Monster (17 page)

‘What are you doing?’ said Clarice.

‘Looking for handcuffs. These old pervs must have a set or two hanging around up here.’

‘You’re not handcuffing him, Maggie,’ said Dianna, slamming the right-hand drawer shut just as Maggie’s fingers left it.

‘Put it this way,’ said Maggie, ‘either you find something to handcuff him to the bedposts with or I call the police right now and tell them just who’s come for dinner. Your choice.’

They all looked at me, even Leon. I said nothing.

‘Do it,’ he seethed. ‘I don’t care. As long as I’m in here. Away from that thing.’

‘Do it,’ I said, and at once they all joined the search. Even Dianna, with some trepidation, began opening more drawers and wardrobes.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I know where to look.’

‘Where?’ said Maggie.

I went to the door at the back of the room and unlocked it. ‘Brown wardrobe. Key’s on the top behind some Sellotape.’

Maggie, Dianna and Clarice all looked at each other then, one after the other, went into the Aladdin’s cave I’d just opened up for them—a dressing room, ostensibly, but also the room where the Saul-Hudsons kept all their most strictly private ‘stuff’. It wasn’t long before the screams came.

‘What the hell is all this stuff?’

‘Oh. My. God!’ Maggie shrieked. ‘It’s a total kink fest! Like where Ann Summers went to die!’

I laughed. ‘Just bring the fluffy pink handcuffs. Nothing else.’

R
egan had gone to check the phone in the Saul-Hudsons’ apartment. It wasn’t working in there either.

Dianna and I stayed with Leon until we had settled him in his clean, dry clothes and dressed his leg. He’d fallen asleep with his head resting against his empty whiskey bottle. On closer inspection, once all the blood had been washed away, his leg wound didn’t look as bad as I’d first thought.

Maggie and Clarice had bonded over the Saul-Hudsons’ wardrobe and its Narnian wonderland of perversity. Clarice had stolen a pair of stripper heels and a red feather boa and Maggie had taken a shine to a French maid’s outfit and stilettos. She said she would prepare dinner that night, seeing as she was in character: a picnic tea in the common room. She and I hadn’t really talked since we’d
brought Leon in. I didn’t think he was a threat but Maggie was still convinced he had burned down the Tree House and injured himself on purpose, and that he had something to do with Matron’s disappearance. She only shut up about it when I agreed on the handcuffs and locking him in the Saul-Hudsons’ bedroom. Worse still, she’d then gone down to the staffroom to find our confiscated phones, but the phone box was empty. We had no idea what Matron had done with them either.

We had crisps, cakes, biscuits and, to be healthy, a tin of peaches in syrup. Clarice stuck with low-fat yoghurt and fruit. Dianna took a plate up to Leon and ate hers with him. The rest of us ate off paper plates on our laps in the common room. The rest of the school, including our dorm, was freezing. The boiler hadn’t packed up so we still had hot water, but it was a big school to heat and even though the radiators were on full blast, and the fire was roaring, it was still distinctly fridgy. We were all bundled up in double jumpers, tights and Ugg boots. Regan took over lighting the fire in the inglenook, keeping it stoked with logs from the limited pile.

A Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room, its lights twinkling like a piss-take. The sight of it cheered none of us. On the floor underneath lay some presents, all wrapped up by Tabby’s class at the end of term.

‘Can we open the presents?’ she kept asking, shaking them and stroking their silken bows.

‘No, Tabs, just leave them where they are, okay? Just for now.’ She went back to her place on her beanbag and sucked Babbitt’s ear, occasionally feeding him the odd Quaver or crust of bread.

For a long time, we talked rubbish, with conversations
ranging from ‘how you can’t get pregnant if you wipe yourself with a spunky towel’—instigated by Maggie—to how Clarice couldn’t eat smoked salmon because it reminded her of a porn magazine she found under her mum and dad’s bed when she was five to ‘Who shot JFK?’ to which none of us knew the answer. Regan took the hint as soon as the conversation nosedived into crudity and set Tabby up on a beanbag in front of the TV with
Mrs Doubtfire
and a pair of headphones slightly too big for her head.

‘Is it true that if you lick yoghurt lids you get Alzheimer’s?’ asked Clarice, staring down at the lid of her Weight Watchers pineapple yoghurt.

‘I shouldn’t think it would matter in your case,’ said Maggie, breaking a Mini Roll in half and stuffing both sides in her mouth at once.

‘Shut up, Maggie.’

‘Shut up, Clarice.’

Snipping at each other was becoming the norm. We were all annoyed and frustrated and scared at having absolutely no contact with the outside world, but talking about it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. So we didn’t. We just allowed our elephant in the room to double in size.

‘Well, here we are then,’ sighed Maggie, flinging her last crust onto the fire. ‘Bit like the Spice Girls, aren’t we? We’ve got Tiny Spice—’ looking at Tabby ‘—Bossy Spice—’ me ‘—Weird Spice—’ Regan ‘—Slaggy Spice—’ Clarice ‘—and Dianna’s Hysterical Spice.’

‘What does that make you then, Maggie?’

‘Awesome Spice, of course,’ she replied, crossing her feet on the arm of the chair and fidgeting with the hem of her maid’s skirt.

‘I’m beginning to understand why the Saul-Hudsons went
away this Christmas,’ said Regan, nibbling the edge of a slice of malt loaf pasted with butter.

‘I bet they knew something like this was going to happen,’ said Clarice.

‘She couldn’t have known any of
this
would happen,’ said Maggie.

‘Couldn’t she?’ said Clarice. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to leave us all here as bait.’

‘Why would she?’ I asked, more fractiously than I meant to. ‘Talk sense.’

I pushed my plate away and rested my chin on my hand. I had an overwhelming feeling of wanting to give up. Scratching my neck, I felt warm rocks beneath my fingertips: the Howlite necklace Charlie had given me while we were at the Gorge. How long ago was that now? Hours? Days? We’d had such a wonderful time. Where had it all gone? It had all been sucked down into the sewer of what had happened since. Half of me wanted the phone to magically start working again, for our mobiles to just appear in a bag in a corner of the room, so I could get help, find out what was going on in the outside world—maybe even phone Charlie and make some attempt to explain. But half of me was glad it was still dead. Because then I’d have to answer the call that I knew was just waiting for me, ready to pounce like a beast in long grass.

‘Merry Christmas, everybody,’ said Maggie, raising her plastic cup of Tizer. ‘Are we having fun yet? Wonder if Santa will come on a snow plough this year.’

An eerie silence followed. I stared around the room at the battered boxes of board games on the shelves, our pitiful collection of DVDs and unwatchable videos, cracked computer monitors gathering dust along the counter on the
back wall, the pots of faded felt-tips. ‘Maybe we should try the computers again?’

‘I’ve tried,’ said Maggie. ‘If I can’t crack the code, none of you losers are going to be able to.’

‘When’s Mum and Dad coming?’ asked Tabby suddenly, headphones around her neck. She was stroking Brody’s tummy on the hearth.

‘Soon,’ I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say more.

‘Don’t say that,’ said Clarice. ‘No, Tabs, they’re not coming—there’s too much snow. Neither’s Santa.’

Maggie was incensed. ‘Shut your face, Clarice, you odious runt.’

‘There’s no point lying to her,’ said Clarice.

‘Jesus, insensitive much? Hitler could take lessons from you.’

Tabby went back over to the Christmas tree and picked up a present. She looked at me. I looked at her. She put it down again and went back over to Maggie, starting to whimper.

‘Don’t worry, Tabs. Your mum and dad’ll be here soon, tooled to the teeth with bayonets and assault rifles. That’ll be good, won’t it?’

Tabby nodded. I went to say something about swearing around Tabby but closed my mouth before the words came out. What was the point? She was probably going to see and hear far worse before the week was out.

‘They won’t be tooled up, though, will they?’ said Clarice. ‘Soldiers aren’t allowed to take their guns home with them.’

‘Shame,’ said Maggie, picking her teeth with her fingernail. ‘I could find just the spot for a couple of bullets right now.’

‘Har bloody har.’

I was starting to feel the full force of my overtiredness.
I’d had adrenalin pumping through me all day long, from finding the burning Tree House to discovering Leon. Not to mention the thing that had caused Leon’s leg injury. That was a whole other level of worry my brain couldn’t engage with. Natural chemicals had kept me going and thinking and running and doing all day, but now I was depleted. I needed my fluffy duck-feather pillow. I was just afraid of my dreams …

The door opened and everyone immediately sat up as Dianna came in.

‘How is he?’ asked Regan.

‘Drunk,’ she replied, rubbing her eyes. ‘Asleep. I’ll stay with him tonight, so no one else needs to worry. I’ll lock us in the apartment.’ She looked at Maggie and sat down at the end of the table. ‘He’s so pale.’

‘Can I do anything for him, Dianna?’ said Clarice, coming to the table.

Maggie laughed. ‘What did you have in mind, Clarice?’ I shushed her, throwing a look in Tabby’s direction.

‘No, I don’t think anybody can do anything more,’ said Dianna. ‘Can we, Nash?’

I shook my head again. ‘No, I can’t think of anything. But we need help. We can’t just keep dosing him up with booze and changing his bandages. He’s been bitten. It could get infected. He could need a tetanus shot.’

Tabby interrupted, being very careful not to look at me. ‘Dianna, can I open the presents, please? It’s nearly Christmas.’

Dianna frowned. ‘What? What presents?’

‘These,’ she said, going over to the Christmas tree and picking up two of the boxes.

‘Why are you asking me?’

‘Because you’re Head Girl,’ said Maggie, as flat as a bath mat. ‘Aren’t you?’

Dianna took one of the boxes and shook it. ‘There’s nothing in them. They’re just for effect. They’re not real.’

‘Oh pleeease,’ said Tabby. ‘Please, Dianna.’

‘No, they’re for
effect,
Tabby!’ Throwing both the presents back towards the Christmas tree, Dianna made a hasty, doorknob-fumbling exit. As the slam echoed, Tabby came running back to Maggie for comfort.

‘Why do you do it?’ said Clarice, glaring at Maggie. ‘You know she’s fragile.’

‘What? What did I say? I didn’t say anything!’

We all fell silent again. But I knew what each of us was thinking about. The bite. What Leon had said attacked him. We had a witness now. None of us could deny it.

‘It was probably a wildcat. They get them around here,’ said Clarice, her nose turned up and away from Maggie, as though she stank.

‘Oh, I forgot you present
Countryfile
in your spare time, don’t you?’

Regan stood up. Until now she’d been sitting on the footstool to the side of the crackling fire, nibbling corners of sandwiches and eating crisps around the edges, not saying much of anything. ‘It was the Beast. The Beast bit him. I bet it’s killed Matron too.’

‘Shut. Up,’ said Clarice. ‘You don’t know anything.’

‘You saw the blood on Nash’s hands last night. The blood on Chief Brody. The bite on Leon’s leg. It’s certain now. It’s out there.’

The lights all around us flickered and outside the wind howled and whistled against the window. It was almost worse with the curtains drawn than it had been when it
was daylight and we could see the trees blowing outside. Now it was just a noise in the dark night. It could have been anything.

‘Nash, talk some sense, please,’ said Clarice. ‘You don’t think it’s the actual, real, mythical Beast … do you?’

‘It’s December twenty-second,’ said Maggie, quietly for her.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And, we know that no one’s coming until Christmas Eve at the earliest.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘So if we don’t find those phones, or get the main phone working, then we’re gonna be stuck here for at least two more days.’

‘Yes.’

‘Unless any of us ventures outside to get help … then we’re stuck. Aren’t we?’

‘Assuming they’ll be able to get here in two days,’ said a voice. Regan, again.

We all knew what she meant. We’d checked the weather reports on the touch-and-go reception of Mrs Saul-Hudson’s bedroom TV several times, but it was patchy and scratchy at best. Thick snow on the ground, more storms expected in the south. Planes grounded. Airports in chaos. Postal deliveries stranded. Millions without power.

‘What if it keeps snowing over Christmas?’ said Clarice, staring out of the bay window at the pitch-black sky and frittering of snow, just beginning to fall.

‘It never snows all over Christmas,’ said Maggie.

‘And man-eating big cats don’t exist, according to you,’ Regan snipped back. ‘I can go out and get help. I’m not afraid of it.’

Maggie looked at her. ‘The nearest phone is in Bathory village, over two miles away, that’s assuming the phone mast isn’t down there and all. Just walking in this weather would be suicidal, but to do it with Baby Baskerville on the loose is idiotic. I’m not turning myself into a YO! Sushi conveyor belt for anyone. Call me Little Miss Unadventurous if you like.’

‘No one expected you to suddenly grow a pair, Maggie, don’t worry,’ said Clarice.

‘Uh, excuse me?’

‘CAN YOU BOTH JUST STOP ARGUING? JUST FOR FIVE MINUTES?’ I shouted. I sounded like one of the PE mistresses shouting at us for not jumping high enough in netball, but I couldn’t help it. I had no patience left. We were all staring into an abyss of hopelessness and fear. And the abyss was wetting its pants and laughing at us. ‘All you do is argue! I’m sick of it. I’m so sick of it! We need
practical suggestions.
’

‘We
have
no practical suggestions,’ said Maggie. ‘That’s why we’re arguing.’

‘It’s all we can do,’ Clarice said with a shrug.

‘No, it’s not,’ I said, getting to my feet.

A brief silence was followed with an actual, factual suggestion from Clarice. ‘Shall I go and have another look for the phones? Dianna’s left the keys, look.’ The bunch was lying on the table. ‘I could try the staff toilets. And Mrs Saul-Hudson’s office or something.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘We’ve got four days’ worth of food, at least, in the larder,’ said Maggie. We were all looking at her, as though we expected her to make a joke, but she wasn’t joking for once. She was offering practical feedback on our situation.
‘It’s all pretty ropey stuff now, there’s nothing fresh, but we can live on it, as long as we’re careful.’

‘And there’s water in the taps,’ said Clarice. ‘As long as the pipes don’t freeze. We have weapons in the PE cupboard, we have lockable doors … just in case.’

I had a feeling Maggie’s practicality wouldn’t last long. ‘What’s the point of locking the doors?’ she said. ‘There’s the small matter of the escaped murderer on the Headmistress’s bed. Don’t forget to add him to our list of assets.’ She got up off her beanbag and barged past Clarice, into the barely lit corridor. Tabby followed her out, the ever-present Babbitt dangling from her belt.

I stood up. ‘We can get through this.’ I followed Clarice and Brody through the door and, as I turned out the common room light, I felt Regan’s hand on my arm, holding me back.