**********
By dinner, Lennox was ready to talk. She recounted what had happened with Mr Christie word for word.
'Why do you think this place has such a bad reputation in Balreaig? Half the teachers come from there.'
Mannik shot a suspicious look towards the teachers table, at the three Masters sat eating.’
‘Because of them,’ he muttered.
‘I wonder whether they know about Christie,’ Lennox kept her voice very low. She guessed that she was not the only person at Calgacos who found it easy to overhear other people’s conversations. ‘He might be the reason why Kearns was wary about letting us go.’
‘Whatever is in those books ...’ Mannik’s shoulders were hunched, he was shovelling the food into his mouth, almost without pausing for breath. ‘…will tell us.’
He stopped short. Across the table, Connel was looking at them and following every word.
Mannik and Lennox usually sat down the end of the Feliformia table, and they were left to eat in peace. They were accepted because they were Feliformia; that was about it. But tonight was different.
'I hear you've been to Balreaig,' Connel said to Mannik. 'Finally.'
Mannik pushed another potato in his mouth and made a noise that could have been yes but also could have been no.
'So, what did you get?’ Connel asked. ‘Where’s my chocolate?'
Lennox said nothing. It was Mannik’s turn. It was time he stood up for himself. But he didn’t. Instead he dropped his fork. It clattered onto the floor, and as he bent down to retrieve it, he mumbled,
'I didn't... We didn't go to the shop.'
'Where did you go then?' asked Connel, amused, as Mannik reappeared, fork in hand. 'The swings?'
'No!' Mannik speared a potato. 'The Heritage centre and library.'
'What for?' demanded Rick. He could not understand why anyone would go to Balreaig and visit the library'
'To buy chocolate, of course!' Lennox interrupted sarcastically. ‘Why do you think?’
She didn’t like the way the boys were talking to Mannik. He was shy, not stupid, though Rick and Connel seemed to think he was both.
Rick looked ready to murder Lennox, she recognised the grimace. She had seen it before at her other schools. Not at the beginning, when she failed to make any friends. It normally came later, when she began making enemies. She was good at this. She found it hard to open her mouth to chat, but she knew just what she wanted to say when someone annoyed her.
Whatever Rick was going to come back with, was prevented by the arrival of some of Perissodactyla juniors, their faces still red with the wind.
‘You been at Balreaig too?’ asked Connel.
'Yeah, studying.' Shergar slid his tray onto the table with a smug grin.
'Studying? At Pineham?' Connel inquired.
'Yeah, I found out that girls prefer good looks to blonds,' Shergar told him, stirring sugar lumps into his tea. 'So far so good for me.'
'And I've discovered they prefer good looks to be accompanied by brains, which is not such good news for you.' Connel shot back.
'Well, I haven't had to talk much...' Shergar was smirking openly. 'So maybe you got your facts wrong.'
'Yeah,' laughed Aston, 'You can't believe everything your Mum tells you Connel.'
'We'll see.' Connel shot back. 'Just wait for the end of year dance. Last year, they were queueing for a bit of this blondie. And I can't remember seeing you much on the dance floor.'
Aston's smile dropped off his face.
'I saw Gram in Balreaig,' Shergar said, changing the conversation to Aston's relief.
'Buying supplies for tonight?' asked Connel, his eyes lighting up.
The General Store had a shelf behind the counter for spirits and wine. The seniors from Calgacos were known to Mrs Mortham, the owner, who was one of the few villagers who welcomed the boys. She seemed to have an unerring ability to distinguish seniors from juniors, and Gram was the envy of every other junior, for he alone had fooled Mrs Mortham. With his sallow skin, thick brow, and the hours he spent down in the gym, he had effectively disguised his age, and could buy whatever he wanted, unchallenged.
'He wasn't buying chocolate.' Shergar lifted his eyebrows significantly.
'He has a barbell for a pillow,' muttered Aston sourly. 'And weights in his shoes. It’s not he looks any older than the rest of us, it’s just Mortham doesn't dare challenge him.'
'Cards tonight is it?' asked Henry, who up to this point had been more interested in his food than anything else. Tall as a junior, though lanky, Henry was permanently hungry, and was the only one in Feliformia who ate the school's version of semolina. He had been known to eat 5 bowls of it at one sitting.
'You coming?' asked Connel.
Henry shook his head.
'I've got no money.'
'He's going to accept forfeits instead,' Aston pointed out.
'That's even worse than losing what little money I have,' Henry complained. 'There's no way I'm going to be his slave for a week. Count me out.'
'And he never fails to provide entertainment,' Shergar added softly, suggestively.
Aston, Shergar's sidekick, smirked.
'I'm in!'
Mannik, meanwhile, had heard enough of the conversation. He stood up without a word to Lennox and hurried out of the dinner hall. Lennox was about to follow when Rick spoke.
'What about you Lennox?'
She looked round and saw everyone at the table was staring at her.
'I have no money.'
Which was the truth.
'Well you might have by the end of the night,' said Connel. 'If you play your cards right.'
Three tables away, she noticed Kellas, staring straight at her. She stared back surprised. Since returning from Hangman's Wood, he had shown no interest in her, and had made no attempt to approach to her. But now, he was full of intent, and he was staring at her fixedly. She knew exactly what was going to happen next.
Come.
At the same time as she heard his voice in her head, he stood up.
She looked at Rick, Shergar, Aston, Connel, Henry. They were still talking about the game. They had not heard Kellas. No one in dining hall had heard him only her.
She nodded once, waited for Kellas to walk past her table, waited a bit longer, then rose to her feet and followed.
The rest of the table did not notice her go. The conversation had returned to Gram's entertainment for the card game.
'Maybe he's going to bring Mannik again...' Aston was saying.
Lennox shivered and hurried away.
Out in the corridor, she found Kellas, standing, waiting. He took one look at her approaching and started walking away, his back straight, his gait smooth, without a word or look of invitation. Lennox frowned and followed, guessing that was what he intended.
He turned into a narrow passage, then into a storeroom empty apart from racks of boots, jars of oil and bundles of rags. Once Lennox was inside, he shut the door, unabashed. She felt her heart race. She could think of nothing except that she was standing in a closed room, no more than a few feet from his silver lined hair, his vast green eyes, his pale lips.
'You need to take care,' he warned.
She nodded, slightly bewitched.
'This card game,' he continued, 'the one that Gram is organising. They're always a bit messy. But this time, he's got enough dutch courage to declare war on America. You must stay away. It would not be safe for you...'
If Kellas had stopped there, everything might have been different. Lennox would have simply nodded, entranced. But he didn't. He added two more words which changed everything.
'...a girl.'
And his spell was broken. Lennox scowled. She had spent her whole life trying to prove that she was as good as a boy, that it didn't make any difference that she was a girl.
Every time she saw her father he said the same thing. The last time had been in the corner of a café. He had actually been at home for a
month over the summer, and they had spent it together in North Wales, climbing, walking, and plunging in off cliffs for coastal swimming. It had been the best month of her life. There had been no need for him to lament her existence. She had beaten him to the top of Snowdon, very deliberately, and he had laughed. Then, on the last night, before she was going back to a small boarding school in South Wales, one she had found easier than most, he told her he was going abroad again, and added, ‘If you were only a boy, it would have been so much better.’
And now Kellas was saying the same thing.
'So?'
Even she could hear the aggression in her voice.
Kellas exhaled slowly. Lennox thought she heard a faint hiss.
'You don't actually intend to go, do you?'
Lennox could see his pupils shrinking and sinking in his golden green eyes.
'And if I did?' she asked, emboldened by her anger. 'It had nothing to do with you. I have nothing to do with you. Remember?'
Kellas stiffened.
'And I can take care of myself,' she added.
He squared his shoulders, clenched his fists, and looked ready to shake her. Instead, he turned away without another word, and was out the door, and down the hallway as fast if he were running, and yet all the while walking in his smooth, fluid gait.
Watching him, Lennox wanted to scream. He didn’t make sense. If she was so lowly and insignificant that he spurned talking to her, why bother about her safety? It tore at her insides. It raised her hopes, then burned them. If she was truthful with herself, she wanted him, his attention, and in a way she had never felt before. A way that left her shaking. A way that made her feel embarrassed.
She set off back to the dining hall. Connel was just coming down the corridor, with Shergar, Aston and Rick; they were all talking at the same time.
Lennox stood to one side, then fell in step beside Connel. She laid a hand on his arm, made him stop.
'What?'
'I'm in.'
But Connel did not understand.
'In what?'
'The card game. I want you to take me.'
And suddenly Connel was grinning massively.
'You beauty!' he exclaimed, hugging her impulsively. 'You absolute beauty. One taste, and you'll be hooked. I promise. It's the only fun we ever have around here. I'll come and get you, take you there.' He looked up and down the corridor. 'I'll knock later, when it's quiet. Ok?'