Chardelia Foss and the River of Fear (Teen Edition)

Prologue

Splissshh. Lssssh. Spssssh. Lllllsshh.

As lilting waters rose, the prisoner sensed the boat that bore his weight, inch higher. An unseen current washed in. It lifted him up. One word kept calling. He heard it amplify his imagination. The river he sailed as a boy flashed in his mind’s eye. Those friends who pushed him in the waterfall. He banished them from his life completely. It would only invite more torment to wonder what happened to them. Whether they recalled as he did, the palpitations of fear they’d created. Like waves of water rippling outwards. He heard the word again. As if someone whispered in his ear. It mingled. As real as the sound of lapping water. As real as the creaking wood of the boat. As dangerous as the distant chatter of his two jailers. Amid their violent shouts towards him, they were the last two people to whom he now spoke. They’d become the only friends he had left.

Memories of a childhood amid mountains flooded back. A youth amongst nature gave him the yearning to be a park ranger. Again, he remembered the river he knew as a child. A bittersweet memory. The rock pool he made with his brother. When they tried to enclose a small pool of water, it trickled and escaped, bit by bit, day by day. His father told him it was inevitable. You could never own water. It always flowed away. It moved to new streams, transformed and ascended to the sky.

Those carefree days had been...what was the word? Possible! Opportunity seemed a ripe apple. Until he received the call. It was best not to think about it now. Look where it landed him. Instead his thoughts roamed round his tired mind. He thought of his wife. No doubt battling anxious thoughts herself, albeit some distance from him. His two sons. They liked wrestling. No doubt they wrestled each other to the ground this very moment. Centuries of violence unable to annihilate itself. These thoughts of his family – the only family he had left – kindled a subtle flame of love and warmed his heart with dim heat. However, the meagre hope extinguished when his mind sensed the perils which awaited.

The silent word felt deafening. With aching wrists he tried to cup his ears through the handcuffs. He was glad they gagged him. Glad they took away his right to a voice. He was afraid what he might hear himself say or scream out loud. At least they afforded him this last dignity. There were no words left to say, not to them anyway. For his family all he could think of was the three-word mantra of peace he tried to live his life by. Ultimately he knew it would not prove enough to keep him on earth. It would not prove enough for anybody.

Drip. Driiip. Drp. Thick droplets of dirty water fell heavily from the cavern ceiling, landing like slugs on the prisoner’s bare back. Reluctantly he inhaled the rank odour. The cavern smelt damp and musty. It was a smell he knew. Something close to death. The stench floated in pungent waves of toxic air and sulphur drifted in his nostrils. It clogged his airways with malodorous concentrations, making him retch. Still there were splashes in the river beyond. Imagination gripped him again. It could have been the tying of a mooring to a jetty. When his unseen captors muttered dangerously, the strange cold echoes of their voices revealed the cavern was larger than he first thought.

As the boat rocked from side to side the prisoner shivered. It was freezing but he had long since grown used to the cold. The shivering was caused by a deep tremor of fear within. The ghastly noises he’d heard haunted him. It sounded like a distorted pop song slowed deliberately to an intolerable and ghostly moan. Replaying itself in his head like a tape. Rewinding automatically when it ended before beginning its horrible melody once more. The terror-spiked rumours were true. He had seen the bloody evidence, gleaming in pale moonlight.

Ron and Eddie were preparing. Their prolonged silence spoke volumes. Accustomed to the blindfold, worn for so long around his black eyes, he had become accustomed to Ron and Eddie’s personalities too. They only stopped jabbering when their boss approached. He sat patiently waiting for something to happen. Then voices broke the quiet.

‘Hey Ron, did you bring the silencer?’

Ice cold dread plummeted from the prisoner’s heart to the pit of his stomach. Small beads of clammy sweat froze on his forehead.

‘Yeah – it’s lying on the side of the bo... Oh shit! - where’d it go?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t see it. Oh shit, he’s gonna kill us.’

‘It must have fallen in.’

Then silence. The prisoner’s anxiety began to surge. Amid currents of fear coursing through adrenaline charged veins he struggled to retain consciousness. Whilst Eddie and Ron were jovial, at least with each other, the prisoner hoped for quick and peaceful resolution. But he knew whenever they grew tense they took it out on him. It made him nervous.

He grew desperate for one of them to say something. He wanted them to sort the issue of the ‘silencer’. Desperately he hoped it wasn’t meant for him. Deep down he knew exactly that it was. Wild hope seized him. Perhaps they wouldn’t find it. Surging adrenaline nearly sent him hysterical. It rushed with tides of pulsing joy. Perhaps it was lost forever and because of it they would let him go. Though neither said a word. The prisoner knew it useless to engage Ron or Eddie in conversation while angry. So he remained quiet. Then he heard footsteps walking away from the boat, and breathed a tentative sigh of relief. All the tension, disquiet and fear faded with the diminishing noise of those footsteps. In that moment, all the discomfort and worry the prisoner had experienced in his life seemed to vanish.

Then he heard more footsteps, this time approaching the boat. They grew louder and louder until, abruptly, they stopped.

CRACK!!

A loud thud reverberated round the cavern. It echoed in the prisoners’ ears until he could no longer hear. He felt distinctly odd, like something drained away. Then he tasted thick blood pour in his mouth. Its sharp metallic tang sent signals to his fading brain before he could no longer taste, nor feel anything, any more.

*

Professor Wonder

Rolling icy waves from the North Sea crash into pretty coves and dark caves hollowed into jagged cliffs of the small seaside town of Amberleigh. A seagull flying overhead squawks melodically, scanning the coastline for opportunities to feed. Beaches dotted with the last few holidaying families curve towards an abrupt headland. A gothic building sits atop a moss-covered cliff, jutting into the ocean like the earth’s arm, entreating the sea. Turreted with four towers and enclosing grass and stone quadrangles, the ancient Amberleigh Castle stands as the grim sentinel of the town. Overlooking the blank ocean, it is a static guard of sunny scenes, and acts as a lighthouse to crafts on the water when darkness falls.

The seagull arcs over the castle, ready to dive down should food present itself. He turns over Amberleigh Cascades, the inland waterfall, and heads south back along the beach, over the houses, shops and cobbled roads that lend Amberleigh town its distinctive character. A soft drizzle begins, streaking the lanes of Amberleigh, causing a slowness that only arrives with rain. Pedestrians pause to erect umbrellas; cars swerve to avoid puddles. The seagull squeaks as the first drops hit his immense wings. He swoops low into a small yet flourishing garden and comes to rest upon a decorative wooden perch. Here a pile of bread and seeds has been assembled, inviting the seagull to fill its hungry belly.

The light yet potent sea breeze blows swiftly through bushes of thyme and rosemary nearby. It shakes the late-summer blossom of plum and damson trees, as the seagull greedily empties the perch of food and dips his beak into a small dish of water.

A medium-built, stocky-looking boy of fifteen, with floppy brown hair and wide brown eyes looks on at the seagull with fascination. He has been reading the poems of Thomas Hardy for the past hour and is grateful for the mild diversion. The wind ruffles his overlong hair, which he has grown deliberately to irritate his teachers. He sips some raspberry juice from a glass wobbling precariously on the grass. He lies back on his garden chair and relaxes, taking a long breath of the salt-infused sea air. The seagull finishes his drink and just as quickly as he came, flies off into the boundless blue infinite. He glides effortlessly into the vast expanse of nothingness, water still dripping from his full beak onto the unsuspecting residents of Amberleigh below.

*

Danny Canterbury prepared diligently for the first day of his new school term. His fourth year as student at St Oliver Plunket’s school beckoned, a year in which he would begin studying his GCSEs. Checking he had pens, paper and books: the requisite Shakespeare he had read over the summer – A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream – in his bag; he trundled to the kitchen to make his packed lunch. It was a case of slapping together a cheddar sandwich and burrowing in the cupboards to discover what chocolate he could legitimately pinch without his father finding out. Having furtively removed two chocolate wafers and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps from the cupboard under the sink, he switched off the light and left the kitchen. Sneaking past the lounge, where his father watched the news on telly, some statement from the PM about the importance of resisting terrorism, Danny raced upstairs to his bedroom.

Relaxing on his warm duvet and staring at his glowing astronomical globe, he contemplated the next day. Anxiety billowed inside him like a balloon. It trapped his thoughts. The unpredictability of other people made him tense. It was not just the fear of the unknown. Danny wondered what he might say to Janna Chisely, should he bump into her.

In the final moment of the last term, on a furiously windy day, he asked her to be his girlfriend. Flatly, she had turned him down. Admitting to himself it was poor timing when he chose to ask her did not ease the pain of rejection. She had been chatting with friends Ella Amur, Chardelia Foss and identical twins Rosetti and Emily Duocorn at the time. A combination of intellectual suspicion and wishful thinking forced Danny to ruminate if her answer may have been different if he’d asked her when alone. But that seemed impossible. Girls always travelled in packs, like wolves. It had been a do-or-die situation that pushed him over the edge: he had not known if he would see her in the summer break or not. While obvious to both he’d caused an embarrassing scene, Danny couldn’t help savouring the nervous excitement that held him in awe whilst he anticipated her eventual two-word rejection. In the brief moment before deflation, he had felt alive.

He remembered it like it was yesterday. Anxiously he had waited in class while the others goaded and teased. He knew he must act. There had been too much prevarication, a wealth of gossip surrounding the impending question. To fall back would be to die. It would be to surrender to a lifetime of jokes and jeers, of humiliation at its most undiluted. They nudged him, they whispered in his ear, they sang romantic melodies in parody. It all accumulated in his quiet mind, building slowly like the rising tempo of some insistent narrative that only had one outcome: to ask, and to know.

When the bell sounded his heart had flung itself at his breast, beating a wild drum there and not relenting. Those steps across the grey sun-baked tarmac seemed so long, yet he had made them a hundred times before. He knew where she walked – her long loping stride accelerating her away as she walked to catch her bus. His soul glimmered when she appeared. This was it. Before he knew anything, before he had tried to think of the form of words he should use he was standing before her, blocking her path. She looked startled, shocked even and her withering gaze accosted him with accusation before she even spoke.

‘Will you go out with me Janna?’ He had said, before he backed into the silence her glare invited. She shook her head and, to confirm the rejection, spoke loudly.

‘No.’

‘Will you think about it?’

Danny didn’t know where the second question had come from; he just knew he had to not let it end there, to try and let her know he was serious, it wasn’t a prank or a game. He had feelings for her. It wasn’t infatuated lust, the way he gazed at the pallid sheen of her legs when they played tennis together. It wasn’t a drive for animal desire, when he watched her straight blonde hair sway in the breeze, and her pursed lips move over her large front teeth like a duvet warmly nurturing and enveloping two children to bed.

She shook her head again.

‘Let me go,’ she said, as Danny’s heart finally broke, and before even a minute had passed it was over, and she was out the gate, beyond his line of sight, forever gone.

Only he wasn’t broken. He was exultant. He didn’t care what she said. He had asked her. He had done it. He hadn’t backed out. He had found the courage to face his fear. It rose up in him like a wave, banishing the thoughts of her refusal to the pit of embarrassment he would face when Monday came round. But for now, he could revel in the glory of knowing he had put himself to the sword, he had asked, and he had found it. Never again would he be afraid of girls.

Sighing to himself, he packed set-literature text Jane Eyre in his school bag, another book he had read over the summer, and switched off the bedroom light.

Yet still. Thoughts of Janna’s pale hair and heart-shaped face filled his mind as quickly as night air from the open window cooled his lungs. What if she met someone else over the summer? What if she secretly moved away and had begun life at a new school? All just to avoid him? What if, deep down, she felt the same about him as he did about her, but was too afraid to admit it publicly, amid the fearful glare of teenage gossips? As these questions churned like butter in his tired mind he drifted to sleep. Soon, he was snoring softly.

As he slept his eyes flickered wildly, and dreams claimed him from the watery ether. He was running up a muddy hill to school. The air was thick with humidity. Janna waited at the school gate, her back facing him. He ran across limp grass, but the ground grew stickier, muddier. He tried to run faster, but the more he did the more his feet stuck to swampy mud. Soon he was wading through a thick bog. Instead of getting closer to the school gate, it grew smaller and smaller. Every time he tried to take a step the school and Janna floated away from him. He opened his mouth and shouted for help, but no words came. Panic-stricken he waved his arms hysterically but no-one was present to notice. With a certainty of death the marshy ground began to slowly suck him down. Down further, until there was nothing but wisps of hair poking above the surface, hidden amongst thick grass.

*

Danny brushed his teeth and threw on his school uniform. He had time for a quick glug of orange juice, an apple and a ‘Whatever!’ to his despairing sister Polly before he rushed from Dunkinley and strode to school. Dunkinley was the name his father had given his seaside home. As the morning mist cleared, Danny began the twenty-minute walk. He used the time to ponder the day ahead and reflect on his dream the night before. It seemed so real. Was Janna going to ignore him? Would she forgive if he apologized for embarrassing her in front of her friends? Would he even be able to get through her friends to talk to her?

In the mid-distance the soft contours of Plunket’s emerged from the haze of sea fog. It rose above the North Sea as if suspended in historic stasis. The sight prompted jangly nerves which, for Danny, always precipitated the first day back at school.

Amberleigh Castle housed Plunket’s and Danny had always felt mild pride to study in the romantic fortress. Atop a chunk of headland, riddled with caves and caverns the ocean regularly crashed into and filled with its white spray, there was plenty of possibility for adventure and exploration. Danny was not sure why, indeed he and his friends never even bothered to ask why Amberleigh Castle was the location for Plunket’s. They often walked past queues of tourists visiting the castle through a separate entrance. The school gates to Plunket’s were hidden at the back of the castle, facing the sea. On the approach, you might not even know it housed a bustling secondary school were it not for the loud jeers, or the sight of scores of uniformed children dutifully marching up the stony path. The school playing fields weren’t even next to the school, being a short boat ride away on the isle of Fourlawns. The isle became visible to Danny as he turned amongst ferns on his coastal path. Plunket’s was a large school, teaching over six hundred students. There were many classrooms and offices Danny had not entered. Neither did he know who or what was contained in them. However, Danny knew Plunket’s did not make use of all, or even half of the space contained within the huge Amberleigh Castle. There were many doors he had not opened, many corridors he had not yet walked down. Despite his three years studying there already, the place remained a mystery.

It was a vivid sun-drenched September day. The kind of day that clings tightly to summer before it absconds to hibernate for the winter. Danny heard waves crash against rocks beneath. As he climbed the leafy hill that led the way to school, he hummed a tune he had heard on the radio. He passed the railway line, the Dropshot tennis club and a few of his classmate’s homes. Ella Amur lived in a splendid house. An elaborately carved wood portico and balcony protruded towards the cliff’s edge with stunning vistas across Amberleigh bay. Just below, accessed by a staircase carved into the rock, their tennis court overlooked the sea. He passed Olive Spritser’s house, a small cottage with ivy winding its way carefully over the porch. The veranda contained a variety of plants and flowers. Danny smiled at the profusion of colour. Olive’s mum was a plant obsessive. She managed the local garden centre and owned a flower shop, Dorothy’s Diadems in Amberleigh town. Anjalie Marjoram’s home was further along the street. Having paused to smell the flowers Danny spotted Anjalie emerge from the front door, waving manically to her Mum and Grandma. When she turned her head she spotted Danny walking up the path.

‘Hi Danny! Great to see you! How was your hols? Want to walk to school with me?’

Anjalie Marjoram was a friendly girl. Danny had spent most of the last year avoiding her advances in case Janna might have got the wrong idea about them. Not that it looked like she cared.

‘Okay Anjalie.’

Danny couldn’t help noticing that, while still the same height and definitely still as slim, Anjalie seemed somewhat larger at the top. Her figure was definitely shapelier.

‘Did you have a nice summer?’

Danny spoke politely, determined to keep his eyes fixed to her face.

‘Oh yes thanks! We went to Russia and stayed with my Uncle. It was beautiful. We stayed near lake Onega. Every morning we would walk round the lake with his two dogs.’

Danny remembered Anjalie’s other passion (apart from chasing boys) was animals. She took great pride in telling friends how she owned five cats and three dogs. As Plunket’s neared, from the corner of Danny’s eye he spied his two best friends, Tim Gaunt and Amanita Walmer. They ambled together in the distance. Although he hadn’t seen them all summer and was desperate to talk to them, he knew it rude to run after them and leave Anjalie behind. Tim had flown to Canada to visit his sister Helena, who was interning in magazine publishing over there. Amanita had spent the summer in London, hanging out with her sister and going to rock concerts. Danny received postcards from them both. While grateful to hear from them, and touched they remembered to write, the content of their missives sparked flickers of envy. He couldn’t remember what Amanita’s sister did for a living – something boring in an office in the centre of London. Danny was the only one of the three of them who had stayed at home, conscientiously reading Jane Eyre and learning Pythagoras’ theorem. Now he felt the shame of regret by wasting his summer with books.

In the school playground Anjalie spotted Gabriel ‘Squish’ Ambrose and made her apologies to run off to meet him. Danny suspected Anjalie had a crush on Squish too. As they slowed, Danny managed to catch Amanita and Tim.

‘Glad to be back?’

Amanita beamed, in her usual homely way. Studying and books was her raison d’etre.

‘Oh yes – can’t wait. I’ve been stuck at home the past few days! It’s been so boring – doesn’t compare at all to being in London though! We saw Muse last week!’

Amanita’s remark struck Danny. After all, he had been stuck at home all summer, not just a few days. He would have quite liked to have seen Muse too. Still, he said nothing. Tim looked anxious.

‘Has anyone else noticed that the goal posts haven’t been put up on the playing fields yet?’

They cast their eyes out to Fourlawns and saw, through clearing morning mist that Tim was right. It didn’t look like the grass had been cut all summer either.

‘Well, it looks like we’ll be doing gymnastics instead of football this year, Amanita teased indelicately. Tim fixed her with a goggle-eyed stare. Amanita knew Tim hated doing anything sporty that didn’t involve a spherical rubber object.

‘Gymnastics?! You’ve got to be kidding! There’s no way I’m giving up football for jumping fake horses and hanging from rickety wooden bars! They better get the goal posts up soon. I want to try out for the football team this year.’

Amanita and Danny suppressed weary smiles. For the past two years Tim had tried out for the football team but had not been picked for even one home match.

‘What? It’s not my fault old Spittlebug’s biased. Can you believe he’s picked Ian Phalanger for every single game, even though he’s never scored a goal? There’s something fishy going on. A conspiracy I tell you!’

Dr Spittlebug was Plunket’s football coach and PE teacher. He had been raised on a Yorkshire farm, and grew up on nothing but beans, vegetables and constant exercise, or so he claimed every lesson. ‘Sustenance for the soul’ he regularly exclaimed randomly during lessons when several students collapsed with exhaustion during cross-country, although no-one really knew what he meant.

‘Come on Tim, maybe this year he’ll see the light,’ Danny said consolingly. He glanced furtively at Amanita, who returned his smile as they trooped off to their first lesson – religious studies.

*

Professor Wonder strolled his classroom in silence. He was carefully examining each student sat before him.

‘This is a very crucial year for all of you’, he pronounced slowly. ‘You will each feel a stupendous weight of immense pressure bear down on you. Especially from me in the form of more homework.’

A groan rose up from the class.

‘There will be spot tests to assess the limits of your attention-spans. There will be coursework to complete, the quantity and quality of which you will be expected to surpass anything you have done at Plunket’s before. And…there will be free chocolate to the first person who can name the first five books of the Old Testament – now!’

Two hands shot into the air. Danny’s was not one of them. He had always been suspicious of Wonder’s bribes for loyalty. Amanita’s hand bobbed in mid-air, waiting to be selected by the peacockish Wonder. She was not disappointed.

‘Amanita! Go!’

‘Genesis, Exodus, Leviticusm, Numbers and Deuteronomy.’

He beamed at her, and she beamed back while he handed over a thick slab of Cadbury’s.

Tim whispered rather loudly to Danny, ‘Isn’t he pathetic?’

‘What was that Gaunt? Would you like to share your profound wisdom with the rest of the class?’

‘Actually, I’d prefer to keep my wisdom to myself. Gives me some competitive advantage that way.’

A few people in the class giggled. Wonder approached Tim’s desk

‘I think we’d all prefer it if you shared your competitive advantage with the whole class?’

Wonder smiled narcissistically.

‘But it wouldn’t be competitive then, would it sir?’

‘Gaunt! Out with it! You said Isn’t he... ’

‘ A credit! You’re such a wonderful teacher, sir.’ Gaunt deadpanned, smirking.

For a moment, Wonder seemed to take his irony as sincere.

‘Why thank you Gaunt! It is heart-warming to know my own students hold me in such high regard, and it makes what I am about to say all the easier. Detention for your outstanding rudeness!’

Tim sighed absentmindedly. When Wonder’s back was turned, he doodled on the front of his exercise book a picture of Professor Wonder pruning himself in his mirror.

‘Right, the rest of you. Today, we will make a start exploring the seven sacraments. These will be on your final exam in two years’ time, so pay attention. No chocolate this time, but can any of you tell me what the seven sacraments are?’

Amanita’s hand shot into the air again but this time Danny beat her to it. Sacraments were something he did know about and he couldn’t bear the sight of her smug face one more time. It was time to show effort to compensate for Tim’s apathy. Everyone turned to stare. As the designated ‘quiet one’ in the fourth-year it was unlike Danny to volunteer information to the whole class.

‘Yes, Canterbury?’

‘The seven sacraments are baptism, reconciliation, eucharist, confirmation... er... holy orders ... extreme unction... and ... er...’

‘Can anyone help Danny out?’

Amanita’s hand waved frantically in the air, her smile beaming sickeningly towards Wonder. However, she was denied again.

‘Yes, Rosetti Duocorn.’

‘Sir the other sacrament Danny failed to mention…’ She shot a look of slight superiority at Danny. ‘...is marriage.’

‘Thank you, Rosetti. And can you tell me what distinguishes marriage from the other six sacraments?’

The smirk from Rosetti’s face vanished. Stumped, her cheeks turned cherry-red. Danny couldn’t resist turning his head to glance her embarrassment. Rosetti’s eyes flitted from Wonder to Danny. At the same time, they transformed from doe-eyed love to vindictive spite. Danny swallowed. Turning back to face Professor Wonder, Danny found the enigmatic teacher knelt opposite his desk, disconcertingly staring straight at him, mere inches from his face.

‘Danny, can you enlighten us?’

‘Sir, the difference between marriage and the other sacraments is all the other sacraments can be defined as a gift given directly from God. Marriage is a gift not given by God, but by us to each other.’

‘Spot on Danny,’ Professor Wonder whispered.

He stood up, and Danny wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. Wonder was apt to behave unpredictably like that. While it was nice to be recognized once in a while something about Wonder made Danny feel uneasy. He glanced to the side, and noticed Tim had pretended to fall asleep.

‘Gaunt, wake up!’ Wonder boomed. ‘Right, I would like all of you to get into pairs and discuss the seven sacraments. I shall write them on the board for those of you’, looking directly at Tim, ‘who may not be able to remember. Each sacrament is represented by a symbol. I would like you to think about what symbols represent these sacraments, and what their deeper meaning may be. Discuss ideas in your pair, and then you will present to the class at the end. Go!’

Wonder walked round the class, touching people on the heads to indicate who should pair with who. Wonder touched Danny, and pointed to Anjalie Marjoram, who looked ecstatic at joining Danny. He reluctantly dragged his pen and exercise book over to Anjalie’s side of the class. On this side of the room he couldn’t help noticing how many girls there were and how many like Anjalie appeared to have transformed over the summer break.

‘Isn’t this great?’ Anjalie enthused.

‘Yep. Great’ Danny replied with trepidation. Looking down at his lap he saw Anjalie’s hand already resting on his quaking knee.

People thought me mad; I thought I was just going with the flow. You know, like they teach you to do when they want you to shut up. Who could harm a girl with her nose in a book? Yet the envy my obsession inspired; I never knew how dangerous a little knowledge could be, how lethal the perception of accelerated learning would leave me. Enid Blyton and CS Lewis were fair enough but fairies and picnics, fawns and posh dicks left me cold. I wanted more. I wanted words not yet invented.

I remember his cool flesh on mine, the pale skin of his elbow curved round my bony shoulders as I sat, hunched in the crook of his arm. Family was not something I spent hours romanticizing, it was an unconscious instinct. I knew it would leave me one day, or I them, but the absence of their guiding force was not something I dwelt on. There would be time for that when it happened.

Flambeau

‘I swear she was trying to feel me up! The girl is obsessed. Doesn’t she have any...any...’

‘Any what? Condoms?’ Tim replied. It was break-time and both he and Amanita had been amused by Anjalie’s romantic gesture.

‘Any...modesty!’ Danny said triumphantly, grateful he found a word to complete his anguished sentence.

‘From what I hear, that never stopped Anjalie Marjoram in the past.’ Amanita said.

Tim and Danny gazed at Amanita.

‘Not that I’m one to spread rumours,’ she said tantalisingly, before rushing off to the girls’ toilets.

Tim and Danny strolled around the yard until they caught sight of the ocean, shining silver-blue in the distance. Danny watched Professor Wonder rebuke a pair of second year girls for smoking behind Craftwork, the CDT block.

‘How come you always push Wonder, and you always seem to get off lightly?’

‘I got detention. I don’t call that getting off lightly, do you?’

‘Yeah, but you know what I mean. He puts up with it. In fact, I think he enjoys it.’

‘That’s because I challenge him, and open things up for him. It’s like therapy for him, really. He’s able to sleep easier at night because he’s got me in his class.’

They both laughed, and continued walking until they both faced the North Sea, brisk in the cold wind. Tim gazed out at Fourlawns. A solitary figure pushed a wheelbarrow across the surface. There were still no goalposts but the grass had been cut, and they smelt the pungent aroma of wet dew drift over on a stiff breeze.

‘Oh well, at least that’s something,’ Tim offered to Danny.

‘Yep. Come on, we better get inside. We’ve got assembly next with lovely Professor Flambeau!’

They walked towards St Basil’s – the name given to the school hall. As they did, they watched Charlie Shackleton, a fellow fourth year, emerge from the boy’s toilets. They groaned simultaneously. No matter how often they steered Charlie onto exciting subjects, like football, or girls, or rock music, he always found the one element in them to bore them to tears.

‘Have a good holiday Charlie?’ Danny offered generously.

‘Average thanks. I managed to learn several theorems but only read about three books on quantum physics. I could tell you about them, if you’d like?’

*

St Basil’s hall was nearly full when they arrived. Tim and Danny claimed two empty seats at the back. The whole of their school year was present. Some students were already restless; Danny watched Edmund Cloves and Ian Phalanger whisper to each other, before pulling bits of blu-tac out of their pockets and flicking the contents onto Rosetti and Emily Duocorn’s hair in front.

All the teachers sat on stage at one end of the hall. Danny could see them all, if he leaned his head past Lorraine Carr’s gigantic hairstyle which rose in the air like a mutated pineapple.

Their mathematics teacher Professor Fuzzair sat on the left. He wore a garish green and orange tweed suit. As always, his mottled face was barely visible through the mass of black hair sprouting from his head. Literature teacher Professor Pry’s elegant posture sat silently next to him, appearing the exemplar of demure serenity. Most of the year had learned by now, either by reputation or first-hand experience, that Professor Pry was anything other than demure. A short beady-eyed woman with thin lips and long straight hair that fell to her hips, her intimidating nature and student put-downs were legend throughout Plunket’s. Dr Harlequin, who taught languages, sat beside her. He wore his usual tracksuit and a wide smile. However, he preferred teaching PE which he doubled up on whenever Dr Spittlebug was away. Unfortunately for both Harlequin and the students, Dr Spittlebug sat next