‘Oh, it wasn’t,’ said Charlotte. ‘We did everything nice for him, to make him sorry he was hateful and to make him friends with you. And oh, Rupert, the spell did work! We did it to make him friends with you. And he is.’
‘He’s been jolly decent about it, anyhow,’ said Rupert. ‘I found the wax thing as I came home from Mr. Penfold’s last night, and I took it away and put it at the back of my collar-drawer. And this morning I took it down to Mr. Penfold’s. It made it easier to tell, somehow. And he was jolly decent too. He took me over to Tonbridge to tell Mr. Macpherson. And he said a lot of things. He said he’d known all along I’d got something I wanted to get off my chest. And he said things about repentance and things. I do like him.’
‘I’m glad we made the image,’ said Charlotte, because it seemed unkind to say nothing, and she could think of nothing else to say.
‘And I’m going to stick it, whatever it is. Mr. Macpherson is all right, but it will be hateful leaving here. Only I suppose you’ll all be glad I’m going.’
‘Rupert!’
‘Well, then, I know you won’t really. I say, Charlotte, you might tell the others. And tell them I know I’ve been a grumpy brute, but it was that going on all the time inside me like a beastly Spartan fox. It’s been like waiting at the dentist’s all the time, and this is like having all your teeth out at once, twenty times over.’
He tried to laugh, but he did not succeed very well. Charlotte also tried, and burst into tears.
‘Don’t!’ said Rupert awkwardly. Charlotte came close to him and rubbed her wet face against his coat sleeve.
‘You’re sorry,’ she said, ‘and you’ve owned up and you’ll never do it again.’