The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (3 page)

‘You want Frecks’ cell,’ she said, without looking up from her labours. ‘End of the line, new bug. You’ll whiff it before you see it. No mistaking Kali’s herbal fags. Now, push off will you… this little beast has to be in chopping order tomorrow or I’m for a roasting from Digger Downs.’

Amy ventured on. From behind a closed door, she heard a
quid pro quo
Latin quiz. She caught a peculiar fragrance – heady, a little exhilarating – wafting from an open room at the far end of the corridor.

Sticking her head in, she found Frecks lolled on a cot, perusing a volume with a brown paper cover. She looked up.

‘
My Nine Nights in a Harem
,’ Frecks explained. ‘Fearful rot. Come the deuce in, Thomsett. Meet your fellow dwellers in despair.’

Amy stepped into the cell, ducking to avoid bumping her head on the low lintel. She wouldn’t have much room to float here.

‘Thomsett, this is Light Fingers…’

A small, blonde girl sat in a rocking chair, deftly embroidering a piece of muslin. She held it up to her face. It was a Columbine mask, with fine stitching around eye- and mouth-holes. Little sequin tears sparkled on one cheek.

‘The fuming reprobate is Princess Kali.’

A slender brown girl with a red forehead dot and a gold snail stuck to her nose sat on a mat, legs folded under her. She puffed a slim cigarette in a long holder as if it were a religious obligation. Her eyes were slightly glazed.

‘Me, you know,’ said Frecks. ‘That’s your corner.’

Frecks indicated a neatly made, if somewhat forlorn, miniature bed. A dagger was stuck through the pillow.

‘Don’t mind the pig-sticker,’ said Frecks. ‘It’s not for you. Was sent to the last girl before she took poorly. Never did get to the bottom of that ’un. Many were the questions about dear departed Imogen Ames.’

Light Fingers set aside her needlework.

‘She’s quick,’ said Frecks. ‘Her register name is Emma Naisbitt. Her parents are in jail. Which puts her one up on most of us. We tend to be orphans or semi-orphans at Drearcliff. My lot were shot as spies in the War. By the Hun, I hasten to add. All very glamorous and tragic. I was packed off here by my brother. Lord Ralph holds the purse strings till I’m eighteen and past it. Worse luck, since he’s a gambling fool and a fathead for the fillies. I fully expect him to run through the dosh and leave me to make a way in the world by wits alone. He’s tragic, but
not
very glamorous. Still, I don’t have the worst of it in this cell. Kali’s Pa had her Ma put to death for displeasing him. He’s a bandit rajah in far-off Kafiristan. He’s run through dozens of wives.’

Kali rose elegantly, hands pressed together as if in prayer, and stood on one leg like a flamingo. She had masses of very black hair.

‘Hya, dollface,’ said the Hindu girl, rather musically. ‘Whaddaya know, whaddaya say?’

‘Kali learned English from American magazines,’ Frecks footnoted.

‘Ahhh, nertz! I talks good as any other dame in the joint.’

Kali put both feet on the floor and stubbed out her cigarette in a saucer. She had pictures from the rotogravure pinned up over her cot – scowling men in hats: Lon Chaney, Al Capone, Jack Dempsey.

‘I forgot to ask,’ said Frecks. ‘Are you down one parent or two?’

‘One,’ said Amy. ‘My father. The War.’

‘Tough break, kiddo,’ said Kali.

‘Say no more,’ said Frecks. ‘Mystery lingers, though. Why’ve you suddenly been sent here? In the middle of autumn term? There’s usually no mistake about whether one is or is not Drearcliff material. Born with a caul, font bubbling over at baptism, nannies fleeing with hair gone white overnight, scratches on the nursery wallpaper…’

Amy hesitated. Interest sparked. Frecks and Kali exchanged a Significant Look.

‘Light Fingers,’ said Frecks. ‘You’ve got competition. We have another Unusual.’

Denial sprung up in Amy’s throat, but died. There was no point. It was out before she was properly here. Mother would be livid.

Light Fingers regarded Amy with suspicion, tilting her head to one side and then the other.

‘It’s not something you can see,’ said Frecks. ‘Like Gould of the Fourth and her teeth and nails. Or that Goneril guppy with gills. It’s something she
does
. Hope you’re not a mind reader, Thomsett. They’re unpopular, for reasons obvious. Dearly departed Ames was a brain-peeper. Didn’t make her happy.’

Amy was tight inside. Close to tears, though she kept them in.

‘There there, child,’ said Frecks. ‘We won’t hurt. Tell all.’

‘C’mon, doll, cough it up an’ ya’ll feel better.’

The three girls were close to her now. Amy knew this was important.

‘Light Fingers,’ said Frecks, ‘show her yours.’

The blonde girl reached out and tapped Amy on the chest with her right forefinger, then opened her left hand to show a black-headed tiepin.

Amy, astonished, touched her tie. The pin was missing.

‘How…?’

‘Prestidigitation, old thing,’ said Frecks. ‘As practised in the Halls by respected conjurers. And in the stalls by disreputable pickpockets. The hand is quicker than the eye. Naisbitt’s hands are quicker than a hummingbird’s wings.’

Light Fingers clapped her hands and showed empty palms. Amy found her pin back in place. A bead of blood stood out on the girl’s forefinger. Light Fingers licked the tiny wound.

‘Gets it from her parents. They had an act at the Tivoli. Doves out of hats. Escapes from water-tanks. Also, a profitable sideline: lifting sparklers from nobs in the audience. Got caught at it. Hence, jail. Captain Rattray nabbed ’em. You know, Blackfist. The big bruiser in the Splendid Six – with the Blue Streak, Lord Piltdown, the Aviatrix and the other two no one remembers. Mrs Naisbitt made a pass for Rattray’s magic gem. That was the end of that.’

Amy knew all about Blackfist. Dennis Rattray, a gentleman explorer, had discovered a pre-human cyclopean idol in a cavern temple under the Andes. From its forehead, he plucked the famous Fang of Night jewel. The story was that when he made a fist around the mystic purple-black gemstone, his body became as impervious to harm as granite and his blows landed with the force of a wrecking-ball. Since then, he had biffed rotters and foiled plots against the Empire. He also concerned himself with less momentous, nevertheless baffling crimes… such as, presumably, the Naisbitts’ pilfering spree.

‘Mum and Dad could escape any time they want,’ said Light Fingers. ‘They get out of their prisons and visit each other. All the time. But they go back for the head-counts. Less trouble in the long run. They only stole from horrid people, by the way… quite a lot of rich people are horrid. And Rattray said he’d let them off if Mum went to Brighton with him for a Bank Holiday weekend, so he’s fairly horrid himself, no matter what the papers say. After all, he got to be Blackfist by stealing something which was perfectly happy where it was and has the nerve to pinch other folks who are just trying to make a living.’

‘Editorial comment over,’ said Frecks.

Amy assumed Light Fingers was biased, but what she said sounded likely. It had always seemed to her that Blackfist enjoyed biffing rotters rather more than was entirely healthy. There was once talk of the Aviatrix and Blackfist getting engaged, but that cooled down… and no wonder, if he was the sort to issue improper invitations to married lady thieves.

The three girls looked at Amy, expectant.

‘A shy one,’ said Frecks. ‘Probably taught to hide her light under a bushel. We haven’t anything else to show. Kali and I aren’t Unusual that way. Just warped. Drearcliff Girls have something extra or something missing. Not just parents. Bits got left out when we were put together. Know what Kali’s going to do to dear old Dad when she goes home?’

Kali drew her thumbnail across her throat and made a ‘krkkkk’ sound.

‘Concrete overshoes, wooden waistcoat… curtains, kiddo!’

‘Means it, too. She’s going to be a bandit queen. She’s already coloured in her territory on the map. So, Thomsett,
give…
’

It wasn’t that easy. In Headmistress’s study, she hadn’t been able to perform on cue. Not really. It would be the same here.

‘She
is
giving,’ said Light Fingers, ‘
look…
!’

Amy was surprised, then glanced down. She was a full six inches off the floor, feet dangling limp. Her head pressed the plastered ceiling.

Kali and Frecks were wide-eyed. Light Fingers looked a little frightened.

Frecks whistled, long and shrill.

‘That was an
appropriate
whistle,’ she explained. ‘Crivens, you’re a pixie!’

Amy went inside herself, and thought heavy thoughts. She came down gently, on toepoints, then settled on her heels.

‘I am
not
a pixie,’ she said.

‘But you can fly!’

She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t fly. I can
float
. It’s not the same.’

The Aviatrix could fly. She could flap her wings, zoom along, bank and roll, ascend and descend, outpace any land craft. Amy could wave her arms all she wanted, but just went up and up like a balloon. So far, she’d only floated deliberately indoors. Once, she had dozed under a tree like Alice and woke up trapped by low branches. Mother said if she didn’t stop it, she’d drift away and be lost in the clouds.

‘Still, you’re an Unusual,’ said Frecks. ‘Headmistress must love you.’

Kali snarled. ‘Stay away from Swan! She’s trouble in velvet! A regular cyanide mama!’

‘Tell you what, though,’ said Frecks. ‘Desdemona won’t come bottom in netball this term. Not with two Unusuals. Light Fingers can steal the ball and make an invisible pass. Thomsett can float and pop it through the hoop from above. A tough rind for the harpies of Goneril to chew. Must get ten shillings down with Nellie Pugh in the kitchens – she’s school bookie, don’t you know? – before word gets out.’

For the first time, Amy wondered if Mother was wrong. Maybe floating wasn’t entirely wicked.

She was tired of hearing things like ‘how are you ever going to get a husband if you can’t keep your feet on the ground?’

She wasn’t sure about netball though.

A bell sounded, from down below.

‘Grub’s up,’ announced Frecks. ‘Form an orderly rabble and proceed to the Refectory. Come on, Thomsett, we’ll get you there alive. Then it’s down to whether you can survive the worst Cook flings at you. Word to the wise, shun the semolina. I have it on an impeccable authority that it’s bat’s blood in sick.’

T
HE
R
EFECTORY MADE
Amy wonder if Old House had begun as Drearcliff Abbey or Drearcliff Castle. The feeding trough was the sort of place Douglas Fairbanks generally did sword-fighting in, complete with flying buttresses, depressed arches, ribbed vaults and other features of architectural interest.

Stained-glass windows showed men in armour battling she-demons, who were generally getting the best of the fight. Amy wasn’t sure the windows were appropriate for younger girls. Several panels showed dismembered knights roasted on spits by happy, red-skinned devil cooks with extra mouths in their bosoms.

Pupils sat on benches at five long House tables, arranged by year. This meant roughly by size, though the odd freakishly tall or stunted specimen broke up any neat arrangement. Thirds had places half-way along the Desdemona table. They could look across at their contemporaries in other Houses. It was not done to pay attention up-table or down-table, where seniors or juniors sat.

Hundreds of girls, talking all at once, clattered to their table-places. The sound of wooden bench-legs scraping on stone set Amy’s teeth on edge.

Frecks anatomised the Houses.

‘Goneril are Sport House,’ Frecks explained. ‘Win at absolutely everything, from cross-country runs to tiddlybloodywinks. It’s
so
tedious. They used to play boys’ schools at football, but an archdeacon’s son got crippled – and his side took a ten-two hammering – so that was stopped. Tamora has the terrors. I josh you not. You’d do well to stay away. The most evil Witches are Tamora. Viola are babies. Blub all the time. The Greek dancing on the lawn soppists you saw earlier. Utterly wet and contemptible. Ariel are so stuck up you’d think they were
port over starboard home
through and through. Their people are mostly in trade. We can’t stand ’em. Got all that?’

‘Sporty, terrifying, babies and posh, yes. What are we?’

‘Desdemona? Red-headed stepchildren. Who don’t fit anywhere else. Come second in most things. If we’re top, it doesn’t count because we don’t win
properly
. You’ll hear that a lot.’

High Table was set on a dais before a triptych of especially ferocious dragons. It had a white tablecloth and the best china. Also, decanters of spirits and wine glasses. Girls made do with tumblers and jugs of brackish water, though Princess Kali surreptitiously dripped something fiery from a bullet-dented hip flask into her tumbler.

Once the girls were settled, they were counted off by Table Captains from each form, with the few absences due to illness listed. Light Fingers was the Third Desdemona Captain. Then, Headmistress made an entrance, cape flapping. Raucous hubbub ceased. After Dr Swan was settled on a throne at the centre of High Table, nine women – and one man! – walked in a processional and took high-backed chairs either side. Teachers wore capes and mortar-boards. Keys, the custodian, had no academic accoutrements, but her jangling keys were a mark of authority. A woman in a white starched wimple and an apron with a red cross on it must be Nurse. The man was very fat, nearly bald and wore a clergyman’s collar. Amy guessed he was School chaplain. The Staff faced out at the Refectory, at once on display and commanding an audience.

Servants rolled trolleys bearing cauldrons up and down the aisles, doling something which was either thick soup or thin stew into bowls. Frecks showed Amy how to hold her bowl up with one hand while taking a bread roll from a platter on the trolley with the other. Light Fingers made a show of being slow and clumsy, not wasting her Abilities at supper.

Headmistress made a gesture. The Chaplain got up and mumbled a grace in Latin.