Professor Sullivan, our old master, had always eschewed the company of other fencing instructors. He was a man apart and we liked him like that. Bell End was a different sort of fish – he was much keener to jostle for the top dog spot. The first with the chalk in his hand, the first of the two to slap the other on the back, you know the sort of chap.
Eichstiech had an Olympic gold, which rumour had he hadn’t taken off since he’d won the wretched thing sixty years ago. Although at least he didn’t wear it outside his clothes the way Bell End did.
Both Billy and Freddie hung back with their team before play. It was just a ‘friendly,’ but we still had to rustle up one of the younger, more promising épéeists to make up our sabre numbers. Her name was Emille and she was seeded out before I’d finished my stretches. This meant that between Portia and me, we could only afford to lose one bout if we weren’t to lose the match. Good one, Star.
When Freddie and Billy saw Portia, they waved at her like a two-boy fan club. Looking at Billy, I caught his eye, and he smiled. I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t been a bit hasty in deciding I didn’t fancy him. I mean, he was soooo blond and fit and not to mention about four inches taller than Freddie and two years older. Looking at Freddie, I still wanted to fall into a heap of desire, but Star’s reasoning wasn’t to be so easily dismissed. She was right – Billy was far less complicated. Maybe he deserved another chance.
With Portia as my unspoken enemy, I was lurking with the year below, doing my Supermans, which I suppose made me stand out, only not in the fantastically cool way I wanted to stand out.
I spotted Billy out of the corner of my eye, loping over to Portia and saying something to her, probably ‘Where’s Calypso?’ to which she probably replied, ‘I don’t know, but I hope she has that flesh-eating germ, don’t you?’ Only Portia wouldn’t have actually put it like that. She would have just implied it with an enigmatic shrug. Just the same, whatever she said made Billy laugh.
Billy’s name was called with mine for next bout by Professor Eichstiech. Normally, Portia would have hooked me up at the back to the electrical apparatus. But given she was now my enemy, I figured I’d have to rely on Emille, or worse, fumble pathetically on my own in front of everyone. But unlike a normal enemy, Portia was too much of a toff to be petty. I realised her aloof demeanour wasn’t going to wobble over someone as insignificant as me as she hooked me up in a more or less friendly fashion. She even wished me luck. This made me cross because I wished she was petty so that I could tell Star and everyone else how petty she was.
I could feel Bell End’s eyes on me as Billy and I touched our gear to make sure it was wired up to record hits properly. In consideration of my reckless emotional game with Portia, I emptied my head of all thoughts. I didn’t want to end up in a humiliated puddle at Billy’s feet. I could feel Billy’s eyes on me even though I couldn’t see them behind his mesh mask after our salute.
Professor Eichstiech called, ‘En garde! Ready! Play!’
I made a compound attack from the start, a feint to provoke Billy into a parry and then a trompement to deceive the parry. But I lost my right of way with a crossover, which is illegal, as you can’t cross your legs in play.
After a yellow card (penalty), I was starting to wish I really was in the infirmary with that flesh-eating disease. Billy anticipated every move I made and successfully riposted. I knew things were going badly, but later I came forward fast, picked his blade up and made a cut across his chest, after which I began to gather my nerves and concentrate. Just the same, my comeback, such as it was, came too late to win the bout.
Bell End took me aside after I had shaken Billy’s hand and congratulated him for rinsing me. ‘Bloody, bloody idiot,’ Bell End said. He also used another word which, if a pupil used it, would mean a gating. He was shaking with anger he was so rattled, and I suspected it was because this was his first outing to Eades as the new fencing master, and he probably thought he had something to prove. ‘Stop being such a bloody girl, Kelly. Now get a grip, think with your brain, move with your body, slam ‘em with your blade.’
I went over to the refreshment table and drank a juice so I wouldn’t have to watch Portia fencing Freddie. I even chatted to a group of Year Sevens just so I could keep my back to the piste.
Billy came over and said ‘Hi,’ which startled me so much I spilt the juice down my white jacket. Thank goodness I’d taken my metal lamé off, otherwise it would have been ruined and I’d have had to borrow Portia’s.
‘How’s things?’ Billy asked, looking at the spillage.
‘You were with me on the piste,’ I snapped, imagining he was having a dig at my form as I dabbed away hopelessly at the orange stain, lest it spread over my breast.
‘Good bout, I thought,’ he said.
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you. You weren’t rubbish.’ I was quite glad I had the spillage as it meant I didn’t have to look at him and show him my blush.
‘Here, let me,’ he offered, dipping a paper napkin into his plastic cup of sparkling mineral water and dabbing at the spot on my chest.
Even though I was wearing my breast armour it still seemed incredibly intimate. I looked down at his long fingers as the stain disappeared, and then I looked up into his eyes and there it was, that look of adorable protectiveness, just like the time he saved me from the girl-eating dog.
‘I wondered if you were going into Windsor this weekend again?’ I blurted idiotically.
He nodded. ‘I think that’s it, don’t you?’
I looked around confused.
‘The stain,’ he explained, pointing to my chest. ‘I mean, I think it was a successful operation.’
‘Oh yes, the stain. You’ve done the most incredible job. I mean, you could do it professionally if you wanted. Not that you would,’ I added, realising what a hole I was digging. ‘I mean, you’re madly bright and, well, you probably wouldn’t dream of becoming a stain spotter, would you? That would be ridiculous.’
He laughed. ‘You always make me laugh, Calypso,’ he said.
‘You make me laugh too,’ I told him flirtily.
He looked awkward then, as if he had to run to the loo. ‘Anyway, thanks for being understanding about the txt and, well, everything.’
‘You mean lack of txt,’ I teased. Only Billy didn’t smile back. He looked confused. ‘Not that I mind,’ I hastened to add. ‘I mean, you’ve been busy with the fever of exams building up. And it’s not as if I’ve been staring at my mobile waiting for it to ring or anything blatantly tragic like that. No, I’ve been wildly busy myself,’ I rambled on. ‘Hardly even know I own a mobile sometimes.’
That was when I saw Freddie looking at me. Only he wasn’t looking at me in a nice way. He was shaking hands with Portia and looking at me like I was the biggest bitch in the world. In that paranoid second, I decided she must have said something nasty about me to him.
While I was looking at Freddie, Billy shuffled off, muttering something about Portia winning again. Bloody Portia, I thought before remembering she was on my team.
‘Lucky none of the teachers saw you,’ one of the girls from a lower year whispered to me.
I turned to her distractedly, having no idea what she was talking about.
‘You and the Eades captain, Billy, isn’t it?’
‘You were all over each other,’ added another. ‘We’d never get away with that. It must be so cool being in Year Eleven,’ she said dreamily.
I wish.
I didn’t get a chance to speak to Freddie before our names were called because after his bout with Portia he was surrounded by all the fawning girls in lower years. And then when our names were called together I was in an unfit state to fence again. As we touched each part of one another’s bodies and blades to make sure the electrics were working, I felt the blush creeping up. Emille had already lost two of her bouts. I had lost one. Portia had won two. If I lost this bout, we’d be counting on Emille, which meant we may as well surrender. I had to beat the p
rince’s arse.
Wired up, standing on the en garde line, attached to the electrical point recording device, I saluted him casually. Then, placing my mask over my face, I concentrated my mind as best a girl can when she’s an emotional whirlpool of confusion over which fit boy she fancies the most or, more to the point, which fit boy fancies her the most.
Then the president called ‘Play,’ and I advanced swiftly down the piste, preparing for a focused attack. I knew Freddie’s form well. I just hoped he hadn’t shifted it since we last fenced.
What I really wanted to do was break distance (a fancy way of saying run away back down to the other end of the piste) to stop from impaling myself on his sword and throwing my arms about him and pulling him then and there in front of the world. I’d seriously be disqualified for that, though.
I was sang-froid personified as I advanced towards HRH, though. Billy may have rinsed me, but that only made me more determined to see that it didn’t happen a second time. I won my first point, and after that I made damn sure Freddie’s target area was continually threatened for the rest of the bout.
I was unbelievable, in fact – shocked by my own ice-cold nerves and amazed by my ability as each lunge set the electrical recorder lights flashing and buzzing like a techno nightclub show. I was a veritable Olympian. I’d never played so well, although every move I made felt familiar and right – in fact there was an eerie sense of déjaÁ vu about the whole bout. I was indestructible, and what’s more I didn’t even feel the few cuts Freddie did manage, and in sabre that’s something. After a bout my torso and arms were always covered in bruises and welts.
I made an offensive action so as to draw his counterattack, parry and riposte. When the distance between us was so close that I wanted to rip my mask off and snog-age him senseless, I remained the consummate professional. I was going to fence in the 2008 Olympics, and no boy, however fit or royal, was going to hinder my play. I delivered my cut as Bell End’s words rang in my ears, ‘Slam ‘em with your blade!’ And slam him I did, good and hard, setting the buzzers off.
At the end of the bout, I triumphantly tore off my mask and walked toward Freddie to shake hands. I could hear Bell End clapping and yelling like a football hooligan through cupped hands, ‘That’s my girl! Well done, Kelly. Cut the little prince down to size.’
‘Good game,’ I said as Freddie shook my hand formally.
I knew that my head was a sweaty pulp, but for once I didn’t care. The clear head I’d maintained during play became a muddle of confused feelings as I looked into Freddie’s ink-blue eyes.
Portia was detaching me from behind, but the electricity of what I felt for Freddie was still coursing through my system. He was still distressingly fit, even with his hair all plastered to his head, and suddenly I wondered what would happen if I did just kiss him there and then on the piste? I reached my hand out to brush away a lock of hair from his damp forehead.
He didn’t move to stop me, but he said, ‘You and Billy looked like you were getting on well?’
It was a question I didn’t know how to answer immediately, and as it happened it was one I didn’t get a chance to because Star came bursting into the salle and started calling my name. I wished she hadn’t made her entrance just at that moment, because I knew now that I needed to talk to Freddie properly – to see where things really lay between us.
‘Darling!’ she called out in an OTT drama queen-ish way as she threw her arms around me. At first I thought she was just messing around, and Freddie laughed, but he still left without having said anything really meaningful, like, ‘I won’t go to the Euro Royal Bash Thingamee if I can’t take you with me, Calypso.’
I didn’t even get time to finish my fantasy before Star pulled me away. It was only when we got into the changing rooms that I realised she was really crying.
‘It’s Brian – he’s gone missing!’
TWENTY-TWO:
Mayhem in the Pet Shed
‘I’m sure he’ll be okay, darling,’ I reassured her after I’d changed out of my gear. ‘Snakes are quite good at looking after themselves, remember?’
Star looked at me pointedly as she replied, ‘They also eat rabbits and hamsters, remember!’
‘Dorothy!’ I cried, charging off towards the pet shed, envisioning my poor little rabbit as a bulge halfway down Brian, the reticulated python.
Star grabbed me by the arm, though. ‘Dorothy is absolutely fine,’ she insisted crossly. ‘Georgina’s waiting at the pet shed in case Brian comes back.’
‘Phew.’
‘And for the vet.’
‘Oh, thank God. For a minute there …’
‘See how you reacted when you thought Dorothy was in danger,’ she pointed out, a little self-righteously.
But then something hidden in her sentence suddenly hit me. ‘What do you mean, waiting for the vet?’
‘Well, unfortunately, Absinthe’s got a bit missing off her,’ she explained as she continued her trot towards the main building.
My voice was weak with horror as I chased after her. ‘A bit missing off what?’
Star was running along purposefully, pausing to peer into hedges and shrubs as she replied casually, ‘Only her ear. I suppose it’s mostly blood, but can we stop discussing Absinthe? The main thing is finding Brian.’
We dashed a little farther along the net ball court, checking along the longer grass that ran along the fencing for Brian. Coming out of the chapel, we were stopped by a group of seven elderly nuns who were holding hands. They were all really small and old but ever so friendly.
‘Hello, girls!’ they called out in their thin little nun voices. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day for a stroll?’
‘Yes, sisters,’ I agreed, joining Star as she fell to the ground to run her hands through a patch of long grass.
‘Enjoying the fresh air, are we?’ one of them enquired sweetly.
‘No, I’ve lost my snake,’ Star explained, desperately.
‘Oh heavens, I do hope he’s not lost,’ one of them said. The others all agreed fervently. Some of the elderly nuns are a bit potty.
‘I just told you he is lost,’ Star insisted, trying not to get cross with them. Looking up at their little soft faces creased with years of prayer and concern, it was hard to be cross.
‘Heavens, Star, not dear little Brian!’ they exclaimed in one voice. They looked as stricken by her loss as she was as they clutched their rosary beads.
‘In that case we must all go back into the chapel immediately and say a prayer to Saint Anthony for your snake,’ said Sister Joseph firmly.
‘What a good idea, Sister,’ another nun said.
The others all nodded.
‘Yes, Sister Michael, remember he found your glasses this morning before we’d even got down on our knees, didn’t he?’
‘Did he?’ Sister Michael looked a little vacant.
‘Yes, Sister, he always does the trick, does Saint Anthony.’
We left them chatting about the marvels of Saint Anthony as we legged it to the next patch of shrubbery.
‘Poor Absinthe,’ I muttered. ‘You don’t think it could have been Brian that … ?’ I asked, because she hadn’t made that bit clear.
She was scouring a large shrub outside the main building as she replied, ‘Don’t be absurd, Brian wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not that I’d blame him – if he did eat the ear, that is. Absinthe makes the most hateful faces at him when there’s no one around to supervise.’
Now she was going too far. As much as I’d love to hate Honey’s rabbit, she was a sweet little thing, much nicer than last season’s rabbit, Claudine, who was always biting. Absinthe might be ridiculously mauve, but she didn’t have a mean bone in her body as far as I knew. ‘That’s not true, Star, she’s just a little rabbit, and how’s Honey going to feel when she finds out?’
‘Honey?’ She coughed and pretended to fall over. ‘Honey, feel? Ha! You of all people know what she’s like.’
There was nothing I could say to
that, so after helping her scour all the shrubbery around the main building, we legged it up the narrow stairwell towards our dorm rooms.
‘He’s so incredibly intelligent, Calypso; you’re always saying so yourself.’
It’s true. I do always agree with Star that her snake is intelligent, sensitive and even cuddly, but I only say those things because I love Star so much. Truth is, I’m a bit afraid of Brian and his beady eyes and flicking tongue. I know he’s not poisonous or anything, but if looks could kill, all the pets in the shed would be dead.
‘So that’s why I’ve been teaching him this special skill,’ she announced.
‘What sort of skill?’
‘Well, I wanted to be sure that he knows his way around the school so he can come and find me if he’s upset or something.’
‘Brian’s a snake, Star, not a homing pigeon.’
‘He’s always showing Daddy around our manor when he gets lost.’
Given that Star’s father is perpetually stoned and spends most of his time lying unconscious on the floor, I wasn’t madly impressed by this skill, but I kept my doubts to myself.
‘That’s why I leave his cage open. So he’ll come and find me if something’s wrong. Hilda’s taken Brian’s disappearance very badly, by the way.’
‘Hilda?’ I repeated, before I could stop myself. I swear, Star’s rat, Hilda, thinks of nothing but escaping Brian. She’s always running dementedly around in her little rat wheel. I couldn’t accept that she wouldn’t be throwing her little rat paws in the air at Brian’s disappearance.
But as I trotted along the corridor after my friend, I made what sympathetic noises I could. I know it sounds bad, but a part of me was actually pleased that I was the one Star had come to find in her hour of need. It was just like old times.
‘This is the main route I’ve been teaching him, see. I wanted him to know how to find me in the night. He’s nocturnal and pines for me. You know at home he always sleeps with me.’
A Royal Match Page 28
