**********
The journey to geography was Lennox's first good look around the school in daylight. They had to go back outside, into the main courtyard where the wind was whistling and the walls echoed with words and footsteps, and through a door set straight into the wall, and into another part of the castle again. The oldest parts of the castle were the houses where they slept, the communal areas where they ate, and the Masters’ quarters. The main teaching block was a more modern addition to the castle compound, warmer, brighter, and with wide modern windows overseeing a panorama of wild land.
'We're free to come and go as long as we stay within the school grounds,' Mannik told her as she came to a standstill on her way through the teaching block, momentarily snared by the view. 'They want us to be independent. That's the whole point of this school. But they do have two fundamental rules.'
'Which are?'
'Don't go out alone, and don't come back alone.'
Lennox scowled. They were not good rules, not if you like your own company.
'Then I wouldn't fit in here...' ...if she were a pupil, which she wasn't.
'Maybe …not,' Mannik agreed half-heartedly.
When they arrived at Geography, the classroom was mostly full.
'Don't worry,' Mannik whispered, 'There'll be a place for me. There always is. And one next to it too.'
He was right. There were two empty seats, side by side, near the front. Mannik hurried, as if a storm whirled around him, head down, and bowed. No one tried to talk to him, or to Lennox as she followed. But silence fell. Their entrance was watched by everyone.
Master Conley arrived moments later. He took one look at Lennox, narrowed his golden eyes, and launched into his lesson as if she wasn't there. He had to look over her head to see the rest of the class, and, once or twice, he looked at Mannik, but never at her. It was different to being a new girl. She was an invisible girl, not really there, which was definitely preferable.
Lennox did not pay much attention to the lesson. Most of the time she stared out the window and wondered what would happen next. Her father would not want her here. He feared, even more than she did, what might happen if she lost her temper in front of others. He knew, too, that Lennox, staying in an all boys’ school, was a time bomb.
He would find somewhere else to take her; he always did. He knew just how to appeal to the sympathies of head-teachers. He had perfected his story: single parent working hard but posted abroad, bright girl, dead mother. He stuck to the facts. He didn’t need to embellish. And it worked, time and again, despite the ever lengthening list of previous educational establishments.
But how long would it take to make contact with him? He worked for the MOD. He got posted abroad. He spent most of his time behind a desk, he said, but he was still impossible to contact. She’d thrown away the phone he’d given her months ago. No one had paid the bills, and it had been useless. Then she’d thrown it at a wall, frustrated, and it had been worse than useless. When he next turned up, her first demand would be a new phone. She was making a mental list.
'Quick,' Mannik hissed in her ear, interrupting her train of thought.
'What?'
'Let's go!'
The lesson had ended. Boys were standing up, crowding the central aisle, filing out of class. By the time she sidled down the row of desks, Gram was waiting for her, his bulging eyes trained on her.
'It's the tourist!' he mocked, blocking her way, blocking everyone's way.
She scowled in reply, and tried to wait, calmly.
'And we don't like tourists round here: male, female or Mannik.'
There were sniggers from his crowd. Lennox gritted her teeth and thought of mountains and white lines as he sauntered away, smirking.
'He's an animal,' she muttered to Mannik.
But Mannik was saying nothing about Gram. He dared not. Instead he told her,
'Self defence next. I’ll show you the way.'
There was a laugh from her left.
She spun round and stared at a yellow haired boy with a rounded nose, lashes as pale as whiskers, and a big grin that swallowed the rest of his face.
'You're going to need it!' he said in between chuckles.
'This is Connel,' Mannik told her. 'He's Feliformia too. So he's all right, I guess.'
'You don't sound sure,' she muttered.
'He’s not,' Connel replied. ‘But he’s not sure of anyone so I don’t take it personally.’
Self-defence was in a room with a soft padded floor and walls. The teacher was Mr Marshal, and, according to Connel, he had a reputation for speaking his mind, even with the Masters.
‘All the teachers here are normal,' Mannik whispered as they faced each other. Mannik was tentatively clenching his fist for an uppercut while Lennox held the punch bag mitts.
'What do you mean normal?'
‘I mean that they’re not like the Masters’.
She thought of Master Conley and his golden brown eyes and cragged nose, Master Torkil and his straw like pointed beard and stony looks, and Master Kearns with his snout like nose. Every one of the Masters had given her the shivers.
Mannik dropped his voice even lower. 'The Masters are something else. They’re not normal, they’re like monks. Not one of them is married, or goes out, even though they're all young except Torkil; he's ancient. But the rest of them just don't have a life outside of this school; wife, girlfriends, friends even. This is it!'
Lennox paused, considering. She had been inside Torkil's study. Had she seen any personal photos? Signs of friends and family? Interests? No, not really. It was true.
'That's not so abnormal. I've been to countless boarding schools and most of the men who work in them either are the fathers of the head boys, or are eunuchs.'
‘That’s true,’ Mannik agreed. ‘But here it is different. The teachers are normal. Most of them come from Balraieg. All of them live there. Some are even married. But every Master is male, and single. They live and breathe here, nowhere else. They don’t even go shopping. They don’t go anywhere. That's unusual.'
Mr Marshall must have been watching Lennox and Mannik more than they realised, because he sailed over and moved them to work with different partners. Lennox was given yellow haired Connel. Mannik was put in a pair with Henry, a boy already 6 foot at 14, and as clumsy as if his feet were perpetually tied together.
Mannik looked at Henry sorrowfully, he was going to get hurt, whether Henry meant it or not
After Self-defence, they headed back to the Old Castle. Connel, Henry and another boy called Rick leading the way.
‘Get changed.’ Mannik told her, as the others disappeared into the room adjacent to hers. ‘We’ve got fitness next, with Nighten.’
'And is he...' she paused, '...normal?'
Mannik almost smiled.
'Not remotely. He’s a Master.’
She wandered into her room aimlessly. She didn't have a lot of clothes. Shopping wasn't a hobby. She didn't have any money or interest in it. She had one or two outfits, all black that she had acquired from previous schools. Acquisition wasn’t a hobby for her either, but a necessity. She had found lost property a good source of clothes in every school so far. Occasionally, desperation had forced her to take a more direct approach, and she had made timed forays into other girls’ wardrobes. There were some things you just had to have. The trickiest part was making sure she took things that would not be missed; so they had to be plain, simple, preferably black, and non-descript.
All she had for fitness was an old PE kit from a previous school: a mauve striped rugby shirt and shorts. It made her stand out, and she hated that; but she had no choice.
Too soon Mannik was knocking on her door, wiry in sleek lycra, while Lennox, in her outsized rugby kit was more sack-like than sleek.
Mannik looked at her, gagged, and somehow managed to say nothing at all.
Lennox sighed and followed him to the courtyard. She had the feeling fitness was going to be the lowest point of th
e day.
The courtyard was already crowded. There were seniors milling around, their legs blackened with wet mud, their faces dripping with rain. Most gave no attention to the juniors threading their way through the press, but one gave Lennox a hard stare, and muttered to his companion,
'What the hell is she doing here?’
Lennox pretended not to hear and followed Mannik who was heading over to where Henry and Connel were standing before one very tall, and impressive looking teacher. He was a head taller than a man was expected to be, and his long hair fell to his shoulders in tough knots. He had a prominent nose and a domed forehead, and he looked around him, as if he was looking from a great height. With her first glance, Lennox knew he didn't fit into the category of 'normal'. She had never seen a more striking, or intimidating, man in her life.
She realised why Mannik had been so keen to be changed on time.
Lennox stopped at the back of the huddle of Feliformia boys, hoping to stay hidden. Everyone else in the small group was wearing running lycra like Mannik. She looked like a civilian amongst crack troops. To her horror, the crowd in front of her parted, and Nighten came bearing down on her. He examined her briefly, contemptuously, as if she had turned up to compete at a track and field event wearing flip flops, then turned to Mannik.
'Who is this?'
'This is Lennox, Master. She's just staying for a while. Until they decide what to… until they find her somewhere else,' Mannik was explaining to Nighten's trainers; his neck bent resolutely towards the ground. 'Master Kearns told me she's to stay in Feliformia with me. Do all my classes with me.'
Nighten nodded.
'Well, Lennox, when you come to Fitness, dress…
'I don't...' Lennox began.
'...appropriately.' Nighten continued as if she had not spoken. Then he turned his back,
'Let's go everyone. Keep up with the 'front runners, or you'll be doing again, and on your own.'
Nighten led from the front, straight to the gates and out, without a backwards glance. Lennox ran out after him, onto the moors; At once, her lips parted and she tasted the view. It was breath-taking. Grasses, fine as feathers, smoothed every crease from the landscape. She forgot she hated school. She forgot she hated being abandoned. She forgot she hated people, and being different, and everyone looking at her. She was filled with a feeling so intense, it burnt inside, and refused to be named, or contained.
They were soon running off the track, through long grass, down into hollows and back up through mud as black as soot, then up, up, up, ascending slopes as steep as the cliffs, forcing them to scramble, not jog. Nighten did not slacken the pace even when they ran along a ridge edge peppered with stones and dotted with rabbit holes.
Eventually they came within view of the school again. From a distance, the school was much more beautiful than she had expected. There were no outward signs that the building was in use as a school. It could still have been the castle stronghold of a highland tribe. There was no distinction between the rock on which the castle rose, and the man made walls. It was all an ancient hue, yellowed and roughened by age and lichen, the walls imposing and unadorned excepted for battlements and medieval latticed windows.
When Lennox reached the school gates, she found them blocked by a bottleneck of people. Another contingent of runners was setting forth. Lennox eyed them warily. These were seniors; not growing boys but men, and noticeably longer, leaner and stronger. They laughed as they ran out, a few threw light punches on the juniors who did not scarper out of the way quickly enough.
Lennox waited alongside Mannik, outside the castle walls, for the crush to pass. They were joined by Connel, Henry and Rick.
'Do you see that tall, lanky one over there, with the ginger sideburns and the splendid nose?'
Connel asked, his voice low, his hands at his sides, not wanting to point.
'He’s our house captain, Duncan. If he tells you to do something, just do it. He's actually alright as captain's go, as long as we do as we're told. In this place, a house captain's got more authority than a teacher, only the Masters are higher. If he gives you a note saying you don't have to finish work set, then you don't. It annoys the hell out of the English teacher, Mr McMahon.'
Lennox watched Duncan run past, his long legs covering in one stride what she would do in three.
'And that's Euan,' Rick added, joining in the conversation, nodding at a powerful looking runner with bulky shoulders and arms, and hair coiled into a dark quiff.
'The house captain of Caniformia...'Connel explained. 'Our rivals.'
'So he's best avoided.' Mannik whispered, leaning towards Lennox, 'If...'
He stopped abruptly. Euan had turned their way and Mannik's words died in his mouth.
Euan's thin lips were parted in a sneer and his square shaped face was flushed red. His dark eyes looked with disdain over the watching juniors.
'Out of the way!' he barked, though they were already clearly to one side.
Mannik jumped back as if he'd been stung. Connel and Rick shuffled backwards.
Lennox looked at Mannik expectantly, waiting for him to finish what he had been about to say. But he was looking far away, and his mouth was chewing unspoken words.
She turned to Connel instead, her brows arched questioningly.
'Euan doesn't like us because we're Feliformia.' Connel explained. 'But he doesn't like Perrisodactyla either, cause they're generally faster, and fitter, or Aves, because they're sharper at everything, or even Caniformia, his own house, cause they're not good enough at anything, except picking fights.'
'Basically he doesn't like anyone,' Rick laughed.
'Just keep away from him,' Mannik told her, his expression still vacant. 'That's what I do.'
'And that's Horace,' Connel exclaimed in whisper. 'See. The huge one over there with hair like a mane. He's never lost a fight. Not once! They say he once fought Nighten, and won! But he denies it.'
'Another house captain?' Lennox asked, as she spotted the enormous teen, with hair as wild as an eagle’s nest and the colour of dead leaves.
'No. Because he's Caniformia too,' Connel said.
'But he should be house captain, he'd be better than Euan.' Rick interjected. 'And Euan absolutely detests him for that reason. When those two fight, the whole school comes running to watch.'
But unlike Euan, and despite his size, Horace wasn't intimidating, possibly because he was chuckling and talking to another runner alongside.
Lennox switched her attention to runner beside Horace, and felt her temperature rise. As she stared at Horace’s friend, a blush burned her skin, though she had said nothing and done nothing. She forgot Horace and his formidable reputation. She forgot Duncan, and Euan. She saw only a young man with hair streaked the colour of sand and silver, for whom running was as effortless as walking, and whose sleek grace made everyone else milling around the courtyard, or running through the gate, appear slow and stilted.
Beside her, Connel nodded.
'Yeah. That's Kellas,' he muttered in an undertone. 'He sort of stands out.'
Lennox did not trust herself to speak. She watched Kellas run past, overtaking Horace with a swift burst of speed.
She turned to Connel, hoping he would say more.
'And...?'
But Connel had had enough of commentating. He could see there were few seniors left.
‘He considers himself better than everyone else, even than Duncan. The only time it becomes interesting in House meetings is when those two disagree.’
He left Lennox’s side and headed for the gate. So Lennox turned to Mannik and tried to pretend she was calmer than she felt.
‘And…?’ she asked again.
'And what? Kellas?’ Mannik was still preoccupied. ‘You don’t need to worry about him. He won’t bother us. He's as aloof as he is good looking. He talks to his friends, all two of them, and that's it. The rest of us are beneath him. He won't even look at you, never mind talk to you. So you’re safe. H
e’s not one of the ones you need to worry about.’
Lennox didn’t ask who she did need to worry about. She already had a good idea who.
The flow of seniors running out of the castle gates had dwindled to nothing. Lennox and Mannik headed back to Feliformia, side by side, to change for lunch. It was a new experience for Lennox. In all her previous schools, she had never known someone take their role of guide so seriously. But Mannik seemed to need to be her guide more than she needed him as a guide. Calgacos was a painful mistake for her, but for him, it was an ongoing torture. He was actually suffering more than she was. She did not respect him. What was there to admire in this cave of a boy, who sheltered and cowered from everyone, hanging round his teachers like a parasite? But she saw his pain, and felt sorry for him; and this a new feeling. It was the first time she had felt sorry for anyone other than herself.