The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School (36 page)

Approaching the Tempest Keep, Amy realised she was in the habit of avoiding this part of School, even walking a long way round so as not to pass before the hawk-eyed Budgies. She remembered her uncomfortable sense that Headmistress saw all… though surely that wasn’t so this term and she rather wished it was. The Budgies’ glass eyes were gouged. The telescope above the doorway was twisted, lenses blacked over. Funny how things which seemed oppressive turned out to have been a comfort once they were gone.

The Remove had assembled ten black uniforms. Since Black Skirt patrols had to be divisible by three, they could only use nine. The ennead included Light Fingers, Paule, Devlin, Laurence, Knowles, Gould, Marsh and Dyall. Amy made Poppet rear guard and had her follow at a distance. They needed clear heads.

Lamarcroft held the fort at Temporary Classroom Two. She had the fair copies to hand over when Martine came for them. To pass the time usefully, she offered to train Paquignet, Frost and Thorn in sword-fighting, using rolled-up tubes of paper as harmless weapons. Knowles piped up that in
The Stabbing in the Scullery
, her father used a rolled-up tube of paper as a particularly gruesome murder weapon. That led to another bloodthirsty discussion. The left-behinds were probably still happily exploring lethal applications of stationery.

The skipping moved indoors to the Gym, but the rhyme was still heard all over School. A constant background noise, like the crunch of waves on the beach or the whistle of wind in the trees. Everything shuddered to its beat. Amy even felt it in her teeth.

‘Ants in your pants, all the way from France,
Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance…’

It got in your head, the way Dyall’s Ability did. Unusuals weren’t as susceptible as Ordinaries, but even Amy wasn’t immune. Of the Remove, only Palgraive was completely unaffected by the damnable rhyme.

You forgot what you were supposed to be concentrating on and found yourself not thinking. Eventually, you were just repeating the couplets over and over in your head as if reading the words from a spiral strip of paper, an inscribed ribbon on which words marched like a long line of – what else? – ants. You pictured the spiral turning in the dark of your mind, becoming the Runnel, drawing you towards the Flute.

For Amy, the Flute was a flame… and Kentish Glory was just a moth, drawn to bright, hot immolation.

‘Ants in your pants, take another chance,
Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance…’

The words had long since lost meaning. It was no longer a human sound. It was the din of ants, chewing and building, spreading like a writhing carpet.

The Runnel was completed. Fresh white tape was pinned to the ground, winding across lawns, playing fields and the Quad. Amy imagined quaking eggs at the nodes. Paule kept tip-toeing along the Runnel like a tightrope walker. Amy detailed Devlin to pull her off the line lest she be drawn inexorably to the Flute and lost.

She understood how it worked. The
you
in your mind – the core of your person – was hooked like a fish and gaffed along against the last scraps of your will. Dancing sickness had struck in the middle ages, compelling unwilling pilgrims to jerk and caper along unseen paths till they dropped dead. More recently, a craze for using little pendulums to follow mystic lines in the earth had taken hold among a certain spinsterish breed of madman. Professor Rayne wrote about – and dubiously encouraged – the craze in
Formis
, making spurious connection between ant pathways and more efficient ordering of human society. The whole world could become the Runnel and the Flute.

The faux-Black Skirts gathered outside the Swanage. Amy half-expected to find a triad posted by the Budgies, but the stone eagles were left to themselves. They hadn’t been brushed lately.

Amy unrolled and put on her mask.

With Amy Thomsett put away, she had a keener sense of her Abilities. She had prickly feelings in her back and forehead, where wings and feelers sprouted in the Purple. When she was Kentish Glory, the Remove listened to her properly. They squabbled less and followed orders. A responsibility, but also a thrill.

Light Fingers wore her Large Dark Prominent mask too. Devlin rearranged her face, making her nose pointy and twisting her eyebrows up to turn her eyes into slits. She was trying to be scary, but it came out comical – she looked more like Roly Pontoons than a wicked witch. Gould shook and strained and made herself hairier and toothier. And, most unexpected, Marsh peeled off false eyebrows and wiped away make-up from her temples… she had the beginnings of scales.

‘This is who we are,’ said Marsh. ‘Thank you, Thomsett… Kentish Glory.’

‘Hurrah for the Anti-Black Skirts,’ said Devlin, a little too loudly.

‘I want a Miss Memory uniform,’ said Knowles. ‘A mortar board and a burglar’s mask. An academic cloak with Greek letters around the hem.’

‘A
black
cloak?’ objected Devlin.

‘I
like
black,’ said Knowles. ‘We mustn’t let bally ants spoil black for everyone.’

Knowles had decided she’d rather be Miss Memory than Know-It-All.

Amy looked up at the Swanage. They’d come this far, so they must press on…

The ground floor was Keys’ domain. Above the reception room was Dr Swan’s study, and a suite where files on all present and past pupils were kept.

In a lucid moment, Paule told Amy that Headmistress knew so much that Old Girls were obliged to serve School for the rest of their lives. It was in the Grand Plan. Now women had the vote and could sit in parliament, it was inevitable – by Swan’s lights – that Drearcliff girls would eventually hold high offices of state in Britain and overseas, control great industries and fortunes or stand at the head of mass movements. Headmistress intended these women should dance on her strings. Dr Nikola or Val Conquest couldn’t have come up with a more insidious scheme to hold sway over the twentieth century.

Dr Swan lived in heavily curtained apartments on the top floor. The décor was cause of much speculation. Factions argued whether her nest was characterised by monastic austerity or unparalleled decadence. A saintly hermit’s pallet or a fleshy sultana’s divan. A bucket of icewater or a marble bath filled with goats’ milk. Maybe a combination of both extremes – a military cot piled with gold-tasselled pillows.

Smudge once said she’d seen picked-clean human bones tossed from Swan’s window. Even credulous Firsts didn’t believe that. Among the Sisters Dark, Smudge was no longer a whimsical fabulator but Ant Minister of Propaganda. Amy had another pang. Last term, Smudge had been a colossal nuisance – especially when she’d made her one disastrous attempt to tell the truth. Now, Amy remembered the old Smudge’s fibs as splashes of entertainment during a long week’s wait for the next flicker show. The Black Skirts weren’t much for films. They had extra skipping on Saturday afternoons instead, though it wasn’t as if they neglected the pursuit throughout the week.

If she came back from Black, Smudge might end up assisting ‘Stargazy’ at the
Girls’ Paper
, embroidering the exploits of the Mystic Maharajah or Frecks’ Uncle Lance. Amy hoped there was a way out for most, if not all, Soldier Ants. They might be in a big, regimented shared daze, but their brains hadn’t yet been eaten from the inside like Palgraive’s.

Gould and Marsh had ropes out and were ready to lead the skipping if anyone came by.

‘I
think
I still remember the rhyme,’ said Gould. She was joshing – up until the morning, she’d skipped with the rest of the Black Skirts.

Devlin poked her tongue out six inches and wagged it like a finger.

Even Light Fingers laughed. Stretch the Clown.

It was twenty past three and gloomy, but not dark enough for Amy to float up the side of the building. Even Flightless Ants would notice so ostentatious a display of Abilities.

So they had to get into the building and up the stairs. Which meant tackling Keys, who was not easily got past.

Peeping through the window, Amy saw Keys at her desk, mechanically taking envelopes from one pile, gumming them closed, and shifting them to another pile. There was no real point in censoring letters from Sisters Dark. They must all write the same things, to keep families and friends from prying too much.

Since the new Rules came in, Amy hadn’t bothered with letters. Mother blanked out anything she read which might upset her, so censorship was redundant in her case. The Frost had written a frank letter about the Drearcliff Situation to her folk and tossed it over the wall with a sixpence stuck to the envelope in the hope a passing charitable soul would find and post it. The letter had come back to her pigeon-hole, opened and entirely blacked out – with the sixpence gone too.

To complete a triad, two Firsts were in the reception room. Gawky Gifford, in Black at last, and Quilligan. Were they Keys’ pets or her guardians? They skipped in silence, mouthing the rhyme.

Amy signalled for Dyall. The Second trotted over dutifully. The others backed off, but Amy held her ground.

‘Poppet, you must
concentrate
,’ said Amy, knitting her brows and
willing
away the ice-cream headache which began when Dyall got near. ‘You must get close to the lady inside, Keys. You must concentrate on
her
. Do you understand? When you’re near her desk, think about her. How she looks, the mood she seems in, what she’s doing. It’s very important.’

‘I say, shipmates, why aren’t we in lessons?’ said Devlin, who hadn’t backed away far enough. ‘It’s still light out.’

Knowles hauled Devlin back and slapped her, leaving a hand mark in her cheek.

Devlin shook her face out and snapped back together.

‘Did I go off again?’ she asked. ‘Poppet, you
pilchard
!’

Dyall tucked in her chin and stuck out her lip.

‘Don’t frighten her,’ Amy said. Needles stabbed into her brain. ‘She can’t help it and we need her.’

‘Yes, but hang it all, I… oh never mind. As you were.’

Devlin smiled, forgetting what she was annoyed about. Poppet’s chin relaxed. She had done it again.

Amy hurt behind the eyes. She wanted to shut out the world and not think about…

What she had to think about. Nancy Dyall.
Poppet
.

‘What you just did,’ said Amy. ‘That’s what you must do to Keys. You understand, don’t you? What it is that you do, your Ability. You can
point
it?’

Shyly, Dyall nodded.

‘This is how monsters are born,’ said Gould.

No one bothered to say ‘you can talk’ to the Wolf Girl.

‘We shall come with you as far as the front door, then you’ll be on your own for a bit,’ Amy told Dyall. ‘Here, take this.’

She gave the girl a letter marked ‘Important: For the Personal Attention of Headmistress’. It was two pages torn from an exercise book stuffed into an envelope sealed with melted crayon. They hadn’t had matches, so Thorn had obliged with a fiery finger. They’d used Knowles’ ant badge for a seal.

Poppet marched up the front steps, between the Budgies and through the door. Amy and Light Fingers, notionally the other points of a triad, followed, but stayed outside. They could see and hear what went on in the reception room, but hoped they were out of Dyall’s range.

If Poppet could
point
her Ability, could she turn it off? Harper didn’t have to
breathe in
all the time. She could choose when to drain her victims – usually when girls let their guards down. Amy hoped Gould was wrong. Learning to control her Ability should make Dyall less of a monster.

Poppet walked across the room with the letter.

Keys got up from her desk. She wore heavy black boots and a long black coat with brass buttons shaped like ant-heads. Towering over Dyall, she blinked and shook her head. The first stabs of brain-ache. Amy winced in sympathy.

‘It’s for Headmistress,’ said Poppet.

‘I shall take it and give it to her,’ said Keys.

‘It has to be handed over personally. It is
important
.’

‘Dr Swan isn’t seeing petitioners. She is always busy.’

‘Then I shall wait.’

Any other girl would have been turned out of the office, but Keys just forgot Poppet was there. She sat on a chair near the desk, and stayed there, letter in her lap. Her feet dabbled like a duck’s under water. She put the gob-stopper Amy had given her back in her mouth. It would last all day… probably longer than anyone could with Poppet around. She looked sideways at the custodian.

Keys pressed the heel of her hand to her brow and her eyes watered.

Light Fingers nodded, smiling.

‘See how you like it, Keysie,’ she said bitterly. ‘Bit of a throb in the old grey cells, eh? How about a nice cup of arsenic and semolina to make it go away?’

‘Hush,’ said Amy. ‘No need to gloat.’

Light Fingers, weirdly, hugged her and kissed her ear.

‘Good old Kentish Glory,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Without you, we’d be lost. You are our moral compass.’

It was as if Light Fingers were giddy with excitement. Or some other intoxicant.

Amy shushed her again.

Poppet sat quietly, holding the letter, sucking the sweet… and invisibly
pointing
.

At her desk, Keys frowned greatly and was distracted. She didn’t look at Dyall and wouldn’t have noticed her if she did. Poppet was, in some circumstances, an invisible girl.

Gifford and Quilligan kept skipping, but slowed and started missing their step. Poppet got to them too. She must have been
radiating
her Ability, filling the room like a leaky gas jet. Gifford swooned and Quilligan made a hash of catching her. They went down in a jumble. Keys looked at the fallen Black Skirts, but couldn’t focus. A tiny tear of blood dribbled from her eye. She might have been thinking about what was for supper… though she was more likely wondering what it was she’d been thinking before she lost her thread with the start of this terrible headache.

Stretch shoved her face up to the door, at the end of an eighteen-inch neck, just to see what was going on.

‘Cor lumme,’ she said. ‘Dyall’s a flattener!’