The Spin (15 page)

‘But I never –'

‘Be quiet. Since you were a boy who showed so much promise, it is especially disappointing. Araminta herself had picked you out as a likely lad, one who would rise.'

Stormy's knees were jelly; this couldn't be happening.

‘But . . . No, this is about the yellow powder!' Stormy said. ‘They know I told. Al doesn't really even like the spitfyres! Ask Ralf. He knows. And thirteen . . .'

The Director shook his head calmly. ‘That is perfect nonsense. And I have spoken to Ralf, of course. He denies adding anything to their food. Why would the keeper or his assistant harm his own spitfyres? I fear you have made things up to suit yourself, Stormy. Apparently it is well known within the Academy that you want to have Al's job, but you cannot ever rise by cheating or practising underhand behaviour . . . You are relieved of your duties as from now.'

Stormy could not speak. He stared at them both blankly.

‘That means you're fired,' Al said quietly. ‘O.U.T. means out you go.'

Stormy and Al went back to the servery in silence. The moment the door was closed Stormy turned on him.

‘You did this! You and Ralf! I know you put that mouse in the jug. I heard you laughing. Why? Why did you spoil everything for me?'

Al sank down wearily. ‘It's a funny old world, Stormy.'

‘Is that all you can say? And what about the yellow powder? Why do you let Ralf do that? You must know it's –'

‘Stormy, it's over,' Al interrupted.

‘But, but . . . You know how much this place means to me! You know how I love it. I love the spitfyres. I'm getting to know them, I'm good with them. Al, why did you do it?'

Al would not meet his eye. He reached for his bottle. ‘It's a rum world, Stormy, and rum's the answer to all our problems.' He took a long draught from the bottle.

‘But it's not fair! I don't want to leave.' Stormy was close to tears.

‘You don't have any choice, old thing.'

‘I'll refuse. I'll fight. I'll . . . Is there no way I can stay? Please? Please say there is. Tell the Director what really happened, he'll believe you. Oh, please, Al, don't do this to me!'

‘It's over,' Al said. ‘Over.'

‘But I won't see the spitfyres again. Thirteen – I so wanted to –'

‘All over,' Al said quietly. ‘Pack your things and go. I've sent word. You're the first orphan ever to be sent back. The first. That's something. Try explaining that to Otto,' he added with a small laugh.

Stormy went out into the snow. He rubbed his fists in his bleary eyes. What an idiot he was! He'd mucked everything up and lost his only chance to better himself. He was being sent back to the kitchen.
Down
to the kitchen.
Down
to Otto.

He shuffled to the edge of the terrace and stared down into the void. The cold air froze his tears and swept round him, swirling up the snowflakes so they almost blinded him. Better to fall off here, he thought, better to simply tip over the edge and disappear into the blackness than endure Otto and all those boys sniggering and laughing at him. He could not face the orphanage again, he could not!

A low bellow startled him and he swung round. A dull light was coming from cave thirteen. How was that possible? Stormy ran towards it and went inside. There was an orangey light drifting around the roof of the cave, a floating pool of mysterious colour. It could only come from the spitfyre.

She was staring towards the doorway as if she had been expecting him.

‘It's me, it's only me,' Stormy sobbed. He stood there in the pale orange light, wanting to put his arms around her, but not daring to. ‘I'm going. I have to leave.'

For the first time the spitfyre wasn't eyeing him doubtfully, but looking at him, looking right at him, eye to eye. She swished her tail. She whinnied softly. She knew him. She recognised him and was greeting him for the first time – and the last.

‘Goodbye,' Stormy said. ‘Goodbye.'

When Stormy thought back on that day – and he often did – he thought of it as a day of fog; a day so clouded by events he couldn't see or think or feel properly. It was the day his dreams died. The day his life was put on hold.

He never doubted that Al and Ralf had set him up. The muffled sniggers he'd heard when he went to get the dustpan and brush for the broken plate would haunt him forever. But why had they done it?
Why?
And how was the yellow powder involved?

‘Was it just because I cleaned stuff up?' he asked Tex for the hundredth time. ‘Was it because I told Araminta what was going on? Did Ralf have something against me?'

‘Sorry, mate, I don't know,' Tex said.

‘I don't understand what went wrong.'

‘If I was you I'd just forget all about it,' Tex said. ‘You're home. It's great to have you back. We missed you.'

Occasionally, up in the castle, Stormy had thought about Tex and Purbeck and the rest, but mostly he hadn't. Everything about the Academy had totally absorbed him because it was about spitfyres and he
was
spitfyres, he was, right to his very core.

It had been horrible going back. Everything had been horrible. The walk down the steep hill back to the kitchen had been the worst walk of his life. The path was cold and slippery with slushy snow and he had felt more alone than ever before in his life. He almost walked on past the kitchen gates to the grubby village of Stollen below, but what could he do there with no money and no hope? Instead he had gone straight to explain things to Mrs Cathcart, but Mrs Cathcart wasn't interested in his explanations.

She wouldn't listen to him.

She would not even look at him.

‘This has never happened before, Stormy,' she said, addressing the rack of ornaments in her room. ‘We are appalled.'

‘I'm sorry.' Stormy hung his head.

‘A boy has never been returned like this, like baggage. Like an unwanted parcel.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said again.

‘I just can't understand it. Why would you want to frighten the students with a dead mouse? Why would you do that? It can't have been a mistake or an accident; a mouse is far too big for that. You're lucky they didn't lock you up in the dungeons. I will send up another boy immediately, but this time I will choose him myself. A boy I can trust . . .' She turned round. ‘And you looked so lovely in your uniform, Stormy . . .' she added, dabbing at her eyes.

He went slowly up to the dormitory, ignoring the whispers and sidelong glances from other boys. Another skivvy had taken the bunk above Tex. The mattresses looked narrow and hard. He put his bag in the corner and went to the kitchen, not knowing what else he could do.

Brittel saw him and called out to the others.

‘Look what the cat's dragged in,' he sneered. ‘We thought those spitfyres would recognise a worm when they saw one and gobble you up.'

Sponge waddled up to him, wagging his tail, and Stormy had to swallow hard to dislodge the lump that rose in his throat when the old dog, pleased to see him, licked his hand.

When Otto saw him he immediately threw a size five spoon at him. ‘Stormy! Good to have you back, you little carrot cake!' he cried. ‘The compost missed you!'

‘Thank you,' Stormy mumbled.

‘How many ounces of suet in a sponge for six?' Otto roared. ‘Don't tell me you've forgotten. What's the best flour for pancakes? How many
mice
in an apple pie?' Everyone laughed.

Tex pulled him into a corner. ‘Get an apron on quick,' he said. ‘Blend in. They'll soon forget.'

And he was right. Within half an hour Stormy might never have been away. He slipped into the routine again quickly. He watched the potatoes being lovingly mashed to within an inch of their lives; the carrots sprinkled with chopped parsley, the sauce being sieved and stirred until it gleamed like molten gold. He sniffed the wonderful scents longingly; a meagre helping of porridge and soup and bread were all he'd ever eat now. But those two up there would eat what they wanted. He'd like to tell Otto what went on up in the Academy, how his food was mistreated and wasted, but he wouldn't. He would never tell tales on anyone ever again.

When a call came down to the kitchen for Purbeck to go and see Mrs Cathcart, everyone knew who had been chosen to replace Stormy at the Academy.

Purbeck took off his apron slowly, watching Stormy all the time. He didn't want to go; and he knew how important the job was to Stormy.

‘Sorry, mate,' he whispered as he passed him.

‘But shall I tell him what I know?' Stormy whispered to Tex.

Tex shook his head. ‘He'll learn for himself.'

And Purbeck didn't care about spitfyres, so perhaps it would be all right for him. He would do exactly what Al ordered him to do without question.

Mindlessly, Stormy scraped and peeled and chopped. It was hot and steamy and everything seemed dreadfully normal and dull. He had a terrible premonition that he would glance up at the window and see Araminta's haughty face staring in at him. She would be so proud and so beautiful and he would have pastry mixture up to his elbows or worse. It was unbearable. Dreadful.

He couldn't work out how his life had been turned upside down so quickly and so enormously.

‘I've thrown away my one and only chance,' he whispered to Tex. ‘I'm finished.'

Tex grinned back. ‘Nah, you'll soon get over it.'

That night he went over it again and again with Tex. ‘I didn't do anything wrong, Tex, I didn't. I was doing well. I was helping. I was having such a good time. I was going to help the spitfyres.'

Tex could only shrug and pat his arm in sympathy. ‘Least you came back, mate,' he said. ‘No one else has achieved that!'

Stormy now slept in a bottom bunk that shook and rattled as John, the boy above, snored. He hated looking up at the mattress, which seemed to sink lower and lower the more he stared at it, until he thought he would suffocate. He lay awake for a long time thinking about the spitfyres, thinking about Hector and Araminta and the space that he had left behind which Purbeck was now going to fill.

He took the three white ribbons from beneath his pillow and held them tightly in his hand. They evoked such clear memories of the Academy. Araminta must have liked him to give him these odd tokens, if it was she and not Al or Ralf playing silly tricks on him.

Nobody seemed to care about the yellow powder and what it was doing to the spitfyres. Stormy rolled over and stared at the wall. How had it all gone so terribly wrong?

The days slipped one into another like water filling a hollow. Stormy could not stop time passing. He could not change anything.

At first, he always had an audience greedy for stories about the Academy and the spitfyres, but as the days went by he talked less, finding he wanted to keep it to himself and that way keep it safe; keep it
his
.

He didn't tell a soul about the sick spitfyre. He could hardly bear to think about her, knowing she would think he'd abandoned her. If only he'd been braver. If only . . . well, he planned to change. Even here in the kitchen, he was going to be different.

He couldn't stand looking at his useless face in the mirror. He hated himself, and just about everyone else too.

He shrank further and further into himself. The quieter and more inward-looking he became, the fewer people wanted to be with him. In the end even Tex got fed up with him.

‘You were only up there at the Academy for a while – you talk about it like it was a lifetime!' Tex said.

And that's how it felt to Stormy. A lifetime. An absorbing, exciting, strange, yet complete lifetime. And he was now committed to spending the rest of his life, a life years and years long, in the steamy old kitchen being shouted at by Otto and without a spitfyre in sight.

Something had changed between him and Otto. He often found the cook staring at him questioningly, and although he still shouted at him and threw things at him, Stormy knew it wasn't done maliciously.

One day Otto took him aside to talk to him.

‘So, tell me, how is Al?' Otto asked.

‘Do you know him? I never thought . . .' It was a relief to speak to someone who knew people ‘up there'. Stormy felt something quietly pop inside him, like a cork from a bottle, setting him free. Now the Academy could be real again, just as it, and all the people and spitfyres inside it, had been beginning to take on an unreal, dreamlike quality.

‘Oh, Al! Al isn't happy,' Stormy told him. ‘He drinks a lot. He's miserable.'

‘He drinks? He drinks a lot, does he? He was always one for the bottle.'

‘I think his past makes him unhappy.'

‘Whose doesn't?'

‘He –' Stormy stopped. No, it would be a mistake to tell Otto too much. ‘He said you were a fine cook.'

‘Did he? You're a good boy, Stormy. I'm putting you in charge of knife sharpening, as from today. OK?'

‘Thank you, Otto. Yes. Deal.' There, already things were moving. He was going to be different, better, stronger.

So Stormy became the knife sharpener and every day he took all the knives out into a back larder where he could work alone, honing the blades on a stone wheel that he turned with a foot pedal. It was useful for getting rid of his bad temper. He pounded the pedal furiously, making the wheel hiss and the knife blade spark and smoke against the stone. The smoke and sparks reminded him of the flying horses.

The kitchen had never had sharper blades.

Time passed quickly like this: days into weeks, into months and then a year.

In all that year a day never passed without Stormy being tormented by thoughts of Al's spitfyre. And there was nothing he could do about it, that was the worst. He couldn't avoid settling back into his old life in the orphanage and the kitchen, but he never quite settled back into his old friendship with the other skivvies. They called him a snob.