The Midnight Chimes

by Paula Harrison

  It took Mrs Lovell a moment to get herself together. “Um, yes. That’s right.”

  “I have good newsss.” Miss Smiting smiled warmly. “Mr Cryptorum offers you the use of Grimdean House for your ssschool while your building is repaired. You are welcome to bring the children right away.”

  “I’m sorry!” Mrs Lovell flushed. “Did you say we could move the school into Grimdean House? Won’t that be rather inconvenient for Mr Cryptorum?”

  “Not at all. There are plenty of roomsss downstairs that you will use.” Miss Smiting said firmly.

  “It’s a lot of children,” put in the fireman. “And a lot of noise.”

  “But we are the only place in Wendleton that has the room, yes?” Miss Smiting took off her sunglasses and turned her gaze on the fireman and then on Mrs Lovell. “You will bring everyone to Grimdean straight away. It is the perfect solution.”

  “It is the perfect solution,” Mrs Lovell echoed.

  “Well that’s settled then,” said the fireman.

  Just before Miss Smiting replaced her sunglasses, I caught a glimpse of her eyes – dazzling green with narrow pupils. I sucked in my breath. She glanced at me, her smile bright. “I have ordered a removal lorry for the chairs and desks,” she told the headmistress. “You may bring the children to the house and we will make you all very comfortable.”

  “Wonderful!” Mrs Lovell beamed. “I’ll tell them at once.” She raised the loudspeaker. “Good news, children! We’ve been offered the use of Grimdean House while our school is being repaired, so we won’t need to close down after all.”

  The kids groaned. The parents’ faces brightened. Soon the teachers had rounded up their classes and a long crocodile of children began marching up the street. I spotted Annie and Josh among them. Miss Smiting glided back to her shiny black limo. The firemen shook their heads as they examined the fallen trees.

  “Robyn! Aiden! There you are.” Mrs Perez, our class teacher, dumped a tower of books into our arms. “The caretaker’s rescued some books and pens from the building. Our class is carrying everything as the younger ones won’t manage it.”

  Even in the middle of all the chaos Mrs Perez still managed to look all neat and organized with her smooth bob and gold-rimmed glasses. She zipped round, piling stuff on to everyone, before leading us up the street. Aiden and I were at the back of the line, mainly because I kept dropping my books and had to stop to pick them up.

  “Hey!” Aiden paused just before we turned the corner. “Did you think it was windy last night?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because those trees have stood next to the playground for years. Wouldn’t it have taken a big storm to knock them down? There wasn’t anything like that.”

  I shrugged. Aiden always had to find reasons for things. Sometimes things just happened the way they happened. “Maybe their roots were weak or something.”

  “I think it’s weird that they all managed to hit the school roof. They were at different corners of the building. Why didn’t one of them hit the fence or the teachers’ car park?”

  “I guess. . . But at least we get a chance to see inside Grimdean House and work out whether Cryptorum really does turn into a bat.”

  “Mmm.” Aiden was still staring back at the school.

  I glanced at the roof with its gaping holes and the three tree trunks lying against the building. It did seem a bit strange but I pushed that thought out of my mind. My arms were starting to ache from carrying all the books. “C’mon! Perez has nearly got to the next corner.”

  Mrs Perez was frowning at us, so we tried to stay with the rest of the class after that. Everyone was still moaning about not getting time off school. Douggie was complaining the loudest. “But where are we going to have PE, miss? And where’s the lunch hall gonna be? And will we have the same things to eat?”

  Mrs Perez was obviously trying not to roll her eyes. “I don’t know, Douggie. This all just happened a few minutes ago. I expect we’ll have to be patient over the next few days while things are worked out.”

  “Here, miss, shall I take those?” Hector took a few books from the teacher’s arms. He was the tallest kid in our class and always acted like class Superman.

  “Thank you, Hector. That’s very kind. Now hurry up, everyone.” Mrs Perez turned down Demus Street. “We’re nearly there.”

  We passed the turn for the town square. The grocer, the shoe shop, and that little place that sold all the shiny stones and pots of herbs were all opening their shutters and putting signs out front.

  Halfway down the street on the left was Grimdean House, sitting in the middle of a row of ordinary houses. It was a big, grey monster of a building surrounded by spiky black railings and topped by a pointed tower with slit-like windows. Near the top of the tower was a huge oval-shaped clock with a face of polished gold. The clock hadn’t worked for years, but a week ago a workman had been spotted climbing a ladder to reach it and by the end of that day the clock was running again. Mum had told us not everyone liked it because the chimes were so loud. Actually it had woken me up a couple of times over the last few nights.

  The front steps of the mansion were swarming with little kids and the teachers were trying to herd them all inside. I glanced up at the clock. There were two dark patches just above the centre which made me think of eyes. I blinked and looked again. They were only patches of dirt. Just because the whole week had been weird didn’t mean I had to freak out over nothing.

  Bong! The clock began to chime nine o’clock. The deep sound vibrated right down to my toes.

  “Robyn, catch up please!” Mrs Perez called.

  “Yes, miss!” I glanced up one more time as I followed everyone inside. I was sure I saw a bat gliding over the grey stone tower.

  Our Maths Lesson is Haunted

  rimdean House was just as freaky inside as I’d imagined. There was a big arched doorway with strange marks carved into the wooden frame. The entrance hall was huge and dimly lit. Mirrors of different shapes and sizes hung on the walls between candles in black iron holders. At the far end, a massive wooden chest with a rusty padlock stood at the foot of a wide staircase.

  “Sssilence!” Miss Smiting’s voice cut through the chatter. She stood a few steps up the staircase holding a large bunch of keys in her hand. I wondered how she could see properly in the dim light with her sunglasses on. “Let me direct you to your new classrooms,” she began. “The infants will be in the ballroom.”

  I smirked at Aiden. A ballroom! Who actually has a ballroom in their house, like it’s a castle or something?

  “Tables and chairs will be brought along to your room shortly.” Miss Smiting smiled down at the smallest children. “The older onesss will be in the blue room, the red room and the drawing room. Part of the back lawn will be roped off as a playground but you must keep away from the barn—”

  “Junella!” roared a deep voice. A pair of legs came into view at the top of the stairs, dressed in pyjamas, a green velvet dressing gown, and brown slippers. A ripple of laughter ran round the entrance hall then stopped quickly as the rest of the man appeared. Bristling eyebrows jutted out above Cryptorum’s deep brown eyes and craggy nose. Grey hair flowed down to his neck like a wild, wintery sea.

  “Junella, what is the meaning of this?” he snapped at Miss Smiting. Then he jabbed his gnarled finger towards a little boy. “Get your face OFF my mirror!”

  The boy, who’d been pressing his nose against a long rectangular mirror, jerked back from the glass and burst into tears.

  “Really, Erasmusss,” said Miss Smiting, completely calm. “This is hardly the way to welcome people to your home.”

  “Why would I welcome people to my home?” He clumped down the steps until he was level with her. “What on earth are they doing here? Of all the crazy, rattle-brained ideas you’ve had, this has to be the worst. I can’t have children poking around my stuff!”

  Mrs Lovell hurried forward, twisting her necklace nervously. “Good morning! I’m t
he headmistress. I understood you’d offered us the use of your house in our hour of need, but if that’s not the case then we’ll leave.” She blinked rapidly. “And we’re very sorry to have bothered you.”

  I nudged Aiden and whispered, “Bet you five pounds that Lovell starts crying.”

  “Done!” he whispered back.

  “The school roof is damaged, Erasmus, and they have nowhere else to go,” said Miss Smiting. “We did discuss thisss before.”

  “Discuss! Is that what you call it? I agreed to the clock being mended but this is a child invasion.” Cryptorum’s dark eyes scanned the entrance hall as if he was looking at every single child. I shivered as his gaze brushed past me. “If we absolutely have to let them in then they must keep out of my way. They’re not allowed anywhere near my private study, or the barn, or the tower, or the library. In fact they’d better stay out of the whole of the upstairs.”

  “I’ll ssee to it.” Miss Smiting smiled. “There’s no need for you to worry.”

  “And I want everyone who comes here thoroughly checked,” Mr Cryptorum growled. “No dodgy people are allowed past the front door, and that includes parents!” He stomped back upstairs and the entrance hall was silent for a moment, except for the little boy who was still crying.

  Miss Smiting glided over to him and ruffled his hair. “Take no notice! Mr Cryptorum is simply grumpy from being woken early. He often stays up very late indeed.” She clapped her hands. “Infantss! Follow me to your new classroom.”

  The place was like a crazy ant’s nest for the rest of the morning, full of lost kids and annoyed teachers. The removal lorry arrived with the chairs and desks, and as we were the oldest kids, we had to carry them inside. Miss Smiting glided about hanging wooden signs on the doors that read KEEP OUT in big black letters. Every time she stuck another one on a door it made me desperate to look inside. The biggest KEEP OUT sign hung on a chain across the stairway. Obviously going upstairs was forbidden.

  After carrying a few chairs, me and Aiden perched on a desk in the entrance hall for a rest. The clock on the tower struck eleven o’clock.

  “This is hard work,” I said. “They should pay us for doing all this.”

  “The fact is people hardly ever pay children even when they’re doing as much work as adults,” Aiden said.

  “Well, they should!” The clock stopped chiming and suddenly it was really quiet. “This has to be the creepiest place I’ve ever seen. Seriously! No wonder there are all those rumours.” I remembered that with all the excitement I still hadn’t told Aiden about the spiny creature. “Hey! Talking of creepy – you’ll never believe what happened yesterday—”

  “Robyn!” Hector marched in and picked up a stack of chairs. “Mrs Perez is waiting for that desk.”

  I grimaced at his disappearing back. “He really thinks he’s in charge, doesn’t he? Mrs Lovell had better watch out because he’ll take over the whole school.”

  “We should go.” Aiden yawned and slid down from the desk. Behind him, there was a sudden movement in the mirror. To my horror, a grey face swam towards the glass like a fish coming to the surface of a pond.

  I glanced round. No one was behind me. “Did you see that?”

  “See what?”

  “That thing in the mirror – that face.” I jerked my head at the gilt-edged mirror.

  Aiden looked into the glass before grinning at me. “Can’t see a thing, but an old place like this is bound to be haunted, right?”

  I hesitated. I’d been ready to tell Aiden about the weird creature in our kitchen before Hector had come in. But what if I was seeing all this stuff because something was wrong with me?

  Aiden knocked on the mirror. “Looks like the ghost is gone!”

  I peered in the glass. Aiden was right – there was nothing there. I was sure I’d seen something though. “I don’t know why Mr Cryptorum needs so many mirrors anyway. Doesn’t look like he spends much time on beauty tips.”

  “You don’t know that,” Aiden quipped. “It probably takes a lot of time and effort to make his eyebrows that scary.” He picked up one side of the desk and I took the other.

  I risked one more look in the mirror as we carried the desk through the hallway, but there was still nothing there.

  After that, I really started noticing all the mirrors. They were literally everywhere – in the ballroom where the little kids were and the drawing room which was now our classroom. Every corridor had them too. Maybe Mr Cryptorum collected them.

  When me and Aiden brought the desk to Mrs Perez she made us sit down at it and join in the maths lesson. There was no way I could concentrate on fractions after so much had happened. I stared around the room. The leather sofas had been pushed to one side to make space for our desks. There was a cabinet in the corner with rows of china teapots inside. Next to it was a tall cupboard with a key in the lock. And of course there were mirrors – I counted seven of them.

  I put my hand up. “Miss, don’t you think it’s weird that Mr Cryptorum has so many mirrors in his house?”

  Mrs Perez frowned deeply. “No, that is not the answer to ‘what fractions are equivalent to one quarter’, Robyn. Please make sure you’re paying attention. Just because this isn’t our normal classroom doesn’t mean we can let our standards slip. We could be here for weeks, maybe months, so we can’t daydream the time away.”

  Hector raised his hand. “It’s two-eighths, miss.”

  “That’s correct, Hector, well done,” Mrs Perez smiled.

  From the desk in front Sally-Anne threw me a pitying look.

  I couldn’t help staring around some more though. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to live here with all these enormous rooms and old furniture. I twisted in my chair a bit so I could look at the big painting above the fireplace. That looked really old too. It was a picture of a man and a woman in posh clothes standing in this room – the drawing room. The man had a straw hat and looked a bit like Mr Cryptorum. The woman was wearing a long flowery dress and – my breath caught in my throat – there was something funny about her eyes. . .

  “Robyn Silver!”

  I almost jumped out of my chair. “Yes, miss.”

  “Please give out the textbooks,” said Mrs Perez. “Quick as you can. We don’t have long till lunch.”

  I stumbled to my feet and handed out the books, but I kept glancing back at the picture. A shiver ran through me. The eyes of the woman in the painting seemed to be watching me – following me round the room. Mrs Perez sighed as I dropped a load of books on the floor and, as I scooped them up, I could still feel the woman’s eyes on me. This was stupid. Paintings couldn’t watch people!

  I sat down and tried to concentrate on the fractions. Halves, quarters and thirds. . . Was the woman watching me now? I tried to nudge Aiden but he was leaning really close to his book, his lips moving as he read the next question. Aiden is dyslexic, so reading things takes him longer than me, but give him tools and wood and wire and he can make just about anything.

  I glanced at the picture again. From deep below the house came a long moaning sound. It was like something in pain. It grew louder, making the glass in the cabinet door rattle.

  “What was that?” I said.

  Mrs Perez came over. “What’s the matter now, Robyn? Are you stuck?”

  “No, it’s just . . . that noise was horrible.” I shivered.

  Mrs Perez sighed. “What noise, Robyn? The room was quiet until you started talking. Now get on with your work, please.”

  Sally-Anne sniggered at the desk in front. I fell silent and pretended to do the sums but my mind was spinning. I’d seen things no one else could see. Was I hearing things other people couldn’t hear now too?

  At the end of the lesson I dashed over to the fireplace, determined to look at the painting. As I got close, there was a flicker of movement in the woman’s eyes and a sharp click. Then the eyes were still – just like any other part of the painting.

  Aiden followed me. “What are yo
u doing? First you stare at the mirrors, now it’s the paintings.”

  “Did you see that?” I demanded.

  “See what? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, never mind!” Suddenly I felt like my head was going to burst. I had to get out of this room – out of this horrible house.

  “I don’t know what you saw.” Aiden lowered his voice. “But I did hear that groaning sound. It came from somewhere beneath us.”

  A wave of relief washed through me. “You heard it? I thought it was just me.” I opened my mouth to ask him if he’d ever seen the spiny goblin things too.

  “Robyn and Aiden.” Mrs Perez cut in. “You obviously haven’t noticed but everyone else has gone to lunch. Hurry along now.”

  A faint scratching began inside the cupboard behind Mrs Perez. The cupboard door opened a crack. I froze. What was in there? Was it another weird creature?

  Slowly and carefully, four long, pale fingers slid through the thin gap and wrapped themselves round the edge of the cupboard door. My stomach dropped. There was no skin on those fingers. There was nothing but bones.

  I glanced at Aiden. The look of horror in his eyes told me he could see them too. The fingers tightened on the door, making a sharp cracking sound. Mrs Perez was still gazing at me and Aiden as if everything was totally normal. She actually looked a bit impatient, as if we were wasting her time.

  I didn’t know what was in the cupboard and I didn’t want to find out. Bounding forwards, I slammed the door shut, nearly crunching the bony fingers. My heart pounding, I fumbled with the key in the lock.

  “Is it really necessary to leap at the furniture like that?” Mrs Perez began.

  “I just want to help keep things tidy, miss,” I gabbled. “And maybe you should come with us now. . .”

  “To show us where to get lunch,” Aiden added quickly. “Because we can’t remember.”

  “All right then.” Mrs Perez straightened the pile of textbooks on her desk. “I do hope you two are going to be sensible while the school is here at Grimdean. It seems like a lovely house full of beautiful things and it’s very kind of Mr Cryptorum to give us a safe place to learn. Don’t you think this is a wonderful place to have a school?”