儿童故事集：Katie’s Revenge

 Katie and her best friend Isis were really not at all like each other in so many ways. Isis was neat and tidy and Katie was rather messy. Isis was sporty, and liked swimming and gymnastics, and Katie liked reading books and drawing pictures. Isis was pretty and popular, and Katie looked a bit out-of-the ordinary, and lots of people thought she was weird 1 because they had heard that her mother was a witch.

 
But they say that opposites attract, and perhaps that’s what drew Katie and Isis together. They sat next to each other in class, and they were always
swapping 3 stories and jokes at break time.
 
But Isis had friends who didn’t like Katie, and Katie had friends who didn’t like Isis. Take Samantha for example. She was one of the most fashion-conscientious and trendy girls in class – and so naturally, she was friends with Isis. But she hated Katie, and she began to get annoyed with Isis for spending so much time with the strangest girl in school. In fact, she felt quite insulted really. Why did Isis sit next to Katie and not her at lunchtime? Why did Isis say that she couldn’t come over to Samantha’s house because she was going to the cinema with Katie and her mother who was a witch?
 
She decided 4 that she didn’t like Isis anymore. She decided that Isis needed to be taken down a peg 5 or two, because she had bad taste in her friends. And she also decided that, if anybody asked, who was the most popular, brainy, and best dressed girl in school, people shouldn’t point to Isis, but to Samantha.
 
But Isis didn’t even have an inkling that her friend was thinking any of this – not yet at any rate. So as they were leaving school one Friday, she said to Samantha:
 
“Why do we have to read such boring books for English? I’m going to spend all Sunday afternoon ploughing through chapter 9 of The Adventurous 6 Six and it’s so dull that I will keep falling asleep and it will take simply ages to finish.”
 
And Samantha, seeing an opportunity to make mischief 7, said: “Oh I already read chapter 9, so don’t bother reading it, because I’ll tell you what happened.”
 
As bad luck would have it, on Monday Miss Vile 8 asked Isis to stand up in front of the class and summarise 9 chapter 9. As Isis hadn’t actually read it, she felt a bit put on the spot, but she glanced at Samantha who gave her the thumbs up. She launched into what her friend had told her to say:
 
“This was a very exciting chapter in which the heroine, Jemima, was kidnapped by robbers on the way to school, and her dad had to pay one million dollars to get her back. I liked this chapter because it was full of suspense 10 and intrigue 11.”
 
The teacher glared and said, “Isis – Did you read chapter 9 at the weekend?”
 
“No Miss Vile,” admitted Isis with her eyes downcast.
 
“Then why did you just make up that perfect load of old nonsense?”
 
“I don’t know Miss Vile,” said Isis, covered in shame.
 
“You don’t know…… Well I know that you can stay in on Friday evening and do detention 12 while you read Chapters 9 and 10,” said Miss Vile.“ And you can write out a detailed 13 summary for me of both chapters.”
 
Isis sat down at her desk and fumed 14 at Samantha.
 
Later, when she had asked her why she had tricked her, she just said, “Well it’s your fault for being too lazy to read the book,” and all Isis could do was to gnash her perfect pearly teeth.
 
So when she got home, she rang her real best friend:
 
“Katie, help me get my revenge on Samantha,” she said. “Think of the meanest, nastiest, stinkiest magic spell in the book and do it against Samantha with all your might.”
 
But Katie replied: “I’m sorry Isis. I don’t do black magic. My mum will only let me use my powers for good.”
 
“Alright, well if that’s the way it is,” said Isis, “then, I’ll just have to get my own revenge.”
 
“Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right,” said Katie, but Isis didn’t hear her, because she had already hung up her phone. And now she was really, really angry, not just with Samantha, but with her best friend for not helping 15 her out in her hour of need.
 
The next day, Isis came into class early, and opened up Samantha’s desk. She found her English exercise book, turned the pages, and started to underline letters here and there. If you were smart, you could see that it was a sort of code, because although the letters looked like they were chosen at random 16, in fact if you put them all together they spelt “Miss Vile is Vile.” You would have to be sharp-eyed to spot it, but Miss Vile had eyes like an eagle. She was sure to see it, and to think that Samantha had been trying to sneak 17 a secret message into her homework.
 
But just as she was slipping the book back into the desk, Samantha said:
 
“Isis, what were you doing with my work?”
 
And Isis, who was totally taken aback, said: “Nothing.”
 
And Samantha yelled: “Yes, you were, you were writing in my English book. I just came in now and saw you!”
 
“I wouldn’t touch your smelly English book in case I caught something off it,” said Isis.
 
“You thought you would get me into trouble, didn’t you?” said Samantha walking
towards her menacingly.
 
And Isis felt quite afraid about what she might do. She was almost relieved that Miss Vile chose that moment to come into the room, and Samantha had to back off. But then Samantha told Miss Vile what she had seen Isis doing, and her book was taken out and examined, and the teacher spotted 18 the underlined letters and said:
 
“Isis, was it you who did this?”
 
And Isis said:
 
“Yes, Miss Vile.”
 
And now she was in double detention on Friday, and even worse, Miss Vile wrote a letter to Isis’s mum explaining how badly behaved her daughter had been recently, and a warning that she was heading for serious trouble.
 
But still Samantha wasn’t satisfied. She whispered to Isis that she would pay her back for trying to get her into trouble. And at lunchtime, she found an opportunity. While Isis was hanging upside down from a trapeze in the
gymnastics club, Samantha sneaked 19 into the changing rooms, took her tie out of her bag, and stuffed it into her pocket. Then she went to eat her lunch, and Isabelle and Tabatha laughed while she dipped Isis’s tie first in gravy 20, and then in chocolate sauce. As soon as lunch was over, she sneaked back into the changing rooms and returned the now heavily stained tie, back into Isis’s clothing bag.
 
The first thing Isis noticed about her tie was that it felt greasy 21. Then, she saw it was all stained and thought that it must be somebody else’s – but it couldn’t have been – because it had her name sewn on the back. She did her best to wash it under the tap, but the stains wouldn’t come out. When she came into class, Tabatha said:
 
“Oooh, look Samantha, Isis is a messy eater.”
 
And Samantha said:
 
“Well that’s hardly surprising, since her best friend is Katie who can’t even tuck her own shirt in.”
 
That evening, Isis rang up Katie in tears and said: “Please Katie, please help me. Miss Vile has got me on her watch-list. My mother thinks I’ve become a problem child. And none of my friends are talking to me. You’ve got to help me. I know that revenge is bad, but I’m not talking about revenge – I’m talking about justice. It can’t be right to let Samantha get away with all these mean tricks. I’ve always stuck up for you. Now you’ve got to stick up for me, or you are no true friend.”
 
And Katie, who really did feel sorry to see her best friend in such trouble, swore that she really was her friend, and that she would do anything she could – but not black magic.
 
Katie was lucky, because when she had a problem, her mother usually knew a clever thing to do. And so she went to ask her if it would be ok to use magic to teach Samantha a lesson, just this once, because the circumstances were very special.
 
“No,” said her mother, “It’s always wrong to use magic to hurt somebody. That’s what gives witches a bad name.”
 
And Katie protested: “But it can’t be right to stand by and watch all these bad things being done to my best friend, can it?”
 
And her mother thought and said: “What you need to do in this case, is to turn
Samantha’s meanness against herself. Help her to do a nasty trick against herself. It will happen anyway, but a little magic might help it happen sooner rather than later.”
 
Katie was puzzled by her mother’s words, but her mum said: “Just keep my advice in mind, and I promise you will know what to do when the time comes.”
 
The next morning before school, she saw Isis in the playground. At that moment, Isis was texting her gran, and Katie thought: “I know who has a phone just like that….”
 
And she said to Isis: “I’ve got an idea. I won’t tell you what it is now. Just wait and see. It won’t be long now.”
 
In class, just before break, Katie quietly said the words of a little magic spell that made Miss Vile take her phone out of her bag, put it on her desk, and then leave it there. As soon as everyone else was out of the room, Katie took Miss Vile’s phone and put it on Isis’s desk. Then she went out into the playground and said another little spell to make Samantha go back into the classroom to fetch her woolly hat, because it was winter and it was cold outside.
 
She knew that Samantha would see the phone. She knew she would think it belonged to Isis. And she knew exactly what mean thing she would do. Samantha picked it up and started to text all the names in the phone’s memory with messages like:
 
“I hate you because you are a silly cow.”
 
and:
 
“Your face is an official disaster zone.”
 
and:
 
“I hope you leave soon and don’t come back.”
 
She sent a nasty message to everyone in the address book. She thought they would all see Isis’s name and number flash up, and assume that it was from her…. and then all her friends would be angry with her.
 
In the staff room, Mr Brain, the maths teacher said:
 
“Violet, did you just send me a text?”
 
And Violet, better known as Miss Vile, said:
 
“No. I think I left my phone in the class room.”
 
And Mr Philpots said: “I just got one too. It says: “Hop off you smelly toad 22.”
 
And Mrs Jones said: “I think one of the kids has got hold of your phone and is playing a prank 23.”
 
And of course Miss Vile was back in the classroom in a flash.
 
Samantha was caught red handed with the teacher’s phone in her hand. It didn’t help her case when she said that she had thought it belonged to Isis. It was still one of the meanest tricks that anyone had ever played in school.
 
At lunchtime, Isis could hardly disguise her delight. She held Katie’s hands and said: “So you did do a spell against Samantha….after all. Thank you Thank you. You’re the best friend ever.”
 
But Katie said: “I didn’t exactly do a spell against her, because that would be wrong… All I did, was to redirect her own nasty trick against herself….. And that’s the best sort of revenge, because it should teach her a lesson not to be mean.”
 
 
 
And that Friday, while Katie went to tea at Isis’s house, Samantha did a double detention, and Miss Vile sat down to write a very long letter to Samantha’s parents telling them that their daughter must mend her mean ways or else.
 
 
 
PCR Katie and Using Magic Powers only for Good
 
Dear Listener’s,
 
Katie’s Revenge is all about Katie learning to use her magic power’s affectively against the school bully 24 Samantha who threatens through jealousy 25 to take away her best friend Isis. I really like this 12th Story in the Katie and The Ordinary Witch Series, which I think most young school girls could relate to.
 
The character of Isis has to step up to the challenge of making Katie help her in her hour of need by using her magic witch powers effectively against the mean and cruel Samantha. Katie after consulting with her mum, finds a really good way of tricking Samantha by leaving Miss Vile’s phone on the desk, which she knows Samantha will steal, as a result she gets a double detention.
 
I particularly like this chapter as we see the relationship between Katie and her mum evolving as she wisely guides Katie with her mystic witch’s wisdom, that leaves me wondering how Katie’s path to witch-hood will turn out but with her best friend Isis Im sure she’ll find a way.
 
I hope you enjoy listening to it, and of course the previous Katie and The Witch’s Swap 2 story available as a Digital App. There will be more Katie Stories that I look forward to reading and hearing your comments on. So do drop me a line and Ill get back to you. In the mean time this PCR goes out to Emma K, my best friend from school, who know’s all about time keeping and the rules.
 
Bye Bye
 
And hear from you soon