‘Sorry,’ he panted, skidding to a stop in front of them. ‘I overslept.’
‘Late.’ Mr Ellison uttered the word with the same contempt some might use for ‘Traitor’.
As Allie watched in astonishment, Carter hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ he said. ‘I can come back later to make up the time.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the older man muttered. But he seemed mollified by Carter’s contrition, and soon he left them working on the berry bushes alone.
After Carter’s mood swings the day before, Allie approached him with wariness. She didn’t know what was going on in his head – but he couldn’t just pick her up and put her down when he wanted to, like a toy. They were either friends or they weren’t.
It wasn’t easy work – the blackberry thorns were like tiny daggers and the way they worked through gloves and sleeves seemed almost malicious.
‘Ouch, you bleeding, bloody, stupid… plant!’ Yanking off her glove, Allie examined the dot of blood on her fingertip. ‘I am never looking at blackberries in the same way again. They are vicious little bastards.’
‘You OK?’ Carter, who was gathering pruned branches for burning, glanced over at her with a mixture of concern and amusement.
It was the first time he’d spoken to her directly and Allie looked up at him in surprise but recovered quickly, giving a nonchalant shrug. ‘I’ll live. I guess nobody was ever thorned to death.’
‘As far as we know…’ he said.
‘Maybe it was covered up by the berry industry.’
They exchanged a smile; Allie relaxed a little.
As she pulled the glove back on, she thought about the way Mr Ellison had leapt in front of her a few minutes before. ‘Is Mr Ellison Night School?’
Carter’s expression darkened. ‘Yes and no.’ He looked around to make sure the gardener was nowhere near. ‘He was once. He went to school here. Studied philosophy at Oxford. Went to work in the City for one of the big banks. Then something happened – something bad.’
Allie tried to imagine Mr Ellison, young and dapper, in a suit. It was almost impossible. She’d never seen him in anything but dark green overalls. Never seen him without dirt on his hands.
Allie stared at Carter, willing him to continue. ‘Do you know what happened?’
‘All he’ll say is that he made a mistake that hurt a lot of people. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that he quit and never went back.’ He threw a long branch into the compost pile. ‘He’ll never forgive himself.’
The story was sobering. The idea that you could make a mistake – just one mistake – and your whole life could be ruined was frightening.
Allie’s thoughts drifted back to what was going on here right now. And she wondered if any mistakes of that magnitude were being made. She was fairly certain they were.
‘I wonder…’ she said.
‘I think…’ Carter said at the same time.
They both stopped and chuckled awkwardly.
‘Sorry.’ Carter waved a twig at her. ‘You go first.’
‘It was nothing,’ Allie said. ‘I just wonder if Eloise is OK out in that house by herself. I wonder if she’s scared.’
‘First of all she’s not by herself,’ Carter said. ‘They’d never leave her alone. She probably wishes she was by herself. And second…’ He looked at her speculatively as if trying to decide how much to say. ‘Don’t get too married to the idea of Eloise being innocent just because Nicole thinks she is.’
Allie stared at him, a rising sense of panic tightening the muscles of her throat. ‘Wait. Don’t tell me you think she’s really the spy?’
‘I don’t know if she is or isn’t. I just don’t think Nicole’s theory proves she’s innocent. And I wouldn’t assume she didn’t do it.’
‘Why not?’ Allie’s voice took on a defensive tone. ‘She couldn’t have done the chapel thing, right? I mean, not on her own.’
She hadn’t realised until he’d taken it away from her how much her belief in Eloise’s innocence mattered. She wanted that belief back.
His eyes were as bitter as dark chocolate. ‘Nobody around here is really innocent, Allie. Surely you know that by now?’
‘I should have known you’d be talking instead of working.’
Mr Ellison’s voice cut off Allie’s planned response. Looking up, she saw the gardener striding towards them, his green uniform already a bit muddy. Knowing what she now knew about him, she liked him even more somehow. There was something compelling about suffering – something uniting.
I’ll talk to Carter later, she thought. I’ll make him see that he’s wrong. It’s not Eloise. It just isn’t.
Allie endured her classes with barely controlled impatience. None of the Night School instructors showed up to teach. A variety of teachers were shuffled in from other classes to take over and the whole exercise felt slapdash and annoying.
Word had also been passed out that Night School training was temporarily suspended – no explanation was given.
That afternoon, Allie and Rachel stood on the landing of the grand staircase, pretending to chat casually. Suddenly, Rachel straightened. ‘Target sighted. Six o’clock. Battle stations.’
‘Aye aye, Captain.’ Allie followed her gaze. The vivid red of Katie’s lush mane of hair made her easy to spot as she paraded up the stairs at the centre of a group of genetically perfect friends.
‘What have you heard again?’ Allie’s voice was unnecessarily loud.
Rachel waited to answer until Katie had nearly reached them. ‘Half the kids in the school will go. And nobody knows who. It’ll be just like Caroline only times a hundred.’
‘That’s horrible.’ Allie feigned shock. ‘What can we do?’
Katie stopped walking so abruptly the girls with her had to backtrack to rejoin her, but she waved them away with an irritated flutter of her fingers.
‘Go on. I’ll catch you up.’
After a moment’s hesitation they walked on. When they were out of earshot she turned to Rachel. ‘What were you just saying, geek girl?’
Dropping the pretence, Rachel filled her in on what they knew. As she listened, Katie leaned against the wall, letting her head fall back until it thumped against the carved oak panelling.
‘So this is what they’re up to.’ She looked pale. ‘I should have guessed when Caroline left. How could I be so stupid?’
Allie frowned. ‘They? Who?’
‘My parents. Of course they have a plan. And of course it involves dragging me out of Cimmeria and ruining my life.’ Turning to Allie she said, ‘I tried to warn you something was coming. That Lucinda was losing it. But you wouldn’t listen.’
‘Wait,’ Allie said. ‘Your parents are on Nathaniel’s side?’
Katie levelled an exasperated look at her. ‘Of course. Don’t be ridiculous. Haven’t you been paying attention at all?’
Allie ignored the insult. She stepped closer to Katie, looking into her eyes. Challenging her. ‘What about you? Are you on his side?’
Her directness seemed to catch Katie off guard; she shook her head so hard her red hair swished. ‘No. Never.’
Her response was so passionate, so spontaneous. Allie had to believe her.
‘What are you going to do if they send someone for you?’ Rachel asked.
For a second, Katie didn’t reply. When she did speak, her voice sounded strained. ‘I don’t know. But they will have to kill me to get me out of here. I’m not going like Caroline.’
‘You’d really stand up to your parents like that?’ Allie asked, surprised.
Katie’s eyes glittered like chips of ice in the winter sun. ‘I loathe my parents, Allie. I’m not going anywhere with them. And that slimy creep Nathaniel can kiss my perfect arse.’
Her cut-glass accent made even obscenities sound elegant and funny. It reminded Allie painfully of Jo, and she felt that sudden sense of loss that took her by surprise at the strangest moments, like falling into a hole you couldn’t see.
As if aware of Allie’s reconsideration of her, Katie turned her haughty gaze back to Rachel.
‘What can I do to help, geek girl? Say the word. It’s yours.’
NINETEEN
A
ll the next day the gossips did their work with relentless efficiency. By dinner that night, there was no subject of conversation within Cimmeria Academy except the rumour that parents were pulling their children out of school.
Most of the students had known about Nathaniel already – rumours had been rife for ages about a divide among the school’s administrators – but the idea that the division could go this far caused panic.
The elegant dining hall looked the same as it always did – candles glittered on the round tables, crystal sparkled at every place setting, heavy silver cutlery gleamed in the warm glow of the heavy chandeliers – but the mood was ugly.
Once again, none of the senior staff was present. It had been so long since they’d shown up for a formal meal Allie was beginning to wonder if they were starving themselves to death out in the woods. Part of her hoped so.
Across the dining hall two red-faced boys were having a shouting argument, one pounding on a table in rage. Nearby several girls seemed near tears.
Do they even know what’s going on here? Do they realise they’re losing control?
Although they’d all expected it to happen, no students had been pulled out of school by their parents that day. This fact only made the sense of dread worse. They were all waiting for something horrible to happen.
‘What do you think he’s doing?’ Carter asked. ‘If he’s really planning to take half the school, why did he just pull one student out and then no more?’
‘Perhaps it was a warning,’ Nicole said.
‘It’s his way of telling Isabelle he’s serious – and he’s giving them a chance to give him what he wants,’ Rachel said. ‘Like blackmail.’
‘He’s wasting his time. They’ll never do that.’ Allie pushed the food around her plate with a desultory fork.
‘Especially since they barely seem to have noticed Caroline is gone at all,’ Zoe said.
Looking up at her, Allie noticed Jules watching them from a nearby table. She was sitting with Katie and a few other friends, as she had the night before. Her eyes looked hurt, and when she caught Allie’s gaze she quickly looked away.
Allie wondered how Carter had explained what was going on. Why he wasn’t sitting with her at meals any more. With all that had happened in the last few days, the two of them must barely be seeing each other at all.
‘So there’s no Night School training tonight…’ Looking across the table at Sylvain, Carter didn’t appear to notice his girlfriend’s expression. He was too focused on the project at hand.
Sylvain seemed to get what Carter was implying – he sat up straighter, his gaze fixed on Carter’s.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And the weather is clear.’
Some sort of agreement was being made between the two of them.
‘What’s going on?’ Zoe asked.
A knowing smile tugged at Nicole’s full lips. ‘I think the boys are plotting.’
Sylvain and Carter grinned. Allie wasn’t sure she liked this new alliance.
‘OK. Here’s the thing,’ Carter said. ‘We’ve been waiting for the teachers to come back so we can find out what’s going on. Sylvain and I have been thinking it’s time to go to them. And find out for ourselves.’
‘What? We’re going to go and find them?’ Zoe’s face brightened at the idea.
‘We’re going,’ Sylvain said, ‘to talk to Eloise.’
‘Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,’ Allie said.
Perched on a bench in the Night School girls’ dressing room, she loosened a knot in the laces on her trainers. ‘It kind of feels like we’re pushing our luck.’
‘You think?’ Rachel’s sarcastic voice emerged from a borrowed, thermal top she was struggling to pull over her head. ‘Just a little bit?’
‘We will be fine.’ Nicole pulled on thick, black leggings and reached for her socks. Allie had to admire her cool composure – nothing seemed to intimidate her. ‘We will do nothing but look.’
The utilitarian room was painted plain white; the only decoration the shiny brass hooks that lined the walls, each one with a name painted above it in glossy black, and the black clothes beneath. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined one wall, making the room seem bigger than it was. It was a familiar place by now to Allie – but she knew Rachel, in all her years at Cimmeria, had never seen it before, because it was Night School only.
When the boys first told them about their idea, they’d all reacted with enthusiasm. If it gave them the chance to find out more about what was really going on, it was worth taking all the chances.
It was only now that they were in the middle of it that Allie’s doubt gene kicked in.
They knew that by bringing Rachel into the section of the school reserved solely for the group’s secret activities, and dressing her in someone else’s Night School gear, they were breaking several of the school’s inviolable Rules.
‘How can you be so calm about this?’ Allie asked Nicole. ‘Aren’t you worried about getting expelled?’
‘I am sorry but if one of the teachers says to me, “You broke The Rules,” I will say to them, “Well, where the hell is Eloise? Where the hell is Jo? Where is Ruth?”’ Nicole’s French accent grew thicker when she was angry. ‘Where were you when the school fell apart? And I think that will be the end of that conversation.’
Allie had to admit she had a point. The whole situation was so intensely wrong, what did The Rules matter any more? Was anyone keeping score?
As they talked, Zoe stood in one corner of the dressing room, clad fully in her black Night School gear and kickboxing the air, chirping with each move, like a small, angry crow.
Allie worried about bringing her, too. She was fast and smart but… so young. So small.
Before she could think it through, though, Rachel distracted her.
‘This doesn’t fit.’ She stood in front of a mirror, eyeing herself dubiously; the pilfered top ended in the middle of her midriff, revealing a few inches of latte-coloured skin. ‘I’m too tall.’
‘Jules is tall like you,’ Nicole said, pulling her long hair back into a ponytail. ‘Try hers.’
Across the room, Rachel picked up the new black top, weighing it in her hands. Allie, who was wearing one just like it, knew it was light but very warm, made of the kind of material used for ski clothes.
‘This is so weird,’ Rachel said, pulling off the too-small top and trying on the larger size. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’
Zoe stopped kickboxing to look at her. ‘We do this stuff all the time.’
Rachel studied her, a thin line appearing between her brown eyes. ‘I know.’
All her life, Rachel had tried to learn nothing about Night School. She’d absorbed a great deal of information because her father was very involved in it but she’d always been resolute about having as little as possible to do with it.
Allie watched soberly as she pulled on the last of her Night School garb – transforming herself from a brainy student into a fighter. Jules was a couple of inches shorter than her, but her gear fit well enough. Like the others, she was now clad entirely in black, with thick leggings and warm running shoes. Her dark curly hair was tucked under a black knitted cap.
It gets us all in the end.
‘I look like the Hamburglar,’ Rachel grumbled.
‘Can we get going?’ Standing by the door, Zoe hopped on one foot impatiently until they all, at last, lined up behind her.
Then she flipped out the lights and opened the door.
It was midnight. Curfew began an hour ago.
The basement corridor was dark; they crept along it in absolute silence. Sticking close to Rachel, Allie lit the way with a special torch
that emitted a pale blue light – enough to show obstacles in front of them but difficult to detect from a distance. The others didn’t need a light – they’d been down this hallway so many times they could do it with their eyes closed.
Raj’s guards weren’t following their usual schedule so they couldn’t be certain when the patrols would pass. But the guards were coming by less frequently than they used to so their chances of getting out unnoticed were good.
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