by Tom Becker
Adam frowned. “What are you doing down here?”
Doughnut jerked his head at the mangle. “Got told to do the weekly laundry by Mr Pitt. He’s even meaner than he was before he got locked up. And this is taking bloody ages, I tell you.” He called over to the inmates at the mangle, “Why don’t you guys take a break? You can finish the rest of the sheets later. I’ll have your magazines for you next week.”
The two boys nodded gratefully, and trudged out of the laundry. When they had shut the door, Doughnut got to his feet, his manner immediately businesslike.
“What’s up?”
Adam nodded at Luca. “My friend here wants to ask you something.”
The fixer carefully scrutinized the bandaged boy. “I’ve seen you around a few times, haven’t I? Don’t think I know your name, though.”
“Probably not,” he replied calmly, offering his hand. “Luca D’Annunzio. Pleased to meet you.”
Doughnut face froze. “This some kind of joke?”
Adam shook his head slowly.
“But he escaped! On the Quisling! Years ago!”
“Twenty-two, to be precise,” Luca interjected. “Only I didn’t escape.”
Doughnut’s eyes looked in danger of popping out of their sockets. “You’ve been hiding on the Dial all this time?”
“Yup. The first decade was a bit slow, but after that things picked up.”
The fixer folded his arms. “Whatever you’ve been up to, I don’t want anything to do with a collaborator.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Doughnut!” Adam burst out. “Luca’s innocent!”
He leapt into his story, telling his friend how he had tracked Luca down. At first the fixer seemed unconvinced, but when Luca took up the tale, outlining how Caiman had betrayed him, eventually Doughnut came round.
“I still can’t believe it,” he murmured, scrutinizing the swathes of bandages. “You had us all fooled.”
“It wasn’t that big a deal,” Luca said modestly.
“I saw you at Caiman’s court martial,” Doughnut said suddenly. “You must have been annoyed when Adam and I got him off.”
Luca shook his head. “I was pleased. I don’t want to see anyone who’s innocent being found guilty.” He paused. “Now, if they court-martial him for betraying me, that’d be a different matter.”
“I’ve said a lot of bad things about you over the years,” Doughnut confessed. “Especially to Adam.”
Luca nodded. “You weren’t the only one.” He offered his hand again. “No hard feelings?”
With a smile, Doughnut warmly shook the other boy’s hand. “No hard feelings. Now, what can I do for you?”
The fixer listened quietly to Luca’s story, then plumped himself back down on the laundry bags, his face creased in thought.
“Gas canisters. . .” he mused. “Now, the Docking Port would be the natural place to look, but security there has got so tight we’d be bound to get caught, and there’s no point checking the guards’ pantry. . .” Doughnut punched a fist into his palm. “Got it! There’s a storeroom upstairs where the guards keep all sorts of junk. Last time I had a search round there, I’m pretty sure I saw a couple of canisters. It’s worth a look, at any rate.”
“Upstairs?” Adam said excitedly. “Brilliant – let’s go now!”
Doughnut shook his head. “It’s not quite as simple as that, my friend. The storeroom’s on the fourth floor.”
“The fourth floor?” asked Luca. “But that’s in the girls’ dormitories! How are we supposed to get in there?”
Doughnut looked him thoughtfully up and down. “What size are you?”
Luca gave Adam a baffled glance.
“No way,” Adam said firmly, folding his arms. “Not a hope in hell.”
He was standing in a reading room deep in the bowels of the library, amid stacks of frayed and tatty books in desperate need of repair. A bookshelf in the corner had been pulled out, revealing two of Doughnut’s large boxes, which were now spilling their contents on to the floor. The fixer had surfaced from the depths of one of the boxes with a triumphant smile on his face, and was holding up a blouse and matching woollen skirt.
“You should be grateful I’ve got something in your size,” he said. “There aren’t many girls as tall as you.”
Adam shook his head. “This is insane. The guards’ll spot us a mile off.”
“They won’t, you know,” said Luca. He had already changed into a dark blue girls’ uniform, and was now selecting a long, dark wig from the pile on the floor. “It’ll be dark, and they won’t be looking. Who’s going to try to break into the prisoners’ quarters?”
“If the guards don’t spot us, the girls will,” Adam maintained. “We’re going to look like idiots!”
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Doughnut said mildly. “Corbett was dressed up as Snow White the other day, and no one had a problem with that.”
“Corbett was taking part in a show, not a top-secret mission!” Adam retorted. “And he didn’t look much like a girl to me. I still don’t understand why we don’t ask Paintpot to get the canister for us.”
“She’s getting out in a few days,” Doughnut said firmly. “Do you want her to risk getting caught? The goons would extend her sentence for sure.”
“The fewer people who know about this the better,” Luca added, adjusting his wig in the mirror. “The three of us is more than enough.” He turned round to Adam, straightening his skirt. “How do I look?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
He thought about it for a second. “No,” he said finally. “Probably best not.”
In fact, Luca looked surprisingly convincing, and even Doughnut made a passable impression of a girl – if not the most graceful one. But as Adam struggled into his uniform and an ill-fitting blonde wig, he knew that he was going to stand out like a sore thumb. The shoes were the worst. Even the largest pair Doughnut could find pinched horribly at Adam’s feet, and the small heels made him feel like he was on a set of stilts. Luca watched with undisguised amusement as Adam tottered about the storeroom.
“Not the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, but you’ll do,” he declared, glancing at his watch. “Dinner time will be over soon. We’d better get a move on.”
The boys stashed their own clothes in the corner, then repacked Doughnut’s boxes and emerged from the storeroom. Bookworm was sitting behind his desk at the reception, leafing through a large leather-bound book. He started at the sight of them; then a smile broke out across his face.
“Not a word,” Doughnut warned. The librarian looked down at his book, his hurried cough failing to disguise a snigger.
They slipped out of the library and into the night. With every step Adam expected the sirens to explode into life and the spotlight to pin them down. He wasn’t sure what he feared more – the humiliation of being caught dressed like this, or the punishment that was certain to follow.
The walkway seemed to take an age to come round to the library’s wing, and when it did Adam was dismayed to see Scarecrow and Jonkers loitering on the island in the centre of the chasm.
“That’s all we need,” he said.
“Piece of cake,” Doughnut murmured. “Just act natural.”
Easier said than done, Adam thought to himself. He kept his head down as they crossed the walkway, praying that he wouldn’t trip over on his heels. Thankfully Scarecrow and Jonkers were engaged in a sniping argument with each other and didn’t give them a second glance.
“Told you,” said Doughnut.
They had walked on several paces when there came a high-pitched wolf-whistle from behind them. Luca pirouetted around and waved coquettishly at Scarecrow and Jonkers, who were now watching with smiles on their faces. The two boys nudged each other, laughing.
“What the hell are you d
oing?” Adam hissed.
“Got to give my fans what they want,” Luca replied, his eyes twinkling. “You’re just jealous.”
Adam shook his head in disbelief. Luca had come out of hiding after all this time, risking everything – and he was treating it like a game in the playground!
They had timed their run to reach the dormitories just after dinner, when the inmates would be returning en masse from the mess hall. Following Luca’s lead, Adam fell into the ranks, convinced that every giggle and laugh was aimed at him. He was glad that his long blonde wig covered his face, which he could feel burning with embarrassment.
As the boys splintered off along the lower two floors, Adam saw the hard-faced Miss Roderick standing guard at the staircase leading up to the girls’ quarters. He shuffled forward in the queue, trying to avoid her gaze. Luca and Doughnut slipped past her – but as Adam put his foot on the first step, the guard cried out:
“What do we have here?”
Adam’s heart missed a beat as Miss Roderick dived into the crowd towards him, only for her to haul the girl next to him to one side, grabbing a necklace from around her throat.
“Thought I wouldn’t notice, did you?” she gloated. “This isn’t a school disco – you can’t wear jewellery here. Give that to me.”
The girl’s protests followed Adam as he scurried up the stairs, unable to believe his luck. They were in. He caught up with Luca and Doughnut and followed them along the third floor corridor, slowly taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. Although the girls’ dormitories had the same layout as the boys’, they felt like a different world. No impromptu games of football cluttered up the hallways, and the mushroom clouds of sweat and farts that polluted the air in the boys’ dormitories had been replaced by faint wafts of perfume. Through the open doors, Adam saw girls sitting on the beds, brushing each other’s hair as they chatted.
“Turn right up ahead,” Doughnut muttered.
Adam gave him a questioning glance. “How do you know your way around here, anyway?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this,” Doughnut replied, his eyes warily scanning the hallway.
“No kidding!” Luca exclaimed, bounding around the corner. “You’re a dark horse, and no—!”
There was a startled cry as he collided into another girl, nearly knocking her to the ground. It was Jessica.
“Sorry,” Luca squeaked.
“What are you. . .?”
Jessica trailed off as she looked at Luca’s face. Her eyes widened with alarm. Adam leapt forward and grabbed her arm.
“It’s OK, Jessica!” he whispered. “It’s me!”
“Adam!” she gasped. “What on earth are you doing?”
Adam put a finger over his lips. “No time to explain,” he whispered. “Don’t say anything, OK?’
“But—!”
Before she could say any more, a firm hand grabbed Adam by the arm and dragged him away. Over his shoulder, he saw that Jessica remained motionless in the corridor, frozen with surprise.
“Let’s not hang around,” Doughnut hissed. “You can talk to your girlfriend tomorrow.”
“She’s not my girlfriend!”
“But you’d like her to be, eh?” Luca asked slyly.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” the fixer muttered to himself. “I might as well walk over to the punishment cells and hand myself in now.”
Glumly, he led them onwards through the warren, up another flight of stairs and across the fourth floor. Towards the rear of the building, they came across a battered storeroom door built into the side of a staircase.
“This is the one,” Doughnut said. “Keep watch while I open it.”
Feigning casualness, Luca and Adam took up positions on either side of the fixer as he dropped to his knees and began jiggling a wire in the lock. It was deathly quiet – a sudden scream of laughter from the floor below made Adam’s heart leap into his mouth.
There was a muted click, and Doughnut pushed the door open.
“Nicely done,” Luca said admiringly.
“I may not be as pretty as you, but I’ve got my uses,” Doughnut replied, tucking the wire back into his belt. “Let’s get the canister and get out of here.”
The dingy storeroom was piled high with all sort of bric-a-brac: planks of wood, rusty toolkits and lengths of copper wire. Rooting through the mess, the fixer came up with a metal cylinder, and gave his companions the thumbs up. They locked the storeroom behind them and hastened back down through the levels.
As they were nearing the third floor staircase that led back to the boys’ quarters, a gaggle of girls appeared in the opposite direction, nodding supportively as a familiar voice complained loudly.
“If you ask me, Adam Wilson’s got a little too big for his boots,” Shelley griped. “All I’ve done for him, and he still ignores me! It’s not like he’s even that good-looking. I might get together with Corbett instead. He’s a real man.”
As her friends chimed in supportively, Doughnut quickly shifted the canister behind his back, and Adam silently cursed his luck. Their only escape route lay beyond the girls. He dropped back behind his friends, his eyes fixed on the floor. As Shelley approached, he turned his back slightly towards her – only to catch his heel in a knot in the floorboard and stumble over.
There was a loud rending sound, and the back of his skirt split open, revealing a pair of very grey – and very unfeminine – shorts.
Doughnut gulped. “That’s torn it.”
Shelley stopped; stared; then opened her mouth and screamed.
Immediately the corridor descended into chaos. Everyone turned at once, and saw Adam scramble to his feet and sprint down the corridor after Doughnut and Luca, his shoes forgotten and his wig slipping from his head. As other screams joined Shelley’s, Miss Roderick came thundering after them, a second female guard hot on her heels.
“You there!” she screeched. “Halt!”
The boys raced away, pursued by several piercing blasts on a whistle.
“Forget the exit!” Luca shouted. “This way!”
The entire floor had come alive, prisoners dashing out of their rooms to gasp and giggle at the commotion. Luca ran pell-mell down the corridor, bouncing off girls like a pinball. He reached the end of the corridor and hauled open a window, then clambered on to a drainpipe running down the outside wall. Doughnut followed, handing him the gas canister before swinging down after him. As sirens began wailing across the Dial, Adam glanced over his shoulder and saw Miss Roderick struggling to get through the packed corridor. He suddenly realized that this wasn’t by chance: the girls were helping them.
Gritting his teeth, Adam reached out of the window and clutched the drainpipe, clinging on to the cold metal as his feet dangled in the air. Beneath him, Luca had shinned down to the boys’ floor and was pushing up a window. Adam waited for Doughnut to disappear inside after him and then went hand-over-hand down the drainpipe, alert to the spotlights humming into life in the watchtowers. He nearly lost his footing a couple of times before he reached the safety of the window and tumbled into a dark and empty room. Luca slammed the window shut and dived to the ground, seconds before a searchlight swept across the back wall of the room.
Adam lay very still, his chest heaving with exertion.
“That was too close,” he panted.
The dazed silence was broken by the sound of Luca bursting into laughter.
“It’s not funny!” Adam protested. “We were this close to getting caught!”
“Not funny?” Luca wheezed. “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in years! Your face!”
As Doughnut spluttered with amusement, Adam couldn’t help joining in. The three boys rolled around the floor, weeping with laughter, celebrating with the gas canister as though it were a pricelsss gold trophy.
Following the raid on the girls’
floor, the prisoners’ quarters were placed in lockdown – the Wing II gate was bolted shut, and searches declared in all the dormitories. The boys hurriedly threw their girls’ clothes into a sack and changed back into uniform, Luca looking faintly comical in Doughnut’s oversize spares. With the sack under one arm and the gas canister under the other, Luca was hustled down to the cellar, where Doughnut hid him in the secret tunnel behind the chest. In under ten minutes, Adam and the fixer were back in their dormitory, trying to catch their breath as they laid out pieces on the chessboard.
It didn’t take long for the guards to arrive, with Mr Harker a weary presence at their rear. As his men began rifling through cupboards and looking under beds, the affable guard plumped himself down next to Doughnut.
“Evening, lads,” he said. “Take it you’ve heard about the ruckus in the girls’ quarters?”
They nodded.
“And I also take it that it’s got nothing to do with you?”
They nodded again.
“I thought as much,” sighed Mr Harker. “So it’s just another mess that Mr Pitt will blame me for. Sometimes I wonder why I bother, I really do.”
Not for the first time, Adam felt a small pang of sympathy for Mr Harker as he and his men trudged empty-handed into the next dormitory.
Careful not to arouse suspicion, Adam and Doughnut carried on playing chess for another couple of hours, chatting lazily to their roommates. Eventually a siren signalled the end of lockdown, and the inmates were free to move around again. When Adam stole back to the cellar to let Luca out of the tunnel, he was surprised to find the boy had re-covered his face in bandages.
“I always keep a spare supply on me,” he explained, stretching stiffly. “Never know when you might need to hide your face.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?” Adam said admiringly. “Lockdown’s over, and most of the guards have gone back to their quarters, so you should be all right getting out of here. What about the canister?”
Luca grinned. “That’s where Doughnut’s clothes come in handy,” he said, rolling up a voluminous trouser leg and strapping the canister to his calf with another length of bandages. “I could smuggle an elephant out of here in these things.”
