Groosham Grange Read Online Free PDF

door.
    A voice called out from inside and, taking a deep breath, David opened the door and went in. He found himself in a study lined with books on one side and pictures on the other with a full-length mirror in the middle. There was something very strange about the mirror. David noticed at once but he couldn’t say exactly what it was. The glass had been cracked in one corner and the gilt frame was slightly warped. But it wasn’t that. It was something else, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as if they wanted to climb out of his skin and get out of the room as fast as they could.
    With an effort, he turned his eyes away. The furniture in the study was old and shabby. There was nothing strange about that. Teachers always seemed to surround themselves with old, shabby furniture – although the dust and the cobwebs were surely taking things a bit too far. Opposite the door, in front of a red velvet curtain, a man was sitting at a desk, reading a book. As David entered, he looked up, his face expressionless.
    “Please sit down,” he said.
    It was impossible to say how old the man was. His skin was pale and somehow ageless, like a wax model. He was dressed in a plain black suit, with a white shirt and a black tie. As David sat down in front of the desk, the man closed the book with long, bony fingers. He was incredibly thin. His movements were slow and careful. It was as if one gust of wind, one cough, or one sneeze would shatter him into a hundred pieces.
    “My name is Kilgraw,” he continued. “I am very happy to see you at last, David. We are all happy that you have come to Groosham Grange.”
    David wasn’t at all happy about it, but he said nothing.
    “I congratulate you,” Mr Kilgraw went on. “The school may seem unusual to you at first glance. It may even seem … abnormal. But let me assure you, David, what we can teach you, what we can offer you is beyond your wildest dreams. Are you with me?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Mr Kilgraw smiled – if you could call a twitching lip and a glint of white teeth a smile. “Don’t fight us, David,” he said. “Try and understand us. We are different. But so are you. That is why you have been chosen. The seventh son of the seventh son. It makes you special, David. Just how special you will soon find out.”
    David nodded, searching for the door out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t understood anything Mr Kilgraw had said but it was obvious that the man was a complete nutcase. It was true that he had six elder sisters and six gruesome aunts (his father’s sisters) who bought him unsuitable presents every Christmas and poked and prodded him as if he were made of Plasticine. But how did that make him special? And in what way had he been chosen? He would never have heard of Groosham Grange if he hadn’t been expelled from Beton.
    “Things will become clearer to you in due course,” Mr Kilgraw said as if reading his mind. And in all probability he had read his mind. David would hardly have been surprised if the assistant headmaster had pulled off a mask and revealed that he came from the planet Venus. “But all that matters now is that you are here. You have arrived. You are where you were meant to be.”
    Mr Kilgraw stood up and moved round the desk. There was a second, black-covered book resting at the edge and next to it an old-fashioned quill pen. Licking his fingers, he opened it, then leafed through the pages. David glanced over the top of the desk. From what he could see, the book seemed to be a list of names, written in some sort of brown ink. Mr Kilgraw reached a blank page and picked up the quill.
    “We have an old custom at Groosham Grange,” he explained. “We ask our new pupils to sign their names in the school register. You and your two friends will bring the total up to sixty-five who are with us at present. That is five times thirteen, David. A very good number.”
    David had no idea why sixty-five should be any better than