Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery (3 page)

You see, this term I have a secret. I have been writing to someone, and they have been writing back to me. The Hazel of a year ago would never have dared to keep such a thing hidden from Daisy – but I am not the Hazel of a year ago. I am still not a heroine, but I think I am a little braver.

There is now quite a pile of papers at the bottom of my tuck box. Every time I slip another letter on top of it the fizzing in my chest grows stronger. It is lovely, but all the same it turns me jumpy. The two of us send each other logic puzzles, and funny things that we notice at school, and little cases – nothing at all, really, but I know that if Daisy were to find out, she would be terribly cross. She does not like me detecting with anyone else, you see – in her mind, I am
her
detective friend, and although we have assistants, no one else can truly be a part of that.

I was still thinking about the letters, and what Daisy would say if she knew, on the evening of the murder.

Our dorm walked down to the sports field together on Tuesday night after dinner, wrapped up in our hats and scarves and shivering. No one was feeling cheerful. We were having one of those strange not-arguments that happen so much this term, where everyone simply complains at each other and you are left feeling worn out and cross.

‘Beanie’s still upset about that fifth former taking her pudding last night, even though I’ve told her not to be,’ said our dorm mate Lavinia, shaking back her heavy dark hair. ‘After all, I got her one of the shrimps’, didn’t I? I don’t see what the fuss is.’

‘You can’t take other people’s things!’ said our other dorm mate, Kitty, self-righteously. Kitty has brown hair and freckles, and loves to gossip. ‘It’s not nice, Lavinia. You wouldn’t have done it last year.’

‘Yes I would,’ said Lavinia. ‘Don’t be po-faced, Kitty.’

Kitty scowled. ‘Well,
you
might have done, but you still oughtn’t.’

‘Everyone’s so nasty this year,’ said Beanie sadly.

‘It’s Elizabeth Hurst,’ I said, stepping in without meaning to, and then wincing. I knew what must come next, and sure enough—

‘Exactly!’ said Daisy triumphantly. ‘I’ve been saying this all term, Hazel. Elizabeth Hurst and the Five are the problem, and we must solve it.’

‘It isn’t a problem we can solve!’ I said. ‘Oh, do give over, Daisy.’

I suddenly felt the difference between us. All of Daisy’s head was obsessed with Elizabeth Hurst, focused on her like a spotlight, while all of mine was wrapped around the newest letter that had been waiting for me that afternoon, as I’d hoped. It was all I could see, overlaying the dark line of girls in front of us, the pavilion and the flare of the lit bonfire beyond.

Apart from the brightness of the bonfire, the field was dark, little tendrils of fog drifting through the crowd. I could only dimly make out the shadow of the pavilion behind the fire, and the girls crowding in front of it looked like scribbles on a page. I could not even see the trees on the far edge of the pitch that led into Oakeshott Woods, although I knew they were there. I breathed out and my breath misted in front of me. I shuddered. I do not like English winter nights at all.

Through the gates we walked, and there was Miss Barnard, calmly greeting all of the girls as they went by. Next to her was Elizabeth Hurst. She was smiling as usual, but her smile looked hard and fake. For once the Five were not behind her, but ranged away to the side, with a gap between her and them. They were not smiling at all. I would like to say that I wondered about this, and that I caught how Margaret was clenching her fists, and how Florence, wrapped in her scarf, was pale, and Una flushed, and Enid was poison-faced and Lettice was shaking, her thin form looking unusually bulky in her big Deepdean coat – but I did not. I was distracted.

We milled about a bit, once we were on the field, jostling against other groups of girls from other years. We were supposed to be in form group sets, but of course that started to go wrong in the darkness and the excitement. Then Jones, Deepdean’s handyman, came forward with the Guy. As he tossed it onto the bonfire, which had been set up near the pavilion (though not too near), sparks flared out and it blazed up fiercely. Everyone surged towards it. All of us fourth formers were swept up in the confusion – I bumped against Lavinia and she said ‘Hey!’ but good-naturedly.

Jones bellowed at us all indignantly to keep away. Only Elizabeth and the Five were allowed to go near the fire – Elizabeth was supervising the Five on bonfire duty. They were bringing armfuls of wood from the pile near the pavilion to throw onto the blaze. They worked in shifts, walking back and forward from the pavilion to make sure that the fire was never left untended.

My eyes were on the Guy, a hot dark shape at the middle of the blaze. Guys always give me an eerie shiver down the back of my neck, although I know that they are not real – they look so like a body that I cannot quite bear it. It makes me feel as though I am in the sort of dream where something is wrong, and I am the only one to know it.

I was brought back to myself when Daisy nudged me and pointed. There was Margaret Dolliswood, a load of wood in her arms. She was not taking it to the fire, though, but standing by Elizabeth Hurst. She looked as though she wished she could have hurled the wood at her, but Elizabeth did not seem intimidated. Instead, she leaned forward, a swagger in her shoulders, as though she owned the sports field and everything in it. I could not see her face, or hear what she said, for we were too far away, but the fight went out of Margaret’s pose, and Elizabeth seemed to stand taller. Then Margaret turned, walked stiltedly over to the Big Girl Astrid Frith and snapped something at her. Astrid burst into tears, and Margaret spun round and stormed back to the bonfire. She hurled her armload onto the flames, and they flared up, with a crackle and burst of redness.

‘Now, what was
that
?’ Daisy asked me, without turning round. ‘What did Margaret say to Astrid? And why?’

‘It was only Elizabeth making the Five be horrid, as usual,’ I said, not wanting to encourage her. ‘Look, it’s time to light the sparklers.’

Miss Runcible, Enid and Lettice were handing out sparklers. Miss Runcible gave one to me, looking as excited as the shrimps. There were yells and whoops as the sparklers blazed up, spitting fire in long trails. Lavinia lunged out with hers as though it was a sword, and even Beanie was laughing and swirling hers in circles, quite happy again. Mine hissed in my hand, and it lifted my heart. I turned to Daisy at exactly the same time as she looked at me, and caught an expression I had not seen in her face for a long time. I drew a fiery W in the air, and so did she – we were Wells & Wong, and for a moment I forgot all my worries.

But only for a moment.

Everyone was so excited, playing with their sparklers, that at first they barely noticed Miss Barnard standing in the middle of the hockey pitch and shouting for quiet. She had to wave her hands, a torch in each, as though she was signalling in semaphore, and at last the sparklers fizzed out into darkness and quiet went rippling through the crowd. We all turned towards where she was standing, away from the bonfire and the Guy.

‘Girls,’ said Miss Barnard then, speaking in the way she has that is not loud, but makes you lean forward to hear what she wants to say. ‘Thank you all for coming. I hope you are enjoying the evening – we must give credit to Miss Runcible for suggesting it, and to Mr Jones for helping to bring her vision to life. And of course to our wonderful Head Girl, Elizabeth Hurst, who has been so helpful and responsible, as always.’

I felt a flash of annoyance. Why could Miss Barnard not see the truth of what Elizabeth was?

‘I am sure that this night will be just the first of many, and that our Guy Fawkes celebrations will become part of the proud traditions of Deepdean.’

I heard what she was not saying – that after what had happened last year, Deepdean needed new traditions, new things to be proud of. Miss Barnard is trying to make everything new for us this year, as though she can erase Miss Bell and what happened to her. But all she is really doing is painting over it, again and again. In the end, it will still show through.

I had a rather horrid moment’s realization, then. Elizabeth and the Five would go on being nasty, and we would go on bearing it, until their year sat their university entrance exams in the summer term and left us alone.

My stomach sank. It had not been a good term, not even with my letters lighting up certain days like struck matches. A year of Elizabeth was going to be awful.

‘Now, girls!’ said Miss Barnard. ‘You have got yourselves in rather a muddle. Line up in your form groups again, please. Prefects, help them. No pushing! Once you have done so we can move on to the real event: the fireworks!’

We all grumbled and shoved (and were shoved by some of the Five, who came away from the bonfire for a moment to corral us at Elizabeth’s shouted command) and struggled back into our regimented form-group lines. The youngest shrimps were at the front, closest to Miss Barnard, and the rest of us were ranged behind them, with the Big Girls closest to the bonfire, which was at all our backs (that was the trick, you see, that the youngest ones should be cold and the oldest have all the warmth. Elizabeth, of course, was next to the heat of the fire, between it and the pavilion, with her prefects near her).

Miss Barnard looked at us all, and gave a nod, and then Miss Runcible, ever eager, jumped forward. She went and busied herself further out in the darkness, lighting the fireworks at almost the other end of the pitch, and Jones went to help her. The Five all went back to their places by the bonfire. For a moment we were all hushed, waiting. And then the first rocket went off with a scream, and burst above us in a shower of green and yellow.

It was as though the night had come to life, the whole sky rattling and soaring with sound and light. I gasped as the noise of it went all through me. Daisy leaned against me, and I turned and saw her face all lit up royally in purple and red. Kitty, Beanie and Lavinia were beside her, and everyone’s faces were bright, but I only saw that for a moment, because I wanted so much to look up at the display. It was like gazing up into the Hong Kong New Year’s sky, and it gave me a little ache of joy. Sunbursts of orange and gold, a spray of blue, a shock of red again, all fountaining above us. I am sure I forgot to breathe.

And then it was over. The last green light faded from the sky, and the whole field rang with quiet. It was hard to bring my head back down to earth. But there was Daisy next to me, and Beanie beaming and clapping, and all the other girls around us murmuring and laughing and slowly beginning to move away from their lines. I turned and saw a dark shape moving in front of the bonfire – one of the Five was still on bonfire duty. Then I turned back again to hear what Lavinia was saying to me.

The first shout came a few minutes later.

It was only a sort of yelp of surprise. Daisy says she remembers the girl, a little first-form shrimp, call, ‘Miss Barnard! I think someone’s fallen over!’ We both remember the louder shriek she gave then, though, and then the scream the girl next to her let out.

At that noise I spun round to look at Daisy – of course, she was already turning to me. Her eyes were blazing, as though there were still fireworks in them. It is funny, because I tell myself after every case that I do not really want another investigation, and I believe it – but then I hear a scream like that and my pulse beats in my hands and feet and I know that there is nothing in the world so wonderful as being on a case. At that moment, that was what I felt – pure rightness, for the first time in months.

I knew what to do.

Daisy and I ran towards the noise, beyond the bonfire – and so did everyone else, so that there was a scrum around the screamer, and for a while I could not see anything except half-darkness and confusion and spinning flashes from torches, of people’s hands and grey school coats and hats and worried faces.

Then Miss Barnard shouted, ‘STAND BACK!’ and everyone was shocked into pulling away a little – everyone except Daisy, and, because she had hooked her fingers around my wrist, me. I peeled away her hand and looked down, and there on the ground, lit up by the beam of torches, was Elizabeth Hurst.

She was lying with her face up to the sky, her arms at her sides and her eyes open. She was not moving at all, and it was not hard to see why. Along the length of her body was a rake, one of the old, battered ones that Jones uses. Its pronged base was under the back of her feet, and the top of its handle, beside her head, was covered with blood. I could tell from the rather ill feeling I got when I looked at Elizabeth’s head that there would be blood on the ground beneath it too.

Miss Runcible was kneeling next to her, feeling for a pulse, and I remembered, in a sort of all-over gulp, Miss Bell in the Gym last year with blood on
her
head. It felt
the same
, and in that moment I knew that I was reminded of Miss Bell because this body, just like that one, had something unnatural about it.

Miss Barnard was shouting now, for Jones. ‘Bring a stretcher!’ she cried. ‘There’s been an accident! A girl has trodden on a rake.’

I knew those words were not true. It was not an accident. It might look like one, but
something was wrong
.

Jones was already hurrying over with Miss Runcible, a greatcoat hanging between them as a makeshift stretcher. ‘Make way!’ he bellowed at the shrimps. ‘Make way!’

Beanie burst into tears. ‘Oh!’ she wailed. ‘Not AGAIN!’

‘Quiet!’ hissed Daisy. ‘Don’t draw attention!’ and I knew it was not only me who had thought back to last October.

Judging by the sobs all around us, the whole school was as horrified and frightened as Beanie. ‘Prefects!’ shouted Miss Barnard. ‘Prefects! Take Elizabeth’s things back to House, and get the girls back as well! Hurry, now!’

‘Who put that rake there?’ Jones asked furiously. ‘I left it propped up against the pavilion before the girls arrived!’

‘I shall be asking you about that later, Jones,’ said Miss Barnard. ‘For now, take Elizabeth down to San as quickly as you can. Go!’