The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy)

by Mann, W. E.

  Samson upended it to read an inscription on its base. He gulped and handed it to me. I turned it round in my hands and stared at it, fright preventing me from wresting my eyes away. For in Caratacus’ meandering calligraphy that I recognised so well was inscribed one word.

  “Turnpike.”

  My hand started to tremble, my knuckles white. Samson clattered though the box urgently. “Grüber, Pendleton, Crick...,” his voice lowered, “...Akwasi.” He shook his head and exhaled shatteringly. “So these are for all the boys who aren’t ill yet.” He looked up at me. “He must have taken Reggie’s down with him. It must have been the first one of ours that he laid he hands on just now. Jesus! Caratacus and Barrington must be in this together!”

  He must have been right. All of the evidence pointed that way and now there was no lie that Caratacus could trick me into thinking, whether with Ockham’s Razor or otherwise.

  But there was a feather of a thought tickling the edge of a memory that made me pause. I hesitated, trying to remember. Something Barrington said. Yes, something he had said when Freddie and I had been hiding in the stairwell behind the Hidden Library.

  Samson was saying something, but I wasn’t hearing him. Something didn’t fit. I crept slowly back through my memory, back down those cast-iron stairs from the Wolfhall bathroom and into Barrington’s argument with Doctor Boateng. And I found something odd: Boateng asking Barrington how he was planning to administer something to the boys and Barrington replying that he was going to “gas them”. But that was at a time after a number of boys had been taken ill, already poisoned. But the strange thing was that we knew that the zombie-poison was a one-stage process and did not involve gas at all, it involved syringes. We knew that. And there was another oddity: Barrington saying that he wanted to “prepare for the Bokor”. But why would he have said that if he was the Bokor?

  Samson pushed the box back under the bed. And I saw that under there, next to the box, was a pair of moccasin slippers. I recognised those slippers. They were worn by the man who had helped Head Matron take Freddie during the night.

  And in a tumbling flurry of recalled incidents, conversations, suppositions and suggestions, I realised what I should have deduced before. All of my conclusions and the foundations of evidence upon which I had built them resoundingly crashed down, inside-out and upside-down.

  “Samson,” I said, ignoring whatever it was that he was saying. “It’s Caratacus. He’s the Bokor. I don’t believe I’ve been such an idiot...”

  “What are you on about? What about Barrington coming down to the Crypt? What about him kidnapping Freddie in the night?”

  “No. It was Caratacus all along. We presumed it was Barrington and we never thought we were wrong. We never actually saw him, did we? And we only heard a man whispering in the Crypt. It was impossible to tell who it was. It could have been anyone.”

  “Well what about his research log and the letters you saw?”

  “I don’t believe I didn’t realise before: He hasn’t been trying to work out how to poison everyone. He’s been trying to work out how to cure them.”

  twenty eight

  “Come on!” shouted Samson, throwing himself bodily against the shuddering door. “We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to help Reggie. Or find Barrington.” He began to beat his fists against it. “We’re trapped!”

  “Hey, hey! Wait,” I said, “There is another way out”. He stopped and turned to look around the room for an exit he hadn’t seen. Then he realised what I was talking about and began shaking his head vigorously. “That’s crazy! Totally insane! I’m not doing that. No way. We’re four floors up and there’s nothing but concrete down there.” He started banging on the door with renewed intent.

  I clambered onto Caratacus’ bed, slid the window open and lent out. It was a bright, breezy evening with a clear view all of the way up the Drive, over tumbling farmland and up to the Monument, which towered over the landscape like the white king over a chessboard.

  Immediately outside of the window, under my chin, there was a ledge perhaps two feet wide, covered with bird droppings, leading along past four or five other windows. I couldn’t crane my head far enough to see if any of them were open. But it was midsummer. Surely at least one of the teachers would be letting some fresh air into their Private Room. Failing that, further to the right, about ten yards further along, was the top of the Portico, a large expanse of sloping concrete. From there we could either try to shin down one of the leaden drainpipes or pull ourselves up onto the roof of the school building. I had never been up on the roof before, but I once overheard some Seniors saying that they had been up there to try pilfered cigarettes and that they got there through a fire escape at the top of the Spiral Staircase.

  All of this was, of course, theoretical at this stage. The physical challenge of crawling along this ledge would not be as sizeable as the psychological challenge of convincing my limbs to attempt that physical challenge. It was terrifying. But there was no alternative.

  “We can do this, Samson,” I asserted, as much in order to convince myself as to convince him. “Look! It’s high, but it’s not so much higher than some of the trees we’ve been up.” I turned to see that he was wincing. “What is it?”

  “Have you ever seen me up a tree before?”

  Strange question, I thought. Every boy at the school was an accomplished monkey-puzzler, spent at least two hours a week rhodo-bouncing, and had had at least three near-death experiences at the further reaches of the Games Tree.

  “Okay. I’m scared of heights, alright?” he said sheepishly. “Petrified! Why do you think I built the Burrow?”

  “Look. It’ll be okay. We’ll take it slowly. Everyone’s scared of heights really. If this ledge was a couple of metres above the ground, you wouldn’t think twice about it. You’d run across it, no problem. The trick is not to look down and just pretend you’re near the ground.” At least, I presumed that that was the trick. That was what I was planning to try to do anyway.

  “No. No way!”

  “Listen, we don’t have a choice. If we want to help Reggie and all of the others, we will have to do it. Okay? You don’t have time to be scared.”

  He knew I was right and he was already trembling with fear. He lent very briefly out of the window, his eyes wide and frantic, and then quickly stepped back into the middle of the room as if he couldn’t trust himself not to jump out. He paced around with his hands on his hips, muttering to himself.

  “Okay,” he said after a few moments, sucking in a sharp breath between his teeth. “But I’ll go first. The last thing I want at this altitude is your arse in my face!”

  “Good man,” I said, stepping aside.

  ***

  Well, telling yourself not to look down when you are in a precarious situation at a spiralling height is a load of old cobblers. It simply doesn’t work. And I should have known this from climbing trees. Once you are up there, just you, the sky and your sense of balance, everything in your peripheral vision moves vividly at sickening speed, while the thing you are gripping for dear life stays just where it is. Crawling along that ledge, so much narrower when I was on it, was not remotely similar to tiptoeing along the balance beam in the Gym because the Gym floor would not shift and lurch dizzyingly with every inch I edged forward.

  “Just take it really easy.” I looked up very, very slowly in case the movement of my head would disturb all of the forces that were conspiring to keep me up here. Samson was already at the top of the Portico, laying on his front as far away from the edge as possible. There was terror in his voice.

  I shuddered forwards gradually, gradually. Right hand, right knee, left hand, left knee, deep breath and again, all the while the concrete driveway and everything else below seemingly reaching up to haul me down, and me swallowing that perverse inkling urge to grant the ground its prey.

  The sun had begun a rapid descent, its long pink fingers clawing despairingly over the horizon between the elongating shado
ws of crippled trees. Suddenly the air was beginning to cool, a frosty dew formed over my skin and the ledge in front of me seemed to become slippery and moist to touch. In the fast fading daylight it was becoming harder and harder to maintain my balance.

  Suddenly a gust of wind whipped up and knocked my cap off my head. I crouched still, shivering with terror, as it floated spirals towards the ground. Such a long way down. Turning around to go back would be far too dangerous. I had to press on and the Portico seemed to get further and further away.

  But finally, eventually, I was there, with blood oozing from my grazed knees.

  “Let’s get onto the roof,” I said after I had composed myself and my limbs had stopped quivering. “It’s the least dangerous thing to do. There’s a fire escape to the Spiral Stairs.”

  “What if it’s shut?”

  I began to haul myself up. “No idea,” I panted. “We’ll come up with plan B when we need to. Come on, Sam...”

  The rest of his name was sharply choked out of me as some force wrenched me upwards. I suddenly found myself suspended like a lopsided string puppet, held up by my collar and one of my armpits, with my legs dangling down below me about half a foot above the gravelled tarmac on the roof.

  “Urgh! Look what I’ve caught. Disgusting, isn’t it?”

  “And all alone. Disgusting!”

  I recognised the thuggish voices and the repulsive breath before I looked up into those two identically brutish, sneering faces. Angus and Amos Bearbaiter. Great! These imbeciles could present a very unwelcome obstacle. And we really did not have time for this. We needed to find Colonel Barrington right away.

  The twins had an obvious strength advantage over us, so there was no prospect of fighting our way past them. But there were three things we had that they did not. One was speed. But, seeing as they had already caught me, that would be of no immediate value. The second was brains. Perhaps I could try to baffle them into letting me go free. The third was surprise. They had obviously not yet seen Samson and maybe that could be of some help.

  The twin who was not holding me in the air took a deep draw on the remains of a cigarette which he held strangely daintily between index finger and thumb. He let it drop theatrically and crushed it under his right heel. He took a pace towards me, licked his rubbery lips and then slowly exhaled a rancid plume of smoke into my face.

  “Hey Angus, isn’t this the one that almost got Hector booted out?”

  “Yeah. Filthy little sneak. What do you think we should do with him then?”

  “Punish him, I say.”

  “Guys,” I gasped, catching my breath. “If you’d let me explain...”

  “It’s squeaking, Amos. What’s it squeaking for?”

  “Listen, chaps,” I pleaded. “Think about it. You’ve got it all wrong. I didn’t get Vanderpump into trouble. I got you two let off. I told Wilbraham that you had come to help us and to stop Vanderpump. He would have expelled you two if it weren’t for me...”

  The one that turned out to be Angus lowered me to the floor cautiously, not knowing whether to trust me. He looked at Amos. Both of them looked bewildered and Amos’ eyes moved quickly from side to side under his furrowed, baboon brow as if he were doing long-division in his head.

  “Sounds like rubbish to me,” concluded Amos.

  I started to beg. But it was pointless. It’s impossible to reason with morons. Amos nudged Angus to one side, grabbed me by the collar and wrestled me to the ground. I started kicking and swinging my fists. But that was also pointless.

  “Careful, Amos. He’s a wriggly one,” said Angus, stepping back to light a cigarette.

  Amos then, horrifyingly, began to drag me by the collar across the gravel to the edge of the roof, but away from the Portico. Now I became utterly frantic. I was lashing and gnashing, flailing, spitting and twisting. And he was hauling me closer and perilously closer to the edge. Could the twins be so stupid that they did not understand gravity or did not realise that anyone who fell off the roof had a ninety-nine point nine per cent. chance of dying? Or were they really trying to kill me?

  I started to think about all of the possible ways I might die. Perhaps I would land on my feet and my legs would be forced up through my abdomen and out through my shoulders. Maybe I would land on my face and my head would explode on impact, brains squirting out of my ears. My poor mother would have to hear about how the police literally scraped my splattered remains from the ground.

  A flurried scuffle of grit was kicked up from the tarmac, a hefty thud shook the roof and a pained squeal mewed out from my right, and I was released. I scrambled to my feet to assess what had happened. Amos was writhing around on the floor, whimpering pathetically and holding his face with bloodied paws. Samson was stepping back away from him, wringing his right hand and muttering something under his breath.

  And then Angus, who was a few yards away behind Samson, was charging at him in full battle-cry. Samson would not have time to react and had lost his advantage of surprise. So I quickly grasped a handful of gravel and, running towards Angus as he bore down upon Samson, chucked it into his face. Then, as he staggered back and began trying to rub the grit out of his eyes, I gave him a sharp kick to the kneecap and Samson turned around and thumped him firmly in the ribs. He landed in a blubbery heap next to his brother.

  “Thanks for that, Samson.”

  “You’re welcome. I actually really enjoyed that!” he said, still clutching his right hand and, obviously then remembering how high up he was began to hurry towards the fire escape. “Quick. Let’s get down to the Science Labs,” he called.

  “You two are dead meat!” bawled Amos as he struggled to stand.

  “Yeah,” agreed Angus, struggling for breath. “You’re...” (he was obviously trying to conjure something original) “... dead... meat, you two are!”

  They were tripping towards us, pushing each other out of the way in order to be the first to get to us. But by this time, we had reached the door leading to the Spiral Staircase. The twins had, in spite of their intellectual disadvantages, taken the sensible measure of propping the door open with a metal bin as there was no way of opening it from this side. Samson, still trembling with vertigo, sprinted past me. As I passed through the door, I kicked the bin out onto the roof. The Bearbaiters were almost upon me when I clutched the metal bar across the inside of the fire escape and hurriedly tugged it shut.

  It slammed satisfyingly and, a second later, I could hear a muffled banging from the outside. I gathered my breath and chased after Samson, who was still hurtling helter-skelter for terra firma.

  ***

  The lights were on in the Physics and Chemistry Lab, filtering out through the glass in the door to illuminate an otherwise dimly lit, deserted corridor.

  Even though Samson and I had run all the way here, pressed on by the sickening sense of life-or-undeath urgency, we came to an abrupt halt just outside the door, panting and shaking. I knew that now was really no time to stand on ceremony, but I could not help smoothing down my hair and attempting to brush some more of the mud from my shirt in a poor effort to effect the appearance of composure before I knocked on the door. Colonel Barrington was such a stickler for “good form” and, given that he was not a man who would appreciate an interruption in his Laboratory, I would have to do everything in my power not to enrage him before I had even had the chance to tell him what we had discovered. So I wiped my sandals on the backs of my socks and knocked firmly three times.

  I stepped back from the door so that he could not see us and refuse us an audience straight away. I waited and, after a few seconds, shrugged and whispered to Samson, “What do we do?”

  Samson peered through the door. “He’s in there with Doctor Boateng, studying something. They’ve obviously not heard us.”

  I was about to knock again when Samson grabbed my wrist.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Are you completely sure about all this? You know, are you sure that Caratacus is the bad guy? And, even if he is,
is Barrington definitely not in on the whole thing too? I mean, we could be walking straight into the lion’s den right now.”

  I realised then that there must be a great deal going on which I didn’t know anything about and there were so many questions which were still unanswered. I had seen only a few pages of Barrington’s research log and only half of his correspondence with Boateng. It was all so bizarre that I couldn’t even guess at what the bits I hadn’t seen would say. In any case, I did not know how to cure zombism. So if Barrington couldn’t help Milo, Freddie and the others, then nobody could, and just knowing about it would be no use. Barrington was the only hope now. And the unmistakeable moccasin slippers in Caratacus’ room were, without all of the other items, more than enough evidence for me that Caratacus was the Bokor.

  “Yes,” I said defiantly. “I’m sure.”

  This time I knocked more loudly and, without waiting for a response, stepped straight in.

  Colonel Barrington’s reaction to my unbidden entry was so far from what I expected that I was startled:

  “Turnpike. Thank goodness!” he said, looking up from his research. “Ah... and Akwasi, my very best Science pupil. Good!”

  It occurred to me that Samson must be very discreet about which of the Masters gave him lessons because I had had no idea that he did Science. As Doctor Boateng looked over towards Samson, I was sure that I briefly noticed an expression of pride cross his face before he took on a tone of business-like urgency.

  “Come in quickly now,” he said, “and close that door behind you. There isn’t much time. Now then, you must tell me everything you know right away. Do not spare any detail. Lives are at stake here.”

  twenty nine

  I spared no detail of our discoveries from the past few days. I told him everything we had overheard and found out, right up to the point when we worked out that Mr. Caratacus was the Bokor under direct orders from the Führer himself.