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"I know I am called Arthur Otley," you say. "But is my name who I really am?"

"Excellent point Arthur! I can see by your question that you are already on the path to enlightenment. Because it is only when we realise that we don't know everything that we can learn."

Madame Blavatsky smiles at you. "And because you are ready to learn I will now teach you your first spell."

"But first can anyone tell me," she says addressing the whole class now, "what is the most common cause of death for wizards and witches? Anyone?"

"Fighting dragons?" suggests Snako.

"Zombies?" proposes another child.

"Soul suckers? Werewolves? Vampires?"

"No, no and no again." replies Professor Blavatsky. "The one thing that is most likely to kill you more than anything else is: each other."

"Let me explain. Imagine it is night time, 3am in the morning. You hear a noise downstairs. Immediately you are on the alert. It could be burglars. Or more likely dark wizards on the attack. You creep downstairs, wand at the ready. You can hear them rummaging around in the kitchen. You leap out shouting the most deadly spells you can think of. Only to discover... it is your Uncle Brian who is visiting for the weekend and has come down in the night to help himself to a biscuit. Now he is paralysed on the kitchen floor, a look of horror on his face and the packet of biscuits grasped so tightly in his hand that no-one else will be eating them ever again."

"Yes I'm afraid to say that the most common cause of death is 'friendly fire', accidentally hitting your friends and family with dangerous or deadly spells. The sad fact is that you are all in far more danger from each other than from any evil sorcerer. Which is why the spell I am going to teach you to protect against dark magic is a sleeping spell. It is one I designed myself. The benefit of this spell is that it is completely reversible. To wake someone up, you just need to tickle them under their armpits."

Blavatsky then whips out her wand and points it at Snako.

"Somnolencia salchicha sabrosa!" she screams.

A dart of pure golden light shoots out of the end of her wand and hits Snako right in the middle of his forehead. In less than a half a second his head has sunk down to his arms on his desk and he is snoring like a sailor.

The class breaks out into a round of applause.

"Make sure you get the pronunciation just right when you cast the spell" Blavataksy advises as she walks over to Snako and tickles him under the armpits.

"He he he! What happened?" says Snako, confused.

The class splits into pairs and you practice sending each other to sleep. Because Snako is still a bit drowsy you go first, pointing your wand at his forehead just as the teacher did:

"Somnolencia salchicha sabrosa..." you repeat carefully.

You feel a wonderful feeling of magical power gathering in your tummy. In an instant it has whooshed up out of your arm, channelled by the wand into a golden dart that zaps Snako on the head, for the second time in as many minutes.

In no time at all he is asleep and snoring again.

"I did it!" you shout. "The magic spell worked!"

Delighted with your success you tickle Snako under the armpits. As he wakes up giggling you try hard to memorise the spell 'Somnolencia salchicha sabrosa' - you never know when it may come in handy.