Madame Magna took out her pipe and stuff ed the end with tobacco. Slowly she lit it with a match, and blew a huge cloud of foul-smelling smoke into the boy’s face. Harry coughed and spluttered as the smoke swirled around him. The boy was sure he could see shapes of knights in armour on horseback jousting in the smoke. However, no sooner had he seen the vision than it was gone.


‘Vell, vell, vell, Harry, you are quite the joker! But if you don’t do your homevork tonight, you may be visited by apparitions in the dead of night.’


The boy was unnerved by this. ‘What do you mean, miss, er, madame?’ ‘You vill see for yourself. You are the master of your destiny.’ ‘Can I go now, miss-madame?’


‘Yes.’ The old lady took another long drag on her pipe, and blew a huge, thick cloud of smoke right in the direction of the boy. This time he was sure he could see camels and slaves and the pyramids of Ancient Egypt.


Harry coughed and spluttered again. When the smoke had cleared, she was gone.


Harry was seriously spooked. What did the mysterious madame mean by ‘apparitions in the dead of night’? The boy ran all the way home, and as soon as he was in his bedroom he rummaged in his school bag for his History exercise book. It was all but empty of work. Harry had been doodling instead of making notes for most of the term.


The History homework, or ‘homevork’, that Madame Magna had set for the evening was an essay: ‘Who is the greatest villain in the history of the vorld?’ (Harry realised the teacher meant ‘world’.)


The boy pondered the question for a while. The problem was he hadn’t listened to a word, or even a vord, she had said in class, so Harry hadn’t the faintest idea who to write about. The boy knew that Darth Vader was a villain, but was pretty sure that he’d been made up, rather than being a fi gure from world history.


Harry scratched his head. Then he chewed his pen. Then he picked his nose. He did lots of things other than his homework. In no time, he had discarded his exercise book and was back playing on his games console, saving the galaxy or destroying the galaxy or some such nonsense.


STOP AND THINK


Madame Magna told Harry that if he didn’t do his homework, Harry would be ‘visited by apparitions in the dead of night’. What kind of apparitions does she mean, do you think? What do you think will happen next? Discuss this with a classmate before you read on.


18


FIRE & ICE 1


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