Return to Groosham Grange Read Online Free PDF

Wednesday.” Mr. Fitch sighed. “That only gives us two days.”
    “We have no choice.” Mr. Teagle said. “We’ll have to start again.” He turned to David. “You won’t believe this,” he went on, “but writing exams is almost as boring as taking them! It’s all most annoying.”
    Both men nodded at the same time, narrowly missing banging their heads together. Still David said nothing. He was furious with himself. He had walked into this. How could he have been so stupid?
    “Are you aware of the seriousness of this offense?” Mr. Teagle asked.
    David was blushing darkly. He couldn’t keep silent any longer. “It’s not the way it looks,” he said. “It’s not what you think—”
    “Oh no,” Mr. Fitch interrupted. “I suppose you’re going to tell us that you were framed.”
    “Maybe you didn’t mean to come in here and look at the exams,” Mr. Teagle suggested sarcastically.
    David hung his head low. “No,” he whispered.
    “You realize that we could expel you for this,” Mr. Fitch said.
    “Or worse,” Mr. Teagle agreed.
    Mr. Fitch sighed. “Sometimes I wonder, David, if you’re suited to Groosham Grange. When you first came here, you fought against us. In a way you’re still fighting. Do you really think you belong here?”
    Did he belong at Groosham Grange? It was something that, in his darker moments, he had often wondered.
    When he had first come to the school, he had indeed fought against it. As soon as he had learned about the secret lessons in black magic, he had done everything he could to escape, to tell the authorities what he knew, to get the place closed down. It had only been when he had found himself trapped and helpless that he had changed his mind. If you can’t beat them . . .
    But here he was, a year later, determined to become the number one student, to win the Unholy Grail. He remembered the fear he had once felt, the sense of horror. Classes in black magic! Ghosts and vampires! Now he was one of them—so what exactly did that make him? What had he become in the year he had been here?
    He became aware of the heads, waiting for an answer.
    “I do belong here,” he said. “I know that now. But . . .” He hesitated. “I’m not evil.”
    “Evil?” Mr. Teagle smiled for the first time. “What is good and what is evil?” he asked. “Sometimes it’s not as easy as you think to tell them apart. That’s still something you have to learn.”
    David nodded. “Maybe that’s true,” he said. “But all I know is . . . this is my home. And I do want to stay.”
    “Very well.” Mr. Fitch was suddenly businesslike. “We won’t expel you. But tonight’s performance is going to cost you ten points—”
    “Fifteen,” Mr. Teagle cut in.
    “Fifteen points. Do you have anything to say?”
    David shook his head. He was feeling sick to the stomach. Fifteen points! Add that to the twelve points he had lost earlier in the day and that left . . .
    “David?”
    . . . just three points. Three points between Vincent and him. How had it happened? How had Vincent managed to lure him here?
    “No, sir.” His voice was hoarse, a whisper.
    “Then I suggest you go back to bed.”
    “Yes . . .”
    David was still holding the exam papers. Clenching his teeth, feeling the bitterness rising inside him, he jerked his fingers open, dropping them back onto the table. He hadn’t read a single question.
    He left the study and walked back along the passage and past the portraits, trying to ignore them tut-tutting at him as he went. With his mind still spinning, he climbed the stairs and found his way back to the dormitory. He stopped by his bed. Vincent was back. His clothes were on the chair, his body curled up under the blankets as if he had never been away. But was he really asleep? David gazed through the darkness at the half smile on the other boy’s face and doubted it.
    Silently, David undressed again and got back into bed. Three points. That was all there was between them.