Spying on Miss Muller (6 page)

“You don't know that,” I said.

“I do too.” Hillary stopped cat-scratching her back against the wall and stood straight. “Somebody told me. Somebody who knows. Dear Daphne even has a picture of her daddy that she keeps hidden in her room. He's wearing his uniform with a swastika on it and everything.”

“Who's going to know about the photograph if it's hidden?” I asked.

The two looked at me as if ready to pounce. Little snigs.

“Flash, come in now,” Nursie called from inside the dispensary.

“Uh-oh. Here goes nothing.” Flash made a face.

I stood leaning against the wall with Hillary.

“Flash has a really bad blister on her heel,” Hillary told me. “Nursie'll probably stick it with a needle and put on peroxide.”

I nodded.

Hillary took a few steps away from me and pretended to study a crack in the wall.

“Who told you about that picture, Hillary?” I asked.

“Nobody.” She didn't turn, and I saw how stiff her back was.

“Oh, come on, Hillary. You started this, and you said it in front of Flash. It isn't any big secret. You might as well tell me.”

Hillary gave me a long-suffering look. “I'll be in trouble if Sarah finds out I told.”

“Sarah?” I asked.

“Sarah Neely. The wee maid that cleans out our dorms?”

I nodded.

Hillary went on. “You know when I go home to Monaghan on the train for the holidays?”

I nodded again to encourage her, though I didn't know anything about Hillary.

“Well, Sarah's mum works for my mum in Monaghan, you know? And my mum always tells me to stay in the carriage with Sarah, because sometimes there are bad men that get in with you and say things, and show you things. I asked Mummy what things, but she wouldn't tell me.” Hillary gave me a hopeful look, but I just shrugged.

“Which maid is Sarah?” I asked, bringing Hillary back to the present.

“She's the one that has all the pimples on her face. They're all over her shoulders, too. She let me see them on the train one time. Well, Sarah saw the photo herself. It's on Miss Müller's dressing table but hidden behind another one. The maids found it. Sarah says the maids find everything. She says you wouldn't believe the things the maids find in the boys' rooms under their mattresses. She says the maids have great giggles over them.”

They probably knew about the picture of Ian McManus in my emergency case, I thought. And oh.

My heart chilled. What about my diary? The one I wrote in about Daddy. The one I cried over.

Hillary was going on. “The maids all hate us, except Sarah likes me. They think we're spoiled brats. Imagine! I'd rather be a maid here than a boarder any day.”

I nodded. There was a muffled squeak from the dispensary, and then Nursie's no-nonsense voice. We couldn't hear the words, but Hillary said, “Nursie's telling her to be a brave soldier. That's what she always says.”

I stood thinking about Miss Müller and the Nazi photograph. Was it true? Maybe the maids had lied, just to create a sensation. Miss Müller hadn't told me her father had been in the Nazi army. But she wouldn't tell any of us that. And after all, I didn't tell everything about my father either.

I hunched my shoulders and looked at the archway, half expecting to see Marjorie's ghost there. I always half expected to see Marjorie's ghost, but I never had. Not yet. If I went up on the roof, would there be any clue to what Miss Müller had been doing last night—just before the Nazi planes came and bombed Belfast? Should I look?

“Hold my place,” I told Hillary, and went slowly across to the archway.

“It's out of bounds up there,” she called out to me, as if I didn't know.

I peered up the spiral staircase. Damp, dark, curving into the darkness.

Behind me Hillary pressed herself against the wall and gasped with excitement.

I went up. My shoes thumped on the stone steps that curved round and round. My heart thumped, too, as I moved past the coffin room. Usually, when I had to come up here on a dare, I edged as far from the coffin-room door as I could. I forced my toes to cling to the narrow steps, reached out to tap my fingers against the paneled wood, and croaked, “Marjorie, are you there?” We always had to do that on a dare.

This morning, though, I forced myself to grab the door handle and turn it. The hasp was chained and padlocked as usual. The long, thin, shield-shaped window beside the door let little light through its dirty leaded glass. Gray morning light filtered down from above. I went round and round, up and up, till I came to the opening and stepped out onto the roof.

Rain misted around me and puddles pocked the concrete roof. Above me the sky was dark and thick. I moved forward. Red-brick battlements, like rows of gappy teeth, protected the roof's edges. They were knee high where they joined, waist level at their tops. A person could hide behind one of these if he—or she—wanted to.

I looked around, searching for something. I wasn't sure what. All I saw were the wet Union Jack hanging up on the flagpole and the red buckets that the Air Raid Precaution people had filled with sand. Other buckets overflowed with water in case of fire. I stared over the battlements in the direction of downtown Belfast. A signal from this roof could have been seen anywhere in the city. When it wasn't misty or rainy you could see City Hall from here and the top of Robinson Cleavers, our biggest department store, and the Albert clock and the Cavehill. Sometimes you could even see the blue sheen of the water in the Belfast Lough.

I leaned forward. Weren't the clouds heavier where the Lough should be? A flame shot up. It took a minute for me to realize I was looking at the Shore Road, where last night bombs had fallen, where homes were destroyed and people killed.

I was cold, so cold. Rain soaked my blouse, sticking the long, white sleeves to my arms. I made myself look toward the Shore Road and think, The Nazis did that. Maybe in some way Miss Müller had helped them. My stomach was cramping again, and I backed away from the roof's edge.

Carefully, I went back down the curved stone steps. A damp breeze seemed to follow me, to lift my hair. For a second I thought I smelled apricots, but it was probably my imagination. Up here near the coffin room you could imagine anything.

Hillary was still waiting at the dispensary. “I'm still here,” she said unnecessarily. “What can Nursie be doing to poor Flash?”

Hillary bobbed her head toward the stairs and rolled her eyes. Above the collar of her white blouse her neck was filthy. I could see the water mark where she'd washed the front of her face and for a couple of weeks forgotten there was a neck underneath. Poor little thing. There'd be no chance Nursie wouldn't notice it.

“Do you have a hanky?” I asked. She fished one out of her tunic pocket.

“Here, spit,” I told her, and I tried to at least blur the line of dirt to blend with the rest.

“Thanks.” She put the hanky back in her pocket. “Did you go past the coffin room?” she asked.

“It's not that bad,” I said. “Sometimes I have to go up there for a dare.” She would think that's why I'd gone today. I shivered, and she shivered along with me.

“I'd never,” she said. “You're brave. I'd have a worm down my back first.” A worm down your back was the penalty for not following through on a dare.

“You didn't see Marjorie, did you?” she whispered.

“No, thank goodness.” I clenched my hands to stop my shivering.

“Nadine Porter saw her.” Hillary's voice was so low I could hardly hear her.

“You mean she saw the ghost?”

Little Hillary nodded. “Nadine had the whooping cough. She was in the san, and in the middle of the night she started whooping awful bad.”

I nodded. I'd had whooping cough myself.

“So she got out of bed and pressed the bell for Nursie. You know the bell by the door?”

I knew. It was under the light switch and it rang in Nursie's bedroom in case you needed her in the night. But you'd better really need her, or heaven help you.

“Well, Nadine rang and the door was open, the san door. 'Cause you know how Nursie likes it open when somebody's sick?”

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“And Nadine said it's awful having to be in there with the door open, because Marjorie might come down, and there'd you be, sick and weak, and not able to scream, or even to run.”

“Please, Hillary, will you just tell me?”

At that moment Flash appeared, one shoe off, limping.

“What did she do to you?” Hillary asked.

“You're to go in,” Flash said.

“Did it hurt an awful lot? What she did to you?” Hillary whispered.

“It hurt like anything,” Flash said, “and I had to keep my foot in disinfectant for ten minutes and then she put this big piece of wadding on it.”

I grabbed Hillary's arm. “What do you mean Nadine Porter saw Marjorie's ghost?”

“She saw her going up the steps.” Hillary was struggling to get her arm free. “Going back to the coffin room. I have to go. Nursie will be mad if I keep her waiting.”

I held fast. “How did Nadine know it was the ghost she saw?”

“She was all in black and she was floating. Nadine told Nursie and Nursie said she was just having a bad dream. And gave her chamomile tea.”

I felt the hairs on my neck prickle. Marjorie was everybody's bad dream.

Hillary had pulled her arm free.

“When was this?” I caught the girdle of her tunic and held fast. The girdle was like a sash, only thinner and longer.

“Let go,” Hillary bleated.

Flash joined in. “You'd better let her go or I'm going to get Nursie.”

“When was this?” I repeated.

“St. Patrick's Day. The cup final was on and Nadine didn't get to go. It was that night.”

I let the girdle loose, and Hillary gave me an offended look and fixed her tunic pleats. “Honestly, you're really horrible, Jessie. Even if you did spit wash my neck.”

“Hurry up in there,” I said. “I want to get to assembly.”

But I was thinking. St. Patrick's Day was two months ago. Something had happened that night. I tried to think back and then I remembered. There'd been a fire, a big one, down on the docks. Explosions, too. It had all been in the paper. Saboteurs—Fifth Column, they'd said. Munitions were stored there and somebody had pinpointed where they were. A spy.

A ghost had gone up the stairs that night. Nadine had seen her. It could have been the ghost of Marjorie—a shadow floating. I closed my eyes tight and heard my heartbeats strumming in my ears. A black dressing gown, black slippers, the black staircase. It could have been Marjorie. Or it could have been someone else. I hated to think so, but I knew it could have.

“S
IGN IN, JESSIE,”
Nursie told me as soon as I opened the door. “How are the intestines this morning?”

“Very well, thank you, Nursie.” I wrote my name in her big book. “I don't think I need—”

“Put the date, too, Jessie,” she said over her shoulder as she went to her glass case and shook three milk of magnesia pills into her hand. Sometimes she gave us the liquid stuff in the blue bottle. It was like thick cream and was guaranteed to put you off our smelly milk for a week at least. Today she gave me the pills, which she said tasted like peppermint. She was joking.

I munched them with my front teeth, trying not to spread the chalk flavor. “Now, Jess, I don't want you to get yourself worked up worrying about another air raid,” Nursie said. “The Germans have a lot more on their minds right now than bothering with us. There's terrible fighting in France, you know. The Jerries and our boys are having it out. Last night was just to let us know they haven't forgotten we're here.”

“My cousin Bryan's in France,” I told her. “It's awful scary to think he's in such a dangerous place.”

Nursie gave me a look. “How do you know he's in France? That's classified information. Loose talk costs lives.”

“I know. Bryan would never talk loose. He sent us an air letter. It was all cut up by the censors. But we can tell by the BBC news that that's where all the fighting is.”

Nursie turned back to lock the glass cupboard, and I pulled my stockings up tighter, which is something I did every time I got the chance. The most embarrassing thing was to have a space between the top of your stocking and the elastic of your knickers. Girls pointed and shouted, “Gaps! Gaps!” And you couldn't start fiddling around to fix them in the middle of the quad or someplace like that.

“Is there another girl waiting outside?” Nursie asked.

“No. I'm the last.”

She patted my shoulder. “Don't you worry about your cousin, now. The British have ships waiting in case our boys have to get out in a hurry.”

I ran my tongue over my chalky teeth and nodded. I tried not to worry, but to tell the truth I thought what Bryan was doing was exciting. I never thought of anything happening to him.

“Get yourself a glass of water before you go, Jess,” Nursie said. She touched my sleeve. “Is your blouse wet?”

“Just a wee bit.”

“Why on earth were you outside? Get down to your room this instant and change it, Jessie Drumm. You'll catch your death of cold.”

“But Nursie...”

“Rush along, Jessie. Rush now.”

I rushed, muttering to myself. Honestly, this morning of all mornings. I bounded down the stairs, not like a lady the way we're supposed to. Usually I wouldn't have minded being late for assembly, but today was different.

The dorm was empty. I unbuttoned my sleeves as I ran, unknotted my tie. As soon as I got into my room I pulled off my tunic, threw my wet blouse into my bottom dresser drawer, and found a clean one in my laundry pack. The dorm was strange without noise, without voices, without the sound of somebody playing the piano in the common room or the click click of Ping-Pong balls on the table in Long Parlor. Creepy, in a way.