‘Star!’ called Mildred. ‘Come back here!’ But, to her great surprise, he took no notice at all and disappeared round the corner.

  ‘ENTER!’ called Miss Hardbroom’s voice, sounding as sharp and unwelcoming as ever, leaving Mildred no choice but to go in without him.

  There, inside the headmistress’s study, was Mildred’s worst nightmare come true. Miss Cackle was busy handing cups of tea to a man and a woman who were dressed in rather gaudy clothes – although most people looked gaudy compared to the staff and girls at Miss Cackle’s Academy.

  The woman was wearing a pink hat with a flower on it and a striped poncho, and the man had a bushy moustache and a bright red jacket. Even without the ringmaster’s outfit and the woman’s trapeze costume from the poster, Mildred knew exactly who they were.

  ‘Ah, Mildred,’ said Miss Cackle. ‘Come and sit down. Mr and Mrs Brilliantine, this is Mildred Hubble, who found your lost dog and has been taking excellent care of him for you. Mildred, this is Mr and Mrs Brilliantine, owners of the circus that we’ve been attempting to find, as you know.’

  ‘Where is the dog, Mildred?’ asked Miss Hardbroom.

  ‘He ran off down the corridor,’ replied Mildred. ‘Shall I go and find him?’

  ‘In a moment, my dear,’ said Miss Cackle in her warmest voice. ‘I’m sure he won’t have gone far – would you like a macaroon?’

  ‘No thank you, Miss Cackle,’ said Mildred in a very small voice.

  ‘While you all chat,’ said Miss Hardbroom, ‘I’ll go and check the corridor to Mildred’s room; he’s probably up there somewhere.’

  Mr and Mrs Brilliantine were surprisingly nice and thoughtful. Miss Cackle had already explained to them how attached Mildred and the dog had become – Mildred had perked up on hearing this – but her hopes were dashed when Miss Cackle told them that Mildred had always known he would have to go back to the circus if it was found.

  Mrs Brilliantine leaned forward and patted Mildred’s hand.

  ‘I can see how upset you must feel about this, my dear,’ she said kindly, ‘but we have so missed him at our little circus. It really is very small and he was always the best thing in it. He fell out of the back of his crate while we were on the move and got hopelessly lost.’

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you,’ said Mr Brilliantine. ‘It wasn’t an easy life for him in the circus. Between shows, he was in his crate most of the time, but he got plenty of food and the audience loved him.’

  ‘Audiences are hard to come by these days,’ said Mrs Brilliantine, ‘so we really would like him back, if you could bear to part with him.’

  Hope flared in Mildred’s heart.

  ‘Well, I’d rather not –’ she began.

  ‘Of course she can,’ said Miss Cackle. ‘He wasn’t hers in the first place – was he, Mildred? Just on loan – Ah, there he is now.’

  They heard Star before the door opened, and Miss Hardbroom came in holding him in a vice-like grip as he yelped and struggled.

  ‘BINKY!’ exclaimed Mrs Brilliantine. ‘Come to Mummy!’

  ‘That’s him all right!’ agreed Mr Brilliantine. ‘Full of beans, as ever. Come here, old chap.’

  Miss Hardbroom put the dog down on the floor and dragged him, all four feet splayed, past Mildred to his rightful owners. He gave a despairing glance at Mildred, who realized that there was nothing she could do to stop it. He would have to be returned to these people whether she liked it or not.

  Mildred stood up and took his lead. ‘Come on now Star – I mean Binky,’ she said, kneeling down and trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. ‘It’s time to go home. We’ve had such fun, haven’t we? I won’t forget you.’

  She looked up at Miss Cackle. ‘Can I visit sometimes, once he’s settled back in?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mildred,’ said Miss Hardbroom before the Brilliantines could respond. ‘That would just confuse him – and you. Best to make a clean break, don’t you agree, Miss Cackle?’

  ‘I rather think Miss Hardbroom is right, Mildred,’ said the headmistress.

  As Mildred handed the lead to Mrs Brilliantine, Star sat down suddenly and drooped, as if he had completely given up. He wouldn’t look at Mildred and kept his head lowered, still as a mouse with an owl hovering overhead.

  Mildred thought she might explode trying to keep the tears at bay.

  Meanwhile, Mr Brilliantine had been peering around the room, taking in the strange outfits worn by Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom.

  ‘What sort of school is this?’ he asked rather suddenly.

  ‘Difficult to describe really,’ replied Miss Cackle with a smile.

  ‘It’s very old-fashioned,’ said Miss Hardbroom crisply. ‘Old-style values and extremely hard-working.’

  ‘But lots of fun too,’ added Miss Cackle. ‘A magic sort of school, you might say! Off you go now, Mildred – you’ve done very well. I’m sure the dog will be fine once he’s settled back into his old home.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Cackle; thank you, Miss Cackle,’ said Mildred, and she left the room without looking back even once, as she was kind enough not to make things worse for the little dog when there really was nothing she could do to stop them taking him away.

  Mildred went straight to her room, and that’s where Maud and Enid found her, under the covers with Tabby, sobbing her heart out.

  ‘What is it, Mil?’ exclaimed Maud, perching on the edge of the bed, trying to get an arm round her.

  ‘It’s Star,’ wept Mildred, sitting up with Tabby still clutched tightly to her chest. ‘He’s gone. The circus people came to take him away and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I couldn’t even try, so I just had to give him back.’

  She dissolved into huge, shuddering tears, and Maud and Enid cuddled up on either side of her, like bookends.

  ‘What were they like?’ asked Enid. ‘Were they horrible? Do you think that’s why he ran away?’

  ‘He didn’t run away,’ said Mildred between sobs. ‘He fell out of his crate while they were travelling – and he’s not called Star; his real name is Binky. I saw the picture of him on the circus poster. He was sitting on a pony, and there was a seal in the background. It was definitely him – he really is their dog. I just wish they weren’t going to keep him in a crate, now that he’s got used to being with me all the time. I’m going to miss him so much.’

  ‘Well,’ said Enid, ‘there’s no use getting in a state about it if there’s nothing to be done.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Maud, ‘and it’s lunch-break now and we’ve got double chanting afterwards, and Miss Bat’s got a test ready, so you’ll just have to get up and get on with it, Millie.’

  ‘I know you’re right,’ said Mildred, climbing out of bed, wiping her eyes and gently putting Tabby on the pillow, ‘and I know I can’t, but I so wish I could do something to get him back.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After double chanting, which had an extremely complicated rhythm that was virtually impossible to get right, Mildred sneaked into the playground with Tabby to reintroduce him to flying on a broomstick. Poor Tabby thought that Mildred was taking him for a little carry around the school, and nearly fainted with shock when she commanded the broomstick to hover and proceeded to put him on the back. As ever, he sat frozen in terror, then suddenly took a flying leap on to the wall. Mildred held out her arms to him, but he skittered along the top as fast as he could and jumped through a window, disappearing out of sight.

  ‘Oh dear, Mildred,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Having cat trouble again?’

  It was Ethel, with Drusilla beside her as usual. ‘So where’s the circus dog?’ she continued. ‘How come poor old Stripey’s back on the broom – or not, as the case may be?’

  ‘You know about this, don’t you?’ said Mildred, glaring at Ethel. ‘That’s why you’ve come to gloat!’

  Ethel was wearing her you’ll-never-find-out expression, but Drusilla couldn’t look Mildred in the eye and was actually blushing.

  ‘You know about it too, don’t you, Drusilla?’ challenged Mildred, her voice rising with anger and tears. ‘Well, I hope you’re both really pleased with yourselves.’

  ‘Poor old Mildred,’ sneered Ethel as Mildred grabbed her broomstick and marched out of the playground.

  ‘Well, at least we’ll see how good she really is at flying, now that she’s back with her stupid cat,’ said Drusilla.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ethel. ‘Anyway, she was cheating, having a circus dog as her broom-companion. Everything’s back to normal now: Mildred Hubble the worst witch in the school, just as it should be.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Things had been going so smoothly for Mildred, who had been really enjoying herself, confident at last that she could hold her head up among her classmates. Without Star she had taken an instant nosedive and found herself right back at square one.

  ‘It was just like surfing,’ she explained to Maud and Enid when they were sitting in the broom shed, taking shelter during a rainy lunch-break. ‘You know, zipping along on the top of a wave, having a brilliant time, taking everything for granted, and then – BANG! – you hit a rock and everything just falls to pieces.’

  ‘Not everything,’ said Enid.

  ‘Well, it feels like everything,’ said Mildred gloomily. ‘I can’t tell you how nice it was to finally be good at flying – and the more praise I got from the teachers, the better I got at everything else. It encouraged me to try harder – but it wasn’t really me, was it? It was Star who was brilliant at flying, and he sort of admired me – you know what dogs are like – so I had to keep up with him, not the other way round. Now that I’m back with Tabby, everyone can see I’m like a beginner, as Ethel never stops pointing out. She’s right really. I am a hopeless case – everything I do always does go wrong in the end.’

  ‘Well, it sort of does,’ said Maud, ‘but then it sort of doesn’t, because usually, when it’s gone disastrously wrong, something happens to save the day – like when you won the swimming-pool competition –’

  ‘And rescuing Mr Rowan Webb,’ said Enid.

  ‘And finding the treasure on our school holiday after Miss Hardbroom was knocked out in the boat,’ said Maud. ‘That looked fairly hopeless at the time, didn’t it? Do you know what I think, Millie?’ she continued cheerfully. ‘I think you’ve got a magic pixie keeping an eye on you. Something will happen to get things back on an even keel for you. It always has done before, so I don’t see why it won’t this time.’

  ‘It’s logical, my dear,’ said Enid kindly, doing a very good impersonation of Miss Cackle. ‘We just have to wait patiently and everything will turn out fine – meanwhile, let’s all have a biscuit!’

  Mildred couldn’t help smiling at her friends, who were always on hand to cheer her up.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you two,’ she said as they all huddled up and leaned against each other affectionately. ‘Although I honestly can’t see how I can get myself out of this particular nosedive.’

  ‘I just told you,’ said Maud. ‘You don’t have to do anything at all except wait and see.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mildred did try to heed Maud’s advice and wait patiently for things to start looking up, but in reality they seemed to be going from bad to worse.

  For a start, after several months off from flying, Tabby couldn’t cope at all. Mildred spent most of her time hauling him out from under her bed or pursuing him down the corridors, which was most embarrassing, especially when Ethel was watching. Sadly, it didn’t take long before Mildred found it impossible to concentrate on anything, and she was soon back at the bottom of the class in all subjects.

  One night she had a horrible dream about Star. He often featured in her dreams (usually happy ones, although these made her sad when she woke up and found they weren’t true), but this one was a nightmare. In the dream, Star was locked up in a crate, with a thunderstorm raging outside, and she was flying around, dodging lightning bolts while trying to get him out.

  Mildred woke with a jolt. She was partly glad that it had only been a dream, but she also had an unsettled feeling that the little dog might have been trying to send her a telepathic message. The dream had seemed so real.

  It was just getting light. Outside the window a cloudless, windless day was beckoning. Someone had mentioned to Mildred that the circus was now pitched at Queen’s Warren – a large market town fifteen miles on from Greater Bustling. She could easily get there and back in time for the rising bell – just to make sure that Star had settled into his old routine and was reasonably happy.

  However, she hadn’t thought about what she would actually do if he wasn’t.

  ‘Where on earth are you going, Mildred?’ whispered Maud, who had opened her door to let her cat in and found Mildred creeping down the shadowy corridor. ‘You’re not running away, are you?’ she asked. ‘Just as well I got up early to revise for H.B.’s ultra-important potions’ test. You do realize it’s our first lesson, don’t you?’

  Another door creaked open and Enid peered out, blinking at Maud and Mildred, who had stopped in her doorway.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked in a just-woken-up, croaky voice.

  ‘Mildred’s obviously up to something,’ whispered Maud.

  ‘Well, you’d better both come in here,’ whispered Enid, ‘or we’ll wake the whole corridor.’

  Mildred and Maud stepped into Enid’s room and closed the door.

  ‘Look,’ said Mildred. ‘I can’t stop. I’m just nipping to Queen’s Warren to make sure Star’s all right. I had a horrible dream about him and I want to check that he’s OK. I’m not going to steal him or anything – and I’ll be back before the rising bell.’

  ‘You’re just nipping to Queen’s Warren!’ exclaimed Maud. ‘You’ve never even been there, Mildred! You’ll get lost, and H.B. will go bonkers when she finds out.’

  Enid grabbed her cardigan and started putting it on over her pyjamas.

  ‘Come on, Maud,’ she said as she pulled on her cloak. ‘We’ll have to go with her. I’ve got a bat-nav so we won’t get lost and we’ll get there much, much faster.’

  ‘What’s a bat-nav?’ asked Mildred and Maud, intrigued.

  ‘It’s a specially trained long-eared bat,’ explained Enid. ‘You say the name of a town or village into a special device clipped to its ear, which translates it into sonar squeaks, and the bat just takes you there like magic.’

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Maud. ‘Are they actually allowed?’

  ‘Course they aren’t,’ said Enid, ‘but I won’t tell if you won’t.’

  ‘Are you coming then, Maud?’ asked Mildred.

  Maud hesitated. She most definitely didn’t want to set out on such a perilous journey, abandoning her early-morning revision. On the other hand she didn’t want to abandon her best friend either, especially now that Enid was definitely going with her.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Maud. ‘I’ll get my cloak and hat and meet you at the broom shed.’

  The bat-nav halved the journey time. Maud and Mildred were fascinated as the little brown bat danced along ahead of them, leading the way.

  ‘Won’t he want to go to sleep soon?’ asked Mildred. ‘The sun’s getting bright.’

  ‘Nope,’ said Enid. ‘They’re specially trained to fly whenever you give them instructions, whatever hour of the day. Brilliant, isn’t it? Look, there’s the circus!’

  The clock tower in the town square at Queen’s Warren showed six o’clock as they glided past it to the outskirts of the town, where they could clearly see the red-and-white-striped Big Top, plus a large caravan, several cage-like metal crates and containers, and two flatbed trucks.

  A small, fat pony with an overgrown mane and tail was tethered in the field next to the crates. He shook the hair from his eyes and looked up curiously as the three witches skimmed silently over him, landing out of sight behind the Big Top.

  The girls parked their broomsticks with their hats perched on top, and Enid settled the bat-nav with a stick wedged under the brim of her hat so that he could hang upside down and have a rest.

  Star was in one of the crates and he began barking wildly when he saw Mildred creeping past.

  ‘He’s in here,’ gasped Mildred, thrilled to find him so easily. ‘Stop it, boy. Shh! It’s all right; it’s all right.’

  But it clearly wasn’t all right. The crate was cramped and dark with its heavy canvas cover, and it was more than Mildred could bear, seeing him imprisoned, frenziedly barking and trying to lick her hands through the bars.

  ‘I knew this wasn’t a good idea,’ muttered Maud.

  ‘OK,’ said Enid, trying to sound jaunty. ‘It’s not the Ritz, but you knew he was going to be kept in a crate between shows. He’s fine. Come on – let’s go before he wakes everyone up.’

  But it was too late. The caravan door crashed open, and there was Mr Brilliantine, wrapped in a maroon silk dressing gown.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he thundered. ‘Hilda!’ he called behind him. ‘We seem to have visitors.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ever the peacemaker, Maud rushed forward.

  ‘We’re so sorry to have woken you,’ she said politely. ‘We’ve come from Miss Cackle’s Academy. It’s just that Mildred’s been so unhappy without Star – I mean, Binky – that she wanted a quick cuddle before school! We really didn’t mean to wake you – so we’ll be off now. Come on, Mildred!’ she said, grabbing Mildred by the arm.

  Enid grabbed her other arm and they yanked her away from the crate. Mrs Brilliantine had now come out on to the caravan doorstep, wearing a green satin dressing gown with an orange feather collar, covered in bright pink embroidered flamingos.

  ‘I recognize you,’ she said, peering at Mildred. ‘You’re the girl who looked after our Binky when he was lost. How did you get here?’ she asked, suddenly noticing their assortment of cloaks and pyjamas.

 

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