by M S C Barnes
to be taken. Since the doors did not open back the other way there was no option of a return through to the corridor the marble had left; if it was an incorrect choice there was no going back.
“The rules,” Mr West squeaked. “You can lock the doors but only as you come to them and, once locked, you cannot reopen them. To mark your route you can use these.” He opened his stubby hand to reveal hundreds of tiny silver sticker dots.
There was laughter, frustration and finally resignation as, one by one, each group failed at the task. Mr West sat and watched with a smile.
The fifth group, led by a bossy girl called Clarissa, bounded across to the table.
“On you go girls.”
Clarissa took charge and in fact it became pretty much a one-woman show. She moved and rocked the labyrinth, snapping orders to her timid friends to lock doors here and there. Impatient and headstrong she rolled faster and more chaotically and the girl placing the sticker trail lagged behind. Before long the runaway marble had been rolled, by Clarissa, down more turns than the sticker placer could keep up with.
“Slow down, Clarissa!” she pleaded.
“What? But I’m nearly there …” Clarissa continued tipping and moving the labyrinth. The marble rattled. The sticker marker got flustered and now the marble had moved several corridors on and it was sheer guesswork as to the route it had taken.
“Look, look …” Clarissa called excitedly. “I’m nearly … huh? No!” She let go of the labyrinth and stood back, turning angrily to her friends, looking for someone to blame.
“Miss Stone?”
She looked at Mr West then back to the labyrinth. The marble sat in a dead-end corridor, which ran alongside the central atrium of the maze. She had failed, the marble was trapped. She stood, cheeks flushed, looking like she was ready to explode.
“Thank you, Miss Stone. Last group.”
Clarissa bumped and pushed her way back to her desk, followed by her disappointed friends. Dan was already standing and heading to the table with his friend Marcus in tow. They had reluctantly been grouped with Seb, Aiden and Zach to make up numbers.
Dan took prime slot in the middle, gripping the edge of the labyrinth, ready to start it moving. “Ready boys? Let’s show the girls how to do it,” he stated.
Seb stepped over and took hold of a corner, holding the labyrinth still.
“Why don’t we all take a corner and get Aiden to check which way the doors open. He can mark the track and tell us which way to move the marble.”
Dan looked ready to argue but Zach grabbed a corner next to him and said, “Great idea. We don’t want to rush it like Clarissa!” He sneered, nudging Dan. “Us boys use our brains.”
Dan grumpily edged his way to the third corner, leaving Marcus to take the fourth. Aiden stepped to the edge, and collected a handful of silver dots.
Mr West had been removing the previous trail, unlocking the doors and now took the marble from its dead-end trap and handed it to Aiden. “Proceed.”
Aiden placed the marble at the start and, armed with the dots, indicated for Seb and Zach to drop their end, making the marble roll towards them. Deftly placing dots behind the fast moving sphere he called a halt as it neared doors, pressing a finger against each one to check the way it opened and locking it or leaving it as he thought necessary. On his instructions the other boys dropped or righted their corners as he worked out the path ahead.
The room was absolutely silent except for Aiden’s commands and the gentle roll of the marble.
Five minutes of door-pressing, locking and marble-rolling later and the class sat enraptured. At no point did the marble trace over a path it had already followed.
Mr West said nothing. Seated on a high stool a few feet away he rubbed his chin and watched Aiden.
There was a humph! from Clarissa as Aiden manoeuvred the marble to the opposite side from her attempt, and it now rolled along a seemingly dead-end path. But there was one final door. Aiden didn’t even bother to try it; he simply told Dan and Marcus to dip their end, causing the marble to roll across the door. The door gave way and the marble slipped into the square centre of the labyrinth.
Dan bellowed, “Yes!” and punched the air. Marcus was beaming, Zach and Seb smiling and the rest of the class erupted into cheers, with the exception of Clarissa who frowned and crossed her arms.
The track of fine silver dots made an intricate pattern through the corridors, one that Seb believed he could never replicate. He listened to the cacophony of cheering and chattering and followed the dots of the marble’s path to the centre – and his heart sank. They had got the marble to the centre, that was the aim, but now he realised, how would they get it out again? What was the point of marking your track? It was to help you find your way back. But they had passed the marble through a one-way door. Their track was pointless. They couldn’t get home again. Puzzling over this, he looked up to see Mr West staring at him.
The cheering was still going on and Dan was managing to take the accolade for all the work. Aiden stood silently opposite Seb, a frown on his face. Zach clapped both friends on the back and then noted their perplexed faces.
“What? What now? You guys are such downers!”
Mr West put his hands in the air, shuffling off the stool. His squeaky voice penetrated the general noise of celebration.
“I think Master Thomas believes we have an issue.” Gradually the noise died down. “Master Thomas?”
Seb could feel himself blushing. He looked at Aiden’s upset face for confirmation of his own thoughts. Without turning to face the class he spoke to Mr West, “We’re trapped! The marble is trapped.”
“What are you talking abo— ” Zach looked down at the maze, at the shiny marble which had come to rest in the exact centre. His eyes widened as his brain made the leap and realised the marble was now stuck!
The sound of the bell masked the confused mumbling from the class and then the issue was forgotten as they packed up their bags so as not to waste a moment of their lunch break.
Seb, Aiden and Zach were still staring at the trapped marble.
“Well that was great!” Zach said, turning back to his desk. “One moment we are conquering heroes, next, we’re failures! But d’you know what? I still think we did well, we achieved the task that none of the others could do. Who could have known it was a trap?”
“Quite, Master Orwell.” Mr West placed his hands on the side of the labyrinth. “Your achievement is remarkable in the face of the failure of others. And whilst you did not anticipate this being a trap, you will know in future to think of the possible consequences of everything you do rather than just focus on a given task. There was a simple thing that could have ensured you received the accolade that comes with complete success. Ponder on it.”
He took the marble from the chamber, handed it to Aiden and left the classroom.
Aiden stared at the shiny sphere in the palm of his hand. They spent another minute gazing at the door and the marble before packing away their things and heading off for lunch.
Think First
They were still talking about the labyrinth when Nat and Scarlet joined them in the cafeteria. Zach had reached the conclusion it was a mean, no-win task designed to humiliate the students.
“What are you boys so gloomy about? We’ve just had double PE – we’re the ones who should be miserable!” Scarlet complained as she opened her lunch bag.
“Well we were turned from heroes to idiots in a split second, thanks to Seb.”
“Hardly fair, Zach.” Aiden said. “We should have seen it.”
“No! We managed to do what none of the others could, but that was all forgotten just because Seb here noticed a minor flaw.”
“Minor flaw? We were trapped, Zach!” Seb pushed his own lunch away and folded his arms. “That’s not minor. It’s a major thing.”
“It doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter. The task was to reach the centre. No one said anything about getting bac
k out again until you pointed it out.”
“I think Mr West would have said something even if we hadn’t.” Aiden said.
“What are you talking about?” Scarlet asked, taking a drink.
“Mr West, in History?” The girls nodded. “He brought in this labyrinth model. We were split into groups and had to get a marble to the centre. No one could do it, except our group. But when we got the marble to the centre, right in the middle of everyone cheering us, Seb here points out that we now can’t get the marble out and home again, which we were never asked to do!”
“If it was Theseus— ” Seb started.
“It wasn’t!” Zach cut him off.
“If it was Theseus and he— ”
“It wasn’t Theseus; it was Sebeus and his stupidus friends in History, Seb,” Zach cut in again, “who were only asked to get the marble to the centre!”
“Zach, you’re the one who loves the Greek legends. If it was Theseus and he had been given the golden thread by Ariadne to find his way back, and he managed to get to the centre and kill the Minotaur but was trapped and never did get out, do you think the legend would still be known today?”
“It wasn’t Theseus, Seb; it was our moment of glory!” Zach took a massive bite of his sandwich, turning towards Scarlet. “Have you done the labyrinth yet?” he asked.
Scarlet and Nat exchanged glances. “No, we’re not even doing Theseus and the labyrinth. We did that in middle school. We’re doing the history of this village.” Scarlet looked at Zach. “So why was the marble trapped?”
“There were these one-way doors that let you through to different corridors. You could lock doors to stop you going through them if you thought you wanted to carry on down a corridor, but once you locked them you couldn’t unlock them and the only way into the actual centre was through one door that opened into it.” He was chewing vigorously now. “Well, Aiden gets the marble to this last corridor, which is a dead end, but it has the door to the centre and we rolled it across the door. Bingo, it opened and in went the marble. Yeah, all hail the conquering heroes. But— ”
Nat’s eyes widened and she filled in the blank, “They were one-way doors and you couldn’t get back out. Was that the only door?”
“Yes it was the only door and the most annoying thing was that we had carefully marked the trail we had taken so that we could get back to the start. But we couldn’t get out of the door!” Seb answered.
Zach threw his arms up and sat back, exasperated. “But we were never asked to find our way back!” He looked infuriated. “Everyone was cheering us until Seb here puts this puzzled look on, which Mr West notices and then gets Seb to tell the whole class that we can’t get home. None of them cared before, they were just impressed we had made it to the middle. Then suddenly they all forget that we’ve done what they couldn’t do and all they notice is that we’re idiots because we’re stuck in the middle!”
“So it was an impossible task then!” Scarlet stated. “What did Mr West say?”
Aiden sat forward. “He said we had done remarkably well, but that now we would know to think about consequences before we just focus on a task. Something like that, anyway.”
“He thought you did well then?” Nat tried to mollify Zach who was still fuming, and comfort Seb who was obviously upset at the failure.
“But he also said something about us doing a simple thing that could have meant we had complete success …” Seb frowned, still puzzled.
“I think we did have complete success.” Zach refused to accept they hadn’t done well. “Like Scarlet said, it was an impossible task.”
“No it wasn’t.” Scarlet said with a smug grin.
“What? You’ve changed your tune.” Zach was almost shouting. “What’s the answer then, you’re so clever?”
“The answer, stupidus boysius, is to keep the door open! If you knew the doors only opened one way then you must know that if you go through, and it’s the only door in, you won’t be able to come out again if the door closes. So you needed to keep the door open, wedge something in it. Did Mr West say you couldn’t do that?”
There was silence. Zach’s jaw dropped open, displaying a half-chewed bit of chicken sandwich.
“And in fact,” Scarlet continued, “you should have wedged all the doors open that you thought you might want to go back through. Your trail home was also useless because you had used one-way doors to get to the centre. You needed to keep all of those open too. Mr West was right; don’t just focus on a task – think first!” She smiled a huge smile of self-satisfaction and then took a bite of her own sandwich as the boys and Nat sat gaping at her.
Eventually Zach’s mouth closed and he muttered, “We were never told we had to get back to the beginning again. I say we finished the task we were set!”
Nat sat forward and spoke quietly, changing the subject. “I found something amazing on the Internet last night,” her tone was hushed and she continued even more quietly, “about the teachers.”
“What, Nat?” Scarlet was curious.
“Something I think you will find very hard to believe.” She smiled mysteriously.
Zach took a huge bite out of a chocolate muffin donated to him by Aiden. “Don’t tell me, they are all part of a weird, secret society that meets in the woods and holds strange and mystical rites under the trees,” he sniggered.
“When everyone’s finished can we go to The Beach?” Nat asked, as Aiden shut his lunch bag. Seb hadn’t touched his lunch and Scarlet was just finishing. They all nodded. Zach still chewed. Four pairs of eyes turned to him, waiting.
He shrugged. “Not bothered where we go.”
A Question of Age
Minutes later they arrived at The Beach. A huge grey cloud had moved across the sky and seemed determined to hover over the school for the entire lunch break. Spots of rain fell and they sheltered on the bench under the oak. Nat held a folded sheet of paper.
“So what have you got there?” Zach asked. He rifled around in his bag and pulled out his stick, planting the tip on the ground. Leaning on it he peered at the sheet on Nat’s lap.
She carefully unfolded the paper. The wind made the corners flap in her hands. The others leant in to see. It was a printout of a newspaper article. The headline read:
Purchase of Land for School Development
It reported on the purchase of a large tract of woodland in the area for the building of a new school, Oakwood.
“So what?” Zach had read the headline and scanned the first paragraph. He stood and threw a stone which skipped across the Year Ten playground.
“Look at the date of the article: 1923!” Nat said.
“And? Everyone knows the school is old … almost as old as Miss Angel!” Zach snorted.
“Yes, they do,” Nat said patiently, smiling. “The article says that the purchase was completed through an agent, West and Co.” Zach ignored her. “On behalf of a company, Duir and White.”
Now Zach turned to look more closely at the paper. “Still don’t get the point.”
I don’t either, Seb tried to grasp the threads of information.
“Legal affairs were completed by Angel Solicitors!” Nat was beaming now and Scarlet grabbed the sheet of paper.
“So what?” Zach frowned. “So their grandparents were all involved in the purchase of this land. Maybe that’s why they all decided to come and work here as teachers.”
“Mm. Now look at the picture.”
Scarlet gasped then passed the sheet to Seb and Aiden.
“Is that— ? Oh, Nat … how did you find this?” Aiden’s voice screeched. He pressed his face in towards the flapping paper and Seb craned his head round him to see.
“What?” Zach grabbed the article and took a closer look.
“The picture, Zach?” Scarlet was grinning too.
Zach studied the picture and his mouth opened. He put the page to his side then lifted it again, peering at the date.
“I was on the Internet last night,” Nat started answering Aiden’s question, “doing our history project.” She looked at Scarlet. “We were told to research the history of a local building. I thought I would do the Old School. I know we were meant to do something like the town hall or an old church but I was just curious about the library wing and the window, which is beautiful.” She glanced over her shoulder at the stained glass pattern. “So I started a search on the school and found this article on the original purchase of the land.” Zach looked down at her. “It’s an article from the 1923 Bedfordshire Chronicle. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the photo!”
Seb took hold of the paper and had a closer look. The photograph in the centre of the article was slightly fuzzy, a poor shot from the 1920s. It was a picture of a man striding away from a business premises doorway. Stepping over the threshold of the doorway was a woman, her bespectacled face in three-quarter profile as she glanced back to another male. The subjects of the photograph obviously had not intended to pose for the camera.
Seb studied the most identifiable character. The emaciated, skeletal frame, the wizened and wrinkled face, the thin, lank hair, held back in a ponytail – without a doubt it was an ancient Miss Angel, the image of today’s Miss Angel but clothed in the least extreme version of pre-World War II fashion.
Seb looked at the male striding away from the doorway. His frame muscular, his height impressive, head reaching the level of the top of the ground floor windows in the old Victorian building. His short hair, strong features, the unmistakable set jaw line – Mr Duir had apparently been anxious to depart without attention. Seb took a look at the male behind Miss Angel. The lanky physique, the old and weathered face: Mr White. The caption under the photograph read:
Messrs. Duir and White completed the purchase of 10 acres of Bedfordshire woodland, through Angel Solicitors based in Church Street.
“So maybe they just look exactly like their grandparents?” Zach was reaching and he knew it.
Seb sat, dumbfounded. What they were looking at was an old black and white photograph in a newspaper article dated nearly a hundred years ago, that depicted three of the teachers at this school. And looking at Mr Duir, he hadn’t aged a day. Miss Angel and Mr White were as ancient-looking as they were today, but this was nearly a century ago!
Scarlet spoke first. “But this means these teachers have been alive for over a hundred years, if it really is them, Nat! Could it be wrong? Could the wrong date be on the article? Could the wrong photo be attached to the internet page? There are all sorts of reasons why it may not be real. It might even be—”
“A fake!” Zach put in. “You can make anything look real on the Internet.”
The spots of rain were getting heavier, making a pattering sound on the leaves above their heads. Seb was still holding the paper which flapped around in the breeze but he wasn’t looking at it. He stared at Nat. And now he noticed his palm was tingling. He shivered slightly, as a few large drops of rain hit his face, blown by a sudden horizontal gust of