Ivy climbed off her bed and came and sat down beside me on the floor. “That’s not going to happen again,” she said, firmly.
“No,” I said, “but who knows what they’ll do?” I snapped out of it, and turned to my twin. “Penny nearly killed Violet today.”
“She …” Ariadne started. “I thought she’d changed. That night when we finally found out about everything that had happened with Miss Fox, she seemed to really care about finding you and Violet.”
“Penny cares about being in charge,” I said. “She cares about being popular and bossing everyone around like she owns the place. I don’t know if she cares about people.”
“Speaking of caring for people –” Ivy looked worried – “we’re going to have to check on Rose more often. I don’t know how she’ll cope without Violet. I mean, they were always together in the asylum.” Suddenly she went silent.
“What is it?” I asked, after a few long moments of silence.
“You know …” she said. “On the roof. When it all happened. We wondered how Miss Fox managed to take Violet away without you seeing.”
“We found another hatch,” Ariadne chimed in. “A trapdoor.”
Hmm. That made sense, I supposed. It was one thing that had made me doubt myself.
Ivy nodded. “We know the Whispers had more than one secret room, right? And they said something about ‘searching high and low’. Maybe that was actually a clue? Maybe you have to search high … to find the trapdoor?”
I sat up, my attention caught. “You could be right. And if you are … what’s on the other side of that trapdoor?”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t remembered it before. It seemed so obvious now that I thought about it. We had to get into that room to see if it contained any more clues about the Whispers.
“One problem,” said Ariadne. “It was locked, wasn’t it?”
I started to laugh.
“What?”
“When has that ever stopped us before?”
“Point taken.”
“But,” I realised, “we don’t know where the keys are kept any more, now that Miss Fox is gone. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Maybe the caretaker has copies of them,” said Ariadne. “Or Mr Bartholomew.”
I frowned. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less than attempt to break into the headmaster’s office.
“We could break through the trapdoor,” said Scarlet.
I looked at her. “Are you mad?”
“So I’ve been told. I’m serious, though. If it’s wooden, you can smash through it.”
I almost made a comment about smashing pianos, but I thought better of it. “Are you volunteering?”
Scarlet’s face went paler and she burrowed into her blanket. “No,” she said. “I’m not … I’m not going to go up there, all right?” Her breathing sounded shallow and panicked.
Of course. I should have thought before I spoke. “Sorry,” I said, gently.
“I’ll do it!” said Ariadne.
I put my head in my hands. “This is a terrible idea.”
It was a terrible idea. But we also had the afternoon off. Everyone was staying inside to keep warm, and the teachers were distracted by the whole situation between Penny and Violet. If ever there was a time to try out a terrible idea, this was it.
Scarlet had refused to go on the mission, and that was fine by me and Ariadne. There was no way I was forcing her to go back on the roof again. The idea clearly terrified her.
Ariadne and I wrapped up in our warmest clothes (I persuaded Scarlet to give me her hat) and we trekked up Rookwood’s winding stairs to the top floor and the hatch that led out on to the roof. Thankfully, the last time it had been opened was by us, and apparently no one had checked the padlock since then. We unlatched it and climbed out into a world of swirling white.
The snow was falling a little more heavily now, but it still wasn’t quite settling. It flurried around us. I pulled my coat up around my mouth. “Careful, Ariadne,” I warned. “It’s a long way down.” She nodded back at me, determined.
Slowly but surely we made our way across the roof, climbing over the peaks and sliding down the other side, past the chimney stack, until we came to the other hatch.
It was right where I’d remembered it. The trapdoor was old, made of wood that looked a little rotten and woodworm-chewed. “It’s really ragged,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the wind. “Maybe it will break.”
“What can we hit it with, though?”
I looked around. The nearest available object was a stray brick. I picked it up, blowing on my freezing hands to try and warm them, and slammed it down on to the trapdoor.
Nothing happened.
“Rats,” I said.
“There’s got to be a way,” said Ariadne.
And before I could say anything, she had sprung on top of the hatch and was bouncing up and down.
“Maybe if we jump on it, it might loosen it a biiiiiiiit—”
“Ariadne?!” I yelled down. “Are you all right?”
There was silence. And then, “Ouch.” And then, “Yes.” And then, “I think I fell on a bed!”
A bed?
I crouched down and peered through the hole. I could just make out Ariadne sprawled on a mattress, surrounded by pieces of shattered wood that had once been a bed. She waved cheerfully at me.
“It’s not far,” she called up. “And the bed is quite springy. Jump down!”
I watched as she shuffled off the mattress. Gulp. It was now or never. After peeling away the remaining fragments of the trapdoor, I stood up, took a deep breath, and jumped.
Even with the mattress to cushion me, the fall still knocked the air out of my lungs. “Oof,” was all I could say.
My eyes adjusted to the light and I took in the room around me. It was on the small side, not much bigger than our own, and it was filled with … broken furniture. Wonky bed frames leant up against the wall, a smashed mirror, a chair with three legs, an enormous wardrobe with the door hanging ajar, and all of it covered with thick dust and cobwebs.
I noticed the ladder, fallen haphazardly against a lopsided chest of drawers. I pointed it out to Ariadne. “Look – that must be how Miss Fox got down here with Violet.”
Ariadne nodded. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “just because it’s full of rubbish, doesn’t mean this wasn’t one of the Whispers’ secret rooms. If they had a key –” she gestured at the locked door – “or knew how to get in through the trapdoor, it would be a great meeting place. Not much chance of being caught by any teachers up here.”
She was right. “We should search,” I said. I stood up and tried to brush some of the dust off my dress, but I was still coated in it. “There could be something here.”
Right. As Ariadne went over to some of the piles of wood and scrutinised them, I tried to think of a more logical way of doing this. If the Whispers had hidden anything in here that hadn’t been found, it was probably inside something. There were only a few things in the room that could still hold anything, namely the drawers and the wardrobe.
I tried the drawers. Each one was empty, apart from one, which held a discarded sock that I threw away in disgust. The wardrobe, then. I tugged on the side that was closed, but when it was open there was nothing visible inside. “Drat,” I said aloud. “Nothing in here.”
Ariadne came over to me. “Hang on, what’s that?”
I looked where she was pointing. Just under the grime, there was a thin line in a rectangle running around the base of the wardrobe. Oh my. I had a feeling I knew what this was, and it was a trick that Scarlet had used before.
I reached in and dug my nails into the crack, and then I pulled up the wood.
“A false bottom!” Ariadne gasped.
And sure enough, there was something in there. A book.
My friend reached in and took hold of it. It was in good condition, having been hidden from the outside world for so long.
The Whispers
in swirling ink.
Ariadne waved it at me. “At least one of them was a prefect! That’s like being a double agent! How intriguing!”
“We don’t know that yet. What does it say? Open it up!”
Trembling with excitement, Ariadne peeled back the first page.
And her face fell.
I waited patiently in our room for Ivy and Ariadne to return. Well, maybe impatiently would be more accurate. I bit my nails and doodled in my diary and paced up and down wrapped in the blanket.
With five minutes to go before dinner, I was wondering if I should go and look for them. But the mere thought of going to the rooftop made me nauseous. It haunted my nightmares – sometimes I dreamt I was trapped in the walls, but other times I was back on the roof, right on the edge, the dizzying heights spread out before me, and Violet laughing as she pushed me off. I always woke up with a start before I hit the ground.
But I was worrying for nothing, because just then Ariadne burst through the door and shook what looked like a prefect book at me. “We found this!” she said. “But we don’t know what it says!”
“What? Give that here …” I took it off her and stared at it as Ivy entered the room. “Eh? It’s just numbers!”
Ivy looked dejected. “I think it’s a code. The whole thing’s written in it.”
It certainly looked that way. Rows and rows of numbers, with dashes in between. I guessed that was how they’d managed to keep their secrets for all these years.
7-19-22
4-19-18-8-11-22-9-8
18-13
7-19-22
4-26-15-15-8
“But if it’s a code, then we can break it, right?” I said.
Ariadne brightened at that. “True!”
“You get on it then, brainbox,” I said, tossing the book back at her. “If it says anything about our mother, I want to know.”
“I’ll do it,” she grinned.
We hid the Whispers’ book in the old hole in my mattress and headed down for dinner. Ariadne stayed uncharacteristically quiet as we walked – she was puzzling out the code in her mind, probably. I wanted her to crack it, of course, but … could we trust her? She seemed like such a goody two-shoes, and I couldn’t help but think she’d end up turning the book in to the teachers or something. Then we’d really be for it.
Dinner was, surprisingly, not stew. It was, apparently, a casserole.
Ivy took a bite of it. “Are they sure this isn’t stew?” she said. “Because it tastes a lot like the stew.”
I sighed. I was famished, and I still hadn’t quite warmed up. It didn’t taste brilliant, but it was hot, and that made all the difference.
There was no sign of Penny or Nadia. I wondered what Mr Bartholomew would do with them. What would their punishment be? I shuddered to think.
“I’ve got it,” said Ariadne, snapping her fingers so loudly that everyone stared at her.
“Got what?” asked Mrs Knight from the other side of the table. She looked a little frazzled.
“Nothing,” Ariadne mumbled. Her cheeks flushed red.
“Um, Ariadne was trying to solve a … difficult maths problem,” Ivy said.
“Oh, well. Jolly good,” said Mrs Knight. “I like to see a keen student.”
As the rest of the table returned to chatting, Ariadne leant forward and whispered conspiratorially, “It wasn’t a maths problem!”
“We know,” I said.
“Oh.” She paused. “I’ve figured out the code, I think! I’ll just need a while to transcribe it all.”
Hmm. “Keep it a secret, you swear?” I said.
Ariadne blinked at me. “Of course!”
I frowned. I’d have to make sure she stayed true to her word.
Penny and Nadia were back in class the following day, made to sit on opposite sides of the room and forbidden from going near each other. They both looked miserable and moved awkwardly, like they were in pain. Nadia’s cheeks were streaked with tears. Even the thought of facing Mr Bartholomew’s wrath made me wince.
Violet was still in the sick bay. We’d sent Ariadne down to see Rose in the night, to give her food and a mug of water and – ick – take her to the lavatories. I was expecting Ariadne to be a mouse about it, but she seemed to be worried enough about Rose to be willing to risk the consequences of being caught roaming the school at night.
I sat scratching my desk with my compasses, and realised that I was worrying about Rose as well. It was dark down there, and cold. What if she was afraid?
Shut up, I told myself. Rose isn’t your problem.
Ivy’s wet-blanketness – sorry, sensitivity – was rubbing off on me.
I wasn’t looking forward to sharing ballet class with Penny. I wished someone would order her to stay away from me.
The ballet studio had never been warm, but now that the temperature had plummeted it was unbearable, like walking into an icebox.
Miss Finch was sitting at her piano wearing a scarf and a woolly hat. “Sorry about this, girls,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I’m afraid more dancing is our only option.”
Ivy and I sat down and tried to lace on our shoes with stiff hands. And that was when Penny walked in and sat down beside me. I waited for her to say something, some sarcastic comment, some threat. I was sure she’d be in a terrible mood.
As I waited, I heard a sniff. I looked round at her.
She was crying.
I was completely unprepared for this situation. So I did the first thing that came to mind: I ignored her and went straight to the barre.
I heard Ivy say, quietly, “Are you … all right, Penny?”
Penny said nothing, but I could still hear her gulping and sniffing.
Ivy came over and joined me. When I looked at her questioningly she just shrugged, clearly none the wiser.
It wasn’t long before Miss Finch noticed. “What’s wrong, Penny?” she asked.
“V-Violet,” she sobbed. “I just … It’s so awful …”
I watched in the mirror as Miss Finch went to her and started talking to her so quietly that I couldn’t hear.
I leant over to Ivy, who was practising fourth position. “I didn’t know Penny had a heart,” I said. “I assumed she was some sort of demon.”
Ivy swiped me on the arm. “Scarlet,” she chastised. “She may have nearly killed her best friend, but it wasn’t exactly on purpose. I know we hate her, but shouldn’t we give her a break?”
Maybe she had a point. I turned sideways and lifted my leg up to the barre. “I think you’re underestimating Penny.”
“Oh? And how am I doing that?”
“You’re assuming she’s crying because she’s sad and feels guilty. I think you’re wrong. Little miss perfect prefect has just been punished. I think she’s crying because she’s angry.”
It wasn’t until the following evening that Ariadne came knocking frantically at our dorm room door, the Whispers’ book in her hands. She threw it down on my bed triumphantly.
“Done,” she said. “I never want to look at that blasted thing again!”
She proceeded to flop on to the carpet.
“You worked out all of it?” asked Scarlet. She actually seemed a little impressed.
Ariadne beamed at her. “The whole thing,” she said.
I peered at her from the edge of my bed. “Are you all right, Ariadne?”
“No. I was up half the night with Rose, and the other half staring at numbers. To begin with I thought that A was one and B was two and so on, but that just gave me words like ‘DZOOH’. But then I wondered if the second word might be ‘WHISPERS’, like the title on the book, which meant that ‘4’ means W. Which is the fourth letter from the end of the alphabet.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, it’s just the alphabet runn
ing backwards instead of forwards. Took me half the night to work it out, and it’s so simple! Here, please just take it off me.”
Well, I was eager to read it. I picked up the book and opened it at the first page. Ariadne had gone through the whole thing, writing the letters underneath as she translated the code. The first page read, perhaps unsurprisingly:
7-19-22
T-H-E
4-19-18-8-11-22-9-8
W-H-I-S-P-E-R-S
18-13
I-N
7-19-22
T-H-E
4-26-15-15-8
W-A-L-L-S
“Did you read it?” Scarlet asked Ariadne, who was staring despondently at the ceiling.
“Not exactly,” she said. “But I got the gist of it. And I don’t want to read it again, thank you very much.”
Scarlet scooted over on to my bed and together we began to read through the book.
It took us some time to read it all, with me having to wait for Scarlet, her nudging me when she wanted me to turn the page. But when we we’d finished, I realised exactly why Ariadne was reacting the way she was – and it wasn’t just exhaustion or the tedium of cracking the code.
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I never thought …”
The book was a list of all the things that the girls knew or suspected about Mr Bartholomew, and it did not make for comfortable reading. It named him at the beginning before referring to him simply as ‘he’ from then on.
He favours daughters of his rich friends.
He fired a teacher for giving one of them bad marks.
He locked a teacher in a cupboard all night for refusing to punish a pupil.
He makes pupils run around the school until they collapse.
He stood by while a girl had an asthma attack when she was exhausted from running.
He makes rule-breakers swim laps of the lake in the dark.
He gave one girl such a beating that he broke her arm.
All of this, and more. The list went on and on, each entry more horrifying than the last. Even though Mr Bartholomew was now a frail old man, he was still terrifying – so I could well imagine he was capable of all of this. I felt sick with fear and disgust.
The Whispers in the Walls (Scarlet and Ivy, Book 2) Page 11