Mystery at Silver Spires (6 page)

I must have been walking much faster than usual along the landing, because I almost bumped into Matron, who was coming out of her room, her mobile to her ear.

“All right, Bryony?” She flashed her usual bright smile, and I gulped and nodded. “Stupid thing!” she said under her breath as she hurried past me. “Never any signal here!”

I held my breath and rushed round the corner, then ducked into the cleaning room, closing the door behind me and feeling like a criminal. Inside it was even too dark to see where the light switch was, so I groped my way towards the staircase that led up to the loft, and once I was on the bottom stair I felt a lovely excitement come rushing in.

Please let Silver be here
, I repeated over and over in my mind as I started making those kissy sounds that people do to encourage cats to come to them. Then when I came to the top stair I changed it. “Silver,” I called in the quietest sing-song voice. I wasn't going to risk frightening him away by walking across the loft, so I stayed close to the top of the stairs, and began to pour water into the plastic tub from my bottle.

I felt as though I was walking a tightrope that had worn down to a single thread; I mustn't let myself break it and neither must I fall off. And yet as I tore the chicken into little pieces and put it beside the tub, I somehow sensed that Silver was there, around the corner, listening and maybe wondering.

My voice was as thin and lilting as I could make it. “Silver! Come on!” Then I sat down cross-legged and waited in patient silence, my eyes fixed on the far wall.
Please let him be here.

After a couple of minutes my patience was rewarded, because a thin silver-grey face appeared. Anna told me that cats don't like to see wide eyes because in the cat world it's narrowing the eyes that's a sign of friendship, and I could definitely remember Lana doing that. So I blinked a few times in slow motion while I kept murmuring Silver's name. Then, very gently, I picked up a piece of the chicken and did the kissy noises again. It was tempting to throw the chicken towards him, but I thought even that might scare him away. Instead, I played my waiting game again, and, after at least a minute (which is a long time when you're just waiting), I had an even bigger reward, because Silver began to pad over to me.

“Good, Silver. Good boy,” I whispered over and over. And I tried to stay completely still. “Good boy… There you are…” I was holding my breath now, because he was so close to me I could have reached out and touched him, but I knew I mustn't, however tempting it was. He was staring at the water in the little tub. And then he dipped his head and seemed to smell it. A moment later his tongue came out and he lapped away at it until there was not a drop left. His big eyes gazed back at me and it felt as though he was asking for more. I thought I might scare him away if I unscrewed the water bottle, though, so I made some more kissy noises instead, and still he kept his eyes fixed on me. I know cats have no expressions on their faces, but it truly felt as though he was imploring me.

“Good boy,” I murmured again, then slowly, slowly, I stretched out my hand towards his face and felt his breath on my fingers as he sniffed.

It was such a lovely surprise when he pushed his cheek against my hand and began to purr. It made me bolder and I stroked him properly, which he seemed to love, because he twisted and turned his head like mad, as though he couldn't get enough.

“Silver, look, chicken!” I gently picked up a piece and he sniffed it, then drew back, so I put it on the floor and in an instant he'd grabbed it and begun to gnaw at it. He didn't want to take it from my hand, of course. I should have realized that. He's not a dog, after all. As he tucked into the other little pieces of chicken, I poured more water into the tub, and in no time at all he'd lapped up the entire contents of my water bottle. It was true it was only a small one, but all the same he must have been really thirsty.

“Sorry, I don't have any more, Silver. But I'll bring you some next time I come. And more chicken too. Or whatever I can manage to steal from supper.”

And as I talked and rubbed his head, he came closer, and then surprised me by stepping cautiously onto my lap. So I bent my head and he rubbed his face into my neck, which felt lovely and made me wish that he really could be my pet. My own special,
secret
pet.

We were hanging around outside waiting for the bell for the start of afternoon school. It was French first.

“Did any of you manage to do the French prep?” Sasha asked.

“No,” said Emily flatly. “But then…what's new?” She turned her palms up and tipped her head to one side with an innocent look on her face that was so funny we all burst out laughing.

Personally I couldn't raise any enthusiasm for French or ICT that followed. All I could think about was seeing Silver after school. I still hadn't told the others about him – I hadn't even told Emily I'd been back – because I knew they'd all want to see him and it would frighten him off if loads of people suddenly appeared. No, it was best he got used to me first.

“I've only just understood the thing about making adjectives agree with nouns,” Emily went on, “but now I've got to make verbs agree as well!
Passé
composé
? What's that about?”

Antonia was still laughing as she tried to explain. “Well it's only certain verbs that have to agree.”

Emily made herself go cross-eyed and we all laughed again.

“Right, listen,” said Antonia, determined to get Emily to understand. “Suppose you want to say…er…‘Nadia went to see Mrs. Pridham'…”

“Which she
did
, by the way,” added Nicole, “but that's got nothing to do with it.”

“Shh! I'm confused!” said Emily.

“Sorry,” said Nicole.

“Okay, ‘Nadia went…' is
Nadia est allée
and you have to put the extra
e
on
allée
because Nadia is a girl.”

Half of me was listening to what Antonia was saying, but the other half of my mind couldn't stop thinking about what Nicole had just said. Nadia was one of the Year Nines from the other room with the attic directly above them. I was probably being stupid. There were loads of reasons why Nadia might have gone to see Mrs. Pridham, but I just had to be sure.

“So Nadia…went to see Mrs. Pridham, did she?” I asked, doing my best to grin at Nicole as though I was joking about the number of times Antonia and Emily were repeating that sentence.

“Yes, the Year Nines heard that…noise again yesterday morning and it freaked them out a bit, but Mr. Monk's going to investigate and if it's a mouse or a rat he'll probably put poison down or something. That's what Nadia said anyway.”

“What!” I couldn't help the massive exclamation that came out of me. It made everyone turn to me with shock in their eyes – everyone except Emily, that is, who was looking at me in horror.

My throat felt tight. Silver was starving. I'd only just got him to trust a human being and to take food from one. He'd think Mr. Monk was offering more and he wouldn't be able to resist eating it. And then he'd die. And it would be my fault for encouraging him to trust humans in the first place. If only I could rush back to Forest Ash, race up to the loft and get rid of the poison right now. Except it might be too late already.

The bell went as I was having that terrible thought, but it didn't make me abandon the idea. So what if I was late for French? Madame Poulain was the least strict teacher at Silver Spires. I could make some excuse.

“We'd better go,” said Sasha, setting off in the direction of the language labs with Izzy. Nicole and Antonia followed behind, but I hung back with Emily, and began whispering to her urgently as soon as the others were out of earshot.

“I've got to try and save Silver,” I said.

She looked at me sharply, then her face softened. “Ah, you've named the cat. Bry, you mustn't get attached. There's no way he's going to be able to stay in the boarding house.”

I ignored that. “It might not be too late. Mr. Monk might not have got round to going up to the loft yet. Or Silver might not have gone in there.”

“But what will you do?”

“I just want to check he's okay. I'm going to go right now. Can you tell the others I left my ICT stuff behind by mistake.”

“You can't just—”

“Hello, girls!” came a voice from just behind us. “Aren't we lucky with this beautiful English sunshine!”

Emily and I turned to see Madame Poulain and Mrs. Lawson, the ICT teacher walking along together.

I thought I ought to speak straight away. “I've just realized I've left my ICT answer sheet behind, Mrs. Lawson. Is it okay if I rush back and get it, Madame Poulain? We've got ICT after French, you see.”

“No, don't worry,” said Mrs. Lawson. “It's not vital. We'll work together on the answers in the lesson.”

I could have kicked myself. I shouldn't have said anything. Now I'd lost my chance to go back to Forest Ash before the end of school. Emily bit her lip and gave me a fleeting, pitying glance. And we walked on in silence.

All afternoon I felt terrible. Like a murderer. What would I do if I found Silver lying dead up in the attic? I knew I'd cry and cry, because he felt like my very own secret treasure, and I'd blame myself entirely for his death.

The moment the end-of-school bell went I flew back to Forest Ash, wondering whether the time had come to tell Mrs. Pridham about Silver. She was just coming out of her flat with Matron as I rushed in through the front door.

“My goodness, someone's in a hurry!” she said.

And in the two seconds it took me to cross the hall I imagined her reaction if I
did
tell her. First she'd be worried about the rat poison, and would probably get Mr. Monk to go up there and take it away immediately, because she wouldn't want to harm a cat. But then she'd probably ask him to shoo Silver off, muttering about cheeky stray cats. No, there was no way I could risk telling her the truth.

“Just think, Mrs. Pridham,” Matron was saying, a smile playing about her eyes, “if I rushed around like Bryony I wouldn't have to bother with my diet!”

Mrs. Pridham laughed as Matron hurried over to me. “Let's see if I can keep up with you on the stairs, Bryony!”

My heart sank. How could I go up to the attic with Matron on my heels? But I couldn't be so rude as to race off without her so we walked upstairs together and I went into the dorm and flopped on my bed. I'd leave it a few minutes before I risked sneaking along to the cleaning room. While I was waiting I concentrated on straining my ears for any sounds at all, but it was completely silent. And it stayed that way, until Emily suddenly came crashing into the dorm followed by the others.

“Oh, Bry! Are you okay?” asked Sasha, the concern back on her face at the sight of me flat out on my bed.

Emily and I exchanged a look and I decided in that second that I must tell the others about Silver. They were standing very still, watching me carefully, not used to me looking sad, or acting dramatically. It was no wonder I'd shocked them all so much.

I sat up and sighed. “Truth talk, guys,” was all I said.

“Yes, of course,” said Antonia, who had invented the expression and actually the whole idea of truth talks, way back in the first term when her English hadn't been so good. We'd kept the name
Truth talk
because it said exactly what it was. Basically, if anyone in the group felt the need to share something important with the others, we all piled onto their bed and listened while they talked, then tried to make them feel better.

It felt funny watching the others climb my ladder and squash themselves on the bed, because this was the first time I'd ever been the one to call a truth talk. Once they were all sitting silently, watching me with big eyes, I began in my usual straightforward way.

“That noise you heard in the night, Izzy, is a cat.”

“A cat!” said Izzy in a faint squeak, as though she didn't want to interrupt me but couldn't help her surprise slipping out.

“I went up to the loft to investigate and thought I'd seen a squirrel,” I carried on. “But Ems came with me the second time and that's when we saw it was definitely a cat. The third time I took him some chicken and water, because he looks thin and hungry. He gets in and out through the window. I decided to keep him a secret in case you all wanted to see him, because I was worried that would frighten him away for ever. And…”

I stopped abruptly. What I was about to say was too private. How could I explain why Silver was so precious to me?

“She's got attached to the cat,” Emily helped me out.

“I've…called it Silver,” I managed to say. “Only now I'm scared that…”

“Oh no! The poison!” said Nicole, clapping both hands to her mouth and looking horrified.