Groosham Grange (8 page)

And then finally there was a hush and everybody stood still as a single figure pressed through the crowds towards the stone slab. David wanted to call out but he had no voice. It was Jeffrey. Mr Kilgraw was waiting for him and he had the ring. Jeffrey was smiling, happier than David had ever seen him. He took the ring and put it on. And then, as one, the whole school began to cheer, the voices echoing against the walls, and it was with the clamour in his ears that…

David woke up.

He had a headache and there was an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He rubbed his eyes, wondering where he was. It was morning. The cold winter sun was streaming in through the windows. Slowly, he propped himself up in bed and looked around.

And he was in bed, in his usual place in the dormitory. His clothes were just as he had left them the night before. He looked at his hand. The plaster was still neatly in place. All around him, the other boys were dressing, their faces as blank as ever. David threw back the covers. It really had been no more than a dream. He half-smiled to himself. Walking through mirrors? Dancing with Jill in some underground cavern? Of course it had been a dream. How could it have been anything else?

He got out of bed and stretched. He was unusually stiff this morning, as if he had just completed a twenty mile run. He glanced to one side. Jeffrey was sitting on the bed next to him, already half-dressed. David thought back to their parting in the library and sighed. He had some making up to do.

“Good morning, Jeffrey,” he said.

“Good morning, David.” Jeffrey sounded almost hostile.

“Look – I just wanted to say I’m sorry about yesterday. All right?”

“There’s no need to apologize, David.” Jeffrey pulled his shirt on. “Just forget it.”

In that brief moment David noticed a lot of things. But they all rushed in on him so quickly that he would never be quite sure which came first.

Jeffrey had changed.

He didn’t just sound hostile. He was hostile. His voice had become as bleak and distant as all the others.

He wasn’t stuttering any more.

And the hand that was buttoning up his shirt was different too.

It was wearing a black ring.

On Boxing Day, David sat down and wrote a letter to his father.

It was so difficult, in fact, that he tore up the first sentence three times before he was satisfied and even then he wasn’t sure that he had spelled “difficult” correctly.

He crossed out the last sentence too. Then the bell for lunch went and it was another hour before he could sit down and begin the next paragraph.

David read it back and decided that he quite possibly was. Could all this really be happening to him?

David took a deep breath. His hand was aching and he realized that he was clutching the pen so hard that it was a miracle the ink was reaching the nib. Forcing himself to relax, he pulled the page towards him and began again.

At least nobody had come into the library while he was writing. David had been scribbling the words with one eye on the door and the other on the mirror with the result that the lines had gone all over the place and reading them again made him feel seasick. But it would have to do. He folded the page in half and then in half again. He didn’t have an envelope but Jill had promised to buy one – along with a stamp – as soon as she reached the mainland.

If all went according to plan, Captain Bloodbath would arrive at ten o’clock the following morning. Jill would skip the second lesson and hide near the jetty. As soon as Gregor had unloaded the supplies and driven the captain up to the school, she would slip on to the boat and underneath the rags. The boat would leave at eleven. And by midday Jill would be well on her way, hitchhiking south. She had to get away. She was his only hope. But that wasn’t the only worry in David’s mind as he hurried along to the chemistry laboratory. She might send the letter. His father might read it. But would he believe it? Would anyone believe it?

David still wasn’t sure if he believed it himself.

Jill didn’t even get off the island.

She was discovered by Captain Bloodbath huddling under the rags and was jerked, trembling and miserable, back on to dry land.

“So you thought you could fool me, my pretty?” he exclaimed with a leering grin. “Thought I didn’t know the waterline of my own boat? I’d know if there was an extra sprat on board. Hitch a free ride to the mainland – is that what you had in mind? Well, you’d have to sail a few high seas before you could bamboozle a Bloodbath!”

For a whole week after that, Jill waited in trepidation for something to happen to her. As David had somewhat unhelpfully told her, if you were caught trying to run away from Beton College, your head was shaved and you had to spend a month walking round with your shoelaces tied together. But in fact nothing happened. There really were no punishments at Groosham Grange. If Captain Bloodbath had even bothered to mention the incident to any of the staff, they didn’t take the slightest bit of notice.

And so the two of them were still there as the snow melted and the winter dripped and trickled its way towards spring. They had been on the island now for seven weeks. Nothing about the school had changed – they were still both outsiders. But David knew that he had changed. And that frightened him.

He was beginning to enjoy his life on the island. Almost despite himself he was doing well in class. French, history, maths … even Latin came easily to him now. He had got a place in the first eleven football team and although no other school came to the island he still enjoyed the games – even with the pig-bladder balls. And then there was Jill. David depended on her as much as she did on him. They spent all their free time together, walking and talking. And she had become the closest friend he had ever had.

So he was almost grateful that her escape had failed – and it was that that worried him. Despite the sunshine and the first scent of spring, something evil was going on at Groosham Grange. And slowly, surely, it was drawing him in. If he liked it there now, how long would it be before he became a part of it too?

Jill kept him sane. Operation Bottle was her idea. Every day for a week they stole whatever bottles they could get their hands on and then threw them into the sea with messages asking for help. They sent bottles to their parents, to the police, to the Department of Education and even, in one desperate moment, to the Queen. David was fairly certain that the bottles would sink long before they reached the coast of Norfolk or at least get washed back up on the island. But he was wrong. One of the bottles arrived.

It was Mr Leloup who announced the news.

The French teacher was a small, bald, timid-looking man. At least, he was small, bald and timid-looking at the start of the month. But as the full moon approached, he would gradually change. His body would swell out like the Incredible Hulk, his face would become increasingly ferocious and he would develop a full head of hair. Then, when the full moon came, he would disappear altogether, only to appear the next day back to square one. All his clothes had been torn and stitched together so many times that he must have been surrounded by at least a mile of thread. When he got angry in class – and he did have a very short temper – he didn’t shout. He barked.

He was angry that morning, the first day in February.

“It would appear zat the school ’as a leetle prob-lame,” he announced in his exaggerated French accent. “The busybodies een the Department of Education ’av decide-dead to pay us a viseet. So tomorrow we must albee on our best be-evure.” He glanced meaningfully at Jill and David. “And no-buddy is to speak to zis man unless ’ee speaks to them.”

That evening, Jill was hardly able to contain her excitement.

“He must have got one of our messages,” Jill said. “If the Department of Education find out the truth about Groosham Grange, they’ll close it down and that will be the end of it. We’ll be free!”

“I know,” David muttered gloomily. “But they won’t let us anywhere near him. And if they see us talking to him, they’ll probably do something terrible to him. And to us.”

Jill looked at him scornfully. “Have you lost your bottle?” she demanded.

“Of course I haven’t,” David said. “How else do you think he got the message?”

Mr Netherby arrived on the island the next morning. A thin, neat man in a grey suit with spectacles and a leather briefcase, he was ferried over by Captain Bloodbath and met by Mr Kilgraw. He gave them a small, official smile and a brief, official handshake and then began his official visit. He was very much the official. Wherever he went he took notes, occasionally asking questions and jotting down the answers in a neat, official hand.

To David and Jill’s disgust, the whole school had put on a show for him. It was like a royal visit to a hospital when the floors are all scrubbed and the really sick patients are taken off their life support machines and hidden away in cupboards. Everything that Mr Netherby saw was designed to impress. The staff were all in their best suits and the pupils seemed lively, interested and – above all – normal. He was formally introduced to a few of them and they answered his questions with just the right amount of enthusiasm. Yes, they were very happy at Groosham Grange. Yes, they were working hard. No, they had never thought of running away.

Mr Netherby was delighted by what he saw. He couldn’t fail to be. As the day wore on he gradually unwound and even the sight of Gregor, humping a sack of potatoes down to the kitchen, only delighted him all the more.

“The Council is very keen on the employment of disabled people,” he was heard to remark. “He wouldn’t by any chance be gay as well?”

“He’s certainly very queer,” Mr Kilgraw concurred.

“Excellent! Excellent! First class!” Mr Netherby nodded and ticked off a page in his notebook.

By the end of the day, the inspector was in a thoroughly good mood. Although he had been sorry not to meet the heads – Mr Kilgraw had told him that they were away at a conference – he seemed entirely satisfied by everything he had seen. David and Jill watched him in dismay. Their only chance seemed to be slipping away and there was nothing they could do about it. Mr Kilgraw had managed things so that they had never been allowed near him. He hadn’t visited any of their classes. And whenever they had drawn near him, he had been quickly steered in the opposite direction.

“It’s now or never,” Jill whispered as Mr Kilgraw led his visitor towards the front door. They had just finished prep and had half an hour’s free time before bed. Jill was clutching a note. She and David had written it the evening before and then carefully folded it into a square. The note read: T
HINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM AT
G
ROOSHAM
G
RANGE
. Y
OU ARE IN GREAT DANGER
. M
EET US ON THE CLIFFS AT 7.45 P.M.
D
O NOT LET ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS NOTE.

Mr Kilgraw and the inspector were walking down the corridor towards them.

“A most enjoyable day,” Mr Netherby was saying. “However, I have to tell you, Mr Kilgraw, that my department is rather concerned that we have no record of Groosham Grange. You don’t even appear to have a licence.”

“Is that a problem?” Mr Kilgraw asked.

“I fear so. There’ll have to be an enquiry. But I can assure you that I’ll be filing a most favourable report…”