The Worst Witch (novel)

The Worst Witch is the first novel in The Worst Witch children's book series by Jill Murphy. It features Mildred Hubble in her first year at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. The book was published in 1974 and was followed by The Worst Witch Strikes Again.

Plot

The novel begins with Mildred Hubble and her best friend Maud Spellbody (though her surname is not given until the fourth book), talking about the upcoming traditional assembly where all of the first-years will be given their own black cats which they will teach to ride on their broomsticks with them. When receiving the black kittens, Mildred is the last in the line and receives, not a shiny, glossy, black kitten like the other girls, but a tabby cat. Mildred simply calls it Tabby. When trying to get Tabby to sit on her broomstick, he keeps falling off without even trying to grip on. After losing patience, Mildred puts Tabby in her bag but Miss Hardbroom (their extremely strict form-mistress and also the deputy headmistress) disapproves and Mildred has to stop. After seeing the argument between Mildred and Miss Hardbroom, a rather self-righteous witch called Ethel Hallow teases Mildred about it. Ethel goads Mildred into turning her into a frog but Mildred loses her temper and turns her into a pig instead. Mildred quickly takes the Ethel-pig to the library where she transforms her to a human. In the next chapter, Mildred and Maud are making a laughing potion in their class test. They add pondweed mistaking it for one of the ingredients but make an invisibility potion instead. In the next chapter, the girls are practising for a broomstick display for Halloween. During this, Miss Hardbroom notices Mildred's broken broom. Ethel lends Mildred her spare broom but puts a spell on the broom to get even with Mildred for the pig episode. During the Halloween festival, Mildred's broom starts rocking and jerking hazardously. Mess erupts as the bucking broomstick causes all of the girls to fall from their broomsticks. Ethel is the only one to land safely on her feet. The Chief Magician denounces the academy, and Mildred is summoned to a meeting with Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom the next morning. Mildred, fearing expulsion, decides to run away with Tabby down the big hill. When walking through the forests near the academy, Mildred hears voices through the trees and comes across a group of witches headed by a witch who looks like Miss Cackle. After hearing their plot to turn every teacher and student witch in the academy into frogs, Mildred, scared, turns Agatha and the rest of the group into snails. Mildred packs the snails in the cardboard boxes that were meant for what where going to be frogs (teachers and student witches) and takes them back to the academy. At first, Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom refuse to believe her, but when Mildred describes the leader, Miss Cackle realises she sounds like Miss Cackle's identical twin sister, Agatha, who, in temperament, is the absolute opposite of her. They turn Agatha and the rest of the group back into humans and Mildred's interview gets cancelled. Mildred is highly praised as a hero to the rest of the academy.