The Spin (21 page)

‘No. I have no idea who he is and Mr Topter, the lawyer, told me not to ask. I don't know what I can do.'

‘But everyone knows that the spitfyre rider brings their own spitfyre . . . Well, don't worry, Stormy, of course we will send word to Mr Topter and it will be sorted out and you shall have your flying horse.'

‘Oh, thank you!' he said, ready to leap on the Director and hug him. After all, he was only pretending that he needed to speak to Mr Topter – he could provide Stormy with a mount as easy as pie.

‘But,' the Director went on, stroking his two white curls of hair up into peaks, like horns, as he thought, ‘it will take a very long time. There aren't spare spitfyres just floating around, you know.' He was staring not at Stormy but into a glass dome on his desk. The dome was facing away from Stormy so he couldn't see what was inside it.

‘
How
long?' Stormy managed to gasp.

‘Perhaps two years?' The Director smiled at him. ‘But during that time you can study hard and I'm sure you'll do very well. There are other aspects of study apart from sky-riding, you know. Psychiatry, behaviour, customs, history – the list is endless.' The Director's eyes glazed over slightly and he glanced meaningfully towards the door, stifling a yawn.

‘I must go,' Stormy said, taking the hint. ‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Not at all. I look forward to seeing you around the place. Goodbye.'

Stormy shut the door carefully with numb fingers.

Araminta had been lying in wait. She leapt on him as he came out, and grabbed his arm. ‘What did you say to him? Why did you want to see him?'

Stormy sighed. He felt as if a bottomless pit was opening up at his feet and he was sliding into it.

‘Nothing.'

‘Go on. Go on!' she urged. ‘Were you telling tales again?'

‘No,' he was suddenly angry. ‘And I never told anyone you rode Bluey that time, either.'

‘Shush!' She tapped her finger to her lips. ‘Shush, that's our little secret, isn't it?'

‘Is it? What about
my
secret? The yellow powder Ralf gave the spitfyres?

‘Which yellow powder would that be?' Araminta said. ‘I've never heard of such a thing . . . Now, tell me what you were talking to my father about!'

He sighed, knowing she wasn't going to let him go unless he explained. Briefly, he told her.

‘Poor little boy,' Araminta said sweetly. ‘I wish I could help, but I don't know anything about spitfyres at all.'

‘Well, but . . .'

‘And if I did, I wouldn't help
you
!'

‘Al. Al, can you hear me?'

Al was draped over the servery table like a crumpled dishcloth. Stormy shook his shoulder. ‘Al, please.'

‘What is't? What yerwant?'

‘I want your flying horse, Al.'

Al shrugged him off. ‘Want what? Do what?' He peered at Stormy from under half-closed lids.

‘Please open your eyes. Sit up. Listen to me!' He pulled Al upright. ‘I want your permission to see number thirteen. To try and get her fit again.'

Al moaned and Stormy let him fall back over the table again.

‘Oh, what's the point,' Stormy said. ‘The poor thing won't be able to fly anyway.' He stared at Al's limp body. ‘How could you neglect her like that?'

Al's face was flat against the wood of the table. ‘Years of training,' he said coldly, ‘years of it.' He sat up sharply. ‘Years!'

Picking up his knife he went on cutting up a bit of pie into small chunks.

‘Well, so, I can try, can I?' Stormy said.

‘I told you she is wild and crazy. I told you what she did to me. She'll kill
you
.'

Stormy stared at him. ‘Otto told me it was your fault she did what she did.'

Al winced.

‘She was all right before you made her do that thing!' Stormy went on. ‘That Spin, when she wasn't ready and you were drunk!'

Al heaved out a big sighing moan. ‘Leave me alone.'

‘Why? Why? I don't understand!'

‘I told you. That spitfyre is deranged, mad!' Al looked at him from the corner of his eye. ‘And even if she weren't, you'd never ride her. You can't.'

‘Why?'

‘Because a spitfyre needs a name, Stormy, you know that, and she hasn't one.'

‘She must have one and you must know it. Please tell me.'

‘I've forgotten it,' Al said. ‘It's the truth. It's gone. When she did this –' he stamped his wooden leg on the floor, ‘– when she did that . . . the shock, I don't know. I forgot it. I've never spoken it. Never thought it.' He gathered up the tiny fragments of food and limped out onto the terrace with Stormy hopping along at his heels.

‘
Al!
'

When Al reached the wall he threw the food scraps up into the air and, as if by magic, scores of small birds swooped down and snapped them up before they fell.

‘Al, please! Please help me!'

‘Otto's lovely, lovely food,' Al said sadly. ‘We must feed the birds when it's cold, Stormy.'

‘You're impossible!' Stormy cried. ‘Why d'you waste the food like that? Why do you waste a spitfyre like that? Why are you wasting your life like this? Please, didn't you write her name down somewhere? Can't someone else tell me what her name is. Please!'

‘Oh, Stormy. I haven't spoken it since that day. I've wiped it from my mind and cast it out so as never to hear it again. I swear that's the truth. I should have killed her,' Al went on. ‘But I thought this was a better punishment, and who's it hurt, eh? Me. Me more than anyone.'

‘Maybe . . .' Stormy was thinking aloud. ‘I bet I can get her flying again without it. I'm sure I can. Oh, I hate you for doing this, Al!'

‘Me too,' Al said wearily. ‘Me too.'

Stormy raced down to the stables. There was no one else about; the eerie sound of the birds crying was the only sound in the still, misty air.

He grabbed a lantern.

The smell was terrible in thirteen's cave, wafting out of it so richly and thickly that he imagined he could see it, a solid rope, coiling through the clean air, as it had been with the poor, stinking convicts.

Guilt washed over him in hot, shameful waves. Ever since he'd arrived at the Academy all he'd done was think of himself. He should have come here first.

But what was he going to do, anyway? He knew the spitfyre was weak and couldn't fly. He had no plan.

I'll just look at her
, he told himself, easing around the rock that blocked the cave entrance.
Just look
.
Make sure she's OK
.

It was worse than he'd feared.

It was like returning to the first time he'd seen her. The spitfyre was lying on her side with her head on the hard cold floor. Her ribs hardly moved. The only sign of life was the thin wisps of smoke drifting from her nose and a small rumble coming from her belly. Her wings lay flat like damp fabric on the ground. Her last food bucket looked untouched.

His pathetic dreams evaporated. This spitfyre would never fly again.

‘I'm sorry,' he whispered. ‘I'm
so
sorry. I promised I'd help you last time I came, do you remember? Do you remember me? Oh, why didn't I come straight away? Why didn't I rescue you before?'

She stirred and her small ear flicked towards him.

‘Did you hear me?'

He felt a twinge of hope. His skin prickled with anticipation. He crept closer and squatted down.

‘Might you remember me? I'm your friend, a bad friend. I didn't mean to be so useless . . . I'm Stormy.' The spitfyre lifted her head an inch off the floor and opened her sore eyes a fraction. ‘Listen, poor thing – I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, but I'll make it up to you. I promise.'

He was appalled at the blankness in her eyes, the complete and utter lack of hope.

He knew he'd let her down but he wouldn't ever do that again. He would help her all he could.

She was very weak. She closed her eyes again.

He swore to himself that nothing, nothing, would stop him from trying to get her better.

Stormy was learning so much in his classes, things the books never told you, that he didn't want to miss any of them. There might be something that would help the spitfyre. He would go and see her straight afterwards. He had stayed up late reading up on animal welfare and medicine in his new books, taking notes, thinking of potions and creams he might use. He remembered the shelves of glass bottles in the storeroom where the overalls were. Might there be something there? He would try everything.

On the way to breakfast he spotted Maud, dusting the tall silver candlesticks in the hall. He tried to sneak past her, but she wouldn't let him, and flicked her duster right in front of him.

‘Stormy,' she whispered, avoiding looking at him directly.

‘Yes?' He put his bag down and tossed a book onto the floor near her, then kneeled to pick it up. He didn't look at her either.

‘I know where they keep all the names of all the flying horses that come in here.'

‘What?'

Her eyes were shining. She made a cheeky face at him. ‘Meet me tonight in the courtyard, at that bench near the gate. Ten o'clock.'

Then she was gone, twirling her feather duster merrily along the windowsills as she went.

Stormy stood up, clutching his fallen book. He couldn't stop a grin spreading across his face.

‘We don't talk to the staff here,' a voice said loudly in his ear. It was Bentley.

‘Not unless it's to tell them what to do,' Hector added, striding up. ‘We realise that it is hard for an orphan and ex-skivvy to learn the ropes, but really, Stormy, you're not even trying.'

‘Leave me alone,' Stormy said. ‘I'll talk to whoever I want to.'

His cheeks blazed hotly, but it wasn't the boys that embarrassed him; it was that he'd tried to avoid Maud, his only friend. And she knew where the spitfyres' names were!

He went to pick up his bag, only to find that someone had tipped all his things in a heap on the floor.

Because Stormy loved spitfyres, all the books he'd read about them and all the snippets of information he'd ever heard had sunk into his brain and taken root there. He found the lessons easy.

Mr Jacobs taught psychology and said he was a natural, that he might be one of the very few who could become a spitfyre whisperer. The teacher explained how spitfyres were motivated to work with humans and how they interacted in a squad and as individuals. ‘No tame spitfyre should ever be out of control,' Mr Jacobs told them, ‘but just in case I carry my NSD with me. That's the Numb Spitfyre Dart.' He brought out a small dart gun. ‘Don't worry; it only brings instant sleep to the disobedient spitfyre. Later in the term we will make the drug that goes into the dart. You'll need to carry one with you. At all times.'

Stormy came top in the myth and legend test and beat Hector by five marks. Mrs Lister said his work was exceptional.

‘So, Stormy,' Hector said. ‘I'm going to have to keep my eye on you, aren't I? I don't believe anyone has ever beaten me at anything before.'

‘Oh, it was just luck,' Stormy said, truly believing it had been.

‘So it won't happen again?' Hector said. ‘Will it?'

‘Maybe, maybe not,' Stormy said, refusing to cringe beneath Hector's awful glare.

‘Any luck with getting a spitfyre?' Bella asked him.

Before he could answer, Tom butted in, ‘Course not. Where would he find one?'

‘Stormy's made history,' Bentley said. ‘He's the first sky-rider without a spitfyre to ride.'

‘I
have
got one, actually,' Stormy said suddenly.

‘How?' Hector asked. ‘That's not possible. How could you?'

The others were listening with interest. Stormy wished he'd never opened his big mouth. He coughed. ‘It's Al's spitfyre, number thirteen,' he said.

Everyone burst out laughing.

‘I thought you were being serious,' Hector said, with a hard little laugh that couldn't hide his relief. ‘Al's old castoff doesn't count. It's a dud.'

‘Thirteen!' Tom said. ‘Rubbish. It's an old bag of bones.'

‘It's crazy, that one!'

‘You are an idiot, new boy.'

‘Or I'm an optimist,' Stormy said. But he knew probably better than any of them just how sick and weak the spitfyre was and he did not feel very optimistic at all. After seeing her yesterday he had almost completely given up any idea of ever riding her.

‘Still, I happen to know that Al's wiped her name from his memory,' Hector said. ‘Or the rum has wiped it for him. You'll never find it out. You are totally doomed.' And they all laughed. ‘No name, no game!'

‘I know it already,' Stormy suddenly said loudly. Oh why, why did he speak? Why must he lie? He felt on the brink; if he spoke he'd fall in, over, down. He could stop now, but he couldn't.

Hector had gone still and was staring at him hard.

‘How?'

‘I found it.' He was shaking. It was such a lie. ‘In the records.'

‘What is it?'

‘Starlight.' It was the first thing that came into his head. ‘Starlight,' he said again, as if saying it twice might make it true. ‘And she's a good spitfyre. She's fine.'

Stormy got away and ran down to the terrace. Why had he been so stupid? If only they hadn't laughed at him and made him feel so small.

He went to the storeroom and put on some overalls, boots and gloves. Just because Hector niggled him, he'd lied. If anyone ever looked in cave thirteen they'd see that she couldn't fly. They'd see she didn't respond to the name Starlight.

In the storeroom, as he'd remembered, the cabinet contained small glass bottles: lotions, powders, pills and ointments. He could not see the one with the yellow powder in. He guessed that Ralf carried it with him. He found something called
Solomon's Spitfyre Tonic
, suitable for all spitfyres, and pocketed it. Also,
Biogenic Vitamin Supplement for All Weary Winged Animals
. He stuck a hose, a bucket and a spade in a wheelbarrow and tramped down to stable thirteen with everything.