The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy)

by Mann, W. E.

  “That’th what I thought,” said Peregrine Trout, leaning towards us, wide-eyed with anticipation.

  “Do you know what it’s going to be?” asked Freddie.

  “My brother thaid that it’th uthually mithe or frogth,” Peregrine replied.

  “I hope it’s frogs,” said Freddie, and added, “Apparently their intestines smell so bad that someone always pukes”. Peregrine smirked and turned back to face the front. I felt sick just thinking about it and had the ominous suspicion that if anyone was going to puke, it would be me. And I really didn’t want to be known as the Third Form frog-vomitor.

  “Take your places,” Miss Prenderghast began, and paused, as if distracted by being able to hear her own voice in the classroom for the first time. “Um, yes, take your places in pairs by the worktops. You’ll see that I’ve, er, set out all of the things you’ll be needing.”

  Everyone scrambled over to the worktops, keen to start hacking up a dead animal as soon as possible. The tools set out in front of us, like everything else in the school, were heavily weathered and half-eaten by rust.

  “Now you’ll see on the blackboard that...”

  “Er Ma’am,” snorted Peregrine, “there’th nothing on the board.”

  “Hm? Oh, I see. Yes.” She rolled down the blackboard to reveal two prepared diagrams, side by side. One appeared to be a cross-section of a U-boat, the other a cross-section of a maggot-eaten apple. “This,” she said, indicating the first of these, “is a fish of the family tetraodontidae. Who can translate this from the Greek for me?”

  “Ma’am, we haven’t started Greek yet,” I said.

  “Oh, er, well, that’s a shame,” she muttered. “In Greek, “tetra” means “four” and “odon” means “tooth”. The family gets its name because the fish have four large teeth at the fronts of their mouths. So, er, can anyone tell me why these fish might benefit from large teeth?”

  Freddie raised his hand and said, “Is it because they are predators?”

  “Er, that’s correct. They eat crustacea and molluscs, and so they need these teeth,” she tapped the diagram, “for crunching their prey”.

  “Can anyone tell me what they think the picture on the right represents?”

  Nobody replied. I continued to study her mannerisms, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might give a clue about what Colonel Barrington’s spell might be. But there was nothing. She was always this vacant.

  “Um, it’s, it’s the... Er... Where was I?” she mumbled.

  “The diagram on the right, Ma’am,” I reminded her.

  “That’s right. This is a diagram of exactly the same fish. It has inflated itself. Can anyone tell me why it might want to do that?”

  This time Peregrine answered, “It’s a defenth mechanithm, Ma’am. The fish inflateth itthelf to make it look big tho that a predator will think twithe before attacking it”.

  “Correct,” she said. “After you make your incisions, um...”

  We were all silently attentive. The word “incision” had made me feel that I was about to do something very important, like Doctor Watson analysing a corpse for clues.

  “…Er… you must identify the liver, remove it, if possible without piercing it, and place it in the tobacco tin in front of you.”

  ***

  The intestines were pretty disgusting, but I managed not to throw up. In fact, to Freddie’s disappointment, no one threw up. And the whole thing seemed more like a very messy lunch than a post mortem on a murder victim.

  More importantly, Miss Prenderghast’s behaviour had been just as unusual as usual. I began to wonder whether we had really heard Barrington clearly when we thought he had said that she was under a spell. I had no inkling of what kind of spell it might be.

  So, I suppose I would have thought no more about the dissection lesson if I hadn’t happened upon such an unlikely coincidence in History that morning.

  eleven

  In spite of the aroma of Gordon’s Gin that seemed constantly to linger after her, Mrs. Stowaway, the History teacher, was one of the school’s more normal teachers. She was happily married to a surgeon, had two teenage children at a good school, two labradors and a twee thatched cottage in a nearby village. Someone had told me that because her husband was a doctor, he could say pretty much whatever he wanted around anyone. Doctors were in very high demand.

  We had our blue books open at page eighty-three. Captain James Cook, a grand and dignified man with a very tidy wig, was on his second voyage, having already charted the coastlines of New Zealand and Eastern Australia.

  Peregrine raised his hand.

  “Trout,” said Mrs. Stowaway, to signal that he may ask his question.

  “Well, you know you thaid that the Dutch dithcovered Authtralia and that the British thettled it...”

  “Yes...” she said with the tone of caution that all teachers seemed to approach queries from Peregrine.

  “...and you know you thaid that there were already a lot of aboriginal Authtralian tribes living there...”

  “Yeeees...”

  “Well I wath wondering: Did the firtht aboriginal Authtralian to vithit Britain declare that he dithcovered Britain?”

  “Don’t be facetious, Trout!”

  “But, Ma’am...” he began to protest when I noticed on page eighty-four a passage entitled “Captain Cook and the Poisoned Puffer”:

  It told a story about the sailors on board Cook’s ship eating some puffer fish livers and then becoming very ill. Their arms and legs became numb and very weak and one of the pigs they had on board, after eating the remains, was found dead the next morning. The article finished by saying, “This is the first recorded example of tetrodotoxic poisoning”.

  The word “tetrodotoxic” jumped out at me. It seemed somehow familiar. I raised my hand.

  “Turnpike,” said Stowaway, clearly relieved by the opportunity to answer questions from someone other than Peregrine.

  “Ma’am, you see this story on eighty-four about Captain Cook eating poisonous fish…”

  “Yeeees, Turnpike. It seems that you have raced on ahead of us…”

  “Yes, sorry. I just wondered about these fish…”

  “Aha! Well,” she began, “certain types of these poisonous puffer fish are, believe it or not, thought of as a delicacy in some parts of the World. The Japanese, for example, pay good money for them. Ah!” she said, turning to page eighty-five, “If you turn the page, you will see a couple of diagrams of what puffer fish look like.”

  Turning the page, I saw that there were two very familiar diagrams. One appeared to be a cross-section of a U-boat, the other a cross-section of a maggot-eaten apple. Just like the diagram on Miss Prenderghast’s blackboard.

  Freddie turned and looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

  “Ma’am,” said Peregrine, “we dithected thith fish in Biology jutht now.”

  “Don’t talk such rot, Peregrine Trout!” Mrs. Stowaway snapped. “I’ve a good mind to give you a Detention.”

  “No, Ma’am. Trout’s right,” Freddie piped up. “We really did just dissect this fish.”

  Mrs. Stowaway paused.

  “Well,” she said. “I must say that if that’s true, I find it very surprising.” Her brow was furrowed in genuine concern. “It seems like far too dangerous an experiment.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, “Captain Cook in his diary talks about the liver. Is that the most poisonous part? Miss Prenderghast got us to cut out the livers of the fish and place them in tins.”

  “I am no expert, of course,” she replied, “but as I understand it, the livers are very poisonous indeed. Well,” she shook her head and looked really rather perturbed, “Miss Prenderghast must know what she’s doing. All I can say is that I hope you all wore gloves and washed your hands thoroughly after you finished.”

  It had seemed odd at the time that we had been made to do a dissection at all. This was something that was not usually done until at least the Fifth Form. It now seemed
even odder that Miss Prenderghast had made us do a dissection of a very poisonous creature rather than the usual rat or frog.

  I wondered what she was planning to do with the livers after we had left.

  twelve

  During free afternoons, the Forest was a paradise of turmoil and boys brawling in boilersuits.

  “You know about that tree, don’t you?” said Freddie. We were on our way to the Vegetable Gardens for Hard Labour; harvesting carrots, lettuce and rhubarb. The tree he was pointing to was known as the Watchtower, a great conifer near the 1st XI cricket field. All of its lower branches had been lopped off and a thick white ring had been painted around its trunk some way up. The Watchtower, and the large red rock which sat next to it, formed the setting for one of Talltrees’ more tragic ghost-stories.

  “Course I do,” I said. “You’ve probably told me about it a zillion times.”

  But he had already begun.

  Before the War, Freddie explained, a boy had managed to climb right up to the distant height of where the white ring was later painted. It was the highest that any boy at the school had ever managed to climb. So high, in fact, that the players in the cricket match had even stopped what they were doing to watch with a dizzying sense of fascination mixed with fear. And the climber had been waving to them, when a sudden gust of wind whipped up. He lost his grip and his footing. And he fell.

  The story went that the sound of his skull hitting the Red Rock was like that of a shotgun on a calm September morning.

  After his funeral, his grieving mother was driven to the school by horse and carriage. She demanded that the Headmaster, and Freddie paused so that he could get the words just right, “henceforth prohibit any boys from climbing to such a height up such tall trees so as to prevent such tragedies”. The Headmaster agreed. But what he did not tell her was that he would take her demand literally.

  So, as there was only one “such tall tree” in the school grounds, and no others of identical height, the prohibition would affect only that tree, and the white ring was painted at “such a height” as that from which the boy had fallen, thus marking out the level above which boys were prevented from climbing.

  According to Freddie, the ghost of this child, whom Freddie called “the Fallen Boy”, could be seen on moonless nights throwing itself repeatedly from the Watchtower, trying in vain to find some way of landing without dying.

  “But, you know, the weirdest thing of all was that his body was never found! By the time the cricket umpires had arrived to see what was what, he was gone, vanished into thin...”

  “Oh come on, Freddie! You say that at the end of every ghost story!”

  “Well maybe that’s because it’s true!”

  I sniggered. Nevertheless, I quickened my stride a little as I suddenly felt as if someone had breathed down my neck.

  We turned away from the Watchtower and followed a narrow deer-track among the trees canopied with leaves glinting in the mottled light of the sun. The track led out towards a broad clearing, where the soil had been turned into neat rows for vegetables, overlaid with netting to keep out the rabbits.

  “Hullo, guys.”

  “Hi, Samson,” said Freddie cheerily.

  It was Samson Akwasi, the African boy who worked in the Kitchens. Quite a few of us were pretty good friends with him, but it was best not to be seen talking to him too often, particularly not when people like Colonel Barrington or Doctor Saracen were about. It was well known, though, that some of the Masters taught him during their spare time and most of the other Masters turned a blind eye. He was especially good at French.

  “What are you two doing here?” he asked.

  “Vegetable Gardens,” I said.

  “Oh, so did you accidentally use the Führer’s name in vain?” he joked.

  “Something like that,” scowled Freddie.

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about collecting in the carrots and rhubarb,” he said. “I did that this morning. I’ll get the lettuce in later.”

  Freddie looked at me beaming. “Wow!” he said. “Thanks, Samson! This’ll be the easiest Hard Labour ever!”

  “Hey, but why don’t you come and see what Reggie and I have done with the Hut?”

  Over the past three years, I had seen Huts in various fascinating and imaginative forms: multi-levelled monkey-puzzle tree-houses, unearthed air-raid shelters, even a village of leafy wigwams with a strictly enforced feudal system. But the Burrow was by far the most ingenious.

  It had been set up about four weeks ago by Reggie Pickering. He, Samson and one or two others had begun by digging a few foxholes in a clearing among the trees behind the Tennis Court, overlaying them with corrugated iron supported by crow-bars and planks of wood, and replacing the earth on top. By now it had sprawled into a tangled complex of tunnels. Above ground you could see nothing but its three entry-holes where guards would be stationed during a Hut War.

  The Burrow had excellent defences. It was surrounded by a barricade of thorny branches, beyond which were two tall fern-trees with crows-nest platforms. An attacking force would be seen from the crows-nests at least half a minute before reaching the barricade. Ample time for Reggie to rally his troops.

  I had been a member of the Burrow for about two weeks. It had cost me two Granny Smiths and half a tube of Spangles. Freddie had joined at the same time by waiving Reggie’s debt of four Pontefracts. Reggie’s tuck-box must have been heaving.

  “Look!” Freddie whispered to me as the three of us tramped towards the Burrow. “What’s she doing?”

  Just a few yards away from the path that was trodden through the Forest crouched Miss Prenderghast, examining and pruning a small tree.

  I suppose there is nothing strange about a Biology teacher, and such a quiet and lonely one, being out here by herself, tending to a plant. But it was such an odd looking plant, about my height with dull purple, bell-shaped flowers, tinged green, and large, shiny black berries. Miss Prenderghast was picking these berries slowly and deliberately, and placing them in a leather pouch at her side. She didn’t notice us as we walked by.

  “Password?” We had reached the edge of the Burrow’s territory and Florian Tickle was sitting on a branch above us, with a bow and arrow at the ready.

  “For God’s sake, Tickle! It’s me, Akwasi and Turnpike!” shouted Freddie impatiently.

  “Password?” Florian Tickle was exceedingly annoying. He was in the Third Form, but in the B-stream rather than the A-stream, so he didn’t have his lessons with us. He was pretty stupid and was obsessed with anything to do with the army. Freddie looked at me and shrugged.

  “Dragonfly,” I sighed.

  “You may pass,” he stated, eyeing us suspiciously and lowering his weapon.

  Freddie stuck two fingers up at him and muttered “idiot” as we edged through a gap in the barricade.

  “’Ello, fellas!” Reggie shouted, looking up from a hole he was digging with a rusty trowel.

  “Hi, Reggie,” I replied. “Where is everyone?”

  “Scrounging crow-bars and corrugated iron. Hey, go down there and see what Akwasi’s done to the War Committee Chamber!”

  The Burrow really was not a place for the claustrophobic. So if I had known what I had been getting myself into at the time when I handed Reggie my Confectionery Ration, I wouldn’t have been so eager.

  The first time I crawled in, it was all I could do to master the panic. But, soon enough, the further I crawled, the more my panic was replaced by amazement. And now I had no fear of being underground at all.

  I went in last, crawling into the tunnels after Samson with the thick smell of mud in my nostrils, edging forwards on my elbows and knees. We passed the Munitions Store and the Officers’ Mess on the right, before Samson disappeared around a corner to the left. I followed him and, as I passed through the opening into the War Committee Chamber, my right elbow jarred suddenly downwards as I lost the floor underneath me. I slid and rolled and soon came to an abrupt halt on my face, with a m
outhful of mud.

  I got up onto my knees and could hear the other two chuckling. I brushed the dirt from my hair and face and looked around. In the dim light, I was amazed. What had, only a week ago, been nothing more than a wide, but shallow dent in the ground, overlaid with corrugated iron was now a circular room with a ledge for seating around the wall. It may not have been the dome of the Volkshalle, but it was almost high enough for me to stand up. I shuffled over to sit on the ledge next to the other three.

  “Not bad, eh?” said Reggie.

  I nodded.

  “Hey, Samson,” said Freddie suddenly. “Were you in Assembly this morning when Doctor Boateng did his talk on Voodoo and everything?”

  “Yeees,” replied Samson suspiciously. He usually sat at the back with the Cook, the cleaners and the other school servants.

  “Well... um... what did you think about what he said?”

  Samson frowned. “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “Samson,” I said, realising where Freddie was leading. “Freddie’s beating around the bush. What he wants to know is whether you thought it was true, all that stuff Boateng said about Voodoo, you know, about there not being any black magic and all that.”

  “Actually,” he said, “well I suppose Boateng’s the expert, you know, and my family was Catholic. But back in Africa, we had a maid from Dahomey, called Angélique. She was the one who taught me to speak French. She believed in Voodoo. So I suppose I know a little bit about it from the stories she used to tell.” He stopped digging. “Hey, listen to this one. She used to tell me and my brothers this to scare us before bedtime. But she always said it was totally true and was the real reason why she ran away from home.

  When she was a girl about our age, years and years ago, she had a twin sister who died in strange circumstances.” Samson began to speak in a chilled tone, stretching certain syllables to feed the tension. “After they buried her, the Voodoo priest gave Angélique a doll and he told her to look after it for the rest of her life.