Susan Bones

Dear Peter and Carrie,

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write any more of your story! After I started I got so many good ideas from so many people (and from you too!) that whenever I sat down to write more I couldn't think which ones I wanted to put in and in what order. Just putting down a sentence felt a bit like wading through treacle. But yesterday I sat down outdoors after lessons and all of a sudden I started to know what I wanted to write. I keep hearing that we're to be allowed owls soon, but all it is rumours so far, so I thought I'd better go ahead and write this part in my journal.

...so, the wicked witch stirred her cauldron and stared into the smoke, and she thought long and hard. "What can I do to this disgustingly cheerful kingdom, so that everyone in it will be as miserable as I?" She pondered and pondered and at last she had a notion. This witch was a Potions Mistress, and she considered poisoning the king or the queen, and trying to take over the kingdom herself.

But really, she thought, poisoning people is so unoriginal, and taking over a kingdom full of people who are angry about the death of their king sounds like a lot of work. Then she thought of something much more clever. "I shall make the Draught of Lethe!" she exclaimed, and she was so excited by her own cleverness that she exclaimed it out loud. "And then, I shall pour it into all the wells in the kingdom. The people will become confused and unhappy, because they won't know who they are. And while they are trying to figure it out, I will take over the kingdom and rule it my way! It will be a simple as stealing sweets from a baby!"

But the witch, clever as she was, was so absorbed in her planning, that she did not notice the face at the window, looking in and listening to everything she said. The face belonged to a tinker whose name was Mad Jack. His real name was John, but his face was merry and full of laughter--too much laughter to belong to anyone but a Jack. And everyone called him "Mad Jack" because they never knew what sort of mad thing he might do--he might put on an eyepatch and a bandanna and say "Arrr!" all day like a pirate, or try to teach doxies to run races, or challenge a centaur to a rhyming contest. You simply never knew with Jack. And he was curious as anything, curious as a cat some said, and with as many lives. Which is why, when he realised someone had done something bad to his friend the woodcutter, he came closer instead of running away.

And it was a good thing he did.

I can't believe Eddie's only been at school two months and he's already had a Howler from Mum for fighting! It came in the post this morning, and well, if you were there you probably heard it...

He's got some lessons with Thomas and some of the bigger Slytherin boys just can't resist having a go at him. At Thomas I mean.

Still I dont blame him really--mums just dont always understand that sometimes you have to stick up for your housemates, even if it means getting in trouble.

Or maybe they understood once upon a time when they were in school and then forgot. Still he shouldn't have gotten c gone straight to fighting without trying something more peaceful first. Or hexing them.