Gated II: Ravenhill Academy

by Matt Drabble

  She had been honest when she had told Stuart that she wanted to help Sarah come out of her shell. She liked her and wanted to become real friends; Ravenhill could be a lonely place without them.

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  Maurice walked the grounds for the fifth time that night. He had been at Ravenhill for his whole life and he had never known anything different. He hefted the long and sturdy staff that he used when walking - it was more of a security device than an aid. The school grounds were surrounded by wildlife and while most were docile creatures, there was the occasional fox or badger that could become aggressive.

  He wandered in the dark needing no light to guide him; he could traverse the school blindfolded. He knew every corner and every creak of the old girl and she kept no secrets from him.

  Earlier in the week when the alarm had gone off, it had been the first time that he had heard the wailing siren. Even then he hadn’t been concerned. He was in tune with his world and he would have surely known if anything was wrong. He heard the hooting of an owl off in the tree line; he closed his eyes and he could feel the darkness beyond their fences alive with nocturnal scuttling and clawing.

  Tonight though he couldn’t settle, and the worst thing was that he had no idea why. It was a strange emotion for him to be confused and it wasn’t a pleasant one.

  A few years ago Barnaby had employed a new teacher and the man just hadn’t smelt right to Maurice from the first time that he had seen him pulling up in the car park. The man just had an odour about him that was all wrong. He walked wrong, he sounded wrong, he just looked wrong. Maurice had tried speaking to Barnaby about it, but the Headmaster hadn’t wanted to listen. Eventually, Maurice had caught the teacher down in the laundry room. The man had just been doing a load of laundry, but Maurice had seen the naked look of fear in the teacher’s eyes when he’d walked quietly in. He’d demanded to look in the basket that the teacher was clutching tightly to his chest and the man had refused. The teacher was younger and much larger than Maurice, but he was also a coward and Maurice had broken the man’s arm in the ensuing struggle. He had found several items of underwear of the small variety in the teacher’s basket that belonged to some of the smaller children. He had first claimed that it was all a mistake and had threatened to sue Maurice, Barnaby and the whole school. But to give Barnaby his due, the teacher had soon been out of the door on his ass and there had been no lawsuit of any kind.

  Something was out of whack at Ravenhill and he couldn’t put his finger on just what. There was a vague air of danger and menace in the night sky that he couldn’t pinpoint, like a waft of smoke on the drifting wind. Something was either here, or it was coming soon.

  This was his home and his land. Despite his gruff exterior he actually cared deeply about the children and even some of the teachers. He considered himself a guardian of more than just the gardens and the hallways.

  He knew that Ravenhill may well have been an exclusive school on the surface. It was the sort of place that important men and women of wealth, influence and power sent their children. But over the years it had also been the sort of place that attracted those damaged and in pain. There was a power to Ravenhill that drew those most in need, but he also knew that the power could also attract those who sought power for power’s sake.

  His country senses told him that the weather was about to change; a storm was rolling in and the snow was going to bury them all. The children and some staff left on Friday for the Christmas holidays and he hoped to locate the problem then. He could feel in his bones that Ravenhill was going to be cut off under the blizzard and whoever was causing his anxiety would have nowhere to hide.

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  Dora Tibbs walked the hallways on night duty. She didn’t mind the later hours as she didn’t sleep all that well these days. Sometimes it seemed like only the blessed few got more than a couple of hours of unbroken sleep at Ravenhill.

  She was dressed in outdoor clothes as the old building tended to grow colder at night. For some reason, the walls and floors held a chill regardless of the season or temperature. She wore fur lined boots, thick trousers and a heavy padded coat.

  She had worked here long enough to know just what a privilege it truly was. Ravenhill Academy’s reputation cast a long shadow over the academic landscape of the country. Hers was a position of envy and she took her responsibilities seriously. Mr. Barnaby had placed his trust in her and she would never let him down. She was his eyes and ears of the school and she had no compunction about reporting back to him with anything useful that she discovered. She was starting to suspect that the American and the maths teacher were growing a little too close for comfort. Mr. Barnaby would no doubt be interested to know that two of his teachers were getting dangerously close to inappropriate behavior.

  She walked her beat along the quiet slumbering corridors. The children were all under curfew now and the younger ones should be sleeping.

  Creeping footsteps caught her ear and she turned towards the noise. The corridor was dimly lit and the shadows were long. She couldn’t see anyone but she was all too aware of not being made to look like a fool like Ms Mears had been the other night when panicking and setting off the alarm. She cringed at the woman’s loss of control when she had started screaming at the policemen. She had reported her fears over the woman’s possible drinking habit, but the Headmaster had assured her that there was nothing to worry about, but she wasn’t so sure. Ms Mears would certainly bear further scrutiny.

  The noise caught her attention again and she took the large heavy flashlight from her belt. She always carried the tool for its powerful beam and its heavy metal weight. The handle was long and it would certainly do some damage under her muscular swing.

  She crept along the hallway determined to make anyone out of bed pay for their misfortune. It wasn’t unheard of for the children, especially the girls, to be hopping from room to room after lights out, gossiping and giggling. She had little time for the wastefulness of children; her teaching outlook was one of strict discipline and rigid structure. All children were potential threats to her rule and any potential disobedient uprising had to be stamped on hard and crushed underfoot.

  She heard a noise off in one of the side rooms below her floor. Her forehead crinkled in surprise as it was the infirmary that lay below and not one of the accommodation rooms. She couldn’t think how any child would have managed to sneak past her watchful gaze to gain access, but she did know that whoever did was in for a world of trouble.

  She sneaked down the stairs carefully so as not to alert her prey. The stairs were carpeted and cushioned her footsteps, but they were old and creaked annoyingly.

  She pressed her back against the corridor wall and edged her way along. Her stomach rolled with anger as she spotted the light shining out from under the infirmary door. Whoever was in there didn’t seem to be too concerned with how much noise they were making. This made her even angrier; it was bad enough that someone was up to no good, but they all knew that this was her watch and as such, she took that personally. Perhaps her reputation was slipping; perhaps she wasn’t as feared as she thought herself to be. Never mind, she was an educator after all. She carried the long heavy metallic torch for possible outside intruders; she also carried an implement for internal discipline. The wicker reed was long enough to whip with a flick of her wrist and young flesh was fragile. A swipe across the back of bare legs or upper arms taught a powerful lesson.

  She reached the infirmary door and slowly and quietly pushed the door open, excited to dish out a little lesson in corrective obedience.

  The noises from within sounded like someone was dragging furniture around and throwing equipment about.

  She thrust open the door, flinging the opening wide. “What on earth is going on here?” she boomed loudly into the room.

  It took her a few moments to recognise Hannah Marks, the school nurse. The woman was flying around the room in a frenzy of activity. Her usually warm and round face was hot and flushed red an
d her eyes were glazed with a sheen of desperation.

  “Ms Marks?” Dora asked, as her presence seemed to go unnoticed. “What are you doing here so late?”

  The nurse looked up but didn’t seem to register the PE teacher. “So much to do,” she panted. “So many ideas to make improvements and not enough hours in the day,” she said in a strange sing-song voice.

  “Ms Marks, are you feeling alright?” Dora asked, concerned. She had never seen the rather rotund woman move quickly enough to break a light sweat and now she was a whirling tornado.

  “Oh quite so, Ms Tibbs,” Hannah beamed broadly. “Busy, busy, busy,” she sang. “So little time to prepare, everything must be perfect for him, we must be perfect, our whole little community is going to be perfect.”

  “Perfect for whom? Is Mr. Barnaby doing an inspection? And why wasn’t I told about this?” Dora bristled at the thought of not being the first to know about anything in Mr. Barnaby’s plans.

  “No time to waste, no time for idle chatter, Ms Tibbs,” the nurse said and Dora found herself bustled out of the door by friendly but firm pudgy hands.

  “I really must insist on knowing just what is...” Her demands were cut short as the infirmary door was shut firmly in her face. She stood there a moment trying to comprehend just how the wettest person in the school had just shooed her away like a small child. She gave serious thought to barging her way back in there again and shaking some sense into the nurse. But something stopped her, some feeling that this wasn’t quite the same weak woman who couldn’t keep her fingers out of the biscuit tin no matter how many diets she tried. Instead, she wandered back to her route thinking that perhaps Mr. Barnaby might be interested to know that one of his members of staff was looking distinctly like they were having more than cocoa before bedtime.

  CHAPTER 7

  Thursday dawned with dark skies overhead. Over breakfast, all talk was centered on the onrushing bad weather that seemed to be inching ever closer. Students and staff alike who were leaving tomorrow were all growing nervous as the snow edged its way over the horizon. Maurice had assured everyone that the blizzard would hold off another day and he was seldom wrong.

  The teachers could all feel the end of term rapidly approaching and the pupils’ attention spans were growing increasingly short. It was always difficult to hold their attention when the holidays were so close.

  Sarah looked out across the dining hall table. Both Stuart and Jemima had told her on the walk down that they were both staying in-house over Christmas. At first she had found herself pleased and a little excited, especially about Stuart, but the more she thought about it, the more she started to wonder over their motives. The last thing that she wanted was to be was somebody’s charity case.

  For some reason the school wasn’t going to be as empty as she had first thought. Barnaby and Maurice would be here as usual and now Jemima and Stuart. Apparently, now Hannah Marks, the school nurse, was staying, along with several of the domestic staff. There were always some children who couldn’t go home and their numbers seemed to be swelling as well. It was going to be quite the busy season.

  Later that day, Sarah was teaching her Thursday art class. The students were always a little reluctant to engage in the subject and she often fought an uphill battle to gain their interest. This term they had been working on a personal favourite of hers, Giorgio de Chirico. He was a Greek-born Italian artist who had died in 1978. In the years before World War I, he founded the Scuola Metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. He was an artist that she greatly enjoyed. His art was said to evoke the hidden meanings behind everyday life. He produced enigmatic scenes of empty cities, menacing statues, mysterious shadows, and strange combinations of everyday objects. She knew that it didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out that her attraction was a dark nod to her past and her home town.

  Her lesson plan called for the kids to be able to discuss him as an artist, to be able to draw using correct 1 point perspective, and apply marker techniques to help create the sense of depth in a perspective drawing. They should also be able to apply a warm or cool color palette using chalk pastels to achieve value and blend colours. It all sounded great in theory, but she had a mixed-sex class full of 13 year old kids who saw little benefit in the artistic world. Most of these kids would go on to high paying professional jobs that left little room for art, except when they were hanging it on their walls as a mark of success.

  Today, she had the added hurdle of the Christmas break in 24 hours’ time and attentions were wandering.

  “Come on, people,” she said exasperatedly. “I know that most of you are going home tomorrow but we have to get this in the bank,” she said, tapping her head. “You may not see the value in art, but you’re damn sure going to learn the nuts and bolts if you want to pass the exam.”

  They were working on their pastel sketches meant to demonstrate their ability to work in perspectives, but most were yawning and looking out of the window to check that the heavens hadn’t opened yet.

  “Alex Thompson!” she boomed loudly across the room at the boy sitting snuggled up to his latest attempted conquest, Anna Thomas. “Is there something wrong with your own desk?”

  The youth rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and she swallowed a little rising tide of anger. It was pupils like Alex Thompson who drove her closest to despair. He was intelligent and capable, but he had little drive to push himself further than doing the absolute minimum. He was one of life’s winners and would always land on his feet; his attitude derived from the fact that he was fully aware of this.

  He stood and started to drag his chair across the floor back to his own desk. The metal legs scrapped and squealed horrendously, as was his intent. She waited for his slow noisy walk to take him back to his desk before she spoke. “You forgot your pen,” she smiled.

  His smug face faltered and his grin froze. She watched as he internally debated whether or not to drag his chair screeching across the floor back to Anna’s desk again. Their eyes locked as she looked to shoot down his rebellious streak. The rest of the class suddenly became embroiled in the tug of wills. Sarah wasn’t overly fond of the confrontation that seemed to come with every new class. But she had once overcome Tolan Christian’s will as the world burned around her and some snot nose 13 year old just wasn’t in her league.

  “Sit down, Alex,” a small voice piped up from the back of the room.

  She didn’t need to break the contact with Alex to look and see just who had spoken. The American accent could only belong to one student: Joshua Bradley. To her amazement, Alex suddenly looked down at the floor and she thought he might have even mumbled some sort of apology under his breath. He put his chair down, retrieved his pencil from the girl’s desk and sat back at his own.

  “I know that I’m new in your class Ms Mears, but I would like to know a little more about Giorgio de Chirico; you do seem to have a passion for his work and I’m sure that we would all like to hear more,” Joshua said pleasantly.

  The rest of the afternoon lesson passed as pleasurably as any that she could ever remember. Her students hung on her every word and there was a bond that passed between them. Their faces were rapt as she shared her passion for the artist and his work and their questions were for once forthcoming which showed their seemingly genuine interest. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d had such an attentive audience and she felt like she had Joshua to thank somehow.

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  Mavis Merryweather packed up her desk for the holidays. She was one of the few commuting staff and Mr. Barnaby had told her that her services would not be required for the last day of term. She was not best pleased at being dismissed for the year and didn’t see his offer as generous. As far as she was concerned, the place couldn’t possibly run better without her.

  She tidied her things away and made sure that nothing was left out of place in the office. The room was compact and well organised as she wouldn’t have it any other way. She con
sidered herself to be Mr. Barnaby’s right hand, no matter what Ms Tibbs, the annoying PE teacher, thought. She was the one who organised not just Mr. Barnaby’s day, but also his life.

  She stacked the files away in the cabinets. She was old school and had no use for computer boxes that hid their information behind shining screens. If she wanted to lay her hands on a piece of information, then she wanted to physically lay her hands on it.

  She sorted the last few files and suddenly paused as her hand hovered over one in particular. She frowned heavily at her oversight. There was an empty folder that contained no information with only a name on the cover which read “Joshua Bradley”. The files on his transfer should have been brought immediately to her upon his arrival. She was angry with herself that she had overlooked a duty, no matter how minor. His parents or guardian should have been in Mr. Barnaby’s office when they dropped the boy off. She tried to remember their faces, but came up blank. Surely they would have been here and she had been on duty as always, but she just couldn’t recollect them.

  She stood and walked to Mr. Barnaby’s office door and tapped lightly on the glass.

  “Come in,” he answered.

  She entered quietly and respectfully. “Mr. Barnaby, I’m sorry to trouble you but I’m afraid that I can’t find the new boy’s files anywhere. This is a little embarrassing but were his parents here when he arrived? It’s as if I just can’t seem to remember.”

  “Of course they were,” he answered without looking up from his desk.

  “What day would that have been?”

  “It was…” He paused and looked up with the first touch of anything less than total control that she had ever witnessed. “I mean it must have been…”

  “I couldn’t remember either,” she added softly.

  “Well there is a lot going on this week Mrs. Merryweather, and the last time I checked young boys didn’t just start appearing out of thin air,” he blustered. “If you have lost his files then you will just have to sort it out after the Christmas break. Perhaps if you didn’t insist on running a prehistoric filing system then you wouldn’t make such mistakes.”