banks of monitors that left no corner of the building unwatched. This was because when he was absent, the pupils’ behaviour worsened.
Lem and Joey were taken to his office. As nervous as the boys, Mrs. Smith rapped on the door with a quivering fist. It was opened by a gargantuan lady the pupils called Gorgon, because of her mass of thick, snake-like hair She was the Headmaster’s secretary; with her witch-like face, deep, dark eyes and out-dated dress sense, she was the only member of staff able to abide long periods in the Headmaster’s company. She was also his wife, but nobody in Bordon knew this.
“Troublemakers?” Gorgon screeched after hearing the teacher’s tale. She stood tall, towering over Lem and Joey. “Trouble’s a hot pot of brewing tea, tearaways. You might think you’re pouring it fine, but every now and then some splashes out onto your arm, scalding you.”
Despite their predicament, Joey and Lem suppressed a smile.
They were ushered in and ordered to sit before Gorgon’s desk. She slotted her bulk into her armchair behind the desk and picked up the phone. She called the Headmaster, spoke just two words that the boys didn’t catch, and hung up.
“He will see you at his home. This might mean a note on the Board.”
The boys gasped. They had heard about the Board: something the Headmaster used to make notes about each and every pupil. It was scary to think that someone had what basically amounted to a file on you. This reminded Joey of a school rumour about Watchers: birds, under the Headmaster’s spell, that soared the skies and watched the pupils out of school, then to report their findings to their master, who would update the Board accordingly. It was even rumoured the Headmaster had a crystal ball with which he ascertained everyone’s futures.
So, the Headmaster instilled fear in all. And now the boys were being taken to see him.
Out the fire door they were led, along the winding path, into the trees. The gate was locked, but Gorgon had a key. Through they passed; Lem and Joey thought they could feel the air drop temperature, but hoped that was their imagination.
The cottage approached ominously. The Headmaster had bought it twenty years ago, when he first moved to Bordon. .
For Sale: Quaint and old cottage, tiled roof, whitewashed walls, set in middle of circular garden, fenced off. One attic, 2 bedrooms, a living area, kitchen and substantial basement area. Modern conveniences. Must see. £350,000
The Gorgon unlocked and opened the front door.
They had expected to see walls lined with old paintings, possibly a few diplomas or old photographs of the Headmaster. Instead, the interior of the cottage was more like the hallways of a secret laboratory.
The walls, floor and ceiling were brilliant white, illuminated by overhead fluorescents. Throbbing brightly under this glare was a red painted line running down the centre of the floor. At its start just inside the front door was marked “PUPILS FOLLOW.”
“You follow that line now and don’t you stray. A big pot of trouble brews for any who veer off the red line. Go now.”
Although following the red line would ultimately lead them into greater danger, Lem and Joey moved down the hallway quickly, eager to get away from the Gorgon. She didn’t follow them but rather pulled the front door closed without stepping even a foot inside. They heard the lock engage, and wondered what secrets and horrors lurked here that warranted such tight security.
The red line wound this way and that. The cottage seemed bigger inside than out, a maze of halls and rooms. Eventually, the line terminated at a heavy wooden door.
“Knock on, then,” Lem said.
“No way, you knock on.”
Lem twisted the handle and opened the door. He pushed it wide and stepped back. Both boys stood there, gazing but daring not to step into the room beyond. They hadn’t liked that red line or the finality of its ending at a lone, unmarked door.
The room was dim, lit only by a pair of lamps on the right-hand wall whose beams barely reached the left side, thus leaving that portion of the room enshrouded in grey gloom. But there was nothing in the room worth displaying except for a single large oblong table in the centre, and two other doors that faced each other. Otherwise, the room was bare. No paintings hung on the walls, no furniture or other decoration resided. Just that table, which the boys found themselves drawn to. Before they knew it, they had entered the room and were leaning over the table.
The entire table was covered by a scale model of the town, exact in every detail. Lem saw the church and its tall spire with missing tiles. Joey noticed that there was graffiti on the bridge over Grewth River. Their eyes swept across this map in awe, for what they saw they recognised, and everything they recognised issued memories from the hidden depths of their minds. There on Hark Field were indentations left by the circus that had recently departed; right there where the organisers of the circus had parked their trucks, Lem and his little brother had poked their heads under the tent and had watched the entire show. And over there, a roundabout where Joey had watched two cars, skidding on December ice, crash into each other. He could see the crushed flowers laid in the roundabout.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?”
The boys turned their heads. In a dark corner there lurked the Headmaster, as ever located in the wheelchair that had borne him since his spinal injury in the Falklands War. He had been at home all day, yet still he wore his ever-present out-of-place corduroy suit of green, with the tie knotted right up into his neck as always, and his sagging jowls covering that knot. The Headmaster was rumoured to be seventy-nine, looked over a hundred, had the energy of a man a third his age, and on the school grapevine was fabled to have escaped from a mass grave in some forgotten World War II extermination camp, slaughtered the camp’s entire German staff, and then escaped on foot into Paris, where successful negotiations with the Resistance had delivered him back home. And it is beyond the powers of this author’s research to prove or discredit this piece of folklore.
Above him was the infamous Board. To the boys, seeing that so-talked-about piece of wood was like coming across the bogeyman. Until now, they had barely believed it existed.
The Board stretched the entire length of one wall. A column on the left displayed the names of every pupil attending the school, with a row along the top listing different characteristics, such as: PUNCTUALITY, APPEARANCE, SUBVERSIVENESS, MENTAL STRENGTH, PHYSICAL STRENGTH, others. Then long black lines had been drawn, connecting pupils to other pupils. This maze of lines had created a tree of shapeless boxes into which the Headmaster had squeezed a tight and untidy jumble of comments too illegible for any but the author to read. It was like some crazy graph penned by a drunken man riding rapids. The dimness of that side of the room helped none.
Out of the deeper shadows of the corner that author came, wielding an air of mystery and fear that was shamed by a soundtrack of squeaking wheels. Yet the boys stiffened and clutched at each other’s arm. It was a moment
pure to children’s heroic fiction. Joey tried to smile innocently, Lem tried to speak; yet the air knew only one sound: squeak!…squeak!
Then the chair stopped rolling, and the Headmaster lay beyond the shadows, the fact of his frailty now promoted by a bright overhead light. Old he was, and weak, but there lived within that debilitated shell wily power that burned now in his once-green eyes. Green once, but no more. Young he had been, but no more. Innocent, a saint, powerful and loved … but no more.
Still the boys shivered with fear, but there was nothing to worry about here. And the old man smiled to show his guests how silly was they were being.
“Don’t be so nervous, young sirs. If trouble awaits you, it will be another day. In fact, if this day warrants a place in your diaries, you might want to call it a good day. I have excellent, excellent news for you.”
5
March 18th
Me and my new friend Joey were taken to the Headmaster today, but it was a good day. He said he was “rewarding our vigilance against the non-committal attitude of the weak.” And so