The Teaching Assistant Who Was FELICITAS

Part One. The Basket That Did Not Get Lighter

We should have known on Friday. On Friday, a sandwich had landed the right way up, and a stranger with a basket had stood at the gate, humming. By Monday morning, it was all happening again, only more so.

The first sign was a sandwich. Ollie's sandwich fell off the playground wall. Everybody knows a sandwich always lands butter-side down. It is the law.

This one landed butter-side UP.

"That is against science," said Ollie, turning it over to check. Then he ate it anyway, because it was clean.

That's when Kenji found a four-leaf clover. Then he found another one, and another one, all in a row by the drain, where there had only ever been dandelions. He held up three in one hand like a tiny green fan.

Alex noticed that nobody had planted them. Felix asked, "Where's it all coming from?"

It was coming from the gate.

Mr Pickering, the lollipop man, was up on a stool tying a long banner to the railings. It said AUTUMN FAIR FRIDAY. He was making a very odd knot, and Alex was watching it, because Alex likes knots.

"It is a rabbit," said Mr Pickering. "The rabbit comes up out of the hole, goes round the tree, and goes back down the hole. Then it holds. Never lets go, even in a gale."

And behind him, coming up the lane, was a woman with a big coat and a very big basket.

The coat was covered in four-leaf clovers. There were hundreds of them. The basket was shaped like a curly horn, and it was spilling over with apples, plums and grapes.

Part Two. The New Teaching Assistant

She gave Mr Pickering an apple. She gave Kenji an apple. She gave one to a Reception boy who had lost his glove, and the glove turned up in his pocket. By the time she reached the school door, Alex had counted eight apples going out.

The basket was still full to the top.

"Excuse me," said Felix. "Is your basket magic?"

"It's just a very full basket, dear," said the woman. Then she smiled at him. "Hello, Felix. And hello, Alex."

"How do you know our names?" said Felix.

"They are on your lunchboxes," said the woman. They were. Both of them, in big letters, from Nana.

Mrs Tibbs, our teacher, was waiting inside. "Class, this is Mrs Felicity," she said. "She is our new teaching assistant. She will be helping us for a good while." Her badge said MRS FELICITY, TEACHING ASSISTANT.

Mrs Felicity hung her coat on the hook, and put her basket on the radiator, and sat down at the back with a long umbrella that had two ribbons twisted round the handle. And everything started to go rather well.

The chalk did not snap once. Kenji's broken pencil stopped being broken. Ollie got a gold star for nothing in particular. Even Willow, who sits on the reading table and is very dignified, shut her eyes slowly at Mrs Felicity, which is what she does when she approves of someone.

At break, Mr Harris put his head round the door, and the clipboard came in after him.

"Everything is going SO well!" he said, glowing. "I feel lucky! And on Friday, for the Autumn Fair, Ms Fortune is lending us her wheel for the big raffle. Anything can happen!"

"Anything can happen," said Ollie, trying it out.

Ms Fortune does PE. She wears a scarf over her eyes, and she has never once bumped into anything, which Kenji says is cheating. We had seen her in the hall the week before, when the snake came. She waved from the door, and she was grinning.

Part Three. Behind the Compost Bin

On Tuesday, Maya Singh called a meeting behind the compost bin.

Maya has a notebook and a very sharp pencil, and she collects evidence. She is the one who works out who the new staff really are. Alex and Felix always share the jobs, so Alex held the pencil and Felix held the notebook, and Kenji and Ollie sat on their upside-down buckets.

"I have started a list," said Maya.

"Is it as good as Mr Thorley's?" said Kenji.

"Nothing is as good as Mr Thorley's," said Maya. "Apart from number nineteen, which we do not talk about."

"We do not talk about number nineteen," said Ollie, solemnly.

"Evidence number one. The basket." She tapped it. "It is shaped like a horn."

"It is a horn," said Kenji. "It's got apples coming out of it."

"I watched it all of Monday," said Maya. "Nobody put anything in. And it never got lighter."

"I counted it," said Alex. He had a tally on the back of the notebook, in tiny strokes. "Eight apples out at the gate. Nineteen by home time. Still full."

"Evidence number two. The umbrella." Two ribbons round the handle, like snakes. A little silver wing on the top. "That is a very odd umbrella for a day with no rain."

"Evidence number three. The luck."

"Sandwich," said Ollie.

"Clovers," said Kenji.

"Mr Harris's whole week," said Felix, and he wrote that down himself, because Alex had gone quiet. Alex was thinking about the basket.

"What if it is not that the basket never gets lighter," said Alex, slowly. "What if something is filling it, and I have not seen what?"

"Good," said Maya, and she underlined it once. "That is a real question."

Part Four. A Name Like a Wish

"I have a theory," said Maya, at lunch. "And Felix is going to need to sit down."

Felix was already sitting. He said, "Why?"

Maya took a deep breath. She said that two thousand years ago there was a huge empire called ROME, in Italy, with roads and soldiers and big stone buildings. The Romans had LOTS of gods. And one of them was a goddess called Felicitas.

"She is not the goddess of getting lucky," said Maya. "Or not only. The Romans had a different goddess for that. Felicitas was happiness that comes from doing well and being well. A good harvest, because people looked after the field. A good voyage, because people looked after the boat. They built her a temple, and put her on their coins, holding a horn of plenty and a staff with two snakes."

"A horn of plenty," said Kenji. "A curly basket."

"With a silver wing on her staff," said Alex.

"Yes," said Maya. "And the Romans spoke Latin. And do you know what the Latin word for lucky and happy is?"

Nobody did.

"Felix," said Maya.

Everybody turned and looked at Felix.

"That's MY NAME," said Felix.

"I know," said Maya.

Felix went very quiet. Then a very wide smile spread right across his face. He sat up as straight as a ruler. "My name means LUCKY?"

"Lucky and happy," said Maya. "Felicitas is, like, your goddess."

"Wait," said Alex. "What does mine mean?"

Maya looked in her notebook. "It means defender."

Alex sat up straight too. "Of what?"

"Of people. Mostly."

"Lucky versus defender," said Ollie. "That's close."

"Lucky needs a defender," said Alex, and Felix said, "Defender needs a lucky," and they both nodded, as if that were settled.

Part Five. The Lucky Experiment

On Wednesday, Felix decided to do an EXPERIMENT.

"If she is my goddess," he said, "then I should be extra lucky next to her."

So all day, he stuck to Mrs Felicity like glue, and Alex stuck to Felix, with the tally, because somebody had to keep an eye on things.

When she went to the hall, they went to the hall. When she went to the staff room, they stood outside the door. When she went to the toilets, Mrs Tibbs told them to come back to their seats.

And something remarkable happened.

Felix found a pound coin. Then he found another pound coin. He got to the front of the lunch line. He was picked first for football, and he scored, and the goalie fell over. He won the egg and spoon race without dropping an egg. And at lunch, Mrs Dunn held up the very last chocolate sponge, the one from the back shelf, and put it on his plate, saying, "I don't know why, but you look like you need it."

"I am the luckiest person in the WORLD," said Felix, walking about two inches off the ground.

Alex was not walking two inches off the ground. He was looking at the basket, which was on a chair by the hall door. He tapped his tally.

"Felix," he said. "The top apple's lower."

Felix did not hear him. He was busy being lucky.

Part Six. Half a Sponge

Ollie had been looking at the sponge for three days.

Felix did not know this. Alex did, and he had been about to say so, but Felix had already picked up his spoon, and Felix has a very fast spoon.

Then Felix looked up and saw Ollie.

Ollie was not saying anything. He was not even sulking. He was just looking at the sponge the way you look at a bus that has gone past without stopping.

Felix put his spoon down.

"Ollie," he said. "Did you want it?"

"No," said Ollie. And then, very honestly, "Yes."

"For three days," said Alex, quietly.

Felix went a bit pink. "I didn't know," he said.

"You couldn't have," said a voice behind them. It was Mrs Felicity, and she was not cross at all. She sat down at the end of the bench, with her umbrella across her knees. "You were busy being happy, and that is not a crime. But happy has a second half, dear. What happens when something good lands on you? It is what you do next."

"Share it?" said Felix.

"Your idea, I think," said Mrs Felicity.

Felix cut the sponge in half, with the side of his spoon, and gave Ollie the bigger half. Ollie said, "Really?" and Felix said, "It's your turn," and Ollie ate his half in about one go, and then said, "That was the best sponge in the history of sponges."

Mrs Felicity's basket gave a tiny shake. An apple rolled out of the top, down the dinner hall, and under a table.

Alex looked at his tally. Then he looked at the basket. "It went up," he whispered. "It went up when Felix shared."

"Interesting," said Maya, who had been listening the whole time.

Part Seven. The Wheel

On Wednesday afternoon, in PE, the hall had a wheel in it.

It was as tall as Mr Pickering, painted in red and gold, with a pointer at the top and segments around the edge. Written on them were DODGEBALL, SACK RACE, FREE PLAY, TIDY THE CUPBOARD and EVERYONE HOPS. Above it, Ms Fortune had hung a sign: ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.

"Who wants to spin?" said Ms Fortune, in a loud, bright voice.

Felix put up his hand. He had been feeling lucky all week.

He gave it the biggest spin of his life. It went whirr, whirr, clack, clack, clack, and it slowed, and slowed, and stopped on...

TIDY THE CUPBOARD.

Felix sat down. "Oh well," said Ms Fortune cheerfully. "That's the wheel for you!"

The cupboard had four hundred bean bags in it and a smell like a hamster's cage. And here is the thing about Felix. He had won everything on Wednesday morning, and now he had lost the wheel, and we all thought he would sulk. But he was the first to take hold of a bean bag. He said, "Right," and picked up six. And then Alex picked up six, and then we all did.

Mr Harris looked in. "Look at that!" he said, delighted. "Nobody even argued! You know what? The wheel can decide everything. Class jobs, who goes first, fair stalls. It is SO much easier than a list. I shall tell the staff."

"Anything can happen!" said Ollie, from inside a bean bag.

Maya had gone pale. She grabbed Alex's sleeve and Felix's, one in each hand. "That is Fortuna," she whispered.

Part Eight. Two Halves

"Fortuna is the Roman goddess of chance," said Maya, very fast. "She turns a wheel. When it spins, you go up, or you go down, and nobody knows which. She is sometimes shown with a blindfold, because luck does not look at who it gives itself to. The Romans thought of her as a different goddess from Felicitas. But I have a feeling that in this school, they might be sisters."

"Sisters?" said Alex.

At home time, we saw them at the gate. We only meant to walk past.

They looked very alike, apart from the scarf. They were arguing in a friendly way, with their heads very close together.

"You've been telling Mr Harris to put the wheel in charge of everything," said Mrs Felicity.

"I did not tell him anything," said Ms Fortune. "I just pointed out how fun it is."

"Fortuna."

"Fel." Ms Fortune grinned. "Somebody has to keep things interesting. Your half is the nice half. I know that. Nobody argues with the nice half. But you have to admit, mine is a lot more exciting."

"Mine is the half you can keep," said Mrs Felicity. "Yours is the half you spin. It is one luck, with two halves. A keeping half, and a spinning half. And the keeping half doesn't keep by itself."

"It's only boring if you have to look after it," said Ms Fortune. She tipped her head at us, without looking, which was very unnerving. "I'm only any fun when your half's full, you know."

"I know," said Mrs Felicity, and she looked tired. She pulled her coat round her, and Alex saw that it had lost three clovers. He wrote it down.

Part Nine. Leave It to the Wheel

On Thursday, the school left everything to the wheel.

Mr Harris had told every teacher and every dinner lady. The wheel picked the line leaders. It picked who read in assembly. It picked who set up the tables for the Fair, and who was on the egg and spoon, and who was in charge of the cake stall. Nobody needed to plan anything. It was SO much easier than a list.

And by lunchtime, we all noticed something. Nobody was trying.

Kenji did not practise his reading page, because the wheel might not pick him. The footballers did not turn up for practice, because they might be lucky on Friday. Ollie did not pack his lunch, because there would be apples. Mrs Tibbs forgot to mark the spelling tests, and said it would probably be fine.

"It's a bit like we're all waiting," said Felix. "For something nice to happen."

"Nice things happen if you do them," said Alex, and then he frowned. "I mean the other way round."

Elfine and Marion were the only ones who weren't leaving it to luck. They are big kids and twins, like us, and they were rehearsing a recorder duet in the corner of the playground, with Marion counting in and Elfine saying, "Did you know a recorder is just a stick with holes? A really good stick, though." They had been practising since Monday.

We watched them from the wall.

"Do you want to know what's strange?" said Alex, with the notebook open. "The basket's half full."

It was true. On the chair by the hall door, the curly horn had gone down to the middle. The apples at the top were a bit bruised. And Mrs Felicity was sitting beside it, a little smaller than before, and paler.

Part Ten. Everybody's Lucky Clover

That's when the luck turned.

It was little things, at first. The toast fell butter-side down, and then butter-side down again. Kenji's pencil snapped, and snapped again. It rained, but only on one end of the playground, right where the skipping ropes were. Mr Harris's clipboard pen ran out of ink in the middle of a word, and he said, "That's, er, unexpected."

And everyone started to panic.

"The luck's running out!" said somebody. "It's the basket!"

Ollie had filled his bag with apples. He had six. Kenji had picked all the four-leaf clovers off the drain, and then he had picked a few more off Mrs Felicity's coat when she wasn't looking. By the afternoon, there were children at the coat hooks, taking clovers, and giving them to each other, and arguing about who had the most.

"I need it more," said one.

"I had it first," said another.

Mrs Felicity's coat had gone patchy. She stood by the hall door with her hands out, and she did not say a word.

Felix had lost his luck too. He dropped his lunch in a puddle. He got TIDY THE CUPBOARD again, and a spelling test he hadn't practised. And he stood by the hooks with a handful of clovers he'd taken himself, and he felt wobbly, and a bit sick.

He walked up to the coat, and put them back, one at a time, pinning each one on.

"We're taking it all," he said. "If we take it all, there won't be any left to keep."

Nobody said anything. Then Kenji put his clovers on the coat as well, quietly. Then Ollie put his apples back in the basket, and one of them rolled out and he put it back again. Mrs Felicity smiled, very tired.

"That was kind," she said. "But I am afraid that is not how it fills."

Part Eleven. Putting It Back

"Then how DOES it fill?" said Felix.

We were behind the compost bin, with Maya's notebook open. Maya had drawn a chart. It had an arrow in it, and a very large question mark.

"First go," said Maya. "Put the clovers in the basket."

We did. Nothing happened. The apples stayed bruised.

"Second go," said Alex. "Felix shared and it went up. So Felix, do kind things, and I will watch it."

So Felix did kind things. He gave Kenji his biscuit. He gave Ollie his pencil. He held the door open for a Reception girl, and then held it again. He did each one very carefully, and he kept looking at the basket to see if it was working.

It wasn't.

"It's not going up," said Felix.

"You keep looking at it," said Alex, slowly. "You looked at it every time."

Then Ollie did something odd. He had been standing by himself, a bit sad, because his zip was stuck. Kenji's was too. Ollie fixed Kenji's first, without a word, and then Kenji fixed Ollie's, and they both said "Thanks," and walked off.

Behind them, with a tiny pop, a plum appeared at the top of the basket.

"Did you see that?" said Alex. "It's Ollie. He wasn't looking at it."

"Third go," said Felix, with his eyes shut. "I will just DO it. And not look."

And so Felix carried Maya's bag to the dinner hall, which was very heavy, and told a Reception boy that his drawing was good, and picked up all the chalk off the floor. He did not look at the basket even once. When he opened his eyes at the end, there was a big yellow pear on the top.

"So it's not a payment," said Alex.

"It's not a trick," said Felix.

"It's for the doing of it," said Maya, and she underlined it, and then she stopped, and said, "But there is a lot of school and not much time."

Part Twelve. The Bench

That evening, after the others had gone, Felix found Mrs Felicity on the bench by the gate.

Willow was already there, sitting beside her. Willow does not sit with people. She sat with her paws tucked in, and her tail wrapped round, and her face towards the sunset.

The basket was on Mrs Felicity's lap. It was nearly empty. There were a few small apples, and some leaves.

Felix sat down at the other end of the bench. Alex came and sat on the other side of him, though he did not say anything.

"Are you in trouble?" asked Felix.

"No, dear," said Mrs Felicity. "I am only a bit thin. I'm made of what you all do. And lately, you have all been waiting."

"We didn't know," said Felix.

"No." She smiled. "Nobody ever does. It's not a sin. It is quite a nice way to feel, in fact, waiting for luck to arrive. I did it myself for a good few hundred years."

"Is it all going to run out?" said Alex.

"It might wobble," said Mrs Felicity. "Tomorrow is the Fair. There is going to be a very big spin. And my sister's wheel is a very good wheel, but it needs the keeping half to hold it still."

"We'll fill it," said Felix.

"Will you?" said Mrs Felicity. She did not say it to be unkind.

Felix thought about it. His voice wobbled, but he said it. "I'll try."

"I know you can," said Mrs Felicity.

Willow closed her eyes, which from Willow, is a promise.

Part Thirteen. The Fair

On Friday, the Fair opened at ten.

The hall was full of stalls. There was a cake stall, and a tombola, and a hoopla. A stall where you could knock down a tin pyramid. Elfine had one that said FACTS, ONE FOR 5P, and she was doing a roaring trade. Marion sat beside her and counted the coins. Mr Pickering's banner was swinging from the railings outside, held by his rabbit knot. It had not moved an inch in the wind.

The wheel stood in the middle of the hall, with its red and gold segments gleaming and ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN hung above it.

The Fair was a bit of a muddle. The wrong people were on the wrong stalls. Nobody had practised the egg and spoon. The cake stall had run out of cakes, because nobody had baked any. But everybody was in a good mood, and Mr Harris stood on a chair with a bucket of raffle tickets.

"Welcome to the Fair!" he said. "And what can happen?"

"ANYTHING!" said the hall, which was getting to be a habit.

"And now, for the big raffle! Ms Fortune?"

Ms Fortune bowed, and put her scarf straight. Behind her, by the door, Mrs Felicity leaned against the wall, with the basket in her arms. It was nearly empty. She looked about as light as paper.

Felix went to stand beside her. Alex went to stand beside Felix.

"The grand prize," said Mr Harris, "is a new roof for the bike shed!"

He took hold of the wheel, with both hands, and gave it a great big spin.

It went whirr, whirr, and then it did not go clack, clack, clack.

It went faster.

Part Fourteen. The Whirl

The wheel hummed. Then it screamed.

The pointer went round so fast it became a blur. The segments blew off one by one, DODGEBALL, SACK RACE, EVERYONE HOPS, and spun up into the air like leaves. The tickets rose out of the bucket. The bucket went. A cloud of four-leaf clovers lifted off the floor and whirled in a ring.

It was the biggest, wildest wind we had ever seen indoors.

"Ms Fortune!" shouted Mr Harris. "Stop it!"

"I can't!" Ms Fortune shouted back. She had both hands on the wheel, and her scarf had come off, and her eyes were very wide. We had never seen her eyes before. They were exactly the same as Mrs Felicity's. "It's not the wheel! It's the half! Hers is empty! It's only mine now! Nothing is holding it!"

Cakes went flying. A child's hat went round the room five times. Mr Harris's feet came right off the floor, and he grabbed hold of the stage curtain with both hands, shouting, "THAT'S, ER, UNEXPECTED!" The doors shut by themselves, with a bang.

"Everybody get down!" cried Marion. She and Elfine were already on the floor, pulling the little ones into a line, with Elfine shouting facts into the wind to keep everybody's minds off it. "Did you know that a wind can't actually pick up a person? Hold on to each other!"

"Not true!" said Ollie, going past, sideways.

And on the doorstep, with a thin little sigh, the basket slipped out of Mrs Felicity's arms.

It tipped over. It rolled across the floor and into the wind. And it was empty. It was spinning faster than anything. It was heading right for the middle of the wheel.

Part Fifteen. The Brave Thing

Nobody could get near it.

It was a wind that took your feet. Mr Pickering tried, and slid ten steps backwards. Mr Harris tried, and was lifted halfway to the lights.

Then something small and golden-spotted stepped down off the reading table.

It was Willow.

She does not like wind. She does not like being hurried, or picked up, or having her fur blown the wrong way. She put her ears flat against her head, and walked into the whirl with her tail straight up.

A clover hit her in the face. She blinked. A raffle ticket stuck to her paw, and she shook it off. She got as far as the middle of the floor, where the basket was bouncing and spinning, and she crouched.

Wait. The basket went by. Wait. It went by again.

Then she sprang, and caught the handle in her teeth.

She dragged it back across the floor, one slow step at a time, with her fur flat and her eyes screwed shut, and her whole body leaning into the wind like a very small sail. She dragged it all the way to the twins, and put it down at Felix's feet.

Then she sat down. She did not wash her paw. She just sat, and for the first time we had ever seen, her whiskers were shaking.

Felix picked up the basket. Alex got down beside Willow, and put his hand on her back.

"Thank you," they said, both at once.

Part Sixteen. Hold On To Each Other

"We have to take it to the wheel," said Felix.

"The wheel's too fast," said Alex. "You'll blow away."

"Then I need a rope," said Felix.

That was Alex's moment. He didn't say anything. He ran, bent double, to the PE cupboard, and came back with the skipping ropes tied end to end, a very long snake of rope. He tied one end to the stage post, with a rabbit: up out of the hole, round the tree, back down. Then he crawled across the floor on his tummy, with the wind tugging at his collar, dragging the other end behind him, all the way to the stand of the wheel. Another rabbit.

It held. Both ends held.

"Hold on to each other," Alex shouted, to the whole hall. "Not to the rope! Hold on to EACH OTHER!"

Mrs Tibbs took the first hand. Mr Pickering took hers. Ollie took Kenji's, and Kenji took the hand of a Reception boy, and the line grew, out from the stage post and along the rope, with Elfine and Marion at the end, towards the hub of the wheel.

Felix took a deep breath. He was wobbly. Then he stepped into the wind with the basket held to his chest, and walked along the line, with one hand on the rope.

Each hand he passed was holding somebody. And with every hand, the basket got heavier.

First it was an apple. Then it was two plums. Then it was a bunch of grapes, and the horn grew heavy with fruit, so full that he nearly dropped it. Mr Harris, who had let go of the curtain and taken the hand of a Reception girl instead, called out "I'll write the rota myself!" and the basket went POP.

When Felix reached the end of the line, Alex was waiting beside the wheel, holding the rope tight. They stood on either side of the hub, with the wheel roaring above them, and lifted the basket together.

They put it down at the centre of the wheel.

Part Seventeen. Looking After It

The wheel slowed.

First it was a roar. Then it was a hum. Then it was clack, clack, clack, and the clovers came down like green snow. The pointer wobbled, and wobbled, and stopped.

It pointed at a blank space where a segment had blown off.

The hall was very quiet. The doors opened by themselves. Mr Harris came down, feet first, on the floor.

Ms Fortune sat on the floor next to her wheel, with her scarf in her lap. She was shaking. "Fel," she said. "I couldn't hold it."

"You were never supposed to hold it alone," said Mrs Felicity, kneeling down. She was walking again, and a little colour had come back into her cheeks, and her coat was full of clovers. "It's one luck, with two halves."

"Your half's the dull one," sniffed Ms Fortune.

"Your half's the loud one," said Mrs Felicity. They hugged, and a couple of raffle tickets fell out of Ms Fortune's hair.

Mrs Felicity put her arm round the twins. She had to lean down a long way.

"I will tell you what I couldn't say, because you had to find out," she said. "I'm not the luck that lands on you. I am the luck you grow. It grows where people look after each other. That is the whole of it."

Felix said it back, slowly, so that it would fit in his head. "So being lucky is something you do."

"And my name?" he said. "Felix?"

"Is the one who looks after it," said Mrs Felicity, smiling.

"And mine's defender," said Alex.

"Same job," said Felix.

Then Ms Fortune stood up, put her scarf back on, pulled out a pen, and wrote in the blank segment on the wheel, in very big letters: SOMETHING CAN BE DONE.

"Anything can happen," said Ollie.

"And something can be done," said everyone, even Mr Harris, and the wheel gave one last happy clack.

We tidied the hall together. Mr Harris wrote a rota. Mrs Dunn found a recipe for forty and made a cake. Elfine said she had a fact about that, and Marion said, "Please don't," and the Fair was the best one there had ever been.

Afterwards, Mrs Felicity gave away apples to anyone who asked. She did not win a single thing at the tombola. She said it was only fair.

Part Eighteen. Something at the Door

Late on Friday afternoon, when the hall was clear, we saw three strange things.

The first was on the steps of the dinner hall. Seven bowls of rice stood in a row, steaming, as neat as seven little hills. Nobody had put them there.

"They're warm," said Ollie, touching one. "I haven't touched them. Well, I haven't eaten them."

The second was in the playground. After the rain, there was a puddle shaped like a lake, and a tiny gold-painted boat was sailing across it, with nobody pushing it. From somewhere inside it came a very big, very loud laugh, HO HO HO HO, much too big to fit.

And the third was at the front door of the school, which was locked.

There was a knock. It was a gentle knock, three times, not very loud. And then it stopped. Whoever it was did not seem to expect an answer. They simply waited, as if they had all the time in the world, and then knocked once more, very politely.

Willow, on the window sill, turned her head.

Maya had stopped writing. Alex looked at the door. Felix looked at the boat.

And at exactly the same time, they said, "Monday."

The End.