A Bad Hair Day For The Worst Witch By Aeronwy Dafies.
		"Come on, Millie! Do wake up!" called Maud, shaking her friend in an attempt to rouse her. Mildred had a habit of oversleeping and only Maud's watchfulness kept her out of trouble on that count.     "Whassup?" yawned Mildred eventually.     "Not you, Mildred, come on, you are going to be late, everyone is nearly finished. Lessons will be starting before you are evn up at this rate."    "Oh no!" moand Mildred, clambering sleepilly from bed. She did not particularly want to get up, but she wanted to be in trouble with Miss Hardbroom even less.     Maud ran off to finish getting herself ready, waking her friend had succeaded in making her late too; leaving Mildred to gather her clothes and towel together and rush down the corridor to the washroom.     More concerned with speed than with watching where she was going, she nearly collided with Ethel Hallow, only just stopping herself from doing so.     "Watch wheere you are going, idiot!" exclaimed Ethel. "You are going to be late and I am going to make sure Miss Hardbroom knows," she said before flouncing off down the corridor.     Ethel was still in a bad mood from the week before (though thay had never exactly got on). Several of the form had been ill with 'flu and it had been their misfortune to be paired together for the potions class. Miss Hardbroom had said she hoped such a pairing would improve their realtionship. It had not. To be fair, Ethel had not actually done anything to sabotage Mildred, unlike at the Hallowe'en flying display. In fact she had even somehow managed to be reasonably civil toward Mildred, possibly because Miss Hardbroom was keeping a close eye on them. Unfortunately, civility aside, she had not been able to resist pointing out Mildred's uselessness with potions. Even more unfortunately, Mildred had not been able to resist the urge to prove Ethel wrong and in the end their potion brewing had devolved into a fight over the ingredients and who got to stir - culminating in Mildred knocking the cauldron of potion all over Ethel... Luckilly, it had not been finished and so proved to be no more magical than common nettle soup. It did however land them both in detention. Getting drenched and then detained had not improved Ethel's opinion of Mildred who shrugged helplessly at the thought of Miss Hardbroom waiting at the classroom door for her to arrive late.     She sighed and turned on the shower. She would just have to be quick. She grabbed her wash things out of her cabinet and leapt into the cold stream of water (Miss Hardbroom had persuaded Miss cackle that cold showers were a cure for all ills. The girls wondered if that excepted pneumonia). Washing her hair took longer than really she would have liked, the shampoo did not seem to want to lather. But despite that, she made record time and pretty soon she was rushing down the stairs toward the classroom, certain she would make it with seconds to spare.     Miss Hardbroom was hovering by the door as she rushed into the classroom and took her seat.
						"Well done, Mildred, just in time. Ethel was concerned that you might be late." Miss Hardbroom paused to glance at Ethel who did not meet her eyes. "But it appears your zeal for learning has made up for your sloth in rising and that you are here on time. As a reward, you may read aloud to the class from the textbook Incantations and Their Uses, page seventeen onwards. Thank you."    Miss Hardbroom smiled. Inwardly she was groaning, but Mildred managed to force her lips into something vaguelly smile-like as she picked the book up and began to read...                    ***
	"Mildred," said Maud as she passed her friend the ketchup, "don't you think it is about time you had a hair cut?"     "I had one just last week," protested Mildred between mouthfuls of lunch.     "But, Millie, it is quite long. Actually, now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that it is much longer than it was when you came into class this morning."     "Don't be silly!" exclaimed Mildred tucking into her meal with gusto.                                                                               ***     However, Mildred was bot in their afternoon lessons and Maud had no idea where she was when Miss Hardbroom asked her.     A little later, in Miss Bat's chanting class, with still no sign of her, Miss Bat sent Maud off to look for her. She decided to check Mildred's room first and, fortunately for her feet which were saved a protracted search through the academy, that was where she found her.     Maud knocked on the door and hearing a muffled reply opened it and went inside. She was surprised to find Mildred surrounded by yards of unruly hair, hair spread all over the bed and onto the floor where Tabby was playing hide and seek in it. There was hair everywhere.     "My goodness, Millie!" exclaimed Maud, stepping gingerly into the room, "what on earth happened to your hair?!"     "I don't know!" moaned Mildred on the verge of tears. "After you said about it at lunchtime, I came up here and checked my hair and saw that you were right. Then while I sat there wondering what to do, it grew even longer. Now look at it! What if HB found out about it?"     "But she already has, Mildred Hubble," said a stern voice from the doorway. They looked up in shock to see Miss Hardbroom standing in the doorway looking annoyed, "and she is angry. Trust you, Mildred Hubble. Have you been messing about in the potion lab?"     "No, Miss Hardbroom. I have no idea how this happened," she said tugging demonstratievly at her hair, "it just did."     "Hmm, a Rapunzel Potion, I should think. But, if you didn't do this..."