by R. A. Spratt
‘I asked for all of Ian’s tutoring buddies to be brought to my office,’ said Mrs Hurst. ‘They should be waiting outside.’
Friday went straight to the door and stepped out into the corridor.
There were three students sitting on the bench. One was a really tall and athletic boy who looked like he played a lot of some sort of football, or was in training to be a professional wrestler. Then there was a thin boy whose leg was in a cast from toe to hip. From the amount of misspelled messages scrawled on his cast, it had clearly been there for some time. The third student was a short, wiry girl who was chewing gum and listening to music through earbuds.
‘Stephanie Gerraldi,’ said Mrs Hurst with an exasperated sigh.
Stephanie didn’t even look up. The music in her earbuds was so loud her head just bopped along.
‘Don’t punish her,’ urged Ian. ‘She didn’t actually cheat. When she showed me the paper, I told her off and took them to put back. She just wanted to do well in her exam.’
‘She broke into my office,’ said Mrs Hurst.
‘To be fair,’ said Friday, ‘the way she broke in took impressive athleticism and ingenuity. You could give her an extra credit for PE, at the very least. But if you could train her to transfer that non-linear thinking and three-dimensional problem solving into mathematics, she could be a geometry genius.’
‘If I thought that she was going to take her success here as encouragement to pursue maths, I might,’ said Mrs Hurst. ‘But I know Stephanie. She’s more likely to take it as encouragement to pursue housebreaking. I have to suspend her.’
‘Thanks, Friday,’ said Ian. ‘Yet again, you’ve been technically right, but totally failed at being a decent human being.’
‘Might I suggest,’ said Friday, ‘that instead of suspending her, you send Stephanie to the University to do a two-week internship. I know a professor of geometry who would love to have an assistant for a fortnight, and he loves explaining mathematical concepts to people whether they want to hear them or not.’
‘Do you think she’d go for it?’ asked Mrs Hurst, looking at Stephanie chewing gum and moving to the music from her earbuds.
‘If Stephanie is lazy and prefers to take shortcuts,’ said Friday, ‘then the academic life could be perfect for her.’
Ian slouched off across the playground, just calling ‘See you at home’ over his shoulder to his mother.
‘He really misses Highcrest,’ said Mrs Wainscott. ‘He isn’t himself. It’s like there’s not enough scope for his imagination here.’
‘He just doesn’t like regular school because six hours a day isn’t enough for him to cook up his wicked plans,’ said Friday. ‘Hey Ian, wait up!’
Friday jogged over to catch up with Ian. He stopped to wait for her but didn’t turn around.
‘I just wanted to say goodbye,’ said Friday. ‘We’re going.’
‘Whatever.’ Ian shrugged.
Friday reached out and touched him on the arm. ‘Hey, are you all right?’
Ian looked at her. ‘You can’t solve everyone’s problems. You’re not Superman.’
‘No,’ agreed Friday. ‘I might have no fashion sense, but even I know not to wear underpants on the outside.’
‘But you forget to zip up,’ said Ian.
Friday looked down at her jeans.
‘Made you look,’ said Ian.
‘Are you okay here?’ asked Friday.
‘I’m fine,’ said Ian. ‘King of the school.’ He smiled his smarmy smile. The effect was immediately ruined by a football slamming into the side of his head.
‘Whoops, sorry, newbie,’ called a large athletic boy from the other side of the playground. His friends sniggered.
‘King of the school, huh?’ said Friday.
‘I’ve only been here three weeks,’ said Ian. ‘It’s going to take a while to let everyone else know it.’ He stalked away.
Chapter 13
Something in the Stroganoff
Two weeks later Friday and Melanie were still getting used to the new free-form curriculum. As part of their general studies class, they had been told to teach themselves an important life skill. So Melanie had taught herself how to get dressed without getting out of bed, an invaluable skill on a cold winter’s morning. And Friday had been trying to teach herself how to pick the lock on a pair of handcuffs with a paperclip.
Friday had handcuffed herself to the leg of her desk and spent two hours twiddling with the tumblers one at a time to no avail. She finally gave up when the clock ticked over to 6 o’clock, the time when dinner was served. It was beef stroganoff night. This was a new addition to the weekly menu, and Mrs Marigold believed in using hearty quantities of full fat cream, so it was delicious. Friday’s need to escape had become serious.
When she had first cuffed herself to the furniture, Friday had given Melanie the key to hold. Unfortunately, Melanie had become so bored in the first five minutes that she predictably fell into slumber. At the two-hour mark, she was in the deepest depths of REM sleep. No amount of loud yelling could wake her. And Friday didn’t have her arms free so she couldn’t throw desktop objects at her friend or pour a glass of water over her, as she normally would. Friday spent twenty minutes trying to build a mini catapult out of her stapler and a packet of thumbtacks. But the projectile couldn’t reach Melanie, who was four metres away on the bed.
In the end Friday gave up, and desperately resumed her attempts to pick the handcuff lock. This time, the lock popped in less than four minutes. It’s amazing the motivating power a bowl of hot beef stewed in sour cream can have.
As Friday and Melanie walked into the dining room half an hour after the dinner service had begun, the dining hall was already full. The room smelled heavenly. The scent of beef, mushrooms and cream, served on a bed of rice was divine. Beef stroganoff was the perfect comfort food after a long, cold winter’s day being mentally assaulted by the educational intentions of the teaching staff.
‘I’m so hungry,’ said Friday. ‘I thought I was hungry before, but now that I can actually smell food, I’m starving.’
‘I’m hungry too,’ said Melanie with a yawn. ‘Napping always works up my appetite.’
They picked up a tray each and joined the back of the queue.
‘I hope Mrs Marigold has made her crusty bread rolls,’ said Friday. ‘I want to be able to soak up all the sauce.’
‘It’s awfully quiet today,’ said Melanie.
Friday looked around at the dining hall. Considering that the large room was entirely full of students it was unusually quiet. Very little conversation was taking place.
‘The food must be so good they’re all focusing on eating,’ said Friday, sliding her tray forward and handing her plate to Mrs Marigold, who dished up a generous portion of rice, then ladled a huge steaming serving of stroganoff on top, the thick gravy pooling on the plate and soaking into the rice.
‘Yum,’ said Friday.
‘Bleurrggh!’
The horrible guttural noise could mean only one thing. Friday turned around to see that Jessica Bastionne had been sick all over the floor.
‘I’ve lost my appetite,’ said Melanie.
‘I’m going to be sick too!’ declared Trea Babcock as she leapt to her feet and ran for the bathroom.
Now several people started moaning.
‘Bllaaaggrh!’
Peregrine had been sick in a potted plant.
‘This is not good,’ said Friday.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Mrs Marigold.
‘You’d better call the Headmaster,’ said Friday. ‘It looks like the entire school is coming down with food poisoning.’
Chapter 14
A Conspiracy
By the time the Headmaster arrived, the dining hall was in utter chaos. Friday had taken charge and set up a triage system. Anyone who actually threw up was sent to sick bay, where the school nurse had ample buckets on hand and rehydration formula at the ready. Anyone who felt like they were going to be sick was sent
to lie on the floor by the windows.
The long tables had been dragged to the side of the room and stacked up to make space. The tall sash windows had been thrown open, despite the cold of the night, to let in fresh air and let out the horrible smell.
Mr Pilcher was doing sterling work. He whisked the hapless potted plant outside and cleaned up Jessica and Peregrine’s mess in quick time. So now the dining hall was simply a room full of students lying on the ground, clutching their stomachs and moaning.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ demanded the Headmaster as he burst in and saw 75 per cent of the student body lying ill on the floor.
‘Everyone’s sick,’ said Friday.
‘I can see that!’ said the Headmaster. ‘Sick with what?’
‘It looks like food poisoning,’ said Friday.
‘How dare you!’ yelled Mrs Marigold. ‘I’ll have you know I only use the finest ingredients. I have been cooking for forty years and I have never given anyone food poisoning.’
‘What about the Indonesian ambassador?’ asked Melanie.
Mrs Marigold went bright red and quivered with fury. ‘That was “poison” poisoning – there is a difference!’ She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
‘We’ve got no time for recriminations,’ said the Headmaster. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this urgently before the students get any sicker.’
‘It has to be the beef stroganoff,’ said Friday.
Mrs Marigold gasped. ‘But you said it was sublime when I served it last week.’ There were definitely tears running down the cook’s face now.
‘But look,’ said Friday, indicating the twenty or so students who were standing about, still in good health, ‘the vegetarians are all right.’
‘All those students are vegetarians?’ asked the Headmaster. ‘I didn’t realise we had so many of them.’
‘Low carb, low protein diets are very fashionable right now,’ explained Melanie.
‘I’m not a vegetarian,’ protested Lizzie Abercrombie petulantly. ‘Max and I are lactose intolerant. We can’t eat beef stroganoff because of the cream.’
‘It makes us fart,’ said Max.
‘Max!’ exclaimed Lizzie.
‘It’s true!’ protested Max. ‘One glass of milk and Lizzie sounds like a whoopee cushion – prrbt, prrbt.’
‘Shut up, Max!’ yelled Lizzie.
‘Silence!’ ordered the Headmaster. ‘With three-quarters of the student body poisoned, now is not the time to indulge in scatological humour.’
‘Prrbt,’ concluded Max.
‘Well, Melanie and I are fine,’ said Friday, ‘because we didn’t eat anything at all. So it must be the beef stroganoff.’
‘I’m glad I had a tin of baked beans in my study,’ said the Headmaster.
‘I knew it!’ accused Mrs Marigold, wagging her finger at the Headmaster. ‘I knew you had been secretly cooking for yourself.’
‘It’s not your cooking I’m avoiding,’ said the Headmaster. ‘It’s the dinner table conversation with the other teachers. I can never make it to the dessert course without one of them asking for a raise.’
‘So what was in your stroganoff?’ asked Friday.
‘Beef, obviously,’ said Mrs Marigold. ‘Sour cream …’
‘How sour?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘It’s not regular cream gone sour,’ said Mrs Marigold. ‘It’s sour cream from the supermarket. I bought it this morning. Its use-by date isn’t for another month.’
‘What else is in the dinner?’ asked Friday.
‘Just mushrooms,’ said Mrs Marigold.
‘Mushrooms?’ said Friday, her ears pricking up. ‘Where did you get the mushrooms from?’
‘I use a variety,’ said Mrs Marigold. ‘I get regular mushrooms from the supermarket, shiitake mushrooms from the greengrocer, and Mr Pilcher picked some mushrooms for me down in the forest.’
They all swivelled round to look at Mr Pilcher. He was dutifully mopping the floor with disinfectant.
Friday was fond of Mr Pilcher. He had been very grateful to her for catching the student who hit him over the back of the head with a shovel just the previous term. And she was very grateful that he had let her borrow gardening tools without asking too many questions. Friday knew the line of questioning she was about to engage in was sure to stretch their friendship.
‘Mr Pilcher,’ Friday began politely, ‘Mrs Marigold says you picked some mushrooms for her down in the forest.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mr Pilcher. ‘With the rain yesterday, there was a good big crop of them.’
‘Do you remember what sort of tree you found them under?’ asked Friday.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Pilcher. ‘An oak, I suppose. There was a clump of oak trees in that part of the forest.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Friday.
‘What?!’ demanded the Headmaster. ‘What is it?’
Friday held up her hand to silence him for a moment.
‘Mr Pilcher, what colour were the mushrooms?’ asked Friday.
‘White, mainly,’ said Mr Pilcher.
‘Plain white?’ asked Friday.
‘Well, you know how mushrooms are in the wild. Off-white, I’d say,’ said Mr Pilcher.
‘Excuse me,’ said Lizzie Abercrombie as she approached the group.
‘What is it, girl?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘It’s just, I saw Mr Pilcher picking the mushrooms under the oak tree,’ said Lizzie. ‘If the colour is important, I distinctly saw that they had a green tinge.’
Mr Maclean, the geography teacher, pushed his way through the crowd.
‘This is serious,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘Someone call an ambulance. Call a fleet of ambulances!’
‘What’s going on?!’ demanded the Headmaster.
‘A white mushroom with a green tinge that grows under an oak tree,’ said Mr Maclean, ‘is the deathcap!’
Everyone who was well enough to be paying attention gasped.
‘The deathcap,’ continued Mr Maclean, ‘is the most dangerous fungus in the world. If these students have all eaten deathcap mushrooms, they’re going to die!’
‘Good heavens,’ said the Headmaster.
‘Wait!’ said Friday.
‘There’s no time to wait,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘We’ve got to get the students to hospital. They need to have their stomachs pumped. They need to be on IVs. They need to be on the waiting list for liver transplants. This is deadly serious.’
‘No!’ said Friday.
‘What do you mean “no”?!’ said the Headmaster. ‘Three-quarters of the student body has been poisoned – it doesn’t get more serious than that! This will be the end of Highcrest. It will be the end of me.’
‘No one has been poisoned,’ said Friday. ‘Well, obviously, everyone has been poisoned. But not by deathcap mushrooms.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘You like to make out that you know everything, Barnes,’ said Mr Maclean, ‘but in this instance I know more. My master’s degree is in forest fungi. I recognise the description of a deathcap when I hear one.’
‘How does a degree in fungus qualify Mr Maclean to be a geography teacher?’ asked Melanie.
‘Fungi live in forests, forests are an ecosystem, ecosystems are something you study in geography,’ said Friday.
‘Talk about six degrees of separation,’ said Melanie.
‘These children are dying of mushroom poisoning!’ wailed Mr Maclean. ‘This will be the end of Highcrest Academy!’
‘These students can’t have eaten a deathcap,’ said Friday, ‘because they are too sick.’
‘What?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘If you eat a deathcap mushroom,’ said Friday, ‘it takes two to three hours for symptoms of nausea to occur. These students started throwing up after twenty minutes.’
‘Maybe it’s a new strain of deathcap,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘One with even stronger poison.’
‘Or maybe it’s something else entirely,’ said Friday. ‘Mrs Marigold, I’d like to inspect the scene of the crime.’
‘What?’ said Mrs Marigold. ‘I haven’t committed a crime.’
‘You haven’t,’ said Friday. ‘But someone has.’
Friday made her way into the kitchen. On the stove was a huge pot. It was three-quarters empty. But at the bottom sat three inches of bubbling hot beef stroganoff.
Mr Maclean covered his face with his tie.
‘Don’t go near it,’ said Mr Maclean. ‘The fumes could be deadly. Headmaster, you need to call in a hazmat team.’
Friday ignored Mr Maclean. She picked up a wooden spoon and tentatively gave the beef mixture a stir. ‘There’s a lot of stew left over,’ observed Friday.
‘I was going to use the leftovers to make pie for the weekend,’ said Mrs Marigold.
‘I like pie,’ said Melanie.
‘Everyone likes pie,’ said Mrs Marigold, breaking down into tears. ‘It’s because my pastry is so light and fluffy.’ She degenerated into wracking sobs, pulling up the hem of her apron to dab the corners of her eyes.
Friday carefully stirred the stew in small circles.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘Searching,’ said Friday.
‘For mushrooms?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘No,’ said Friday. Her spoon knocked something solid against the side of the pot. ‘Aha!’
‘What is it?’ said Melanie.
‘Let’s see,’ said Friday. She carefully scooped out a small glass jar. It was covered in brown creamy sauce. Friday used the spoon to carry it over to the sink, turned on the tap and rinsed the sauce away. ‘Just as I suspected.’
‘What?’ asked the Headmaster.
Friday picked up the bottle in her hand. ‘Ipecac syrup,’ said Friday. ‘It’s considered old-fashioned now, but ipecac syrup is actually a treatment for poisoning. If you take it, it makes you throw up. Doctors used to use it to get poison out of a patient’s stomach.’
‘So it’s harmless?’ said the Headmaster.
‘No, it’ll make you throw up,’ said Friday. ‘But that’s all. It won’t cause liver failure, kidney failure and cardiac arrest like a deathcap would.’
