by R. A. Spratt
‘What?’ said Friday, looking up again. ‘Oh dear, we should have sent up a weather balloon first so we could measure wind speed at the various heights.’
The rocket was drifting on the wind towards the south.
‘You’ll be lucky if it lands on school grounds,’ said Ian.
‘I don’t think it will,’ said Christopher.
They all watched the parachute drift over the school boundary still three hundred metres in the air and floating rapidly away from them.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Mr Davies. ‘How are we going to get it back? I’ll get in such trouble with the Headmaster if I lose any more equipment. He’s still cross with me for blowing up the fume cupboard last term when I got carried away demonstrating a baking-powder volcano.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Friday, ‘it’ll be simple to find with the GPS.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Mr Davies.
‘I’ve even got video footage,’ said Friday.
‘You do?’ asked Mr Davies.
Friday took a tablet computer out of her bag.
‘Now that is definitely against the school rules,’ said Ian.
‘I’m sure Mr Davies and the Headmaster will be happy to bend the rules if it means I can return the school’s equipment,’ said Friday.
‘Oh yes, of course, of course,’ said Mr Davies.
‘I embedded a nano-camera in the rocket’s nose cone,’ said Friday, tapping the screen on her tablet, ‘so let’s see what it got.’
Everyone gathered round to see the recording. Friday hit the play arrow. For several seconds the footage was just blue sky.
‘Thrilling,’ said Ian sarcastically.
But then the picture tipped over and they could see the school from fifteen hundred metres up.
‘Wow!’ exclaimed Mr Davies.
It really was a beautiful scene. For the students at Highcrest it was so easy to focus on the drudgery and pettiness of everyday life at a boarding school, and to forget how beautiful their school grounds were. The red stone buildings, the green playing fields all set between the winding river, the canopy of the swamp on one side and the dense forest on the other.
They watched the school gradually leave the camera’s frame as the rocket drifted towards the forest, the picture getting closer and closer to the treetops. Then the rocket dipped down into the foliage.
‘I hope it doesn’t get stuck on a branch,’ worried Friday.
But the rocket didn’t. The picture drifted down until the nose hit the grass, then the rocket fell sideways, leaving a camera view of the ground through the thin grass.
‘Now that’s helpful,’ said Ian. ‘I’d recognise that blade of grass anywhere.’
‘Is that a caravan behind the tree in the background?’ asked Melanie.
Friday leaned in to peer closely at the picture. ‘I think you’re right. Someone must be living in the forest,’ she said.
Suddenly a face appeared sideways in the picture.
‘Aaaagggh!!!’ screamed the assembled group.
Friday dropped the computer as she instinctively flinched away, but she quickly picked it back up again. The face was still sideways, but it filled up the full frame.
‘It looks like a vagrant,’ said Mr Davies.
‘Yes,’ agreed Friday. ‘And that vagrant looks very familiar.’
Chapter 14
The Familiar Vagrant
‘Hello Malcolm, good to see you again,’ said Friday cheerily, as she arrived at the precise GPS coordinates in the woods where her rocket said it would be. Ian and Melanie were with her; Melanie, because she went everywhere with Friday, and Ian, because Mr Davies insisted that they needed a chaperone.
Malcolm was standing in front of a small caravan that was tucked underneath the broad branches of an oak tree. There was a picnic chair and card table set up outside. It looked almost homey.
‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Malcolm.
‘We’re here for the rocket,’ said Friday.
‘Why did you fire it at me?’ asked Malcolm.
‘Fire it at you?’ said Friday. ‘We didn’t fire it at you. We fired it up in the air and the wind carried it here.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’ accused Malcolm.
‘Well, I would expect you to because it’s the truth,’ said Friday. ‘But I don’t really mind if you don’t, as long as you give the rocket back.’ She held out her hand and smiled at Malcolm. But he was still looking suspicious.
‘There’s a tiny camera in this thing, isn’t there?’ said Malcolm.
‘Yes,’ said Friday happily. ‘We got some tremendous pictures of the landscape. Would you like to see the video?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ growled Malcolm. ‘I don’t want you spying on me.’
‘We weren’t,’ said Friday.
‘I know Highcrest Academy wants to get rid of me,’ said Malcolm.
‘They do?’ said Friday.
‘They wrote me a letter,’ said Malcolm.
‘But you don’t have a letterbox,’ said Melanie, looking about to see if there was a letterbox she had missed.
‘It was hand-delivered by the Vice Principal,’ said Malcolm.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Melanie. ‘Our Headmaster is a wonderful man, but being on top of things is not a strength of his. If he did know you were here, he’d probably pretend he didn’t so that he wouldn’t have to do anything.’
‘Just get out of here,’ demanded Malcolm.
‘Okay,’ said Friday. For the first time since she’d met Malcolm at the police station, Friday became conscious of his menacing size. ‘Can I have my rocket back, please?’
Malcolm glared. ‘No.’
‘But you owe me a favour,’ said Friday. ‘I got you off those bracelet charges.’
‘Do I?’ said Malcolm. ‘I never understood why you helped me in the first place. Maybe you had your own reasons. Now get off my land.’
‘Your land?’ said Friday.
‘Yes, my grandfather left me this land,’ said Malcolm. ‘I own it, and you’re trespassing.’
Ian grabbed Friday’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s go. We don’t want trouble.’
Friday looked at Malcolm. He looked upset. It couldn’t be easy getting let out of jail. And having a rocket unexpectedly plummet out of the sky would be alarming.
‘All right,’ said Friday. ‘Sorry that we upset you. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again sometime and we can explain things properly.’
‘Just leave me alone,’ yelled Malcolm.
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Melanie with a wave as the three students left the clearing. ‘What a lovely man.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ said Ian. ‘He looked like he was about to explode.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Melanie. ‘But if you looked past that he had lovely soft eyes.’
‘Come on, let’s get moving,’ said Ian, hastening his stride. ‘I’ll feel better once we’re back on school grounds.’
‘Wait up,’ said Friday. ‘Some of us have shorter legs than you.’
Ian turned his head to say something sarcastic. ‘Some of us have …’
‘Watch out for the hole,’ warned Melanie.
‘Wha … aagghhh!’ said Ian, as he stepped backwards into a hole and fell over.
The girls hurried to him.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Friday.
‘Urgh,’ groaned Ian.
‘For a very athletic boy he gets surprisingly clumsy when he is around you,’ Melanie observed.
‘Another hole,’ said Friday, bending down to observe the neat way the hole had been cut into the ground with a sharp spade.
‘Perhaps Malcolm dug it?’ suggested Melanie. ‘Maybe he’s planning to plant potatoes.’
‘Ian looks concussed,’ said Friday. ‘We’re going to have to help him get back to the school.’
Friday and Melanie pulled Ian to his feet. He was very groggy. They each took one of his arms around their shoulders and bega
n slowly walking him towards the main road.
‘He’s very heavy,’ observed Melanie.
‘Yes,’ agreed Friday. ‘And being tall, he’s got an awkwardly high centre of gravity.’
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t have fallen in love with someone smaller,’ said Melanie. ‘Like Christopher.’
‘I’m not attracted to Christopher!’ said Friday.
‘I didn’t say you were,’ said Melanie. ‘I just meant he was shorter. Although it is interesting that your mind leapt to that conclusion.’
Chapter 15
Mrs Cannon’s Assignment
‘Class, you have no idea how much it grieves me to do this,’ said Mrs Cannon as she sat at her desk, the newspaper for once folded and lying unread. ‘But I’m afraid the school forces me to give you an assignment.’
‘That’s all right, miss,’ called Peregrine. ‘We know you’ve got no say in it.’
‘I’m totally against assignments on principle,’ continued Mrs Cannon. ‘It’s bad enough that you have to do them. But think about me. I have to mark them. All of them. And there are so many of you. It’s really quite exhausting.’
‘Is there any way we can make it easier for you, miss?’ asked Ian.
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Fortunately I’ve been doing this job for a very long time, so I am very good at coming up with assignments that involve the least amount of work for everyone.’
‘You’re a credit to your profession, miss,’ said Ian.
‘I know,’ agreed Mrs Cannon. ‘Several decades ago I came up with the brilliant idea of making the autumn term assignment a time capsule.’
‘A time capsule?!’ the class exclaimed.
‘The idea is that you, as a group, put together a literary collection,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘It can include books, or passages from a book, or poems. Whatever you like. As long as it’s small enough to fit in a shoebox. We don’t have any earth-moving equipment, so we don’t want to commit to anything too labour-intensive. The idea is that we can share a snapshot of our literary epoch with future generations.’
‘Sounds very worthy, miss,’ chimed in Amelia.
‘I know, I was particularly proud when I came up with that phrase,’ reminisced Mrs Cannon. ‘But the best thing about this assignment is that it is buried deep in the ground, so no-one will ever know what we put in there. And no marking for me!’
‘How will we get our grades?’ asked Lindy, a bookish girl.
‘I’ll put a list of your names up on the wall and you can write in what mark you want,’ said Mrs Cannon.
There was excited muttering now.
‘But be warned,’ said Mrs Cannon, ‘I know it is tempting to nominate an A. But if you’ve never had an A before in English and you think you’re unlikely to get an A ever again, then it’s best not to raise your parents’ expectations. If your performance leaps up, they’ll probably think you’ve cheated. Or if they’re naïve enough to think you’ve suddenly got smarter, they’ll be bitterly disappointed with every mark you ever get in the future. So my advice is, look into your heart and write down what you think you’d really get if you had a more professional teacher. And don’t do anything silly that will draw attention to my system, because next term I’m planning to assess you by getting you to write one haiku each. There are only seventeen syllables in a haiku. Don’t make the head of English notice what I’m up to and force me to force you to write something longer.’
‘So when do we have to have our time capsule submissions ready?’ asked Friday.
‘Tomorrow,’ said Mrs Cannon.
‘But that only gives us twenty-three hours to think of something,’ protested Friday.
‘That’s twenty-two-and-a-half hours more than you need,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Just bring in some piece of writing you’d like to bury in the ground forever.’
Friday’s English class gathered again for third period the following morning.
‘Rightio,’ said Mrs Cannon as she plonked an empty shoebox on her desk. ‘I suppose we’d better get it over with. What have you got?’
The students laid out their time capsule offerings.
‘What’s this?’ asked Mrs Cannon, picking up a comic book. ‘Who put this here?’
‘I did, miss,’ said Rajiv. ‘It’s a Spider-Man comic.’
‘Did you enjoy reading it?’ asked Mrs Cannon.
‘Er … yes, miss,’ admitted Rajiv. ‘Then don’t put it in,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Anything that goes in the time capsule will never been seen again. It would be a shame to waste something as enjoyable as a good comic.’
‘But what about the future generations?’ asked Rajiv.
‘They might not have an appreciation for literature, in which case it will be wasted on them,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘You’re better off giving it to a small child, or better yet, keeping it for yourself.’ She handed the comic back to Rajiv, who looked relieved to be able to tuck it inside his jacket pocket.
‘What’s this?’ asked Mrs Cannon, holding up a thick novel.
‘Les Misérables,’ said Melanie.
‘I can see that,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Why on earth are you putting it in here?’
‘It’s painfully boring, miss,’ said Melanie.
‘That’s true enough,’ agreed Mrs Cannon. ‘There are good bits in there, eventually. But you have to wade through so much waffle before you get to the love triangles and the barricades. You’re much better off going to see the musical. But you can’t put the book in the time capsule – there’s not enough space.’
‘What if you burned it first?’ asked Melanie. ‘Ashes would take up less room.’
‘Good point,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘I like your lateral thinking. Be sure to give yourself an A for this assignment.’
‘Plus, if it’s ashes, the people digging it up will assume you’re making some sort of poetic statement, perhaps about the death of literature,’ suggested Friday.
‘I like that,’ said Mrs Cannon.
‘Perhaps we should burn all our contributions,’ said Ian.
Mrs Cannon gave Ian a scathing look. ‘You just want to play with matches. And as we all know, naughty boys should never play with matches.’
‘Quite right, miss,’ agreed Ian.
‘What are you putting in, Friday?’ asked Peregrine.
‘I’m prepared to excuse you if you haven’t got a book or poem you can bear to part with,’ said Mrs Cannon.
‘I’m putting in my copy of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus,’ said Friday.
‘Really?’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘I thought that was a jolly good book. It certainly helped me in my relationship with Mr Cannon. Once I understood that he wanted to be left alone in his man cave, it allowed me much more time for novel reading.’
‘I think it’s good too,’ said Friday. ‘I like how it simplistically and with no scientific evidence undermines the entire premise of feminism that the two genders are equal, and promotes hugging as a universal solution to the entire female gender.’
‘I like hugging,’ said Melanie.
‘Women do,’ said Friday. ‘That is the genius of the book.’
Ian shoved a book into the shoebox.
‘What’s this, Mr Wainscott?’ asked Mrs Cannon, picking up his contribution and reading the cover. ‘The Curse of the Pirate King? This is our study text for the semester! Are you making some sort of criticism of my curriculum?’
‘No, miss,’ said Ian, looking down at his shoes as he scuffed at the floor.
‘If it were, you’d get an A,’ said Mrs Cannon happily. ‘Burying your required reading text is a very poetic way to criticise the book. Well done!’ Mrs Cannon looked at the back cover. ‘And I see it is a copy from the school library. Even better! That will infuriate the librarian. But technically it won’t be leaving school grounds, so there won’t be much she can do about it. An A+ for you too, Mr Wainscott.’
‘Come on,’ said Ian. ‘Let’s bury the box so we can get back to something
more meaningful, like helping Mrs Cannon with her crossword.’ He scooped up the box.
‘You’re such an angry young man,’ said Mrs Cannon, as she allowed a student to help her to her feet. ‘But so good-looking. You can get away with anything if you’re beautiful. I know it’s hard to believe, but I was beautiful once.’
‘You still are, miss,’ said Ian chivalrously.
‘Good one, Mr Wainscott,’ said Mrs Cannon with a chuckle. ‘But seriously, I was stunning for twenty-three years, from my mid-teens to my late thirties. I highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun.’
‘Why did you stop being good-looking?’ asked Melanie. ‘Was it age?’
‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘I married Mr Cannon. He’s a chef, you know. I very quickly got fat. Which was even more fun.’
The class wandered out into the school, looking for an appropriate place to bury the time capsule.
‘Let’s not walk too far,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Where would be a good spot for the hole?’
‘Right here?’ suggested Melanie.
‘We’re standing on bitumen,’ Friday pointed out. ‘If we had a jackhammer, maybe. But we’ve only got the spade Mrs Cannon brought from home.’
‘If we’re going for maximum laziness,’ said Ian, ‘we should bury it in the school vegetable garden. The soil there gets dug over all the time. It will be the easiest place to dig a hole.’
‘I like your thinking, Mr Wainscott,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Make sure you give yourself an A++ for this assignment. You’ve earned it.’
And so the class ambled in the direction of the vegetable garden.
‘If a member of staff comes near us,’ said Mrs Cannon, ‘start discussing books so they don’t suspect that we’re just wandering around in the sunshine.’
‘But we are just wandering around in the sunshine,’ said Peregrine.
‘We can’t let word get out that we’re doing that,’ said Mrs Cannon. ‘Nature walks aren’t part of the curriculum. At least not part of the English curriculum. Mr Powell could probably justify doing it as part of PE, if PE teachers weren’t all sadists.’