My Sister Jodie (11 page)

‘Come down, crazy girl, you'll break your neck!' said Harley.

Jodie laughed, lunged forward, reached for the neighbouring rope and grabbed hold. She spun round, the rope juddering, but she kept her grip, though one of her red high heels fell off. She kicked the other one off too and then climbed down monkey-fashion, landing lightly on her bare feet.

‘Just throw roses at me, folks, I know I'm
brilliant,' she said, throwing her arms out and curtsying.

‘Watch out we don't throw rocks at you,' said Harley. He looked at me. ‘Is she always this mad?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh well. Maybe she'll liven things up at Melchester.'

‘I'm great at livening things up,' said Jodie, stepping back into her shoes and giving a little wiggle.

‘I bet you are,' said Harley. ‘OK, have you seen enough of this scholastic dump, because I've got things to do.'

‘No, no! Come on, Harley, show us
all
of it!'

‘Well, the science labs are along here too. You can always have fun blowing yourself up.'

He showed us the science labs. Mercifully the equipment was safely locked away.

‘Anywhere you want to see, Pearl?' Harley asked.

‘Is there a special art room?'

‘Yep. Come on then.'

All the art materials were locked away too, but there were paintings pinned up all over the walls. The artwork was mostly uninspiring, copies of famous paintings like Van Gogh's
Sunflowers
and Picasso's
Child with a Dove.
There were some self-portraits too, all very stiff and self-conscious. The only painting I really liked was an animal painting, a very long thin wistful giraffe on four sheets of paper sellotaped together.

‘I like the giraffe!' I said.

‘Ah! My self-portrait. I'm glad you like it,' said Harley.

‘Did you really do it?' I said.

I peered at it closely. There was Harley's signature at the bottom.

‘I can't believe I picked it out!' I said, thrilled. ‘What a coincidence!'

‘Come on, you
knew
,' said Jodie. ‘Great long tall weirdo creature. Great long tall weirdo boy. Doesn't take much power of deduction.'

‘I
didn't
know,' I said. ‘Which do you like, Jodie?'

‘They're all a bit rubbish,' she said. She grinned at Harley. ‘
Especially
the giraffe. Show us something else. Where are all the ordinary classrooms?'

They were up the big flight of stairs to the first floor. Each classroom was pretty much the same, dull and a little dusty, with old-fashioned ink-stained desks and revolving blackboards on one wall.

‘No whiteboards?
Chalk?
' Jodie picked up a white stump of chalk and started drawing a cartoon version of herself, all big eyes and spiky hair and wide grin. She printed underneath
Jodie was here!!!

‘Very artistic,' said Harley sarcastically.

The junior school classrooms up on the second floor were more interesting, with a Wendy house and floppy teddy bears and a set of enormous building bricks in red and blue and yellow. I'd have liked to play at building my own house but we had to be very quiet. Miss Ponsonby was in the junior art room with Zeph and Sakura and Dan. We tiptoed past the open door, peeping in at them. Zeph was painting in a careless splashy manner, waving his paintbrush around as if he was conducting an orchestra. Sakura was painting very delicately indeed, her tongue sticking out in
concentration. Dan wasn't painting at all. He was stirring a saucer of red paint with his finger and then dabbing himself experimentally. He looked as if he had a bad case of measles.

‘Poor little kid,' Jodie whispered, when we were down the end of the corridor. ‘What is he,
three
?'

‘He's five. He's ever so bright but he somehow seems a bit backward,' said Harley.

‘No wonder! How could anyone send such a baby to boarding school?'

‘He cries a lot. They all do, especially at night,' said Harley. ‘Well, I don't know about Sakura. She sleeps in the girls' dormie. Zeph and Dan are in the boys' dormie with me.'

‘So what do you do when they cry?' Jodie asked. ‘Do you give them a cuddle?'

‘I read to them,' said Harley.

‘Oh,
sweet
,' said Jodie. ‘What, like, you read them
Little Noddy
and
Thomas the Tank Engine
?'

‘No, if you really must know, I'm reading them
The Hobbit
.'

‘Is that one of those hairy little dwarfy guys with big feet in that wizardy film?' said Jodie. ‘They're way too young for that.'

‘
They're
not reading it,
I
am,' said Harley. ‘Zeph likes it because he's seen
The Lord of the Rings
on DVD. And Dan likes the name Bilbo and laughs every time I say it, so we're all three happy.'

‘Where's this boys' dormie then?' said Jodie. ‘Is it along here or upstairs?'

‘The dormitories aren't in the main building. There's a boys' house and a girls' house, near the bungalows.'

‘So what's upstairs?' said Jodie.

‘There isn't really an upstairs,' said Harley.

‘Yes there is!' said Jodie, running down the corridor to the end.

There was a big store cupboard standing there, but Jodie peered round it.

‘Stairs!' she said.

‘Yes, but as is obvious, we're not allowed up there,' said Harley.

‘Then surely it's
equally
obvious there must be something exciting hidden away!' said Jodie. ‘Come on, help me shift the cupboard till we can squeeze past.'

‘It's strictly out of bounds,' said Harley.

‘So what are they going to do? Kill us?' said Jodie.

‘Old Wilberforce is quite inventive when it comes to punishments,' said Harley.

‘Well, he can't punish us
now
. It's the school holidays. We can do what we like,' said Jodie.

‘I'm still in his care,' said Harley.

‘Well,
we're
not,' said Jodie. ‘Come on, Pearl, help me!'

She tugged hard at the cupboard, going red in the face with the effort.

‘You'll hurt yourself, Jodie!'

‘So give me a hand!'

I scrabbled at the cupboard too. We could barely budge it an inch. We looked at Harley.

‘It's not worth the effort and the potential aggro. There's nothing
up
there,' he said, but he came and stood beside us and heaved too.

‘I think there are attic rooms,' I said. ‘Mrs Wilberforce told me about them. She said she tried to count them all once. She said I should have a go.'

‘There! She's given us her permission to have a
peer round,' said Jodie. ‘Come on, use your shoulders. One, two, three,
push
!'

The cupboard made a great groaning sound as we shoved at it.

‘Ssh, we don't want Miss Ponsonby to come running,' said Harley.

‘She's miles up the other end. She won't hear a thing. Come on, one more go.'

We hauled at the great cupboard and it suddenly budged and shifted sideways, toppling alarmingly.

‘Watch it! It'll fall on top of us if you're not careful,' said Harley.

‘It's fine, it's fine,' said Jodie. ‘Look, we can just about squeeze through. Lucky job we're all thin. Let me go first!'

She hunched her shoulders up, stood sideways and wriggled slowly through the gap.

‘It looks horribly dark through there. Are there any spiders?' I asked anxiously.

‘Ooooh! Tarantulas! Help, help, killer tarantulas as big as beach balls! They're jumping all over me with their hefty hairy legs!' Jodie called.

‘She's such a pain, your sister,' said Harley, sighing. ‘Are you going next?'

‘All right.' I paused. ‘Will you come too?'

‘What do you think I'm going to do? Shove the cupboard back and wall you both up for ever?'

‘Stop it! You're as bad as Jodie!'

‘Never,' said Harley.

I still hesitated, looking at the gap.

‘She's joking about the spiders,' said Harley.

‘I know she is. It's just the moment she says it I can kind of
feel
them,' I said.

‘Here,' said Harley. He held out his hand. ‘Hang
onto me. If you feel anything at all spidery, just give a yell and I'll yank you straight out.'

I smiled at him and then squeezed through the gap, hanging on tight.

IT WAS LIKE
squeezing into a different world. It smelled damp and musty, and it was much dustier. The narrow stairwell was very dark.

‘I don't like it!' I said. ‘Jodie, let's go back!'

‘Don't be such a wimp. Here, hold my hand. Is Harley coming?'

‘Give us a chance,' Harley called.

He stuck his arm through the gap, then squeezed his long lanky body through, limb by limb. Then we stumbled up the murky stairs, coughing as we breathed in the dust. There was a long corridor with
lots
of spiders' webs dangling down from the ceiling.

‘Look!' I said, pointing at them.

‘They're just little baby spiders,' said Jodie. ‘Isn't this great? It's like we've found our own secret passage.'

We stood peering along the long corridor. There were buckets and basins all the way up it, half full of dank water.

‘I think the roof's leaking big-time,' said Harley.

Jodie was dodging around them, trying doors. Some were locked, without any keys.

‘What's going on? What's in here? Why has Mr Wilberforce blocked the way with that cupboard? Perhaps we'll find the bodies of all his former wives, like he's a Bluebeard and he's murdered them all. Maybe he even had a go at murdering the present Mrs Wilberforce by shoving her out the tower window but she miraculously survived, though of course tragically maimed.'

‘Don't, Jodie!' I said. ‘That's horrible!'

‘She
did
fall. Someone told me in the village. It was years and years ago, before she was married,' said Harley.

‘Truly?' I said. ‘How awful! I wonder
how
she fell? You don't think someone really pushed her, do you?'

‘Maybe we'll try to find out. We'll solve the Mystery of Melchester,' said Jodie.

She wandered along the corridor. One of the doors was off its hinges, but we didn't spot any dead wives when we peeped in, not a single coffin. It was just old school junk: broken computers, wobbly desks, and stacks of cheap plastic chairs, big ones, medium-sized ones and little ones.

‘Oh, it's too big. Oh, it's too soft. Oh, oh, oh, it's just right!'
said Jodie in a funny Goldilocks voice, trying out all three sizes.

She tried another room while Harley and I stacked the chairs back neatly. She just took a running push at the door and it creaked open.

‘Jodie! Don't! You mustn't break the lock!'

‘It was broken already. Come and look!' she called.

We found her kneeling amongst big cardboard boxes and battered trunks, pulling out limp paper-chains and tinsel and winding them round her neck like garlands. One of the trunks had old costumes from school plays.

‘Now you have to admit, this is seriously cool,' said Jodie. She snatched up a white veil and a long blue dress. ‘Oh, wow, I've always wanted to be Mary,' she said, still rummaging. ‘No, no, look, even better,
white feathers
! Blow Mary, I'll be the Angel Gabriel, then I can wear wings.' She pinned them on her back and flapped around the room.

I fingered the fruit-gum jewels on the three cardboard crowns wistfully. I wanted to play at being a queen but I'd feel too silly in front of Harley. Then I found a lovely smooth black velvety coat and I slipped it on, stroking the sleeves.

‘I like your coat, Pearl! What else is there? What's that brown furry one? Are these the Three Wise Kings' robes?' Jodie put on the brown fur and tried to tie the long thin belt round her waist.

‘Weird belt! It's more like a tail,' she muttered.

‘It
is
a tail!' said Harley. ‘You're Ratty! And you're Mole, Pearl.' He delved into the trunk and found a large coarse black fur coat with a white streak down the front. He tried it on, grinning. ‘Who am I, Pearl?'

‘Badger!'
I said.

There was a bright green spotted mac at the bottom of the trunk, a perfect Toad outfit.

‘You'd make a great Toad, Jodie,' said Harley. ‘Leap around going
Parp-parp
.'

‘Parp-parp! Poop-poop!'
said Jodie, flinging the Toad mac over her head and doing little froggy
leaps around the room. She tripped in her high heels and ended up sprawling on the floor, laughing.

‘How old are we? Mucking around like little kids!' she said breathlessly.