A Talent for Trouble Page 3

  They slammed to a halt. Jesse undid his seat belt and prepared to run.

  Alice, speaking for the first time, croaked, “Are we there?”

  “Not exactly,” said Tatiana.

  Ahead of the minibus, the road dropped in hairpin bends through woods of fir and pine toward a lush, perfectly contained valley, its floor a patchwork of stone-walled fields dotted with cows and sheep and goats. To the west lay the lake itself, Stormy Loch, a silver sheet in which the surrounding mountains were reflected like a perfect upside-down world. To the east stood the castle, built of pale gray stone, with a pointed turret in each corner and twelve tall windows standing six each side like guards posted at its arched front door. An ancient tower, the original keep, stood in a copse beyond the castle, ivy twisting round its crumbling walls and rooks swirling about its roof, its dark brown bricks smothered with yellow lichen. It leaned perilously to one side.

  Patience had been right—it was like a storybook, and a sinister one, at that.

  “Right, out you get!” said Tatiana, and the first betrayal was set in motion as Jesse scrambled for the door.

  Six

  Race!

  The next few seconds were a blur. Jesse ran. Alice, clueless, did not. Tatiana, seeing her bewilderment, bellowed, “OKUYO! COME BACK HERE!”

  Jesse slunk back to the bus.

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Tatiana accused him. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Tell . . . tell me what?” faltered Alice.

  “From here on in,” said Tatiana, “it’s a race. It’s a rule. The last person to touch the front door loses. Honestly, Jesse! That whole journey up from London and you never thought to tell her?”

  Jesse looked at the ground.

  “Oh, I get it!” Tatiana laughed unpleasantly. “You did think of telling her, but you wanted to be sure to win! Jesse, she’s half your size! Did you really think she’d beat you?”

  Jesse mumbled something about small people being better at long distances, and to look at professional athletes and the Olympics. Tatiana said something rude about professional athletes.

  “But why?” asked Alice.

  “Never you mind,” said Tatiana grandly. “I’m canceling the race.”

  Jesse was outraged. “You can’t do that!”

  “I can, and I will! I’m considerably older than you, Jesse Okuyo, which means I get to do exactly what I want. And what I want is for you two to walk nicely together right up to the front door, and share the Consequence. I’m so sorry”—she turned to Alice—“I can’t do better than that. Literally nobody takes the train anymore, not since school forgot to pick up a bunch of kids and they had to spend the night at Castlehaig. That was before I was driving, of course. I’ve never forgotten anybody. Well, do svidaniya, as we say in Russia! Toodle-pip!”

  And with a toot of the horn, she left.

  * * *

  Alice and Jesse walked together along the winding road, and it was as though something had broken.

  “I wanted to tell you,” Jesse said. “I just couldn’t find the right moment.”

  Alice could have pointed out that there had been plenty of right moments over the past fourteen hours for Jesse to speak, but she didn’t. Instead, she thought about her story, when her circus girl made friends with a boy and freed the tigers. Writing that bit had felt lovely. Now it turned out that the boy wasn’t really a friend after all.

  It was confusing.

  Perhaps, if she had spoken, Jesse would not have done what he did. As it was, walking beside her in uncomfortable silence, he began to grow indignant. It wasn’t his fault, after all, if Alice didn’t know about the First Day Challenge. All the details were there on the school website. And as the fresh mortification of Tatiana’s onslaught subsided, he told himself that there were rules for this Challenge, and she couldn’t just go around breaking them, flinging her weight about because she was nearly eighteen and the major let her drive. Jesse himself never broke rules. He was famous for it, so famous that Fergus Mackenzie (who broke rules all the time) would salute when he passed him and call him Captain Fussypants.

  The point of the First Day Challenge was that there was only one rule: the last person to touch the front door LOST.

  And Jesse didn’t want to lose.

  His feet itched. His legs tingled. Every bit of his body wanted to run.

  They reached the valley floor, and the road was straight now, flanked on either side by pink and purple rhododendrons. Ahead was a pair of rusty gates, set in mossy pillars on which sat two chipped stone griffins. Alice’s apprehension grew.

  Suddenly, she wanted her mother.

  “This is it,” said Jesse in a strangled voice. “School.”

  Beyond the gates, the road curved through more rhododendrons and disappeared. He tried to picture the scene at school right now. Usually, on the first day back, the courtyard was full of students, cheering on the racers as they arrived from the minibuses. Even on the two occasions when he had arrived last and alone, running for all he was worth to prove that even though he had lost he wasn’t a loser, they had been there. Would they be cheering now? Or would they have disbanded, as disgusted as he was that Tatiana had canceled the race?

  Would the major accept Tatiana’s decision?

  He wanted so badly to run.

  Alice, pale to start with, had grown paler. Jesse could see she was nervous. He cast back to his own first day—he had been mortified at this point, knowing he had lost, but he had been excited too. Stormy Loch, at last! His brothers’ school! But then, he had been here many times already on Visitors’ Days. He wondered how it must feel to arrive knowing nothing.

  Very difficult, he told himself firmly as his feet twitched.

  He felt sorry for her, he convinced himself as his legs prickled.

  And then—ah, and then Jesse could take it no more! He didn’t care what Tatiana had ordered. He couldn’t just walk up to school, couldn’t ignore tradition, couldn’t face the humiliation, yet again, of being last.

  Sometimes it just feels impossible to do what is right.

  If Jesse could have seen himself running, perhaps he wouldn’t have been so scornful of his talent. He ran like a champion on his long, strong legs, and it was plain to anyone looking that he loved it. Jesse running was a beautiful sight—a miracle of movement.

  Alice, in contrast . . . Alice did not run like a long-distance Olympic athlete. Really, when she took off after him, she looked more like a small and furious terrier, and she trailed behind. The road sloped upward after the bend. She ran through the pain of her ragged breath, panted over the top of the hill . . . and there it was. Stormy Loch, the school itself, and in its gravel courtyard scores of students, ignoring Tatiana, were cheering them on, and they were terrifying . . .

  And then—oh, Jesse . . .

  Never look back when you’re running. At best, it slows you down. At worst . . . at worst . . .

  Jesse stumbled and fell. Alice’s feet, despite her heavy school shoes, grew wings. She sailed past him, resisting the urge to kick him. The cheers from the crowd grew deafening. She could see the door, the lion’s-head knocker gleaming, and Jesse was still behind her . . . For one glorious, triumphant moment she was sure she was going to win!

  And then—

  And then Fergus Mackenzie, the boy with the grin who drove Jesse mad, the red-haired genius and breaker of rules, stuck his foot right in her path.

  As Jesse Okuyo flew past her, finally breaking his losing streak, Alice fell face first into a puddle.

  Seven

  The Major

  From his study at the top of the southwestern turret, Major Fortescue watched.

  The room was a long way up, especially for a man with a cane, and it was impractical, being completely round and unsuited to almost all furniture, but it was worth it for the view. Up here, with the help of his old service binoculars, the major’s one good eye could see everything.

  This is what he saw, on that April morning.


  He saw a rowdy group of Year Eights at the end of the loch, trying to push each other out of boats. He saw Agnes Bartleby, she of sign-painting fame, spray-paint a giant flower mural on top of the Exploding Butterfly. Around eleven, he saw Tatiana maneuver the bus with unconvincing caution into its hangar, and some little time later he saw Alice and Jesse, running, and Fergus sticking out his foot.

  “Hmm,” said the major, thoughtfully stroking his beard.

  Patience Mistlethwaite had been to visit during the holidays, in secret, to meet him and to assess the school for Alice.

  “My niece is stuck in the past,” she had told him, before adding mysteriously, “She needs a new story—not to write, to live.”

  There were plenty of stories to be had, here in the valley in the mountains by the loch. The question was, mused the major, which one was right for Alice?

  From a crate by the fire came a feeble mew. He stumped over to it and struggled to his knees. Nestled in an old fleece blanket were six very young kittens, rescued by the major during the holidays from Morag, who ran the school farm and had been going to drown them. He held out his hand, and the smallest kitten crawled into his palm. Too many waifs and strays, his grandmother always used to say when he brought home broken animals—a cat hit by a car, a fox caught in a trap, most thrillingly a shrew dropped from the sky by an eagle. He had been collecting lost souls ever since.

  The kitten purred, kneading the major’s hand with tiny paws. The major chuckled. Then, casting his eye to the courtyard below, he saw that a revolution was taking place. He put the kitten in the pocket of his alarmingly green jacket, made for him by a long-departed boy with a Talent for Fashion, and instantly forgot about it.

  Fergus, Jesse, and Alice, he mused as he limped heavily down the ancient spiral staircase. An unlikely story, but why not?

  Why ever not, indeed.

  * * *

  Madoc Jones had never intended to become a geography teacher. Until a few months before our story, he had worked for an international wildlife charity and had been engaged to be married. But then his fiancée had run away to Costa Rica, and shortly after that he had lost his job and had gone fishing in Scotland to think about love and life and the future, and had met the major, who had offered him a job.

  “I can’t guarantee it will mend your heart,” the major had said. “But my school is in a beautiful place, and that will make you feel better.”

  Madoc knew only a little more about geography than the students, but he had turned out to be a fine teacher. He liked his subject and his pupils. He loved living in the valley. He just felt, sometimes, a little challenged by the school’s rules.

  “The person who knocks last on the front door is on wake-up duty for the rest of term,” he informed a mud-sopped Alice, shouting to make himself heard over the clamor of students offering their views on the race. “He or she does this by beating the giant gong in the entrance hall three times, just as the clock strikes seven. The person who arrives last, in effect, becomes the person who rises first. It’s called reveille, which is a military term referring to a bugle or trumpet call to wake up troops . . .”

  Alice glared silently. She knew what reveille meant.

  “You don’t have to do it on Saturdays and Sundays,” Madoc offered weakly.

  “There wasn’t meant to be a race.” Tatiana bustled forward, pushing everyone else aside. “I abolished it.”

  The idea of students abolishing rules was a completely new one to Madoc. “Can you do that?” he asked.

  Tatiana shrugged, like she didn’t really care.

  “The girl would have won if it hadn’t been for Fergus,” someone shouted. “He tripped her.”

  “No, I didn’t!” Fergus lied.

  Someone else produced a phone with a supposed video of the race, and passed it through the crowd to Madoc. The video was mainly of people’s heads.

  “Make Fergus do reveille!” someone shouted.

  “No, make Jesse do it!” someone else shouted back. “It wasn’t a proper win!”

  “The whole system is barbaric!” Attention was momentarily diverted by the spectacular appearance of Frau Kirschner, the art teacher, wearing nothing but a black bathing suit and generous dabs of bright blue clay. “I do not believe in these Challenges. They are anti-democratic. Every child should be free, like a beautiful bird. Also, the school should buy alarm clocks.”

  “I agree with you in principle,” mused Professor Voroyev, the philosophy teacher. “But can you replace an entire belief system with alarm clocks?”

  “What do you say, Jesse?” Madoc asked.

  Jesse, who was not enjoying his victory, mumbled that he didn’t know.

  “But did you agree not to run?”

  “There are rules,” he argued, and instantly regretted it when half his year group groaned.

  “Shame!” someone shouted.

  “BARBARIC!” thundered Frau Kirschner.

  “Fergus should do it!” shouted the crowd.

  “No, Jesse!”

  “Fergus! Jesse! Fergus! Jesse!”

  “QUIET!”

  The crowd fell silent. The major had arrived.

  Even in his bright green jacket with a kitten wriggling in his pocket, the major could not fail to impress. There were the active reminders of his years in the Forces—the patch over his left eye blinded in the Balkans, the limp from a bad break in Afghanistan. But there was also the hard glitter of his good eye, the massive shoulders, the wild beard he never quite had the patience to trim. He regarded Alice in silence. She raised her chin and tried to return his gaze but found it just wasn’t possible.

  “Miss Mistlethwaite.” It was a gentle foghorn of a voice, low and booming. “I’m afraid you will not like what I am going to say.”

  Alice’s eyes widened.

  “Someone must sound reveille, Miss Mistlethwaite,” he said. “Just as someone must sound the gong for breakfast and lunch and tea and dinner, and the end of classes and the beginning of study hall. The race is simply a way of determining who. It is not a punishment. We do not have punishments at Stormy Loch; we have Consequences. All actions have Consequences, and we must accept them. It is how we make our rules, and are able to live as a well-ordered community. Do you understand?”

  Alice did not understand but nodded anyway. The major turned his attention to Fergus.

  “And, Mr. Mackenzie. Since you seem so entertained by muddy puddles, you will help clean the pigpen for the rest of term.”

  There were pigs? Faced with a whole new source of bewilderment, Alice felt exhausted.

  “Do you agree that cleaning the pigpen is a suitable Consequence for your actions, Mr. Mackenzie?”

  “Yes, sir,” Fergus muttered.

  “Then our work here is finished.” The major beamed. “Welcome to Stormy Loch, Miss Mistlethwaite! Mr. Okuyo, Mr. Mackenzie, I am putting you in charge of our new student. Look after her well, show her around the school. Good grief, what on earth is that?”

  The kitten, bored with the major’s pocket, was climbing up his sleeve. Half a dozen Year Seven girls instantly surged around the headmaster. Alice, Fergus, and Jesse were forgotten.

  Alice stared at the kitten.

  “He rescues things,” Jesse murmured. “Last term it was a baby rook; this term it’s kittens. Look, Alice, I’m really sorry, truly I am. I just couldn’t stop . . .”

  He trailed off as Alice narrowed her eyes.

  Fergus ran his hands through his hair and said, “Pigs!” Both the others eyed him with dislike.

  “It serves you right,” Jesse said. “What were you thinking, tripping her up?”

  “Oh, shut up, Fussypants.” Fergus, who was already feeling like an idiot for what he’d done—pigs!—felt that he did not need a lecture. “I helped you win.”

  “I don’t need anybody’s help!” Jesse snarled.

  Alice sighed loudly and marched toward the front door. The boys stared, then ran after her.

  Eight
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br />   I Know What a Pyromaniac Is

  Even the most rebellious Stormy Lockers (yes, that is what they call themselves) feel a thrill of pride on showing off the entrance hall. True: rather like Cherry Grange, it has seen better days. Two panes of the twelve tall windows are still boarded up after that ill-advised indoor cricket match last summer. The stag heads hanging gloomily on the wall are almost bald; those suits of armor flanking the foot of the staircase are more rust than metal. And don’t get me started on the dust—all the housework at Stormy Loch is done by Lockers themselves, and they’re just not very interested. But Lockers do love those suits of armor, which go by the names of Lord Alastair and Lord Hamish, and every night when they go up to bed, they pat the stags (which may account for the baldness).

  As for the rest—look at the sweeping staircase, like something out of a film! The ceiling decorated with coats of arms! The vast stone fireplace with its leering gargoyles! You could fit a whole class in that fireplace, if you stuffed a few of the smaller students up the chimney. So, gloomy, a little. Not very clean, I grant you. But awesomely impressive?

  Yes! Yes! Yes!

  Alice—wet, humiliated, confused—tried not to let these splendors cow her. The boys led her in and, as everyone always did for new visitors, stopped reverently just inside the front door, expecting the usual gasps of admiration. Alice kept her small nose stuck in the air and said nothing.

  “Well, here’s the gong,” said Jesse awkwardly. He led her to an alcove to the left of the fireplace, where a giant brass disc stood suspended in an oak frame almost as tall as Alice. A mallet with a brown leather head the size of a tennis ball hung from a hook beside it.