Doubleborn (2 page)

Vengeabil nodded to the octopus and it slithered off Tim’s leg and turned back into a jerkin.

“Don’t know,” said Tim. He grinned at her. “You don’t think he’d tell me anything, do you?”

“Come on,” said Tamrin.

“Come straight back,” Vengeabil called after her. “You’ve got work to do.”

They climbed the stairs and made their way along the corridor toward the principal’s room.

Tamrin looked up at the globes that bobbed above their heads, casting dim light on the corridor.

“This place is sick,” she said. “Look at them. They should be bright as day. We crouch around in here, dodging from place to place, never doing anything useful. It’s rotting.”

Tim gave her a worried glance. She knew he quite liked her and she knew he was quite frightened of her. Not as frightened as the other pupils. To them she was a half-hidden secret, the girl who didn’t belong, the girl who had been thrown out of college and never left. Not a pupil, not a servant, not a cook or a cleaner or gardener. She was nobody. Just a girl who’d been left at the college by some poor tailor. Except when she was with Vengeabil in his storeroom, as his apprentice. But no one knew that either. As far as they knew he had just given her somewhere to live after she’d been expelled, and she tidied the stores and helped around the place in return. Her magic was still there, but it was uncontrolled, untutored.

They reached Frastfil’s door and Tim gave a hesitant knock. Before anyone could call them to come in Tamrin banged her fist on the wood, turned the handle and stomped in. She closed the door on the boy’s astonished face.

The three faces that looked at her now were even more astonished. Frastfil himself, the principal, was sitting behind his desk. His thin face, hooked nose and dishevelled clothes made him look more like a shopkeeper who sold damaged goods than the head of a great college.

“That door had a locking spell on it,” he protested.

Tamrin smiled.

“Did it?” she said, in a voice that made it clear she was not telling the truth. “I didn’t notice.”

“You must have done. You’re lying.”

The accusation was made by the other adult in the room, Dr Duddle, recently appointed as vice-principal. Tamrin was turning thirteen and Duddle was not much taller, though a lot heavier. And he had a fat smirk. As though he liked you, when Tamrin knew that the smile really meant that he liked himself. He carried his little round tummy in front of him, smiling all the time at how pleased he was to be Dr Duddle.

“If Professor Frastfil put a locking spell on the door, I wouldn’t have been able to open it, would I?” she asked Duddle. “After all, he’s a powerful wizard and I’m just, well, I’m nothing, am I? Either he’s not good or there was no spell.”

The third face in the room sucked its cheeks in at this. Smedge nodded and looked from Duddle to Frastfil and back to Tamrin. Tamrin saw him considering the third possibility, that she could break any spell Frastfil set. Tamrin glared at him.

“What are you staring at?” she said.

“You see?” Smedge said to Frastfil, and the man nodded.

“See?” said Tamrin. “See what? What do you want me for?” She raised her voice and confronted Frastfil, determined to show him that she wasn’t frightened of him. She’d watched the way the others treated him with respect and obedience, and she wasn’t going to do it. He might be the principal, but she wasn’t a pupil. There was nothing he could do to her.

“Are you all right, Smedge?” Frastfil asked. “Don’t be nervous.”

Tamrin felt a moment of fear. Smedge coughed and hesitated. Tamrin waited for something bad to happen.

Smedge spoke quietly at first and Tamrin couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“I’m frightened of her,” he began, “but not while you’re here, sir, and Dr Duddle.”

Frastfil tried to look strong and protective. Tamrin thought for a moment he needed to go to the jakes until she realized he was being important, and she laughed.

“You can’t laugh,” said Duddle. “This is serious.”

“Serious?” said Tamrin. “This is stupid. Look at him.”

She pointed to Smedge. There was a momentary ripple in the air, just for a second, and then it was gone. For that one moment Smedge appeared to Frastfil and Duddle as he usually did, another pupil at the college, the same age as Tamrin, just a little taller. He was the neatest boy in the place. His uniform always clean and tidy, his hair combed, his shoes shined. His face always wore an expression of eager helpfulness and amiability. Except for that one second. Hidden from the two men, but clear to her, his face took on a look of such empty, stupid hatred that she wanted to run out of the room. And then it was gone, and he was the obedient schoolboy again. She couldn’t work out whether she’d imagined it or if it was real, and if it was real had he done it on purpose, to show her what he was like, or had a mask slipped?

By the time she recovered her thoughts a conversation had been going on around her and was coming to a close.

“And I will not tolerate bullying,” said Frastfil.

“What?” she said.

“Smedge is frightened of you. You’ve made this boy’s life a misery,” he concluded. “You will have to leave.”

“He’s a liar,” she said.

“That will do.”

“I’ve never done anything to him.”

“Do you deny that you locked him in a block of ice? For an hour?”

Tamrin’s answer was shouted out before she had the time to control herself.

“He was taunting Westrim,” she said. “Making him run stupid errands and confusing him. And when Westrim got things wrong Smedge magicked up ants to bite him all over and sting him. Westrim was crying. I only locked Smedge in the ice to stop him and teach him a lesson. Ask Westrim. Ask any of the little boys. Smedge makes their lives a misery.”

“We have asked Westrim,” Duddle smiled at her. “Smedge said you would make up lies about him. So we’ve asked the other boys and girls. They like him. They look up to him.”

Tamrin saw Smedge’s look of triumph and she understood that this was a plan he had set in place for some reason.

“And so we have asked your guardian to take you away from the college,” said Frastfil. He stood up, put his hands in his trouser pockets and jingled the coins in there. “You must wait here until he arrives and leave with him immediately. We can’t have you upsetting anyone else.”

“I’m not going with him,” she said. “I can’t. I don’t know him. I don’t remember him. I’ve always been here.”

Tamrin had been left at the college when she was a tiny girl and no one had ever visited her. Her fees were paid in advance, and Frastfil had never said that she wasn’t actually in lessons any more.

“I’m sure you’ll be well looked after,” said Frastfil. “You would never have been happy as a wizard. You don’t have the discipline for it.”

“You stupid man,” she shouted. “You don’t even know what a wizard is.”

Duddle and Smedge exchanged glances of satisfaction.

A hesitant knock at the door brought silence. The knock was repeated.

“Come in,” said Frastfil.

Tim poked his head around the door.

“Person for Tamrin,” he said. “Name of Shoddle. He’s a tailor. Says he’s come to take her away. He’s waiting in the porter’s lodge.”

“You’d better go,” said Frastfil. ||

but she kept running. Her feet slapped against the slabbed surface of the town square. She dodged errand boys pushing handcarts, dogs, an old woman with a heavy shopping basket over her arm, she swerved at the very last moment, only just managing not to knock over a baker with a tray of pies on his head. He staggered. His white apron fluttered and covered her face, blinding her.

“Hey!” he yelled.

He fell back, the tray tilting beyond the point where it must fall. Tamrin dragged the apron away, caught his arm, pulled him upright, waved her other hand at the tray. It grew eagle’s wings, flapped, settled itself back on the baker’s head and the wings folded away into nothing.

“Sorry. You all right?”

The shoppers cheered. Tamrin grinned. A pie slipped off the tray and flew round into her hand. She sprinted away, snitching an apple from a stall, across the square, round a corner and down a small alley that she knew led to the main gate of Canterstock. The last sight she saw was the baker, small against the huge grey stone of the college, counting his pies and complaining.

It had all happened so fast. And she had caused it.

One moment Tim was at the door telling her that a man had come to take her away, the next moment Frastfil was cowering under his desk, screaming for mercy, Duddle was climbing out of the window and Smedge looked on, fearless because there was nothing to fear and the magic hadn’t touched him.

Tamrin acted before she thought. She flicked Tim into silent absence. He stood smiling at whatever peaceful picture had flooded his mind. She conjured up a creature from her nightmares. A mixture of snake and rat, with pointed yellow teeth and foul breath. As big as a horse, yet quick and sly. Both Frastfil and Duddle believed it was looking straight at them, though they stood on opposite sides of the room. So they took cover and tried to escape.

Tamrin looked at Smedge.

“You’re not afraid,” she said.

“I’ve eaten worse things than that.”

And she believed he had.

“You won’t escape,” he said.

He sniffed and a smaller creature appeared, crawling out of his nose. A beetle. Black as fear, smooth as lies. It dropped to the floor and headed for her.

So she ran. Out of the room. Out of the building. Round the quadrangle, taking care to skirt the edge to avoid being seen. The tailor was in the porter’s lodge. She ducked down, through the wicket gate and out, out into the square.

And now she passed through the other gate, the tall, broad gate of the town.

She didn’t stop running until the road met a lane and she turned down that and still ran. Ran until the lane forked and she took a smaller one, to a path across a field, to a break in the hedge, to a dip in the ground, to the slope of a riverbank, to a slow-flowing stream, wider than the passageways in Canterstock College, and there she stopped and panted and drank and cried. ||

from his reverie he couldn’t work out what had happened. Smedge was tugging Frastfil’s arm and trying to get him out from under the desk. Duddle was half-in half-out of the window, stuck because his backside was bigger than the rest of him and it wouldn’t go through. He was flailing his arms and screaming in panic. There was no sign of the nightmare. It had never been there anyway.

“Where’s Tam?” asked Tim.

“She’s gone,” Smedge said.

Frastfil emerged from his hiding place with a jingling of coins and a stupid smile.

“Wasn’t frightened,” he said. “Dropped something. Just picking it up.”

“Gone where?” asked Tim.

“Run away.”

“Run away?” said Frastfil. “That’s very inconvenient. Oh dear.”

Smedge frowned, pursed his lips and blew towards the window. Duddle squeaked and wriggled, the window expanded and he dropped back into the room with a bump and a moan. Tim smiled.

“What shall we do about Tamrin’s guardian?” asked Frastfil.

“You’d better send him up,” Smedge told Tim.

Duddle heaved himself to his feet, panting.

“I’ll just go,” he said.

“No, I want you here,” said Frastfil.

Tim was interested. They were frightened. Of the tailor?

“Go on,” said Frastfil. “Hurry up.”

The tailor didn’t look that frightening when Tim collected him at the lodge. He was thin and quick, like a needle. His clothes were made of good cloth, but old, worn so that it shone. Tim decided to take no chances, so he didn’t tell him that Tamrin had run away.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Tim. I’m a friend of Tam’s.”

“Who?”

“Tam.”

“Oh.”

The tailor had a way of walking too close that made Tim nervous. There was something scary about him after all. Not obvious straight away.

“Were you visiting Canterstock on business or have you come specially to see her?” asked Tim.

“I’ve come,” said the tailor, “because she’s mine. All right? She’s good for business. She can be useful. I’m tired of waiting for her to be trained up by your sort.” Tim was glad when they reached Frastfil’s office.

“Thank you,” said the principal. “You can go now. I’ll see Shoddle out when we’ve finished.”

He closed the door in Tim’s face, but not before the boy could taste the anxiety there, and not before he wondered why Smedge hadn’t left as well. He was torn between listening at the door and going straight to Vengeabil to let him know that Tamrin had run off.

He put his ear to the door.

“You fool,” said the tailor. “You’ve let her go.”

“She took us by surprise.”

“Call yourself a wizard. And you were supposed to look after her.”

“We’ll get her back.”

“And then what?”

“Then she’ll regret it.”

“She’ll wish she’d never seen me.”

Tim moved silently away and sought Vengeabil to tell him the news.

“I’ll take Mr Shoddle and get him something to eat before he leaves,” said Smedge.

“I don’t want anything,” said the tailor. “Not here. Not from you lot.”

Smedge nodded.

“I’ll see you to the gate,” he offered.

“I can find it myself.”

Smedge noticed that Frastfil couldn’t look Shoddle in the eye.

“As you wish,” said Frastfil.

Duddle rubbed his back where he had hurt it struggling with the window.

Smedge left them to it and walked behind the tailor.

“I don’t need you, boy,” he said over his shoulder.

Smedge ignored him and kept following.

The tailor stopped and stared at him.

“I’ll show you the back of my hand,” he threatened.

Smedge didn’t smile or flinch.

“I wouldn’t try,” he said.

The tailor thought about it. He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a thimble. It was iron, dull and worn. He put it on his left forefinger and stroked it. Smedge recognized that it was a trick to give the tailor time to think.