The girls are very excited because it's the thousandth birthday of the Castle, which is the home of Cackle's Academy and Amanda Honeydew - one of the pop band, The Spell Girls, and an old girl of Cackle's Academy - is to be the special guest at the celebrations. Special presentations are being organized. Miss Bat is preparing a performance of one the Spell girl songs with Fenella, Griselda, Sybil and Clarice. The second years are planning some dramatic episodes from the Castle's history. But then things go wrong. Sybil, who is meant to be playing the clarinet, loses confidence and walks out on Miss Bat's band. Mildred and her friends are elbowed out of their drama slot by Ethel and Drusilla who want to do the storming of the Castle by Major Barebones in 1644. Mildred and her friends decide to do their own Living Waxwork of Horrors in the dungeons - but then a real horror-story breaks. It transpires that Mr. Hallow, Ethel's father and Chair of the School of Governors