The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  For the first time, Amy wondered if Mother was wrong. Maybe floating wasn’t entirely wicked.

  She was tired of hearing things like ‘how are you ever going to get a husband if you can’t keep your feet on the ground?’

  She wasn’t sure about netball though.

  A bell sounded, from down below.

  ‘Grub’s up,’ announced Frecks. ‘Form an orderly rabble and proceed to the Refectory. Come on, Thomsett, we’ll get you there alive. Then it’s down to whether you can survive the worst Cook flings at you. Word to the wise, shun the semolina. I have it on an impeccable authority that it’s bat’s blood in sick.’

  IV: School Supper

  THE REFECTORY MADE Amy wonder if Old House had begun as Drearcliff Abbey or Drearcliff Castle. The feeding trough was the sort of place Douglas Fairbanks generally did sword-fighting in, complete with flying buttresses, depressed arches, ribbed vaults and other features of architectural interest.

  Stained-glass windows showed men in armour battling she-demons, who were generally getting the best of the fight. Amy wasn’t sure the windows were appropriate for younger girls. Several panels showed dismembered knights roasted on spits by happy, red-skinned devil cooks with extra mouths in their bosoms.

  Pupils sat on benches at five long House tables, arranged by year. This meant roughly by size, though the odd freakishly tall or stunted specimen broke up any neat arrangement. Thirds had places half-way along the Desdemona table. They could look across at their contemporaries in other Houses. It was not done to pay attention up-table or down-table, where seniors or juniors sat.

  Hundreds of girls, talking all at once, clattered to their table-places. The sound of wooden bench-legs scraping on stone set Amy’s teeth on edge.

  Frecks anatomised the Houses.

  ‘Goneril are Sport House,’ Frecks explained. ‘Win at absolutely everything, from cross-country runs to tiddlybloodywinks. It’s so tedious. They used to play boys’ schools at football, but an archdeacon’s son got crippled – and his side took a ten-two hammering – so that was stopped. Tamora has the terrors. I josh you not. You’d do well to stay away. The most evil Witches are Tamora. Viola are babies. Blub all the time. The Greek dancing on the lawn soppists you saw earlier. Utterly wet and contemptible. Ariel are so stuck up you’d think they were port over starboard home through and through. Their people are mostly in trade. We can’t stand ’em. Got all that?’

  ‘Sporty, terrifying, babies and posh, yes. What are we?’

  ‘Desdemona? Red-headed stepchildren. Who don’t fit anywhere else. Come second in most things. If we’re top, it doesn’t count because we don’t win properly. You’ll hear that a lot.’

  High Table was set on a dais before a triptych of especially ferocious dragons. It had a white tablecloth and the best china. Also, decanters of spirits and wine glasses. Girls made do with tumblers and jugs of brackish water, though Princess Kali surreptitiously dripped something fiery from a bullet-dented hip flask into her tumbler.

  Once the girls were settled, they were counted off by Table Captains from each form, with the few absences due to illness listed. Light Fingers was the Third Desdemona Captain. Then, Headmistress made an entrance, cape flapping. Raucous hubbub ceased. After Dr Swan was settled on a throne at the centre of High Table, nine women – and one man! – walked in a processional and took high-backed chairs either side. Teachers wore capes and mortar-boards. Keys, the custodian, had no academic accoutrements, but her jangling keys were a mark of authority. A woman in a white starched wimple and an apron with a red cross on it must be Nurse. The man was very fat, nearly bald and wore a clergyman’s collar. Amy guessed he was School chaplain. The Staff faced out at the Refectory, at once on display and commanding an audience.

  Servants rolled trolleys bearing cauldrons up and down the aisles, doling something which was either thick soup or thin stew into bowls. Frecks showed Amy how to hold her bowl up with one hand while taking a bread roll from a platter on the trolley with the other. Light Fingers made a show of being slow and clumsy, not wasting her Abilities at supper.

  Headmistress made a gesture. The Chaplain got up and mumbled a grace in Latin.

  ‘Bow, you savages,’ hissed the Fourth captain up-table, exciting suppressed giggles from acolytes.

  Grace concluded, everyone tucked in. Talking resumed and the Refectory filled with din again.

  The soup-or-stew was hot and had a distinct, not unpleasant taste. The meat wasn’t the best, but the bread was fresh and soaked up the gravy.

  Frecks introduced Amy to the rest of the Thirds. The guillotine-making girl, who only wore one pair of spectacles to supper, was Lydia Inchfawn. A bird-boned, pale American girl with long, straight, black hair suffered under the name Ticia Frump and planned to marry as soon as possible to alleviate the burden. The names Houri, Smudge, Peebles and Clodagh belonged to other girls, but Amy couldn’t fix which was which. Her head was overstuffed with new names, rules, people and language. Dinner at her old school was supper here, sweet was afters, Scripture was Religious Instruction, prefects were whips.

  Martine, the humorous Fourth Captain, took note of a new girl down-table, but her acolytes kept to themselves.

  Between courses, a squeaky-voiced, undersized Fifth slipped down-table, with notebook and pencil. She said she was from the Drearcliff Trumpet and wanted to interview the new girl.

  ‘Push off, Shrimp,’ said Frecks. ‘She’s not talking.’

  The reporter blinked and retreated.

  ‘Can’t let her get her hooks in you,’ said Frecks. ‘Be wary of Shrimp Harper. Girl’s a menace.’

  ‘Don’t let her sketch you,’ said Light Fingers. ‘You’ll be faint-headed for a week and she’ll be bright as a new penny. We tried smearing her cot with garlic, but no joy.’

  ‘Garlic and Shrimp?’ said Kali. ‘Sounds like a recipe for murder.’

  ‘Unusual isn’t always good,’ said Frecks.

  ‘Mother says it’s never good.’

  ‘Who’s Unusual?’ asked Inchfawn. ‘The new bug?’

  Questions were thrown at Amy by other girls. She wound up talking about moths. No one was perplexed, like grown-ups were, but no one was that interested either.

  ‘You’ll fit in,’ said a girl with black Indian braids. ‘You’re ga-ga already. We all go ga-ga at Drearcliff. After a while.’

  When afters came, Amy took Frecks’ advice and spurned the semolina. She ate an apple, instead.

  With the last bowl scraped, the servants returned to collect the crockery. Headmistress stood. Girls sat still and quiet again, as for grace. Amy realised the convention for quiet was not for religious observance but from whenever Dr Swan rose till she gave a nod for din to resume.

  ‘Girls,’ she began, ‘we must welcome a new sister among us…’

  ‘Oh no, she’s not going to…’ began Frecks…

  ‘… a new friend, a special gift to Drearcliff, a veritable ornament…’

  ‘She bloody is,’ said Frecks. ‘What a terror!’

  ‘… a shining beacon of potential, an Unusual Talent whose gifts should be nurtured till they reach full bloom…’

  Amy didn’t hear the rest of the speech. The flagstones had opened and she was pulled under the roiling earth. Everyone in the Refectory looked at her. Her face was flaming red.

  ‘Jammy crumpets!’ she exclaimed, sotto voce.

  ‘Worse luck,’ commiserated Frecks.

  ‘Poison Doll might as well a’ stuck a target on ya, kid,’ said Kali. ‘What happens next won’t be pretty. Not ah-tall it won’t.’

  V: The Witches of Drearcliff Grange

  A FIRST WENT DOWN on one knee in front of Amy, hands clasped to her chest, ringlets rustling like silenced sleigh bells. The little she-beast declaimed dramatically…

  ‘Welcome, oh sister, oh veritable ornament, oh…’

  Frecks cuffed the chit about the head. She squeaked like a pig.

  ‘Out of the way, scum, or be mistaken for a carp
et and walked over…’

  The theatrically inclined First was between the Dorm Three girls and the stairs. The little tragedienne’s clique had laughed at her turn but now just laughed at her. In the show business, applause was fleeting.

  Frecks and Kali picked Bernhardt fille up and slung her to one side. She spat ‘I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you’ and scurried away.

  ‘That exit line was from Twelfth Night,’ said Amy. ‘She’s a Viola?’

  ‘You heard the blubbing,’ said Frecks. ‘Of course she’s Viola.’

  ‘It’s not Viola’s line, though,’ said Amy. ‘It’s Malvolio’s.’

  Kali gave the departed thespian’s audience the evil eye.

  ‘Any a’ you mugs got complaints?’ she asked.

  The down-table girls looked duly intimidated. Kali made neck-breaking gestures. They fled.

  ‘This is gonna get monotonous,’ said Kali.

  Amy was not reassured.

  ‘It’ll blow over when School finds something else to play with,’ said Frecks. ‘These things pass, like the wind…’

  ‘Wind does damage, sister…’

  ‘’Tis true, ’tis true.’

  The Dorm Three girls trooped upstairs.

  At their landing, Light Fingers made a sign, and they halted.

  ‘Uh oh,’ she said. ‘We’re Belgium?’

  ‘Belgium?’ asked Amy, puzzled.

  ‘Invaded and occupied, Thomsett,’ said Frecks. ‘Likely to be outraged by the Hun. Best get it over with.’

  Their cell was already crowded. Amy’s trunk took up most of the limited floor-space. It was open, disclosing the rumple of her possessions.

  A womanly Sixth sat in Light Fingers’ rocking chair, which was much too small for her. She hummed dreamily to herself, as if thinking only modest, chaste, improving thoughts. Her complexion was healthy cream, brushed lightly with rose-petal red on her cheeks. She had merry cornflower-blue eyes and rippling golden hair. She looked the sort of angel you’d never sully by placing her up on a Christmas tree. Her grey blazer had gold piping. Above her school badge was picked out, in gothic script, Head Girl.

  ‘Gryce,’ acknowledged Frecks.

  ‘Shut your hole, Walmergrave,’ said a bony, dark girl whose sallow face was half-masked by a wing of black hair. ‘This isn’t your bailiwick.’

  She stood behind the rocking chair, arranged side-on as if to present a thinner target. She had been poking through Amy’s Book of Moths with a long-nailed finger.

  Frecks held back, along with Kali and Light Fingers.

  Two other Sixths were in the cell, taking up room: a big-shouldered, tubby girl with a face like one large pimple and rope-braids hanging to her waist; and a fey, huge-eyed sprite with a white streak in her enormous cloud of brown hair. They all had gold piping.

  These were the Murdering Heathens.

  ‘Amy, entrez votre cell and asseyez-tu on votre cot,’ said Gryce, sweetly. ‘I fervently hope we shall be les amies eternels.’

  Frecks gave Amy a gentle prod between the shoulder blades, and she crossed the threshold. She had to bend and twist to make her way without touching the Sixths or tripping over her trunk. She sat on her cot, knees together, hands in her lap. She tried to ignore the hammering of her heart and the lightness of her spine. This was no time for floating. She thought herself heavy. Her cot-springs creaked.

  ‘I am Sidonie Gryce,’ she said, looking Amy directly in the eyes. ‘I am Head Girl. I embody School Spirit. ’Tis my duty to make filles nouvelles welcome. If Discipline is necessary, it is my sacred trust to apply the gentle hand of guidance…’

  The dark girl snickered. She had fingernails like painted knives. Her uncovered eye was blue with a dash of red.

  ‘If Encouragement is needed, I shall be at your back, urging you to do your plus que belle for School. If Praise is merited, it shall not be withheld. That is the Code of Drearcliff Grange. Comprenez-tu, Amy?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Amy.

  ‘Bonne,’ smiled Gryce, with a flash of steel in her eyes. ‘These are mes amies and fellow prefects. Beryl Crowninshield…’

  One-Eye.

  ‘Dora Paule…’

  White Streak.

  ‘… and Henry Buller.’

  Pimple Face.

  ‘You will address us properly as Head Girl, Prefect Crowninshield, Prefect Paule and Prefect Buller. Comprenez-tu?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gryce reached over, smiling, and slapped her face, then gave a ‘go ahead, try again’ nod.

  ‘Yes, Head Girl.’

  Gryce bent over and butterfly-kissed Amy’s stinging cheek, then made a stroke-it-better gesture without actually touching her.

  ‘You see, mes filles, a perfect demonstration of the Method Gryce in action. Gentle Discipline. Firm Encouragement. Deserved Praise.’

  ‘Can I Encourage her, S-s-sid?’ said Buller, leaning over and putting her blotched face close to Amy’s. Her breath was sweet, like violet pastilles.

  ‘Not now, Henry,’ drawled Crowninshield. She gave a shoulder-twitch which briefly lifted her hair – revealing her other eye, which was brown – before it fell back in place.

  ‘Prefect Buller’s enthusiasm is School Spirit,’ said Gryce, waving the big girl away. ‘Do you have an enthusiasm, Amy?’

  Amy was not forthcoming.

  Crowninshield made a flutter with Amy’s book, flapping its covers like wings, flying it around the room like a trapped moth.

  ‘I am a moth,’ Crowninshield said, lips shut but throat moving. ‘I’m… drawn… irresistibly… to the flame!’

  Crowninshield fluttered the book into Paule’s hair. The Witch who hadn’t spoken batted it away with her hands.

  ‘I repeat: do you have an enthusiasm, Amy?’

  ‘Yes, Head Girl. It’s…’

  ‘Did I ask you what your enthusiasm was?’

  ‘No, but…’

  The hand went up.

  ‘No, Head Girl,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘See, you can learn. Now, let us guess your enthusiasm. Henry?’

  Buller made fists, and leaned close again.

  ‘Is it bleeding? Bleeding, while trying not to b-b-blub? Bleeding from something that can n-n-never be fixed?’

  ‘No, Prefect Buller.’

  ‘Beryl?’ asked Gryce.

  ‘It’s not butterflies, is it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s not butterflies, Prefect Crowninshield.’

  Crowninshield thought a moment and was pleased. ‘Do you hold the position that butterflies are a separate phylum of lepidoptera, as opposed to a sub-species of moth?’

  ‘Yes, Prefect Crowninshield.’

  Lepidoptera are not a phylum, but an order of insects, which are a class of the arthropod phylum. Strictly, Amy acknowledged moths were what remained of the lepidoptera once butterflies were excluded. She kept that to herself.

  ‘The taxonomy is not uncontroversial, though, is it not?’

  Amy couldn’t unpick the contradictions, but intuited her inquisitor couldn’t either, and answered ‘No, Prefect Crowninshield’ with confidence.

  ‘Paule, Paule, wisest of us all?’

  ‘I can’t bear moths,’ said Prefect Paule in a tiny voice.

  ‘That’s not a question,’ said Gryce. ‘That’s a statement.’

  ‘It is all I’ve to say on the subject. Moths are too Thursday for me.’

  Crowninshield tossed Amy the book, which she caught before it hit her in the face. She held it shut in her lap.

  Crowninshield tapped her own head. Amy realised what was being asked of her. She balanced the book on her head. At her old school her form mistress was a fiend for deportment, so Amy knew how to keep the book level.

  Gryce smiled on her. She began to rock back and forth in Light Fingers’ chair, as if daring it to fly into splinters and give her cause to inflict severe Encouragement.

  Frecks and the others were out in the corridor, watching. A crowd of Thirds gathered. Had they all bee
n through this? Amy was probably getting an extra helping for being a new bug in the middle of term.

  ‘If the book falls,’ said Gryce, rocking faster, ‘you’ll be marked down as Not School Spirit. Une vraie salope! Scrubbing the Heel is a let-off next to the Encouragement visited upon those who are Not School Spirit. Keep a straight spine, moth-girl. Shoulders back. Eyes up, chest up. No, eyes down, showing la modestie propre…’

  Amy looked down and felt the book tip – but she recovered in an instant.

  ‘There only remains the matter of contraband,’ said Gryce, signalling to Buller, who reached down into Amy’s trunk and pulled out a blue slip. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A gymslip, Sid.’

  ‘Not a Drearcliff slip, though. Excluded.’

  Buller tossed it in the air, and Crowninshield caught it.

  Mother had not bought new gym clothes from the recommended dressmaker, believing Amy had the proper items – now, it seemed, the improper items – already. Her kit bore no emblems associated with her old school, but did not pass.

  ‘Navy is not Drearcliff blue,’ Gryce explained. ‘Sea-green is Drearcliff blue. Comprenez-tu?’

  ‘Yes, Head Girl.’

  Yes, you Simpering Witch!

  ‘Don’t think of Head Girl like that,’ said Paule quietly. ‘She won’t like it.’

  Amy felt stabbed. Paule was an Unusual. Her Abilities included some species of mental telepathy.

  Gryce rocked, as Buller raised item after item. Skirts, socks, blouses. The Head Girl didn’t even look at them.

  ‘Excluded, Excluded, Excluded, Acceptable, Excluded…’

  An old scarf had passed muster, at random.

  Amy breathed evenly, trying not to float. She tried to present a bland countenance, tried not to feel anything. This ordeal would soon be over. The Murdering Heathens would not be here all night, could not devote the rest of their year at Drearcliff to this testing of the new bug.

  She thought of moths, fixing their distinguishing marks, wing-patterns and antenna shapes in her mind. Moths made sense. Hepialidae: Hepialus humuli (Ghost Moth), Hepialus sylvina (Orange Swift), Hepialus fusconebulosa (Map-Winged Swift). Moths were various, but finite. Cossidae Zeuzerinae: Phragmataecia castaneae (Reed Leopard), Zeuzera pyrina (Leopard Moth). Moths flew, purposefully. Limacodidae: Apoda limacodes (The Festoon), Heterogenea asella (The Triangle). Moths were hardy, yet delicate. Tineidae Tineinae: Monopis laevigella (Skin Moth), Tinea pallescentella (Large Pale Clothes Moth), Monopis weaverella…