Success at Silver Spires (14 page)

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It was the middle of the night. I mean, the
very
middle of the night. Our dormitory was pitch black.

“Bryony, are you awake?” Izzy's trembling whisper came out of the darkness.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

“Did you hear that noise?”

“I'm not sure…
something
must have woken me up…” I switched on my little night light. Then I looked round the other four beds in the dorm, but the rest of our friends were still fast asleep.

After a moment, when my eyes had adjusted properly, I could see Izzy's pale frightened face. “Don't worry, Izzy. It's probably just one of those creaks you sometimes get in old buildings.” But even as I was talking, I was thinking,
What rubbish
, because our boarding house, Forest Ash, is only about forty years old. I mean, that's not exactly ancient.

“Where do you think the noise came from?” Izzy whispered. “I couldn't tell.”

I was about to say I wasn't sure when it came again – a soft bump. Izzy looked terrified and, though my heart was beating faster than usual, I felt sure there had to be an obvious explanation. “It could be a mouse or a bird,” I said, trying not to sound too anxious. “After all we're on the top floor here. There's only the attic above us and nobody ever goes up there. I wouldn't even know how to get to it.”

“But it didn't sound like a scratchy, scrabbly noise, did it, Bry?”

“Well no, but…let me go and have a look in the corridor. Maybe it wasn't coming from the attic at all. I'll be back in a sec.”

I got out of bed, tiptoed across the room to the door and opened it as silently as possible, so as not to disturb the others. Matron's room was just along the landing from our dorm and I didn't want to give her a fright either. I looked right and then left in the gloom of the single landing light – it's always on in case anyone wants to go to the loo in the night. There was no sign of any of the staff or students, which might make Izzy even more alarmed. As I crept back into the dorm, closing the door behind me softly, and tiptoed over to Izzy's bed, I felt her fear lightly brushing me.

“I heard it again, Bry. Like someone treading really softly. I'm sure it's coming from above.” Izzy fixed me with her frightened stare. “Do you think it's…a…a ghost?”

I frowned, then felt cross with myself for even considering it. “We would have known if there was a ghost at Forest Ash, Izzy. One of the older girls would definitely have said if the place was supposed to be haunted.”

Izzy nodded slowly, then spoke in a shaky whisper. “Do you…believe in ghosts, Bryony?”

I'd never really been sure whether to believe in them or not, but now that Izzy was in such a state I decided it was better to say I didn't. I shook my head. “No.”

She held my gaze. “
I
do. I stayed at my cousin's house one time and she told me the house was haunted. I definitely heard someone moving around that night and in the morning I checked and no one had got up for any reason. It really spooked me, and the thing is…” Izzy stopped and looked down for a moment.

“What?”

“You'll think it's silly.”

“I won't.”

“Well, the thing is, I got an e-mail from my cousin just today and she said they were selling the house because they'd all been frightened by noises in the night and her mum is convinced the place really is…haunted.” She bit her lip and I wondered if she was going to cry, so I sat down next to her and took hold of her hand.

“Well, that's your cousin's house, not Forest Ash,” I said firmly. It might have been because Izzy's eyes were big and round and full of fear, or because her face looked pale, but I knew I had to make her believe this definitely wasn't a ghost, or she'd spend the whole night wide awake and terrified. So I quickly told her something that my stepmum, Anna, had once said to make me feel better when I'd woken up one night and started worrying that I might get homesick when I came here to Silver Spires Boarding School.

“Izzy, things always seem worse at night-time. In the morning we'll wonder what on earth we were worrying about. It's not a ghost. It'll probably turn out to be…a mouse…a heavy-footed one.”

“You mean a rat!”

I could have kicked myself. Now she was sitting bolt upright in bed. “What if it finds its way into our dorm? I'd scream, Bry! I know I would!”

“No, it can't be a rat, because it would have to be really tiny to have got in through a little gap under the eaves or something like that. And there's definitely no way it could get in here. Honestly, Iz, don't worry. Try to get back to sleep.”

I climbed back up the little ladder to my cabin bed and switched my night light back off, trying to take my own advice, but it wasn't easy because I was straining to listen out for the faintest sound. Even the familiar noise of my best friend, Emily, snoring very gently in the bed next to mine seemed like it was magnified a thousand times. At last all seemed quiet and I remember wondering whether Izzy was asleep, but I never found out which one of us fell asleep first, because the next thing I heard was the curtains being swished back and Emily's bright, bubbly voice saying, “Rise and shimmer, folks!”

“
Shimmer?
” repeated Nicole in a sleepy voice. “What's that about?”

“I just thought I'd lower my expectations,” said Emily. “I mean there's no way you can actually shine first thing in the morning, is there?” She grinned round at us all and I blinked back at her dozily. “Unless you're called Emily Dowd, of course!” she added.

And that was the moment when I remembered what had happened in the night and my eyes shot open and flew across to Izzy.

“Did you hear it any more?” I asked her.

Immediately she sat bolt upright. “No. Did you?”

“Hear what? When?” asked Emily, her head flicking from one to the other of us.

“What are you talking about?” asked Antonia, Nicole's best friend, as she sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes.

“Bryony and I heard a noise in the night,” Izzy replied. “An actual noise. We didn't imagine it…” She was staring at Sasha, her own best friend, as though Sasha might not believe her. Then she looked up at the ceiling. “It came from up there!”

Immediately everyone looked up and if we hadn't been discussing such a serious subject, I would have felt like laughing.

“You can't
see
anything!” I said, rolling my eyes. “But we heard the noise quite a few times.”

“It was probably just a bird,” said Nicole. “They sometimes get into our roof at home.”

“Or a mouse or a vole or something,” said Emily, through a big yawn. “We get trillions of those on the farm.” Then she went off to the bathroom and Nicole and Antonia followed. We could hear Antonia asking Nicole what a vole was. Antonia is Italian and, though her English is pretty much perfect now she's been at Silver Spires for almost three full terms, there are still some words she's never come across before.

As soon as the sound of their voices disappeared, Sasha and Izzy looked at each other. “Did you think it might be a…ghost?” Sasha asked quietly.

Izzy nodded. “It just didn't sound like an animal. It was too…soft and smooth.”

Sasha's eyes widened. “Smooth like…gliding?”

I couldn't help feeling a tightness in my chest as though I needed to take a breath quickly. The common-sense part of me told me that there had to be some other explanation than ghosts. And anyway, I couldn't help going back to my first thought that we would have been told if Forest Ash was supposed to be haunted. No, it had to be an animal and I wouldn't let myself get carried away by any silly imaginings.

“Nicole and Emily are right. It'll just be a bird or a mouse or something,” I said, getting up briskly. And the more I thought about it, the more certain I became, because I was remembering a time when we actually did have a mouse in our attic at home, right above Dad and Anna's room. My stepbrother, Robby, who's just a few months younger than me, agreed with me that there had to be at least six big mice – or even rats – making all that noise, and Dad and Anna got a pest controller in. But it turned out to be just one teeny little mouse. I could still see the man trying not to laugh at the looks on our faces when he showed us what he'd caught in the humane trap. “That's what all the fuss is about!” he'd said. “It's never as bad as it sounds, you know!”

I told Izzy the story and she managed the smallest of smiles at the end, then looked thoughtful. “All the same, we'd better report it, hadn't we, Bryony?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes…I suppose so.”

As it happened, we forgot all about noises in the night as the day went on. The hot sun was shining out of a bright blue sky and the tall spires of the beautiful old main school building glittered like real silver. We strolled from lesson to lesson feeling as though we lived in a fairy tale. It was the most beautiful day we'd had in ages, because, even though it was June, there'd been quite a lot of rain and clouds for nearly a week. Every single student seemed over the moon about the sudden change.

Emily was probably the happiest of our little group of friends, because she'd started a gardening club last term and her vegetable plot at the back of the school kitchens looked amazing now that so much of what she'd planted was ready for picking. There are loads of girls in the club, but Emily is kind of in charge – even though she's only in Year Seven – because she seems to know more than anyone else about growing vegetables. She's been growing them on her parents' farm in Ireland since she was a little girl.

After lunch she insisted that we all go and spend a few minutes picking beans before afternoon lessons, but in the end we hardly picked any, because Emily insisted on giving us a centimetre-by-centimetre guided tour of every new shoot, pea and bean. The garden started off much smaller than it is now, but Stan, the old school gardener, just keeps expanding it. It's great, because we have so many more fresh vegetables for our meals now.

“Look at all these courgettes!” said Emily, her excitement quickly dissolving into a frown. “We've got to start picking them before they turn into marrows.”

And, as if on cue, a bunch of Year Eights came through the gate and gasped at the sight of the garden.

“I swear everything's grown taller in the last two days!” said a girl called Isis.

“It probably has!” said Emily.

“Don't worry, when we've changed after school, we'll come back to work on it properly,” Isis replied. “I just wanted to pinch a few pea pods. I love raw peas!”

Emily pretended to be cross. “So you're the phantom pea stealer!”

Phantom
. It was only a word. Just a silly little word, but it shot me straight back to the noise in the night and when I looked at Izzy I saw her frown, then bite her lip, and I knew she was thinking back too.

Isis was grinning. “That's me!”

“Well don't nick any more or we'll have none left!” said Emily.

After school I went across to the garden with Emily to check she'd got enough helpers, then I joined the others, who were sunbathing – along with half the school – on the sloping lawns at the back of the Silver Spires main building,

“Isn't it bliss?” said Nicole, lying back with her shirt rolled up a little bit.

“I'd like it a little hotter,” Antonia said, frowning.

“Hotter!” squeaked Sasha and Izzy together. “This is as hot as it gets in England, you know!”

Antonia laughed. “You'd think I'd be used to it by now, wouldn't you!”

That got me thinking back to when we first arrived here at Silver Spires last September, a bunch of Year Sevens, all brand new, with no idea what a boarding school would be like. I come from a big family – my dad, my stepmum Anna, three stepbrothers and a little half-brother – so you'd think I'd get along easily in a place that's buzzing with people all day. But actually I was quite homesick for two or three weeks, because I wasn't used to being surrounded by loads of girls and no boys at all. I'm quite a tomboy and, I know it sounds funny, but I don't talk as much as the rest of my friends. I just watch and listen. It's not that I'm shy or anything. Just quieter than most people. Oh, and I set myself challenges too. I suppose that comes from having all these brothers continually daring me to do things. I can smile now, when I think about the fun we have in the holidays, because I'm completely settled at Silver Spires. In fact I totally love it. But when I first came here I felt really homesick whenever a picture of anyone in my family flitted into my mind.