Chapter Three - New Girl
Emaciated, and taciturn, with ragged skin, dark rimmed eyes, and more of a snout than a nose, Master Kearns, housemaster of Feliformia, resembled an escaped convict not a teacher. Without any words of welcome, only a long, suspicious look, he took Lennox from Torkil’s tower and led her back into the castle, through a lobby, and up several floors of wide, stone steps bare as winter, coming to a halt halfway down a narrow corridor in front of one of many battered, wooden doors.
'Your room,' he muttered, his voice low and guttural. Lennox hastened inside, and shut the door firmly, and immediately, behind her.
She stared at the room miserably, gripped her arms and shivered. There was no point unpacking. She was not going to stay and she had little to unpack. The room smelt of ice and dust, as if it had been not entered for over 100 years. A woollen blanket as hairy as a sheep covered a wooden framed bed. On the stone floor, there was a thin attempt at a rug and on the far wall was a blackened fireplace, two frail looking armchairs and a three legged stool. Apart from a small chest beside the bed, and a wardrobe that looked as if it had been rescued from a museum, there was nothing else in the room but Lennox and her backpack.
Eventually she dropped her arms to her sides and her bag to the floor. It was late and she was weary. She crossed over to the bed, peeled off a few clothes, and curled up under its ancient covers.
To her surprise she slept deeply and well. In the morning, when she woke, her room was full of dazzling sunlight, every particle of dust illuminated but her fingers, poking out the covers, were numb. It was icy cold despite the sun. Somewhere outside her room, she could hear others waking, talking, walking. She heard the splash of flowing water, and voices criss-crossing a path past her door. It did not take long for the voices to fade, until only one set of footsteps remained, soft and low, and moving slowly closer to her room. There was a long pause. She lay very still. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe the corridor was deserted. Maybe they had all forgotten about her.
A dull tap on her door changed her mind. She sat bolt upright. She was not even dressed.
'No!' she yelled.
She pulled on her clothes in a frenzy. The same clothes as yesterday; black shirt, black leggings and a black hoody that did nothing to combat the cold. Please don't let it be Master Kearns, she prayed. She didn’t want to see his coarse face close up by daylight.
But it wasn't Master Kearns.
It was an entirely new face. Wide and pale, with clumps of wild brown hair, thick as deep as snow drifts, and enormous dark eyes that looked just as scared as Lennox's own and bulged slightly as she looked at him.
'... Lennox?' he asked. He shivered as he said her name, as if a cold wind had just blasted through him.
Lennox suddenly felt better. This boy's terror wiped hers away.
'Yeah.' She stared at him unashamedly. He was thin, like her, and his body seemed to bend like a bow from his wide face to his enormous feet, with only a narrow strip in between. He was wearing pencil thin green combat trousers, and a thick green fleece.
'...breakfast?' he asked, and jerked his thumb in the direction Lennox guessed all the others had gone.
'I guess so.'
She was hungry, and while she was here, she did have to eat. She stepped out into the corridor after the boy, pulling the door behind her.
'Master Kearns told me to get you,' the boy explained as they set off down the corridor. 'I've got to look after you.'
She almost told him not to bother. She didn’t need help. But she did want breakfast. So she kept her thoughts to herself.
The boy took her down the opposite end of the corridor, then ran down stairs so steep and narrow Lennox’s shoulders brushed the stone on either side.
'We operate a one way system on these stairs. Down only,' he explained. 'For obvious reasons.'
They emerged in a dimly lit basement, the walls a dirty white, the floor uneven, a thicket of boys heading their way. They slowed as they saw Lennox, and stared, hard.
'Hey Mannik,' someone shouted, 'Pulled at last!'
Laughter echoed through the basement, loud and ugly.
Mannik turned away from the laughter, back to Lennox. His face had hardened, his lips were bloodless. Lennox could see this was just as bad for him as for her. She had found someone else who hated attention.
'This way,' he muttered.
Lennox carefully avoided looking at the others as she passed them down the corridor. She heard them, and smelt them, fried bacon and warm sweat, but saw nothing except more green tops and trousers. She kept her gaze trained on Mannik's back.
'So, it's Mannik, is it?' she asked, catching up with her guide.
'Yeah. And you're Lennox. Master Kearns told me.'
They had emerged into a vast underground hall. Windows were set into the top of the walls, cut into the earth, and letting in a dirty light. The hall was full of tables of all different sizes and descriptions, trestle tables, long germanic tables, wooden kitchen tables pushed together. The chairs were just as varied as the tables, with a mix of benches, old school chairs and a few wooden stools, not all of which looked steady.
The kitchens were set in one corner of the hall, and were a modern stainless steel. To Lennox's surprise, however, it was boys wearing the same uniform, the same ubiquitous green fleece tops and combat trousers, who stirred, served and washed, while one master presided. He was standing back in chef's whites, watching everything, his black eyes viscous, his bald head shone in the bright kitchen lights, his thickly muscled arms looked strong enough to stop a bus. Lennox edged closer to Mannik.
‘Who is that?’ she whispered. ‘In the chef’s whites.’
‘He’s not a master,’ Mannik told her, ‘though he looks like one and he thinks he is. He’s just Bull, but don’t let him hear you say that. It’s Bill officially.’
'So what else did Kearns tell you?' she asked Mannik, as they both loaded tea and toast onto trays and then settled at an otherwise empty small, square table. ‘Other than my name.’
'Not a lot. Just that, while you were here, I had to take you around, show you where everything is and if there's any trouble, to go straight to him.'
Lennox had her mouth full of toast and jam, so she just nodded. ‘While you were here...’ That sounded alright. That sounded like she would not be here for long.
Mannik sighed.
'As if!' he muttered, rolling his eyes. 'This school has never worked that way.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning there will be trouble.' Mannik explained. 'There always is. And he won't do anything about it. They never do. They actually encourage it.'
Instinctively Mannik looked up and around, watchful, on edge.
Lennox followed his gaze. Across the hall, on one of the long tables, at least a dozen boys sat together. They were all looking over towards Lennox, but only one of them was talking. He was hunched forward over the table, his dark eyes swollen like tumours, his mouth small and pale and constantly moving. His shoulders were broad, his skin thick and yellow like sackcloth and he was clearly bigger and stronger than everyone else sat at the table. As Lennox stared, he straightened up, his eyes still fixed on her.
‘And who…’ she began.
'…don't look!' Mannik hissed, interrupting her.
But it was too late.
The boy was already moving, standing up, coming towards them, the rest of his gang spreading out in his wake.
Lennox slid to the edge of her seat, ready to walk if the boy tried to sit at their table.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stood behind Mannik.
'So, who's looking after who here?' he sneered.
'Shut up, Gram.'
Mannik's voice was faint. He could have been miles away.
Lennox shook her head very slowly. Was that the best Mannik could do?
'I guess you two have a lot in common.' Gram continued as if Lennox was not there. 'You could swap recipes,' he continued. 'My pie for your tart?'
br /> There was a swell of laughter from the onlookers.
'Or dresses?'
The laughter broke out into barks. Mannik stood up abruptly, face flaming red, and charged off out the hall. Lennox was left facing the pack alone.
Gram eyed her, slowly, insultingly, leaving her face for last.
'If you want to stay here...'
'I don't!' she snarled.
One corner of Gram's mouth curled up in a smirk.
'...whatever. Doesn't matter. If you're here, you're prey, just like everyone else. We'll come and get you, when we're ready.' His eyes bulged as he took one last, long and insulting look then sauntered off, his crowd at his heels.
Lennox stared after him, fists clenched. When they were gone, she sat alone in a hall full of strangers, consumed by anger. It was the worst possible place for her to be angry. She was exposed. Vulnerable. For her anger was a trigger. Her father had a stock response for these situations. ‘You’re on a long road through the mountains, ahead of you are the white lines of the road’, he would say. Walk down the road, count one hundred white lines, then look up at the sky. It will have changed. You will have changed.’ She did her best. She counted. But she wasn’t in the mountains. She was in a damp dining hall, with more than 100 onlookers, pinning her to the present.
One hundred white lines was, however, long enough to make sure Gram and his pack were well and truly gone. She retreated back the way she had come, to her room, up the one way stairway. She didn’t yet know another way. Fortunately, no one was coming down.
To her surprise, she found Mannik at her door, waiting for her.
'What?' she demanded, more harshly than she meant.
'Sorry.'
'It’s nothing.'
It wasn't Mannik’s fault that Gram was a bully. She knew that. But he could have stayed.
She waited for him to move. He was standing in front of her door. But he didn't. He just stayed there, expectant.
'What?' she asked again.
Mannik winced.
'Tell me,' Lennox sighed.
'Gram's in our first lesson.'
'Lesson?'
Mannik nodded.
'But I'm not going to lessons. I’m leaving. Master Torkil is going to speak to my…’
She stopped. She knew, too well, how long that might take. Her father was not an easy person to get hold off, and, in front of her, Mannik was showing signs of panic. 'Did Kearns tell you to take me to lessons?' she asked him.
Mannik nodded miserably.
'While you're here...'
'While I'm here...' she snapped, suddenly liking the phrase less.
'...yes...while you're here, you'll be in Feliformia house, like me. So you'll come to all my lessons.'
She could see from the look on Mannik's face. If he didn't get her to lessons, he would be the one who suffered.
'Just don't tell me Gram's in Feliformia too.'
'No,' Mannik assured her, the light coming back into his eyes. 'He's in Caniformia, which means he lives in a separate section of the castle. He can’t come to our rooms and common room, and we can’t go to his. It’s only lessons when we need to watch out for him.'
‘Only…’ Lennox swallowed her sigh. Stranded at an all boys’ school, lessons, and now Gram, what else could go wrong?