I decided Rosie was cool.
So, on Thursday, I stood on the green with my bow and arrows, a mere thirty yards from the target, while the instructor sighed and shook his head, peering at my longbow. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It’s a lovely bow. A real craftsman made this. But it is a professional bow. It’s very hard to draw fifty pounds, and on a bow like this, you have no sights, no aids…nothing. I mean, you’ll hardly be able to draw it, let alone hit the target. Let me lend you a beginner’s bow.”
I shook my head. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to learn on this one. It’s the kind of bow I plan to use in the future, so even if it takes a while…”
He shrugged and, with a touch of irony, said, “Suit yourself, but if you change your mind, just let me know.” He said it like he knew that in five minutes I’d be coming to him with my tail between my legs. Then he said, “Now, do you know how to string it?”
I smiled. “String it?”
He sighed and showed me how, which on a fifty-pound bow is not easy. The wood is so hard to bend that you have to wedge it between your legs. I was beginning to fear he might be right. Then he showed me how to hold it, how to nock the arrow—fit it to the string—how to draw, how to aim and, finally, how to loose. “Incidentally,” he added, “you ‘loose’ an arrow or you shoot an arrow. You don’t fire it. There is no gunpowder involved.” He smiled at me like I was a little backward but sweet all the same, then he handed me the bow. “Have a try…”
I took hold of the bow like he’d said, and it was as though my body took over. All I did was watch myself do something I didn’t even know I could do. I nocked the arrow and, in one swift, easy movement, I drew, using my back instead of my arms, and loosed, and in a fraction of a second, the arrow was shuddering at the center of the bullseye.
I grinned at him. “Beginner’s luck?”
He stared at the arrow. “That was perfect. Are you having a laugh at my expense?”
I promised him I wasn’t, but he didn’t believe me. I shot a couple more times and when it was clear it wasn’t beginner’s luck, he moved me to the most difficult targets at a hundred yards, muttering something about ‘clever dickheads’.
I spent a happy half-hour making pretty patterns with the placing of my arrows. I was constantly amazed that, wherever I put my eye, that was where the arrow went. I made pentagrams, hexagons, flowers, crosses…you name it. I’d even choose frayed bits of straw between the colored bands on the target and hit them dead on. Just the feeling of loosing the arrows and knowing they would fly true to the mark was exhilarating. I could have spent all day doing it.
It was after about half an hour, I had just placed my arrow in the bullseye and was drawing my second, when there was a whisper of air and suddenly my barb had been split down the middle and a second arrow was quivering at the middle of my target. I turned and Ciara was standing next to me, holding a bow that was almost identical to mine.
She smiled and said, “Oops, wasn’t that a little careless of me?”
I think I blinked a lot, and the most blarney thing I could manage was, “Ciara!”
She frowned and said, “Are you stalking me?”
“No! I didn’t even know you did arch—”
“I seem to run into you an awful lot for someone I’m trying to avoid.”
My stomach lurched and I spread my hands. “Why are you trying to avoid me?”
She pulled and loosed in one fluid movement and hit dead center. “It’s complicated.”
I also pulled and loosed in one fluid movement and split the arrow she’d put in my target down the middle. “How complicated? Have you got a jealous boyfriend?”
“God, no!” She glanced at me as though I were crazy and I felt a warm glow all over. “No, it’s much worse than that.”
“Like what?”
She sighed and looked down at her bow. “I’m not in the mood for this today. Do you fancy a drink?”
“Sure!”
We bought a couple of fruit juices in cartons and sat on the grass. I said, “I don’t believe you want to avoid me. I know we hit it off.”
“It’s my dad. He’s a bit— He’s very over-protective.”
“Why would he have a problem with me? I protected you.”
She cocked her head. “Come on! You’re exactly the kind of boy he wants to protect me against. It’s not me he’s protecting. It’s himself and what he sees as his property.” We sat in silence a moment while I nodded. Then she added, “Besides, I could never tell him what happened. He’d kill me.”
“He’d kill you? Surely, he’d want to kill Brutus!”
She laughed. “Are you joking? It would be my fault for not staying away from the bloody oaf!”
“That’s harsh.”
“He keeps me on a pretty tight rein.”
“What about your mom?”
She gave a lopsided smile. “Yeah, she’s not…with us.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind telling you.” She stressed the ‘you’ like she would mind telling somebody else. “I trust you, for some reason.” We both laughed. It was nice and companionable.
“Listen…” She knew what I was going to say and I could see her face setting into a ‘forget it’ expression, but I pressed on, anyway. “Why don’t we do something sometime? We could go to the movies or take some bikes and have a picnic?”
She was already shaking her head. “I’d love to, Jake. Truly, I would, but there’s no way my dad would let me.”
“Come on. Tell him I’m gay. No, tell him I’m a girl. Tell him I’m a gay girl. No! Don’t tell him that!”
We both started laughing and she put her hand on my knee. I put my hand on hers. She didn’t take it away, and it was the most natural thing in the world. She drew breath to say no, but instead she said, “I’ll tell you what. My dad has a boat. Our house is right on the banks of the Isis. He’s away for the weekend and I’m alone with my nanny. There’s a wee pier near my house. I’ll pick you up there Saturday morning and we’ll spend a couple of hours on the river. How’s that?”
I beamed like an idiot. “It sounds perfect.”
Her face became serious. “But, Jake, it isn’t something we can do often. I’m”—she shrugged—“I’m not like other kids. My dad is…” She hesitated. “He’s in politics. And he keeps a very tight hold on me. Do you understand?”
“Sure.”
We were silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’d better go.”
She stood and I scrambled to my feet after her. She shouldered her archery kit and I said, “But, Ciara?”
“Yes…”
“I don’t give up easy. I won’t stop trying.”
She hesitated, not meeting my eye. Finally, she looked up and said, “Good.”
And she was gone.
* * * *
If I thought I was hitting home run, I was sadly mistaken. At the risk of seriously confusing my metaphors, the helter-skelter had only just begun. When I got back to my house, Rosie was in the kitchen sipping a glass of wine while she made a steak pie. She grimaced at me as I came in and said, “Your dad wants to have a word with you. He’s in his study.” I made a question out of a frown but she shook her head and said, “Don’t ask. You’d better just talk to him.”
I found him sitting behind his big oak desk appearing troubled and unhappy. He waved his hand at a chair and said, “Sit down, son,” but he wouldn’t meet my eye.
I sat and said, “What is it, Dad?”
He picked up a piece of paper off his desk and stared at it a while. Finally, he said, “I’ve had this email from the headmaster of your school. He wants to meet with us, Jake, both you and me, tomorrow afternoon in his office.”
I frowned. “What for?”
He raised his eyes to look at me. He appeared sad but mad as well. “There has been a complaint against you. You’ve been accused of beating up a boy. There are witnesses.”
I s
agged back in my chair. “Brutus. Freddy Muller. Of all the—”
“So, it’s true?”
“No, Dad, it’s not true! We did have a fight—sort of—but I didn’t beat him up!”
“You had a fight. On your second day in your new school—”
“Dad, he was abusing a girl. He was forcing her to kiss him and she was struggling to get away. I had to do something!”
He was silent for a while, staring at me. He said, “So what did you do?”
“I told him to leave her alone.”
“And?”
“He hit me. I fell to the ground and he was going to hit me with a baseball bat.”
“So, what happened, son?”
“I defended myself.”
He stared at me a long while. Then he waved the email at me. “The boy has a medical report from ER. He claims it says he was black and blue from head to toe. What did you do to him, son?”
“No…” I shook my head. “No, Dad… He was in the Luncheon Hall afterward. He was a bit bruised, but it was nothing.”
“You are going to have to answer these charges, young man. One thing is helping a young lady who is in trouble. Quite another is sending a boy to the hospital. Go have your dinner, and tomorrow you had better have a damned good explanation for the headmaster. Because if you are expelled from this school, you are going to be in big trouble, mister.”
Chapter Five
I spent the next day in a state of anxiety. I searched for Sebastian to ask him to be my witness for what had happened, but it turned out he hadn’t come in that day because he had an interview at the university. I saw Ciara and she smiled at me, but we didn’t talk. And in any case, I was determined that I was going to keep her out of the whole affair. The last thing she needed was her dad getting to hear about the incident.
Finally, at three p.m. my dad turned up and we went to Mr. Clarendon’s office. When we arrived, Brutus was already there with DB. I was surprised to see that his father was not there. Mr. Clarendon stood, shook my dad’s hand and said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Norgard. Please, take a seat. You too, Jake.” We sat and so did he, while Brutus watched us. I couldn’t see any black and blue bruising, though his nose was a bit swollen.
Mr. Clarendon said, immediately, “Mr. Norgard, let me be very clear about this. As it stands, this meeting is quite simply to decide whether Jake stays at the Anglo-American school or whether he is expelled forthwith.”
My dad’s face darkened. “Mr. Clarendon, hadn’t we better have a look at the allegation and at the evidence before we take any kind of—?”
“That is precisely what we are here to do,” cut in Mr. Clarendon, “but I want to leave you in no doubt, Mr. Norgard, about the seriousness of the allegation against your son, or indeed, how seriously we take this kind of incident. Now, Mr. Muller, would you please tell us, according to you, what happened on Tuesday last?”
Brutus shifted in his seat and smirked at me. “Yes, sir, Mr. Clarendon. I was coming out of the changing rooms to go to the baseball grounds and I saw Jake here coming along the corridor towards me. I knew he was a new boy and, wishing to make him feel welcome, I greeted him. At which point he said to me, ‘You’re the captain of the football team, right?’ To which I said I was, and he said, ‘Well, get used to the fact that there’s a new kid on the block.’ At this point, he punched me in the solar plexus and winded me. Then I realized he was carrying a baseball bat and he laid into me with the bat around my chest, arms and legs. When I was on the floor and unable to move, he told me he would be taking over as captain and that I should stay out of his way.”
I turned at Dad to see if he was swallowing this crock. He was frowning hard, but apart from that it was difficult to tell what he was thinking. He just said, “And you have a report from the hospital?”
Mr. Clarendon slid a sheet of paper across the desk for him to see, muttering, “I did email you a scan of the original…”
Dad glanced at it, but I could see it was the same document. He gave it back and said to Brutus, “Mr. Muller, I would like to see your bruises with my own eyes.”
“Of course, Mr. Norgard.” He stood up, pulled off his blazer and undid his shirt. His chest was a mass of bruises, and he had bruising on his arms, too. I knew I had not caused those bruises. It was impossible.
Dad and Mr. Clarendon both turned to peer at me.
Dad said, “What have you got to say for yourself, son?”
I looked Dad in the eye then Mr. Clarendon. When I heard my voice, it was weird. It was like I was listening to somebody else talking. “Mr. Clarendon. I will tell you exactly what happened. But before I do, I want to say that I did not cause those bruises. I have no idea where they came from, but I do know that I didn’t cause them.”
Dad was frowning. He said, “Go ahead, son.”
“In the corridor outside the dressing rooms, I came across Freddy Muller, Darren Engles and a couple of other boys. Freddy had a girl pinned against the wall and he was trying to force her to kiss him. She was clearly distressed and telling him to leave her alone. When I saw what was happening, I told Freddy to let her go, at which point, he became angry and punched me to the ground. Then he got a baseball bat and prepared to beat me with it. I took another bat that was thrown to me by another boy. I am a very proficient fencer…” I glanced at Dad and tried hard to ignore his expression of astonishment. “I used the bat as I would use a saber and was able to defend myself, for which reason I am responsible for the slight swelling on Freddy’s nose and some slight bruising you will find on his forearms and shins. But I am not responsible for those bruises.” I pointed at his torso. “In fact, if you check the Luncheon Hall records, sir, you will find that he and DB—that is Darren Engles—had luncheon there shortly after the incident, which he would not have been able to do if he had been at the hospital.”
Dad and Mr. Clarendon were silent, staring at the floor.
I said, “I would also like to add an observation, sir, if I may. Comparing our relative sizes and taking into account the fact that Freddy is the captain of the football team, it is very unlikely that I would have been able to inflict that kind of bruising on him.”
Mr. Clarendon studied Brutus for a long while. Brutus looked like he was sitting on an angry ferret but didn’t want to let on.
The headmaster turned back to me and said, “Who is this girl?”
I shook my head. “I am sorry, sir. I am not at liberty to say. Her part in this was that of an innocent victim, but if her father heard of it he would be very angry with her. I can’t do that.”
“You realize that without her testimony, you cannot substantiate your story.”
“I do realize that, sir, and even so, I am afraid I can’t bring her into it. But I would respectfully submit to you that Mr. Muller’s story is sufficiently hard to believe to cast doubt on the whole incident he alleges. Furthermore, sir, I have joined the fencing and the archery clubs, I have pulled out of the baseball team and I haven’t even joined the football team, which does not make much sense if I wanted to take over as captain. And the fencing club will vouch for my skill with a sword, sir.”
He flopped back in his chair and stared at me. Brutus was going slowly crimson.
Mr. Clarendon said, “Apparently it isn’t just a sword you have skill with. You are quite right. The whole incident is insufficiently clear for me to take any action. But you are both”—and he turned and raised a withering eyebrow at Brutus—“both on notice that if there is one more incident of this sort, clear or unclear, you will both be out on your ears. Am I understood?” We both muttered that he was and he turned to Brutus, “I don’t know how you received those bruises, Mr. Muller, but I am satisfied that it was not from Mr. Norgard. So, you may be sure that I shall be watching you with interest from now on. You are dismissed.” As Brutus got to his feet and left, Mr. Clarendon turned to me, “Not you, Mr. Norgard, though I shall also be watching you with interest. Who knows? You may yet be an asset to the school. I ju
st hope I am not making a mistake. However, you get to stay, young man, but I want something in exchange.”
I was surprised and so was my dad. “Yes, sir?”
He nodded. “You are eloquent and you think on your feet. I want you on the debating team. You have,” he said, “the gift of the gab. I am quite serious. I want you on the debating team, winning trophies for us.”
* * * *
We went down to the car in silence. Once we had climbed in and slammed the doors, my dad sat gazing at the steering wheel for a moment. Finally, he said, “You are a very proficient fencer? Since when?”
“I—”
“You have never picked up a sword in your life!”
“I… It just seemed to come to me naturally.”
“You lied, Jake…”
I shook my head, “No, Dad, no I didn’t!”
“You have never learned to fence, Jake!”
“I didn’t say I had. I said I was proficient. And, Dad, ask at the fencing club! They’ll tell you. I am really good.” Then I added, “I wouldn’t lie, Dad.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, Jake, but I know that there is something that you are not telling me about. Now”—he stared hard at the wheel—“I’m sorry, Jake. I know you meant well, but you got into a fight in the corridor on your second day in school! That is irresponsible! You could have handled that in many different ways, and you chose to fight that boy. I have no choice. I’m sorry. You are grounded for the weekend.”
The Dreaming Spires Page 4