Attack of the Cupids (19 page)

He left. He closed the door. Down the corridor the pink cupid was still in sight, fluttering erratically onwards with the leaden arrow in his hands. Muddlespot hurried after him. On tiptoe.

There
was
one way, he thought, in which Up Here was not like Down Below.

Here, they did turn their backs on you.

At the end of registration Miss Ogle took Billie and Viola and Minnie and Imogen down to see Mr Singh. Soberly, the rest of the class gathered their things and prepared to get on with the day. They knew that this wasn't the end of it. For a start, Minnie would have to be caught in the corridors at some point and executed by firing squad. But now even the teachers would know that something was up. They'd try to do something about it.

In the corridor, Sally put on a spurt and caught up with Janey.

‘Hey?' she said.

‘Hm?'

‘That oboe . . .'

Janey's face was blank. ‘Nothing to do with me.'

‘Sure. But do you think she'll get it back before her exam?'

Still blank. ‘Probably not.'

Still blank, but with just that edge to her voice that said – don't push me, Sally. Janey was a good person. She could also break arms.

‘It kind of raises the stakes, though, doesn't it?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Missing an exam. There won't be another chance for months. Her parents will have paid money . . .'

And Imogen probably wouldn't make Grade 8 before GCSEs hit. That sort of thing mattered, in that sort of family.

Janey frowned. ‘Tough for her.'

‘It's just that . . .'

‘W
HAT
?'

Janey didn't like doing bad to people. She hated getting caught doing it. Sally looked her in the eye.

‘It's going to have to go back sometime, isn't it . . .?'

If it didn't go back it would be theft. But Sally didn't say that. She didn't have to. Janey bent her head and walked on, frowning.

‘I'm sure it'll turn up,' she said.

‘Yeah. How?'

‘Somehow.'

‘I mean – it can't just be given back, can it? Because they'll think whoever gives it back must have been the person who took it in the first place.'

Janey stalked on. She said nothing. Sally followed. They came to the lockers. Janey opened hers, put in her books and took out the books for the next lesson. There was no oboe in the locker. Tight-lipped, Sally got her books out too. Other pupils were clustering around their locker doors, chattering, unearthing
books, exclaiming at how
stupid
Minnie had been. Sally stepped up close to Janey.

‘Bit of a problem?' she said.

Janey's jaw tightened. She was fed up with Sally. She was fed up with Imogen. Maybe she was a bit fed up with Ameena too, now. She didn't like the role she was playing.

‘Got any ideas?' she said.

‘Might have.'

Janey turned to the next locker. It was Ameena's. The padlock had a combination. Janey knew it. She undid it and left the lock hanging open.

‘Yours,' she said, and walked off with her bag over her shoulder.

Sally hung back as the other kids flooded off to their classrooms. As the last one turned the corner she slipped the open padlock from its bracket and looked into Ameena's locker.

There it was.

Another thing about Up Here was that you didn't see many people dragging inert victims around the place. So far Muddlespot had only spotted one. That had been himself, hauling the stunned cupid by the heels past a Mirror of Harmony just now. It made him feel even more conspicuous.

He was beginning to sweat. He knew that because the floor had started feeling sticky every time he put a foot down. He was panicky and confused. Every professional instinct was screaming at him to reach down and rend his victim limb from limb (this was the accepted procedure back home). But he wasn't at home. This was not Pandemonium. Up here, in this endless palace of light and music and order, even the smallest pile of entrails was going to start people asking questions.

He would have gone through the cupid's pockets, only being a cupid it didn't have any.

He dragged the body over to the wall and concealed it behind a thick tapestry of Calm. Then he hurried back to the point where he had made his attack and scooped up the arrow that the cupid had let fall. Well, that was Step One of the mission completed. Fifty per cent success rate so far, which was infinity per cent more than he had been expecting. Step Two was to get away with it.

He gathered up the cupid's papers in case they attracted attention. He glanced at the top one.

‘Change of plan,' said Muddlespot. ‘Swapping arrows – bad idea. You just stick with points one to three and you'll be all right. When you wake up.'

He hurried off to look for Windleberry.

Windleberry was not in the Hall of Ten Thousand Columns, where a choir was beginning to tune up for a practice. He was not in the Gallery of Green Sunsets, where angels flowed busily to and fro on a myriad of
different errands. He was not in the Chamber of Stars, which was absolutely crowded with—

‘Oi!'
called a voice. Muddlespot looked around. Mistake.

A cupid was fluttering down the corridor towards him. Muddlespot clutched the huge sheaf of papers to himself, sheltering behind them as far as he could.

This cupid too was out of breath.

‘You seen Spikey?'
Its eye fell on the arrow and papers.
‘He give you those?'

Muddlespot's brain, fired by terror, moved at lightning speed. ‘Spikey' must be the pink cupid who was now slumbering peacefully behind the tapestry in the corridor outside the Dept of Luv Stors.

‘He – er – took a break,' said Muddlespot.

‘Took a break? Cheeky bugger! Got you to stand in for him, did he? I bet. Who are you, anyway? I've not seen you before.'

‘I'm, er, I'm new.'

The cupid blew out his fat cheeks.
‘This ain't one fer a newbie. Spikey should know that. I'll twist his neck when I catch him.'

His neck's a bit fat, actually, thought Muddlespot. I went for the back of the head myself.

‘I'll handle it,' he said as brightly as he could.
‘I'm
ever
so eager to please. Just point me in the right direction and leave me to it.'

‘Point you? Boy, I'm taking you. You don't arrive and do like you should it'll be my neck that gets twisted. Come on – we're late!'

‘Oh no, really, I'm quite sure I can handle it . . .'

‘Come on!'
cried the cupid, fluttering a little ahead of him.
‘They won't wait – Hey! What happened to yer wings?'

‘Wings?'

Some aspects of Muddlespot's disguise were really rather weak. Some didn't exist at all.

‘I've – er – I've been grounded,' he said desperately, waddling after the cupid as fast as he could.

The cupid cackled.
‘Yer can't be that new, then.'

‘Are you sure of that . . .?'

As he ran, Muddlespot's eyes flicked left and right, searching for a way of escape. If he could just lose himself in the crowd, somehow? But that was going to be tricky, when the cupid could fly and he couldn't. Maybe he should wait for some lonely corridor somewhere.

Trouble was, there didn't seem to be any. Every room or hall or chamber they entered seemed to be
larger than the last, and with more and more people in it. They seemed to be heading towards the centre of things.

‘Er – where are we going?'

‘Din't he tell yer ANYFING? Appeals Board, of course.'

The boys had been sent off to P.E. The girls had been kept back. Mr Singh had been called in. Things were getting predictable.

‘. . . Now it
seems
that there have been some things that are
very silly
going on,' Mr Singh was saying as he paced up and down the rows. ‘I am very
disappointed
to hear about it. It seems that
some people
are not living up to the standards that we expect at this school . . .'

One to one Mr Singh was quite effective. He was all turban and bushy brows and seamlessly interwoven moustache and beard and 100% eye contact. He talked, you listened.

Put him in front of fifteen girls at once, though, and he wouldn't manage to make eye contact with any of them. He would march up and down to the sound of his own voice while fifteen girls waited until he finished. Then he would nod and walk out again.

‘. . . Respect for one another. And also for their
property. To remove the property of another pupil without their permission is
theft
. Even if the intention is to return it at some point . . .'

Sally knew she should just sit it out. She always had done before.

‘. . .
very
seriously. I assure you I am not joking . . .'

Except for one thing. Before, she had always been innocent.

‘. . . I very much hope, indeed I
expect
, that that musical instrument will be returned before four o'clock. It is a
very serious thing
to cause a fellow pupil to miss an exam . . .'

As long as he was still marching up and down and talking, Sally thought, it was OK. And when it got to ‘I-expect-anyone-who-knows-anything-about-thisto-come-and-see-me' it was probably still OK. But if they got on to searching the corridors before the next break it was going to be bad. Stashing the oboe in her locker hadn't been a clever thing to do. She had been totally focused on getting it off Janey, and by the time she had done that there hadn't been a moment to think what to do next.

Theft. He had said it.

If she just handed it over to Imogen, or indeed to Mr Singh, everyone would think it was Billie or Holly
or someone like that who had taken it, even if they didn't think it was Sally herself. There would be some tough questions. And not answering tough questions when asked would mean Big Trouble. She
had
to find a way of covering her tracks. She couldn't think of one.

I'm no good at this, she thought. I'm only good at being good.

Her palms were prickling and her throat felt tight. If he stopped and looked at her. And she looked back . . .

Janey could look innocent when she wasn't. Everyone else could.

Sally didn't know how to.

‘. . . I need hardly say that there will be the
most serious consequences
 . . .'

It was unreal. It was like being in a dream, just as it starts to turn into a nightmare. The room around her seemed to be huge. The ceiling was almost out of sight, lifted high above her on great marble columns. White marble benches circled around her, rising like flights of giant steps, and all of them were empty except for the very highest row where a huge, brooding presence looked down upon her with eyes of ice. She felt very small.