
Red Crystal Desert
Lost Forest Secrets
The Forgotten War
The Unfolding Army
Hard Science Fiction
In the ISF-Allion universe
Shifting Reality
Shifting Infinity
Charlotte’s Army
Juno Rising
SPACE AGENT JONATHAN BARTELL
Contamination
Observation
Extermination
Permutation
Elevation
Reparation
PROJECT CHARON
Rollicking space opera with pirates and sentient cacti
Re-entry
Originator
Survival Mode
Swarm
Adventure Science Fiction
EXPENDABLE HEROES
The Planet Trap
Epic Fantasy
GHOSTSPEAKER CHRONICLES
(formerly For Queen And Country)
Innocence Lost
Willow Witch
The Idiot King
Fire Wizard
The Dragon Prince
The Necromancer’s Daughter
Ghostspeaker Chronicles Books 1-3
DRAGONSPEAKER CHRONICLES
The Bastard Prince
The Wizard Priest
The Dragon King
Epic, Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
ICEFIRE TRILOGY
Fire & Ice
Dust & Rain
Blood & Tears
The Icefire Trilogy Omnibus
MOONFIRE TRILOGY
Sand & Storm
Sea & Sky
Moon & Earth
STARFIRE TRILOGY
Mist & Dawn
Iron & Rock
Star & Flame
Humorous Fantasy
BUREAU OF MAGIC ABUSE
Dragon Soup
Whale Mail
Fairy Bread
WITCH LESSONS
The Missing Spellbook
The Rabbit In The Hole
TALES OF CELESTIA
Seven Days to Save The World (And Other Homework Projects)
Short story collections
Out Of Here
New Horizons
Non-fiction
Self-publishing (Non-fiction)
Self-publishing Unboxed
Mailing Lists Unboxed
Going Wide Unboxed
Indie Writer Unboxed
Enjoy Self-publishing
Art books (exclusive to author’s webstore)
Fantabulous Hounds
While You Were Sleeping
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Patty Jansen, The Missing Spellbook
