Oksa Pollock: The Last Hope (21 page)

T
HE END OF TERM WAS DRAWING NEARER
. M
OTIVATED
by the prospect of starting her apprenticeship as a Gracious, Oksa applied herself seriously to her work. She concentrated twice as hard in class, earning constant praise from the teachers—except McGraw, who didn’t think anyone was or ever could be up to scratch. That morning he lived up to his grim reputation, handing back the maths homework papers. The lesson turned into something resembling a game of darts, which their pitiless teacher played with vast enjoyment.

“Miss Beck, twelve out of twenty. It would seem that a basic knowledge of geometry will always be beyond you. Miss Pollock, eighteen out of twenty: tolerable. If you could spare me the trouble of deciphering your appalling scrawl, I’d be very grateful. Mr Bellanger, fifteen out of twenty. Sitting next to Miss Pollock seems to have paid off…”

And so on. Dr McGraw treated them all the same when it came to making unkind comments. Except for Merlin who, because of his
interest
in Einstein, was miraculously spared the volley of barbed remarks.

“That teacher is mental. Eighteen out of twenty, when you didn’t make a single mistake, what a nerve!” said Merlin crossly during break. “And he dared to say it was tolerable! He’s a total nut job. What did he write on it this time?”

“‘Execrable writing. Must take more care,’ like last time—a bit unimaginative,” replied Oksa shrugging. “I’m trying to take no notice.” 

“It’s lucky you’re so laid-back about it,” said Gus. “I can’t take it that lightly. Did you hear what he said to me? He was implying I copy from you! That really annoys me, it annoys me
bigtime
!”

“Don’t worry, he’s out of his tiny mind. Everyone knows you don’t copy. There wouldn’t be any point!” added Oksa, nudging him in the ribs.

“That’s all very well,” muttered Gus. “But what if he puts that on my report card, how will that look?”

“But fifteen out of twenty is a good mark. In any case, it’s much better than mine,” added Zelda, looking upset. “My parents are going to be furious, I’d prefer to be in your shoes, Gus—or in Merlin’s.”

“Oh! If you think it’s easy being in the good books of a man like that, you can think again,” retorted Merlin crossly. “I’d rather do without it, I can tell you. Even if I had to put up with his snide remarks every lesson.”

“I hate McGraw,” grunted Gus. “I loathe and detest the man!”

“In any case, I pity his wife and children,” said Merlin.

“Oh right! Do you really think a psychopath like that has a wife and kids?” said Zelda. “Where would he have found a wife anyway?”

“In the
Addams Family
, perhaps,” suggested Merlin.

“Hey, look Oksa, isn’t that your pal over there, the Neanderthal in Year 9?” remarked Gus.

Oksa turned round to look. It was him. Sitting on the edge of the stone fountain in the middle of the courtyard, he was sending some really dirty looks her way. A girl sitting next to him said something to him while looking at Oksa and they both sniggered stupidly.

“Go on then, laugh, moron, laugh,” murmured Oksa.

She felt the Curbita-Flatulo tighten round her wrist. This had
happened
several times since Dragomira had given it to her—practically always in McGraw’s presence, since he had the exceptional knack of making her feel totally stressed and exasperated. On several occasions she’d almost used the Magnetus and Knock-Bong powers, which she found easier to control now. She’d fantasized about hurling McGraw to the other end of the classroom, though the observant little bracelet
creature dissuaded her every time. But the Neanderthal’s mocking, scornful gaze—in addition to the return of the maths papers with their liberal dose of sarcasm—was the last straw. Suddenly a light bulb came on in Oksa’s mind.

“Gus, watch! I haven’t yet shown you what Baba taught me, I’m sure you’ll find it amusing,” she murmured, drawing her friend slightly away from the others.

Saying this, she took her bottle of water from her bag and poured a little in her palm. Then she rubbed her palms together as if modelling clay. After a few seconds, she discreetly showed Gus what she’d just made: a ball of water, a superb, silvery ball of water, which shivered on the palm of her hand like a large drop of mercury.

“That’s amazing!” said Gus.

“Wait! You’ll love this.”

Oksa raised her arms as if she was going to scratch her head and, looking innocent, threw the ball of water towards the fountain. The ball curved in a perfect arc to land on the Neanderthal’s head, causing him to jump up as if on a spring. The Curbita-Flatulo increased its pressure around Oksa’s wrist and, given the urgency of the situation, progressed to the next stage. There was absolutely no doubt that Oksa was going to do it again. It scratched the delicate skin in very specific areas and Oksa immediately experienced a sensation of pins and needles which made her go slightly numb and temporarily distracted her attention. But it was futile: the time for revenge had definitely come. Even more determined, Oksa had just made another ball and was about to throw it.

“Ouch!” she cried, at the same time as she threw the second ball.

The Curbita-Flatulo had just pricked her wrist painfully. But her cry was drowned out by sudden peals of laughter. The Neanderthal had just been hit in the face by the ball and was dancing about madly, yelling:

“Who did that? WHO DID THAT? I’ll smash his face in!”

“It was the fountain, Mortimer, it was just spray,” his classmate said, offering him some paper tissues.

But Neanderthals don’t calm down so easily. His only answer was to kick the edge of the fountain violently, hurting his foot and making himself look even more stupid. After glaring at the angelic statue on top of the fountain, he whirled round in a rage and made a dash for the toilet, water trickling down his face.

Everyone was concentrating on the action in the centre of the courtyard. Everyone except Zoe, Zelda’s friend, whom Gus liked so much. Oksa saw that her eyes were bright with curiosity. Unless it was suspicion… what if Zoe had guessed what had happened? But no, that was
impossible
. Still Oksa began to regret what she’d done. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned! What an idiot she was. Mechanically she stroked her Curbita-Flatulo beneath the sleeve of her sweater and gave Zoe an embarrassed smile.

“It looks like it might be better to stay away from that fountain!”

“Yes, the mechanism must have gone wrong, it is a very old fountain,” replied Zoe, smiling back.

She nodded her head, her long fringe of strawberry-blonde hair
bobbing
up and down. Her expression was so sincere that Oksa regretted misinterpreting Zoe’s gaze. She was a shy girl, who seemed to find it difficult to relate to others and just wanted to make friends. She was always with Zelda and everyone in the group had accepted her. Particularly Gus. Oksa had made a considerable effort not to show her antagonism once Zoe had become friendlier with him. Despite her efforts, Oksa didn’t feel at ease when Zoe was there. She always looked at her so oddly! It was all very well Oksa telling herself that she hadn’t had an easy life and that she needed lots of friends; she couldn’t make herself feel closer to her or even speak to her naturally. And she was cross with herself for not having Zelda’s generosity or her other friends’ open-mindedness. She thought about the soap that Zoe had given her for her birthday—a
really nice perfumed soap in the shape of a tortoise which she’d passed on to her mum because she was allergic to the glycerine in most soaps. The same as she was kind of allergic to that girl…

Gus broke into her thoughts, whispering in her ear:

“You almost got yourself noticed this time! So what’s your
Curbita-Flatulo
doing?”

“It’s pretending to be a vampire, that’s what it’s doing,” replied Oksa, gritting her teeth. “Look, I’m bleeding to death!”

She pulled back the sleeve of her sweater to show Gus her wrist, which was covered with fairly deep, bleeding scratches.

“You must admit you deserved it!” retorted Gus. “You seem to forget that if you go looking for trouble, you’ll end up finding it.”

“His Lordship seems to be playing the philosopher,” said Oksa
ironically
, pretending to make a new ball of water. “Maybe His Lordship wants to give me a lesson in ethics?”

“Don’t even think of throwing
that
at me, or I swear I’ll throw you in the fountain fully dressed!” cried Gus, pointing a threatening finger at her.

Saying that, he shook his long hair over his eyes so that she wouldn’t notice they were shining with delight.

W
HEN
O
KSA
KNOCKED
ON
D
RAGOMIRA’S
DOOR
IT WAS
opened by the Lunatrixa, who was wearing a striped apron over her dungarees and seemed hard at work.

“Ooooh, my Young Gracious, how welcome she is! Have you the desire to make the division of our afternoon snack?”

“Lunatrixa! Would you please let her in?”

Dragomira had come over to welcome Oksa. She put both hands on her granddaughter’s shoulders, gave her a resounding kiss on her cheek and led her inside the apartment. She was back on the form she’d lost some time ago when the Mark had been revealed on Oksa’s stomach and was her old beaming self, resplendent in a long, full, turquoise dress as she bustled around her granddaughter.

“I’ve made you some of those sweet cheese crêpes you’re so fond of!”

“Oh, thank you, Baba, I love those. But, tell me, what’s the Lunatrixa making?”

The Lunatrixa was perched on a small chair in front of the ironing table and was pressing the iron down with all her might on a small packet wrapped in aluminium foil.

“A cheese and ham toastie, Dushka,” replied Dragomira, sounding disconcertingly matter-of-fact. “A ‘Lunatrixa-style’ toastie, cooked with the iron.”

“Unbelievable!”

“Oh, you know, the Lunatrixes are endlessly resourceful.”

Dragomira served Oksa a cup of her favourite tea, flavoured with cardamom.

“So? What news do you have?”

Oksa took a mouthful of tea. To tell or not to tell, that was the question…

“Well, Baba; I got eighteen out of twenty in maths and seventeen in history. Not bad, is it?”

“Not bad at all. Almost perfect, well done!”

However, Dragomira was staring at Oksa’s crudely bandaged wrist, and particularly the Curbita-Flatulo, which had dull eyes and looked bad-tempered and sullen.

“Apart from those excellent marks, you wouldn’t be hiding anything from me, would you? Do you have a completely clear conscience?” asked Dragomira, slipping her finger under the Curbita-Flatulo’s tiny chin to try and cheer it up.

“Okay, I give in—but promise not to say anything to Mum, please Baba?” begged Oksa.

“Is it that bad then?” asked Dragomira, frowning.

“Promise?”

“Fine, I promise not to say anything to your mother—not that I won’t tell you off, if you deserve it!”

“Er, I think I probably do deserve it—I drenched the Neanderthal,” admitted Oksa looking at her gran with a mixture of delight and shame.

“You drenched the Neanderthal? And?” asked Dragomira, her clear gaze darkening.

“The Curbita-Flatulo did everything it could to warn me and make me stop, but I didn’t want to obey it. The Neanderthal started it, again, by openly making fun of me! I made a ball of water. That’s all.”

Looking helpless and disheartened, Dragomira rubbed her forehead wearily and gave a deep sigh.

“Is that
really
all?”

“Yes… well, I’m not sure,” said Oksa hesitantly, biting her lower lip. “I have a feeling that Zoe realized I had something to do with it.”

“Zoe? The girl who came to your birthday party with your friend Zelda?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“What makes you think she might have realized it was you?”

“I don’t know, it was just a feeling. Maybe it was the way she looked at me.”

“You know, that certainly seems to be her way,” said Dragomira, as if thinking aloud. “On your birthday, I noticed she was watching
everything
very closely and with a great deal of curiosity. But to come back to what we were saying, what you did was not something to be proud of, you understand. I won’t say anything to your parents, firstly because I’ve just promised not to and secondly because I really want you to go to stay with Leomido to begin your apprenticeship. But I don’t know if you realize—”

“I do, I do. I’m sorry, Baba!” exploded Oksa feverishly. “I’m really sorry.”

Dragomira looked at her sternly, but not as severely as she would have liked.

“Liar,” she said, her eyes betraying a certain amusement, “you aren’t sorry at all! You might have felt sorry for that poor Curbita-Flatulo which is trying to make you see reason. Now all we can do is make it feel better.”

She stood up and selected a small bluish phial from the hundreds inside the glazed cupboard and dampened her index finger with the oily liquid it contained.

“What’s that?” asked Oksa.

“A special salve made from Incompetent crest,” Dragomira replied mysteriously, gently massaging the sulky bracelet’s tiny head.

“Incompetent crest?” repeated Oksa.

“It’s the only thing that can make your Curbita-Flatulo feel better,” continued Dragomira, without answering Oksa’s question. “When you
disregard its warnings, it feels defeated, which is hard for it to bear, believe it or not. It’s as if it has failed in its mission.”

Its eyes half-closed, the Curbita-Flatulo began purring with pleasure, smiling blissfully. That salve was terrific—if only Oksa could have some for McGraw… although, massaging their vile teacher’s head, yuck!

“What about your friend Gus? What does he think about all this?”

“Oh, Baba!” protested Oksa.

No one apart from the Pollock family and the Runaways from Edefia was supposed to know about the events of the past few weeks, Gus no more than anyone else.

“Oh, Oksa Pollock, please. Don’t go trying to tell me you haven’t told him anything. Not me!” said Dragomira ironically, her blue eyes fixed intently on her granddaughter.

“You always know everything, it’s so annoying,” wailed Oksa,
abandoning
all pretence. “How do you do it?”

“Trade secret, darling, trade secret. Do me a little favour, will you?”

“Anything!”

“Go and get your parents, please.”

A very unpleasant feeling of fear kept Oksa rooted to the spot—
probably
the delayed effect of her guilt.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Dragomira reassuringly, with a slightly mocking smile. “Go and get them.”

A few minutes later, all four were sitting in Dragomira’s apartment in front of the fire. Oksa felt seriously worried. Despite her gran’s
comforting
words, was she going to pay dearly for the afternoon’s excesses? Her father began speaking:

“Darling, we’ve received your results, you’ve worked very hard.”

“Congratulations for our Young Gracious!” echoed the Lunatrixes, who were enjoying their iron-cooked toastie.

“It’s no big surprise,” continued Pavel Pollock, “but that doesn’t mean we’re not very proud of you. Your teachers’ comments are very good, except those of Dr McGraw. And I have to say we’re at a bit of a loss about
that: you haven’t scored less than eighteen and all he can talk about is sloppy handwriting or some such thing, it’s really odd.”

“McGraw? He’s crazy, he isn’t even a teacher—he’s a psychopath!” blurted out Oksa, as disastrously spontaneous as usual.

“A psychopath is he? Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?” remarked her mother. “Come to think of it, he does seem a bit strange. But why do you say he’s not even a teacher?”

“Because he’s a secret agent with the CIA,” muttered Oksa, immediately regretting her words.

The ensuing silence did little to put the girl at ease. Her mother gave an amused smile, which soon faded and was replaced by a worried scowl. She glanced quickly at her husband and Dragomira, who also looked visibly concerned.

“What makes you say that?” she whispered in a monotone.

At that precise minute, Oksa wished she was a million miles away from her gran’s apartment. Why had she said that?
“I may be getting good marks but when it comes to engaging my brain before opening my mouth, I’m a dead loss,” she thought to herself angrily
. Her head was buzzing. If she explained her theory, she’d have to tell them everything from the beginning—in other words, the fainting fit on the first day at school, the ‘non-existent fall’ of the bottle, how suspicious McGraw seemed to be about her, the theory about worms remotely guiding the brains of crickets, the evidence that she and Gus had collected. And mentioning the evidence related to McGraw also meant mentioning the visit to Bontempi’s office, vertical levitation in the courtyard in broad daylight and going through a wallet which didn’t belong to her. She could kiss her holiday with Leomido goodbye. So, full of remorse, she heard herself saying casually:

“It was just a joke. My friends and I like making things up… we have a blast imagining that McGraw is a secret agent.”

The three adults immediately appeared relieved. Oksa sighed inwardly while looking at them with an innocent expression.

“So we’re right in thinking you’ve been well behaved, are we?”
continued
her mother. “No using Magnetus? No Knock-Bongs? No flying in public? See?” she whispered, her eyes sparkling. “I’m speaking like a true Runaway!”

Oksa smiled uneasily and glanced anxiously at Dragomira. Honestly, this discussion was sheer torture.

“Nothing to report from my end,” replied her gran, sounding strained. “I’ll just add one minor thing: Gus knows. But that certainly isn’t headline news, is it?”

Pavel and Marie Pollock nodded, smiling, to Oksa’s great surprise. So they knew! What a turn-up—this was the best news she’d had all year. Well, no… not all year… but certainly all day, no contest.

“Good, so have we come to a decision about this girl?” continued Dragomira, enjoying Oksa’s renewed anxiety.

“You mean my daughter? My wonderful, totally brilliant and highly talented daughter?” asked Pavel Pollock, acting as though Oksa wasn’t there. “What do you reckon, Marie? We’ll have to think it over, don’t you agree?”

“Dad…” groaned Oksa, squirming in her chair.

“I need time to think,” continued Marie, playing along with her
husband
. “But I promise to give you my answer before six months is up.”

“Mum…” Oksa groaned even louder.

“Darling,” said her father, putting her out of her misery. “We agree, you can stay with Leomido during half-term. Dragomira will go with you, because we’ve got a great deal of work to do in the restaurant. But you can also take a guest, someone you’re very fond of and from whom, it seems, you have no secrets…”

“Gus?” exclaimed Oksa, beside herself with joy. “Oohhh, thank you, Dad! Thank you, Mum!”

“We need to sort out one or two little things with Jeanne and Pierre Bellanger and in a week’s time, all three of you can leave for Wales.

“That’s brilliant—I’m thrilled!”