hahahahahahahaha!

The terrible growling started to change to a bright, friendly giggle – now isn’t that strange?

A flash of white light made Lila cover her eyes, and when she opened them she was so, so surprised!

But as the vines wrapped around the monster’s wide, furry chest, something else happened that you wouldn’t have guessed…

She stared at the place where the monster had been, but that horrid, clawed beast was nowhere to be seen!

Instead, a young boy stood in front of the shed, with vines wrapped around him from his toes to his head.

“Merlin!” called Lila “You were right all along! It wasn’t a monster but this boy, I was wrong!”

“Well” purred Merlin, “I told you the rule – everybody knows monsters don’t go to school!”. “Although” added the cat “I didn’t expect this – you were right to bring us here, imagine we’d missed it!”

Lila was speechless and Merlin was stunned.

“I was transformed into a monster, and it broke me to see just what I had become.”

The boy shook his head and wiped away tears “I hid at this school for two hundred years.”

He looked up with a smile and went on to say, “But then you spotted me – this must be my lucky day!”

Lila smiled at the boy and offered her hand, and the boy gripped it tightly, glad she could understand.

“All I needed” he said, as the three walked away “Was someone to show me kindness, someone who would stay.”

“If you hadn’t been brave” purred Merlin “If you hadn’t been kind, then this poor boy would still be cursed, in a terrible bind.”

The three climbed on the broom and flew their way home, and since that day the boy has never been alone.

We might not all be witches, with spells and potions, but we can all still be brave and protect each other’s emotions.

It doesn’t take much to choose kindness not cruelty and make the world better – that is our biggest duty. You never know what someone might be like inside, what feelings and thoughts they hold deep down and hide.

There’s no braver thing than to be a good friend. And with that, it is time, for our story to…