***
The morning consists of French with Mr Digard, who spends the majority of the lesson standing near the door looking outside in the direction of where the fire-alarm was smashed- he’s clearly annoyed that he missed the incident that took place right under his nose.
Then, it’s English with Mr John Walker. I sit at the back by myself for this one, Dezza at the front for ‘extra-help’. At the end of the lesson, I monitor my mate closely and see him hand in both dream diaries. He altered his quite carefully during registration, and I’m hoping that he’s changed his sufficiently enough that they can be easily distinguished – his looked neater than my early morning scrawl. He’s been caught for copying my History work in the past.
I’ve told him repeatedly to add tabasco source to his jell o’ rice in order to help him dream a bit more.
The bell goes for break. I’ve been formulating my assault on Mr Washwater all morning: Time to put into effect the plan.
A seething mass of frolicking and boisterous students, with one intention - to exit the building - bustle past me as I head to the stairwell in the centre of the building. I take each step slowly, aware of how clammy my right hand feels against the railing.
Will he like me? Will he want to talk? Will he even remember who I am? I can’t stop the incessant chatter-box in my mind.
I take a left at the top and head down the corridor. I see a few straggling students walking towards the stairwell at the other end of the first-level corridor, but apart from that, everything is deserted.
The bell in my bag starts chiming and I freeze.
What the heck? Just shut-up I implore silently. Is it warning me? Is it preparing me? The noise stops just as soon as it started, but I’m left wondering if it will unexpectedly burst into song again, while I’m talking to my History teacher.
I’ve got to hurry though. I’ve got to head him off before he goes to break. I reach the entrance to his classroom, my heart pounding. His door is slightly ajar, and I knock on it, almost hoping he isn’t there, so I can at least say to myself that I tried, and then leave.
Nil response.
I push the door open and from the corridor, peer inside. I’m halfway in when the strap on my bag breaks again. For the second time, in as many days, all the contents spill out all over. I don’t even have the strength to curse, as I shake my head and look at the mess. The bell rolls all the way to his desk.
‘Miss Clover.’
I jump.
Alan Washwater stands in the doorway of the next classroom along, staring at me.
‘Hello Sir.’
‘Are you okay? How’s your head?’
He eyes me inquisitively.
‘It’s fine sir, a little sore, but okay. Sir, I wonder if you could help me. Can I ask you a few questions about history if that’s okay? Especially nursery rhymes and where they come from? In particular, the one about Mary, Mary quite contrary, and the one about the bells of St. Clements, and the......’
‘Hey-ey-ey-ey,’ he chuckles, ‘slow down.’
He takes a sip of the coffee in his hands and ponders me for a moment, before looking past me into the distance.
‘Brilliant! These corridor duties can be so dull. Of course, Nursery rhymes, you say?’
‘And, the history of Dante’s Island.’ I hope he likes the sound of this.
He does: His eyes positively explode at this, the cup hovering just under his lips.
I leave my bag – I don’t think he’s noticed the mess - and walk in his direction, not wanting to faff on like a fool trying to gather everything.
‘We’ll have you in the Archaeological club in no time.’ he muses. ‘Come in, Come in.’
I follow him into Mrs Tyme-Read’s classroom next door.
‘Mrs Tyme-Read has given me some old copies of National Geographic from the seventies she thought I might find interesting, I was just sorting through them. Dante’s Island, you say?’
I’m in, I’m in. I repeat to myself. I’m jubilant. I did it!
‘Yes sir, I would really like to know about that, but could I ask you about the nursery rhymes first?’
‘Bloody Mary.’
‘Pardon...’
‘Bloodier and more bitter than this school coffee.’ He grimaces at his beige cup.
‘Mary, Mary, Quite contrary....’ He laughs. ‘It was what I was teaching you yesterday, before you got whacked. You know - the Tudors and all that; Henry VIII’s daughter.’
He has a handsome face; I see where Eren, his son, gets his looks from.
‘Mary, you see, went against the flow of Protestantism and re-introduced Catholicism. She chipped and chopped away at anybody who opposed her. She murdered lots of people in just five short years, mainly those who opposed Catholicism. The silver bells and cockle shells were some of the torture devices she used and they were quite nasty, especially as in some cases they were used around a man’s...err, his...err…’
He pauses, clearly contemplating whether to tell me about them or not.
‘Yes…well, err, the pretty maids all in a row, which sounds like such a pretty line doesn’t it, is either referring to the execution devices she used on her opponents – she killed so many that they were all lined up in a row - or the line could refer to the series of miscarriages she had, trying to give birth to a son, to continue the Catholic line after her death.’
‘Nice, eh?’ He winks at me.
I try and take this in, but he’s already moved on to Oranges and Lemons.
‘Oranges and Lemons: Very interesting one, that one. No one can be sure, but it is very sinister nonetheless. Oranges and Lemons was a popular dance at the time and the bells, well, they were all landmarks in London. It seems that the bells themselves could be telling the story of a prisoner on his way to the gallows. As each bell rings, it tells the chilling chain of events leading to a guilty man’s date with the chopping block. A handheld execution bell was often chimed in the prisoner’s cell just before he was taken away to be decapitated in public...’
‘A hand-held bell?’
‘Yes – a large handheld bell. Bells have often been used to signal important milestones in people’s lives, you just have to think about Wedding Bells for instance. Bells are supposed to have a connection between this world and the next, so for instance, when a Roman Catholic Priest rings the Sanctus bell, he is signifying the elevation; the point where the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ.’
He eyes me with a puzzled expression, ‘I know you ring the bells at St. Harold’s, so, it might be good for you to know all this. Take the quarter peal you’re ringing on Friday. You’re marking an important event…the history of Dante’s Island.’
I’m struggling to take this all in.
Mass executions? Didn’t I sing these nursery rhymes in the playground at primary school?
I used to hold hands with the girls and boys to form an arch, and when somebody ran through, we’d bring them down and try and grab them, signalling their capture...with a lot of laughter. I had no idea that I was acting out real events. And, what about handheld execution bells for goodness sake!?
‘Sir, there’s one other rhyme I’d like to ask you about, the one about the Carrion Crow.’
‘Sorry. The what?’
‘The one where the man shoots at the Crow with his old bent bow, but ends up shooting his own sow...’
But, I can see that Mr Washwater has no idea what I am talking about. He’s looking over my shoulder at the window in the corridor.
‘No, Sorry Shelly. I don’t know that one, I’m afraid. Goodness, it’s noisy in the playground today.’
He swallows another mouthful of coffee and scowls.
‘Yuck.’
There must be a fight or something because there’s lots of noise coming from outside.
Mr Washwater continues.
‘Not familiar with the one you mentioned, but others like Ring o’ ring of Roses – children singing in the playground abo
ut receiving symptoms of the plague and then simulating their own death together by falling to the ground. Goosey, Goosey, Gander…’
My ears pick up at this.
‘Catholic Priests hiding and saying their Latin prayers - which were banned at that time - in small private closets, one of them gets caught, he refuses to say the protestant prayer, and he is thrown down some stairs to his death.’
He chuckles again, ‘By his left leg no less!’
‘What a really good topic to discuss, thank you Shelly.’ He raises his voice slightly over the din outside.
I smile, my heart is pounding, but it feels great. He took the carrot.
‘In fact, when your friends are ‘spitting out the rhymes’ about gangs and money, sex and murder, they may think they’re acting hard, but they’re actually only copying what’s been done for centuries, and pretty tamely too. Jack and Jill, Three Blind Mice, etcetera, etcetera – the most controversial rappers have nothing on these nursery rhymes of old.’
I consider this for a moment. The book, or the cherub, is warning me of macabre and sinister events to come, and what I’ve dismissed as innocent, nonsensical nursery rhymes are, in fact, anything but innocent.
Alan Washwater raises his cup to his mouth, ‘Now, Harley, Snarlington and Boule and the origins of Dante’s Island. My favourite topic…’
The window in the main corridor shatters.
Glass explodes over the floor.
Shards of it sliver and slide towards us. I turn to Mr Washwater who jumps and tips half his drink over himself.
There’s a crackle on a radio somewhere in the distance.
‘Wait here, Shelly!’
He strides out of the room, crushing glass under his feet. He grinds to a halt immediately outside.
‘You!’
I hear a stammering and stuttering outside, as Mr Washwater grapples somebody and forces them back into the classroom.
It’s Dezza...and he’s holding a brick!
‘It wasn’t me. I picked this up!’ He implores intensely as he attempts to brush pieces of glass out of his spiky hair.
In the distance, I can hear the sound of a car or something revving its engine. A rising crescendo of screaming students accompanies the sound. Somebody is now hollering something into Mr Washwater’s radio on his desk in his classroom next door.
Mr Washwater looks bewildered.
‘Did you throw this?’
‘No sir, I promise. It’s all kicking off outside. I’ve come to get Shelly.’
The tall History teacher has already accepted this as truth and runs back into the corridor. He turns.
‘Stay there!’ He commands earnestly.
He vanishes. I grab Dezza around his shoulder, ‘What’s happening?’ I hastily clear glass out of his hair.
Dezza knocks away my arms immediately. ‘Elvis is ‘ere!’
‘W-what?’
I hear Mr Washwater shouting into the walkie-talkie next door.
‘E’s ‘ere, Shel’, he’s wrecking the playground!’
I can’t respond.
Dezza grabs me by the arm and pulls me towards the door. We burst into the corridor and move into Mr Washwater’s room. As we enter, Ol’ Washo is shoving something into the bottom drawer of his desk.
He turns, startled, and jabs his finger in our direction, urgently motioning us to stay in the classroom, while he tries to shove the drawer closed with his knee.
His radio crackles as he picks it up, ‘He’s in the building. He’s in the building.’
‘He’s what? He’s where?’
Alan spins on his heels; he’s out the door and charging towards the stair well.
I break free from Derek’s grip and hastily grab my book and my bag and then head to the desk.
Where’s the bell?
I check underneath the desk. Nothing.
Has he picked it up? I check the immaculately and pristinely kept desk. The only thing out of place is his damp, beige coffee cup.
‘Shelly, what the ‘ell are you doin’ man?’
Dezza’s accent’s really coming out.
‘Derek, I don’t have time to explain. Put my stuff in my bag will you, I need to find something.’
I spot the bell next to the cupboard at the back of the room and sprint towards it. It’s rolling back and forth into the bottom of the cupboard.
I crouch and retrieve, but it begins to ring incessantly in my hands, the clapper thudding into the lip at a ridiculous rate. As I try to walk away, it vibrates with such an intensity, that I literally cannot hold it. It falls to the floor and slams itself back into the cupboard.
I stand up, looking at the cupboard, taking the hint.
Dezza’s jabbering away in the background as I open it and start sifting through old books on the shelves. I ignore him as I displace pile after pile; just history textbooks – old, dusty text books. I turn my attention to my right....and then I see it: A small A4 wad, with a blue spine and a laminated cover. It looks like a student’s project, but it reads:
The Hidden History of Jacobsfield’s Printing Press – A new approach by Alan Washwater.
In contrast to the filthy tomes, the sheen on the front suggests that it is brand new. I place it under my arm, grab the bell, and turn back.
Dezza is staring at me. He’s seen the bell chiming of its own accord. His mouth is wide open. As I walk towards him, I consider giving him an explanation, but there’s no time; we have to get outside.
I shove my bag down by the entrance.
I stop dead in my tracks.
From somewhere in the corridor, the rising crescendo of turbulent wasps echoes off the walls. I strain my senses to discern what it is I’m actually hearing, as the staccato pulse peaks and troughs. Getting louder…and getting closer. My book released butterflies. Does the other book release flies?
I flash Dezza a concerned look.
‘What has Elvis brought with him, Derek?’
His response stuns me.
‘Elvis has a dirt bike.’
Almost immediately, there’s a burst of throttle somewhere outside, frantic cries and the sound of running.
I lift the bag, stuff the book in the top, grab Derek and hoist him out of the classroom.
Alan Washwater is tearing down the corridor towards us. Sweat tumbles off his brow as he runs erratically. He’s firing information into his walkie-talkie as best he can:
‘He’s driven up the central stairwell. He’s driven up the central stairwell.’
The History teacher is nearly on top of us when a sallow faced boy, with jet-black hair, explodes into view, powering up the throttle on a white dirt bike.
Even from this distance, I can see the murderous intent etched into his twisted face – Our eyes meet.
He pulls back hard on the crank, hoisting the front wheel of the scrambler into the air, as he pitches it full pelt towards us at an unearthly velocity. The din from the engine crashes and echoes off the walls, sweeping towards us all like a maddened storm.
Washwater rugby tackles us through the door and we collapse into a pile. Elvis tears past us.
There’s a screech of brakes.
Somebody is barking instructions into the walkie-talkie.
‘Stay there, Alan, Stay there...’
He bends to retrieve it with one hand clasped weakly around my arm. He lets go, and in that moment, I make a split second decision.
‘Shelly. Wait...’
The panicked History teacher turns to see me crashing out into the corridor.
‘Elvis, what the hell do you think you are doing?’
Elvis turns his face back to meet mine. He’s less than forty feet away and pulling on the throttle. He ponders me for a moment, before a bloodless sneer curls on his lips and he shakes his head disparagingly.
‘You have no idea what is going on.’
He’s right, I don’t. I’m bewildered. He’s repeated the phrase he said to me in the living room.
He turns aw
ay and revs the bike, letting it steer a course to the top of the opposing stairwell, halting at the top. I stand for a moment, utterly disorientated. I sense Dezza by my side. Without really knowing what I am doing I grab his arm and tug at him.
A desperate Mr Washwater is on his hands and knees in his doorway beseeching us to no avail, to stay where we are.
I see Elvis pitch the bike down the first few steps and out of sight. My feet crunch against the last pieces of glass as I close in on the end of the corridor.
I feel responsible. It’s not just that he’s my brother, it’s what he’s just told me: He’s right; I have no idea what is going on and I need to know.
I charge towards the stairwell. Dezza huffs and puffs beside me. I peer over the top banister to see the white bike bouncing to the bottom, expertly handled by Elvis.
‘Derek, c’mon!’
I’m bounding downwards as quickly as I can. I’m only half way, when I hear the screams. Dezza suddenly lands face first beside me. Normally funny – not now though. He picks himself up, embarrassed.
I twist round the corner and descend the last flight at break-neck speed, before thrusting myself into the wide main corridor on the ground floor.
I grind to a halt, and stare, shell-shocked, straight ahead. My mind cannot conceive what I am seeing.
Chapter Eight
Grave Concern