GHOSTLY TERM AT TREBIZON

by Anne Digby

  'Well, there's this boy I know from London, we've known each other since we were little. He's sweet, he's really good fun –' She was gabbling it out as fast as possible. 'Well, he's moved down here – isn't that amazing? – and I said I'd go to this disco at his school . . .'

  There was a heavy silence. Then Robbie said:

  'Oh, OK. Fine. That's fine. I'll give ours a miss, then. I've got a stack of revision to do anyway.'

  'Robbie. He's –' Rebecca was trying to get the words out; trying to say: Robbie, he's only a friend.

  But Robbie had already hung up.

  The disco at Caxton High School was wonderful fun! 'You look great, Rebecca!' Tish had shouted to her before she left.

  While the rest of them had rushed around the top floor getting ready, Tish had sat calmly at the big table polishing off the last of her maths coursework. She'd only started it on the Friday and already it was finished! 'Now I can enjoy myself at Garth!' she'd laughed exuberantly, diving off to her cubicle to get changed. 'I'll leave it out in case any of you want to look at it tomorrow!'

  'What good is that?' Mara had sighed. 'Miss Hort would soon catch us out when she gives us the oral next week!'

  Tish had kept the minibus waiting. Running to catch it, she'd shouted out that compliment to Rebecca, who was just climbing into Mrs Barry's car at the front of Court House.

  Rebecca knew she looked all right and it added zest to the evening. Cliff was certainly an energetic dancer! It was quite a challenge keeping up with him! But Rebecca was no slouch herself because towards the end of the night a crowd gathered round and watched them and clapped. The music was good. The youths from Dennizon Point who ran the disco had the best collection of records Rebecca had heard for ages!

  Cliff, who had a lucrative paper round as well as a Saturday job, kept treating Rebecca to things. Endless glasses of Coke to quench her thirst, several strips of raffle tickets and six turns on the tombola!

  She won two boxes of chocolates, a bottle of sherry and a huge stuffed dog!

  'What am I going to do with all these?' giggled Rebecca as she stacked them on a chair. 'Cliff, let me buy you something! Let me buy you some crisps.' That was about all she could afford after spending so much on her outfit.

  'You know something, Rebecca,' said Cliff as they munched the crisps and actually sat out a whole session: 'It was the best stroke of luck I ever had, meeting you at the hospital this term. It's really changed my luck, those notes of yours. Mrs Entwistle had just been ignoring me, I think she thought I was thick, but now I've moved up to Mr Patrick's group for English and it's really good. So that's two GCSEs I'm going to get for a start. English and English lit.'

  'Well, you never had any trouble with maths,' remembered Rebecca. 'So that's three!'

  The DJ announced the last session.

  'Come on, Rebecca!'

  Some fast and furious rock and roll, a moony dance to end with and then balloons were floating down from the ceiling and everyone was hurling streamers over everyone else! It was all finished.

  It was nearly eleven o'clock.

  'We'd better get you back,' said Cliff, putting his anorak round her shoulders. 'Tom will be waiting for us outside.'

  Tom was Cliff's twenty-two-year-old brother, a trainee accountant. Mrs Haynes had written to Rebecca's housemistress explaining that she and her husband were going to the theatre in Exonford on the night of the disco, but that her elder son Tom, a sensible driver who had his own car, would get Rebecca back to school by eleven.

  But when they got outside, mingling with the quickly dispersing crowd, there was no sign of Tom. All the other cars and minibuses soon roared away, leaving them standing there alone.

  It was raining gently and they stood there getting damper and damper, clutching Rebecca's prizes, scanning the school drive anxiously for some sign of the headlights, some sign of a late arrival.

  'Is he always late?' asked Rebecca, feeling anxious. It was well past eleven now! Everybody had gone! The three youths from Dennizon Point were packing all their disco equipment into an old van. Any moment now the caretaker would be locking up and the whole place would be plunged into darkness.

  'No, never,' said Cliff. 'Reliable to a fault, is Tom. Always showing me up. Oh flip, what's happened to him? The car must have conked out on the way here.'

  They heard the sound of the van's engine starting up. The disco was leaving! 'Quick!' said Cliff, giving Rebecca a little push.

  They rushed over to the moving van, Cliff banging on the side.

  'Can you give us a lift?' he begged.

  'Oh, give over. Take a look in the back. You can see how loaded up her is.'

  'We'll give you a bottle of sherry!' exclaimed Rebecca, holding it up and at the same time producing her best smile. 'And we're not very big. Are we, Cliff?'

  The sound of brakes.

  'You're on!'

  It was an excruciatingly uncomfortable ride, bumping along in that little van, doubled up amongst loudspeakers, electrical wiring, coloured spotlights, a strapping west countryman – and Cliff. But Rebecca didn't care! As long as she could get back to school!

  The van took them a good way up Trebizon's school drive and then at Rebecca's request dumped them off by some bushes, near the footpath that cut through the shrubbery to Court House. Them and the two boxes of chocolates and the huge stuffed dog.

  'How you getting back, Cliff?' whispered Rebecca as the van reversed and lurched off.

  'Don't worry! It's less than two miles – I can walk. Look – it's stopped raining and there's some moonlight now. Let's get you in safely. Will you get into trouble?'

  It was a quarter to midnight.

  'We've got a fire escape!' whispered Rebecca. 'I can get in that way!'

  They crept round to the back of Court House. 'I'll help you up to the top with all this stuff!' whispered Cliff. He was holding the dog which they'd christened Bonzo. 'You'll never manage!'

  'Sssh!' smiled Rebecca, as they tiptoed up the iron treads of the exterior staircase, trying hard to stop them from clanking. 'Everyone's in bed.'

  The whole of Court House was in darkness, top floor included. The others must have got back from Garth some time ago! They reached the metal balcony and Cliff shook the dog in Rebecca's face, grinning. 'Woof!' he hissed. Somehow Rebecca managed not to giggle out loud.

  'You've still got a streamer in your hair!' he mouthed. He pulled it out and put it round her neck. 'There! Suits you.'

  'Isn't it lovely up here?' she whispered.

  They stood on the balcony and gazed at the sky. Now the rain clouds had moved away there were quite a few stars out up there.

  She kissed Cliff on the cheek.

  'Thanks for a great evening,' she whispered. 'Ring me tomorrow and let me know if Tom's all right.'

  He put an arm round her shoulders, gave her a hug, then removed his anorak and tiptoed away backwards down the metal steps.

  Rebecca leaned over the balcony and whispered down:

  'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?'

  Cliff shook with laughter at the foot of the steps, looked up and gave her a wave.

  'On the way home, Juliet!'

  She waved back as he tiptoed past the ground-floor windows, rounded the corner of the building and disappeared from sight.

  She lingered on the balcony for another minute or two, just gazing. She held in her arms the stuffed toy and the boxes of chocolates, her hair still damp from the rain. Breathing in the scents of the night, she pulled the narrow ribbon of streamer from her neck, held it between thumb and finger, then pretended she was dancing again, twirling around a few times, fluttering the streamer. At last, with a smile, she dropped it over the edge of the balcony and watched it drift slowly down towards the moonlit garden below.

  Goodbye, disco! Goodbye, lovely evening!

  She felt a glow she hadn't felt for weeks, a pleasant feeling of physical exhaustion.

  The streamer fell to earth and she lifted her head. It was
time to go to bed. One last look across the gardens, across to the dark bulk of Norris House . . .

  She gasped out loud.

  A little tremor of fear ran through her.

  By the line of dark sycamore trees that lay on the far side of Norris House, she glimpsed a figure of Victorian stiffness silhouetted there. A tall and truly magisterial figure wearing something that billowed from the shoulders – a schoolmaster's gown? Even from this distance he seemed to be stern, unbending. Gazing towards Court House with an air of Victorian disapproval.

  Rebecca closed her eyes in disbelief and when she opened them the figure had gone. 'Was I dreaming or what?' she wondered, her heart banging away in her chest. She was too scared to wait and see if the figure would reappear.

  She turned away, slipped in through the glass door and closed it softly behind her. The whole floor was in darkness but she could hear the comforting sounds of breathing along the line of cubicles. It was nice to be back indoors!

  She felt her way carefully along the big table, her own footsteps scaring her as the floorboards creaked. Then round the corner into her cubicle.

  'Is that you, Rebeck?' whispered Tish sleepily from behind her partition wall in the corner there. 'You all right? We pretended to Mrs Barry you were back!'

  'I'm all right!' whispered Rebecca, her throat feeling dry. 'Night, Tish!'

  'Night, Rebecca!'

  Shivering slightly, Rebecca dumped her stuff on the floor, donned her pyjamas in the dark and quickly scrambled into bed.

  NINE

  THE FUR FLIES

  Sheer physical exhaustion overwhelmed Rebecca but her sleep was troubled. Within the hour she was wide awake again. Something had woken her up.

  It was an eerie little sound – a mewing sound.

  She stared at the skylight above.

  A pair of green eyes stared back.

  Then she heard another sound, just the other side of her cubie wall, the door to the fire escape side. A curious swishing sound like the swish of a gown. Then came the sound of creaking floorboards. There was somebody moving about on the other side of the partition!

  She lay rigid, fear crawling all over her. For thirty seconds she lay there, too terrified to move. She wanted to cry out but she couldn't. As she held her breath, gazing up at the skylight, the luminous eyes vanished and there came little creaks and whispering sounds as the cat descended the roof.

  Was it coming in here? Coming to join its master?

  'Don't be such a fool, fool, fool,' she told herself, clenching at her duvet cover. 'It was only a joke. There aren't any ghosts, there aren't.'

  She tried not to think about that figure she'd seen by the distant sycamore trees. She swallowed hard.

  'Who's that moving around?' she called out at last, in a dry little voice. 'That you, Tish?'

  Hurried footsteps. Loudly creaking boards. A scuffling noise.

  'Whoever you are, you're not supposed to be here!' Rebecca cried out bravely. 'I'm going to put the light on!'

  There came a sudden little rush of cold air; the outer door must have been opened. And then –

  An unearthly cry of pain! Followed by –

  YEEEOOOWWWWW!

  A terrible caterwauling.

  Like a flying blur of grey fur, the skeletal cat rose high in the air and came over the top of the partition wall. Coming straight at her with claws outstretched, eyes blazing and teeth bared.

  Rebecca dived under cover as it landed, spitting, on her back.

  And screamed for help.

  Lights went on. Her friends scrambled out of bed. The cat had already disappeared.

  Sue put Rebecca's light on and found her sitting propped against the pillows, duvet clutched round her chin, white-faced and frightened.

  'Had a nightmare, Becky?' asked Sue anxiously, the first to reach her side.

  'No, it was real!' gasped Rebecca. 'It was the grey cat! And earlier I saw this figure, wearing a kind of gown! Over by the trees. And it was in the room just now, I heard it. And the cat! It came straight at me.' She pointed, still trembling slightly, to the top of her partition wall. 'It came at me from up there. Somebody threw it over my cubie wall, threw it at me!'

  'What, the same cat you saw before?' asked Margot.

  'You've just had a bad dream,' said Elf gently. 'I'll get you a hot drink –'

  'Dream my foot!' exclaimed Tish, rounding the corner into Rebecca's quarters. 'The fire escape door's wide open. Someone's been here all right!'

  They made a great fuss of Rebecca while she drank some hot milk, keeping their voices low so as not to wake the rest of the floor.

  Mara was petrified and refused to get out of bed at all.

  'Well, I've managed to get both the bolts across at last,' said Tish, after a while. 'We really must ask Mrs Barry to get them seen to.' The bolts were very stiff, which was why they never bothered to lock the door. If there were ever a fire, it wouldn't he much use if they couldn't get the door to the fire escape open. 'Well, we won't be getting any more visitors tonight, so let's all get back to bed and get some sleep.'

  'This isn't funny any more,' said Sue, tight-lipped.

  'Action Committee in the morning, yes, Rebecca?' said Elf determinedly.

  Rebecca managed a wan smile.

  'You bet,' she said.

  'We'll soon solve the mystery,' vowed Margot.

  Tish said nothing. She looked rather grim. Even the mention of their Action Committee didn't seem to please her very much.

  TEN

  GHOSTBUSTING

  Mara was convinced that the legend must be true, that their floor at Court House was haunted by the ghost of a Victorian schoolmaster and his cat!

  'Sarah Turner laughed at me when I scolded her!' she shuddered, as the Action Committee sat around talking the next morning. 'She said: ''Aaargh! What makes you think we made it up?"'

  'Oh, don't be daft, Mara,' said Tish.

  It was Rebecca who remembered something vital; who hit on a possible explanation – one that could prove that the cat, at least, was certainly no ghost.

  'Are you sure you just didn't have a really bad nightmare, Rebecca?' Elf was asking, as she munched her way through a bowl of muesli in the kitchen.

  'What – and walked in my sleep and opened the fire escape door?' retorted Rebecca. She shook her head and sighed. 'It was a cat all right. I could feel its claws slightly, even through the duvet.'

  'It was probably terrified, poor thing,' said Tish.

  'Not as terrified as me.'

  'Well, I still think it was a ghost cat,' said Mara stubbornly. 'Why has no one ever seen this wild cat, this stray? We asked everybody, didn't we, before? No one has ever seen it! And why should it choose to come to Court House, when it has the whole school to choose from?'

  'Well, a stray like that would only come out at night,' said Elf sensibly. She was taking a tin of baked beans out of the cupboard. 'And maybe it just likes Court House. Maybe somebody's been putting food out for it. So do shut up, Mara, you're giving me the creeps.'

  Rebecca stared at the tin of baked beans in Elf's hand. A picture of another tin flashed quite unexpectedly into her mind.

  'The cylinder!' she gasped.

  'Eh?' asked Tish.

  'That tin you got out of the dustbin. It was an old cat food tin. But Mr and Mrs Barry haven't got a cat!'

  'Lizzy Douglas!' exclaimed Sue. 'Let's go and see her. Quick!'

  They charged all the way downstairs to the ground floor, knocked loudly, then burst into Lizzy Douglas's little single room. The window was closed and Lizzy was having a lie-in, reading in bed. And standing on her bedside locker –

  A licked-out enamel dish.

  'You little wretch!' exclaimed Rebecca, snatching the dish before the startled Lizzy could hide it. 'You've been putting cat food out at night, haven't you? Did you put some out last night?'

  'What of it!' the Third Year girl blurted out, looking guilty. 'And you've no business barging into my room just because you're F
ifth Years!'

  'And you've no business trying to encourage your pet round here,' said Sue crisply. 'You know the rules. We'd all like to have our pets at school. Only then the place would he like a zoo!'

  'Moggy gets hungry,' protested Lizzy, looking tearful. 'I'm not allowed to feed him in the daytime, am I, so I sometimes put a bit of food out for him at night when no one will see him. I don't even see him myself. He always comes when I'm asleep but I know he comes because the plate's always licked clean in the morning.'

  'Except another cat's been eating it!' Rebecca told her. 'Not Moggy at all!'

  'Who says?' she asked indignantly.

  'We do,' replied Rebecca. She was already heading out of the room and the others followed. 'But there's nothing like finding out for sure!'

  They raced across to Norris House and met Mrs Douglas in the hall. She was having a slight argument with a Third Year girl. 'Don't tell me there's no cotton wool in the box, Melissa, because I know there is – you obviously haven't looked properly. And since when have I allowed you to raid the first-aid box for art homework?'

  'We've got to make a collage and I need it for the snow and the school shop's closed because it's Sunday!' protested the Third Year girl.

  'Well, go and have another look then – and make sure you replace it later.' As the girl dashed off, Mrs Douglas turned to Rebecca and co.

  'What an invasion! Can I help you, girls?'

  Eagerly they questioned her.

  'Moggy go out at night?' she laughed. 'Heavens, no. Come and have a look at him –'

  She took them to the family flat and opened the door. There in the hall, in front of a log-burning stove, the large fluffy ginger and white lay snoring peacefully.

  'He's getting old, too fat and lazy to go out. Too well fed, as well. That's where Moggy spends his nights.'

  'But could Moggy have gone out last night?' insisted Rebecca.

  'Never. He was in all night. What is all this about?'

  'It's all right, Mrs Douglas!' Mara said quickly. Her brown eyes were shining with relief. This detective work had been fun! 'It's just that stray cat's been around again. The one we asked you about before. We just wondered if it could have been Moggy.'