The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (33 page)

‘Then it’d only be fair if you held your gills too,’ said Thorn.

Marsh’s eyes popped wider than ever. Generally, people were too intimidated to mention the gills to her face. Even when Marsh was removed, no one had said it was because of her fishy Attributes.

After a moment, when Amy was worried Marsh would fix shark-sharp teeth in Thorn’s neck before Without an E could whip up a flame, Marsh expelled air through her gills and made a dribbly raspberry.

It was unexpected, and everyone laughed. Amy, closest to Marsh, got a close look at her gills. Inside, the flesh was crimson, liverish. Usually the slits weren’t even noticeable.

‘It’s okay,’ said Marsh. ‘You can touch them.’

Amy put her fingers out and brushed the slits. Marsh rippled her gills, giggling through them.

‘All my folks have them,’ she said.

She had an unusual accent too.

‘Where are your people from?’ Amy asked.

‘Innsmouth, Massachusetts,’ she said, ‘or the South Sea Islands… or all the oceans.’

Devlin wanted to touch Marsh’s gills, too. A queue formed. The Gill Girl had always been standoffish. Among flukes, she was more congenial, or at least weary of the effort she had to put into sulking.

Even Palgraive put her hand on Marsh’s neck, imitating the others rather than following her own impulse. The maggot was trying to fit in.

‘They’ve made a mistake,’ Amy said tentatively.

The others looked at her.

‘The Black Skirts,’ she went on. ‘They shouldn’t have put us here together and they shouldn’t have left us alone. If they had Unusuals, they wouldn’t have done it. They’d have expelled us… or worse.’

Someone coughed ‘Gould.’ Someone else said ‘Rayne.’

Amy shook her head. ‘Rayne isn’t an Unusual. No matter what she’s done. She’s something else again. And Gould’s given up on herself… but it won’t be enough. Ants can’t abide difference. It’s why they’re so successful. But this isn’t an anthill and this isn’t a prison. This is a school.’

A sarcastic snort from Light Fingers.

‘Yes, Emma, there are similarities. But there are differences. Schools are about changing. We change… we learn, some things in lessons, other things just by being at school. School is like a tunnel through a mountain. We go through it and come out on the other side. We don’t stay here.’

‘The Black Skirts want to spread,’ said Knowles. ‘I’ve heard them talk about it. I went Black too, until they removed me. Rayne plans to send enneads to other schools, to spread their rhyme…
and everything else
. Boys’ schools as well as girls’. It’s like the measles. Soon, everyone will have spots and hop up and down with ants in their pants.’

Amy shuddered.

‘We
can
stop them,’ she said. ‘Ants don’t really work together like we can. They just all do the same thing. Like when they lift things – lots of identical ants doing one job. We can be different. Like Stretch said, Frost and Thorn even each other out… their Abilities are distinct, and would be useful in different situations. And our Applications can mesh. Like with the ice flower.’

Even Light Fingers was paying attention to her now.

Amy tingled… then wondered what she was doing. This was silly. She sounded like
Rayne
. Moths don’t have queens. They’re not really social animals.

‘Go on, Amy,’ said Frost.

‘Oh, I can’t… don’t listen to me. I’ll probably get us all expelled. It’s what they’ll do anyway. We’re only here till we’re got rid of.’

Light Fingers got up and went into their cell, then came back with something.

‘Put this on and keep talking.’

It was a moth mask. Light Fingers had improved the design and sewn a new, sleeker domino. Amy hadn’t had a chance to wear it.

She slipped on the mask.

‘This is the real Amy,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Kentish Glory.’

Amy looked through the lenses Light Fingers had put in the eyeholes, which gave a slight magnifying effect. She felt stronger again, thought more clearly. She wasn’t as self-conscious.

The rest of the Remove paid attention.

Kentish Glory could say things Amanda Thomsett couldn’t. Light Fingers knew that, the way she knew she couldn’t command attention the way Amy could. Her attitude was all wrong. Though she understood what needed to be said, she wasn’t the one to say it.

‘This isn’t just the way things are, the way they’re supposed to be,’ said Amy. ‘This is Wrong. The Black Skirts are Wrong. They’ve tried to make us feel guilty for not being able to join in. We have nothing to feel guilty about…’

With Shrimp in the circle, that was pushing it. And the maggot probably ought to feel guilty about eating Palgraive’s brain. But this wasn’t the time to think of that.

‘…but they’ve tried to make us ashamed of not being them. When we should be
proud
not to be them. You know who we’re like? The Splendid Six. They started out like us – people with Abilities and Attributes, who saw Wrong things and came together to do something about them. We’re The Splendid Six – Girls’ Auxiliary Version. And more than six of us. We aren’t
flukes
. We are Unusuals. We should do
something
.’

Everyone agreed and a certain amount of comradely back-slapping put off the inevitable moment when the next question – the one Amy couldn’t answer – was asked.

‘But what?’ said several people. ‘What should we do? What
can
we do?’

‘Rayne,’ said Harper, certain in herself.

Shrimp had sat at the edge of the circle, keeping quiet, watching – not coming too close to the others because she knew she’d be shut up with Poppet if she battened on to anyone. Now, she stepped into the light. A Fifth, she was a foot shorter than Amy. Even Laurence was taller than Shrimp, who might have stopped growing. At first glance, she seemed frail and fragile but – when well-fed – she was wiry and strong.

Shrimp was a test for Amy’s invisible House Spirit. No one was more of a fluke than she, more outcast and despised… and for good reason. But Amy had said they
weren’t
flukes. She needed to stand by her words, even as looking at Shrimp made her feel tired.

‘Harper,’ she said. ‘What about Rayne?’

‘We have to stop her,’ Shrimp repeated. ‘We have to stop Rayne.’

W
HEN THE
R
EMOVE
pitched up at TC2 the next morning, Miss Kaye was absent. In her stead, a Black Skirt triad held the register. Martine, Wool and McClure, known as the Ghidorah. None were whips, but they assumed authority. Two large boxes sat on the teacher’s desk.

Knowles tried to greet her old chum Martine. McClure got in the way and gave Know-It-All a calculated wrist-pinch, smiling at her yelp. One of the worst Murdering Heathens was now one of the worst Black Skirts. Amy thought Rayne wouldn’t approve. Soldier Ants weren’t supposed to
enjoy
their duties.

Martine, point of the Ghidorah, motioned for the girls to sit. After a token show of defiance, the Remove complied. Were Black Skirts taking lessons now? Amy put her hands on her desk and faced front.

‘Miss Kaye is indisposed,’ Martine announced.

She still had smile-lines, but the Fourth was no longer humorous. Three or four ants crawled on her face. Amy itched in sympathy. How could Martine not scratch where the bugs were? Wool was infested too, and had red swellings where she’d been bitten.

Most ants weren’t truly venomous, but
Solenopses
(fire ants) and
Myrmecia
(bulldog ants) had nasty, poisonous bites. Of course, the
Formicidae
of the Purple,
the ants in pants
, might be unknown to science. In
Formis
, Professor Rayne wrote wildly of the Ideal Ant, an imminent super-species. She said it would evolve to fit a post-war environment, thriving on the quantities of mustard gas, cordite and atomised human matter which had been discharged into the atmosphere.

Some Black Skirts reacted badly to ant bites. Girls like Wool sported obvious stigmata – red-rimmed eyes, glittering pupils, visible traceries of dark veins. The victims didn’t seem to notice their condition and carried on as usual, though in a somewhat somnambulist manner.

Wool and McClure took a box each and opened it. They went up and down the rows, dropping new books on desks. Amy loved the paper-and-ink smell of new books but knew she would be disappointed in these.

‘You are not permitted to slack in your teacher’s absence,’ Martine went on. ‘You will copy, in your best hand, the foreword and the first three chapters of the book, including charts and figures. Your fair copies will be collected at the end of lessons. If any girl has not completed the assignment, the Remove will forego supper and remain in class until the work has been done. There will be no talking. Girls will stay at their desks.’

Thorn, Paquignet and Light Fingers stuck their hands up.

‘No questions will be taken,’ said Martine. ‘No exceptions will be made.’

Wool came to Amy’s desk and dumped the book in front of her.

Social Order in the Anthills of Northern Europe
, by Professor Rosalind Rowley Rayne.

A triangular ant face stared out from the dust jacket.

Books thumped on more desks. Some girls groaned.

‘Exercise books have been provided and your inkwells filled,’ Martine said. ‘Take out your pens and commence.’

‘You’re a Fourth,’ said Lamarcroft. ‘We don’t take orders from you…’

McClure was behind Lungs in an instant, arm crooked around her throat. The Black Skirt held for a moment, as Lamarcroft fought for breath… then let her go.

‘The assignment does not come from me,’ said Martine.

She did not go on to say Miss Kaye had set the lesson. Amy didn’t believe their teacher had anything to do with this. She detected the hand of the Queen Ant. The pointlessness of the task was deliberate. It was supposed to be demoralising.

The Ghidorah gave out exercise books.

Some girls – Dyall, Harper, Palgraive – began to do as they were told. They opened
Social Order in the Anthills of Northern Europe
to the foreword, dipped their pens and started scratching away in their exercise books. Amy couldn’t bear to follow suit. She didn’t even want to
read
Professor Rayne, let alone transcribe lunatic entomology in her spidery approximation of copperplate.

‘Remember, you will all remain here until you have each copied three chapters.’

The Ghidorah raised their arms in the antenna-salute. A few of the Remove – Light Fingers, Knowles, Marsh – made mocking responses, exaggerating the waving from side to side and the chittering, clicking sounds.

‘You show improvement,’ said Martine. An ant crawled into her mouth, and she neither spat nor bit. ‘Carry on.’

She left the room, followed by McClure and Wool toting the empty boxes. As the Ghidorah walked off, their skipping ropes clacked. Black Skirts had a distinctive gait, almost a scuttling. The pleats of their skirts shifted in rhythm to the rhyme.

‘Ants in your pants, all the way from France…’

Amy looked at the new book she had been given. It rose from the desk without her touching it. The dust jacket ripped across. Another ant face looked through the rip. Focusing, she snapped the spine and tore out pages. Paper leaves fluttered around. It was barely five past nine and she had ruined her day’s lessons. She resolved to sit here until doomsday, without copying a single word. Even if it meant the whole Remove were punished with her – another blatant attempt to set them at each other’s throats.

Only after the book was ruined did it strike her that she had more control of her floating-other-things ability today… and, for the first time, had used the trick to destroy something. If pushed, she was dangerous…

Some girls whistled in admiration. Laurence might have been frightened.

‘Good show, Thomsett,’ said Devlin. ‘I can’t be doing with this either.’

She stretched out her arm and dropped her book into the waste-paper bin.’

Thorn and Knowles moaned about their lost supper, but didn’t join the copiers either.

When it was certain that the Ghidorah did not linger to spy, the Remove got their heads together. Only Dyall and Palgraive kept at the copying.

‘Do you suppose they’ve set watch on us?’ asked Knowles.

‘Not likely,’ said Light Fingers. ‘We’re low down the Black Skirts’ list now. They’re getting on with other things.’

‘What?’ Laurence asked.

‘Being evil,’ said Light Fingers.

‘We shouldn’t have to do this rot,’ said Lamarcroft. ‘Making fair copies. It’s babyish. Only Firsts and Seconds have copying in lessons.’

Firsts and Seconds in the room complained.

‘Sorry, but you know what I mean,’ said Lungs.

‘Even if they send someone to check up on us, they won’t examine the copies until this evening,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Even then, someone’ll just look at every page to see there’s writing there. No one is going to
read
the things. We’re not going to get marks out of a hundred for this. So long as they get fourteen copies at the end of the day, they’re off our backs.’

Light Fingers opened her exercise book, and dipped her pen. Knowles happened to be nearest Light Fingers’ desk, so she was recruited.

‘Know-It-All, turn the pages, as if I were playing the piano. Amy, ready with the blotting paper. Frost, see if you can keep the temperature chilly around the desk. I wouldn’t want to set fire to anything.’

Amy guessed what Light Fingers was going to do, but others were puzzled.

At a nod, Knowles began turning the pages. Light Fingers copied what she saw, lightning-fast. Her hand disappeared in a blur as it passed over the page. Words appeared in her exercise book – and figure drawings of ants and anthills – as if she were doing a brass rubbing. When each page was done, Amy leant in with blotting paper. Half-way through the first chapter, Light Fingers’ nib broke and Lungs handed over her own pen. Devlin craned like a cobra to get a better look.

‘Lawks a’ mercy,’ she said.

Within five minutes, Light Fingers had completed her day’s work.

‘Now, let’s try it with a different handwriting. Thorn, you’re left-handed, right?’