"Diana Wynne Jones - Witch Week" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

Everyone laughed again. But the laughter was short and guilty, because everyone knew Theresa was not
to be laughed at.
Mr. Wentworth seemed unaware that he had performed a miracle and made everyone laugh at
Theresa, instead of the other way round. He cut the laughter even shorter by telling Dan Smith to come out
to the blackboard and show him two triangles that were alike. The lesson went on. Theresa kept muttering,
"It's not funny! It's just not funny!" Every time she said it, her friends nodded sympathetically, while the rest
of the class kept looking at Nan and bursting into muffled laughter.
At the end of the lesson, Mr. Wentworth uttered a few unpleasant remarks about mass punishments
if people behaved like this again. Then, as he turned to leave, he said, "And by the way, if Charles Morgan,
Nan Pilgrim, and Nirupam Singh haven't already looked at the main notice board, they should do so at once.
They will find they are down for lunch, on high table."
Both Nan and Charles knew then that this was not just a bad day-it was the worst day ever. Miss
Cadwallader sat at high table with any important visitors to the school. It was her custom to choose three
pupils from the school every day to sit there with her. This was so that everyone should learn proper table
manners, and so that Miss Cadwallader should get to know her pupils. It was rightly considered a terrible
ordeal. Neither Nan nor Charles had ever been chosen before. Scarcely able to believe it, they went to
check with the notice board. Sure enough it read: Charles Morgan 6B, Dulcinea Pilgrim 6B, Nirupam
Singh 6B.
Nan stared at it. So that was how everyone knew her name! Miss Cadwallader had forgotten. She
had forgotten who Nan was and everything she had promised, and when she came to stick a pin in the
register-or whatever she did to choose people for high table-she had simply written down the names that
came under her pin.
Nirupam was looking at the notice too. He had been chosen before, but he was no less gloomy than
Charles or Nan. "You have to comb your hair and get your blazer clean," he said. "And it really is true you
have to eat with the same kind of knife or fork that Miss Cadwallader does. You have to watch and see
what she uses all the time."
Nan stood there, letting other people looking at the notices push her about. She was terrified. She
suddenly knew she was going to behave very badly on high table. She was going to drop her dinner, or
scream, or maybe take all her clothes off and dance among the plates. And she was terrified, because she
knew she was not going to be able to stop herself.
She was still terrified when she arrived at high table with Charles and Nirupam. They had all combed
their heads sore and tried to clean from the fronts of their blazers the dirt which always mysteriously arrives
on the fronts of blazers, but they all felt grubby and small beside the stately company at high table. There
were a number of teachers, and the bursar, and an important-looking man called Lord Some-thing-or-other,
and tall, stringy Miss Cadwallader herself. Miss Cadwallader smiled at them graciously and pointed to three
empty chairs at her left side. All of them instantly dived for the chair furthest away from Miss Cadwallader.
Nan, much to her surprise, won it, and Charles won the chair in the middle, leaving Nirupam to sit beside
Miss Cadwallader.
"Now we know that won't do, don't we?" said Miss Cadwallader. "We always sit with a gentleman
on either side of a lady, don't we? Dulcimer must sit in the middle, and I'll have the gentleman I haven't yet
met nearest me. Clive Morgan, isn't it? That's right."
Suddenly, Charles, Nan, and Nirupam changed places. They stood there, while Miss Cadwallader
was saying grace, looking out over the heads of the rest of the school, not very far below, but far enough to
make a lot of difference. Perhaps I'm going to faint, Nan thought hopefully. She still knew she was going to
behave badly, but she felt very odd as well-and fainting was a fairly respectable way of behaving badly.
She was still conscious at the end of grace. She sat down with the rest, between the glowering
Charles and Nirupam. Nirupam had gone pale yellow with dread. To their relief, Miss Cadwallader at once
turned to the important lord and began making gracious conversation with him. The ladies from the kitchen
brought round a tray of little bowls and handed everybody one.
What was this? It was certainly not a usual part of school dinner. They looked suspiciously at the