The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  Even Light Fingers was paying attention to her now.

  Amy tingled… then wondered what she was doing. This was silly. She sounded like Rayne. Moths don’t have queens. They’re not really social animals.

  ‘Go on, Amy,’ said Frost.

  ‘Oh, I can’t… don’t listen to me. I’ll probably get us all expelled. It’s what they’ll do anyway. We’re only here till we’re got rid of.’

  Light Fingers got up and went into their cell, then came back with something.

  ‘Put this on and keep talking.’

  It was a moth mask. Light Fingers had improved the design and sewn a new, sleeker domino. Amy hadn’t had a chance to wear it.

  She slipped on the mask.

  ‘This is the real Amy,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Kentish Glory.’

  Amy looked through the lenses Light Fingers had put in the eyeholes, which gave a slight magnifying effect. She felt stronger again, thought more clearly. She wasn’t as self-conscious.

  The rest of the Remove paid attention.

  Kentish Glory could say things Amanda Thomsett couldn’t. Light Fingers knew that, the way she knew she couldn’t command attention the way Amy could. Her attitude was all wrong. Though she understood what needed to be said, she wasn’t the one to say it.

  ‘This isn’t just the way things are, the way they’re supposed to be,’ said Amy. ‘This is Wrong. The Black Skirts are Wrong. They’ve tried to make us feel guilty for not being able to join in. We have nothing to feel guilty about…’

  With Shrimp in the circle, that was pushing it. And the maggot probably ought to feel guilty about eating Palgraive’s brain. But this wasn’t the time to think of that.

  ‘…but they’ve tried to make us ashamed of not being them. When we should be proud not to be them. You know who we’re like? The Splendid Six. They started out like us – people with Abilities and Attributes, who saw Wrong things and came together to do something about them. We’re The Splendid Six – Girls’ Auxiliary Version. And more than six of us. We aren’t flukes. We are Unusuals. We should do something.’

  Everyone agreed and a certain amount of comradely back-slapping put off the inevitable moment when the next question – the one Amy couldn’t answer – was asked.

  ‘But what?’ said several people. ‘What should we do? What can we do?’

  ‘Rayne,’ said Harper, certain in herself.

  Shrimp had sat at the edge of the circle, keeping quiet, watching – not coming too close to the others because she knew she’d be shut up with Poppet if she battened on to anyone. Now, she stepped into the light. A Fifth, she was a foot shorter than Amy. Even Laurence was taller than Shrimp, who might have stopped growing. At first glance, she seemed frail and fragile but – when well-fed – she was wiry and strong.

  Shrimp was a test for Amy’s invisible House Spirit. No one was more of a fluke than she, more outcast and despised… and for good reason. But Amy had said they weren’t flukes. She needed to stand by her words, even as looking at Shrimp made her feel tired.

  ‘Harper,’ she said. ‘What about Rayne?’

  ‘We have to stop her,’ Shrimp repeated. ‘We have to stop Rayne.’

  V: Fair Copies

  WHEN THE REMOVE pitched up at TC2 the next morning, Miss Kaye was absent. In her stead, a Black Skirt triad held the register. Martine, Wool and McClure, known as the Ghidorah. None were whips, but they assumed authority. Two large boxes sat on the teacher’s desk.

  Knowles tried to greet her old chum Martine. McClure got in the way and gave Know-It-All a calculated wrist-pinch, smiling at her yelp. One of the worst Murdering Heathens was now one of the worst Black Skirts. Amy thought Rayne wouldn’t approve. Soldier Ants weren’t supposed to enjoy their duties.

  Martine, point of the Ghidorah, motioned for the girls to sit. After a token show of defiance, the Remove complied. Were Black Skirts taking lessons now? Amy put her hands on her desk and faced front.

  ‘Miss Kaye is indisposed,’ Martine announced.

  She still had smile-lines, but the Fourth was no longer humorous. Three or four ants crawled on her face. Amy itched in sympathy. How could Martine not scratch where the bugs were? Wool was infested too, and had red swellings where she’d been bitten.

  Most ants weren’t truly venomous, but Solenopses (fire ants) and Myrmecia (bulldog ants) had nasty, poisonous bites. Of course, the Formicidae of the Purple, the ants in pants, might be unknown to science. In Formis, Professor Rayne wrote wildly of the Ideal Ant, an imminent super-species. She said it would evolve to fit a post-war environment, thriving on the quantities of mustard gas, cordite and atomised human matter which had been discharged into the atmosphere.

  Some Black Skirts reacted badly to ant bites. Girls like Wool sported obvious stigmata – red-rimmed eyes, glittering pupils, visible traceries of dark veins. The victims didn’t seem to notice their condition and carried on as usual, though in a somewhat somnambulist manner.

  Wool and McClure took a box each and opened it. They went up and down the rows, dropping new books on desks. Amy loved the paper-and-ink smell of new books but knew she would be disappointed in these.

  ‘You are not permitted to slack in your teacher’s absence,’ Martine went on. ‘You will copy, in your best hand, the foreword and the first three chapters of the book, including charts and figures. Your fair copies will be collected at the end of lessons. If any girl has not completed the assignment, the Remove will forego supper and remain in class until the work has been done. There will be no talking. Girls will stay at their desks.’

  Thorn, Paquignet and Light Fingers stuck their hands up.

  ‘No questions will be taken,’ said Martine. ‘No exceptions will be made.’

  Wool came to Amy’s desk and dumped the book in front of her.

  Social Order in the Anthills of Northern Europe, by Professor Rosalind Rowley Rayne.

  A triangular ant face stared out from the dust jacket.

  Books thumped on more desks. Some girls groaned.

  ‘Exercise books have been provided and your inkwells filled,’ Martine said. ‘Take out your pens and commence.’

  ‘You’re a Fourth,’ said Lamarcroft. ‘We don’t take orders from you…’

  McClure was behind Lungs in an instant, arm crooked around her throat. The Black Skirt held for a moment, as Lamarcroft fought for breath… then let her go.

  ‘The assignment does not come from me,’ said Martine.

  She did not go on to say Miss Kaye had set the lesson. Amy didn’t believe their teacher had anything to do with this. She detected the hand of the Queen Ant. The pointlessness of the task was deliberate. It was supposed to be demoralising.

  The Ghidorah gave out exercise books.

  Some girls – Dyall, Harper, Palgraive – began to do as they were told. They opened Social Order in the Anthills of Northern Europe to the foreword, dipped their pens and started scratching away in their exercise books. Amy couldn’t bear to follow suit. She didn’t even want to read Professor Rayne, let alone transcribe lunatic entomology in her spidery approximation of copperplate.

  ‘Remember, you will all remain here until you have each copied three chapters.’

  The Ghidorah raised their arms in the antenna-salute. A few of the Remove – Light Fingers, Knowles, Marsh – made mocking responses, exaggerating the waving from side to side and the chittering, clicking sounds.

  ‘You show improvement,’ said Martine. An ant crawled into her mouth, and she neither spat nor bit. ‘Carry on.’

  She left the room, followed by McClure and Wool toting the empty boxes. As the Ghidorah walked off, their skipping ropes clacked. Black Skirts had a distinctive gait, almost a scuttling. The pleats of their skirts shifted in rhythm to the rhyme.

  ‘Ants in your pants, all the way from France…’

  Amy looked at the new book she had been given. It rose from the desk without her touching it. The dust jacket ripped across. Another ant face looked through the rip. Focusing, she
snapped the spine and tore out pages. Paper leaves fluttered around. It was barely five past nine and she had ruined her day’s lessons. She resolved to sit here until doomsday, without copying a single word. Even if it meant the whole Remove were punished with her – another blatant attempt to set them at each other’s throats.

  Only after the book was ruined did it strike her that she had more control of her floating-other-things ability today… and, for the first time, had used the trick to destroy something. If pushed, she was dangerous…

  Some girls whistled in admiration. Laurence might have been frightened.

  ‘Good show, Thomsett,’ said Devlin. ‘I can’t be doing with this either.’

  She stretched out her arm and dropped her book into the waste-paper bin.’

  Thorn and Knowles moaned about their lost supper, but didn’t join the copiers either.

  When it was certain that the Ghidorah did not linger to spy, the Remove got their heads together. Only Dyall and Palgraive kept at the copying.

  ‘Do you suppose they’ve set watch on us?’ asked Knowles.

  ‘Not likely,’ said Light Fingers. ‘We’re low down the Black Skirts’ list now. They’re getting on with other things.’

  ‘What?’ Laurence asked.

  ‘Being evil,’ said Light Fingers.

  ‘We shouldn’t have to do this rot,’ said Lamarcroft. ‘Making fair copies. It’s babyish. Only Firsts and Seconds have copying in lessons.’

  Firsts and Seconds in the room complained.

  ‘Sorry, but you know what I mean,’ said Lungs.

  ‘Even if they send someone to check up on us, they won’t examine the copies until this evening,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Even then, someone’ll just look at every page to see there’s writing there. No one is going to read the things. We’re not going to get marks out of a hundred for this. So long as they get fourteen copies at the end of the day, they’re off our backs.’

  Light Fingers opened her exercise book, and dipped her pen. Knowles happened to be nearest Light Fingers’ desk, so she was recruited.

  ‘Know-It-All, turn the pages, as if I were playing the piano. Amy, ready with the blotting paper. Frost, see if you can keep the temperature chilly around the desk. I wouldn’t want to set fire to anything.’

  Amy guessed what Light Fingers was going to do, but others were puzzled.

  At a nod, Knowles began turning the pages. Light Fingers copied what she saw, lightning-fast. Her hand disappeared in a blur as it passed over the page. Words appeared in her exercise book – and figure drawings of ants and anthills – as if she were doing a brass rubbing. When each page was done, Amy leant in with blotting paper. Half-way through the first chapter, Light Fingers’ nib broke and Lungs handed over her own pen. Devlin craned like a cobra to get a better look.

  ‘Lawks a’ mercy,’ she said.

  Within five minutes, Light Fingers had completed her day’s work.

  ‘Now, let’s try it with a different handwriting. Thorn, you’re left-handed, right?’

  ‘Righteously left, right.’

  Light Fingers switched hands and, with Knowles turning pages and Amy blotting, completed another fair copy. It looked different enough from the first. Then, Light Fingers tried right-handed but slanting left and with a thicker nib. Marsh and Paquignet took over page-turning and blotting duty.

  Devlin fished her exercise book out of the basket.

  Dyall, catching on late, abandoned her copy. As gently as possible, Amy led the girl to the farthest corner of the classroom.

  ‘Could you sit here, Poppet?’ she asked. ‘Just till we get things sorted.’

  There was an irregular niche, partially screened from the rest of the room, just big enough for a chair and desk. Dyall seemed happy to make this her hidey-hole. Amy gave Poppet one of Lamarcroft’s gob-stoppers, which she slipped into her mouth. Her cheeks hollowed and her eyes widened. It would take her a while to dissolve the big sweet.

  Even brief proximity to Dyall gave Amy the beginnings of a head. What day was this? Why was she in the abandoned greenhouse with such a strange assortment of girls?

  Getting away from Poppet brought on a dizzying rush of relief. The spots of forgetfulness filled in and Amy remembered everything.

  Light Fingers had produced another copy, with a different nib and slant.

  ‘Harper,’ said Light Fingers, still writing away. ‘What you were saying last night… you’re right. We have to stop all this. The Black Skirts, Rayne, everything.’

  Shrimp was still nervous about talking with the others. She was so used to girls wanting to get away from her that she had forgotten how to be direct.

  ‘I tried on my own,’ she said shyly, ‘but my Ability – I call it breathing in – won’t work on Rayne any more. When she came to School, I might have managed it… made her so weak we could have done something about her. She was just like y-… just like everyone, except Palgraive and Paule. I caught a breath from her when she was first here. But when I tried again, after the Black Skirts caught on, it was no use. I can’t breathe in from any of them now. It’s like they’re all one animal, too big to get a hold on. Breathing in is like sipping hot tea… sometimes, if I’ve gone a long time without, gulping down a whole mug at once. With the Black Skirts now, it’d be like trying to drink a boiling lake. Their level wouldn’t go down and I’d do myself an injury.’

  Amy wasn’t the only girl disgusted with Shrimp.

  ‘Good gravy, Harper,’ said Thorn, ‘but you really are dreadful. I remember when you tried to “interview” me.’

  ‘And me,’ said Marsh. ‘I was parched.’

  Panicked and squirming, Shrimp looked at the hard faces and pleaded ‘It’s not something I can help!’

  ‘Yes, but you enjoy it, you witch,’ said Knowles.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Frost, who understood runaway Abilities. ‘We can’t afford to be like this.’

  ‘The Frost’s right,’ said Light Fingers. ‘It’s what they want. The Ordinaries love it when we fight among ourselves. It means they don’t have to go to any bother to keep us in hutches.’

  The air around Thorn simmered with heat haze. Amy wished she’d been in Thorn’s cell this term – it was probably the toastiest place in School.

  ‘Sorry, Shrimp,’ said Thorn. ‘I spoke out of turn. I was forgetting… I set light to my grandmama’s wig once, without meaning to. I know what can happen.’

  ‘You should be sorry,’ responded Harper, with her old spite. ‘You should all be sorry.’

  ‘Shrimp,’ said Amy, sternly.

  Harper calmed down, took a deep breath – which made girls back away from her – and fixed a simper on her face that adjusted into a smile.

  ‘It is fine,’ she said, with a curtsey. ‘Thank you, Thorn. Thank you, Thomsett.’

  Amy accepted the apology, though – like everyone here – she would remember what Shrimp had said about breathing in.

  ‘One thing, Shrimp,’ said Amy. ‘Your Ability works on everyone. Even Poppet?’

  ‘What she does is like what I do, I think. But not the same. When we’re stuck together, it’s awful. Neither of us could stop. It was like we were puffing up and running down at the same time, over and over. Keep us apart, please.’

  There was no denying the little Unusual’s desperation.

  ‘…you said “except Palgraive and Paule”,’ said Amy. ‘What did you mean?’

  Shrimp put her hand up to her mouth and whispered ‘I don’t think Palgraive’s alive, really. She’s like an empty cup. With something wriggling in the dregs. It keeps her walking and working and smiling, but nothing else.’

  Palgraive paid no attention and continued copying in a measured hand. The Remove all stared at her. Even Amy, who knew more, shuddered. As she worked, Palgraive kept smiling.

  ‘And Paule?’ asked Amy.

  Harper paused, reluctant to say anything… which, after the confessions she had made, was alarming. Finally, choosing her words, she said, ‘If
the Black Skirts are like a lake, Paule’s like an ocean. There’s just so much there. You can’t see it, but I can. And it’s terrifying, chums. You all have fringes you can’t see but I can. Like second shadows. Wavering, transparent fringes around you all the time. Paule has more than a fringe. It’s like a storm, around her all the time, with lightning. And it’s…’

  ‘Purple,’ said Light Fingers, looking at Amy.

  ‘Like the skies in my dream,’ said Lungs.

  ‘I see fringes,’ said Green Thumbs. ‘Around plants, not people.’

  ‘Anyone else?’ asked Amy.

  ‘I see my pocket,’ said Laurence. ‘And things have fringes when they come back. Not purple, but purple-ish.’

  ‘Paule?’

  Paule seemed to have heard nothing, as immune to being talked about as Palgraive.

  ‘It’s snowing upwards in the Purple,’ she said. ‘Thinning on the ground and thickening the clouds. Things are moving under the drifts. Holes with other holes in them are opening everywhere. Dandy and fine and safe as houses.’

  ‘That was terribly helpful,’ said Knowles, who got impatient when things didn’t make sense. She could put concrete information in her head, but contradictions and ambiguities annoyed her. ‘But what’s it got to do with the price of tea in China?’

  Light Fingers was on to her sixth copy. She was even speeding up. She went through nibs and ink and tore pages occasionally, but kept at her task. Only Palgraive was still working on her own copy. She hadn’t finished the foreword.

  ‘Know-It-All has a point,’ said Lungs. ‘We might be pals now but we’re still in a prize pickle. The Black Skirts have the whole school. We’ve just got what’s in this room, and some of us are not up to much. We’re hard put to be any earthly use with these blasted Sisters Dark marching about like they own the place.’

  ‘Is it just us, though?’ asked Devlin. ‘What about the Staff?

  ‘Miss Kaye’s been dealt with somehow,’ said Frost. ‘And remember Miss Bedale – she spoke up and was degowned. The rest of the beaks are Black Skirt to the bone. Ponce and Digger have their arms up in the air all the time doing the wavey-wavey dance.’