Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE MUSIC TEACHER

  Humphrey Carpenter (1946–2005), the author and creator of Mr Majeika, was born and educated in Oxford. He went to a school called the Dragon School where exciting things often happened and there were some very odd teachers – you could even call it magical! He became a full-time writer in 1975 and was the author of many award-winning biographies. As well as the Mr Majeika titles, his children’s books also included Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits and More Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits. He wrote plays for radio and theatre and founded the children’s drama group The Mushy Pea Theatre Company. He played the tuba, double bass, bass saxophone and keyboard.

  Humphrey once said, “The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks. Words are the only tricks you need. I can write: ‘He floated up to the ceiling, and a baby rabbit came out of his pocket, grew wings, and flew away.’ And you will believe that it really happened! That’s magic, isn’t it?”

  Books by Humphrey Carpenter

  MR MAJEIKA

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE DINNER LADY

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE GHOST TRAIN

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE HAUNTED HOTEL

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE LOST SPELL BOOK

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE MUSIC TEACHER

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL BOOK WEEK

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL CARETAKER

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL INSPECTOR

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL PLAY

  MR MAJEIKA AND THE SCHOOL TRIP

  MR MAJEIKA ON THE INTERNET

  MR MAJEIKA VANISHES

  THE PUFFIN BOOK OF CLASSIC

  CHILDREN’S STORIES (Ed.)

  SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT THE BORING BITS

  MORE SHAKESPEARE WITHOUT THE

  BORING BITS

  HUMPHREY CARPENTER

  Mr Majeika and the Music Teacher

  Illustrated by Frank Rodgers

  PUFFIN

  With thanks to Mrs Bennetts and the school orchestra, and Mrs Jenks and her class, at St Philip and St James School, Oxford, for their help with the story. And in memory of Lucy Tsancheva (1972-1984), who helped so much with the first Mr Majeika.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

  Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

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  New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland,

  New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Viking Kestrel 1986

  Published in Puffin Books 1987

  28

  Text copyright © Humphrey Carpenter, 1986

  Illustrations copyright © Frank Rodgers, 1986

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-194443-2

  Contents

  1. Hamish goes shopping

  2. The letter on the mat

  3. The orchestra

  4. Trouble in the staffroom

  5. The concert

  6. Miss Worlock catches the post

  1. Hamish goes shopping

  Hamish Bigmore’s parents sat having breakfast, and looking at a letter.

  ‘Pass the butter!’ shouted Hamish, who was just as rude at home as he was at school. ‘I said, pass the butter!’

  ‘Ooh, sorry, dear,’ said Hamish’s mother. She always gave Hamish everything he wanted, and never complained at his rudeness. Of course this made him worse than ever.

  ‘WILL YOU PASS THE BUTTER!!!’ Hamish yelled, because his father was still reading the letter, and hadn’t handed the butter dish down the table.

  ‘Terribly sorry, old chap,’ said Mr Bigmore, giving his son the butter. ‘I was busy reading this. Here, have a look.’ He handed his son the letter.

  Hamish looked at it. This is what it said.

  Dear Parents,

  I am sure you will be pleased to know that next term I shall be joining the staff of St Barty’s School as music teacher. I am going to form a school orchestra, and I want everyone to play an instrument in it. Please make sure that your son or daughter brings an instrument to school with them.

  Yours sincerely

  Wilhelmina Worlock

  Hamish yawned. ‘What a boring letter,’ he said. ‘Pass the toast. I said, PASS THE TOAST!!!’ His mother hastily gave it to him.

  ‘Why is it boring, old chap?’ asked Mr Bigmore. ‘I’d have thought you would want to play an instrument. You always like making a lot of noise.’

  ‘NO I DON’T!’ shouted Hamish at the top of his voice. ‘And anyway,’ he went on, stuffing his mouth full of toast while he spoke, ‘plgghhng thrr rrccrrddrr zzz zzhllly.’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ said his mother timidly, ‘but we can’t quite understand what you’re saying. Perhaps if you swallowed that toast before speaking…?’

  Hamish glared and spat out toast. ‘What I said was, playing the recorder is silly. You know, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” – that’s all just rubbish for babies.’ He crammed some more toast into his mouth.

  ‘I suppose so, old chap,’ said his father. ‘Could you pass me the milk jug, old fellow, if you please?’

  ‘No,’ grunted Hamish. ‘I’m busy eating.’

  Hamish’s father got up and fetched the milk jug for himself. ‘But you know,’ he said, ‘they may play grown-up tunes in the orchestra. This Miss Worlock doesn’t say anything about “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. And she doesn’t mention recorders. As far as I can see, she’ll let you play anything you like.’

  Hamish thought for a moment. ‘Well, what else is there?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose you could play the violin,’ said his father.

  ‘Violins are silly,’ sneered Hamish.

  ‘Or a clarinet,’ said his mother.

  ‘That’s just a silly sort of recorder with knobs stuck on it,’ said Hamish. ‘You can’t fool me.’

  ‘A flute makes a very pretty noise,’ said his father.

  ‘Pretty!’ sneered Hamish. ‘I don’t want to play anything pretty.’

  ‘No, I’m sure not, dear,’ said his mother hastily. ‘But don’t worry. I’m sure we can find something for you. After all, think of all the instruments there are in orchestras – trumpets, oboes, cellos, horns, harps, double basses –’

  ‘Double basses?’ said Hamish. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Oh, very big things,’ said his father. ‘Far too big for someone your age. They’re very tall, like huge violins, and they make a deep noise w
hen you pluck them or play them with a bow. But if I were you I’d choose a –’

  ‘I WANT A DOUBLE BASS!!!’ shouted Hamish Bigmore.

  *

  ‘Music teacher?’ said Mr Potter, the headmaster of St Barty’s Primary School. ‘What music teacher? I don’t know anything about any music teacher.’

  It was the first day of term, and Mr Potter’s office had filled up with angry parents.

  ‘I just can’t afford to get expensive musical instruments for my children,’ grumbled the mother of Melanie, one of the children in Class Three. ‘It costs too much. Who does she think she is, this new music teacher?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the other mums and dads crossly, ‘you never told us about her.’

  ‘And no one told me,’ said Mr Potter. ‘I don’t know anything about a new music teacher. Here, let me see the letter.’

  Someone passed him the letter from Miss Wilhelmina Worlock. ‘What a very curious name,’ said Mr Potter, looking at it. ‘I didn’t ask her to come to St Barty’s. I wonder who did?’

  *

  There was a dreadful amount of noise going on in Class Three. Squeaks, grunts, groans, rattles, thumps and whistles. Everyone was playing their musical instruments.

  ‘Do be quiet,’ called out Thomas to everyone else. ‘I can see Mr Majeika coming down the passage.’

  ‘If he hears all this racket,’ said Pete, who was Thomas’s twin, ‘I’m sure he’ll turn us all into frogs or snakes or something. You know what he can do when he’s really cross.’

  Mr Majeika was the Class Three teacher, and he had once been a wizard, though he didn’t want anyone to know this. Last term he had lost his temper twice with Hamish Bigmore. The first time he had turned a ruler that Hamish was holding into a snake. The second time he had turned Hamish himself into a frog. Mr Majeika didn’t mean to do things like that; he said he’d given up magic, and was trying to be an ordinary teacher. But sometimes he forgot himself, and things happened.

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ said Mr Majeika, coming into the classroom. ‘I hope you all had a good holiday. But what was all

  that noise, and why have you all got musical instruments?’

  ‘It’s the new music teacher,’ said Jody. ‘She wrote to our mums and dads.’

  ‘But Mr Potter doesn’t know anything about it,’ said Thomas.

  ‘And my mum won’t buy an instrument for me,’ said Melanie, who was always crying. ‘Boo-hoo!’ She burst into tears as usual.

  ‘It all sounds a bit peculiar,’ said Mr Majeika. ‘But I suppose it will be good for you all to learn some music.’

  ‘I’ve got a penny whistle,’ said Jody, playing a few notes on it.

  Other voices spoke up round the class:

  ‘I’ve got a trumpet my mum brought from a junk shop, but I can’t play it yet.’

  ‘I’ve got a violin, and my dad says he’ll teach me.’

  ‘I’ve got my sister’s old guitar.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mr Majeika. ‘That’ll do for now. Put everything away, until this music teacher arrives. And now get your workbooks out and –’

  He was interrupted by an odd sort of bumping noise at the door of the classroom. He went over and opened the door.

  The doorway was blocked by something very big, made of wood.

  ‘What on earth is this?’ said Mr Majeika.

  A voice spoke from behind the big wooden thing: ‘It’s my double bass.’ It was Hamish Bigmore.

  ‘Good gracious!’ said Mr Majeika. ‘Well, you’d better not bring it in here.’

  But already Hamish had staggered into the classroom, clutching the enormous musical instrument.

  Behind him marched his proud mother and father. ‘We always want him to have the best of everything,’ said Hamish’s father.

  ‘And he asked for a double bass,’ said Hamish’s mother. ‘So of course we had to get him one.’

  Hamish dropped the double bass carelessly on to the floor, and then fell over it.

  ‘Careful, old man,’ said his father. ‘It cost a lot of money, you know.’

  ‘Shut up, silly!’ said Hamish Bigmore. ‘It’s my double bass, and I can do what I like with it.’

  ‘Hamish Bigmore,’ said Mr Majeika, ‘don’t speak to your parents in that fashion. Leave that thing where it is, and sit down in your place. Mr and Mrs Bigmore, I would be obliged if you could remove this musical instrument from the classroom. I can’t imagine that the music teacher, whoever she is, will want to have such an object in her orchestra. Apart from anything else, your son isn’t big enough to play it.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ shouted Hamish Bigmore. ‘Of course I am. And of course Miss Worlock will want me to play it. You see if she doesn’t.’

  Thomas and Pete felt certain that Mr Majeika would lose his temper. In fact he had turned quite white. But he didn’t seem angry at all. Instead, he seemed to be frightened.

  ‘Miss – what did you say?’ he asked Hamish in an odd sort of voice.

  ‘Miss Worlock,’ said Hamish. ‘The new music teacher. Miss Wilhelmina Worlock.’

  ‘Wilhelmina Worlock?’ said Mr Majeika, putting his hand on his head as if he had a headache. ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Pete. ‘Have you heard of her?’

  ‘Heard of her?’ answered Mr Majeika. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of her. I’ve heard of her all right. Wilhelmina Worlock is a witch.’

  2. The letter on the mat

  It was Jody who found the letter. She was passing the main door of the school at break time, and she saw it lying on the mat, as if it had just come through the letter-box. It was addressed in spidery handwriting:

  To Mr Potter

  Head Teacher

  St Barty’s School

  URGENT

  Anyone who delays this letter from arriving FAST will be turned into a TOAD.

  Jody thought this last bit was very odd, but she supposed she had better take it to Mr Potter’s office at once.

  She knocked on the door. ‘What is it?’ grumbled Mr Potter. He had forgotten all about the mysterious matter of the music teacher, and was trying to add up the term’s dinner and swimming money, and wondering why it came out differently every time.

  ‘A letter for you, Mr Potter,’ said Jody, handing him the envelope. ‘It looks a bit funny to me.’

  ‘Funny?’ said Mr Potter crossly. ‘What’s funny about a letter? I don’t see anything funny at all.’ He ripped the envelope open crossly.

  What happened next was very strange indeed. Something that looked like a photograph fell out of the envelope on to Mr Potter’s desk. It was a picture of an old woman with long, straggly, grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Jody thought how ugly she looked. Then suddenly the picture began to grow – not just to get bigger, but to become fatter, so that it was no longer a picture at all but a real person. In a moment, the old woman herself was standing in Mr Potter’s office.

  ‘Good gracious,’ said Mr Potter, scratching his head. ‘Where did you come from, madam?’

  ‘In the post, dearie,’ said the old lady cheerfully. ‘A nice cheap way to travel, for those of us who can manage it. You get a

  comfy night’s rest in an envelope, and then, hey presto, there you are at your destination! And it only costs a first-class stamp. Much less fuss than a broomstick. But I forgot – my card.’

  She held her hand up in the air, and in it, from nowhere, there suddenly appeared a small white card. She handed it to Mr Potter. ‘There you are, dearie,’ she said.

  Mr Potter looked at it. It read:

  WILHELMINA W. WORLOCK

  DipW, LRCW

  Music Teaching For All Ages on the So-Spooky Method

  Terms: Cash Weekly

  Mr Potter scratched his head. ‘Would you be the lady who sent out letters to the parents?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right, dearie,’ said Miss Worlock.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Potter thoughtfully. He turned to Jody. ‘I need to have a word with Miss – Mi
ss Worlock in private,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Mr Potter,’ answered Jody, and ran off to tell Class Three the extraordinary thing she had seen.

  ‘Now,’ said Mr Potter, closing the door of his office, ‘I’m afraid there is some misunderstanding, my good lady. I didn’t arrange for you to come and teach music, and I shan’t be able to take you on to the staff. I’m sorry you’ve been troubled. Good day to you.’

  He held out his hand. But Miss Worlock didn’t shake it. She just giggled: ‘Tee-hee!’

  ‘Ugh!’ cried Mr Potter, springing back. In his hand was a live toad.

  He put it hastily on to his desk and wiped his hand on his trousers. Miss Worlock picked it up and stroked it. ‘Come to Mother,’ she said cooingly. ‘Didn’t nasty man like you?’

  ‘As I was saying,’ said Mr Potter, breathing heavily, ‘we don’t require you here. Would you please take yourself off the school premises?’ He opened the office door to show her out.

  ‘Tee-hee!’ said Miss Worlock.

  ‘Ow!’ said Mr Potter, because his hand had begun to sting. He tried to take it off the door-handle. It wouldn’t come. It was stuck fast.

  ‘Did you say you wanted me to go? And that you didn’t want me to teach music, eh?’ said Miss Worlock, pushing her beady eyes unpleasantly near Mr Potter’s face. He tried to back away but couldn’t, being still stuck to the door.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Potter uncomfortably. ‘We have no need of you here. So kindly be on your way right now.’ With his free hand, he pointed at the open doorway – and then cried out, ‘Ugh!’ again. On the end of his finger was a large black spider.

  ‘Take it off!’ yelled Mr Potter, who, even though he was a headmaster, was terrified of spiders.

  ‘Tee-hee!’ said Miss Worlock. ‘It can stay

  there, and you can stay stuck there, till you decide that Wilhelmina Worlock is just the person you need to teach music at St Barty’s school.’

  *

  ‘And she came out of the envelope,’ said Jody breathlessly, ‘and grew and grew, and there she was just standing there, and she looks horrid, just like a witch!’