Читать книгу Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors - Jenny Nimmo - Страница 9

The boy with paper in his hair

‘Quiet!’ hissed a voice.

Charlie shrank against the wall as the person, or thing, swept past and whisked itself through the door into the hall.

Charlie didn’t know what to do. Should he go back the way he had come, or on towards the tower? The hissing person might be in the hall, waiting for him. He chose the tower.

As soon as he emerged in the round sunlit room at the end of the passage, Charlie felt better. Those purple wings had been the arms of a cape, he reasoned. And the angry person was probably a member of staff, arguing with someone. He began the long, spiral ascent to the top of the tower. Bloor’s Academy had five floors, but Mr Pilgrim’s music room was up yet another flight.

Charlie reached the small landing where music books were stored on shelves, in boxes and in untidy piles on the floor. Between the rows of shelving a small oak door led into the music room. A message had been pinned to the centre of the door. Mr Pilgrim is away.

Charlie rummaged in the boxes, lifted the piles of music and searched behind the heavy books on the shelves. He found a flute, a handful of violin strings, a tin of oatcakes and a comb, but no trumpet.

Was there any point in trying the room next door? Charlie remembered seeing a grand piano and a stool, nothing else. He looked again at the note. Mr Pilgrim is away. It looked forbidding, as though there was another message behind those four thinly printed words: Do not enter, you are not welcome here.

But Charlie was a boy who often couldn’t stop himself from doing what all the signs told him not to. This time, however, he did knock on the door before going in. To his surprise, he got an answer.

‘Yes,’ said a weary voice.

Charlie went in.

Dr Saltweather was sitting on the music stool. His arms were folded inside his blue cape and his thick, white hair stood up in an untidy, careless way. He wore an expression that Charlie had never seen on his face before: a look of worry and dismay.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘I was looking for my trumpet.’

‘Indeed.’ Dr Saltweather glanced at Charlie.

‘I suppose it isn’t in here.’

‘Nothing is in here,’ said Dr Saltweather.

‘Sorry, sir.’ Charlie was about to go when something made him ask, ‘Where is Mr Pilgrim, sir?’

‘Where?’ Dr Saltweather looked at Charlie as if he’d only just seen him. ‘Ah, Charlie Bone.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t know where Mr Pilgrim has gone. It’s a mystery.’

‘Oh.’ Charlie was about to turn away again but this time found himself saying, ‘I bumped into someone in the passage; I thought it might be him.’

‘No, Charlie.’ The music teacher spoke with some force. ‘That would have been Mr Ebony, your new form teacher.’

‘Our form teacher?’ Charlie gulped. He thought of the purple wings, the hissing voice.

‘Yes. It’s a little worrying, to say the least.’ Dr Saltweather gave Charlie a scrutinising stare, as though wondering if he should say more. ‘Mr Ebony came here to teach history,’ he went on, ‘but he turned up with a letter of resignation from Mr Pilgrim. I don’t know how he came by it. And now this – man – wants to teach piano.’ Dr Saltweather raised his voice. ‘He comes up here, puts a message on the door, tries to keep me out of a room in my own department . . . it’s intolerable!’

‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Charlie. ‘But he was wearing a purple cape, sir.’

‘Ah, yes, that!’ Dr Saltweather ran a hand through his white hair. ‘It seems that Mr Tantalus Ebony is in the Drama department, hence the purple.’

Charlie said, ‘I see,’ although, by now, he was very confused. He had never heard of a teacher being in three departments at once.

‘They are Dr Bloor’s arrangements, so what can I do?’ Dr Saltweather spread his hands. ‘Better run along now, Charlie. Sorry about the trumpet. Try one of the Art rooms. They’re always drawing our musical instruments.’

‘Art. Thank you, sir,’ said Charlie gratefully.

The Art rooms could only be reached by climbing the main staircase and Charlie had just put his foot on the first step when Manfred Bloor came out of a door in the hall.

‘Have you finished writing out your lines?’ asked Manfred coldly.

‘Er, no.’

Manfred approached Charlie. ‘Don’t forget, or you’ll get another hundred.’

‘Yes, Manfred. I mean no.’

Manfred gave a sigh of irritation and walked away.

‘Excuse me,’ Charlie said suddenly, ‘but are you still, erm, a pupil, Manfred?’

‘No I am not!’ barked the surly young man. ‘I am a teaching assistant. And call me sir.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The word ‘sir’ tasted funny when applied to Manfred, but Charlie smiled, hoping he’d said the right thing at last.

‘And don’t forget it.’ Manfred marched back into the Prefects’ room and slammed the door.

Charlie still hadn’t found Manfred’s study. He was now torn between looking for his trumpet and writing out a hundred lines. But then he remembered that he didn’t know the last line of the Hall rules. ‘Emma will tell me,’ he said to himself, and he began to climb the stairs.

Emma was often to be found in the Art gallery, a long, airy room overlooking the garden. Today, however, the room appeared to be empty. Charlie searched the paint cupboard and inspected the shelves at the back of the room, then he crossed the gallery and descended an iron spiral that took him down into the sculpture studio.

‘Hi, Charlie!’ called a voice.

‘Hey, come on over,’ called another.

Charlie looked round to see two boys in green aprons grinning at him from either side of a large block of stone. One had a brown face and the other was very pale. Charlie’s two friends were now in the third year. They had both grown considerably during the summer holiday, and so had their hair. Lysander, the African, now had a neat head of dreadlocks decorated with coloured beads, while Tancred had gelled his stiff, blond hair into a forest of spikes.

‘What brings you down here, Charlie?’ asked Tancred.

‘I’m looking for my trumpet. Hey, I hardly recognised you two.’

‘You haven’t changed,’ said Lysander with a wide smile. ‘How d’you like the second year?’

‘I don’t know. I’m in a bit of a muddle. I keep going to the wrong place. I’ve lost my trumpet. I’m in trouble with Manfred and there’s an er, um, thing in the garden.’

‘What d’you mean, a thing?’ Tancred’s blond hair fizzled slightly.

Charlie told them about the horse Billy had seen in the sky, and the hoofbeats in the garden.

‘Interesting,’ said Lysander.

‘Ominous,’ said Tancred. ‘I don’t like the sound of it.’ The sleeves of his shirt quivered. It was difficult for Tancred to hide his endowment. He was like a walking weathervane, his moods affecting the air around him to such an extent that you could say he had his own personal weather.

‘I’d better keep looking for my trumpet,’ said Charlie. ‘Oh, what’s the last line of the Hall rules?’

‘Be you small or tall,’ said Lysander quickly.

‘Thanks, Sander. I’ve got to write the whole thing out a hundred times before supper, and give it to Manfred – if I can find his study. You don’t happen to know where it is, do you?’

Tancred shook his head and Lysander said, ‘Not a clue.’

Charlie was about to return the way he’d come when Tancred suggested he try somewhere else. ‘Through there,’ said Tancred, indicating a door at the end of the Sculpture studio. ‘The new children are having their first art lesson. I think I saw one carrying a trumpet.

‘Thanks, Tanc!’

Charlie walked into a room he’d never seen before. About fifteen silent children sat round a long table, sketching. Each of them had a large sheet of paper and an object in front of them. They were all concentrating fiercely on their work, and none of them looked up when Charlie appeared.

‘What do you want?’ A thin, fair-haired man with freckles spoke from the end of the table. A new Art teacher, Charlie presumed.

‘My trumpet, sir,’ said Charlie.

‘And why do you think it’s here?’ asked the teacher.

‘Because, there it is!’ Charlie had just seen a trumpet exactly like his. The instrument was being sketched by a small boy with bits of paper sticking to his hair. The boy looked up at Charlie.

‘Joshua Tilpin,’ said the teacher, ‘where did you get that trumpet?’

‘It’s mine, Mr Delf.’ Joshua Tilpin had small pale grey eyes. He half-closed them and wrinkled his nose at Charlie.

Charlie couldn’t stop himself. He leapt forward, seized the trumpet and turned it over. Last term he had scratched a tiny CB near the mouthpiece. The trumpet was his. ‘It’s got my initials on it, sir.’

‘Let me see.’ Mr Delf held out his hand.

Charlie handed over the trumpet. ‘My name’s Charlie Bone, sir. See, they’re my initials.’

‘You shouldn’t deface musical instruments like this. But it does appear to be yours. Joshua Tilpin, why did you lie?’

Everyone looked at Joshua. He didn’t go red, as Charlie would have expected. Instead, he gave a huge grin, revealing a row of small, uneven teeth. ‘Sorry, sir. Really, really sorry, Charlie. Only a joke. Forgive me, please!’

Neither Charlie nor the teacher knew how to reply to this. Mr Delf passed the trumpet to Charlie, saying, ‘You’d better get back to your class.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Charlie clutched his trumpet and turned to the door. He took a good look at Joshua Tilpin as he went. He had an odd feeling that the new boy was endowed. Joshua’s sleeves were covered in scraps of paper and tiny bits of eraser. Even as Charlie watched, a broken pencil lead suddenly leapt off the table and attached itself to the boy’s thumb. He gave Charlie a sly grin and flicked it off. Charlie felt as though an invisible thread were tugging him towards the strange boy.

He quickly left the room, and the thread was broken.

The sculpture studio rang with the sound of steel on stone. Tancred and Lysander weren’t the only ones chipping away at lumps of rock. Charlie flourished his trumpet in the air, ‘Got it,’ he sang out.

‘Knew it,’ said Tancred.

Charlie’s next priority was the hundred lines. Where should he write them? He decided on his new classroom. As he crossed the hall he was swamped by groups of children, some coming in from games, others rushing down the stairs, still more emerging from the cloakrooms. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going, except Charlie. Something had gone horribly wrong with his timetable. He hurried on, hoping to find at least some of his year group in the classroom.

There was a note pinned to the classroom door. It was printed in the same old-fashioned script as the words on Mr Pilgrim’s door:

Tantalus Ebony

Music, Mime and Medieval History

Charlie put his ear to the door. Not a sound came from the other side. He went in. There were no children in the room, but there was a teacher. He sat at a high desk in front of the window; a teacher with a long, narrow face and black eyebrows that met across the bridge of his nose. His dark hair covered his ears, and a heavy fringe ended just above his eyebrows. He wore a purple cloak.

‘Yes?’ said the teacher, looking up from his book.

Charlie swallowed. ‘I’ve come to write out some lines, sir.’

‘Name?’ The man’s voice rumbled as though it came from underground.

‘Charlie Bone, sir.’

‘Approach!’ The teacher beckoned with a long, white finger.

Charlie walked up to the desk. The man stared at him for a full minute. His left eye was grey and his right eye was brown. It was most disconcerting. Charlie was tempted to look away but he held his ground and looked first into one eye, and then the other. An angry frown crossed the man’s face and he leaned back, almost as though he feared that Charlie had seen some part of himself that he wished to keep secret. Eventually, the teacher said, ‘I am Tantalus Ebony.’

‘I guessed that, sir.’

‘How presumptuous. Stand still.’

Charlie was about to say that he hadn’t moved, when Mr Ebony went on, ‘Why are you not with the rest of your form?’

‘I got a bit muddled, sir.’

‘Muddled? Muddled is for first formers. Not a very promising beginning for your second year, is it, Charlie Bone? And you say you have lines already. I wonder why?’

‘I was talking in the hall, sir.’

Mr Ebony’s response was amazing. He roared with laughter. He rocked with unrestrained giggles.

‘Ahem.’ The teacher gave a little cough. ‘Go and write your lines, then. And don’t disturb me. I’m going to sleep.’ Mr Ebony pulled his purple hood over his head and closed his eyes. Still sitting bolt upright, he began to snore.

Is it possible to be watched by someone who isn’t looking at you? Charlie had the impression that the strange teacher was still awake. Or rather that someone else, behind the sleeping face, was still on guard.

After waiting a few seconds, Charlie tiptoed to his desk, got out an exercise book and began to write out the hall rules. He had just completed the last line when the bell went for tea. Mr Ebony opened his eyes, threw back his hood and cried, ‘OUT!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Charlie gathered up his paper and hurriedly left the room.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ asked Fidelio, when he saw Charlie in the canteen.

‘Where have you been?’ said Charlie.

‘I had English, then games.’

Charlie saw a weekend of detention looming ahead. Mr Carp, the English teacher, wouldn’t forgive him for missing a lesson. ‘I was writing out my lines for Manfred,’ he said gloomily. ‘And I still haven’t found out where his study is.’

Fidelio couldn’t help, nor could Gabriel when he arrived at their table. ‘What’s with the pigtail, then?’ he said, munching a bar of Choclix. ‘I mean, what’s Manfred supposed to be? He’s not Head Boy any more, and he’s not a teacher. So what is he?’

‘He’s a hypnotiser,’ said Charlie grimly. ‘Always has been and always will be. He’ll probably stay here for ever and ever, perfecting his skills until he becomes a musty old magician like his great-grandfather.’

‘As long as he keeps out of my way, I don’t care what he is.’ Gabriel swallowed the rest of his Choclix and wiped his fingers on his sleeve. ‘By the way, I’ve decided to take piano with Mr Ebony. I can’t give it up, and he’s quite good, actually.’

For some reason this worried Charlie.

‘I’d go to Miss Chrystal, if I were you,’ he advised Gabriel. ‘Mr Ebony isn’t – isn’t what he seems. I think he’s dangerous.’

The others looked at him questioningly, but Charlie couldn’t explain his feeling.

After tea, Charlie took his trumpet to Mr Paltry’s room. The elderly teacher was having a quiet cup of coffee. ‘I can’t give you a lesson now,’ he said irritably. ‘Put your trumpet on the shelf and leave me in peace.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Charlie placed his trumpet on a shelf with five others, hoping it wouldn’t get lost or stolen again. ‘Excuse me, sir, but do you know where Manfred Bloor’s study is?’

‘I don’t know every single room in the building, do I?’ Mr Paltry fluttered a freckled hand. ‘Now, shoo.’

Children were advised to leave their capes indoors on sunny days because, believe it or not, it was colder in the dark academy than it was outside. So, putting his cape in the cloakroom Charlie went into the garden and asked as many people as he could grab if they knew the whereabouts of Manfred’s study. Nobody had heard of it. Charlie ran indoors again. As he put on his blue cape, he slipped his fingers in his pocket. The three pages of lines had gone.

‘No!’ yelled Charlie, just as Gabriel walked in.

‘What’s up?’ asked Gabriel.

Charlie told him, and for the next fifteen minutes Gabriel helped him to search the cloakroom, but the three pages were nowhere to be found. Fidelio appeared and joined in the hunt. They looked in empty classrooms and even went down to the canteen. And then the gong went for supper.

‘Someone’s determined to get me into trouble,’ moaned Charlie. ‘I’m losing everything, my trumpet, my lines . . . what’s going on?’

‘Come and have supper,’ said Fidelio. ‘Food helps the brain.’

‘Huh!’ Charlie grunted.

The three boys made their way to the long, cavernous dining-hall and took their places at the end of the Music table.

The staff sat at a table on a raised platform at the end of the room, and Charlie noticed that Manfred was sitting next to his father. So he was now, officially, a member of staff. At least he won’t be doing his homework with us, thought Charlie.

Supper was almost over when Dr Bloor stood up and clapped his hands. There was instant silence. The big man walked to the front of the platfom and surveyed the lines of children below him. He was an impressive figure in his black cape, his shoulders wide, his grey hair neatly cropped and his moustache as straight as a ruler. His eyes were almost hidden beneath thick folds of flesh, and it was difficult to tell what colour they were. Now they looked black, yet Charlie knew they were grey.

It was some moments before the headmaster spoke. The children looked up at him expectantly. At last he said, ‘A word to those of the new children who are endowed. You know who you are, so I shall not mention you by name. You will do your homework in the King’s Room. Someone will show you the way. Do you understand?’

Charlie heard three thin voices utter the words, ‘Yes, sir.’ He couldn’t see where they came from, but they certainly didn’t belong to anyone on the music table.

Dr Bloor suddenly shouted, ‘DISPERSE!’

Children sprang into action like clockwork. Benches squeaked on the tiled floor, plates were collected into piles, glasses clinked, cutlery clanged, and then everyone made for the doors. As Charlie climbed up to the first floor, he was joined by Gabriel and Billy; Emma Tolly was ahead of him, and Tancred and Lysander could just be seen flying up another flight to the second floor.

Emma waited for Charlie to catch up with her. ‘I found these on the floor of our cloakroom,’ she said, holding out three crumpled sheets of paper. ‘I heard you were looking for them.’

‘My lines,’ cried Charlie, grabbing the paper. ‘Thanks, Em. But how did they get in the Art cloakroom?’

‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Emma.

Charlie shoved the pages into his bag. The sound of heavy footsteps behind him made him look back and he saw Dorcas Loom trudging slowly up the stairs. She was a plump girl with fair curly hair and a healthy complexion. Dorcas was a fervent admirer of Charlie’s great-aunt, Venetia, and with her endowment she could make clothes that had a deadly magic.

‘What are you staring at?’ she said sullenly.

‘A cat may look at a queen,’ replied Charlie.

Dorcas gave a ‘Hunh!’ of disgust, and continued to plod up the stairs.

Charlie and his friends stepped into the strange, circular King’s Room with its round table and curving, booklined walls.

Manfred was standing on the far side of the table, staring straight at the doors. Charlie’s heart lurched, and then disappointment washed over him in a sickening wave as he saw a hunched figure sitting beside Manfred. It was Asa Pike, Manfred’s devoted slave; the boy who could become a beast at dusk. He should have left school. Why was he was still here? There were also three new children in the room. Joshua Tilpin was one of them.

‘Come on, come on,’ ordered Manfred impatiently. ‘Stop crowding in the door. I have an important announcement to make.’

Charlie pulled himself together and walked round the table until he came to a place beside Tancred. From here he could see the Red King’s portrait. An old painting of a misty figure in a red cloak and a slim gold crown. Gabriel, Billy and Emma followed Charlie, while Dorcas stomped in and closed the door with her foot.

‘Show some respect for my father’s house!’ barked Manfred.

Dorcas glowered, but didn’t dare to look Manfred in the eye. ‘Someone’s sitting in my place,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t be stupid, Dorc,’ said Manfred.

Asa sniggered, ‘Dork. That’s good.’

Manfred ignored him. ‘Just sit anywhere, girl, and hurry up about it.’

If Dorcas had wanted to sit on Manfred’s other side she was out of luck. Squeezed in, between Manfred and Joshua Tilpin, were two extraordinary-looking girls They both had very shiny black hair, cut just below their ears, a deep fringe and a complexion that was so pale and smooth it looked like porcelain.

Twins, obviously, thought Charlie. If they’re real. For the girls’ faces were so blank, and their bodies so still, they might have been dolls.

Dorcas shuffled round the table and put her books next to Joshua’s. He gave her one of his beaming crooked-toothed smiles, and Dorcas actually smiled back.

‘Now that we’re all here,’ said Manfred, glancing at Dorcas, ‘I want to explain a few things. First of all, you probably didn’t expect to see me again. Well, you’re stuck with me.’ No one made a sound except Asa, who snorted.

‘I’m now a teaching assistant,’ Manfred went on importantly. ‘My job description is to supervise your homework, monitor your progress, invigilate exams, and to help with any personal or work-related problems.’ He paused to take a breath and Charlie wondered who on earth would want to ask the ex-head-boy for help.

‘Now, for introductions.’ Manfred named everyone at the table until he came to the inscrutable girls beside him. ‘And these are the twins, Inez and Idith Branko.’

As soon as their names were mentioned, the twins bent their heads and stared at the books in front of them. With alarming speed the books flew across the table. One pile landed in Charlie’s lap, and the other in Tancred’s.

‘Oh, no!’ Tancred grunted. ‘Telekinetics.’ The sleeves of his cape ballooned out, his blond hair crackled and a draught sent a shiver through the loose sheets of paper lying on the table.

‘I see that the summer holidays haven’t improved your self-control, Tancred,’ said Manfred in a mocking tone.

Tancred and Charlie stood up and handed the twins’ books back across the table. The girls didn’t say a word, and their faces remained completely blank.

Charlie couldn’t resist remarking, ‘It’s polite to say thank you.’

Idith and Inez remained silent, but one of them, who knows which, shot him a very nasty look.

‘Try and be pleasant to the new girls, Bone,’ said Manfred. ‘The twins are related to Zelda Dobinsky, who has left us. Apparently, she is a mathematical genius, so she’s gone to university at a very early age. Unfortunately, Asa here is the opposite of a genius. He’s still with us because he failed all his exams.’

Scowling with embarrassment, Asa hunched even further down in his seat and Charlie felt a rare twinge of sympathy for him. To be ridiculed by someone he admired must have been very painful.

‘Last, but not least, we have Joshua Tilpin,’ Manfred announced.

On hearing his name, Joshua leapt up and made a bow. Anyone would have thought he was a prince. And yet he looked a mess. His green cape was covered in dust, there were leaves and grass in his hair, and a cobweb hung from one ear.

‘Sit down, Joshua,’ said Manfred. ‘You’re not a pop star.’

Joshua beamed at him and, to everyone’s amazement, Manfred smiled back. Getting a smile out of Manfred was like getting jam out of a stone.

Whatever next? thought Charlie. He was just about to start his homework when Manfred said, ‘Charlie Bone, you didn’t bring me your lines.’

‘Oh, sorry, Manfred. I’ve got them here.’ Charlie fumbled in his bag.

‘I asked you to bring them to my study.’

‘But . . . I don’t know where it is,’ Charlie confessed.

Manfred sighed. He looked at the ceiling and declared,

‘I am behind words

on the way to music

beneath a wing

and before trumpets, masks and brushes.’

He paused for effect and brought his gaze back to Charlie. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

In any other circumstances, Charlie would have said, ‘Clear as ditchwater,’ but as the situation was already pretty grim, he decided to say, ‘Yes, Manfred.’

‘Good. Then bring your lines to my study before bedtime, or it’s detention for you.’