Poppy's Garden by Holly Webb Page A

she?”
    “But I don’t do any of that stuff!” Poppy said indignantly.
    “Yes,
we
know that. But Ali just thinks it’s all the same, I bet. She thinks you’re really into spells and potions. Eye of newt, fingernails of bat. All of that stuff. And don’t tell me bats don’t have fingernails, Iz,because I know!”
    Izzy closed her mouth with a snap and gave Maya an apologetic grin.
    Emily suddenly laughed – an excited, conspiratorial sort of laugh.
    Maya nodded. “I know! It’s perfect!”
    “What is?” Poppy demanded, frowning.
    “They must think you know loads about witchcraft, Poppy,” Emily said eagerly. “Everyone at school knows you’re always coming up with weird stuff, like putting cobwebs on cuts.”
    “That works,” Poppy said stubbornly.
    “Maybe. But it sounds really witchy, doesn’t it?” Emily stared at her, and Poppy sighed.
    “I suppose it does a bit,” she admitted.
    “And,” Maya put in, “I bet they’ve scared themselves reading all those – umm, what’s it called again? Oh,
occult
. Occult books. Lucy looked really spooked in the bookshop. They were reading out a spell about bringing dead things back to life, and she kept trying to tell Ali to stop it, as though she thought it was going to happen in the middle of the Gardening section.”
    “I still don’t see what you were laughing about,” Poppy murmured with a little shiver. She felt thetiniest bit sorry for Lucy.
    “Well, don’t you think we could pretend?” Maya asked. “If they already think you’re a witch, why don’t you just be one?”
    Emily nodded eagerly. “They’ll definitely believe in spells you put on them. We could scare them silly. I bet we could.”
    “I could find you some spells,” Izzy suggested. “I bet there’s loads of stuff we could find on the Net.”
    Poppy looked round at the three of them, all so excited, and wondered why she didn’t feel excited too. It was a good plan, she could see that. But somehow she didn’t like it. And even though she didn’t believe in Ali’s spells, the thought of trying some of her own made her feel shivery.

    “Are you OK?” Izzy asked, sounding rather worried.
    “Oh!” Poppy gave a little jump and nearly spilled her orange juice all over the floor. “Sorry, I was just thinking…”
    “You haven’t said a word for ages,” Izzy explained. “And you look miserable.”
    “Sorry…” Poppy repeated, sighing. Izzy probably wished she hadn’t come round. Poppy wasn’t exactly great company.
    “You’re still really worried about Ali and that shadow spell, aren’t you?” Izzy said thoughtfully. “Or is it the clay doll? I thought it was the shadow one that got to you most. I think it would have got to me as well.”
    Poppy shook her head. “I don’t think it would! Why is it only me that’s really fussing about it? They put that stuff on your coat too.”
    Izzy sniffed. This afternoon, when they’d gone to get their things at home time, she and Poppy had both found weird marks all over their coats. Emily had looked at them and said it was definitely snail slime.
    “Or maybe slug…” she’d added, eyeing it with her head on one side and a frowning look, as though she ought to be able to tell the difference. “Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that! Toby and James have snails
everywhere
. There was a snail crawling along the side of our bath this morning.”
    Emily always made Poppy feel really grateful that she had older brothers instead of younger ones.
    The tacky, silvery slime was in weird swirly patterns that looked like they ought to mean something. It was sickening.
    “How do you think they got the snails to do that?”she asked Izzy now, taking a gulp of juice to cover up how much she hated talking about it.
    Izzy shrugged. “Waved a lettuce leaf in front of them, I suppose. But you know Ali. She could even make a snail do what she wanted. It would have taken ages though. They must have sneaked into the cloakroom at