Even the other teachers kept their distance from her. At lunchtime, Madame Magna sat alone under a tree smoking a long pipe.
The plumes of smoke would fl oat in the air and swirl into the shapes of people or animals. Madame Magna turning pipe-smoking into an art.
Our story begins on the day Harry had his fi rst lesson with the new teacher. Madame Magna was teaching the children all about the various methods of medieval torture. As the bell rang, Harry was the fi rst to leap up out of his chair to go.
‘Homevork in fi rst thing tomorrow!’ announced Madame Magna. ‘Harry, would you stay behind, PLEASE?’
Harry let out a huge sigh. ‘What now, miss?’ ‘Madame!’ ‘What now, madame?’ ‘It has come to my attention that you have never vonce handed in your homevork!’
‘Well, miss, I mean madame …’ began Harry. He was very experienced at giving teachers the brush-off with some ridiculous excuse, so was not too worried. ‘That is strange, because I did it all. Maybe the words just fell off the pages in my exercise book?’
