Scarlet went quiet again.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to say any more, my eyes drifted shut, and I fell back into the sleep I’d been so rudely awakened from.
Ghosts and disappearing girls could wait for tomorrow.
I was desperate to get down to breakfast and tell Ariadne what had happened, despite Scarlet’s misgivings.
I looked over at the Evergreen table when we arrived, but there was no sign of Violet. Ariadne was already at our table, scrutinising her porridge. We sat down, and I filled her in on the previous night’s events.
“Violet disappeared?” she said, eyes wide. “Again?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure Miss Fox wasn’t involved this time,” Scarlet replied sarcastically. “This was a whole different kind of disappearing.”
“And you’re certain there was no one else in the library?”
“Of course! I looked everywhere. Nobody. She was there and then a few seconds later she was gone.” Scarlet leant back in her chair, tipping it so far I thought she was going to fall over. “Explain that one.”
Ariadne’s eyebrows knitted in puzzlement. “Okay, well, I can’t. Not without finding out more. All I know is that she was back in her bed this morning. I asked her if she was coming down for breakfast and she just grunted at me.”
We all sat in silence for a moment, considering it.
“Oh,” said Ariadne, “but I did notice that she had some library books poking out of her satchel. They could be the missing ones – the classics and pony stories. But why would she be stealing books when she could just borrow them? It doesn’t make any sense …”
Mrs Knight walked up behind Scarlet and pushed her chair upright again. “Miss Grey, do you want to do yourself an injury?”
My twin didn’t answer, and instead just picked up her spoon and gobbled a mouthful of her porridge.
Mrs Knight frowned and sat down in her seat. “Goodness, didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“My mother is dead,” said Scarlet loudly, and carried on eating.
My mouth fell open in horror, and the whole of the Richmond table went silent.
“Well, really!” Mrs Knight managed eventually.
Lots of the other pupils were staring at us, and I felt my cheeks flush red. I thought of kicking Scarlet under the table, but it was too late. The damage was done.
She seemed oblivious. “What are you looking at?” she yelled at everyone. Even Penny looked taken aback.
“Scarlet Grey,” said Mrs Knight, “you are excused! Don’t come back until you’ve learnt how to talk to your betters!”
Scarlet slammed down the spoon and stormed off.
Now everyone turned their stares to me. I gave a weak smile, thinking life at Rookwood had definitely been less embarrassing without Scarlet around. Why did she have to be so hot-headed?
That was not the only time my sister caused trouble that day. She seemed to be on a mission to annoy every teacher in the school.
We sat in physics on the tall stools behind the heavy block desks. Miss Danver had let Scarlet and I sit together in her lessons. There was a slight problem with this: the rather scatter-brained teacher couldn’t tell us apart. Whenever I put up my hand to answer a question, she called me Scarlet. At first I forgot to correct her – I’d become so used to having to answer to my twin’s name.
“Ivy,” she asked at one point, “could you go and get the wires from the cupboard, please?” We were supposed to be making electric bell circuits.
I stood up.
“No, not you. Ivy,” she said, pointing a thin finger at Scarlet.
“I’m Ivy, Miss,” I pointed out, as Scarlet snickered.
“Oh.” She put a hand to her mouth, momentarily puzzled. “Well, then. Scarlet, can you go, please.”
She then began chalking up the electric diagram on the board. Scarlet headed for the supplies cupboard at the back of the room.
A loud bang and a worrying whooshing sound shortly followed.
Miss Danver frowned. “Penny, will you go and see what Scarlet’s getting up to in there?”
I shot a look at Ariadne, who sat a few seats away beside the silent Violet. Ariadne shrugged.
As a triumphant-looking Penny got up from the back of the class and went in, I watched, frozen, awaiting the inevitable.
“Ah! Scarlet! What are you doing? Miss! She’s got water everywhere!” As Penny spoke, a trickle of water pooled out on to the floor.
“Turn that tap off right now!” the physics teacher shouted.
“It’s stuck!” I heard Scarlet yell back. I fought the urge to slam my head on the desk. Why had she turned on the tap?
Miss Danver put her hands on her hips and headed in, struggling with the tap before managing to turn it off. She then emerged, pulling Scarlet by the arm. The bottom of her long dress was soaked. “Scarlet Grey,” she said, “why exactly did you think ‘go and get the wires’ meant ‘go and flood the place’?”
My twin narrowed her eyes. “Well, I didn’t mean to do that, obviously,” she said.
Our teacher’s face was red and her nostrils flared. “Water and electricity should not mix, young lady. Get out of my classroom. You can come back at three o’clock for detention!”
“But Miss—” said Scarlet.
“Out!”
“I’m writing this down in my book, Miss,” said Penny haughtily, despite no one asking her. She adjusted her blue hair bow that had gone askew and pulled out the prefect notebook from her pocket. “Well done, Scarlet.”
Scarlet grabbed the notebook from her and tossed it to the floor. Then she stalked out of the room, leaving Miss Danver open-mouthed.
I put my head in my hands. My twin and I may look identical, but sometimes I wondered how we could even be related.
“I can’t have detention,” said Scarlet, as if not believing it would make it not true.
“Of course you blooming well can. You behaved like an idiot.”
“No, I mean, I can’t do it. I have to keep Violet under constant surveillance. Ariadne saw books in her satchel, and I reckon they’re the stolen ones. She must be going to return them! I could follow her and see whether they’re the ones that went missing. How am I going to do that if I’m stuck in the physics classroom?”
We were walking down the corridor for the last lesson of the day: ballet.
“You’re not. There’s your answer. Why were you messing with the taps, anyway?”
“I was thirsty.” Scarlet shrugged. “I just turned the tap on for a second, and then I got distracted thinking about the water that we found under the bookshelf. And then when I tried to turn it off, the stupid thing got stuck.”
I sighed. Trust Scarlet to find new ways of getting into trouble.
Suddenly, my twin pushed me back out of the flow of girls moving between classrooms and into an alcove. “I’ve had an idea,” she whispered.
Oh no, not again. “What is it this time?”
“You take my place. At detention.”
“Scarlet, no—”
She looked around, making sure no one was listening. “Miss Danver can’t tell us apart anyway. It’s a brilliant idea.”
“No, it’s a terrible idea.” I tried to carry on walking, worried we’d be late for ballet, but she pulled on my arm so I couldn’t go any further.
“If you take my detention for me, I can find out what Violet’s up to.”
“Why can’t I find out what she’s up to?” I asked.
“Because if someone’s going to confront her, it’s going to be me. I’m the one who stands to get in much bigger trouble here if Penny gets any more evidence on me! And besides, are you really going to have the guts to stand up to Violet?”
I gaped at her. I’d stood up to Miss Fox, hadn’t I? Did that mean nothing?
“Well, that’s settled,” Scarlet said. “You go to the detention, I’ll keep an eye on Violet.”
Before I could even argue, she was darting away through th
e crowds.
So at three o’clock, I was back in the physics classroom.
Miss Danver looked up from her desk, where she was marking work. “Ah, Scarlet,” she said. “Come in and sit down. One hundred lines of ‘I must do as I’m told’, please.”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied despondently, taking a seat and a piece of paper.
“You were doing so well these past few months. It’s been like having a different person in my lessons! I thought you’d turned over a new leaf.”
I sighed. “So did I.”
I had barely written five lines when there was a knock at the door. I looked up at the teacher and, to my surprise, the colour had drained from her face.
“Come in,” she said.
It was Mr Bartholomew.
I held my breath, stared down at the piece of paper and tried to pretend I wasn’t there. It was no use. He’d spotted me.
“Grey,” he said, his voice flat and cold.
I looked up slowly. “Sir?”
But his attention had already shifted back to Miss Danver, and he leant over her desk, his palms flat on the surface. “This child has misbehaved,” he said, like it was a statement, rather than a question.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, her voice quivering.
There was a moment of painful silence. “And do you think that writing lines will dissuade her from doing so again?”
“I … well, it’s—”
“It will not,” he said. “Creative punishment. I want you to remember those two words. Children are endlessly thinking of new ways to make trouble. We must stay one step ahead of them.”
Just the sound of his horrible, throaty voice made me feel unwell. I blinked at my five lines and they began to swim in front of my eyes.
“What was the offence?” he continued.
“S-she nearly flooded the classroom,” Miss Danver said. “She shouldn’t have been touching the taps.”
For what seemed like forever there was no sound but the headmaster’s rasping breaths. He stared out of the window at the dark sky, where the morning’s misty drizzle had turned into an afternoon downpour.
“Yes,” he said, apparently coming to a conclusion. “Yes, that should do it.” He still wasn’t looking at me. “Four laps of the school, in the rain. That should teach her to play with water. I’ll be watching.”
My brain was tying itself in knots. Should I be Scarlet, and tell him he must be mad if he thought I was going to do that? Should I be Ivy and dutifully accept my punishment with no more than a ‘yes, sir’?
As Mr Bartholomew shuffled out of the room, I looked at Miss Danver imploringly. “Right now?” I asked.
Miss Danver shook her head as if mentally brushing herself off, and then regained her authority. “You heard the headmaster. Chop chop!”
I dragged myself to my feet and out into the corridor. As I walked along, I silently cursed my sister with every step.
This is all your fault, Scarlet.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
I came to one of the back doors of the school to find it held open by Mr Bartholomew, a sneer on his wrinkled face. The punishment he would give me if I dared to disobey was too terrible to contemplate.
I took a deep breath, and I stepped out into the driving rain.
I felt a little bad for making Ivy take my detention, but it was definitely a load off my mind. I sailed through ballet, managing a nearly perfect tour jeté. I was absolutely determined to keep Violet in my sights for the rest of the day.
I hadn’t intended to take Ariadne with me, but I bumped into her as she returned from hockey.
“Oh, Scarlet,” she said. She squinted for a moment. “Scarlet? It is you, isn’t it? It’s harder to tell you apart when you’re not standing next to each other.”
Well, I was going to agree with her. I definitely was. But then I realised I could have some fun with this. “No, it’s me, Ivy,” I said. “Scarlet’s got detention, remember?”
“Sorry!” she said, whacking her hand on to her forehead. “I’m such an idiot. So where are you going?”
“I’m tracking Violet. It looks like she’s heading to the library.”
“Right! I’ll come too.”
Ariadne followed, telling me every excruciating detail of what had just happened in her hockey lesson.
“… and then Clara hit the ball so hard that it ended up in the tree, and Mrs Briggs spent the rest of the lesson perched on a ladder, trying to knock it down with a stick.”
I nodded my way through the story, listening politely. I figured that’s what Ivy would do.
We walked into the library, and almost crashed into Miss Jones, who was wheeling a trolley full of books.
“Oh! Hello, girls,” she said, yawning. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” She leant down towards me over the trolley. “I couldn’t stay here last night,” she said in a lowered voice. “Mrs Knight caught me and said it was inappropriate to be hanging around after lights out.” She sighed. “I came in early this morning. No sign of the ghost, but … I swear the books on that shelf were different again. I’m telling you, someone’s been messing around with them.”
“Can ghosts move books?” Ariadne asked, sounding a little frightened.
“I don’t know,” Miss Jones replied. “Maybe. It could be a poltergeist. One of those angry spirits that flings things about. But who knows – everything still seems neatly arranged. I almost wonder if I should report this to the headmaster.”
The last thing we needed was him getting any more involved. “We’ll help you find the culprit, Miss.”
“Thank you,” she said absent-mindedly, before bustling off into the stacks with the trolley.
The library clock quietly chimed three times, and we spotted Violet approaching the front desk.
I marched over to her. “Hey, Violet!”
She was wearing her satchel, and I could see the books peeking out of it. Now’s my chance to prove these are the stolen books!
“Gotcha!” I tugged on her bag, hard, and the contents came spilling out.
Oh.
They were just physics textbooks.
“I was returning them,” said Violet quietly, and her dark eyes burned into mine with such intensity that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? Haven’t you done enough?”
She gathered the books up from the floor and dropped the whole pile on to Miss Jones’s desk. Then she walked off angrily, her bag swaying as she went.
“Scarlet?”
I turned around. Ariadne was looking up at me. She didn’t seem happy. Rats.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Scarlet.”
“What? I had to know.”
“Ivy would never act like that. You shouldn’t have lied to me.”
“Oh. Well, sorry.” I changed the subject quickly. “But I think we’ve rattled Violet! I bet she’ll be back here later tonight, she’s definitely up to something. But this time we won’t wait until she sneaks out of your room. We’ll be in here already – and catch her in the act!”
Ariadne had been looking sulky, but her eyes lit up at this plan. “Let’s report back to Ivy!” she said.
I went back to our dorm, mind alight with thoughts of catching Violet.
As I sat down, Ivy walked in, and she was soaked. Her hair and clothes were dripping wet, and she was shivering.
“I hate you,” she said to me. She picked up a threadbare towel from the chair and started rubbing her face with it.
“What? What have I done? And why are you so wet?”
“Mr Bartholomew was a special guest at your detention. He made me run round the school in the rain.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yikes. Glad I wasn’t there, then.”
She threw the towel at me. “You just don’t get it, do you?” she yelled.
“Get what?” It was so strange to hear her talk like that, snapping at me. She usually just went along with everything I said and did.
“What I went through. I had to pretend to be you, for ages! And you’ve just made me do it again!”
I frowned. “We used to pretend to be each other all the time, or have you forgotten?”
“No, Scarlet,” she said, and I couldn’t tell whether her eyes were wet from rain or tears. “You’d say you were me, and then I’d get in trouble. There was no ‘we’ about it. It was always you. And then you were gone, and I had to …”
There was definitely a sob there. I started to feel a bit sick.
I’d been so annoyed with Ivy for doubting me, for making new friends, and I hadn’t even stopped to think what she’d been through.
“I’m an idiot,” I said.
Ivy’s eyes narrowed. She was clearly wondering what I was getting at.
“I’m such a colossal idiot that you could probably see me from space.” I gave her a (very damp) hug. “I won’t do it again. And I’ll make an effort to be more thoughtful. Forgive me?”
“I still hate you,” she said. But she hugged me back.
Night fell, and it was time to hunt for Violet.
Ivy was still cross, but she insisted on coming with us. “I’m not letting you go alone,” she said. “You’ll just get into even more trouble.”
Violet had left her room at the stroke of midnight the night before – I had heard the grandfather clock chime – so Ivy and I slipped out of our room at half past eleven. Ariadne met us in the corridor.
“I told Violet that I didn’t feel well and was going to the sick bay to find Nurse Gladys. She won’t be expecting me to come back,” she whispered, eyes gleaming.
I smiled, impressed. “Well done, Ariadne. We’ll make a good liar of you yet. Let’s go!”
“It’s freezing,” said Ariadne, as we crept through the dark corridors of the school towards the library. I shushed her, and Ivy made a face at me.
We trekked through the stacks of books and over to the dark corner. Ariadne sat down against one of the shelves sleepily, while I paced up and down, ready to pounce should Violet appear. Ivy was staring at the books.
“Hmm,” she said.
“What is it?”
“It’s just … this is where the ghostly footprints were, right?”
“Yes.”
“And it was around here that you saw Violet vanish?”
The Whispers in the Walls (Scarlet and Ivy, Book 2) Page 7
