Shiverton Hall (3 page)

Arthur and George crunched down the gravel path that led through the school grounds. It had stopped raining and, though Shiverton Hall seemed a little less gloomy, it still didn’t look like the sort of place you would want to wander around alone. At the moment the grounds were teeming with students, rushing to their houses in packs, hooting with laughter, but Arthur guessed that when it was empty it would be quite unnerving.

George was an enthusiastic guide and he pointed out some of the school’s more unusual features as they strode along. In the middle of the lawn behind the school sat a large, lichen-embossed fountain where water trickled from the mouth of a rather ugly, dead-eyed mermaid. To their left was the maze;
one of the most beautiful and complex of its kind
, boasted the school literature, although it looked a little patchy and bedraggled to Arthur. It was ‘out of bounds’ to the students – ‘But don’t let that stop you,’ George said with a mischievous grin. To their right were the woods, looking a little livelier than the ones the Bannisters had driven through earlier, but only just. The trees rustled mournfully as the boys passed them, as if they wished to be pointed out themselves.

The school’s boarding houses differed greatly in style and size, and George gave Arthur a potted description of each as they went by. A square, concrete slab was Jaggers, ‘where all the sports fiends go’; a crumbly ex-stable block was Pootle, ‘swots only’; an ornate folly had become Starling, ‘with the prettiest girls in the school’; a state-of-the-art glass building was Temple, ‘for the completely minted’. George also listed the three houses that they didn’t pass: Foxley, ‘for the wannabe bohemians’; Garret, ‘for the academically challenged’; and, finally, Craven, ‘for the psychotic’.

Arthur tried to take it all in. ‘So what’s Garnons, then?’ he asked.

George frowned. ‘Huh. I’ve never thought about that. We don’t really have a category, we’re not particularly swotty or sporty, so I guess we’re the leftovers.’

‘The leftovers?’ Arthur said.

‘You know what I mean,’ George said vaguely.

Arthur didn’t really, but he decided to change the subject. ‘The school’s massive.’

‘Yup,’ George agreed. ‘It’ll probably take you a while to find your way round, but don’t worry – you’ll get used to it.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Good old Shivers,’ George mused. ‘They let pretty much anyone in here. It’s the place students come when they’ve been expelled from everywhere else – or they’re too thick to pass entrance exams, like me!’ He knocked the side of his head as though it were empty.

‘They didn’t put that in the brochure!’ Arthur laughed.

‘No.’ George snorted. ‘But I guess they’ve got to have a few nerds like you to boost the league tables a bit. A scholarship, eh? You must be pretty clever.’

‘Nah.’

‘What made you want to apply for a scholarship here? It’s a bit out of the way, isn’t it? Aren’t you from London?’ George asked.

Arthur nodded.

‘I can’t imagine why you wanted to come to this dreary place. It’s so far away from everything. I’d
much
rather be in London. How did you even find out about Shiverton? Did your mum push you into it?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that,’ Arthur replied. ‘It’s weird actually. I had to leave my last school . . . I was a bit stuck and didn’t know where I’d be going, and then a couple of months ago this letter came, saying I’d got a place here and a full scholarship. I hadn’t applied. I’d never even heard of this place.’

George frowned. ‘Odd,’ he admitted. ‘But then, this is an odd place. You’ve heard the stories, I suppose?’

‘What stories?’

‘Oh, well, Shivers has the most terrifying history. Murders and madmen and all sorts. They say it’s teeming with ghosts – students are always claiming they’ve seen horrible things. Last term one of the boys in our year fainted with fright in the library. His parents took him away from the school. Apparently he’s in some sort of loony bin now.’

‘Come on!’ Arthur said.

‘It’s true!’

‘Yeah, right. You’re just trying to freak me out because I’m the new guy. Ghosts? Come off it! Is that the best you can do?’

George shrugged. ‘You can believe what you want, but there are books and books about it. My grandfather even wrote one of them.’

‘Really?’ Arthur asked cynically.

‘Hand on heart. I’ll lend it to you if you like.
Accounts of the Supernatural and Preternatural at Shiverton Hall and Its Surrounds.
’

‘Catchy.’ Arthur laughed.

‘He can be a bit of a pompous old windbag,’ George agreed, ‘but his books are absolutely cracking!’

Ahead of them was a square, red-brick building, choked in ivy, with warm light blazing from its sash windows. It was the friendliest house Arthur had seen so far, and he was relieved when George announced it as Garnons.

‘It’s quite small compared to the others,’ George said  as they approached the green door. ‘There are only fifty of us and you get your own room. Toynbee’s our housemaster. You’ll love him – he’s a complete walkover!’

Inside, Garnons looked more like a snug country cottage than the home of fifty messy teenagers. The walls were covered in team photos and jolly collages of boys muddy from rugby, and in the hall just below the stairs was a cabinet filled with house trophies, mostly for second or third prize. George steered Arthur into the ‘library’, a book-filled common room with a surfeit of chintz sofas and the faint smell of trainers and aftershave.

Dwarfed by one of the sofas was a small, wrinkled man with greying sandy hair and a pair of tiny, gold spectacles. On noticing Arthur and George, he leapt up in a far more sprightly movement than his fragile appearance would suggest was possible.

‘George Grant!’ he cackled. ‘There you are! And this must be Arthur Bannister.’ He shook Arthur’s hand vigorously. ‘I’m Doctor Toynbee, your housemaster. I hope Grant has been helpful?’

‘Very helpful, thank you,’ Arthur replied.

George beamed.

‘Welcome to Garnons and may I extend my heartiest congratulations to you for getting the scholarship,’ said Toynbee.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Arthur mumbled modestly.

‘He didn’t even apply for it!’ George blurted out. ‘He just got the letter in the post. Mysterious, eh?’

Toynbee turned to Arthur, his eyebrows raised. ‘Is that so?’ he asked good-naturedly.

Arthur shuffled his feet awkwardly. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

Toynbee studied Arthur over his glasses, an infinitesimal flash of curiosity in his watery, blue eyes, which neither boy noticed.

‘Well,’ the housemaster said after a moment. ‘Thank you, Grant. I’ll show Bannister to his room.’

‘Thanks, sir,’ George replied. ‘Arthur, I’ll come and pick you up for assembly.’

George noisily disappeared up the stairs, and Toynbee watched him go. ‘Be careful that one doesn’t get you into trouble,’ Toynbee chuckled indulgently. ‘I’m always getting him out of some scrape or other. But he’s a good egg really.’

‘He’s been very nice,’ Arthur agreed.

‘So, are you excited about your first term here? Or nervous?’ Toynbee asked.

‘A bit of both, I guess,’ Arthur responded truthfully.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep my eye on you. Come on, I’ll show you to your room.’

Chapter Three

Arthur’s room looked as though it had come straight out of a Victorian attic, the sort of place where a mad wife or an unwanted child might have been stuffed out of the way. It was in the eaves of Garnons, and its slanted ceiling had a lattice of beams, heavily carved by decades of schoolboy penknives. The walls were papered with a blue, swirling pattern that might once have been floral but that had faded into Stilton-like veins, and there was one small, round window that gave a doleful creak when it was opened, casting a patch of moonlight on to the bare, wooden floor. The room had been sparsely furnished with a desk, a chair, a wardrobe, a small bookcase, a leaky sink and a rickety brass bed, on which Arthur’s bright duvet cover looked jarringly out of place.

Toynbee had left him to unpack, and Arthur was slotting his school books into the bookcase when his door was kicked open with a slam. Standing in the doorway was a trio of freakishly muscular, ruddy-faced triplets. With the same square jaw and curly, red hair they were completely identical, except for one notable difference. All of their noses had at some point been broken, but in different directions, so that one nose sneered upwards, one lurched to the right and the other pitched to the left, giving the unnerving, almost comical impression that the gargantuan triplets were one person being reflected in a warped fairground mirror.

The boy whose nose turned to the right sneered at Arthur. ‘Bannister, is it?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Arthur replied. ‘Can I help you?’

‘
May
I help you, Bannister.’ The boy smirked. ‘
May
I help you. And no, I shouldn’t have thought so. We just thought we’d stop by and say hello to our new neighbour.’

The triplets sniggered to themselves.

‘Do you want something?’ Arthur snapped. ‘Or have you just come here to wind me up?’

‘Ooooh, touchy!’ The boy laughed. ‘We just wanted to have a look at you, that’s all. It’s quite a novelty to have a state-school boy living next door.’

‘Really?’ Arthur replied angrily.

‘We’re placing bets on how long it’ll take you to crack. I said two weeks.’

Arthur felt like hitting him, but he figured the odds were against him considering this particular giant had two clones. He swallowed down the surge of anger.

‘Look, why don’t you three go back to whichever backwater you came from so I can unpack,’ Arthur said, his voice shaking.

The smug smiles fell from the triplets’ faces. They moved towards him with perfectly synchronised steps, until they were standing over him threateningly.

‘Careful, Scholarship,’ the boy whispered menacingly. ‘All sorts of nasty things happen here at night. You wouldn’t want to find yourself the victim of something unpleasant.’

Arthur held the bully’s gaze and replied, ‘I’ll try my luck.’

The boy pushed his head towards Arthur’s so their faces were just inches apart. ‘See you around,’ he sang through a cruel smile. And then, as he turned, he whispered, ‘Peasant.’

His brothers followed him out, guffawing, and between them they nearly knocked over George, who had just arrived to fetch Arthur for assembly.

‘I see you met the Forge triplets,’ George said after they’d gone, rubbing his newly bruised arm.

‘Nice guys,’ Arthur replied sarcastically.

‘Dan is the worst
–
he’s the mouthpiece. The other two just stand around doing his bidding. I wouldn’t get on their bad side if I were you.’

‘Maybe they won’t want to get on my bad side,’ Arthur muttered darkly.

‘Yeah, right!’ George scoffed. ‘No offence, mate, but I think you’d be punching above your weight there. Just keep your head down and they’ll get bored . . . eventually. Come on, we’ll be late for the welcome assembly.’

The assembly hall was a large, concrete, semi-circular auditorium, and the only truly ugly building Arthur had seen at Shiverton Hall. It looked like an outsized nuclear bunker, with some reddening creepers making a half-hearted crawl across its bulging front. George and Arthur hurried towards it as the bell rang, the last students to enter the building.

‘George,’ Arthur said, as they jogged down the hall, ‘is there a toilet here?’

‘Hold it in, mate,’ George said. ‘We’re late.’

Arthur stopped. He didn’t know whether it was his nerves but the urge to pee was completely overwhelming. ‘You go ahead,’ Arthur said, hopping from side to side. ‘Just tell me where it is.’

George pointed Arthur down the hallway. ‘I’ll save you a place,’ he said apologetically, and ran into the auditorium.

Arthur dashed towards the bathrooms, and, as he did, nearly knocked over a girl who was rushing in the opposite direction.

‘Watch it!’ she said.

‘I’m so sorry!’ Arthur gasped. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ the girl replied. ‘Wait, you’re the new boy, aren’t you?’