The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘I’m ever so sorry to be in the teachers’ wing,’ I croaked. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Your friend is ill,’ the woman declared. Her voice was big and sure. ‘You are taking her to the infirmary?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ she said, and she swept Rosalind into her arms and set off down the hall.

  I hurried after her. ‘I think she has this influenza that’s going around,’ I babbled. ‘I hope you don’t—’

  Catch it, I was going to say, but the woman sang over her shoulder, ‘Don’t worry about me! Constitution of a horse! Never catch a thing!’

  She swung through the doors at the end of the corridor, kicked open the entry to the infirmary and deposited Rosalind in the nearest empty bed. Five other beds were already taken by coughing, tossing, turning children. Down the end of the room, I saw the curtain that hid Carlos from me. He had been ‘quarantined’, the nurse had told me, and I was not allowed to visit anymore.

  ‘Another one for you!’ the woman called, and the school nurse straightened, taking a thermometer from a child’s mouth.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, rather bitterly.

  We stepped out of the infirmary.

  ‘Other than a ball,’ the woman said to me.

  I stared up at her. We had paused at the back entrance to the teachers’ wing.

  Other than a ball.

  Was this code? Was she testing me to see if I could be a codebreaker?

  The woman grinned. ‘A moment ago, I told you that I never catch a thing,’ she explained. ‘Just wanted to clarify that I can catch balls. My hand–eye coordination is quite good. Love a good game of catch.’

  ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed. ‘Of course! Well, me too! Although athletics are more my thing. But I do like basketball. I’m tall, you see, which helps—I mean, tall for my age. Obviously. Not tall compared to you. Not that you are too tall—’

  I was babbling again. Frightened of the Top Secret Military Division, and the fact that I was disturbing it. The woman, meanwhile, was staring at me fiercely, as if trying to figure out how anyone could be so very foolish.

  ‘May I know your name, child?’ she asked.

  I blinked. ‘Honey Bee.’

  ‘Honey Bee!’ She beamed, and then became serious again. ‘Honey Bee, if you ever need to speak to me, knock on any of the doors in here and ask for Carabella. In the meantime, will you do something for me?’

  I stared.

  ‘Around nine o’clock tonight,’ she continued, ‘when the moon is full and high in the sky?’

  I nodded, hardly breathing. Was I to run a secret errand? Perhaps become a spy? Help win the war?

  The woman’s head turned quickly from side to side, as she checked nobody was nearby. Then she lowered her voice and hissed, ‘Look at your toenails!’

  And she strode back into the teachers’ wing.

  I decided she was mad.

  I knew that codebreakers were intelligent and I also knew that intelligent people can be a touch unhinged. I think their brains do so much jumping about solving puzzles. When there’s no puzzle to solve, they don’t know where to jump. This woman had jumped onto my toenails. (In a sense.)

  Still. I did have a quick look. Honestly, who wouldn’t?

  At nine o’clock that night, I was in the green common room reading a novel. Ordinarily, I’d have been asleep by nine, but the dormitories were being disinfected and we had all been sent to the common rooms in our dressing gowns. A few other students were also reading, some were chatting, and some, including Victor, were playing board games. Hamish was on the same couch as me, trying to balance a stack of cushions on his palm. That is the kind of game Hamish likes to play. The stack kept toppling and he kept exclaiming and starting again.

  Moonlight traced the edges of the blackout curtains.

  Well, I thought, it’s nine o’clock, and the moon is full and high in the sky! Let’s do this thing!

  I pushed off my slippers. There were my bare feet. I studied my toenails.

  Perfectly ordinary toenails.

  But then, as I watched, they turned blue.

  Every single one. The colour of a summer sky.

  I caught a faint sound and turned. Hamish, beside me, had stopped juggling cushions and was staring at my feet.

  ‘Do us a favour,’ said a voice—and both Hamish and I looked up sharply. It was Victor. He had swivelled in his seat at his chess game. ‘Do us a favour, Hamish, and fetch some cinnamon toast from the kitchen, would you?’

  Hamish leapt up from the couch. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Brilliant idea, Victor! I’ll be right on it.’ As he spoke, he dropped a tumble of cushions to the floor and, with his left foot, kicked them over my toes.

  A little later, when I tipped the cushions away, my toenails were their regular colour again.

  FINLAY

  And then what happened?!

  You can’t end it there, Honey Bee.

  DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BLUE TOENAILS MEAN, YOU DAFT GIT??!

  WHY HAVE YOU NOT TOLD ME THIS BEFORE??

  Did you tell your codebreaker friend?

  Honey Bee

  Oh.

  Yes, well, early the next morning I did sneak into the teachers’ wing and knocked on a door. I thought it might interest the big woman to know that my toenails had turned blue. A friendly man appeared, coffee mug in hand, and I asked if I might speak to Carabella, please.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said, ‘but she’s been called away on an urgent mission.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I replied, turning away and almost colliding with Darby from the kitchen, who was carrying a tray of caramel tarts.

  ‘With the compliments of Sir Brathelthwaite,’ Darby said. ‘Treats for the Codebreakers’ morning tea.’

  The man looked quite crestfallen and said, ‘Oh blow, I love caramel tarts but we’re under strict instructions not to accept gifts of any kind. Will you tell Sir Brathelthwaite we appreciate the thought and respectfully decline?’

  Darby nodded politely, and swung about, while I myself hurried off to our volunteer duty.

  On this Tuesday, Mayor Franny sent us to the Beach with the Yellow Sand for our volunteer work, instructing us to half-fill hessian bags with sand. Apparently, the soldiers were building sandbag walls around our town.

  We each carried bags and spades. As soon as we arrived at the boardwalk, Alejandro dropped his spade with a clatter, tore off his shoes and socks, and ran down the sand to the water. The beach was empty—tourists had stopped coming, of course, what with the war and the hotels being full of soldiers—and the others laughed at him, then set to work shovelling sand. But Bronte and I paused to watch Alejandro.

  He had rolled up his trousers and was splashing about in ankle-deep water, the sunlight shining on his dark hair.

  ‘He grew up on a pirate ship,’ Bronte explained, ‘so he misses the smell of seaweed and salt, the sound of sails in the wind, the shouts of pirates, the swell of the sea.’

  How poetic she was!

  ‘He’s always wanting to talk about wind directions and the mechanics of firing a cannon,’ she added, ‘which I find completely insufferable.’

  Oh, less poetic.

  But then Bronte lowered her voice: ‘He’s confused, you see, because the sea runs in his veins and in some ways he loved the pirates who raised him—but he didn’t know what wicked things pirates do when he was a child, and that shames him, and he’s afraid of his memories because they were cruel to him.’

  Alejandro had crouched down and was trailing his hands through the water.

  ‘To make matters more complicated,’ Bronte concluded, ‘he now knows he had parents all along, who have been sad without him.’

  I nodded, seeing how bewildering all this must be for Alejandro.

  ‘And yet you are supposed to set aside the search for his parents and help us back onto the path to our destinies!’ I said. ‘What a nuisance for you!’

  Bronte gave a sudden smile, and shrugged
.

  ‘Horizon still looks straight enough to me,’ she said, gazing out to sea. ‘Maybe the genie was wrong? Or maybe you’re on the right track?’ She raised her hand and held it level, testing it against the horizon. I did the same beside her. But it’s hard to keep your hand perfectly straight.

  We giggled at ourselves and looked back at Alejandro, who had stripped down to his underclothes and was diving into the waves!

  I blushed, but to my surprise, Bronte went pelting down the sand, stripped down to her shift, and joined him.

  So I took a hessian sack and set to work filling it with sand. As I shovelled, I felt a small gust of loneliness blowing through my chest. Bronte and Alejandro seemed such great friends! It made me long for my friend Carlos to be well again. Imagine if he was working alongside me now, calling jokes to the others, perhaps running to swim himself! In fact, in some faint way, Alejandro reminded me of Carlos.

  But I did not dwell on loneliness. I shovelled my heart out.

  After a while, clouds darkened the sky and it began to rain. Hamish called to everyone, ‘Hey ho, what say we pop into the Brathelthwaite Beach Hut for our morning tea?’

  We all crowded inside and gathered around the little table, shaking rain droplets away. As usual, Hamish began setting out the contents of our picnic basket.

  Also as usual, there was squabbling between us boarders and the orphans. At least Rosalind was absent today, so the snide comments were largely from Victor.

  Eventually, Bronte asked us all to please shut it as we were giving her a headache. The conversation turned back to how to rescue children from the Whispering Kingdom, which led to the usual sighing about the impossibility of getting in.

  Then a voice spoke up.

  It was the girl twin, Taya. ‘Whisperers know how to get into the Whispering Kingdom,’ she said.

  The boy twin punched his sister’s arm. I’ve noticed that he doesn’t like it when people say obvious things.

  ‘What if we get a Whisperer to take us there,’ Taya explained, rubbing her arm.

  Now her brother’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Let them steal us, you mean?’

  ‘We’re kids, aren’t we?’ Taya shrugged. ‘They take kids.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Eli declared.

  We stared at the twins in wonder, and that’s when the warning bells began to ring.

  FINLAY

  CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.

  CL-CL-CLANKETY-CLANG-CLANG.

  CLANG-GLANG-CLANG.

  CL-CL-CLANKETY-CLANG-CLANG.

  That’s how the warning bells sounded. More or less.

  ‘Witches,’ said the twins right away. I was still trying to figure out the warning-bell code, but the twins remember everything.

  Gasp! That was Glim. She’d gone to the window and her forehead was pressed to the glass. I joined her there. Everyone did. It was a right crush. I was flattened like a slug beneath a cartwheel.

  A coven of Witches was marching along the beach through the rain.

  Every Witch held a broom high in the left hand, while making the loop, loop, up-and-over movements of broomstick crochet with the right.

  ‘Empire of Witchcraft,’ somebody muttered.

  ‘No time to get to a shelter,’ somebody else put in.

  ‘They’re doing broomstick crochet!’ a third exclaimed.

  I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with Witches. They’re a wicked lot. Asthma is common, so they’re always hacking and coughing. They don’t wear black hats, by the way: that’s a rumour that started because they sort of wear their cats like scarves, slung around their necks. Black cat sounds a lot like black hat if you say it fast. Try it.

  They also usually wear pale brown colours, beads around their necks, socks with sandals. They look pretty harmless. And Witches are pretty harmless—if they’re on their own, and if you don’t catch their eye.

  But when they’re marching in covens, doing broomstick crochet?

  You’re in trouble.

  Because broomstick crochet is how they cast their Shadow Magic.

  ‘Stay down,’ someone hissed.

  We all crouched low and slunk away from the window. The bells had stopped ringing and we could hear our own nervous breathing.

  Outside, there was the eerie scuffing of hundreds of Witches marching. Their hands moved fast and smooth and in perfect synchronicity.

  Loop, loop, up and over;

  loop, loop, up and over;

  loop, loop, up and over.

  I had no clue what spell they were casting. Everything outside seemed normal. I mean, the beach was full of marching, crocheting Witches. That wasn’t normal. But the sky was low with pale grey clouds. The ocean was placid. Moored boats bobbed around, making quiet plash sounds.

  Not knowing what the spell was made things even scarier.

  The coven moved slowly but steadily in the direction of our hut. Now and then, a cat yowled.

  ‘Should we close the curtains?’ Hamish shout-whispered.

  I’d been thinking the same thing. We didn’t want the Witches looking in and seeing us, but then again we also didn’t want—

  ‘No, you daft git,’ Victor murmured. ‘The movement will attract their attention.’

  Daft gift seemed harsh. ‘Hang on,’ I began.

  ‘Everyone stay perfectly quiet,’ Glim whispered.

  ‘Starting with you, Glim,’ Victor sneered. ‘You’re making more noise telling us to be quiet than we already were.’

  Again, this was harsh. Glim’s voice is so soft it’s like a breeze.

  ‘Okay, take it easy, everyone,’ I said, trying to take charge.

  ‘You take it easy,’ Victor spat.

  There was a deep sigh. I turned around and the future kids were sitting side by side on the couch, watching us.

  I felt a bit testy with them, to be honest. It was like they’d decided their job was to be the grown-ups and make us feel daft for arguing. They might have been from the future, but they were still practically the same age as us. No need to act superior.

  ‘What, so nobody ever argues where you’re from?’ Honey Bee demanded. She must have been feeling the same way.

  But we didn’t get to hear if people argued in the future, because Bronte and Alejandro had both turned white and they were pointing straight at the window.

  A line of Witches stared in at us, faces expressionless.

  Loop, loop, up and over, went their hands.

  Honey Bee

  If you have ever been pushed down the stairs and landed with a thump on your stomach so that the air bursts out of you, leaving none to breathe, then you will know how I felt as I looked at the Witches.

  Rows of Witches extending back as far as I could see along the beach, and the front row was as close to me as the length of my arm.

  Through the glass, I could see the pale grey of one man’s eyebrows, the mole on another man’s cheek. A woman’s chapped lips. Their eyes stared steadily into mine. But their hands carried on, working their broomstick crochet, winding around and around, up and over the handle of the broomstick, around and around, up and over.

  What spell are they casting? What spell? I wanted to scream the question. The air in the hut seemed to froth with the question.

  But we all stayed perfectly silent, staring back out.

  And then, as one, the Witches turned away. Slowly, they marched again, scuffing sand along. Their faces remained blank, but I caught a slight twitch in one woman’s mouth, a tiny smile, a smirk.

  Their broomsticks were still held aloft, and their hands still moved in the same quick, smooth motions but off they went, along the beach, away from us.

  We rushed to the opposite window to watch. The coven carried on without pausing, climbed onto the boardwalk and disappeared around the coastal curve.

  ‘They’ve gone?’ Hamish breathed. ‘Perhaps they didn’t cast a spell at all? I mean, nothing is happening, is it? Perhaps it was just a sort of show!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I agreed, but I was
thinking of that Witch’s smirk.

  For a long moment, we were silent, looking back and forth between windows, watching the empty beach.

  And then, before our eyes, the spell took effect.

  FINLAY

  Must have been some wicked Shadow Magic they’d cast, those Witches.

  I’ve seen Witches’ spells before. They favour embarrassment spells, such as making people run into the streets in their pyjamas while flapping their arms like frightened geese. Or nasty spells like making trees fall across paths so they snap people’s legs. But this was a different level.

  The sand was shifting. In every direction along the beach, all the way down to the water, it was collapsing in on itself.

  As we watched, giant dips and craters formed, as if dug by huge, invisible spades. Sand was flung up out of these holes and formed hillocks that collapsed into holes themselves. The beach roiled and turned, like the ocean in a storm.

  It made me seasick to watch. I reached a hand back to steady myself on the table. Honey Bee was tilting sideways too, and Glim had her hands out to keep herself balanced.

  Strange, I thought, how we’re all being so affected just watching—

  My eyes caught Alejandro’s. He was frowning to himself, and right at the same time, we understood.

  ‘GET OUT!’ we shouted, in unison. ‘WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!’

  Honey Bee

  The Beach Hut was sinking.

  We flew to the door all at once, everyone yelling, but there were too many of us. The doorway was jammed. I turned back, wrenched open a window and made to climb out—but where was the beach? A chasm was forming directly beneath the window, and forming so fast that the hut was tilting into it, capsizing. I was flung against the window frame, and clung to it, desperate not to fall out.

  Glim skidded down the slanting floor and helped prise me away. Between us, we managed to clamber up to the open door and throw ourselves outside.

  We landed on a firm patch of sand just as the hut slid into the gaping hole.