Magic at Silver Spires (9 page)

Mamma had told me when they'd dropped me off the afternoon before that she didn't want me to leave my packing until the last minute, and now it looked as though Papà was coming to check up on me. The trouble was, I hadn't even started yet, because even the thought of packing made me feel like crying.

“I…I won't forget anything…”

“All right. I'll see you later. I will take the chance to look at the cooking facilities while I'm there.”

I felt much happier talking about cooking than packing. “I think you'll like the kitchen, Papà. And everyone is really looking forward to tasting your food!”

“And how are you managing with your crutches and the bandage on your hand?”

I looked down at the bandage. It had pink on it again because I'd knocked my hand earlier on, but it was only a gentle knock, thank goodness. “My hand's fine, and I'm getting really fast on my crutches.”

Papà chuckled. “Well done!” Then I heard Mamma's voice in the background and knew she'd be wanting to talk to me.

“Hello,
cara
,” she said in a bright voice when Papà handed her the phone. “Are you getting excited about Saturday evening?”

Was
I? I wasn't sure that
excited
was quite the right word.

“Yes…it'll be great.”

We talked a bit about London and then Mamma said she'd better let me go.

“Papà will see you tomorrow then,
cara
,” were her last words before we rang off.

Tomorrow. Another day closer to my last day at Silver Spires.

I shivered.

After lunch on Thursday, Emily, Bryony, Sasha and Izzy went off excitedly to the art room again, even though they'd actually finished their masks completely, so I wasn't sure what was going on. Nicole and I went to Forest Ash to practise our play with Matron.

“
Buon giorno, Signorina!
” she said, when we appeared at the door to her room. “
Andiamo in la sala common
.”

I had to laugh. She'd used a mixture of English and Italian-with-a-totally-over-the-top-accent to say, “Hello, Miss. Let's go to the common room.”

Actually it's difficult to translate
Signorina
properly, because in England you don't really use the word “Miss” very much, but in Italy it's quite usual to say “
Signorina
”. I like the way languages are all so different. I think I'd be interested in doing something connected with languages for a career when I'm older.

As I had that thought I also had another thought – a much more important one, and I couldn't resist telling Nicole straight away. I didn't really mind that Matron was listening too, because she's so lovely and friendly and not like a proper teacher, or even like Mrs. Pridham or Miss Stevenson. She reminds me a bit of a younger version of Nonna, my grandmother, in fact.

“I've just had a great idea, Nicole!”

“Wow! It must be good, you look so happy about it!” said Nicole. “I hope you're not planning on changing the play, because I know my part now and I'd never be able to learn any more lines.”

“
Neanch'io!
” said Matron. Then she burst into her little-bird laughter. “Did I get that right, Antonia? That means ‘Me neither', doesn't it?”

“Yes, it does!”

“You're getting so good at Italian, Matron!” said Nicole.

“I know, but…” Matron's smiling face dropped as her sentence faded away. I guessed she was about to say,
But how am I going to manage when you've left?
Or something like that.

“Let me tell you my idea,” I quickly said. “I love languages so much that I'm going to tell Papà that my biggest ambition is to be an interpreter, and for that job you need the best,
best
English, so he
can't
make me leave Silver Spires!”

Nicole was frowning thoughtfully. “It
might
work,” she said slowly.

But Matron looked doubtful.

We hardly ever call Matron by her real name. But somehow I wanted to at the moment. “What do
you
think, Miss Callow?”

She pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling as though she was trying to find the answer to my question up there. “It's worth a try, dear.” She sighed, then repeated the words in a thin voice. “It's worth a try.”

“But your dad would take more notice if he heard it from a teacher, wouldn't he?” said Nicole. “What about Mrs. Stockton? She could tell him how brilliant you are at English.”

“That's a great idea, Nicole. I could ask Mrs. Stockton if she'd mind having a word with Papà…as long as she really
does
think I'm good at English.”

“Course she does. And we've got English just before morning break tomorrow, haven't we? You could talk to her at the end of the lesson.”

“Right, that's settled then,” said Matron. I could tell she was trying to go back to her usual chirrupy self, but her voice had lost its bubbles. And it was no wonder. She was probably thinking that my great idea was stupid. Even if I
did
talk to Mrs. Stockton and even if she
did
then talk to my dad, he wouldn't suddenly completely change everything just because of one conversation, would he? I don't think anyone's mum or dad would do that, but especially not
my
dad.

We practised the play for about half an hour. I was playing the part of a receptionist, so it was okay for me to sit down nearly the whole way through, thank goodness.

When it was time for me and Nicole to go off to afternoon lessons, I thought Matron looked a bit sad again, but then she caught me looking at her and immediately smiled. “I'm just thinking, Antonia,” she said, “you know there are always summer school courses here at Silver Spires. If you and Nicole came along to one of those, you'd get a whole three weeks together.”

I liked that thought in one way. But in another way it was a bit depressing.

“Matron obviously doesn't think it's going to do any good asking Mrs. Stockton to talk to my dad,” I said to Nicole as we got to the bottom of the stairs, “or she wouldn't have mentioned summer school.”

“But she might be wrong about Mrs. Stockton,” said Nicole. “And it's important that you leave no stone unturned.”

“No…stone…unturned,” I repeated slowly. “I think I understand what that means.”

“Ah, that was good timing! I was just coming to find you.” We turned to see Mrs. Pridham coming out of her flat. “Your father has just phoned, Antonia. He's coming along to see the bursar to sort out the fees after school and he's popping in here first. He wanted you to make a start on your packing, so I've asked Mr. Monk to get your cases out of the storage room and take them up to Emerald. I think your dad would like to pop in and check the kitchen facilities too for Saturday night. Now the thing is, I've got a meeting after school, so once I've had a quick word with your dad, I'll leave you to show him the Forest Ash kitchen. So can you be as quick as possible coming back here at the end of lessons, all right?”

I hated all this talk of bursars and fees and it felt weird to think of Papà suddenly coming to school at the end of an ordinary day and me showing him the kitchen. But then everything was strange and different at the moment.

“Yes…that's fine. Thank you, Mrs. Pridham.”

The last lesson of the day was double art.

“It's like we
live
in the art rooms!” said Emily, as we all trooped in, and Bryony took my crutches and propped them up in the corner while I hopped to my place.

I gave Emily a questioning look but she just grinned at me and said, “And no comment from you, young lady!” in a strict teacher's voice, which made everyone laugh.

When we were all sitting down, Mr. Cary started explaining about the art lesson and it was then that I noticed my bandage was starting to look rather grubby – I mean, apart from having purple paint on it. Matron was supposed to be changing it after school and I was really hoping that she might say the skin had healed enough to leave the dressing off altogether. I was so fed up with the bulky thing making everything awkward for my right hand. And suddenly I was desperate to see how the skin was doing under the dressing. There was no harm in having a quick look, was there? After all, I could get Nicole to put it back on again for me afterwards.

As Mr. Cary talked I found myself examining the knot of the bandage in my lap. It had actually come a bit loose. With my eyes fixed attentively on Mr. Cary so no one could tell what I was doing under the table, I very carefully rubbed at the knot with the thumb and forefinger of my left hand until I could get hold of one end and gently undo it.

It was at the very moment Mr. Cary told us to set to work that I found I'd unwound the dressing right down to the big wound pad, which was pressed against the fleshy bottom part of my thumb and inside of my wrist. I gave the gentlest of tugs to see if there was any dried blood sticking the pad to my flesh and it came away quite easily.

“Nicole…” I whispered, as I stuffed the bandage in my pocket with my left hand. “Look!”

She followed my eyes and looked at the hand in my lap. “Oh wow! You've taken it off. Let's see.” She examined it carefully – no one was paying attention because they were all busily collecting materials they needed, and Mr. Cary was right at the other end of the room. “Does it hurt?”

“It feels fine. I think I might keep the dressing off – it's so much easier.”

“But it still looks like an actual wound though, doesn't it?” said Nicole, wrinkling her nose. “What if you knock it or something?”

“I'll be really careful.”

Izzy and Sasha wanted to know what we were looking at and then Emily and Bryony tuned in too.

“It must have been really painful when you first did it,” said Sasha, pulling a bit of a face as they all stared at my hand.

I thought back to the bike ride and the awful moment when I realized I'd had an accident. “I can only really remember that tissue all covered in blood and the pains shooting up my leg.”

“Aren't you going to put the bandage back on again?” asked Izzy, looking shocked as I got up to go and find the paper I wanted.

“No, I think I'll be all right.”

Izzy looked a bit doubtful, but then we all forgot about my hand because Mr. Cary was coming over to see what we'd planned to do.

That art lesson turned out to be brilliant. Mr. Cary had collected a massive bag of freshly mown grass and split it up into about twenty smaller bags. He'd kept the bags in all different places, so some of it had dried out quickly and was really crisp and some had dried out naturally so it was soft and light, some still felt strong and supple, and some had started to go into a bit of a mulch.

Mr. Cary wanted us to make landscape pictures using the grass. But we were allowed to use it in other completely different ways if we liked. My idea was to actually drop lots of grass into the different coloured paints in my palette and create a textured rainbow effect, so I carefully took grass from each of the bags, using my left hand. Other people concentrated on just a single texture and used a lot of glue, so it was clear that everyone's pictures were going to come out completely differently.

I didn't want the lesson to end as it was such good fun, and when the bell went it gave me a jump, partly because I was absorbed in what I was doing, but partly because I suddenly remembered that my dad would be arriving at school very soon.

As we cleared away I was very careful not to bash my hand at all, and after a while I got quite confident about it and felt sure that Matron would agree that it was fine to leave it open to the air from now on. The others said they wanted to stay on for a little while in the art room – something to do with my surprise, whatever it was – but Nicole said she'd come with me. I felt sorry for her always having to stay with me when I bet she'd rather be doing whatever the surprise was, so I told her I'd manage on my own, as there were always plenty of people around to open doors and things.

“Why don't you set off, Antonia,” suggested Emily, “and I'll catch you up in a couple of minutes? I'm coming over to Forest Ash to get changed for gardening.”

“If you're sure you're okay, I'll stay for now and catch you up later too,” said Nicole. “I just want to see something.”

She took my school bag off me so I'd have nothing to carry, and off I went. But as soon as I took the first few steps I realized that my hand would need to have a plaster or some sort of dressing on it for a bit longer because it stung when I gripped my crutches. The bandage was still in my pocket but I'd never be able to put it back on again properly on my own, and anyway, the pain wasn't too bad to put up with for now, so I just kept going. I'd be seeing Matron in a few minutes, after all, before going to meet Papà, so there was no need to worry.