Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker

by Richard Harland

  “Then I’m sure it will be carried unanimously.”

  The presentation was over. Prince Albert gave Col a final nod. “We shall expect great things from you, young man.”

  Queen Victoria whispered loudly behind her hand. “And look at his chest, my dear.”

  Col followed Sir Mormus’s lead as he bowed and turned away. He could hear Prince Albert muttering his agreement. “Very fine chest. Very fine.”

  Sir Mormus marched up to the nearest Menial with a tray, helped himself to two meat-paste triangles and put them both in his mouth at once. He took another two and handed them to Col.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, my boy?” Sir Mormus sprayed crumbs as he spoke.

  “The Queen doesn’t decide anything, does she?”

  Sir Mormus looked around. “She’s a figurehead,” he said in a lowered voice. “While I’m her Supreme Commander, she decides what I decide.”

  “So when we say we serve Queen Victoria II…”

  “Say it as much as you like. Just remember who’s really in control.” Sir Mormus gestured to the keys of office on his chest. “And now I have matters to arrange with my supporters on the Executive. You’re in demand over there, my boy.”

  Col followed his gaze and saw Grandmother Ebnolia signalling from the middle of a group of ladies.

  “Go and meet your admirers,” said Sir Mormus. “You’ll get used to it, my boy.”

  He strode off, with a curt command of ‘Come’ to the Menial with the tray. His personal supply of titbits accompanied him across the hall.

  Col chewed on a meat-paste triangle. Another revelation! When he became Supreme Commander, he would be telling even the Queen what to do. He felt as though he’d been let into the secrets of a male world of power. Everything was different to the way he’d thought – but he liked it!

  Still Grandmother Ebnolia was signalling to him. He went across to meet his admirers. Yes, he was starting to get used to his new role.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Fifteen

  Col’s mother escorted him to within thirty paces of Dr Blessamy’s Academy. But she couldn’t face the square of open space in front of the entrance arch. The noise of students in the schoolyard was clearly audible.

  “Oh dear…oh dear…”

  She took the handkerchief that Missy Jip produced, and dabbed at her forehead.

  “It’s all right,” said Col. “I’ll go by myself now.”

  “You must speak to the headmaster, Colbert. Tell him to make the noisy children be quiet.”

  Other students were marching in under the arch. Col took his satchel from Missy Jip and fell into step with one boy who had just emerged from the same corridor.

  “Hello there.”

  “Hello.” The boy kept walking. He had straw-coloured hair and long, gangling limbs.

  “I’m Colbert. Col for short. Who are you?”

  “You looked into our classroom on Friday. You’re a Porpentine.”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Trant.”

  “Trant what?”

  “Septimus Trant. We use surnames in the boys’ classes.”

  They passed in under the arch. The yard was already full of students, some running, some standing in groups. The boys’ groups were all on the left-hand side, the girls on the right. A single master on playground duty sat and rocked on a swing suspended from the footbridge.

  “So where do we go?” Col asked Septimus.

  Septimus appeared uncomfortable. “Er…it’s hard to explain.”

  “Where are your friends?”

  Septimus pointed to a far corner of the yard.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  With a silent shrug, Septimus led the way to his group of friends. Their jackets were old and worn compared to Col’s, and their satchels positively shabby. They seemed awkward and tongue-tied in the presence of a Porpentine, and reluctant to give their names.

  They opened up a little more when Col asked about Mr Gibber.

  “Watch out for his tweaker,” said one.

  “And his Number Two,” said another.

  A third shook his head. “He’d never use his Number Two on a Porpentine. He wouldn’t dare.”

  “Don’t go near his pet, though,” warned Septimus. “Murgatrude’s the apple of his – ”

  “Out of the way, grindboys!” A big, burly student shouldered forward into the circle. He spoke to Col as though the others weren’t there. “You don’t want to talk to these.”

  He made as if to take Col by the elbow, then thought better of it.

  Col stayed where he was. “Who are you?”

  “Lumbridge. And you’re Porpentine.” Lumbridge lowered his voice. “You belong with us. This is the toilets’ end of the yard.”

  Col might have resisted. But when he looked round, Septimus and his friends were already turning away, abandoning all claim to him. He accompanied Lumbridge to the opposite end near the entrance arch.

  “Who’s this us I belong with?”

  “The best families. I’ll introduce you.”

  A group of three students awaited their approach. A chalk circle drawn on the asphalt separated their space from the rest of the yard. Other students veered away, even in the wildest running games.

  “Here he is,” said Lumbridge. “Porpentine, meet – ”

  “Fefferley.” The first member of the group introduced himself. He was round as a butterball, almost bursting out of his school uniform.

  “I’m Flarrow.” The second member twisted his pimply features into an ingratiating smile.

  The third student had a quiff in his hair and wore a silk waistcoat under his jacket. “I’m Haugh,” he drawled.

  Col recognised two of the names as belonging to families Sir Mormus had pointed out at the Reception.

  “The Squellinghams will be along in a minute,” said Lumbridge.

  “Are you all in Mr Gibber’s class?” asked Col.

  “Yes,” answered Flarrow. “You should stay away from the grindboys, Porpentine. They’re the lowest of the low.”

  “Why grindboys?”

  “Their fathers are supervisor class and tradespeople. They’re only allowed in the Academy because they’re supposed to be brainy. So they grind it out. Work, work, work.”

  “I was planning to work too,” said Col.

  “Not like them!” Fefferley laughed all over his smooth, smarmy face. “We put their heads down the toilets.”

  “We’ll look after you,” said Lumbridge. “You’re all right with us.”

  It was obvious no one would ever try to put Lumbridge’s head down a toilet. His shoulders were massive and he had a neck like a bull.

  Flarrow indicated a group of boys who were tossing a ball back and forth. “There’s another lot. We call them the blockies. When they leave school, they’ll go to work as officers on the Bridge or Bottom Deck. Very upright, very moral, very dumb.”

  “And very boring.” Haugh affected a yawn.

  “Like blocks of wood. They take their orders from us.” Flarrow swung to point to another part of the yard. “See those two groups? The climbers and the crawlers. Their fathers are mostly professional class, doctors or engineers or second-rank administrators. The climbers want to count with the best families. They’d do anything to have us accept them.”

  Even as he spoke, some of the climbers noticed the attention and waved back optimistically.

  “Go take a running jump, Bodworthy,” muttered Flarrow.

  “You were friendly with him once,” said Lumbridge. “The Squellinghams only let you up last year.”

  Flarrow flushed and ran suddenly out of words. There was a moment’s silence until Fefferley took over.

  “The crawlers are climbers without the expectations,” he told Col. “They admire us, but they never hope to rise to our level. In their own pathetic way, they copy us.”

  “Here come the twins,” said Haugh.

  “The Squellinghams,” Fefferley expla
ined for Col’s benefit.

  Though similar in appearance, the Squellinghams weren’t identical twins. Like Sir Wisley, they had a sharpness around the nose and deep-set eyes, but Hythe had the sharper nose and Pugh the more deeply set eyes. Otherwise, they looked like ordinary students, with ordinary clothes and ordinary haircuts.

  Remembering his grandfather’s warning, Col wondered about their attitude to him. If Sir Wisley was Sir Mormus’s greatest rival, then the twins would have to be his greatest rivals.

  “Porpentine, meet Hythe Squellingham.” Fefferley gestured. “Meet Pugh Squellingham.”

  Lumbridge moved to stand behind the twins, as if on guard for them.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Hythe said, and extended a hand. Col shook hands with them both in turn.

  Then Pugh turned to Hythe. “I think we should do a round with our new member.”

  “Yes.” Hythe looked even sharper around the nose. “Let everyone see that Porpentine’s with us.”

  So Lumbridge and Flarrow went ahead to clear a circuit around the yard. Lumbridge pushed aside anyone who was slow to move, while Flarrow called out in a loud voice: “Grandson of Sir Mormus Porpentine! Coming through, coming through!”

  It was a kind of procession, with Col at the head. The Squellinghams followed half a pace behind, while Fefferley and Haugh brought up the rear. The games and running stopped as everyone turned to stare. Passing the boys’ groups, Col caught mixed looks of envy and deference. Passing the girls’ groups, he was the object of outright adoration. Some ventured a smile, then bashfully dropped their eyes. He could hear the whispers.

  “Isn’t he tall?”

  “Did he look at you?”

  “I think he smiled at me.”

  “No, that was me.”

  By the time they returned to the chalk circle, Col was in a daze of embarrassment and exhilaration.

  “I didn’t know being a Porpentine was so important,” he confessed.

  “And being nominated as Sir Mormus’s successor,” said Pugh.

  Col looked into Pugh’s eyes and saw no hint of resentment. In fact, the faces of both Squellinghams were completely expressionless.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Sixteen

  The clang-clang-clang of the school bell summoned the students to class. Mr Gibber stood by the door as 4A filed in. He flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles. A mad grin broke out on his face when Col passed in front of him.

  The Squellinghams led Col to a desk at the far right of the room. The desks were made of wood with iron frames and bench seats. Previous generations of students had scored initials and doodlings into every desk lid.

  “You have to sit in front of us,” said Hythe.

  “Hang on!” For once, Haugh’s languid manner deserted him. “That’s my desk!”

  “You can move,” said Pugh.

  “Next row across,” said Hythe.

  “But…but…the Gibber won’t like it.”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “If we want him to.”

  Lumbridge emptied out the desk and dumped everything into Haugh’s arms. Haugh gazed off into the distance in silent protest. A student in the next row was pushed out to make room for him.

  The student was no happier about it than Haugh, and no more successful in his protests. The Squellinghams directed him to a spare desk on the other side of the room, while Lumbridge flung his books and equipment after him.

  Col unloaded the contents of his satchel into his desk. He sat behind Fefferley and in front of Hythe and Pugh, while Lumbridge, Flarrow and now Haugh sat in the row on the left. Slinging his satchel over the back of his seat, he studied his new surroundings.

  The room had a dingy look under the yellow lightbulbs overhead. Three walls supported tottering piles of books and papers as high as the ceiling. The teacher’s desk was on the fourth side, along with a blackboard, a cupboard and a rack of canes.

  Mr Gibber strode across to the blackboard, collected two sticks of chalk and tucked them behind his ears.

  “Silence! Silence!” He faced the class and flapped his gown like a demented bat. “I can hardly hear myself shout. That’s better.”

  Grinning and grimacing, he stepped forward and performed a small bow in Col’s direction. “Now, 4A, we are most humbly delighted to have a new student added to our class. Welcome to Master Porpentine.”

  He didn’t look at all humble, though he was certainly delighted. He swung round and singled out a student on the opposite side of the class.

  “Master Porpentine will learn to address me as Mr Gibber, won’t he, Snellshott? Not Gibber. Not the Gibber. Because gibbering suggests a kind of animal, doesn’t it, Snellshott?”

  “Don’t know sir.”

  “A kind of animal that gibbers. What could it be?” He uttered a monkey-like hoot-hoot and let his arms dangle. “Tell him, class. Anyone?”

  There was no reply. Mr Gibber swept his eyes from side to side as though he’d caught a hint of a whisper.

  “Did I hear the word ‘monkey’? Did any boy think the word ‘monkey’? Because any boy who tries to make a monkey out of me will soon feel the weight of my Number Eight.”

  He bounded across to his rack of canes and stroked one particular cane lovingly, meaningfully. Then back to the front of the class.

  “Now, 4A, what subject shall we start with today?” He rolled his eyes towards Col, then away again. Col had the sense that he was a special audience.

  “Chemistry, sir,” one student volunteered.

  “Chem-is-ter-ee!” mocked Mr Gibber. “And why chem-is-ter-ee, Clatterick?”

  “It’s on the timetable, sir.”

  “On the timetable! Ha! Ha! Ha! Who teaches you, Clatterick? The timetable or Mr Gibber? I decide what to teach. Your humble Mr Gibber. And I decide – Geometry!” He beat with one fist on his chest. “Take out your rulers, pencils, protractors and Geometry books.”

  Another student spoke up. “But, sir, we don’t have Geometry books!”

  “Swiddlington, Swiddlington.” Mr Gibber sighed deeply. “Why are you such an irredeemable imbecile? Take out an exercise book and write ‘Geometry’ on the cover,”

  “How do you spell it, sir?” asked another student.

  Mr Gibber strutted across to the blackboard, took a stick of chalk from behind his ear and wrote up the word G-E-O-M-E-T-R-Y. He made the chalk squeak as loudly as possible. There was a mirror clipped to the blackboard so that he could keep a watch on the class while his back was turned.

  Col wrote Geometry on the front of an exercise book. Looking across, he noticed that Flarrow’s book was already covered with previous subject headings: Multiplication, Religion, Geography, Language, History.

  “Now.” Mr Gibber drew a line on the board. “What’s this?”

  The class remained silent. Mr Gibber pulled an extraordinary series of facetious faces. “Is it a star? Is it an Eskimo? Is it a bunch of roses?”

  “It’s a line, sir.”

  “No!” Mr Gibber stamped his foot. “Do you want our new student to think you’re a brainless dunce, Wunstable? Do you want him to think he’s come to a class of drivelling idiots? This, Wunstable, is no ordinary line. It’s a straight line.”

  “It’s not completely straight, sir. It’s got a bit of a wobble.”

  “Silence!” Mr Gibber sprang across the room and stood quivering over the student who’d spoken. “It’s what I call a straight line. It’s what your teacher, Mr Gibber, calls a straight line. Do you think you know more than your teacher? No? Anyone else? Not an Eskimo or a star or a bunch of roses! A straight line! And – ” he sprang back to the board – “here comes another!”

  He drew a second line to join up with the first. “Now what have we got, 4A? If anyone says two straight lines, they’ll feel the sting of my Number Thirteen.”

  The class held its breath. Mr Gibber sniggered. “Well, you ignoramuses? Well, you dolts? You numskulls? You pinheads? Well, you blithering nincompoops?” He wa
s obviously enjoying himself.

  Col put up a hand. Geometry had been one of his favourite subjects with Professor Twillip. “An angle, sir.”

  “Ah yes, an angle.” Mr Gibber seemed disappointed. “But can anybody tell me what sort of angle?”

  “An acute angle, sir,” said Col.

  “Very good, very good.” Mr Gibber turned to shout at the rest of the class. “Ignoramuses! Morons! Retards! An acute angle!”

  He jabbed at it with his stick of chalk, which broke in pieces and scattered across the floor. Mr Gibber ground the pieces to dust with his heel.

  “Consider the acute angle,” he resumed. “Clean, keen, sharp and wholesome. An acute angle is a good angle. Now, who can tell me what’s a bad angle?”

  He rolled his eyes towards Col. But Professor Twillip’s geometry lessons had never included good versus bad angles.

  Mr Gibber took the other stick of chalk from behind his other ear and drew two more lines, meeting at about 130 degrees.

  “This,” he said, “is a bad angle. Observe how wide open, how lax and undisciplined. Sloppy, slack, degenerate. We call this an obtuse angle. Shameful and disgraceful. Don’t let me ever catch any of you drawing obtuse angles, 4A.”

  He picked up the duster and rubbed his obtuse angle from the board.

  “Now. Who can tell me the best angle of all? Nobody? The best and finest angle is the right angle.”

  He drew an angle of 90 degrees on the board and stepped back to admire it. “There! Observe the right angle, boys. Straightforward and upright. Observe and benefit from its example.” He swung around to the class. “Hold up your protractors.”

  With much scuffling, the boys held up their protractors. Mr Gibber seized the nearest and flourished it in the air.

  “This is your aid to right angles, 4A. At your age, you haven’t had time to develop firmness and strength of character. Still full of nasty little tricks. Eh, Prewitt? That’s why we have protractors for you. Draw one line at 0 degrees and one line at 90 degrees. Then you can produce a perfect right angle every time. Even you, Trant.”

  He handed back the protractor he had taken. “I want fifty perfect right angles from every boy. All clearly labelled with the words ‘right angle’. Start work.”