Ribblestrop

by Andy Mulligan

  Millie left the laboratory quietly.

  A hundred and thirty-something steps: she wasn’t sure if she could get down them. She wasn’t sure she could remember where she’d rolled her sleeping bag or where the landing off the boys’ dormitory might be. She would sleep anywhere. All she wanted was a corner and to have no more strange experiences. She touched her throbbing lip and stumbled.

  “Millie,” said a voice. She leaned against the wall, feeling a little faint. The headmaster was above her. He spoke softly: “You’re not well, are you?”

  “What?”

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “No.”

  “My dear, we’re working you too hard, I could see how tired you were. And you haven’t seen the girls’ boarding house. All this excitement, the most basic things sometimes get forgotten, I am so sorry. Where did we put you last night?”

  “It’s fine. I was fine.”

  “You’re in a whirl, aren’t you? And you have been neglected. I’ll show you the way and you can sleep for as long as you like. We retrieved your trunk, by the way, so it’s all unpacked. You’ve pretty much got your own facilities, until more girls come, of course.”

  Millie blinked through her fatigue: “Are there going to be more girls?”

  “You won’t be alone for long, that’s for sure.” The headmaster looked at his watch. “I’ve got people signing up all the time, and the deputy head is very keen to develop the girls’ side of things. Oh, drat: we’re going to cancel morning assembly, aren’t we? I think we all need a bit of rest and relaxation. Nearly there, keep going.”

  “How many girls will there be?”

  “Hard to say. The dormitory can’t cope with too many, but that being said, expanding it is top of the agenda. Careful, there: mind the step.”

  The headmaster took Millie gently by the arm and led her out of the tower. They walked slowly, following the outer wall of the mansion. “Millie, you know that policeman chap, Inspector Cuthbertson? He’s our local man. He asked me one or two questions about you and I was a bit thrown.”

  Millie prepared herself.

  “Can I ask you—were you on a train at any point, coming down to school?”

  “No.”

  “You weren’t? And yet your luggage, and Ruskin’s and Sam’s—it all ended up in Penzance. Unclaimed, at the station.”

  “Yes, we put it on the train in London. Then we met Sanchez and his father offered to fly us in the helicopter.”

  “Right.”

  The headmaster was trying to frame his next question delicately. Millie was thinking hard and fast. “You didn’t go shopping in Reading, did you? About lunchtime?”

  “I haven’t any money. No.”

  “Actually a credit card was used. That’s all part of the mystery, you see. Our new deputy headmistress, Miss Hazlitt . . . Funny story in a way. She was on the train, the same one as your luggage. And she had her purse stolen. She was actually injured quite badly, not when she lost her purse, but later, when the . . . when the train did an emergency stop because there were three children on the tracks. Or something like that, I have to confess I got quite confused. Anyway, a number of witnesses say that the children were wearing black-and-gold blazers, rather like . . . ours.”

  Millie went to speak, but the headmaster carried on quickly. “Now I know that many schools have a similar uniform to ours. So no conclusions will be jumped to.”

  “Is she all right?” said Millie.

  “Still in London. Health comes first, doesn’t it, and she’s not the most robust . . . No: the train was delayed and her wrist was sprained. So she, er . . . checked into a rather expensive hotel. But she hopes to be down tomorrow.”

  Millie said nothing. “Bit of an all-rounder, this Miss Hazlitt. She’s been asked to take us in hand, trying to sort out some of our problems.”

  “Where am I sleeping?” said Millie.

  “Nearly there. So. Ha. You don’t have a credit card?”

  “I’m thirteen.”

  “Yes indeed.”

  “I’m really tired.”

  The headmaster tried again. “Millie,” he said, as gently as he could. “What exactly did you see in the cellars? Will you tell me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “We should have sealed them last term. I was looking at the map last night and they are an absolute maze: the sooner we have that stairway bricked up the better. I was told they’d all been closed, after the suicide, but there was a boy last term who found a way down.”

  “What suicide? Who?”

  “Lord Vyner. Cyril Vyner, the late husband of our landlady. You met her, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, she threw crockery at us.”

  “Her husband killed himself down there, years ago. She refuses to believe it, thinks he was murdered. Caspar’s grandfather. He did a lot of work for the government in the Second World War, some kind of experimental science. They do say there’s a tunnel that takes you all the way to London, though again, it should have been bricked up by now.”

  “Why did he commit suicide?”

  The headmaster paused. “Nobody knows. Life just got too much, maybe? They say the experiments were getting more and more bizarre—top secret, he and his partner virtually lived down there. He cooked for himself, hardly saw a soul.” The headmaster had stopped and was looking hard into her eyes. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “You’re looking anxious, dear.”

  “I’m tired. I suppose . . . The idea of suicide . . .”

  “People do say he’s sometimes seen. On the lawns. Coming down the stairs. Always carrying his supper on a silver tray—he was a very fine cook, apparently. I was just wondering if maybe you had seen something? Something that had upset you.”

  “No.”

  “We had a little boy last term, by the name of Miles. He saw the ghost. Do you believe that?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a rationalist. So am I.”

  “Was Miles the boy who ran away?”

  “No. Tomaz was the boy who ran away. Miles was a casualty of a different kind. He had to leave us—against my wishes, but that was one of the conditions of staying open, I’m afraid. He was very upset when Tomaz left, and . . . he did something very foolish.” They stood in silence for a moment. Then the headmaster said, softly: “I’ve tried to be honest with you, Millie.”

  “Yes.”

  “What I also wanted to say is that this school needs people like you. We could all learn a lot from you, and Ribblestrop will be a better place with you in it. Do you understand me? I want you to stay here. So if there’s anything on your mind, let me help. I know what you did at your last school, of course I do. We can all do destructive things, they’re very easy. It’s building things that’s hard.”

  Millie met the gaze of the headmaster, trying to work out if he was as daft as she had first thought. She had the alarming notion that he was playing a rather clever game.

  “I really am tired,” she said. “Could we talk in the morning?”

  “Yes. Absolutely . . . I’m babbling on, and you need some sleep, of course you do. Just round here, we’re very nearly there . . .”

  They set off, turning into a small yard. They crossed it and came to an archway. Broken stone littered their path and the smell of burnt wood was strong.

  “Follow your nose, eh? It’s round the back of what was the library, through here. Now, if you do get lost, for goodness’ sake don’t start going down any staircases. Here we are . . .”

  “Where?”

  “Just here.”

  There was no dormitory. There was only a small shed, the type her grandad had kept spades and pitchforks in on his seedy little allotment. The headmaster opened the door.

  “Don’t see it as it is. See it as it will be.”

  “It’s a shed.”

  “Your very own.”

  Among the spades and pitchforks, beside a large lawnmower, and u
nder a shelf full of paint pots stood a small bed. It was fully made up with sheets and duvet. A familiar trunk with the words Millie Roads stood at the foot.

  “There’s an outside tap round the corner,” said the headmaster. “I put your toothbrush in a glass, just next to it. And your bags, from Selfridges—I put them in the corner. Everything okay?”

  “Yes,” said Millie.

  “I know it’s a bit Spartan . . .”

  “No . . .”

  “Not too primitive?”

  “No.”

  She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  “Look up, eh? See the stars.”

  “Yes. Sir . . .”

  The headmaster waited, but Millie said nothing.

  “What is it?”

  Just for a moment, an inexplicable moment, Millie wanted to confide in him. It was like a chink in her armor, she felt the need to pour everything out about what she had seen, what she feared, what she wanted, and why she couldn’t work out if she should stay or go. It unnerved her, almost as if she had been hypnotized for a second. He had very piercing eyes and the temptation to talk into them was almost overwhelming.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  The headmaster nodded.

  “Good night,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  This hectic speed of life could not, of course, be sustained. The headmaster realized it and allowed the children two full days off timetable. They wandered here and there until they became familiar with the layout of the school. There were piles of rubble in the corridors, as well as in the courtyard. There were doorless rooms with sagging ceilings; there were holes in the floor and queer staircases that led to chained gates and bricked-up archways. There were whole corridors barricaded with the word Private and No Children—some of them scrawled rather frantically as if the writers were frightened.

  There was a crumbling chapel set in an abandoned graveyard. Sam saw a monk and gave chase. Alas, the old man fled and disappeared before the boy could say hello.

  There were wild patches full of nettles and thorns and sudden lawns that sloped off to the woods by the lake. The children explored the lake, of course. None of them had trunks, so they had to swim in their shorts.

  It was smooth and beautiful, deep and dangerous, black and silver—huge, it seemed, but in fact you could walk all the way round it in an evening. The Greek temple at the end—so promising at a distance—was a disappointment. The plaster was crumbling and green algae was reclaiming it. It tilted into the water and was full of old rubbish from tramps or tourists. There was even fire damage up one wall. But if you sat inside it and looked between the pillars, you got the best view of the Neptune statue. Neptune was pearl white, and he gleamed in the water that ran down his enormous shoulders, chest, and thighs. He was sprawled out, up to his knees in water, majestic and lazy, his trident high. Just beyond him, two little humpback bridges took you onto a small island. On the island was a plinth, and rising up from that was a column. A bronze Lord Vyner stood on the top, staring at the house, hand on hip: the Vyner monument.

  Caspar had declared that his family went all the way back to 1066. He told the children that it was his ancestor who had shot King Harold in the eye at the Battle of Hastings, and as a result William the Conqueror had given half of England to the Vyner family. Millie disputed this. She looked hard at the statue on the column and decided that it was far too camp to be heroic.

  But as the children explored, Millie kept her eye out for an air vent. She recalled the chimneylike shaft that had funneled oxygen to her underground labyrinth, she remembered the glimmer of daylight she’d seen—and knew it had to be in the grounds somewhere. Of course, her journey through that maze was beginning to seem as bizarre as the thought of seventeen children lost up a railway tunnel. The sun was out and the leaves were turning coppery gold. Freezers and ghosts seemed more and more ridiculous; no crockery dropped from high battlements, so . . . the school seemed peaceful and rather beautiful.

  Millie’s real complaint—and it was a major distraction—was the sore on her lip.

  Everyone had noticed it twenty-four hours after her adventure, and several people pointed it out. She had to admit that, days later, it was not healing. She didn’t want anyone to know, but the one sore had been joined by others. She used the boys’ showers for bathing, having made a large cardboard sign that read: Girl Warning—Stay Clear. She would hang this on the bathroom door and know she had her privacy.

  But taking off her clothes had become a frightening experience.

  She’d had reasonable skin all her life. Now, however, it was blotchy and unpleasant. Her neck, her shoulders, her ankles, and, most horribly, her face—all were affected. A pimple would appear and then break into a sore. No amount of cream or subtle makeup hid them, and she had to work hard not to scratch. One math lesson Lord Caspar announced she had leprosy and gave her a small bell to ring. Once again, physical violence was prevented by the intervention of Sanchez.

  Otherwise, a sort of normality took hold.

  The mapping project continued, and pictures and charts spread along the main corridor. Captain Routon started fitness classes in the morning, and everyone went for long runs around the grounds. Ruskin’s model roof—the one he’d shown Sam on the train—won first prize in the model roof competition. There were no other entries, since Sanchez had forgotten all about it and Henry had never understood the requirements. Ruskin was awarded a certificate and a handmade rosette (in black and gold). The model was put on display in the dining hall and used by one and all to work out timber sizes and angles. A planning application was submitted and, if all went well, construction would begin toward the end of the term.

  The next Monday, the first science lesson took place.

  The plumbing was complete and most of the equipment was stowed. Professor Worthington gave a lecture on safety in the laboratory, which seemed very ordinary and dull. The homework involved sketching things like goggles and gloves, but you were allowed to draw pictures of what might happen to people if they didn’t wear them. Some children spent hours on this, filling their margins with gory illustrations.

  But it was Captain Routon’s special announcement that caused most excitement. It was the end of the third week. Sam would never forget the moment. His bandages were off, and he was now totally bald. He had been working on a new letter to his parents, as he tried to write one a day, and had just completed the word “Dear” when the captain appeared with a tray full of doughnuts. It was early evening.

  “Big day coming up,” he said, with exaggerated calmness.

  “Why?” said Millie.

  “Haven’t you heard? Oh, I thought he’d break the news himself.”

  “What news?” said Sam.

  “What news? We’ve got a match.”

  “What sort of match?” said Ruskin. “What do you mean?”

  “A soccer match!” said the captain.

  Sam nearly fell off his chair. “I was only saying!” he cried. “Just last week, I was saying! I was writing! I said to my dad . . .”

  “It’s all coming together,” continued Captain Routon. “This headmaster, I don’t know how he does it. A fixture: just like that. Against a cracking good team, too.”

  Sanchez said, “But how? We’ve never played soccer, so I don’t understand how we can get a side together so soon.”

  “The pressure’s on, boys,” said Captain Routon. “We need a side for next month, so the pressure is on. We’re up against the high school—home game—to be followed by a return fixture at their place. I’m in charge of training. It’s a tough side, but I think the home advantage is very, very important.”

  “Hang on,” said Millie. “Hang on a second. How can we play another school here? We don’t have a team. We don’t even have a pitch.”

  “There was a tennis court,” said Ruskin. “They used it in the old days. But the donkeys live on it now.”

  “Do we have a ball?” said Millie. Captain Routon was stud
ying some paperwork. “Do we have goalposts? Kit, boots . . . corner flags? White lines marking out the penalty area? How do we get any of this together for next month?”

  “We work hard,” said Sanchez. “And by the way, you can play soccer without a kit and without a flag. In fact, where I come from you play without a ball.”

  Millie snorted.

  “I am serious, listen. On the beach where I come from, the boys play with a plastic bottle and you see magic. There’s a friend of mine, his name’s Imagio. If he was here, they’d be making him professional, and he plays with a tin can, Millie—so you don’t know everything.”

  Millie said: “What about your own skills?”

  Sanchez stared at her. Ruskin said quietly, “Millie . . . didn’t I mention what happened?”

  “With a limp like yours,” said Millie, “I would have thought your soccer days are over. You can cut up the halftime oranges if you want.”

  “I can play.”

  “Well, that’s heroic, isn’t it? The problem is I have to think about the team. We must play to our strengths—”

  “Listen, Millie—!”

  “We’ll try you out as soon as we can! I’m just saying, don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I can play!” shouted Sanchez. He was standing and his fists were clenched. He was completely red in the face.

  “You seem upset,” said Millie. “Are you losing your cool?”

  “He’s a jolly good goalie,” said Ruskin. “Nobody gets past Sanchez.”

  “What I’m worried about is the ball,” said Sam, quickly. “I mean, do we have one? It would be nice to have as much training as possible. I’m still seeing things a bit fuzzy, especially in the sun. But I did play for my last school.”

  Captain Routon looked up. “I suggested to the headmaster that we should cancel all these lessons for a while and get cracking. Once again, you see, it’s about working together and putting the group shoulder to the wheel. We did the same in Algeria when I was prisoner of war: the lads wanted a soccer pitch. We said to the commandant, if we knock down the washroom and rebuild it there, we’d have the space. He said, ‘You’ve got till midnight.’ You’ve never seen so many men work together so fast, so hard. No tools, of course—just our bare hands, shifting stone, digging the foundation. We did it.”