by Laura Wood
Chapter Nine
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. All anyone could talk about was the curse, and the story that Professor Tweep told us was unravelling like a badly knitted jumper as it got passed from person to person. At one point I heard two boys talking about it, and one of them said, “I heard the mummy comes back to life every Thursday and eats brains and mashed potatoes.”
Then the other replied very seriously, “I heard it was eyeballs and custard.”
Ingrid, Kip and I decided to eat our lunch sitting under a tree outside, and we lay on our stomachs, munching apples and swapping theories on how the curse worked, when Ingrid raised a point that made me feel like someone had slipped ice cubes down the back of my shirt.
“You know,” she said dreamily, “what’s really interesting to consider is that if the curse is real, then who’s being cursed now?”
“What d’you mean?” asked Kip, propping himself up on one elbow.
“Well, if it’s the owner of the ruby that’s cursed, doesn’t that mean that when it arrives tomorrow the school will be cursed?” Ingrid turned the blast of her eyes on both of us like a pair of bright, shining headlights.
The air shivered and the three of us looked first at one another, and then all around, as if we expected the school to just give up and fall down out of fright. As I looked at the solid, reassuring building in front of us, the thought of the curse started to seem so silly that I began to laugh. Ingrid and Kip joined in, and pretty soon our conversation had turned to different things.
Somehow, though, I couldn’t shake the idea of the curse for the rest of the day. It peeked around the corners of my brain at the most inconvenient times, like when Madame Pascal was asking me to conjugate a French verb, or when Kip was trying to get my opinion on his latest plan to get taller (“I’m thinking if you and Ingrid tie my arms and legs to two bicycles and ride really hard in opposite directions…”).
According to the schedule Pym had pressed into my hands the day before, that evening was our first chance to speak on the telephone. So at six o’clock precisely, I headed for the library.
The library was even more beautiful than it had looked in the brochure for Saint Smithen’s. The floors were made of a dark, polished wood, the walls crowded with bookcases overflowing with books. The ceiling was high and airy, painted with a mural of a cloudy sky. Comfy, creaking armchairs were hidden in cosy nooks, just begging for you to sink into them with a good book in your hands.
I walked over to the wall of old-fashioned payphones in one corner. There were a few students already using them, so I had to wait my turn. I looked anxiously at my watch. A girl with her back to me was talking very loudly.
“Yes, Mum,” she said, “of course I’m brushing my teeth… Yes, Mum… Yes, Mum… No, I didn’t know that chewing gum makes all your teeth fall out.” The girl turned to face me and rolled her eyes. “OK, Mum. Got it. Byyyye.” With a flourish she hung up the phone. “Parents!” she said to me with another eye roll as she brushed past.
“Um … yeah,” I replied weakly.
I carefully dialed the long string of numbers Pym had written down. The phone rang for some time before a croaky voice answered.
“’Ello? The Flying Ferret, haunted hotel to the stars,” wheezed the voice.
“Hi, Leaky Sue!” I exclaimed.
“Poppy! ’Ow are you, my love?” came the reply.
“I’m OK, thanks,” I said. “Is Pym there?”
Leaky Sue cackled loudly. “Oh, there’s an ’ole lot of ’em here waiting to talk to you, my girl. Wait a second, I’ll go and fetch ’em.”
There was a crackling sound and a long pause. The Flying Ferret is one of our very favourite places to stay. We always stop there when we have a performance close by. They do the best fish-finger sandwiches in the whole world. It isn’t really haunted, but Leaky Sue says that a ghost or two is good for business.
“Poppy?” Pym’s voice rushed down the phone line and my eyes filled up with tears as I realized just how much I missed her.
Hang on. When there are phone conversations in a Dougie Valentine book they are all typed out like a script. I really like that because then you and your friends can read them out in all the different voices. Me and Marvin always have a great time doing that. I’m going to write our phone call out like that now so you can have a go at reading it out loud. (Unless you’re on the train. Probably best not to do it then. Otherwise people might think you are a bit mad.)
**Beginning of transcript**
Pym: Poppy?
Me: Pym!
Pym: Are you having a good time? Settling in OK?
Me: … Mostly. I think so. Some of the rules are a bit strange and it’s all a bit … big … but … there’s a real-life mystery here!
Pym: What sort of mystery?
Me: Professor Tweep, my history teacher, told us about a curse on an ancient Egyptian ruby beetle. It’s part of the exhibition that’s coming here!
Pym: Ooooh. Spooky. Is that the Ankhenamun exhibition?
Me: Yes, how did you know that?
Pym: I was reading something about that this morning. Hang on, let me go and have a look for it. There are some other people waiting to talk to you…
**Brief pause. Scuffling noises. Muffled shouting**
Fanella: TOMATO, IS YOU?
Me: Yes, Fanella, it’s me … but I can hear you fine, you don’t need to shout.
Fanella: I NO SHOUT, TOMATO. IS THIS TERRIBLE LUIGI BREATHING IN MY EAR AND I CAN NO HEAR MYSELF THINK.
Luigi: (muffled and indignant) I say, that’s a bit rich after you bit my arm to get to the phone first.
Fanella: IGNORE HIM, TOMATO. HE IS CONFUSED AND LITTLE BIT MAD. AHHH. WE MISS YOU, MY LITTLE ONE. IS NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU. I—
Luigi: (in the background) Stop hogging the phone, Fanella. Can’t you see Buttercup is getting restless?
**Distant roar. More scuffling noises**
Luigi: (slightly breathless) What ho, Poppers!
Me: Er, did you say Buttercup was there? Does Leaky Sue know you’ve brought a lion inside?
Luigi: (slight, guilty pause) Well, ahem … well. She doesn’t exactly know, but I snuck her in to talk to you. Poor little thing has been so sad since you left I knew she would want to hear your voice. Hang on…
Me: Wait, what?! Luigi? Are you there?
Luigi: I’m just propping the phone up so she can hear you.
Me: Oh right. Um … hello, Buttercup?
Buttercup: Rooooooooooar!
**Loud crunching sounds**
Luigi: (muffled) Ahhh, she’s chewing on the phone. She must miss you terribly.
**A scream in the background**
Woman’s voice: Oh my goodness! Is that … a … a … lion?!
Fanella: IS GHOST LION. WOOOOOOOO.
Luigi: Ahem, yes, ghost lion. Wooooooo. Haunted hotel, what.
Buttercup: Rooooooooar!
Luigi: Blast, she’s fainted.
**Clunking noises, sound of footsteps**
Leaky Sue: ’Ere, Luigi! You’d better not have snuck that bloomin’ lion in again! I’ve told yer already that lions is a step too far for the guests.
Luigi: Ahem. Sorry, what lion?
Leaky Sue: Do yer think I can’t see you’ve got a blinkin’ lion there dressed up in a scarf and hat? Get ’er outside in ’er trailer. NOW.
**Scuffling noise as phone is picked up again**
Fanella: HELLO, TOMATO? ARE YOU STILL THERE?
Me: Yes, Fanella, I’m still here. (whispering) But the boy on the phone next to me looks a bit scared. I think he can hear Buttercup roaring. Is everything OK?
Fanella: ALL IS NOW FINE. THE SILLY LUIGI HAS TAKEN HIS CAT OUTSIDE. I TELL HIM HE SHOULD HAVE PUT GLASSES AND PRETEND MOOOSTACHE ON HER AS WELL BUT HE NEVER LISTEN. WAIT … HE
RE IS PYM BACK. GOODBYE, TOMATO!
**Rustling sound**
Pym: Right, I found that article in Brilliant Beasts and Crazy Curses that I was reading this morning, and I was right. It’s got a lot to say about your Ankhenamun. Nasty business.
Me: Oh, wow. Can you send it to me?
Pym: Of course I can — I’ll pop it in with my letter. Did you have a nice chat with Luigi and Fanella? The others are out rehearsing but they all send their love.
Me: Um, yes, it was … lovely.
**Long pause, scuffling**
Me: Hello?
Pym: (big sigh) Sorry, Poppy. Luigi and Fanella seem to be trying to cover Buttercup in an old sheet. I wonder what on earth is going on?
Fanella: (in background) NOW MAKE THE EYE HOLES.
Me: I think they might be trying to make a ghost lion.
Pym: Oh, of course. I’d better go and sort them out, poppet.
Buttercup: Roarrrr!
**End of transcript**
I smiled and hung up the phone, but then I felt such an enormous wave of homesickness rush up inside me that it sort of burst out of me in floods of tears. I wondered if coming to Saint Smithen’s was a big mistake. Wouldn’t I be better off tucked up in bed at Leaky Sue’s with my family, where I belonged? I tried to shake myself out of it, and wiped my snotty nose on my sleeve. Luckily the library was deserted now, except for Mr Fipps, the librarian, who was snoring at his desk and so nobody had seen me cry like a big baby.
I shuddered as I realized how dark and spooky it was in here. I wondered what the article Pym had found would say about the curse. I felt the same as I did in that whooshing moment on the trapeze just before you step off the platform. The ruby scarab would soon be arriving. What new adventures was it bringing with it? And did they spell trouble for us at Saint Smithen’s?
Chapter Ten
You know those days where everything just goes completely wrong? I mean, really, EVERYTHING. When you can’t seem to do anything right? Well, that was my second day at Saint Smithen’s.
It started with a broken alarm clock, and Ingrid tugging at my arm.
“Poppy! Poppy! Get up! We are going to be late!”
Ingrid, Letty and I scrambled around the room, bashing into one another while we tried to get ready in super-speedy time.
“Where is my maths textbook?” muttered Ingrid, burrowing through one of the drawers and flinging clothes everywhere so that it was raining blue-and-white tartan.
“Did you look under the bed?” I asked as a pair of socks hit me in the face.
Ingrid dived under the bed, her feet waving around in the air. “Oh yes, got it!” she cried, wriggling out and stuffing the book into her already bulging backpack.
“What clubs have I got today?” asked Letty, wide-eyed and panicky. She looked at the elaborate wall chart she had drawn up next to her bed. “Hockey, photography, debate and pottery. Phew! Thank goodness it’s a light day,” she said, trying to button her shirt over her pyjamas.
Eventually we all bustled out of the door, round to the main building, and screeched down the corridor to the dining hall.
“Where’ve you been?” asked Kip.
“Alarm didn’t go off,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“All right, see you later.” Kip shrugged on a backpack almost as big as he was and left. We were still shovelling bowls of the last squashed and sad-looking cornflakes into our faces (cornflakes! For breakfast!) when the bell rang.
“Not a very good start to the day,” said Ingrid mildly. Somehow she seemed to have shrugged off this morning’s madness already. She looked like her neat, dreamy self, and as she drifted off towards our first lesson I huffed along after her.
On our way up the stairs we got stopped by a big girl whose gingery hair was pulled back in a tight bun. On her jacket shone a large badge with PREFECT on it.
“Whoa there, shrimps,” she called as we scuttled past. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“We’re late for maths!” I said desperately.
“And your shirt is untucked,” she said, looking at me critically. “You can get a demerit for that, you know.”
I felt my face warming up, and I carefully tucked my shirt in. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Recite the school song, please,” the girl snapped.
“W-what?” I stammered.
“Any prefect can stop a student and ask them to recite the school song. It’s in the rules,” the girl said.
The rules again. I cursed the rules loudly in my head. Who’d ever heard of so many rules?! What was the school song? I desperately racked my brain but my mind was absolutely blank.
Ingrid’s voice rang out loud and clear.
“Brave and wise and true are we,
Standing proud for all to see,
Goldfinches, Sparrows,
Robins and Wrens,
Though the road may narrow
Our courage ne’er bends
We are Saint Smithen’s through and through
The best of brave and wise and true.”
The girl nodded briskly and turned to look at me. There was a painful pause.
“Er, we are the birds,” I warbled tunelessly. “And we, er, walk down the road… Um, Saint Smithen’s. Yeeeeeah.” I finished with a weak fist pump and what I hoped was a winning grin. There was another pause.
“You’d better see that your friend learns it,” the girl said, jerking her head at me. “Now, off to lessons, shrimps. You really are late now.” With a toss of her head, she stalked down the stairs.
“What a beast!” I said, indignantly. “We’re really late now because SHE made us late. And why did she keep calling us shrimps?”
“That’s what they call the first years,” Ingrid shrugged.
“And how did you know the words to that song?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air. “I’d never even heard of it.”
“It’s all in the handbook,” said Ingrid. “Didn’t you read it?”
“What that great big, enormous, hulking thing they gave us YESTERDAY?” I exclaimed. “No, I didn’t manage to get through it all yet. You’re so clever, Ing. How’d you read all of that so quickly?”
“I’m just a fast reader is all,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t think much to the song, do you? I mean, wrens and bends? Not a perfect rhyme. Written in 1848, I believe, by the Honourable Hugo Ferryweather. Fancied himself a bit of a poet. Wore a lot of lacy collars. Became a banker in the end.”
I shook my head with a smile. There was a lot going on in Ingrid’s brain, and I liked occasionally getting a peek into that mad world of hers.
Eventually we bustled into Dr MacDougal’s maths class. Dr MacDougal is quite small and as round as one of Tina and Tawna’s hula hoops. Her small, round eyes were looking at us from underneath two rather beetley eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“And who do we have here?” Dr MacDougal asked softly.
“Ingrid Blammel, miss,” said Ingrid, her eyes looking at her shoes, and her hands clasped in front of her.
I quickly copied Ingrid’s pose. “Poppy Pym, miss,” I said.
“Well, Ingrid Blammel and Poppy Pym,” the soft rumble of her voice continued, “in MY class we arrive on time. Don’t let it happen again or there will be consequences. Take your seats, please, and we’ll continue.”
My face as red as my namesake, I shuffled into a seat and pulled out my maths textbook. The problem was that the classroom was so warm, and Dr MacDougal’s voice was so droning, and maths was so horribly boring, that pretty soon my attention melted away from the classroom. I was deep in an imaginary mystery, solving crime alongside my best friend, Dougie Valentine, when suddenly I heard my name.
I looked up with a jump to find Dr MacDougal standing in front of me.
“MISS PYM,” she said crossly. “
Am I boring you?”
“Yes, miss,” I said quickly and then blushed as a burst of stifled giggling swept around the classroom. “I mean, no, miss. Sorry, miss.”
“And what is the answer to the problem on the blackboard?” Dr MacDougal asked.
I looked hopelessly at the long string of numbers and letters that appeared on the board and down at my notebook. It was blank except for a doodle of a clown in the margin. “I-I-I don’t know,” I stuttered.
“Well then,” said Dr MacDougal drily, “perhaps you had better pay closer attention, Miss Pym. Especially after arriving late.” She marched over to her desk and made a note. “And I’m afraid that’s a demerit for you.”
I sat for the rest of the lesson feeling terrible. A demerit! On the second day of school! How was I ever going to do well if I couldn’t get the hang of things? Perhaps they’ll expel me. The thought made me go all icy cold and my skin prickled. To be sent home in disgrace – I couldn’t bear it.
That evening I met up with Ingrid and Kip in the common room for first and second years, and they tried to cheer me up.
“It’s just a demerit, Poppy,” said Kip with a yawn. “Trust me, people get them alllll the time. I heard that one year some of the kids had a contest to see who could get the most in a week. It’s really no big deal.”
“It is to me,” I said quietly. “I’d never even heard of demerits until two days ago and now I’ve already got one because I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. You and Ingrid haven’t got one.”
Kip stood up and untucked his shirt. “Well, come on, then,” he said, “if that’s what’s bothering you, let’s roam the halls in search of a demerit!”
Ingrid jumped up too. “Yes, and if anyone asks me to say the words to the Saint Smithen’s song, I’ll tell them I’ve never heard of it.”
I was already laughing. “OK, OK,” I said, “I get it, I’m worrying too much. Don’t go looking for demerits on my behalf.” I think Kip actually looked a bit disappointed.
“Anyway,” said Ingrid very casually, looking at me out the corner of her eye, “the stuff for the exhibition arrives tomorrow … and you know what that means…”