The Only Thing Worse Than Witches

Vocabulary Class

AFTER THE STRANGEST, MOST WONDERFUL, AND most heartbreaking long weekend as a witch’s apprentice, Rupert did not want to return to his old life in Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s class for one minute. But he took his seat next to Kyle Mason-Reed and Allison Gormley. They both looked straight ahead with wide eyes. Rupert sighed and did the same.

Moments later, Mrs. Frabbleknacker clip-clopped into the room, and Rupert caught the whiff of belly-button lint again. He bit on his lips to keep from making a sour face. The last time he had made a sour face in Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s class, she made him keep ten marbles in his mouth for an hour. And when Rupert spit them out, to his horror, there were only nine.

Mrs. Frabbleknacker tapped on the board with her long fingernails. The whole class tensed. They were waiting for her to scratch the board, for her fingernails to make that high-pitched, shudder-inducing moan, but Mrs. Frabbleknacker peeled away from the board.

“Children,” she said, as though she was saying something truly awful like Root Canal or Pickled Sausages. “Today we will study vocabulary.”

She turned around and quickly wrote four words on the board:

Rupert’s jaw dropped.

“Those aren’t words!” Bruno Gopp called out. “Those are just funny sounds put together!”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker’s head twisted around the back of her shoulder. Her eyes were wide and wild. “Did you speak without raising your hand?”

Bruno Gopp cowered. “N-no, ma’am,” he whispered. “I didn’t say anything — it wasn’t me.”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker took a step closer to Bruno, and Rupert was sure that his friend was about to wet himself. Sweat dripped down Bruno’s forehead, and every kid in the class held his breath.

Mrs. Frabbleknacker sucked air through her crooked nose. “And are you lying to me — again?”

Bruno looked around, as if he hoped that someone in the class would feed him the correct answer. “No?”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker lunged forward and grabbed Bruno by the ear. Bruno winced in pain, muttering ow, ow, ow, ow! She pulled him to the front of the class and threw him into a wooden chair. Bruno trembled as Mrs. Frabbleknacker placed a box of toothpicks in front of him.

“P-please don’t stab me with those,” Bruno said.

Mrs. Frabbleknacker leaned forward and breathed into the ear she almost pulled off. “You won’t leave this classroom until you build a tower. Just one toothpick on top of the other. Longways. Use them all.”

“But that’s impossible,” Bruno said. “Not without glue.”

“I hope you said good-bye to your family this morning,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said, and then she burst into a deep, hearty laugh.

When Mrs. Frabbleknacker finished laughing, she snapped back to the rest of the class. “Well? You’ve had ten minutes to learn the words. Now it’s time for a test.”

The entire class gasped.

“Allison!” Mrs. Frabbleknacker snapped. She walked up to Allison’s desk and breathed her banana breath in Allison’s nervous-looking face. “What is REPUGNANT?”

“Um,” Allison stammered. “Is it a kind of dog?”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker flipped Allison’s desk over and tossed her papers across the room. “NO!” she shouted. “IT’S YOU! YOU ARE REPUGNANT, YOU LOATHESOME CHILD! YOU ARE THE UGLIEST, SMELLIEST, ROTTEN-BEYOND-ROTTEN LITTLE GIRL IN THE WHOLE WORLD!”

Allison ran from the classroom crying.

“Next,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said. “Francis. Demonstrate TACITURN!”

Francis was too afraid to move, blink, or even breathe. He sat there in silence.

Mrs. Frabbleknacker frowned, clearly disappointed. “Correct. Now class, demonstrate TACITURN.”

Every student imitated Francis — his straight posture, his nauseated expression, his still and silent demeanor, and even his tiny eye twitch. And without knowing what TACITURN was, the whole class became it.

“Kaleigh — CLAMOR.”

“Oh! My daddy had mussels and CLAMORS for dinner last night!”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker smiled wickedly. “Did I not ask the class to be TACITURN? Did I ever say to stop being TACITURN?”

“Wh-what’s TACITURN?”

“SILENCE!” Mrs. Frabbleknacker shouted. “SILENCE, SILENCE, SILENCE! AND WHEN YOU SPEAK, ARE YOU SILENT?” Mrs. Frabbleknacker licked her lips, her long tongue fluttering in and out of her mouth like a snake. “ARE YOU TACITURN, KALEIGH?”

“No, but you asked me a question.”

“TACITURN! TACITURN, TACITURN! AND YOUR FATHER DID NOT HAVE CLAMORS FOR DINNER BECAUSE I AM CLAMORING NOW. DO YOU HEAR WHAT I AM DOING?”

Kaleigh nodded taciturnly.

The whole room buzzed with silence. Then, Rupert heard the sound of a hundred toothpicks falling against a table. Poor Bruno, he thought.

“And now that I have you all silent,” Mrs. Frabbleknacker said, “I will demonstrate the last vocabulary word, ABSCOND.”

Mrs. Frabbleknacker walked out of the classroom, slamming the door in her wake.

Two hours later, Rupert and his classmates decided it was finally safe to move. Mrs. Frabbleknacker wasn’t coming back.