“And these are the children!” she gushed. “Here they are, all four of them! Oh my word, this is your dream, Giles!”
“Just part of it, Clarissa—this is a mere fraction!”
“There’re more? That’s wonderful . . . you always said you wanted your own school, and here you are!”
Dr. Norcross-Webb was rocking with pleasure, his hands still clasping those of the professor. He was blinking back tears. “This is an emotional moment for me,” he said. “And something of a landmark. Boys, listen. Only a few of you will remember just how painful science lessons were last year. Remember, Ruskin?”
“Yes, sir, they were very difficult.”
“And why were they difficult? You will be too polite to say, so I will answer my own question. Because I was teaching them and science is not my strong point.”
“And, sir,” said Sanchez, “as you said, sir, we had no facilities.”
“Apart from the sauce pan,” said Ruskin.
“Which is precisely why I have invited a very old friend to join us. ‘Begged’ would be a better word. I wrote letters, I made calls—for this is Professor Worthington: zoologist, astrologist, and metaphysicist. How have we persuaded her to bring us her skills?”
“A question he’s not going to answer . . .” muttered Millie to herself.
“Because here at Ribblestrop, we’re at the cutting edge! Considerable investment has been made. Am I right, Professor Worthington?”
“Very considerable, Headmaster, but worth every penny!” She had a fluting voice. The notes lifted and streamed upward. “I’ve brought everything we need, I’ve just rolled off the ferry from Norway. So, the first job—which is the most exciting always, like Christmas and birthdays all rolled into one—is getting all the boxes into the lab and unwrapping them. When do we start?”
“Right away. No lessons, children. Today’s a day of preparation! Now, the orphans are upstairs—”
“There is a lab, isn’t there, Giles? You said there’d be a lab?”
“You have your own tower, Clarissa—north tower, I sent you a sketch! Routon and I were working all through August and the orphans are up there now.”
“Just a few jars and bottles, then, boys. It won’t take strong men like you more than a moment.”
Jars, thought Millie. She remembered the underground room and the rows of little faces. She felt her stomach turn over and she went cold. Somebody had saved her life. There was a whole stretch of time blanked out, but that room was etched in her mind . . . Were they going down there, now?
“Come on, Millie!” said Sam. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Something’s not right,” she said. “I’m telling you, Sam. Listen.”
But Sam was scampering off with the others, and she was left to plod wearily after them.
*
It actually took all day to unload the truck, and they didn’t go down any stairs. Professor Worthington’s laboratory appeared to be at the top of the north tower, which meant climbing one hundred and thirty steps countless times. The truck was piled high, and box after box emerged, followed by bag after bag. The names on the sides were unpronounceable, but two words became very familiar. Fragile screamed in red. Danger shouted in black. Here and there the skull and crossbones was painted, as if the goods had been supplied by pirates. Often the language was that of a distant country, the letters making no sense at all.
Conversation was not easy, but Millie persisted. Sanchez was the one she picked, and she tried to make him listen. “You think I was dreaming, don’t you?” she said.
“You weren’t well,” said Sanchez. “You admitted that.”
“I saw what I saw. I was not having hallucinations. We are moving stuff, and I think it’s the stuff I saw—jars, bottles. Bottles with animals inside!”
“Oh, come on. You were frightened, Millie, you were exhausted . . .”
“That doesn’t mean you see things that aren’t there!”
“Don’t shout at me!”
“Then stop calling me a liar!”
Sanchez stepped back in frustration. The girl opposite him was like no girl he had ever met, and yet again she seemed ready to do him violence.
Ruskin stepped in: “Millie, nobody is calling you a liar.”
They paused on one of the landings, sweating and panting.
“How much else did I make up?” whispered Millie, furiously. “What is all this? Am I just trying to get attention?”
“I did not call anybody a liar,” said Sanchez, bitterly. “Come on, keep moving.”
“Look, Sanchez, I saw something dangerous. You said yourself strange things were going on last term. Children ran away. One boy disappeared completely.”
“That was Tomaz and he went home. All I’m asking, Millie, is what we can do. Can you find this place again?”
“Possibly not, but I can try.”
“You have the map? The one you found.”
“I didn’t just find it—it was given to me, with my food.”
“Where is it now?”
“I dropped it. It’s somewhere under that staircase. Look, what you’re saying, Sanchez, is forget all about it. That is your solution. But I’m telling you, that lab is really very weird . . . laboratory. I nearly died down there, I still don’t know why I didn’t! That policeman was down there too—and he was asking me about what I saw.”
“Did you tell him?” said Sam. “If it’s against the law—”
“Of course I didn’t tell him! I don’t talk to policemen or headmasters—I don’t trust any of them. Look at this place!”
“Millie,” said Ruskin. “Your box is coming undone, you’re spilling stuff.”
“Shut up. Look at this place. There is no way this is a proper school—it’s the most dangerous place I’ve ever been. He lets you go wandering onto railway lines. He lets Sam get his skull broken. And then, just when we all need a rest, we’re made to unload a truck.”
Sanchez took Millie’s box and set it on the steps. The children looked at each other and Millie wondered if she should try again or simply hit someone. The frustration of not being believed was hurting even more, and her skin was fizzing as if she’d been sunburned. She’d had two hot baths. She’d eaten well and slept on a camp bed the captain had rigged up for her, having smothered her fury that there were clearly no facilities for girls. Still, the urge to set off down the drive and make that phone call—the urge to leave all this nonsense behind her—rose up again. “It’s slave labor,” she muttered. “Slaves to a bunch of crooks and weirdos.”
“Millie,” said Sanchez, gently. He sat down on the steps and the others did the same. “We are simply helping move equipment. You can’t expect the new teacher to do it by herself.”
“What about the lift?” said Millie. “Why aren’t we using the lift?”
“Because there isn’t one.”
“I saw one! They don’t want us to know about it, but—”
“But you don’t know where you were!”
“I was under the school, I know I was. Damn this, what’s her name, this woman? Professor Something?”
“Professor Worthington,” said Sam. “I thought she looked rather strict.”
“I thought she looked nice,” said Ruskin.
“You’re not listening to me! What about the invisible person who saved my life? God give me strength, why won’t you—!”
“God should give you manners,” said Sanchez, and Millie stepped forward with fists clenched.
“I’ll show you manners,” she hissed. “Do you want round two, Sanchez? Any time you want, I’m ready!”
“Ah!” said a voice. “Having a rest?”
The four children looked around, guiltily. A woman was beaming at them from the landing above. She’d changed into a filthy white coat and her hair was wild. She peered through large safety goggles. She had coils of thick cable over her arms and shoulders. One was looped round her neck.
“Not much more,” she cried. “We’re on
the last leg! Put the boxes outside, we’ll ferry them in—it’s pandemonium in here! Keep going!”
*
After dark the headmaster emerged on the terrace with a trolley of soup and rolls. They sat on the steps under the first glimmering of stars, chewing happily.
“Where are the orphans?” said Sam.
“Inside the lab,” said Sanchez. “Didn’t you see?”
“I didn’t go in.”
“At the top of the tower. The orphans are doing the plumbing.”
Millie said, “How can they do plumbing?”
“Talk to Asilah,” said Sanchez. “He’s telling me, that was their job, some of them. They work in a factory as slaves, and the headmaster paid for them to leave.”
“Oh, right,” said Millie. “I am getting the whole picture. Slaves in Bogga-Bogga Land, slaves now at Ribblestrop Towers.”
“Yes, you ask if they are unhappy,” said Sanchez. “Unlike you, they are prepared to work.”
“It’s called exploitation, Sanchez. This whole place is wrong.”
“Where’s Bogga-Bogga Land?” said Sam.
“Sam,” said Sanchez. “It’s a place she makes up because she knows nothing about them and is also racist.”
“You think I’m a racist?”
“Have you spoken to them? Do you know anything about them? They want to be here!”
“They don’t know any better, do they?”
“Millie,” said Sanchez. “We are all so tired.”
“Listen. What if a group of people have been doing animal experiments? It’s possible, isn’t it? And now, a crackpot scientist arrives with a whole load of orphans at her disposal. How can you tell me all this is in my imagination? Last term they lost a boy! Is that suspicious, or is that suspicious?”
“Okay,” said Sanchez. He was gritting his teeth. His hands were fists. He spoke quietly. “We’ll go down, Millie. We will go down and see.”
“When?”
“Soon!”
“You promise?”
Sanchez closed his eyes. “Anything, Millie. I just want you to stop talking for a bit and running our school down. And by the way, I’m not being personal, but you’ve got a nasty sore on your lip and it’s bleeding.”
Chapter Fifteen
“When I was at school,” said Dr. Norcross-Webb, hours later, “you had to keep your hands off.” He was sitting by the fountain, stirring coffee. The star-studded night had given way to the first pink strand of dawn. The children sat beside him. “I vowed that if ever I was in charge, the children would put their hands on. You can only learn by doing.”
“I’ve certainly learned how to move boxes,” muttered Millie.
“How much do you know about electricity, Sam? Ever wondered what it really is? Ever seen the lightning land between your feet or felt a blast of volts right across your heart?”
“No.”
“That woman . . . Look at her.”
They peered upward and saw a thin frame leaning out of a window over some winching gear.
“She waits for a thunderstorm,” continued the headmaster. He wiped a crumb from his chin. “She waits for the thunder, then she goes outside and flies a kite on a metal cord. Why? Why would she do that, Millie?”
“Because she’s insane?”
“Yes!”
The headmaster fixed Millie with a devilish smile. “Exactly right: she has the insanity and the madness of genius. She wants to harness the elements. Under her command, I have seen dead things stand up on their hind legs and dance. And I’m not talking about putting a charge through a frog, Sanchez. I’m not talking about experiments that were done two hundred years ago: I’m talking about new science—science that hasn’t even reached the journals yet. We’re in the frontline here, boys, Millie. Planting the flag, leaping onto sands that haven’t seen a footprint.”
“Why is she teaching us if she’s so high-powered?”
“Ah, what a good question. She is to be our scientist in residence. This lady has her research facility here and will teach in the mornings.”
“And what exactly is she researching?” said Millie.
“New energy,” said the headmaster. “Lightning.”
“Hello-oo!” A high voice was yodeling from the tower top. The headmaster leaped to his feet.
“Everything all right?” he called.
“Giles, it’s fantastic—come on up. We’re ready for takeoff!”
“How much can we cram into one day, Sam? Sanchez? Are you needing your beds?”
“No, sir,” said Sanchez.
“Discovery doesn’t wait for the sleepyheaded. I tell you something: when I was your age I got two hours a night.”
*
The first thing Sam noticed as he pushed open the laboratory door was a large pair of hairy knees sticking out from under a bench. He noticed them because in his exhausted state he tripped over them and, as he was carrying a box full of test tubes, the result was noisy.
“Sam!” said the owner of the knees. It was Captain Routon.
“Hello,” said Sam. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing off, lad. Finishing off. Been at this for weeks; it’s nice to see you up so early. Meet the team!”
Sam looked around and noticed the room was full of orphans. The light had a blue tinge, because their hands were nursing blue jets of flame. The lab was completely round and high-ceilinged: the children were dangling from rafters, cables, and shelves. The air was that of a firework factory: if there was any oxygen, it was fighting among clouds of acrid smoke. Sam peered into it as one of the smallest orphans curled upside down on a spike just under the tall cone of the roof. His tie dangled in his face and he used his shirttail as a rag, polishing a thin coil of wire to a dazzling shine. His blowtorch muttered in the back pocket of his shorts, the flame soft and green. As Sam watched, the boy reached behind him, coaxed the flame into a powerful, shrieking jet, and hoisted it round to his knees. He played it expertly over the coil. Suddenly a new fountain of sparks was foaming onto the backs of his friends. They didn’t notice it. An even smaller boy was ripping open a sheet of solid metal, dragging some kind of power tool down its center: another shower of sparks and that same, dreadful sound of express train. Sam closed his eyes.
“Is that the last?” called Professor Worthington. She was wearing large gauntlets now and a filthy white lab coat. Her makeup was running in little sweaty channels down her nose and in front of her ears. She gave the impression of someone melting: she had big front teeth and she trembled like a nervous horse. She was smiling and shaking. “Are we ready?”
“Okay, okay!” shouted Asilah. “Henry, get back.”
The orphans lifted their thumbs and Henry was eased gingerly away from the winch.
Professor Worthington pressed a fat red switch on the wall and the room exploded in light. Fluorescent tubes popped and flashed and the tower room was suddenly luminous. But what was the hissing? Sam’s eyes hunted for snakes: there were enough glass tanks to house something terrifying. Then Sam saw the gas taps, set into the stone wall: they were open and pumping gas. Anjoli was grinning, moving from nozzle to nozzle with a flaming taper, and everyone gasped at the jets of flame. Ruskin’s eyebrows were burned from his face and he cowered backward. Millie leaped into the center of the room, holding singed hair. The orphans were capering joyfully: not one had a tie that wasn’t singed or a shirt that wasn’t stained with soot.
“This is mad!” cried Millie—but her voice was lost. Above her the ceiling was opening, folded back by invisible wires, powered by hydraulics that whispered as calmly as the gas jets. Sam rubbed his eyes, but a whole section of roof really was opening in petals, and the dark blue of the starlit dawn seemed close enough to touch.
“Hey, careful,” said Sanjay. “You’re on the gantry.”
Millie allowed little hands to draw her back to safety. The floor on which she’d stood was now opening too, and a long piece of Meccano, like the struts of a crane, was pushing upward.
Telescopically it extended and extended, cogs whirring and tiny cables straining: up to the ceiling that wasn’t there, beyond the tip of the roof-cone and still extending. Then the orphan with the blowtorch—his name was Israel—stepped confidently from his beam, out onto it. Still it unfolded, so the child rose with it out into the breezy night. He scampered higher, his gray shirt billowing off his shoulders, a sailor in the rigging of a tall ship. Millie just about heard his voice singing something. The notes fell about her.
“Acha, yes,” said Asilah. “Everything’s okay. My brother says is okay.”
Yet again, thought Millie, for the hundredth time, I’m in a dream, I’m in some kind of lunatic asylum. And the maddest thing is I haven’t yet left. She was caught by a snatch of freezing air. I should be dead . . .
“We’ll find out how the world works!” shouted Professor Worthington. “We’ll ask a few questions!”
This isn’t right, thought Millie. This isn’t a school . . .
Explosions ripped across the sky.
*
Lady Vyner was jolted into a sitting position and her breath came in quick gasps. She heard Caspar scream and then she heard him wail. Utterly disoriented, she fumbled for her glasses. More explosions, quick as gunfire. Lights blazing. It was the north tower, opposite: they were blowing up her home, with her inside it and her grandson, heir to the Vyner dynasty.
She blundered to the window, slipping dangerously on rat-eaten rugs. An empty bottle skittered across the floor and an ashtray clattered. She pushed the curtain up and stared out. Someone was letting off fireworks.
*
“What a lovely idea,” said the headmaster, gazing upward.
Israel had a pocketful of rockets. He climbed to the very top of the needle and stuck the fireworks one by one into the metalwork. The rockets soared up and burst, and great handfuls of red stars blew gently off in the breeze.
“Why fireworks?” said Millie.
Asilah was sitting close by. “Just a blessing,” he said softly.
“To thank God,” said Sanjay.
Someone started to sing—it was Israel, who was descending now. All at once the tower was full of the most beautiful music. More fireworks were crackling, the gunshots battering back and forth over the park.