‘Are you sure about that?’ said the angel woodenly.
‘Yes, I’m sure!’ snapped the soul, beginning to sound as if it would have liked to be a bit more sure than it really was. ‘You’re just something happening inside my head as my brain decays. I’m going to shut my eyes and wait for darkness.’
‘Would you like to look at your results while you’re waiting?’
‘No!’
The angel scratched its flaming hair. ‘Then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to stand to one side until my supervisor gets back. He did say he wouldn’t be long.’
‘It’s a disgrace!’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said the angel. ‘The fact is, I’m new in this job and all I’m supposed to do is hand out results and tell people if they’ve passed or not. Could you please—’
‘Excuse me,’ said the next soul in the queue. ‘But could I apply for a resit?’
‘Resit?’ said the young angel. Things were rapidly getting beyond it.
‘Oh yes, you can resit,’ said the soul. ‘This was my sixth attempt. I was Amon-Hotep’s love slave in ancient Egypt, and when he died my throat was cut so that I could be buried in the pyramid with him. And in my next life I was a Roman centurion in Spain. And then I was an Aztec priest and did human sacrifices in the temple. And then I was a Chinese pirate, and then I was Marie Walewska and was mistress to Napoleon, and then I was a telesales executive in Bristol. I’ve always been borderline,’ the soul finished brightly, ‘so I’ve always been allowed another try.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ said the angel. Its tone implied that – whatever the love slave and the centurion and the Aztec and the pirate and Ms Walewska had done – the telesales executive’s grades were nowhere near borderline and nothing could make them so.
High on a wall was a counter with twelve dials. The dials were made of ebony and the figures on them were inlaid with ash. The first six dials were still, like mourners waiting patiently in a church for a coffin to arrive. They read:
Different degrees of movement were discernible on the next four, which read:
The last but one moved steadily as Muddlespot watched,
like that.
The final counter was a blur.
Windleberry had gone. Muddlespot followed, squeezing through the crowd, trying to look as small as possible. He certainly felt small. Everything around him was different from anything he had ever known. Where he came from, new arrivals didn’t get to answer back. That was for sure.
And yet there was something strangely familiar about what he had just seen. Especially about giving the new man the worst job going. He could almost hear the voice of that angel’s older colleague saying, Mind this table for me, would you? I won’t be long, honest. And if any of them get difficult, just keep asking them if they’re sure. They soon won’t be.
He hurried on down a crowded corridor, threading between bands of penitent souls, clumps of choristers and some very intimidating-looking wielders of fiery swords. Where was Windleberry? Up ahead? All these Fluffies looked the same!
If they saw who he was . . .
Just keep going, he told himself. In some ways this place is like being Down Below. When you get sent someplace where they don’t know you and you want to come out alive. The rules are: (1) don’t go there; (2) if you really have to go there, then look busy. Look as if you know what you are doing. Look, above all, as if messing with you will bring trouble from someone very big and very powerful.
It worked – some of the time anyway. Maybe it would work here too.
‘Sorry,’ he said, bumping against someone. He hurried on before whoever it was looked down and wondered why they had a smear of flesh-coloured paint on their arm. ‘Sorry.’
As he went he repeated over to himself the directions Windleberry had given him in case of separation. The thirteenth hall. The Stair of a Thousand Steps. The Chamber of Stars. The Gallery of Green Sunsets . . .
Had he got it in the right order?
What if he got lost here?
Exactly how long was he going to get away with this, sweating up and down these corridors, dripping paint and with his tail all knotted up and literally between his legs? And dodging round Fluffies at every turn?
But Windleberry had been right about one thing.
They were all averting their eyes.
‘All right,’ said Miss Ogle, Form Tutor to 9c. ‘Who has seen Imogen’s oboe?’
9c sat before her in four rows and silence.
‘This is important,’ said Miss Ogle. ‘She has an exam this afternoon. We don’t want her to miss it, do we?’
Silence.
Silence, but the sort of silence you could read if you knew how. Sally, sitting at the back (and still smarting from getting her first ‘Late’ ever) could read it like a book.
Eva and Holly were sitting bolt upright at the table before her. It wasn’t us, the set of their shoulders said. Though we might have done it if we’d thought of it.
Cassie and Viola were one table to the left of them. Sally couldn’t see their faces either, but she could just catch the look that Viola threw sideways at Holly. It ***** well was you, that look said. And when we’re through with you you’ll be wishing you’d gone to hospital in the ambulance yesterday too.
The boys were glancing at each other. Girl stuff, their eyes said. Stay out. Less fun than putting your hand in a hornets’ nest, definitely.
Imogen’s head was bowed, weighed down with the thought that everyone in the class hated her. This couldn’t be happening. She was Public Enemy Number One. She was going to miss her exam. Her parents were going to—
And Janey, at the table by the door, was looking Miss Ogle innocently in the eye.
Yep, Sally could read it like a book.
Miss Ogle couldn’t.
‘I’m waiting,’ she said.
Silence.
Half the class was thinking: Why couldn’t she have played the clarinet? Plenty of clarinets at school she could have borrowed.
Just about everybody else was thinking: Keep quiet. Stay out. She’ll soon realize . . .
A hand went up.
‘Yes, Minnie?’
Oh, no.
‘Um. Miss Ogle?’ said Minnie (still with her hand in the air) . . .
No, Minnie. No!
‘. . . I think it’s something to do with Billie and Viola.’
Beyond the Chamber of Stars, down the Gallery of Green Sunsets, through the little door behind the one hundred and fifty-fourth pillar in the Hall of Butterfly Wings, there a was a narrow corridor with no name at all. Halfway down it there was a door with a sign:
Cupids can spell. They just don’t want it known. Inside the Store room was another sign.
The store clerk was a cupid. He looked at the requisition that Muddlespot handed to him.
‘Nope,’ he said.
‘It’s in order, isn’t it?’ said Muddlespot, sidling closer so that as much of him as possible was concealed behind the counter. Cupids, he had noticed, did not avert their eyes, and now that he was in close proximity to one his disguise was feeling very thin indeed.
‘Nope,’ said the cupid again.
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Muddlespot, who had spent a good hour down in Sally’s mind watching while Windleberry very carefully wrote out, copied, signed, sealed and resealed the parchment specifying exactly what it was that had to be collected from the cupids’ stores.
‘Can’t let you have anything on this,’ said the cupid firmly. ‘Not been countersigned, see?’
‘The countersignature is over the page,’ said Muddlespot sweetly.
‘Don’t make any difference,’ said the cupid promptly. ‘Still can’t let you have that thing.’
Again that feeling! Never mind the constant harp music, the lack of bloodstains on the walls and the air smelling of sunsets rather than seared flesh. If you got sent to the stores Down Below – say for a number five burner or something – this was exactly the conversation you
would have there.
‘Stores is for storing,’ said the cupid. ‘You want something issued, you has to go to “Issues”, see?’
There is a certain sort of practical joke that minor officials everywhere play on people they think were born yesterday. They actually find it funny. It brightens their miserable lives.
‘Right . . .’
And by the standards of eternity, Muddlespot had indeed been born yesterday. If not in the last five minutes.
‘. . . I see . . .’
But he had also been born in a place where you either learned very quickly or you quickly stopped learning altogether.
‘And that’s where they keep the left-handed hammers and the stripy paint, is it?’ he said, looking the cupid hard in the eye.
‘Could be.’ The cupid shrugged and shifted his gaze. He sniffed the air. A frown crossed his face.
Muddlespot sidled closer still. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said the word ‘paint’. Where was Windleberry?
The door behind him banged open. Another cupid rushed in, carrying a huge sheaf of papers. His cheeks were pink from fluttering at speed. He slammed a requisition down on the counter.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Need it quick.’
The store-cupid looked at the new demand and frowned again. He shook his head slowly. ‘Can’t . . .’
‘It’s for the Appeal. Erry says.’ He pointed to the signature at the bottom of the page.
Whoever had signed it hadn’t much liked paperwork, thought Muddlespot. They had crossed their signature out, put it in the wrong box and drawn three smiley faces and a load of hearts in the margin. Even so, it seemed to have more effect than Windleberry’s carefully correct script. Scowling, the store-cupid turned and disappeared deep among the shelves. There followed the unmistakable sounds of locks being unlocked, traps being tripped and three-headed fire-breathing dogs being muzzled, before the cupid returned (lightly singed and bitten) to the counter.
‘There you go,’ he said sulkily.
He placed it on the board. A cupid arrow, tipped with a heart-shaped head. Something in Muddlespot’s breastbone ached at the sight of it. But unlike the ones he had seen flashing through the chambers of Sally’s mind, this one did not glitter. It was dull and grey. It was not even particularly sharp-looking.
‘Hey . . .!’ said Muddlespot.
‘Cheers!’ said the pink cupid and flew out of the door.
Muddlespot stared at the store-cupid. ‘But that was exactly what I was—’
‘Yes?’ said the cupid expressionlessly.
‘But I wanted—’
Muddlespot checked himself. He looked at the cupid. The cupid looked back. Muddlespot took a deep breath.
‘Uh, never mind,’ he said. ‘Issues, you say? I’ll go and ask. Sorry to have bothered you . . .’
He left. He closed the door. Down the corridor the pink cupid was still in sight, fluttering erratically onwards with the leaden arrow in his hands. Muddlespot hurried after him. On tiptoe.
There was one way, he thought, in which Up Here was not like Down Below.
Here, they did turn their backs on you.
At the end of registration Miss Ogle took Billie and Viola and Minnie and Imogen down to see Mr Singh. Soberly, the rest of the class gathered their things and prepared to get on with the day. They knew that this wasn’t the end of it. For a start, Minnie would have to be caught in the corridors at some point and executed by firing squad. But now even the teachers would know that something was up. They’d try to do something about it.
In the corridor, Sally put on a spurt and caught up with Janey.
‘Hey?’ she said.
‘Hm?’
‘That oboe . . .’
Janey’s face was blank. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Sure. But do you think she’ll get it back before her exam?’
Still blank. ‘Probably not.’
Still blank, but with just that edge to her voice that said – don’t push me, Sally. Janey was a good person. She could also break arms.
‘It kind of raises the stakes, though, doesn’t it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Missing an exam. There won’t be another chance for months. Her parents will have paid money . . .’
And Imogen probably wouldn’t make Grade 8 before GCSEs hit. That sort of thing mattered, in that sort of family.
Janey frowned. ‘Tough for her.’
‘It’s just that . . .’
‘WHAT?’
Janey didn’t like doing bad to people. She hated getting caught doing it. Sally looked her in the eye.
‘It’s going to have to go back sometime, isn’t it . . .?’
If it didn’t go back it would be theft. But Sally didn’t say that. She didn’t have to. Janey bent her head and walked on, frowning.
‘I’m sure it’ll turn up,’ she said.
‘Yeah. How?’
‘Somehow.’
‘I mean – it can’t just be given back, can it? Because they’ll think whoever gives it back must have been the person who took it in the first place.’
Janey stalked on. She said nothing. Sally followed. They came to the lockers. Janey opened hers, put in her books and took out the books for the next lesson. There was no oboe in the locker. Tight-lipped, Sally got her books out too. Other pupils were clustering around their locker doors, chattering, unearthing books, exclaiming at how stupid Minnie had been. Sally stepped up close to Janey.
‘Bit of a problem?’ she said.
Janey’s jaw tightened. She was fed up with Sally. She was fed up with Imogen. Maybe she was a bit fed up with Ameena too, now. She didn’t like the role she was playing.
‘Got any ideas?’ she said.
‘Might have.’
Janey turned to the next locker. It was Ameena’s. The padlock had a combination. Janey knew it. She undid it and left the lock hanging open.
‘Yours,’ she said, and walked off with her bag over her shoulder.
Sally hung back as the other kids flooded off to their classrooms. As the last one turned the corner she slipped the open padlock from its bracket and looked into Ameena’s locker.
There it was.
Another thing about Up Here was that you didn’t see many people dragging inert victims around the place. So far Muddlespot had only spotted one. That had been himself, hauling the stunned cupid by the heels past a Mirror of Harmony just now. It made him feel even more conspicuous.
He was beginning to sweat. He knew that because the floor had started feeling sticky every time he put a foot down. He was panicky and confused. Every professional instinct was screaming at him to reach down and rend his victim limb from limb (this was the accepted procedure back home). But he wasn’t at home. This was not Pandemonium. Up here, in this endless palace of light and music and order, even the smallest pile of entrails was going to start people asking questions.
He would have gone through the cupid’s pockets, only being a cupid it didn’t have any.
He dragged the body over to the wall and concealed it behind a thick tapestry of Calm. Then he hurried back to the point where he had made his attack and scooped up the arrow that the cupid had let fall. Well, that was Step One of the mission completed. Fifty per cent success rate so far, which was infinity per cent more than he had been expecting. Step Two was to get away with it.
He gathered up the cupid’s papers in case they attracted attention. He glanced at the top one.
‘You bet,’ he muttered.
‘Change of plan,’ said Muddlespot. ‘Swapping arrows – bad idea. You just stick with points one to three and you’ll be all right. When you wake up.’
He hurried off to look for Windleberry.
Windleberry was not in the Hall of Ten Thousand Columns, where a choir was beginning to tune up for a practice. He was not in the Gallery of Green Sunsets, where angels flowed busily to and fro on a myriad of different errands. He was not in the Chamber of Stars, which was absolutely crowded wi
th—
‘Oi!’ called a voice. Muddlespot looked around. Mistake.
A cupid was fluttering down the corridor towards him. Muddlespot clutched the huge sheaf of papers to himself, sheltering behind them as far as he could.
This cupid too was out of breath.
‘You seen Spikey?’ Its eye fell on the arrow and papers. ‘He give you those?’
Muddlespot’s brain, fired by terror, moved at lightning speed. ‘Spikey’ must be the pink cupid who was now slumbering peacefully behind the tapestry in the corridor outside the Dept of Luv Stors.
‘He – er – took a break,’ said Muddlespot.
‘Took a break? Cheeky bugger! Got you to stand in for him, did he? I bet. Who are you, anyway? I’ve not seen you before.’
‘I’m, er, I’m new.’
The cupid blew out his fat cheeks. ‘This ain’t one fer a newbie. Spikey should know that. I’ll twist his neck when I catch him.’
His neck’s a bit fat, actually, thought Muddlespot. I went for the back of the head myself.
‘I’ll handle it,’ he said as brightly as he could. ‘I’m ever so eager to please. Just point me in the right direction and leave me to it.’
‘Point you? Boy, I’m taking you. You don’t arrive and do like you should it’ll be my neck that gets twisted. Come on – we’re late!’
‘Oh no, really, I’m quite sure I can handle it . . .’
‘Come on!’ cried the cupid, fluttering a little ahead of him. ‘They won’t wait – Hey! What happened to yer wings?’
‘Wings?’
Some aspects of Muddlespot’s disguise were really rather weak. Some didn’t exist at all.
‘I’ve – er – I’ve been grounded,’ he said desperately, waddling after the cupid as fast as he could.
The cupid cackled. ‘Yer can’t be that new, then.’
‘Are you sure of that . . .?’
As he ran, Muddlespot’s eyes flicked left and right, searching for a way of escape. If he could just lose himself in the crowd, somehow? But that was going to be tricky, when the cupid could fly and he couldn’t. Maybe he should wait for some lonely corridor somewhere.
Attack of the Cupids Page 12