The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (38 page)

‘Like ants,’ Amy said. ‘They wiggle their antennae when they’re getting orders.’

‘If you say so,’ Frecks said. ‘I wondered if it was like Marconi waves and Morse signals. Go full Black Skirt – not just by putting on a dingy boater, but by taking the full package – and you turn into a wireless receiver. Part of you’s still there, but keeps in its kennel – no offence, Gould. You do what is expected, what Queen wants. It hurts if you don’t, but that’s not why you do it. You
want
to serve Rayne – for what she is, not who she is. She’s against you lot because she says you’re broken. You can’t get on the path.’

‘I don’t think we’re broken,’ said Amy. ‘I think we’re hardy. Like people who don’t catch colds when everyone else has the sniffles.’

‘That’s how I see it too,’ said Frecks. ‘Wearing the coif is like having a bandage on a cut, not like not bleeding. If I took it off, I’d skip with the rest of ’em. My lugholes don’t half chafe and it’s useless for keeping warm. These metal rings are like ice.’

‘Why did you put it on?’

Frecks shrugged. ‘It seemed to want me to. The way Rayne wanted me Black Skirt. That started with girls having a notion to change their stockings. The idea came from
somewhere
. When I gave in and went Black, the chainmail woke up and wasn’t having any of it. Near the drawer where I kept the coif, I felt it calling – stronger than the skipping rhyme, at least at close range. I took it out. Touching it was shivery. Maybe there was a woman’s voice, telling me to don the armour. Perhaps I imagined that bit – I don’t know.’

‘You make things up to fill in gaps where you don’t understand,’ said Paule.

‘That’s about the size of it, Daffy,’ Frecks went on. ‘Donning the old coif was like a bucket of ice to the phizz. Woke me up properly. I realised I must look a right clot, hopping up and down like a clueless First, marching about on Godfrey Knows What mission. I went along with the charade as long as I could, reckoning I had a rare opportunity to spy on the Black Skirts from within. Espionage is in my blood, remember. British Intelligence, that’s me. It’s deucedly hard to fake being in their gang, though. Get a stitch and stagger out of a ranks and they turn on you. If they weren’t so dim, they’d have cottoned on sharpish. It takes three of them to tie a shoelace. They aren’t good at noticing things which don’t fit their anthill. Rayne is the cleverest and even she’s missing something.’

‘Insect queens are slaves as much as rulers,’ said Amy.

‘I thought you
liked
her,’ said Light Fingers, accusing.

‘I liked what she did… standing up to the witches,’ said Frecks, frowning. ‘I doubt if anyone could like
her
. It’s as if there’s no
her
to her, really. And when there was only one of her, she
was
admirable. You have to admit that. But when she was
everyone
, when the Black Skirts were everywhere, she just replaced a bad thing with a worse one.’

‘Come back, Sidonie Gryce, all is forgiven?’ crowed Light Fingers.

Frecks shrugged.

‘I tried to find out what the Black Skirts are up to by remaining in the ranks,’ said Frecks. ‘But they don’t know themselves. They march and skip and don’t ask questions. They’re marking those lines all over the show, like putting out flares for a night landing.’

‘It’s called the Runnel and the Flute,’ said Amy. ‘Our hooded friends are involved in that.’

‘Yes, I saw them creeping about,’ said Frecks.

‘You’ll never guess who Red Flame is,’ said Light Fingers, delighted at knowing more than British Intelligence. ‘Kali’s father!’

‘What a turn-up for the books,’ said Frecks. ‘I spotted Ponce Bainter and the other one, the woman…’

‘The Professor,’ said Amy.

‘Rayne’s mama,’ said Frecks, as if everyone knew already – and Amy realised she had sort of worked it out.

‘A veritable termagant,’ said Frecks. ‘Spotted me in the crowd and wanted to stain me with a Uniform Infraction. I knew what that meant. Off with the silver coif. Skipping in step again. Ants in the blooming pants. Not for I, no fear. Do you know how
boring
it is, being a Black Skirt but awake at the same time? Worse than Double R.I. So I ditched my two watchdogs – Kali and Rose, both far gone – and took trouble to vanish. Word’ll be out on me now. What one ant knows, the whole colony knows.’

Amy was happy her friend was her friend again. She and Frecks hugged. Frecks lifted her off the floor.

‘I missed you,’ she whispered in Frecks’ ear.

‘Good old Amy,’ said Frecks, setting her down.

Light Fingers was still suspicious.

‘You could still be with them and spying on us,’ she said. ‘You said it was in your blood.’

‘They don’t
understand
spying,’ Frecks replied. ‘It’s how I lasted as long as I did. Red ants can’t paint themselves black and go undercover in an enemy hill. You’re either with them or you’re furniture. The Black Skirts despise Unusuals, but don’t take you seriously either.’

The rest were convinced. Frecks apologised to Gould and ruffled her behind the ears. Amy remembered Frecks was a doggy sort. Her family had hounds.

‘Welcome aboard,’ said Devlin, pumping Frecks’ fist.

‘I’m Larry,’ said Laurence, looking up at the taller girl. ‘I am very pleased to meet you. I have a purple pocket.’

Frecks raised an eyebrow at that.

‘She’ll explain later,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Just now, we’re here to see Swan. Are you with us?’

Frecks nodded. She scooped up her bat.

‘Just in case we run into any of the blighters. They’re not getting me back without taking blows to the bonce.’

Devlin, in a whisper, introduced Frecks to Marsh and Knowles.

Of course, she already knew Paule – and was wary of her. Amy didn’t have time to disabuse everyone of their notions about everyone else.

Light Fingers picked the lock to Swan’s office so Larry’s purple keys weren’t needed. She pushed the door open and they all piled in.

Disappointingly, Headmistress was absent.

Her apparatus was covered with a dustsheet. Her desk was too neat, as if she hadn’t worked here since the place was last tidied. The grate was clean of ashes and cool.

Gould took some kindling from a rack and lit a fire. There was bickering about whether it was wise to send smoke signals announcing where they were. Advocates of an immediately warmer environment ventured that the Black Skirt gaze tended to be fixed on the ground where they were walking rather than cast upwards at telltale chimneys. By the time the wood caught light, the argument that a pound of comfort was worth an ounce of risk had won the day.

They weren’t sure what to do next, anyway. Amy hoped Frecks could tell more about life under the Queen Ant’s spell… and whether there was a way to wake up anyone else. The original charter of the Moth Club was about rescuing Kali. Now, their friend – and the whole school! – was captured again… held fast by something more insidious than ropes and harder to float over than high walls.

The others wanted to know about Frecks’ chainmail coif. Seen close, it was curiously fascinating. The links knit together strangely, like tiny silver snakes, and had their own odd, cold light.

‘Uncle Lance was in Pendragon Squadron,’ Frecks explained. ‘When they broke up after the War, he passed on this bit of kit to me. The Aerial Knights are supposed to be at rest under Avalon, pledged to return in England’s Hour of Greatest Need… but Uncle Lance actually runs a garage in Lewisham. He spends his time tinkering with motors that ran better before he improved him. He’s one of those fellows who’s splendid during a war, but a bit of a liability any other time. Terribly decent, though. And canny enough to give me the chainmail, rather than waste it on my rotter of a brother. When the Aerial Knights gathered to receive the benison of the Lady in the Lake, they all got chunks of armour which would protect them from grievous harm in battle so long as their cause was Just and True.’

‘I’ve read about Pendragon Squadron in
Union Jack Monthly
,’ said Laurence. ‘Didn’t one of them die in the War? Why didn’t
his
magic armour protect him?’

‘Sir Percy Welsh,’ said Frecks. ‘Shot down by boring ground guns, not any famous ace or flying witch. One of those deuced war things. High Command gave orders to bomb a German airfield as a diversion for a ground advance somewhere else along the lines. So, the Aerial Knights of Avalon took off to flatten this behind-the-lines target – only some Staff officer got the map upside down. Instead of the airfield, they blew up a hospital. Evidently, the Lady of the Lake is a stickler for codes of chivalry. Bombing the wounded – and some French nuns working as nurses – isn’t “just and true” enough. But orders is orders… and poor Sir Percy was brought down in flames. Suddenly, bullets and shells could do their job properly on him. Major Roy said the War would have been won years earlier if not for tactics that were called “expedient” if our side used them and “atrocities” if the Hun did.’

Amy supposed Frecks had a right to be cynical about the War. Her parents got killed in it, leaving her to the mercy of the odious Ralph. But Amy’s father had died as well and Mother had never really got over it – and Amy still believed in causes that were Just and True. Frecks did too, really – though her own causes, not any country’s. No one was firmer in her dedication to the ideals of the Moth Club. Frecks had been tested. She could have stayed a Black Skirt, but chose not to be. Most of the Remove would have gone Black Skirt if they could, no matter what they said now.

Headmistress’ study was cosy. Girls found perches or idly searched through drawers and cupboards while Frecks caught up with the doings of the Remove. She clucked in sympathy at stories of persecution and exclusion, but wasn’t surprised. Despite the fact that she wore magic armour, she cooed in amazement when she learned about the Aptitudes of the Unusuals. She insisted Larry demonstrate her pocket and was jolly enthusiastic when the Second put away a glass paperweight shaped like an ammonite and brought it back along with a purple copy. She chimed in with goshes and crumpetses when told tales of Thorn, Frost, Harper, Dyall and the rest.

Amy and Light Fingers searched the office while the others gabbed. Gould sniffed around locked cabinets, but they were disappointing when opened – plenty of ledgers and bills and registers, but nary a trace of explanation for the Rise of the Black Skirts.

And no clue as to where Headmistress was at present.

‘We assumed Swan was locked up,’ Amy told Frecks. ‘This was supposed to be a rescue.’

‘You were acting on limited intelligence,’ Frecks said. ‘Headmistress’s not a prisoner. She’s flown the Swanage and is hunted. The Black Skirts have standing orders to bring her in.’

‘I should have
known
Swan was Quarry One,’ exclaimed Gould. ‘The prime purpose of the Cerberus is Quarry One. They gave me a gown for the scent but it didn’t smell like Headmistress… more like carbolic.’

Light Fingers looked smug. ‘I know what she did,’ she couldn’t help saying. ‘It’s what I would have done. Laid a false trail, put you off the scent… I say, I suppose that’s where the expression comes from!’

‘Carbolic, yuck,’ said Gould.

Amy suspected Gould’s failure to run down Quarry One was the immediate reason for her removal. The Black Skirts might have thought she wasn’t really trying.

‘Why do the Black Skirts want Swan?’ asked Knowles. ‘I’d have thought they’d be happy she was out of the way.

‘Bainter and Downs are as Black Skirt as it’s possible for a grown-up to get,’ said Frecks, ‘but they can’t run School. The Professor gets annoyed when they don’t know things. Headmistress slipped out weeks ago. Left her false trails and went to ground.’

‘She’s abandoned Drearcliff Grange?’ said Devlin, appalled.

‘Not her,’ said Frecks. ‘She’ll be last to give up. But she’s abandoned this position and slipped into the walls. I was looking for her when I heard you girls clomping about like a herd of elephants.’

‘What’s in the walls?’ Amy asked Frecks.

‘Secret passages,’ Frecks said.

‘Of course,’ said Larry, who had a tiny crush coming on Frecks, ‘all old places have secret passages, and School is very old.’

‘This building isn’t that old, young Larry,’ said Frecks, not at all bothered by the adoration of new pets. ‘But it fits the rest of the ruin. I knew there must be a secret way up here because Dr Swan never had snow on her shoes. She got from here to assembly without going outside. Once I put the coif on and could shut out the rhyme, I started using the hidden doors. There are quite a few if you know the signs. We’ve heaps of secret passages at Walmergrave Towers, escape routes and priest-holes… and a few nooks only I know about, where my parents left materials to do with their work. They taught me to look for things people aren’t supposed to find. They’d have loved to have your pockets, young Larry.’

‘Amy said I should be a spy,’ said Laurence. ‘And Light Fingers said I could be a diamond smuggler.’

‘Or diamond-
maker
,’ suggested Frecks. ‘Purple diamonds are rare and valuable.’

None of them had thought of that.

Of course, Laurence would need an ordinary white diamond in order to manufacture a fabulous fortune in duplicated purple ones. And they weren’t easy to come by, though Light Fingers had an idea where one might lay hand on a jewel or two.

‘That would be
stealing
,’ said Gould, shocked – she hadn’t caught up with what Light Fingers’ parents did.

‘No,’ said Frecks, ‘it would be
borrowing
. When Larry has made a spare, the first diamond could be put back. Can you make many spares of a thing?’

‘I’ve never tried,’ she said, suddenly eager to give it a go to please Frecks.

She pulled out another purple paperweight, and looked off-colour.

And another – which wasn’t quite an exact copy, but lopsided and with misshapen coils. Now, she was definitely green.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said.

‘You said, “you never get anything you don’t pay for somehow”,’ Amy reminded.

Clutching her tummy, Laurence nodded.