her brief cameo in The Worst Witch All at Sea. Plot Ethel Hallow is returning to Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches for the Summer Term of her third year. Miss Hardbroom had previously set them a holiday project, but Ethel is doing exactly what Miss Hardbroom told them not to do: trying to think up a project in five minutes flat on the way back to school. Ethel spots Mildred Hubble crash-landed in a tree and manages to help her steady herself. Mildred explains to Ethel her project: a spell that can make animals talk, though it can only work on animals that fit into 25 centimetres and only lasts for two weeks. When helping Mildred out of the tree, Ethel knocks Mildred's luggage out of the tree. While Mildred tries to get Tabby, who had scampered up the tree, Ethel scoops up Mildred's project folder and art bag and her 30 coloured pencils. On the way there, Mildred finds her friends Maud Spellbody and Enid Nightshade. When Mildred tells them about Ethel being nice for a change, Enid suggests she may have taken a "niceness course" during the holidays. Maud and Enid become suspicious when they catch Mildred talking to someone or something in her cat basket. The girls find that their new form mistress is called Miss Mould, who has a "soft and kindly" voice and "short mousy hair parted in the middle and pulled into a ponytail at her neck". She is a great relief from the horrifically strict Miss Hardbroom and the extremely weird Miss Granite whom they had had the previous term. Mildred sits next to Drusilla Paddock, who swaps places with Ethel after Miss Mould tells Ethel her coils are too short. Minutes later, a maraca-like noise echoes through the classroom. Mildred finds that her coils have turned into five rattlesnakes. Miss Mould gets the whole class outside while Ethel stays inside and evaporates the rattlesnakes. Just then, Miss Hardbroom appears and Miss Mould explains what happened. Miss Hardbroom sends Mildred to her room and bans her from art lessons for the rest of the term. Mildred runs to her room where she figures out it must have been Ethel who turned her pot and coils into the snakes out of jealousy. The next day, in a lesson with Miss Hardbroom, the girls are presenting their projects to the class. Ethel goes first but