by Ann Bryant
“I still think it could all have been a coincidence,” said Nicole. And I had to admit that was what I was thinking too.
Antonia closed her eyes and opened them again, with an air of mystery. “Maybe it was a coincidence,” she continued, “but when Aunt Angela was lying in bed that night she heard a rattle that sounded just like chains, followed by some soft thuds like footsteps, and by this time she was terrified, being all alone.”
“I would have phoned someone and got them to come round,” said Sasha, shivering.
“Yes, then dived under the bedclothes,” added Izzy shakily.
“Well, she did dive under the bedclothes,” said Antonia, “only when she dared to look out after a couple of minutes of silence, she saw a woman in a long white dress standing right over her. Aunt Angela screamed the place down and the woman turned to a shadow, then disappeared altogether.”
“And did she ever see the woman again or hear that anyone else living in that flat had seen her?” asked Emily amid gasps from Izzy and Sasha.
“No, because she moved out of the apartment one week later!” finished Antonia.
Izzy shuddered and snuggled down in her bed. “Was that the best or the worst scary story?” she asked in a small voice.
“I suppose it was both,” said Antonia. “Or neither. Just the scariest.”
“It was certainly that!” said Sasha quietly. “Let’s not have any more. I’m already a bag of nerves!”
Nicole, who’d been lying down, sat up dramatically and folded her arms a bit huffily. “And now we’ve got to try and sleep!” she said. “Thanks very much, Antonia. Very helpful!”
Everyone laughed and I suggested that someone told a funny story or a joke. “Only not me, because I don’t know any,” I quickly added.
“What do birds say at Halloween?” Emily offered, through a yawn.
“I don’t know, what do birds say at Halloween?” we chorused.
“Trick or tweet!”
Then Emily laughed her head off, which was much funnier than the actual joke as she’d got big-time gigglitis and her face always crinkles up so much when she’s laughing that hard.
“I can tell you some more if you want,” she went on, as soon as she was able to speak again.
“No, that’ll keep us going just fine!” said Nicole, yawning as Emily and the others switched their lights off.
“Night,” said Antonia. “Sorry about my story.”
“S’okay,” said Izzy softly.
“Night,” someone else murmured.
“Bry!”
It was Emily whispering my name in the dark and I was a bit annoyed, because she’d woken me up from a lovely dream.
I looked over to her bed. “What?” I asked. Then I realized she was actually fast asleep and I must have just imagined she’d spoken. Or maybe I dreamed it. It was very confusing.
“Bry…”
“So you are awake?” I whispered.
“Only because you woke me,” she said in a voice that was thick with sleep.
“But I thought you woke me!”
“Shh! Listen!”
We both stayed completely quiet and from above us came the softest of footsteps.
“You still think it’s a bird?” I asked Emily, my shoulders tensing slightly.
She paused before answering. “Something like that.” Then, when I didn’t reply, she went on, “Oh come on, Bry, you don’t believe in ghosts and neither do I!”
I nodded. She was right. It was ridiculous to imagine even for a second that this could be a ghost. It was only Antonia’s story that had freaked us a bit. “No, but…”
“But what…?”
“But I want to know what it is.”
“How are you going to find out?”
“I don’t know, but I will. Somehow.”
On Sundays everything happens a bit later than it does on the other days of the week. We get up later, we eat breakfast later and most people spend ages simply chilling in their boarding houses. This Sunday was just as hot as the day before, so everyone was outside enjoying the sun. Emily was working in her garden and Sasha and Izzy had gone off for a sculling session at Pollington Water, which is a beautiful lake nearby. Nicole had persuaded Antonia to go for a swim, even though Antonia had complained that she’d freeze. She’d only agreed after Nicole had suggested they could warm themselves up in the sun on the lawn at the back of the main building afterwards.
So I had the perfect opportunity to double-check every single room on the top landing and try to find a way up to the attic. I really wanted to go into Matron’s room, to see whether there was a staircase in there, by any chance, but I wasn’t sure if I dared. It was a cheeky thing to do. Of course, I could simply tell her about the noises, but I knew Matron – she’d only laugh and say we had overactive imaginations.
I didn’t realize, until I went round the corner of our landing, that the three Year Nines who share the room on the left after the airing cupboard were still in their dorm. In fact, it was as I was passing their door that it opened and out they came, all talking excitedly about something. They stopped when they saw me.
“Oh! Bryony! Hi! What are you doing round here?” asked Nadia.
“I was just…er…looking for Matron.”
“I think she went outside. She said she was going to read her book round the side of Forest Ash in the shade somewhere.”
“Oh, right, thanks.” I turned to go back to Emerald until they’d disappeared, but Nadia called after me. “Hey, Bryony, you lot haven’t heard any strange noises in the night, have you?”
I hesitated, but there was no reason not to tell the truth.
“Yes…like there’s a bird or a mouse or something in the roof.”
The Year Nines looked at each other and I saw Annie nudge Gemma subtly.
“Yes, it’s probably just something like that.”
I knew they were trying not to scare me. “Why, what did you think it was?”
“Depends whether you believe in ghosts,” said Nadia.
I smiled at her. “No, I don’t.”
“Anyway, there’s sure to be some obvious explanation,” Annie said. “We’re going to tell Mr. Monk tomorrow.”
I went back to Emerald and stayed there until I was sure they’d gone out, then crept back out and walked along to the airing cupboard. It was more of a room than a cupboard, because you could walk right in. Along three walls were shelves with piles of towels and sheets and blankets and pillowcases, but there were no hatches or staircases anywhere, so I went on to look at the cleaning room again.
It didn’t look any different to the way it had the day before, but I had to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, so when I spotted a light switch I clicked it on, transforming the little room. Now I could clearly see all the brooms and buckets and cloths and detergents. And I could also see that, right at the back of the cupboard, going off to the left, was a staircase. I walked slowly towards it, holding my breath.
Was this how the princess in the story Sleeping Beauty felt on her fifteenth birthday when she started exploring parts of the palace she’d never seen before? There didn’t seem to be another light switch anywhere, so I tiptoed cautiously up the steep, narrow stairs, my heartbeat starting to quicken as I wondered what I would find. Did ghosts walk around during the day? I snapped that thought out of my mind instantly, because it was ridiculous and I knew it. And anyway it was far too hot. In any ghost story I’ve ever read, the air is always cold.
My eyes widened as I climbed the last few stairs, because I could see the whole loft. There was a huge water tank with loads of pipes everywhere, making a faint buzzing sound and the occasional clunk. I didn’t mind those noises. They were almost comforting. The beams sloped diagonally, following the shape of the roof, and there was a mass of dirty yellowy insulation. On a cold day it would probably be really cosy up here, even though it was a big area and a lot of it was empty. Along one side, old paint cans, brushes and rolls of wallpaper were stored. A
nd next to them, dusty boxes. Then there were some unusual things that had obviously been dumped here instead of being thrown away, like a tailor’s dummy and a globe, an ironing board and a microwave, a computer printer and piles of old curtains.
A proper window had been built into the roof and it was very slightly open. Had that window been closed I think the heat would have been unbearable. I started exploring very cautiously because, although I don’t hate mice, or even rats, if one scuttled out of the silent shadows and ran over my toes, I might be terrified. And what if a bird or a bat flew into my face? That would be totally scary too.
But I was here to investigate and that meant searching every nook and cranny, so I ought to get on with it before anyone discovered me. The thought of being discovered made me freeze. Had I closed the cleaning room door? I couldn’t remember. In the excitement of finding the staircase I’d completely forgotten that I didn’t actually have permission to be up here. I had to carry on, though, and complete my mission. My eyes were still wide, trying to take in absolutely every centimetre of floor and wall and beam and insulation, but as I got closer to the far end I realized gradually that it wasn’t the end. It lead round a corner. So then my mouth felt dry as my mind conjured up images of scrabbling, flea-infested rats, or – the worst possible nightmare – a dead body.
Stop it, Bryony, I told myself fiercely. There won’t be anything…
But what I heard next made my heart pound in my chest: Matron’s voice, muffled, as though she was quite far away. “Bryony? Did you want me?” She must have been outside our dorm.
This was terrible. I was sure now that I hadn’t closed the door to the cleaning room. What if she came up the stairs and found me here, breaking school rules? I had to go. Right now, so I didn’t get in any trouble. I could pretend I’d spilled something in our dorm and was in the cleaning room looking for a cloth to wipe it up with.
Then something happened that made me stop in my tracks. I was about to turn to walk on shaky legs towards the stairs, when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of silver-grey streaking through the tiny gap of the open window and I gasped at the shock and the speed. What was it? Some kind of animal. But what?
My legs trembled a bit as I went down the stairs, and my ears strained to hear whether Matron was still nearby. But there wasn’t a sound. The cleaning room was silent and still. I had left the door about a centimetre open, though, and I felt weak with relief that I hadn’t been discovered. I poked my head out really slowly and looked right and left, but no one was there. I shut the door behind me and hurried along the corridor and into Emerald, where I flopped onto my bed and thought through all that had just happened.
What was that silver creature? Then something clicked inside my brain. It must have been a squirrel. Obviously! I smiled to myself. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It had simply climbed up the wall and through the window. I mean it couldn’t have been anything else. Certainly not a rat. It was far too agile – it almost flew out of the window. And only a squirrel would be able to get down the side of the building without hurting itself. I tried to visualize the wall. Was there ivy or something growing up it? I couldn’t remember. We didn’t often go round that side. But squirrels don’t even need ivy. They run up tall tree trunks without any trouble.
In no time at all I was downstairs, then out of the building, staring up at the side wall of Forest Ash. It was almost completely covered with some kind of climbing plant that had grown up a trellis. The plant stopped at the roof but the attic window was less than a metre above it. So now I felt sure that the mystery was solved. The squirrel must have scrambled up and down this wall, clinging to the plant and the trellis. Easy peasy! I couldn’t wait to tell the others.
Chapter Four
After that Sunday the weekdays seemed lovely and peaceful and ghost-free. When I’d told the others about going up to the attic, they’d gasped and seemed a bit disapproving. “You might have got caught!” Nicole had said, making the others nod, wide-eyed. But then when I came to the bit about the squirrel, it was obvious they were relieved, especially Izzy. “Thank goodness for that, Bry!” she’d said. And she’d looked at me really gratefully.
I guessed the Year Nines must have reported the noises they’d heard to Mr. Monk, and he’d probably stopped the squirrel coming in. All I know is that none of us in Emerald heard anything more from the attic, night or day, and after a while I forgot about how fazed I’d been.
The following Friday was the introductory day for the new Year Sevens who would be coming to Silver Spires in September. Seeing them all around the place took me right back to my own introductory day. The main thing I remember was the feeling that I might not fit in because I wasn’t somehow girlie enough. I didn’t actually meet Emily that day; I didn’t really meet anyone. It was as though I was there, but I wasn’t a part of it. I just watched everything that was going on, and listened to other people talking and laughing and seeming excited.
“Don’t forget to look out for a girl with really short dark reddy-brown hair,” Sasha reminded us.
Her mum had phoned a few days before to say that a girl called Hannah Chadwick, who was the daughter of someone she worked with, would be coming on the introductory day. Sasha could remember Hannah from Year Four at primary, but then they’d lost touch, because Hannah and her family had moved a few miles away and Hannah had started at a different school.
“She was really nice actually,” Sasha had told us. “Very shy, though.”
“They look so young,” said Izzy, when we’d just passed a group of girls quietly walking along with a member of staff.
“And…scared…” added Nicole. “Like I was.” She did a dramatic shudder as though she wouldn’t want to go back to those days.
“Me too,” I said, to make her feel better.
Then the others all nodded in agreement. “Yes, same here.”
“It didn’t take long to get used to it, though, did it?” said Emily.
“That’s the magic of Silver Spires!” said Antonia, her eyes sparkling.
That night I dreamed I was walking with Mum and she was carrying our old cat Lana in a baby sling. It was a weird dream but a happy one. Dad said that when I was a baby Mum had walked for miles with me on her front in a sling, so my dream was just a bit mixed up, that’s all. I woke up with the clearest picture of Mum’s face in my mind. She was very dark like me and had short hair like me, too, and didn’t wear make-up. I remember her wearing jeans and T-shirts a lot. At least I think I’m remembering and not just thinking of the photos I’ve seen.
I smiled to myself in the dark, because I like the thought that there might be a gene that I’ve inherited from Mum that makes you love walking. Then my thoughts turned to all the new girls who’d been around during the day. We hadn’t come across Hannah at all, and in the end we’d asked Mrs. Pridham if she was actually there. She’d told us that Hannah was ill and would have to come on her own another day. Poor thing, I thought, turning over and closing my eyes.
Then I froze, because I heard something from the attic. Only this time it wasn’t footsteps, or scrabbling or rubbing or dragging – and it didn’t sound anything like a squirrel! It was a cry. Like a baby. My hand shot to my mouth as though I’d made the sound myself. How could it be a baby? Unless it was…the ghost of a baby?
I don’t know how I ever got myself back to sleep that night, but I must have done somehow. The next day when I woke up I felt so tired. I obviously looked it too, because Emily kept on asking me if I was all right.
In the end I told her what I’d heard. “But don’t tell the others, whatever you do. They’d be terrified.”
“But…a baby, Bry? Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”
I shook my head. “One hundred per cent. Something was crying up there, and I want to go back and find out what’s going on, Ems. I can’t stand mysteries.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said straight away.
I nodded, feeling relieved. I w
as actually quite anxious about going on my own.
So we decided we’d go as soon as she got back from riding.
I’ve never known time pass as slowly as it did that Saturday. It was another beautiful hot day but I couldn’t enjoy the sun, because my mind was on the attic and what we might find up there.
I met Emily from the minibus when she got back from riding. She didn’t even bother to get changed. We just went straight along the third-floor landing to the cleaning room, and were relieved that there was no one around again. I wasn’t so worried about getting caught this time, because I was careful to shut the door to the cleaning room behind us.
Emily was just as surprised as I’d been to see how big the attic was. “Do you think we’d be in trouble if anyone knew we were up here?” she said in a whisper, staring around.
I nodded.
“But we’ve never exactly been told it’s out of bounds, have we?”
“No, but…”
Emily frowned, then pointed to the far end of the loft. “What’s round there?”
“I’m not sure. That’s where the squirrel came from though.” I took a couple of steps towards it.
“You ought to be careful, Bry. I’ve heard squirrels can scratch and bite and really hurt you.”
I didn’t care. In fact I was still really hoping we’d see the squirrel. I couldn’t forget that little cry though, and squirrels just don’t cry. What else was I about to find? My mouth felt dry as I tiptoed forwards, centimetre by centimetre, with the quietest footsteps, while Emily hung back.
“Can you see anything, Bry?”
I only just heard her whisper from behind me as I turned the corner, and then I gasped but quickly stifled it. Sitting in front of me, upright and stiff, ears pricked, was a thin waif of a cat. It had a whitish streak running down its nose and dark eyes which met mine for a second, before it fled past me to the open window like a silver arrow. A cat, I couldn’t believe it. So it wasn’t a squirrel after all!
“A cat!” said Emily. “Phew!” She let out her breath. “Mystery solved! Let’s go before we get caught.”