The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  Frecks and Light Fingers tittered at the drollery, then remembered how grave things were.

  They were in their cell. Amy had told her friends all.

  ‘Keys has been scouring the school for sign of ffolliott-Absent for two years and is no closer to laying a hand on her.’

  ‘Surely, ffolliott absented herself?’ Amy said. ‘Isn’t she on the Riviera?’

  ‘Did you hear that from Smudge?’ asked Frecks.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘… quod erat demonstr., eh? Smudge told me that ffolliott-Absent went in a burnoose to trail after Lawrence in the desert, having been fired up with Mohammedanism by anonymous postcards from a sheik. Yes, Smudge said the postcards were both anonymous and from a sheik. She meant an anonymous sheik, I suppose. Wherever Enid ffolliott is, I doubt she’s in this. It’s not like sardines, where each disappearee crams in with the last until there are more of them than the stay-behinds. Whatever has become of ffolliott-Absent is of a different order of strangeness to Kali’s abduction.’

  ‘The kidnappers will have Kali in an aeroplane by now,’ ventured Light Fingers. ‘Or a sealed train carriage. She’ll be bundled up like an invalid. Bound to have been drugged too.’

  Amy wasn’t sure about the theory.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ she said, ‘but I believe Kali hasn’t been taken far away, yet. The hooded men were only after her. If they were white slavers, wouldn’t they have taken all of us?’

  ‘I doubt even the most depraved oriental potentate would offer cushion-space to Inchfawn,’ said Frecks. ‘She’d have to be a Special Bonus Offer, thrown in with better quality merchandise.’

  ‘She wasn’t much use in the pinch,’ admitted Amy. ‘Poor girl.’

  ‘I wouldn’t “poor girl” Inchfawn,’ said Frecks. ‘That one has a sly, cunning streak. And a mercenary nature. Brain-peeping Ames always shied clear of her. Just like Six to turn yellow in a pickle.’

  ‘Funny thing, though,’ mused Light Fingers. ‘I was in Inchfawn’s tent when we went hiking last year. We got early tea every day because we were first to pitch camp. Inchfawn was a whizz at map-reading. I’m puzzled she should have lost the knack. Her brother’s watch works like a compass.’

  Amy snapped her fingers. ‘Crumpets!’ she exclaimed. ‘Her brother’s watch!’

  ‘Do tell,’ urged Frecks.

  ‘She snuck a look at the watch just before the hooded men appeared out of nowhere. As if she were waiting for them! We wouldn’t have been on the beach at all if it weren’t for her mucking up with the map… So how did they know where to find us?’

  The three girls goggled at each other. Inchfawn was in with the abductors!

  ‘It’s a Hooded Conspiracy!’ declared Frecks. ‘I knew it in my bones!’

  Amy found such malignancy difficult to credit, but it solved the riddle of why Inchfawn had fibbed to Headmistress.

  ‘What a cow-bag!’ said Light Fingers.

  Frecks knotted a dressing-gown cord.

  ‘Kali showed me how to do this,’ she said. ‘Put a florin in the knot, to give weight. Hey presto – Thuggee strangling tool! Justice will be swift. Show no mercy.’

  Frecks snapped the cord, which twanged like a bowstring.

  ‘Whoah, Nellie,’ said Amy. ‘Let’s not go off half-cocked. Yes, Inchfawn’s in on a terrible, terrible crime. But knowing she’s in it opens the door a crack. We were at a loss. Now we have a clue. If we play this cleverly, we’ve a chance at doing what we know Keys can’t. Find Kali and get her back…’

  ‘…and see off those dastards in the hoods and all their drippy minions.’

  ‘Minions?’ Light Fingers asked Frecks.

  ‘It won’t be just Six. If they’ve signed her up to the Hooded Conspiracy, who knows how many other girls – teachers, even – are in it? Could go all the way up to High Table. Might even be a pinch of truth in what Smudge says about Ponce Bainter. On principle, we can’t trust anyone outside this cell until they prove themselves. Smudge is probably sound, from what you say, Amy. Can’t see what earthly use she might be, though. It’s down to we three. We must apply ourselves – use our Abilities. Without Kali, we’re the Forus no longer. To go up against the Hooded Conspiracy, we must form a conspiracy – a secret society – of our own. Now, what should we call it? The League of Avenging Justice? The Three Good Girls?’

  ‘The Scarlet Slippers?’ suggested Light Fingers.

  Amy had it. ‘The Moth Club.’

  The others looked at her, puzzled and a little disappointed.

  ‘The Moth Club?’ exclaimed Frecks, in disbelief.

  ‘All those other names sound like secret societies,’ Amy explained. ‘The Moth Club doesn’t…’

  ‘It sounds boring,’ said Light Fingers.

  ‘Moths are not boring,’ said Amy, a little stung. ‘But, I admit, my enthusiasm isn’t generally shared. If we talk about Moth Club doings, people will yawn and not think any more of it. Only we’ll know it’s important. That’s a super way to keep a society secret.’

  Frecks saw sense. ‘The Moth Club it is!’

  ‘I liked The Scarlet Slippers,’ said Light Fingers, weakly.

  ‘We’ll have another society called that,’ said Frecks kindly. ‘A pretend secret to cover up the real one. A good name should not go to waste.’

  Amy felt a sense of purpose. After the worrying, dizzying helplessness of the afternoon, it was a relief, almost an intoxicant.

  Something was being done.

  Now they had a name, the Moth Club needed a charter. Amy turned her Book of Moths upside down, and opened the blank last page. She fetched out pen and ink and wrote ‘the purpose of the Moth Club is to study moths in their habitats, to list and sketch any species found on the grounds of Drearcliff Grange School, to defend the honour of moths against the calumnies of the supporters of trivial butterflies and to take steps to prevent the wanton murder of moths by certain boys who stalk them with poison and kill them in jars for the empty achievement of building a collection of dead things.’

  ‘Phew,’ said Light Fingers.

  Amy pressed pink blotting paper to the page. She held it up and saw the charter in mirror-writing.

  ‘That’s the official story,’ said Amy. ‘Now, pass me that pencil.’

  Pressing firmly, writing between the lines of the previous passage, she wrote ‘the true purpose of the Moth Club is to oppose the Hooded Conspiracy, no matter who their agents or masters might be, to rescue Princess Kali Chattopadhyay from their vile clutches and return her to safety. We vow not to rest until this purpose has been achieved, and that none of the undersigned shall betray her cell-sisters on pain of death by strangulation. We shall triumph.’

  She showed this to Frecks and Light Fingers, who approved.

  Then, using an India rubber, Amy wiped away the pencil – rendering invisible the secret charter of the Moth Club. Its imprint remained on the paper and would emerge if anyone were to rub a pencil-nib over the seemingly blank spaces between the lines.

  Amy signed her name in ink under the official and shadow charter, and passed the book to Frecks, who signed with a flourish, and Light Fingers, who had to think hard to make her signature.

  ‘We should take code names,’ said Frecks. ‘Secret secret handles. Moth names. Thomsett, you’re the expert. You pick.’

  ‘Where are your people from?’

  ‘Lincolnshire,’ said Frecks.

  ‘Willow Ermine,’ she said, printing it in small letters under Frecks’ swish of a signature. ‘Its wings look like little Lords’ robes, white with tiny black spots. Light Fingers?’

  ‘I’m not from anywhere. Mum and Dad were theatricals, on tour all the time.’

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘The Theatre Royal, King’s Lynn. Between houses.’

  ‘Large Dark Prominent.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s a moth. Very rare. The only specimen known in the British Isles was bred in Norfolk, near King’s Lynn.’ />
  She wrote down the name.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Frecks.

  ‘Kentish Glory,’ said Amy, lettering it under her signature.

  ‘But you’re from Worcestershire,’ complained Light Fingers.

  ‘So is the Kentish Glory,’ she said. ‘Endromidae: Endromis versicolora. Catalogued by Linnaeus in 1758.’

  She flipped back the pages to show the sketch – mostly in brown pencil – she had made. The Kentish Glory was the rarest moth she had catalogued to date. It had visited her grandmama’s garden two summers ago, and had held still on a leaf as if posing for Amy’s pencils, fluttering off as soon as the sketch was finished.

  Light Fingers produced a needle from her sewing box. They all pricked their forefingers, stuck little full stops of blood after their names to seal the pact, and sat on their cots, sucking their fingers.

  The Moth Club was founded.

  X: Midnight Retribution

  THE NEXT NIGHT, well after Lights Out, the Moth Club crept along the corridor. They presented strange figures.

  They reasoned that if their foes were hooded, they must be masked.

  Born and raised in theatres and naturally quick with a needle, Light Fingers was an Old Reliable for the Drearcliff Ballet Club, the Viola Dramatic Society, the Arthur Wing Pinero Players (who existed thanks to a bequest from an Old Girl which maintained the Drearcliff Playhouse in a state of acceptable plushness – on the condition that the school mount annual productions of a work by the author of The Gay Lord Quex and The Second Mrs Tanqueray), the Ragged Revue and the Christmas Mummers. For every play, recital or presentation, Light Fingers made or altered costumes to order. Therefore, she had knowledge of and free access to the catacombs under the Playhouse. Here, props, scenery and costumes – some dating to the last century – were stored. Smudge said the storage cellars were haunted by a Viola Fifth who foolishly drowned herself while taking the role of Ophelia too seriously in the ’08 Senior Production of Bowdler’s Hamlet. The theatrical spectre purportedly dripped on the floor and wailed her mad scene among hanging doublets and hose. Light Fingers was not afraid of such silly-goose ghosts.

  There were no lessons on Saturday afternoons. Girls were expected to pursue their enthusiasms. Having raided the catacombs for raw materials, Light Fingers worked in their cell – prickling somewhat at the many and contradictory suggestions from her ‘customers’ – to run up ensembles suitable for the Moth Club’s secret missions.

  Now, Amy, Frecks and Light Fingers wore wood-nymph body stockings from some forgotten sylvan ballet, tight-fitting balaclava helmets from an unsuccessful dramatic recital of The Charge of the Light Brigade, sturdy dance pumps, and lightweight cloaks passed down through generations of ‘courtiers, attendants, guards, clowns, & co.’. The costumes were set off by moth-shaped domino masks, with feathery pipe-cleaner antennae and trailing wings which covered their lower faces. The cloaks, masks and body stockings were appropriate for their code-name species: Kentish Glory was a brownish rust, Willow Ermine white with small black dots and Large Dark Prominent speckled grey-brown.

  Light Fingers silently opened the door and the Moth Club slipped into Inchfawn’s cell.

  As they entered, someone stirred. It was Smudge. She caught sight of the masked intruders in the moonlight and shoved the edge of her sheet to her mouth.

  For a moment, Amy – Kentish Glory – fought panic. She didn’t know which of the three sleeping Thirds was their quarry. Then she saw two pairs of spectacles neatly folded on a small table by one of the cots.

  The Moth Club laid hands on Inchfawn.

  Amy pressed a face flannel into the girl’s mouth. Inchfawn was awake, but too terrified to struggle.

  Smudge mumbled a quarter-hearted protest. Frecks raised a finger to her mask-covered mouth. Smudge buried herself under the bedclothes.

  Between them, the Moth Club got Inchfawn cocooned in a sheet and carried out of the cell. The other Thirds didn’t even wake up. Smudge could tell them what had happened. She’d exaggerate, of course – and spread lurid tales of deaths-head monsters spiriting Inchfawn away to glut vampirish thirsts. Frightening rumours about the Moth Club might serve a purpose. Wrong-doers should be afraid of them.

  They carried their muffled burden up the backstairs. Having hold of Inchfawn’s head-and-shoulders end, Frecks bumped the bundled-up bonce against walls and doors a little more than was strictly necessary. A door which should have been locked wasn’t. Through this, they reached the flat roof. The cloud had cleared off for once. A full moon bathed Old House in pale light. Perfect for nocturnal lepidoptera. Chimney stacks threw stark, deep shadows.

  The scene had been prepared. Light Fingers’ rocking chair was tipped against the low guardrail, with ropes prepared for the accused’s neck and ankles. Inchfawn was unrolled from her sheet and tied to the chair. Her hands were bound behind the chair, and the gag taken from her mouth.

  A kick set her rocking.

  ‘You will not scream, wretch,’ said Frecks, putting on a deeper, more ominous voice in her guise as Willow Ermine. With wind whining in the chimneys and waves crashing hundreds of feet below, it was deuced eerie. Amy’s hackles rose.

  Inchfawn opened her mouth, but swallowed a cry. Without any of her glasses, she looked like a different girl.

  ‘Lydia Inchfawn, Dorm Three Desdemona, you are accused of treason against your House Sisters,’ declared Amy, finding her own hollow voice for Kentish Glory. ‘It is proven that you did collaborate with the Hooded Conspirators who abducted your House Sister, Princess Kali Chattopadhyay. Furthermore, you did perjure yourself before Headmistress…’

  ‘Who is that?’ asked Inchfawn.

  ‘Silence, weasel,’ boomed Frecks. ‘You will hear the charges.’

  ‘…you did perjure yourself before Headmistress, to hinder attempts to pursue the Conspiracy and rescue Princess Kali. These things are known. Now, sentence must be passed… and executed.’

  This was the trickiest part of the plan. And it depended on Amy. Even if Inchfawn guessed who was behind the mask of Kentish Glory, there was a thing she did not know about Amy Thomsett.

  She could float and she could reach out with her mind and make others float.

  Since making a poor start with Headmistress’s pen, she had been practising and was more confident.

  ‘Ha ha, very amusing,’ said Inchfawn unconvincingly. ‘Now, if you’ll untie me, we can all get back to bed… and nothing more will be said, all right? No need to trouble Headmistress – or the whips! – with this raggishness.’

  Frecks and Light Fingers hefted up the chair, and set it on the guardrail, holding it steady.

  Inchfawn squeaked.

  The accused was tilted backwards, over the edge.

  A grassy strip separated the outer wall of Old House and the cliff edge. Depending on the wind, a person falling from the roof might bounce on that ledge or miss it entirely. Whichever, they would plunge to the shingles. It was remotely possible they’d be impaled on the flagpole which still stuck up from the broken-off tower.

  Frecks and Light Fingers struggled with the weight. Light Fingers had only lent her chair to the Moth Club on the condition it be returned safely. It was a prized possession, one of the few things she had brought with her to School. It had accompanied her to the dressing rooms of all the great theatres of the kingdom. Amy felt a responsibility for the furniture.

  She reached out with her mind, feeling the shape and weight of the chair and its prisoner, then took a firm hold on the lump they made together. The chair juddered a little, as if trying to free itself from the other girls’ grips. Now Amy made it lighter and herself heavier. Anchored to the roof by her increased weight, soles sinking a little into soft tar, she held the chair as if invisible strings ran from her eyes to its points of balance.

  Amy raised her arms – her wing-like cloak spread out – and took all the weight on herself.

  Frecks and Light Fingers let go of Inchfawn.

  The chair w
obbled, but did not topple.

  Amy let out the invisible strings and the chair tipped backwards.

  ‘No,’ screeched Inchfawn, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘It wasn’t my fault, you beasts! They said no one would be hurt! I was made to do it! It was… a whip, I tell you. A whip!’

  Just as Frecks had theorised, the Hooded Conspiracy ran through School.

  The chair was floating now, like a large balloon. Amy didn’t think Inchfawn even noticed. If she looked down, she would see dark sea and the white froth of breaking waves. That would be enough to stop most people’s hearts.

  Amy began to reel the blubbing culprit in.

  ‘What have we here?’ drawled a voice from behind them. ‘Such a shocking spectacle,’ it continued, from another direction. ‘I should say this was unmistakably a Major,’ from one of the chimneys. ‘What do you think, Head Girl?’

  It was Crowninshield, throwing her voice about. All the Murdering Heathens were here, in grey nighties and dressing gowns. They carried hockey sticks or cricket bats. Henry Buller had one of each, hefted on her shoulders like the crossed swords of a barbarian gladiator. Crowninshield II was with them, a cadet Witch, drooling at the sight of a trussed Third.

  ‘I fear very much so, Prefect Crowninshield,’ said Gryce. ‘C’est tres mechant… tres mechant indeed.’

  The surprise jarred Amy’s concentration. Suddenly, she wasn’t heavy. The chair was let go, over the edge.

  Inchfawn wasn’t the only one who screamed.

  XI: In the Ruck

  BEFORE SNATCHING INCHFAWN from her cot, the Moth Club had prepared the roof. In case of eventualities like this, a stout cord was tied between guardrail and chair-back. The prisoner dropped barely five feet before the rope cracked taut like a hangman’s neck-breaking noose. Knots tied to QMWAACC standards held. The chair stayed as securely tethered to the rail as Inchfawn was to it. She might not be exactly comfortable but was in no real danger.

  Still, her nasty tumble was a useful distraction.

  Amy reached out with her mind and tried to float Henry Buller. The Sixth was hefty. Her flat feet were planted firmly.