Jolly Foul Play: A Murder Most Unladylike Mystery

by Stevens, Robin

  Kitty did not fling the ball away again. She did not have the chance. The third formers on our team got the bit between their teeth and began to score goal after goal. It was nearly a rout. Daisy and Kitty’s team lost by four goals to fifteen.

  Binny and her friends all jumped about cheering, and I clutched my stick tight in my hands. They were still chilled and damp from the leaves, and quite uncomfortable. I felt just as uncomfortable inside. Daisy would not even look at me.

  Then Lavinia came up to me and gave me a bump, shoulder to shoulder. ‘Chin up,’ she said, peering at me with her face frowning as it always does. I think that was Lavinia’s way of saying that it would be all right, though how she knew the sad things I had been thinking, I do not know. Perhaps Lavinia is more noticing than I have always thought.

  5

  To Kitty’s great annoyance, Binny and her friends went off on a jubilant lap of the pitch, while Miss Talent shouted at them. The rest of us congregated by the pavilion.

  The remains of the bonfire were piled up, just where they had been, the charred sticks all horribly damp and black, quite soggy in the rain. I looked between them and the heap of fresh firewood that hadn’t been used up on Tuesday, still stacked in the dry next to the pavilion. It was twenty paces between the two, and the dry wood was so close to the pavilion that it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the murderer to scoop up the rake from where it was leaning, under cover of going back for more wood, and take it to where Elizabeth was standing.

  Lavinia went up to the bonfire and began to kick through it with the toe of her shoe.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Clementine. ‘Leave it!’

  ‘It’s only fun,’ said Lavinia, kicking away, but I saw her flash a glance at me, eyebrows frowning, and knew that she had only said it for the benefit of the other dorm. Lavinia was hunting for clues in her own way. ‘Don’t be such a bore, Clementine.’

  ‘You are disgusting!’ said Kitty, understanding. ‘Really, Lavinia!’

  I wriggled as the clip dug into my thigh again. I still had not had a chance to take it out and hide it somewhere safer, or to tell the others about it.

  Daisy finally gave me a look, up and down, and I quailed a little. Then she stepped forward and began to toe through the rubble herself. She made it look as though she was doing it idly, but I knew that was all show. Daisy can never be still, but she never makes a motion that does not have a reason behind it. Then I saw her stiffen, a movement that I knew like looking at myself in the mirror.

  ‘Golly,’ she said. ‘How odd! That bit of wood there, it’s not a piece of wood at all. It’s a hockey stick.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Beanie. ‘It must be the missing one, the one Miss Talent was cross about! But how did it get here? And why is it … oh.’

  I froze. I could feel my heart pounding. We all stared at one another, and I could tell we had all had the same thought. Here was the missing stick, found mysteriously half burned on the bonfire. The rake had been found next to Elizabeth’s body, so we had assumed that it must be the murder weapon – but a hockey stick was really a much better weapon. It was exactly the right shape for hitting someone, after all. I had often thought how dangerous those sticks were when Daisy and Kitty were waving them about during matches. What if the rake had not been responsible at all? What if this was the murder weapon, and the rake just a blind? But how were we to examine it without the other dorm noticing?

  Then Kitty stepped up in the most marvellous way.

  ‘Do you know what I think?’ she said to Clementine. ‘I think that your team cheated just now. Why, I saw you – that flick’s outlawed!’

  Clementine, predictably, swelled with outrage. ‘How dare you!’ she cried. ‘You’re a rotten loser, it’s bad form!’

  ‘I say you cheated too,’ said Lavinia, moving to stand next to Kitty.

  ‘Lavinia Temple, we were on the same team!’ hissed Clementine. ‘You other dorm, you’re all awful!’

  Lavinia curled her lip, and Kitty squared her shoulders. Clementine had been rude about our dorm, and that was not acceptable. Then Lavinia put out her hands and shoved, and that was that, it was all-out war. Clementine shouted and Lavinia pinched her.

  It was the perfect cover. I crouched down – and so did Daisy. It felt like the most dangerous thing I had ever done. I looked at her, waiting for her to tell me to go away, but she was staring straight at the stick, running her eyes across it greedily.

  ‘Oh!’ she breathed, pulling an absolutely minuscule magnifying glass out of the pocket of her games skirt and squinting through it. ‘It is! Look, look at these stains, they’re blood, I’m sure of it! Oh, Watson—’

  She looked up, and for a moment we were eye to eye. She had said it without thinking, I knew, for she flushed, and looked away again.

  ‘How do you know it’s blood?’ I asked gruffly.

  ‘Oh, just look!’ said Daisy, holding out the magnifying glass to me, and I saw.

  The stick looked as though someone had stuffed it into the bonfire by the handle, but it must have rolled off again, for it was only charred, not burned. The face of it was blackened, but I could still see that there was something on it, a dark, dirty stain with something clumped on it.

  ‘Blood!’ whispered Daisy. ‘And hair! See? Hazel, what if the murder weapon wasn’t the rake at all? What if it was this?’

  Once again, we looked at each other, and this time we did not look away. Detective excitement crackled between us, and for a quick singing moment everything was right.

  ‘We need to hide it!’ I said. ‘In the pavilion?’

  ‘No!’ hissed Daisy. ‘We have to take it back to House, we can’t leave it!’

  ‘We’d be seen!’ I said. ‘It has to be the pavilion.’

  ‘Hazel,’ Daisy said. ‘Don’t be an idiot. You—’

  Miss Talent was approaching. ‘Girls!’ she said. ‘What are you doing? Really! Put that bit of wood down at once! You’ll get your games kit dirty!’

  Daisy dropped the stick and hid the magnifying glass in her hand. ‘Sorry, Miss Talent,’ she said. ‘We’ll go tidy up now, Miss Talent,’ and back into the pavilion we had to go, leaving the stick behind. Our argument had cost us a most important clue.

  As soon as we were back in the pavilion’s changing room, Daisy turned on me.

  ‘You’re a prize idiot!’ she hissed. ‘Why didn’t you go along with what I said?’

  ‘Because it was silly!’ I said. ‘We’d have got caught!’

  ‘We were caught anyway! And now we don’t have any evidence. Just after we discovered the real murder weapon, too! Ugh, I could scream!’

  Beanie, Kitty and Lavinia came rushing in then. Daisy turned to them, ignoring me, and I sat down heavily on a bench.

  My heart ached. I had been thinking about the hairclip. Which of the Five’s was it? I thought again about the person running into the woods. What if it was not a man at all, but one of our suspects? If so, we would be able to rule one of them out at last. After all, they had been seen fleeing before the fireworks began, when Elizabeth was still alive. If they were in the woods while the fireworks were going off, they could not have been killing Elizabeth. But which one of the Five did it belong to?

  These were important questions, I knew it, but I did not want to show the clip now, when Daisy was behaving this way. So I put it in the pocket of my skirt and did not say a word.

  6

  Deepdean School, Thursday 7th November

  Dear Alexander,

  We have had some important developments in the case. We have discovered that the murder weapon was not the rake at all. It was a hockey stick! The murderer tried to burn it, but it was no good, we found it in the ashes of the bonfire this afternoon. There was still blood on it, and Elizabeth’s hair (which is quite gruesome, I know), but before we could hide it, we were moved away. It is most annoying. We will have to have the stick in our possession if we are to prove the murderer guilty, and Jones innocent, but we are not sure when
we can get to it again. I do feel dreadful about Jones. I wish we could simply go to Miss Barnard and ask her to bring him back, but I know that will do no good. She will not believe us unless we present her with a truly perfect case.

  Our suspects are the problem. They all have secrets, but we have not yet found them out. We think we are close to most of them: we believe that Florence may have an illness that she has not told anyone about, that Una’s father may be Jewish, and hiding it, that Enid may have been cheating in tests, and that Margaret may have a secret with another of the Big Girls, Astrid, but it is hard to know for certain. We are going to try to break into the Five’s dorm tomorrow, to confirm our suspicions, but of course, that’s terribly difficult, and I don’t know if we will be successful.

  But at Games this afternoon, when we found the stick, I discovered one more important clue: a hairclip, under the trees at the edge of the pitch. It must be one of the Five’s, and it will rule whoever it is out, for someone was seen running away to the woods just before the time when the murder must have taken place.

  We will keep on following the Five, and their secrets must come out eventually! I only worry about the person letting out the secrets. It can’t be one of the Five, for they have no reason to, and every reason to keep the secrets hidden. Our friend Beanie and I overheard Florence and Una talking about it, and it sounds as though the Five really are not the ones responsible. They are trying to find out who it is as much as we are, and I am worried about what will happen to that person once they are found. I think they must be in one of the younger years. What if the Five – or the murderer – gets to them before we do?

  Write back,

  Hazel

  ‘What are you writing?’ asked Beanie, leaning over to peer into my lap. It was after tea, and we were all up in the dorm. I shut this casebook quickly.

  ‘Only case notes,’ I said.

  Daisy made a small snorting noise. ‘She’s writing to Alexander again,’ she said. ‘She can’t stop letting out facts about the case.’

  I withered. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked. I was trying to sound bold, but it only came out harsh and weak. ‘He might be able to help.’

  ‘Boys are distractions,’ snapped Daisy. ‘And Alexander especially so. Hazel, he is in a rival detective society – that is most dangerous!’

  ‘It is not dangerous!’ I cried. ‘Alexander is our friend, yours as well as mine. You know he’d never tell anyone else!’

  ‘I know you’re being a fool,’ said Daisy.

  My eyes smarted, and I gulped.

  Then Kitty came rushing into the dorm. ‘Oh, do come quickly!’ she cried, without noticing how Daisy was flushed, and I had turned away. ‘Another secret’s come out. It was in the front hall, lying in the very middle of the carpet. It must just have been put there, it wasn’t there when we came in from Games, remember?’

  ‘Who’s it about?’ Daisy asked quickly.

  ‘Another Big Girl,’ said Kitty. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Beanie sadly. ‘This is all so dreadful.’

  ‘Matron’s terribly angry,’ said Kitty as we rushed downstairs. I was glad to be thinking of something else, although this new secret did not sound nice at all. ‘She’s shouting at everyone.’

  And indeed, I could hear her voice, bellowing out questions.

  ‘Stop it! What is this?’

  I realized that this was the first time a grown-up had really seen the effects of a Scandal Book secret. Was this a good thing? Might this finally stop them coming out? Or would it make things even more terrible?

  7

  There below us in the very middle of the House hallway, under the big clock that measures out our lives, stood Matron, shoulders back, legs apart and hands outstretched. On her left was Elsie Drew-Peters, and on her right was Jennifer Stone, and they were both leaning towards each other, teeth gritted.

  ‘GIRLS!’ bellowed Matron. ‘Stop at once! This is not ladylike!’

  ‘It’s her!’ screamed Jennifer. ‘She did it!’

  ‘I never!’ cried Elsie. ‘I never, it wasn’t me—’

  ‘You liar! Why, the note says what you did!’

  ‘It isn’t like he was yours! Why, he wouldn’t even have looked at you if his mother hadn’t made him! He likes me, not you, you fool!’

  ‘You? Why, your nose is crooked.’

  ‘You’ve red hair! It’s a wonder you don’t dye it like Astrid.’

  ‘You’re horrid! I can’t imagine how he could stand to look at you.’

  ‘Well, he did more than that this summer, I can tell you.’

  Jennifer gave a shriek and lunged out at Elsie.

  ‘They’ve been carrying on with the same boy,’ whispered Kitty gleefully. ‘Lord Edgemire’s son, Charles. They only discovered it just now – that’s what the secret said. Isn’t it funny?’

  I did not think it was funny at all. My stomach crunched up sickeningly, and I heard again Daisy’s voice in my head saying, He doesn’t even like you like that, Hazel. You’re being a fool.

  I looked down at my feet and clenched my fists.

  ‘Not all of us are mad about boys, Kitty Freebody,’ said Daisy. ‘Not all of us are like you and Hazel.’

  ‘You say that now,’ said Kitty in a superior way. ‘You’ll see. Why, as soon as you’re presented at Court you’ll be married. It won’t even take a month!’

  ‘Really, I don’t see why I should bother,’ said Daisy. ‘A husband would only get in the way.’

  ‘Not all girls want to be married, you know,’ said a voice behind us. I turned. Clementine was standing there, watching the row. She had a rather nasty spiteful expression on her face. ‘Sometimes things go wrong in their brains. Don’t you remember Miss Bell and Miss Parker?’

  Daisy turned on her. ‘Be quiet, Clementine!’ she hissed.

  ‘And it’s not just the mistresses who’re like that,’ said Clementine, curling her lip. ‘Some girls are too. It’s terribly shocking, but it’s true. That’s what everyone says.’

  I bit my tongue. Clementine was being horrid, but something had just slotted into place in my head. Everything around me had gone very bright and clear. Some girls are not interested in boys. I know that, although it is an odd thought. At Deepdean, a girl who likes another girl – I mean, more than just a pash – is laughed at for it, and looked at oddly, or worse, sneered at. So a girl who liked another girl would try to hide it, especially if she was something important at Deepdean like a prefect. What if that was the answer to the mystery of Margaret and Astrid? What if Margaret liked Astrid?

  I wanted to blurt out my thoughts, but knew how dangerous that would be.

  ‘I wouldn’t listen to gossip, Clementine,’ said Daisy, without missing a beat. ‘You might hear something about yourself.’

  Clementine gasped. ‘I have nothing to hide!’ she said.

  Daisy caught hold of her arm. Clementine stumbled, and I saw Daisy put her lips against Clementine’s ear, and whisper something into it. Clementine’s foot buckled and her wrist went limp in Daisy’s grasp. ‘Should you like me to spread that more widely?’ asked Daisy, louder this time, just as the dinner gong went.

  ‘Take your hands off me!’ whispered Clementine. ‘No!’ And she went hurrying down the stairs, stumbling in her haste.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Daisy, but spots of colour had appeared at the tops of her cheeks. ‘It’s not just Elizabeth who knew things in this school, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Beanie sadly as we began to move down the stairs in the general dinner rush, everyone around us exclaiming about Jennifer and Elsie, who had been dragged off to Matron’s office to face punishment for fighting. ‘I don’t like any of this. I don’t think we’ll be the same again, will we? Everything’s changed.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Lavinia. ‘Nothing really changes in this dire place. If only it would!’

  But I thought to myself that of the two of them, Beanie ha
d it right. We all knew things now that could not be un-known, and that is the problem with knowledge. It stays in your mind, even when you wish it would not.

  During Prep, I looked over at Daisy, and got a nasty shock. Now, as I have said before, Daisy is always very careful to look industrious, and to take twice the amount of time she needs to do every bit of Prep, to hide the fact that she is cleverer than most of the rest of the form put together. But I know her and her work very well, and I saw at once what she was doing. The heading at the top was THE FACTS IN THE CASE, and below it ought to have been a list. It began well, in neat columns, but then Daisy’s enthusiasm had taken over and her pen had gone rushing too fast for the lines. Her thoughts exploded in scribbles and scrawls and circular maps with question marks all around them.

  I felt sick. In the Detective Society, I have always been the Secretary and the Vice-President, and Daisy is the President. That Daisy was trying to be the Secretary alone now only meant one thing – she was trying to do without me for good.

  I wished I could talk to Daisy. I wanted us to detect together, but our friendship had been upset. It had changed, like Deepdean, and I did not know how to put it back together again.

  8

  I stayed up late on Thursday, writing all that up, and so I was bleary when I was woken early the next morning, Friday.

  I remember feeling someone shaking my foot, and thinking confusedly that something was tied to it, something unpleasant. I groaned and flinched away from it, and then I heard Kitty’s voice saying, ‘Hazel. Hazel!’

  I opened my eyes, and said, as civilly as I could, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Rose Pritchett has run away,’ said Kitty. ‘Her bed’s empty, and the other dorm’s going quite mad. Jose is crying. Clementine loves it, of course.’