Different Class

by Joanne Harris

  It was worse than that, though. Something else had got into me. It must have done, because suddenly the bad thoughts were back, and this time, it seemed, they wouldn’t stop. One of them was about Sin, and Miss McDonald and Mr Lumb. The other was the Wages of Sin, and what really happens when you die. And then there were the games with the mice – but now they didn’t seem like games. Now they seemed like something more, and I was starting to need them.

  I began to go to the clay pits alone, in the mornings, and after school. There wasn’t time for pirate games, or toy Noah’s Arks, or bombings. But I was growing out of that. All I liked was the drowning. I’d bait a few milk bottles every night, and in the mornings I’d harvest them. Most days I’d catch one or two. More, if I was lucky. I’d put them in the little cage I’d made from string and chicken wire, and I’d lower them from the top of the bank into the Pit Shaft, the deepest of all the clay pits. Sometimes, the mice were Mr Lumb. Sometimes, Mr Rushworth. Sometimes, Miss McDonald. But, whoever else they were, Mousey, they were always you.

  It had been a whole term since the thing with Miss McDonald’s scarf. The clay pits were green and flowering, and there were ducks on the water. Pretty, except for the burnt-out cars, and of course the litter. Spring was in the air at last; wild garlic grew in the hollows. And, with the spring, there were lots of mice. Mice are rapid breeders. Rats, too. The females can get pregnant every three weeks, with litters of a dozen or more. That means a lot of sex, I guess. That’s why we call them vermin.

  Meanwhile, at school, Miss McDonald announced that she was leaving at Easter. No one told us why, but I knew. It was because she was pregnant. All that sin had finally made a life inside her. They call it a miracle, Mousey. But the truth is, it’s disgusting. On TV it’s different; a nice clean baby, wrapped in a sheet. But really, it’s disgusting. Did you know that mice and rats actually eat their babies? They do it when they get upset. They eat their babies, Mousey.

  That’s when the nightmares started again. I’d started to have them when Bunny died. Nightmares about drowning, and nobody coming to save me. Sometimes I used to wake up in the night and realize I’d wet the bed. Of course I knew Miss McDonald wouldn’t eat her baby. But I sometimes imagined her giving birth, and that too gave me nightmares. I tried to keep those bad thoughts away by staging mass drownings of rats and mice. But the bad thoughts kept coming back. Thoughts, and dreams, and terrors. I started to feel it was all my fault. That the demons I’d given birth to were coming back to eat me.

  And then, without warning, Mousey turned up one sunny day at the clay pits. I was sitting by the Pit Shaft, looking into the water, when I heard him come up behind me. He’d never been all that talkative, so I wasn’t expecting an apology or anything. Still, I thought there might have been some reference to what had happened between us. Instead, he just came to sit on the bank beside me, looked into the Pit Shaft and said: ‘I know where we can get a dog.’

  I mean, a dog. It was tempting. ‘What kind of dog?’

  ‘A Jack Russell,’ he said.

  ‘Whose is it?’

  He shrugged. ‘A stray, I guess. It doesn’t have a collar.’

  By then, I was thinking hard. Not about killing a dog, though. Those demons were talking to me again, and this time, I was listening.

  I said: ‘How soon could you bring it here?’

  He thought about it for a while, and then said: ‘I could bring it tomorrow. It comes to me. I’ve been feeding it.’

  I pretended to hesitate. ‘I dunno.’

  Mousey waited patiently. He must have known I’d come round. But why had he come to find me? I thought. Was this his way of making amends?

  Finally, I nodded and said: ‘Tomorrow morning, before school. Bring the dog. Don’t tell anyone.’

  I hardly slept at all that night. I was too excited. I went over my plan again and again, imagining every scenario. I knew I had to get it right. I knew I’d only have one chance. And I knew that if it worked, then all my demons – a legion of them – would vanish for good in the clay pits.

  My plan was pretty simple. Miss McDonald had told us in school about the danger of playing near water. You could fall in, she told us. Even if you could swim, you might not be able to get up the bank. There are things under the water; old cars; fridges; traps. A kid could get his foot caught. It could happen tomorrow. And we’d all seen that Public Information Film, both at school and on TV. I am the spirit of dark and lonely water; ready to trap the unwary, the show-off, the fool. When I first saw it, it gave me nightmares. But after the clay pits, I realized that I was the Spirit of Dark Water. My victims – the mice – were all part of my plan. And now, I had another plan. I was going to get Mousey.

  I got up early the next day. I had some preparations to make. I told my parents I’d promised to get to school early to water the plants, and then I ran to the clay pits and waited there for Mousey. At eight o’clock sharp he arrived, with a dog trotting at his heels. It didn’t look much like a Jack Russell to me, more like a kind of mongrel, but it seemed happy enough to be there, eating biscuits from Mousey’s hand. Dogs are pretty stupid, I thought. Still, so are most people.

  Mousey came up to me with the dog. ‘How are you going to do it?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll throw him in the Pit Shaft. The bank’s too steep for him to get out. He’ll swim around a bit, I guess, but in the end he’ll drown. It’ll be like—’ I racked my brains for a good analogy. ‘It’ll be like the Titanic,’ I said.

  ‘The what?’ said Mousey.

  ‘Never mind. Did you bring enough biscuits?’

  Mousey nodded.

  ‘All right. Bring him here. Right up to the edge of the pit. I’ll tell you when.’

  Mousey went right up to the edge of the flooded Pit Shaft. The water was so deep it was black. The bank was like an overhang; not too high, seen from above, but I guessed that even for a boy, it might be very hard to get out once you’d fallen in.

  ‘Bit closer,’ I told him again, and Mousey bent down to call the dog, pulling out a handful of biscuits from his pocket.

  All I had to do was push. That had been the plan, at least. But Mousey was stronger than I’d thought. I tried to lunge forward, to push him in, but he must have guessed somehow. He grabbed hold of my hair and pushed back, yelling and swearing like a mad thing. The dog got excited and started to bark. Then it bit me on the leg.

  I told you I didn’t like dogs. Well, that’s one of the reasons why. If that stupid mongrel hadn’t got in the way of things, I might have managed to keep hold of Mousey and push him in. But the stupid dog got in the way, and started to bite at my trouser leg, so that when Mousey started to fall, I went with him, and Mousey screamed – not just a little muffled scream, but a huge and terrified scream – and we both fell, with a giant splash, into the freezing water.

  I remember hitting the water; how cold it was, and how dirty, with a film of oil on the surface and that stink of mud and rotting things. I went under – not a long way, just a foot or two, I guess, trying not to think about traps beneath the surface; rusty cars and shopping trolleys, and fridges with their jaws half open, like giant clams in adventure books about pearl-diving in the South Seas.

  Of course I could swim. We all could. We used to go down to the local baths and jump in in our pyjamas. So I could swim pretty well, but the bank was slimy. I reached it in moments, but, try as I might, I couldn’t get enough of a grip. Next to me, Mousey was panicking; scrabbling against the clay; crying and screaming and sobbing. I thought that if I tried to stand on his shoulders, I could maybe climb out, but before I could try out my theory, I heard the sound of footsteps, and a face looked down over the bank at me.

  ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God.’

  It was Piggy, Mousey’s fat brother. He must have been hiding away somewhere, not wanting to see what we’d do to the dog. I thought at the time that it was a bad sign that he’d invoked God that way. Of course I didn’t seriously think that, given a choice, God would favour
Mousey’s pig brother over me, but you never know with God.

  For a second he stared at us both, hair in his eyes and mouth open. Mousey screamed. The dog barked. It was like a nightmare.

  Finally, Piggy managed to break his paralysis and move. ‘Ma’s going to kill me for this,’ he wailed, and reached out to haul Mousey out of the pit. He looked completely terrified. Tears were running down his face, but he managed to grab hold of Mousey’s hand and pull him up the banking.

  Mousey was screaming all the time. ‘He pushed me! He pushed me!’ But I was screaming too, of course, and the dog was barking like crazy. I guess it was pretty funny, but I didn’t think so at the time. At the time, I was thinking: Is this what Bunny felt that day? – and: So much for those sixty years.

  Finally, Mousey was back on dry land. I shouted for him to help me. But he and Piggy just stared at me from the top of the bank; Mousey wet through and shivering; Piggy shivering nearly as hard; just staring at me in silence, as if they were waiting for something. Now that I saw them so close together, I could tell they were brothers. They had the same blue eyes, the same mousey hair, the same look – except that Mousey was thin, of course. This is the wrong way round, I thought. The swine should be in the water, not me.

  It was the dog that saved me. Someone walking his own dog heard it and came to investigate. He found me still in the water, and Piggy having a choking fit, with Mousey trying to shut up the dog by feeding it biscuit after biscuit. I know. It sounds quite funny now. Even so, I might have died. I might have drowned, like Bunny.

  Both of us left Netherton Green after that; Mousey, to Abbey Road Juniors. My mum and dad tried to teach me at home, at least until they were sure of me. I never saw Mousey again. Of course, I denied his story that I’d pushed him in, and although his brother supported his tale, the waters had been muddied enough for me to escape retribution. The school made a few enquiries, but by then I was already gone. I don’t suppose there was much point after that. I think my dad guessed something, though. In any case, I got to see a whole lot of specialists; people from different churches who decided that I was susceptible, and that My Condition (yes, that was what they were calling it now) needed careful monitoring.

  And that is how, eventually, I ended up at St Oswald’s, which has actually turned out to have quite a few compensations. At least until Poodle messed it all up. Talking about me behind my back. Taking my place with Mr Clarke. Just like that business at Netherton Green.

  Just like you, Mousey.

  8

  September 26th, 2005

  The Thirsty Scholar public house has been a traditional annexe of St Oswald’s for over half a century, providing Games teachers with a lunchtime pint and Sixth-Form boys with a place in which to meet their Mulberry counterparts. We have an unwritten rule whereby if they take their ties off, we, the staff, do not know them, or ask if they have turned eighteen. The boys return the compliment. Of course, to a St Oswald’s boy, the thought of a Master letting his hair down – of indulging in a couple of pints and maybe a pasty and a Gauloise; of buying a few groceries at the local corner shop, or, still less conceivable, of socializing with the opposite sex – is a freakish occurrence akin to two-headed dogs and plagues of locusts from the sky. My boys, for all their affection, secretly imagine me spending my nights at St Oswald’s; sleeping at my desk, perhaps, or hanging behind the stock-cupboard door, next to my discarded gown.

  Of course, we are all of us prone to these assumptions. We prefer our people to stay in context. Perhaps that was why Harry Clarke’s revelation came as such a surprise to me – not the idea of his homosexuality, but of any sexuality. And perhaps that’s why, when I went in today, I was so surprised to see the Headmaster alone at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking something on the rocks.

  The end of his silk tie stuck out from the top pocket of his suit – it seems that Johnny Harrington still believes in the talismanic removal of the necktie to confer invisibility – and he was already slightly drunk. Not enough to fall over, but there was an absent look on his face, an unusual vagueness in the way he moved his hands, which strongly suggested the man had imbibed. Which was strange, as I’d always believed that, like my own GP, Johnny Harrington didn’t drink spirits, or smoke cigarettes, or indulge in anything stronger than a glass of wine with his evening meal.

  I found a seat by the window, where I hoped to go unseen, and ordered a pint and a ploughman’s from Bethan, the young woman who serves at the bar. I wasn’t spying, precisely – but something told me that Harrington wouldn’t be happy to see me, and besides, I was very curious to know just what he was doing there, drinking alone in a village pub, when he had a wife at home—

  I suppose I was thinking along the lines of an illicit liaison. I don’t have much experience in these things, but Shitter Shakeshafte was well known for his dalliances with a string of School Secretaries, and I’d already noticed that Danielle was slightly starry-eyed about the new boss. I suppose he’s not unattractive – at least not to people like Danielle. But that Shakeshafte, bad-tempered and pachydermic as he was, should find such a degree of romantic success speaks volumes for the aphrodisiac effect of high office, and Harrington, with his youthful face, smooth hair and easy charm, is the kind of man any woman might find passably attractive.

  So much for my speculation. Harrington had come in alone. The girl Bethan told me as much, when she came to deliver my pint and my ploughman’s. I am not what you might call a regular at the Scholar, but people tend to remember me. In fact, I believe that Bethan (who runs the Pink Zebra during the day, a small café at the edge of the Village) goes out of her way to spoil me with larger-than-regulation servings of cheddar with my crusty cob. I rather like Bethan, in spite of the black star tattoos that spiral tribally up her arms, and the row of studs in her eyebrow. Not a look I admire, as such, but she has a glow.

  I sat in the Scholar for over an hour, watching Johnny Harrington. During that time he ordered two more doubles on the rocks, and ate a packet of peanuts. He did not speak to anyone, except for Bethan at the bar, and later on his mobile phone. Then, he left in a hurry, without even finishing his drink.

  I would have liked to follow him. But he would have seen me. Instead I watched from the window as, rather than heading for the car park – where that silver BMW gleamed under a lamp-post – he set off at an angry pace towards the trees of Malbry Park, where he was soon lost from view. I had no way of knowing for sure where the man was heading. But the path he’d taken led across the park towards the big houses of Millionaires’ Row. Was that where Harrington’s caller lived? Or was I chasing moonbeams?

  Of course I had no answers to any of these questions. But I could tell one thing, at least: that under the remaining veneer of charm and sophistication, under the fog of alcohol, little Johnny Harrington – the perfect politician, a man as sleek as a bag of weasels – was in the throes of a rage that he could barely control. I wondered what could have provoked it. He’d always seemed so coolly immune to normal human weakness—

  And then the thought occurred to me that perhaps the thing that I’d been hoping for ever since that first Briefing had just been handed to me on a plate – a weapon to use against him. Do I need a weapon? The fact that I reacted so quickly to the idea suggests that perhaps I do. I tried it on for size, like an unexpected new hat, and found that it rather suited me. Who would have known it? That Straitley, of all people – the rock of St Oswald’s; the loyal arm, the stone and mortar of the School – should have looked inside himself and found an assassin looking out?

  An assassin. How melodramatic. And yet, how curiously apt. What was it the Chaplain said? This Head fails, the School goes down. That, of course, must not happen. But last year, a solitary Mole demonstrated with what ease a stone can bring down a giant. And St Oswald’s has weathered storms before. The old ship is a survivor. Harrington and his posse are nothing but suited privateers, stripping her of everything that might still be of value.

  A lit
tle thing. That’s all it was. But I’d thought the man impregnable. Now he has shown his underside, and for the first time this term, there is hope. Shakespeare’s Caesar said it best: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

  Well, it’s never too late to change. The underling has seen the light. Harrington and I are at war, and I mean to bring him down. And if St Oswald’s goes down with him? But that won’t happen. The Chaplain is wrong. The old frigate has survived too many storms to be wrecked by a cabin boy.

  She will survive. I will survive. Ad astra per aspera.

  9

  September 27th, 2005

  My form was rather subdued today. Allen-Jones is still suspended in the wake of the nail-varnish incident, and the chemistry of the whole group is different without him. His influence, though not what you’d call disruptive, is certainly tangible, and in his absence, the rest of my Brodie Boys were unusually silent. Sutcliff and McNair are on report, which means that for every lesson they have to produce a card that the relevant Master has to sign, with space for comments on appearance, behaviour and punctuality. No boy likes being on report, but today I thought I sensed something more; a silent resentment in their eyes, as if they felt I had let them down.

  Something has to be done, and fast. But Harrington is untouchable; hedged about by his deputies, he has no obvious weaknesses; his prejudices kept well under wraps. Except for that anger. But what good is that? And how can I use it against him?

  Know thine enemy. But how? It occurred to me that, with the right skills, one might hack into his computer; find incriminating notes – love letters to his secretary, falsified accounts, pamphlets preaching hatred – that would lead to his disgrace and removal. But the computer is not my friend. I spent twenty minutes after School at my new workstation, and barely managed to turn it on. No, I needed a younger man. Someone technologically adept.