Mr Crossley admired the idea heartily.īut the real reason that Mr Crossley changed his mind was the awful thought that the note might be true. Every day, for half an hour, every pupil had to confide his or her private thoughts to their journal, and nothing else was done until everyone had. They were supposed to be strictly private.

The journals were to help the children with their problems.

Larwood House was very strict about a lot of things, because it was a boarding school run by the government for witch-orphans and children with other problems. Larwood House was very strict about that rule. It was Journal time, and Journal time was only to be interrupted for a serious emergency. A number of 2Y looked up hopefully, but Mr Crossley had changed his mind by then. He would explain just what a serious accusation it was and leave the rest to the person’s conscience. Mr Crossley decided to ask the writer of the note to own up. But the difficulty there was that Mr Wentworth’s son was a member of 2Y – the small boy near the back who looked younger than the rest was Brian Wentworth. The person to take it to was the Deputy Head, Mr Wentworth. It was possibly just a joke, and Miss Cadwallader had no sense of humour to speak of. He decided not to take the note to the Headmistress. He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 2Y and wondered what to do about it. Mr Crossley rubbed his ginger moustache unhappily. It was written in capital letters in ordinary blue ballpoint, and it had appeared between two of the Geography books Mr Crossley was marking. The note said: SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH. Mind you, each book in the series does have a different 'flavour'.A very nice read, up to Ms Wynne Jones's usual high standards.Recommended. In an universe where magic practitioners are persecuted and burned at the stake, this leads to a fraught week where accusations and untamed magic abound, until the Chrestomanci is called in to save the day.Although I found the ambience of this book (a school story with cliques and bullies and lots of people keeping secrets) very different from other Chrestomanci books, it had me laughing out aloud at points. Though this is part of the Chrestomanci series (book 5), we don't see the connection until around the final quarter of the book.At the beginning of Witch Week, a supernaturally powerful time of the year between Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes day, an anonymous note claiming that one of the class members is a witch lands on a teacher's desk. In fact, the story takes place on a parallel Earth where magic is forbidden (as opposed to merely hidden). This is a school story about magic but not a la Hogwarts.

Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones