‘Oh,’ Aures looked confused. ‘I thought I heard you talking about the Boatman. That’s strange,’ he motioned to his enormous ears, ‘these things don’t usually let me down. I generally hear absolutely everything pristinely clearly. We Panotti have excellent hearing, you know.’
Seth rolled his eyes again, ‘Yeah, we erm... kinda figured you did.’
Aures chuckled, ‘Yes, I suppose you did. Anyway I was going to say that if you did want to get into school at the weekend, it’s quite straight forward to do so really. I’ve done it lots of times.’
‘Really?’ Tamera asked trying to mask her eagerness, ‘How?’
‘Same way as we do the rest of the week – the Boatman takes you.’
‘But I thought the Boatman only operates a limited service on special occasions. It isn’t every weekend that he works, is it?’
‘Yes he does. Granted he doesn’t operate as regularly as he does during the week, only three trips back and forth actually. The first is early in the morning at eight o’clock, then again at midday and finally at seven o’clock. It’s mainly for students who board at the school and want to spend some time in Artisan Plaza, but sometimes he moors the boat and heads to the market himself. A few times I’ve left my books at school and had to go back for them. Bit of a pain really ‘cause it means you’re stuck at the school for a good few hours in between trips. My mum says it serves me right for forgetting my books in the first place.’
‘When did that start up, it’s not always been that way has it?’
‘It’s always been that way for as long as I can remember – even back when we were in Nursery class,’ Aures informed her.
‘Well, well, well,’ Seth gloated, ‘So Little Miss Has-All-The-Facts must have overlooked that one!’
Tamera glared at Seth and then turned back to Aures. ‘That’s good to know... for, um, future reference,’ Tamera said, ‘Thanks, Aures.’
‘Sure, no problem, glad to be of help.’
The four of them continued on quietly and soon arrived at the jetty. The Boatman had moored shortly before them and was about to cast off, so they hurried to jump aboard.
During the day Gabriel, Seth and Tamera tried to steal every moment they could to talk through plans for sneaking into Bysonn’s office. The first lesson was double Physical Potential. Master Equos took the lesson and had the students running sprint drills, leaping hurdles and negotiating other obstacles placed in their path for the entire double period. Lunchtime was the first opportunity for them to sit and discuss their plans, but even this was short-lived however, when Sattan joined their table.
Sitting on the back row for both Species Awareness and Advancement Theory in the afternoon did nothing either, other than to get them into trouble every time they were caught chatting with each other. By the end of the school day, all they had decided on was that the best time to catch the boat was at lunchtime, as they assumed there would be more students travelling back and this would raise the least suspicion. They agreed (after further persuasion by Tamera) that to carry out the raid on Bysonn’s office they would need more time to plan.
That night in detention, as Gabriel and Daws were once again extinguishing and refilling the lanterns around the school, Gabriel decided to use the opportunity as a fact-finding mission. He would have to do this subtly, he realised, as Daws had a tendency to abruptly end conversations when the topic shifted towards the Grandmaster.
‘Phew!’ Gabriel pretended to yawn as they moved between rooms, ‘This sure is tiring work!’
‘It can be,’ Daws agreed, ‘the key is to pace yourself. No sense rushing around when you don’t have to.’
‘I’m really impressed how you keep going,’ Gabriel continued, ‘These have been the two toughest weeks of my life!’
‘Well, I don’t know about that...’
‘Do you ever have a break from this?’
‘Of course! Weekends are much quieter and during the school holidays there’s almost nothing to do at all after the students have gone home.’
‘But do you ever get time to yourself to simply get away from all of this, the school I mean.’
‘Whatever for? This is my home. Has been most of my life! Sure, I used to get out quite a lot in my younger days, and I still head down into Artisan Plaza occasionally now, when things require it. But I’m an old man, I’ve seen most of everything I need to. There’s not a lot that really changes a great deal from year to year so what need is there to go and see everything I’ve already seen again and again?’
‘Hmm,’ Gabriel sounded out his thoughts, ‘I guess you’re right. So, what about the masters? Do they get to leave the school grounds?’
‘Of course! They spend a long time preparing for lessons and marking assignments and so forth but they still do venture out from time to time. Some of the younger ones like Master Springer and Mesdames Psittacidae and Cryptid quite regularly do, in fact.’
‘I see,’ Gabriel said as innocently as possible, ‘And what about Grandmaster Bysonn?’
‘Oh no! No, no, no! I’m not getting into a discussion about the Grandmaster again!’
‘No, I... um... just wondered, you know... He has such a stressful job, does he ever get the opportunity to relax and get away from it all?’
‘Why are you interested the comings and goings of the masters all of a sudden?’ Daws said, the suspicion clearly evident in his voice.
‘I’m not, I was just making conversation. So, does he?’
‘Gabriel, this line of questioning is making me uncomfortable. I’m not Grandmaster Bysonn’s keeper, or secretary for that matter. I rarely, if ever, see him out of school hours, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t on the school grounds somewhere. The Grandmaster is a very private individual so I don’t know what he gets up to. Now, could we please talk about something else?’
‘So he’s not in his office when you go in there at weekends?’
‘What did I just say?’
‘I know, I know. Last question, I promise.’
Daws sighed, ‘Go on then...’
‘So the times you’ve been in Bysonn’s office at weekends – he’s not been there?’
‘No, quite honestly I don’t go in there much, apart from to do a spot of cleaning, or top up the lanterns, but when I have done, he doesn’t tend to be in there at weekends. Weekdays, of course... so yes perhaps Grandmaster Bysonn does leave the school grounds at weekends, but I don’t know what he gets up to... and I wouldn’t want to pry – and neither should you! Now can we please change the subject?’
That clinches it, Gabriel thought. It seemed as though weekends were the only possible chance they would have to snoop around Bysonn’s office without him being around. Daws had been around so long that he practically knew the comings and goings of everyone and yet Bysonn remained a mystery. Surely then, Gabriel thought, Bysonn can’t spend all of his free time in his office. But the question was how did he get around without being seen by anyone? It was a big school, yes, but there were also a great many students. If Bysonn was going around the school then someone must have seen him, and if they had, the news would have filtered its way down to Daws.
***
On Saturday Gabriel made sure that he awoke in time to meet up with Marina. The pair laughed and joked as always and chatted away for most of the afternoon, with Gabriel sat on the edge of the jetty and Marina propped up on her arms. But all the while Gabriel had Bysonn’s office and the secrets held within at the forefront of his mind.
‘Is everything OK?’ Marina finally asked.
‘Sure, why wouldn’t it be?’ Gabriel looked down, suddenly realising he had been staring vacantly across the lake.
‘You just seem a little more distracted than usual that’s all,’ Marina stared up at him, a degree of sadness in her blue eyes.
Gabriel smiled, ‘I’m fine, really.’
‘Oh, OK. I just thought you maybe had something... or maybe someone on your mind...’
‘No, not at all.’
Marina eyed Gabriel dubiously before she spoke again. ‘You know... Tamera is such a lovely girl... and very pretty don’t you think?’
‘Yes she is,’ Gabriel agreed and suddenly corrected himself, ‘But we’re just friends that’s all. I don’t think of her like that at all!’
Marina tilted her head slightly and gave a playful grin, ‘Good to know. Say, it’s getting late, I’ll have to be going soon. Why don’t you come for a quick swim with me?’
Gabriel looked uneasily at the waves rising and falling, the surf crashing against the walls of the cave. In truth, he had never been a particularly strong or confident swimmer. He remembered an incident from his childhood when he had mistakenly leaped into the deep end of a hotel pool whilst on holiday and had to be pulled out by the lifeguards. Open water made him even more nervous; all that talk of undercurrents and so forth meant that he had always kept his feet firmly on dry land.
The look of apprehension must have shown on his face, because Marina said, ‘It’s OK, I’ll look after you. It’ll be fun!’
‘I don’t know...’ he said.
‘Maybe next time then. I’ll get you in the water with me yet, Gabriel Millar! You see if I don’t!’ and she gave him another dazzling smile. ‘I’d better get going. I’ve got homework to do and if I stay any longer “people” might start wondering where I am.’
Of course by “people” she meant Finn. Gabriel waved as Marina upended herself, gave a wave with her broad tailfin and disappeared beneath the waves once more.
***
On Sunday afternoon after Gabriel, Seth and Tamera finished their homework, they remained at the library to talk through their plans for entering Bysonn’s office. The more they discussed, however, the more they came to the realisation that they would have to rely heavily on luck, plain and simple. They could only hope that Bysonn would not be in his office when they tried to enter it and would also be away from it for some time to allow them to examine it fully. They could spend weeks attempting to monitor his comings and goings but the three of them going to school every weekend would only raise suspicion.
‘I don’t like this,’ Tamera admitted.
‘What choice do we have?’ Gabriel said.
‘What about Sattan, don’t you think we should get him involved too?’ Seth asked.
‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea. It’s not that I don’t trust him – I do. It’s just that if things go pear-shaped-’
‘Go what?’
‘Go badly... if something goes wrong and we need to get out of there quickly then Sattan would be in deep trouble – the school is his home!’
‘Yeah... I guess you’re right. It just feels wrong keeping this from him,’ Seth said.
‘I know, but what choice do we have?’
‘So we’re decided then?’
‘We’re decided.’
‘Next Saturday.’
‘Next Saturday.’
‘I have a bad feeling about this...’ said Tamera meekly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE GRANDMASTER’S OFFICE
The following week raced by faster than any of them had expected and before they knew it Friday had once again come around. Gabriel had spent his week’s detention, attempting to glean any useful information about either Grandmaster Bysonn or his office from Daws, but had had little success in learning anything new. During lunchtimes, Gabriel, Seth and Tamera would devour their food as quickly as possible to give themselves more time to scour the school library for anything useful, but again had come up short.
Throughout the week, Tamera had grown ever more anxious about their plans. Increasingly she would second-guess their decision and try to dissuade Gabriel and Seth from carrying it out. The boys, nervous as they both were about the task facing them, managed to hide this from Tamera and spent the week trying to calm her frayed nerves.
At lunchtime on the Friday, as Tamera was repeating for the umpteenth time, ‘But are we sure? Are we really sure?’ Gabriel, whilst nursing a stomach ache from speed-eating, stole a moment to speak with Marina.
The merfolk’s table in the school cafeteria was surrounded by water channels, similar to those in the classrooms. Marina had just placed her food on the table and was chatting with a few of the older mermaids when Gabriel approached.
He tapped her on the shoulder lightly, ‘Erm... hi, Marina, could I speak to you for a minute?’
She excused herself from the others and turned to him, ‘Gabriel this is pretty risky, Finn is just getting his lunch, and he’ll be over here any minute!’
‘I know, I know, this won’t take long.’
‘OK...’ her eyes flicked briefly towards her brother who was choosing his dessert.
‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I can’t meet with you tomorrow. Something really important has come up that we- I have to take care of.’
Marina didn’t hide her disappointment, ‘Does this “thing” involve your friend Tamera?’
‘Well it doesn’t revolve around her, but she is helping out, yes. But so is Seth.’
‘Well then, I can help too! Let me help out!’
‘I can’t. It’s complicated. Besides we could get into big trouble and I wouldn’t want to put that risk on you as well.’
‘But you can put it on Tamera?’
‘Marina, Tamera and I are just friends!’
‘Fine. You three enjoy yourselves. Really.’
‘Marina, I-’
A cold, squelching splat on the side of his head cut Gabriel off before he could say anything more. A soggy, mangled fishcake fell to the floor with a dull, moist squelch.
‘GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER, YOU FILTHY HYBRID!’ Finn bellowed from across the canteen. Everyone in the vicinity turned to look in the direction of the disturbance.
Finn threw his tray of food aside and with a few powerful slaps of his muscular tail, covered the distance astonishingly fast. He reached up to snatch Gabriel by the collar and wrenched him down dangerously close to the water’s edge. ‘You just don’t know when to quit do you?’
Gabriel planted his feet firmly to brace himself and grabbed hold of Finn’s arms, trying to loosen the merboy’s grip. ‘What’s your problem? We were just talking!’
‘Don’t play the innocent card with me, mongrel! I know exactly what your game is!’
‘Oh, Finn shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Marina said. ‘Anyway, Gabriel was just leaving.’
At that moment another loud, moist slap echoed throughout the canteen, however this time it came from two thick, reddened tentacles of Master Octus hitting both boys firmly in the chest and pushing them firmly back from one another.
‘That will be quite enough of that, if you please!’ he scolded in a voice that sounded like he was speaking whilst underwater.
‘But he started it!’ yelled Finn.
‘QUIET!’ Octus shouted back, his whole body flaring a fiery crimson. ‘He did not start it – you did and I have an entire cafeteria of witnesses to prove it. Now go and retrieve your lunch from wherever you dropped it. I will see you here afterschool for detention, when you can clean up the entire room.’
Finn looked across the room to locate his tray, now emptied of its contents, all of which were strewn metres away from the nearest channel. ‘It’s in the middle of the floor. I can’t reach it.’
‘Well in that case, you’ll just have to drag yourself across the floor to retrieve it won’t you?’ Octus said fiercely.
Finn looked as though he was about to explode.
‘Is there a problem, Mr Greenskale?’
Barely moving his lips and through gritted teeth, Finn uttered, ‘No, sir. No problem.’
‘Good. Then get to it. Mr Millar, perhaps you should return to your own table.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Gabriel replied.
He returned to his table, Seth was grinning broadly and saying ‘That was brilliant!’ over and over again, whilst Tamera simply shook her head. They finished their
lunch, cleared away their trays and headed off to the library.
Finn meanwhile, hoisted himself out of the water and dragged himself across the floor to retrieve his lunch, turning to glare threateningly at anyone within earshot who dared laugh at him. He rolled back into the water and returned to the merfolk’s table where he picked through the splattered remains of his lunch, all the while staring murderous daggers at Gabriel as he left.
***
Gabriel’s sleep that night was restless, erratic and plagued by dreams of snarling reptiles, flaming buildings and a monstrous, towering figure of the Grandmaster. On several occasions his dreams caused him to awake in a cold sweat, but he simply put this down to anxiety about the ordeal that lay ahead.
Omari had stopped by briefly that evening to check up on Gabriel before hurriedly returning to the Council Chambers. Although Omari would not disclose the nature of the work he was doing, insisting there was nothing to worry about, Gabriel could plainly see the worry etched onto his grandfather’s old face. It was at that point more than ever that Gabriel was convinced of what was needed to be done.
***
Gabriel met with Seth and Tamera at nine o’clock the next morning. They took a slightly longer route to the jetty that morning via Artisan Plaza. They intended to stop at as many different shops and stalls as possible in the morning and then again upon their return so that they could call upon witnesses if need be to corroborate their story that they were never in school. They browsed books in Mr Idleby’s shop, stopped in Martha’s Tearoom for caramel cola and granite cakes (not made with actual granite) and bought a bag each of Mr Brighteyes’ newly invented daffodil sherbets (every week it seemed he created a new kind of sweet; his current stock consisted of thousands of different varieties of fudge and sherbet alone).
By a quarter past eleven, they started to notice that large clusters of students had begun to gather and make their back towards Wingtail Lake. As innocently as possible they inserted themselves in amongst the assembled groups and joined in the procession.
As they neared the jetty, the trio ensured they were surrounded by taller students so as to hide themselves further. Even so Gabriel, because of his height, had to duck down without raising suspicion, to avoid the ever-watchful eyes of the Boatman.
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