by Jenny Nimmo
At last the two waiters reached the very end of the table. With a last look at Billy's anxious face, Charlie grinned encouragingly and scrambled under the red cloth that covered one of the carts. The lower shelf was now empty, and the waiter was distracted by serving coffee. Huddled uncomfortably on the shelf, Charlie realized that the red cloth didn't entirely cover him. Crossing his fingers, he remained perfectly still while the cart was wheeled slowly to the other end of the dining hall. As soon as they were safely through the swinging doors, the waiter came to a stop and began to swear. "What the... ?" He looked under the cloth and found Charlie.
"For heaven's sake! A kid!" said the waiter, a young
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man with a slightly pimply face. "What are you doing here?"
"I got detention and I was bored," said Charlie, hoping the young man was a sympathetic type.
The young man laughed. "I'll bet you were bored. Now, do you mind getting off my cart? My back's been hurting something awful."
"Please, couldn't you take me a bit farther?" Charlie begged. "Just through the kitchens?"
"You're joking. I've been working since six o'clock a.m."
"Just through the green kitchen, then," Charlie pleaded. "I don't want Mrs. Weedon to catch me."
"I get your point. All right, hold tight."
Charlie gritted his teeth as they passed through Mrs. Weedon's domain. He could see the lower half of her wide body stomping along in a cloud of steam beside the vast sinks. And then they were in the next part of the kitchens, behind the drama cafeteria. The waiter wheeled Charlie through the cafeteria and into the hallway.
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"Now, scram," said the waiter, "or I'll be in for it as well as you."
Charlie rolled off the cart, thanking the waiter profusely. "I've got a friend who's... ," he began, but the waiter had gone.
Hoping that Billy was also in sympathetic hands, Charlie raced up the back stairs and along the dark halls until he reached his dormitory.
Billy didn't appear. Charlie waited and waited. The cathedral clock struck ten. The voices of departing guests could be heard in the courtyard. What had happened to Billy? Charlie chewed his lip anxiously. If Billy was caught, would he tell the Bloors that Charlie had been with him?
When the clock struck eleven, Charlie made a body-shaped bundle out of his clothes and pushed it under the covers of Billy's bed. A few minutes later the matron looked in. Charlie closed his eyes and lay very still. The matron left.
Charlie couldn't sleep. He went over to the window and looked out across the courtyard. No lights
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showed in the windows of the west wing. The whole building was in darkness. Charlie had just decided to go looking for Billy when a small figure crept in.
"Billy, where've you been?" cried Charlie.
"I got locked in a storeroom," Billy said wearily.
"How?"
"The waiter just shoved my cart into this closet sort of place and locked the door." As Billy crossed the pitch-dark room his face was suddenly lit from below by a tiny, flickering light. Charlie saw that he was carrying a slim candle that had, apparently, burst into flame by itself.
"How did that happen?" asked Charlie.
Having reached his bed, Billy blew out the candle and scrambled under the covers, flinging out the bundle of clothes as he did so. "Neat trick," he said with a yawn.
"Billy, I'm wide awake," said Charlie. "Before you go to sleep, please tell me how you got out of the storeroom, and how that candle lit itself."
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"Well." Billy yawned again. "I waited till it was quiet, then I found a bit of paper and pushed it under the door. I poked a pencil into the keyhole and knocked the key onto it, then I pulled it through to my side. It was dark and I was so, so scared. I always carry my candles with me, the ones my guardian, Mr. Crowquill, gave me before he died. I didn't know what they could do until tonight. I took one out and... and ..." Billy's next yawn was almost a groan.
"And," pressed Charlie.
"I tried to find a match, but it was so, so dark, and I was so, so scared, and... and..."
"And?" cried Charlie, who was now past caring if the matron heard him.
"And... and I cried," Billy confessed, "and I said, Oh, I wish I could see, and the candle just - lit itself."
"Wow!" Charlie lay back at last. "Amazing. You've had those candles for ages and you never knew what they could do. Poor Christopher Crowquill."
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"I've got five candles now, because your uncle gave me the one Mr. Crowquill sent to him. I wish my guardian was still alive." Billy shuffled and turned over.
Charlie allowed himself to feel tired, but before he went to sleep he asked Billy if he'd like to come home with him on Saturday night.
"No thanks," mumbled Billy. "I think I'll stay here. I've never seen a Grand Ball."
Charlie hadn't seen a Grand Ball, either, but nothing could have persuaded him to spend another night at Bloor's Academy.
The following morning, the boys' breakfast was interrupted by a tall man with a bald head and a large ginger mustache. Putting his head around the door of the blue cafeteria, he said, "Ah. Not in here, then?"
"What were you looking for, sir?" asked Charlie through a mouthful of cornflakes.
"Don't speak with your mouth full," snapped Ginger Whiskers.
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Cook emerged from the kitchen and the stranger said, "You look like a reasonably sensible woman. Where is the meeting hall?"
Cook glared at the man, indignantly puffing out her chest. "I've no doubt at all that I'm a lot more sensible than you. You should have turned right, not left."
Ginger Whiskers withdrew his head and closed the door with an irritable click.
"Head teachers," muttered Cook. "No manners at all. Think they're gods. And some of them just can't resist showing off. I've had enough of shape-shifters, vanishers, and hocus-pocusers. They vanish the food, send it into the air, change it into chocolate or whatever takes their fancy, and some even tinker with the china, just because they've got a preference for gold or silver. Well, they'll have to restrain themselves tonight, the mayor can't stand that sort of thing."
The boys had been unaware of the enchantments going on while they had been under the table, and were very sorry to have missed them. But they hadn't missed everything.
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"Cook." Charlie lowered his voice. "Miss Chrystal is..."
"I know, Charlie. I heard. I can't talk about it now. They'll all be here in a minute. All the heads. They start in the theater and then there'll be meetings all over the place; some in the classrooms, some in the gym. I don't know where you two are going to go."
The boys soon found out. They were on their way back to the dormitory when they walked straight into Manfred Bloor.
"What are you two doing here?" barked Manfred.
"We don't know where else to go," said Billy.
"Out!" Manfred pointed to the main staircase.
"Out?" said Charlie. "Till when?"
"Until I come get you," said Manfred.
There was no point in arguing. Charlie and Billy reluctantly walked back to the stairs, where they looked down on a great crowd of head teachers. Some were still showing off. Charlie spotted a donkey and a bear, and watched an ostrich change into a yellow-robed woman. A man in a black coat vanished
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into thin air, and there was a giant lizard hanging from a beam.
Charlie and Billy cautiously descended into the hall. Once there they had to push their way through the gabbling mass. No rule of silence for them, Charlie noted. No one paid any attention to two boys fi
ghting their way toward the coatrooms, until they came face-to-face with the man in the blue turban.
"Aha, we meet again," said Blue Turban, smiling broadly. He put a finger to his lips and winked at Charlie. "Good luck!"
A large woman pushed Charlie sideways and before he knew it, the man in the blue turban had disappeared into the crowd.
"Who was that?" asked Billy, when they were safe inside the blue coatroom.
"He saw me under the table last night. But he didn't give me away." Charlie pulled on his coat and boots.
"So they really aren't all bad. He didn't look like a head teacher, did he?" Billy sat on a bench to untie his shoes.
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"He's foreign," Charlie pointed out. "Maybe head teachers look like that wherever he comes from."
As soon as they were outside, Charlie headed for the ruin. The frosty grass crunched under their feet and a freezing mist lay over the grounds. The great red arch of the ruined castle could hardly be seen.
Billy trudged along behind Charlie, hoping it would be warmer inside the ruin. He didn't realize that Charlie had a different purpose.
"What's happened?" Billy stepped into the wrecked courtyard and gazed at the broken flagstones.
"She was looking for the mirror, and that's where she found it." Charlie pointed to the dark square of earth. "Miss Chrystal - the teacher we all thought was the best and kindest in the whole school."
"And she's the worst," said Billy.
"A witch," added Charlie. "I must warn the others, but we don't want her to know we're on to her."
"We'll just be on our guard," said Billy.
They scrambled down one of the five dark passages that led out of the courtyard. At the end of the
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passage there was a wide, grassy area, surrounded by trees and thick, broken walls. The boys sat on a wall and Charlie rubbed his cold hands together, thinking of Bartholomew Bloor. "The Red King is still in his castle," the explorer had said. "But he's hidden."
"So where is he?" Charlie said, almost to himself.
"Where's who?" asked Billy.
"The Red King. We need him, Billy."
A cold breeze blew into their faces and the leafless branches crackled above them. A twig snapped, and then another. Charlie turned, half expecting Asa in his beast form to come leaping out of the bushes. But it wasn't Asa. Standing very still, beneath one of the trees, Charlie saw a white horse.
"It's the queen," said Charlie softly.
The boys slid off the wall and the queen came trotting toward them.
"It's you, it's really you," said Charlie, stroking the silky white neck.
Billy grunted and whinnied, and then the queen lowered her head to hear better the odd little hums
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and snorts that burst out of Billy like sneezes. She replied in her own way, with several long whinnies.
Charlie, burning with impatience, demanded to know what the queen was saying.
"I asked her if the king was here," said Billy, "and she said that he was deep, deep inside his castle. I asked her how we could reach him, and she told me that when the time came, he would be found."
"That's all?" Charlie was disappointed. "But when will the time come?"
The white horse nuzzled his ear, and he laid his arm over her long mane. She caressed their heads and their faces and then, suddenly, she looked into the sky.
There was a rumble in the air that was too sinister to be thunder. The sound was followed by a darkening sky; it was as though a heavy curtain had been pulled over the land.
In the somber light the queen's eyes shone white with fear. She gave a scream, reared up, and galloped
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away, her pounding hooves becoming ever more distant as the sound in the air turned to a deafening roar.
Charlie and Billy tore out of the ruin. They raced across the grounds, tripping over their own feet in their hurry to reach the shelter of the school.
"What's that noise?" Billy panted. "Is it an earthquake?"
"Perhaps it's the end of the world," yelled Charlie.
They got to the school door and found it locked. Charlie banged insistently on the hard oak panels until, at last, the door opened and Manfred looked down on them.
"Scared of a bit of thunder, were you?" Manfred said scornfully.
"That's not thunder," said Charlie. "It's... it's... Please, can we come in?"
"You're a nuisance, Charlie Bone, but all right, go to your dormitory." Manfred stood aside and the boys leaped into the hall. It was now deserted, the heads having all dispersed to various classrooms.
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"It wasn't thunder, sir," said Billy.
"I wonder what it was, then." Manfred seemed to know the answer but he wasn't about to tell them.
"When is the Grand Ball, sir?" asked Billy, feeling more courageous now that he was inside the building.
"The guests will arrive at half past seven, and you'd better keep out of the way, Billy Raven. There'll be five hundred people coming through our doors tonight."
"Five hundred!" Charlie exclaimed.
"It's the occasion of the decade," Manfred boasted. "The mayor will be here, and the entire town council. There will be three judges, a duke and a duchess, the owner of every large business in the city, a bishop, several chairmen, directors, and presidents.... No, not American presidents," said Manfred as Charlie's mouth dropped open. "I mean company presidents."
"Wow!" Charlie was grudgingly impressed.
Manfred smiled with satisfaction. "Would you like to see the ballroom?" he offered.
The two boys wondered what had come over him.
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Manfred wasn't usually this friendly. Perhaps he just couldn't resist the temptation to impress.
Billy said, "Yes, please," before Manfred could change his mind.
"Follow me." Manfred unlocked the small door that led to the Music Tower. When the door opened, Charlie was amazed to see the usually dim hallway transformed by thick carpeting and a ceiling strung with sparkling stars.
He had never noticed the doors into the ballroom. Now, restored to their former splendor, the arched doors gleamed with polish. Manfred gave them a little push and they opened into a room whose magnificence almost took Charlie's breath away.
"What do you think, boys?" Manfred seemed a little breathless himself. He pressed a switch and four chandeliers hung with crystals came alive with a glittering burst of light. They were suspended from a ceiling decorated with plaster creatures. Not real, everyday creatures, but monsters: goblins, gnomes,
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trolls, bats with fangs, devils with forked tails, demons, and wicked-looking dragons.
Charlie struggled for words. At length Billy came up with "Awesome!"
The shining floor swept up to a stage with a grand piano in one corner and several music stands in the other. Charlie imagined the ballroom crowded with swaying figures in long dresses that sparkled in the chandelier light.
"Good, isn't it?" Manfred switched off the lights and hauled the boys out.
"Yes," they agreed. "Great."
As they walked away from the ballroom, a light footstep made them all turn to look back. The piano teacher, Mr. Pilgrim, appeared at the other end of the hall. Charlie was surprised to see him. He thought Mr. Pilgrim had left the school.
"Hello, Mr. Pilgrim," he said.
"Hello, who..." The teacher looked puzzled.
"I suggest you return to the music room, Mr. Pilgrim," Manfred said imperiously.
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"I thought..."
"Coo
k will bring you some lunch."
"I'm not hungry." Mr. Pilgrim nervously brushed a lock of black hair away from his pale face.
"Suit yourself. Come on, boys." Manfred herded the boys down the hall, where he locked the ancient door behind him.
"You've locked Mr. Pilgrim out," said Charlie.
"In," said Manfred. "I've locked him in for his own good. He can't deal with crowds." He stuck out his skinny neck and stared at Charlie. "Take off your coats and get back to the dormitory."
Charlie wasn't afraid of Manfred's black hypnotic eyes. He stared right back and it was Manfred who looked away. He's losing his old power, Charlie thought. But now there's something else. What is it?
Manfred shoved his hands in his pockets and strode away.
Back in the dormitory, Charlie and Billy sat on their beds and waited. Their stomachs began to rumble. A whole hour to go until lunchtime. Charlie didn't think
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he could last much longer without a snack. He had just decided to go see Cook when her messenger arrived.
Several loud barks outside the door announced Blessed's arrival.
"Food!" Billy leaped off the bed. "Blessed says there's food in the cafeteria." He opened the door and patted the old dog's wrinkled head. "Thanks, Blessed."
In the cafeteria they found a pile of sandwiches sitting on a table. They could hear Cook shouting orders in the kitchen. The place seemed to be in an uproar all over again, with more than a hundred fancy lunches to prepare in the dining hall.
When Charlie and Billy had finished their sandwiches, they looked into the kitchen, hoping for a chocolate cookie at the very least.
"In that cupboard," said Cook, pointing. She was very red in the face and her apron was covered in big splotches of yellow and brown. "And, Charlie, you're to get your bag and go to the main doors before half past twelve. Your uncle will pick you up."
"Uncle Paton, but he can't ever ..."
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"He'll have to," puffed Cook. "No one else is available. I'm told it's all been arranged. Now, off you go!"
Grabbing their chocolate cookies, the two boys backed out. Charlie looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past twelve. He had ten minutes to pack his bag and get to the main doors.