The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘Shift the lantern, would you?’ Eli asked. ‘Can’t see here.’

  Taya repositioned our light. ‘Better?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  We were almost done. We were digging trenches across the Brathelthwaite sports field. I got the idea from all the trenches they’d been digging around town for shelters in case the war turned up. Next, we planned to cover up the holes with layers of turf that we’d borrowed from a plant nursery just outside of town. When the morning bell rang, the students would march out here. They’d march into the field. They’d stop. They’d swivel. They’d start their crabapple school chant.

  There’s a line in that chant that goes like this: ‘We will never ever fall’—at that exact moment, they would fall.

  We’d been watching them through a spyglass the last couple of mornings: they always marched in precisely the same formation, same direction, same swivels. Chanted at the same exact time. We’d calculated; measured it out.

  It was genius.

  When they did fall, we’d be sitting up on the school wall watching them crash into the mud. It would be crackerjack. We’d laugh like Sterling Silver Foxes. Then we’d demand their surrender.

  ‘This one’s not deep enough yet,’ Glim said. Her breath made puffs of steam.

  ‘Here.’ I grabbed the hoe. ‘I’ll hack away at this and—’

  ‘And what?’ demanded a voice.

  And there they were.

  Four Boarding School kids, a row of moonlit silhouettes, staring down at us. Gas masks dangled from their hands.

  ‘Ah well.’ Eli set down his spade and dusted off his hands. ‘That’s that then.’ He’s always quick to accept a situation, and get philosophical about it, that Eli.

  ‘Why are you all up so early?’ Taya demanded. She’s not as quick. ‘Go back to bed and forget you saw anything or I’ll break your faces.’

  I was trying to make out which kids it was in the dark. The one who’d said And what? was back in the shadows. I recognised a blond one: it was Hamish, the kid who’d beat me in the sprint race. You can’t miss him because his hair falls like yellow milk over his face. Honey Bee was there too—tall, gawky, braid. And some fancy girl I didn’t recognise who was making sounds like a donkey now: hee haw! And whinny!

  What was she doing? Did she have a problem with her throat?

  I figured it out. She was laughing.

  ‘Is that how you always laugh?’ I enquired. I really wanted to know. It occurred to me that maybe a Sterling Silver Fox had stolen most of her laugh and this was all she had left. That made me feel guilty for asking. On the other hand, as far as I could see, her face was not blue.

  Glim sat on the edge of one of the trenches and thudded her heels against its side. ‘I bet they’re on their way to attack the Orphanage,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll do the talking, thank you.’ The boy in the shadows stepped forward. It was Victor, the kid I’d punched. His voice was like the icy wind, only without the playful element.

  At this point, a loud jangling started up in the distance. Probably townsfolk trying out their warning bell system again. Nobody paid any attention.

  ‘You are all under arrest,’ Victor said, rocking on his heels.

  ‘What are you, a constable?’ Eli asked. ‘Small for it.’

  ‘Citizens’ arrest,’ Victor said. ‘You are trespassing. Damaging school property. Looks like…’

  I missed the last bit as the distant jangle had stepped up its volume.

  ‘What?’ shouted Eli. ‘Say again?’

  Victor kicked at the edge of one of our trenches, loosing a spray of soil. ‘Looks like you were intending for students to fall into these holes!’ he yelled. ‘Conspiracy to inflict grievous bodily harm! Actually, probably intending to bury us alive. Attempted murder.’

  ‘Oh, crabapple and blatherskite,’ I scoffed, while at the same time the twins growled: ‘I’ll grievous bodily—’

  We couldn’t hear the rest—the bells were so loud now my gums were aching. The Hamish kid had hunched down into his jacket and was pressing his hands over his ears. The fancy girl with the whinnying laugh had an expression like she’d just seen someone wearing mismatched clothes.

  ‘YOU WILL SURRENDER,’ Victor roared. ‘ALL FURTHER ATTACKS ON BRATHELTHWAITE WILL CEASE. YOU WILL CALL OFF YOUR SPIES. YOU WILL ADMIT—’

  The bells seemed determined not to let him speak. Even louder. Seemed like they were stabbing my cheekbones.

  ‘SPIES? WHAT SPIES?’ Eli shouted back. ‘YOU CALL OFF YOUR SPIES!’

  ‘WE KNOW YOU HAVE SPIES! THE GIRL AND BOY IN THE STOLEN COATS! YOU WILL SIGN A DOCUMENT ADMITTING THAT BRATHELTHWAITE IS VICTORIOUS AND—’

  That was the point where Honey Bee screamed.

  Honey Bee

  I had glanced behind me, you see. Something made me glance. I think I was checking whether any other orphans might have concealed themselves in the grounds, and were creeping up on us.

  What I saw was a curious, thick, grey fog. It was moving towards us at about knee height. I turned in a slow circle and saw that the fog was approaching from every direction. How strange, I remember thinking, I’ve never seen fog at that height. It’s about the height of—

  That’s when I screamed.

  At the height of Radish Gnomes, is what I thought, and instantly I knew what it was. I’d never seen a Radish Gnome onslaught, only heard about them. Thousands of gnomes pitch their razor-sharp claws all at once. Shadow magic carries the claws vast distances, swarming at dizzying speed.

  It is much like thousands of tiny daggers hurtling through the air.

  They will slice through your calf muscles.

  And here we were, in an open field, the claws tearing towards us. So close now that even with the clanging of the bells, we could already hear the thwap thwap thwap of claws, the wind and force of them, spinning through the air towards us.

  FINLAY

  They spun so fast they were a haze, a blur. Mesmerising.

  Like a git, I stood staring, hypnotised.

  Then a thud hit my back, and I was toppling into the trench I’d just dug. Glim had shoved me. She’s dreamy one minute, mind like lightning the next, that Glim. The lot of us were gawking, thunderstruck, but then Glim shoved me, wrenched Victor’s arm, kicked the back of Hamish’s knees, rolled Honey Bee and basically threw Taya.

  ‘GET DOWN! GET DOWN!’ she shrieked.

  Even so, the blades slashed through Honey Bee’s braid as she fell into the trench, and sliced a layer of skin from Eli’s ankle as he kicked out to give himself momentum.

  We lay there, perfectly still, for seconds, minutes, hours it seemed like, the bells hammering, the air whipping as the claws flew and flew, a ceaseless rush of sharp silver wind, until I thought this must be my new life now, face down in the dirt.

  Honey Bee

  The Whispering Wars had officially begun.

  At breakfast that day, Sir Brathelthwaite gave another dramatic speech.

  ‘My dear students,’ he said, low-voiced. ‘I have news.’

  Everyone shuffled to look at him, excited.

  ‘An army of Radish Gnomes attacked at dawn today!’

  Gasps. I remembered to gasp myself at the last minute, which meant mine came out like an afterthought. Sir Brathelthwaite frowned at me and cleared his throat. ‘The dreadful claws flew through Spindrift’s streets and fields! Eventually, the Spellbinders repelled them!’

  I gasped again, but that was a mistake as nobody else did. Earlier, after the attack, the orphans had run back to town, taking their rolls of turf with them, and we had crept back into the building.

  Nobody guessed we’d been gone. I myself pretended I’d woken early and decided to cut off my braid. It was lost in the attack, you see. There was a bit of a fuss as it’s against the rules to cut your own hair (unless you are Hamish, who is allowed to do as he likes with his hair).

  ‘As the attack took place at dawn,’ Sir Brathelthwaite continued now, ‘very few people were out a
nd about.’

  Very few people did not sound quite right to me. Many Spindrifters arise early—the fishers, the sailmakers, the ship repair crews, Jean-Pierre, the news vendor, Baker Joe.

  But it turned out that Sir Brathelthwaite actually meant that very few people who mattered had been out and about. In fact, fifteen of the townsfolk had been seriously injured. Three were killed.

  ‘The thing about a Radish Gnome attack,’ Sir Brathelthwaite explained, as if giving a fascinating science lesson, ‘is that your instinct tells you to get down—which means you are at exactly the right height for a claw to cut your throat.’

  My instinct had made me do exactly that. I had thrown myself flat onto the grass, but Glim had rolled me into the trench. That is how I had escaped serious injury—that’s why I was even alive. My hand trembled at this realisation, so that my spoon jangled against my teacup.

  Uncle Dominic flicked his horsewhip and I flinched and dropped the spoon.

  ‘From now on, dear children,’ Sir Brathelthwaite said, ‘you must never speak to any child who is not a Brathelthwaite student. Children from the Whispering Kingdom are travelling throughout Kingdoms and Empires, luring good children away.’

  I noticed Victor nodding solemnly. He looked perfectly serene, as if he had forgotten how close we had come to calamity. Hamish, alongside him, also seemed his usual breezy self, although it’s tricky to tell with Hamish, as you only get glimpses of his face behind his hair.

  But Rosalind was hissing, giggling, pinching her friends before leaping away and babbling: ‘Missed me! Missed me! Now you’ve got to kiss me!’ So she was clearly distressed. Then again, she often gets like this if she is tired, or after too many sugary treats.

  ‘The main thing,’ Sir Brathelthwaite lectured, ‘is to get to shelter immediately the warning bells ring! I hear that many locals did not react to the bells this morning! Can you imagine such foolishness?’

  ‘I cannot,’ Victor chuckled. ‘What stupid people!’

  At this, I dropped my teacup. It crashed to the floor, forming a puddle of splintered porcelain.

  Uncle Dominic strode towards me, horsewhip unfurling. Tears sprang to my eyes at his approach.

  But Sir Brathelthwaite shook his head. ‘Honey Bee has always been a nervy thing,’ he said. ‘And she does not have the strength of character of His Grace here—so talk of war must be difficult for her. Try to model yourself on His Grace, Honey Bee.’

  ‘Happy to help in any way,’ Victor offered.

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Sir Brathelthwaite carried on, ‘dear students. Take heart from the fact that our defences are an example to the town.’

  After that, he listed the security features already implemented at our school.

  ‘Trenches have been dug on the sports field!’ he crowed. ‘I inspected them this morning!’

  I blinked—then realised he meant the trenches dug by the orphans; he assumed his own ‘security team’ had prepared them. Funny.

  Bunkers and escape routes would be constructed, he told us next. And on he went, showing off about how our school would be the safest place of all. But I was distracted by the maid crawling around at my feet, mopping up my broken teacup.

  ‘If you are in town,’ Sir Brathelthwaite continued, ‘when an attack is launched, take first place in a shelter. What the Kingdoms and Empires need is you, our brightest and best. We will not … lose … one … single … Brathelthwaite … student!!!’

  Here, we all cheered, just as he intended.

  After breakfast, we did two hours of emergency drills. We practised sending messages using the semaphore flag system and the dot-dash light system. We also had to learn the alarm codes. Three short rings followed by five long meant drop and crawl. Slow, unbroken ringing meant climb under furniture.

  And so on.

  Uncle Dominic ran the drills.

  ‘Again!’ he shouted. ‘Faster!’ Flick went his whip. ‘Too slow! Again!’ Flick! Flick!

  ‘Again!’

  ‘Wrong!’

  Flick.

  ‘Faster!’

  ‘Again!’

  Until we were gasping for breath and dripping in sweat. Smaller children cried.

  Later that day, I went and sat by Carlos’s bed in the infirmary. I told him everything that had happened, but his eyes were closed, his eyelids the colour of violets, his skin the yellowy-white of old cheese.

  Now and then I heard the faint rasp of his breathing so I knew he was alive.

  FINLAY

  The day of the Radish Gnome attack, most of the children were crying.

  Three people were dead. Two fisherfolk and a carpenter down at the docks.

  Plenty more were injured. Baker Joe’s wife, Millie—she’d been crossing the Town Square with a sack of flour. The news vendor’s brother, visiting him from Stantonville, had run outside to help a wounded dog, and got his shin sliced open.

  Out of respect, all the shops and stalls were closed, and flags were lowered. A bunch of rowdy tourists—big blokes who’d come to town especially to ‘party’— complained that they were here for the atmosphere and beer and how dare we close the brewery!

  A couple of local pirates knocked the lot out cold. The constables scolded the pirates, but winked and let it go.

  Meanwhile, some of us Orphanage kids went to the Oakum Woods to pick wildflowers, and to the beach to collect shells. These we used to make a display in the Town Square, to say how sorry we were. Ronnie-the-Artist painted a little portrait of each victim and leaned these up against our display, and townsfolk added their own flowers or trinkets or mugs of soup (and other strange things) and stood crying and shaking their heads.

  There were no classes that day. We would have been too sad to concentrate anyway, but Anita had to help at Spindrift Hospital. As well as the people seriously injured, plenty had cuts that needed stitching.

  Lili-Daisy let us read books or do crafts, as well as our usual chores. In the afternoon, she gave us cocoa and cinnamon toast. Tough times were coming, she said, and every one of us, even the tiniest, would have to help.

  For a start, she said, we should all watch out for kids we didn’t recognise. These could be Whispering children here to steal more of our children. Reporting these children to the authorities would be a big help.

  Later, after most of the children had fallen asleep, Lili-Daisy called Glim, the twins and me out into the corridor. Her face was even more sorrowful.

  ‘I know you four snuck out before dawn this morning,’ she said, low-voiced.

  We were pretty shocked. I swear we’d heard her snoring from her bedroom when we left.

  ‘It was one of the worst times of my life,’ she continued, ‘to be listening to a Radish Gnome attack outside, without a clue where you lot were. Fearing dreadfully that you were out in the open. I never want that experience again. Do you understand?’

  It’s not often that Lili-Daisy gets properly angry, but when she does, the veins around her temples stand up, and her mouth kind of pouts itself out, like a wolf’s mouth.

  ‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.

  We nodded. Too scared to speak.

  ‘This battle you’ve got going with the Boarding School,’ she said next, still angry—and now we were properly shocked. She knew about that too? Usually, she hasn’t got the faintest idea what we’re up to. ‘I took no notice, thinking it was harmless fun. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I may be dim as the deepest ocean most of the time, but you keep turning up covered in flour, or with pink clothes. And you’re always in the corner having secret meetings. I can add two and two, you know. It’s—’

  ‘Four,’ Eli told her.

  She thwacked him on the side of the head. ‘It’s got to stop is what I was going to say. To be honest, I let it go this long because I also wanted to throttle that Boarding School. It was their cheating at the Tournament—yes, I call it cheating, it’s the spirit of the thing that makes it cheating—that distracted eve
ryone so that Jaskafar got taken. So I understood. But now you’re just caught up in silly vengefulness. That’s the mentality of war. I am disappointed in you. Gravely disappointed. I mean, why not take some action to help your town with this war?! Show that you can work with your enemy towards a common good! That’s what I’d expect of you. Do you understand?’

  Once again, we nodded, staring at her. Eli was twisting his mouth around. Taya’s lower lip trembled. Glim blinked very fast.

  None of us cry much, most definitely not the twins, and here we all were with our toes on the cliff-edge of crying.

  ‘Now,’ Lili-Daisy said, still angry. ‘I am going to hug you all, because I promised myself I’d hug you tighter than a constrictor knot if you made it back—after I’d given you a giant piece of my mind, of course.’

  ‘Have you got that much mind to spare?’ I checked, but it was not the time for jokes. She grabbed hold of us in one of those clamping hugs that are part loving and part I’m-so-angry-I-could-crush-the-air-out-of-your-lungs. I felt her tears falling past my ears. But then she pulled back, wiped her face, and demanded to know why we weren’t in bed.

  I’d already felt pretty miserable about the dead and injured people in my town—but now? Knowing we’d disappointed Lili-Daisy? I mean, after we’d already let her down by not watching Jaskafar at the Tournament—well, now I felt a Kingdom’s time worse.

  Honey Bee

  That night I dreamed about razor blades spinning through the air, muddy trenches, black flags, pools of blood, buckets, sand hills, sea clams, violins, ice-cold wind and Uncle Dominic shouting:

  You

  Will

  Not

  Cut

  Your

  Hair

  Without

  PERMISSION!

  I dreamed of broken teacups, Sir Brathelthwaite flinging knives across the Dining Hall, children in coats through carriage windows, and Uncle Dominic barking:

  Again!

  AGAIN!