It was great. It should have worked. But the next day, the Headmaster, whose name was Mr. Rushworth, called me to his office. Miss McDonald was there too, looking very serious.

“I’ve received a very serious report,” Mr. Rushworth told me. “Do you know what that might be?”

I shook my head.

Miss McDonald gave me a sad look. “If only you tell the truth,” she said, “then everything will be all right. Now listen. This is important. Did you take my scarf last night?”

Once more, I shook my head. I know it was lying, and lying was wrong, but I could hardly admit that I’d stolen her scarf for a mouse exorcism. Besides, I figured that demons were a much bigger sin than lying, or even stealing; so God would be bound to forgive me as long as next time, I got it right.

Mr. Rushworth stood up. “I think you’re lying, boy,” he said. His face was always very red, and now it was nearly purple. “You were seen taking Mrs. Lumb’s scarf from the peg in the form room. Now, for the last time, tell the truth. Why did you steal it?”

Once again, I shook my head. It felt like a betrayal, but Miss McDonald couldn’t know what I’d sacrificed for her. Turns out the scarf was a Hermès—which meant it was something expensive and rare, and not just an ordinary scarf like Mum used to wear over her curlers.

And so I got the cane: three strokes on the back of my hand for the theft; three more for the lying. It hurt, but not half as much as the look on Miss McDonald’s face when she took off my special helper’s badge and pinned it on Mousey’s sweater instead.

You see, Mousey had told on me. Mr. Lumb had seen him walking with me to the clay pits, and he had told him everything: the scarf; the mice; the ritual. Not the reason, thankfully—I don’t think he understood it himself—but he’d told them enough to condemn me. Apart from the cane, which was bad enough, I lost all my form privileges: the badge, the plants, the board-rubber. I also had to pay for the scarf out of my own pocket money. And Miss McDonald’s demons stayed in Miss McDonald; I could see them in her eyes whenever she happened to look at me.