Knightley Acadamy 01
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KNIGHTLEY ACADEMY
BY VIOLET HABERDASHER
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
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First Aladdin hardcover edition March 2010
Copyright (c) 2010 by Robyn Schneider
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Designed by Lisa Vega
The text of this book was set in Bembo.
Manufactured in the United States of America
0110 MTN
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haberdasher, Violet.
Knightley Academy / by Violet Haberdasher.--1st Aladdin hardcover ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In an alternate Victorian England, fourteen-year-old orphan Henry Grim,
a maltreated servant at an exclusive school for the "sons of Gentry and Quality,"
begins a new life when he unexpectedly becomes the first commoner to be accepted at
Knightley Academy, a prestigious boarding school for knights.
ISBN 978-1-4169-9143-4 (hc)
[1. Orphans--Fiction. 2. Knights and knighthood--Fiction.
3. Boarding schools--Fiction. 4. Schools--Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H11424Kn 2010
[Fic]--dc22
2009023443
ISBN 978-1-4169-9901-0 (eBook)
For Edward,
who gave a little girl the wrong sort of books.
And for Ted,
who encouraged her to write them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In a rarely explored hallway of Knightley Academy, beneath decades of dust and generations of cobwebs, there hangs a puzzling little plaque, inscribed with sincerest thanks to the following people:
Ellen Krieger, the editorial quill that could do no wrong; Mark McVeigh, who loved the story even from his exile; Ted Malawer, who asked why the world wasn't at stake; Kate Angelella, who inherited the project with enthusiasm; Robyn Gertner, a fellow scribbler and writing companion; the girls of Primrose Hill, who put up with an author for a boarder; the East London cafe society; Mary Bell, for her enthusiasm; Professor William Sharpe, who ignited my Victoriana research; Julia DeVillers, for encouragement; the Philolexians, for encouragement; the Five Awesome YA Fans; and, of course, my family.
And at the bottom, most curiously of all, are the initials VH, which have bewildered historians for the past century.
THE FIVE YEARS' CURSE
The Midsummer School for Boys sat on top of a steep but rather flat hill, staring down its nose at the village below. You see, the Midsummer School for Boys was a grand place, where sons of Gentry and Quality learned how to stare down their noses at anyone beneath them. They also learned mathematics and science and history and how to steal food from the kitchens and torment the serving staff. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Come to think of it, you probably know all about the Midsummer School for Boys, and are at this moment rolling your eyes and muttering, "Yeah, yeah, nothing new here, get on with the story." In fact, if I asked, you would most likely tell me that everyone already knows about the Midsummer School for Boys, and what they know are the following three facts:
1. All of the Midsummer students inherit titles more impressive than those of the first edition volumes in their vast school library.
2. All of the Midsummer professors routinely turn down jobs with prestigious universities, preferring instead to keep teaching secondary school algebra and dining at the High Table in Midsummer Hall.
3. The Midsummer School for Boys is probably cursed, since no student for the past five years has gained acceptance to Knightley Academy upon graduation.
But curses, unlike pocket watches and bicycles, are meant to be broken. And what you don't know about the Midsummer School for Boys is that its curse will break two days after our story starts, in the most scandalous and extraordinary way.
For the past five years, always on the fourth of May, the chief Knightley examiner and his silent assistant have urged their expensive black automobile up the hill from Midsummer proper and through the iron gates of the school. And every May the students have gathered solemnly in their full academic dress, bowed in unison, and returned to their dormitories, each thinking that he will be the one to break the Midsummer Curse.
The year in which our story takes place is no exception. The night before the examiners arrived, Valmont and Harisford, two popular, if somewhat brutish, fourteen-year-old boys, skulked through the darkened corridors of the Midsummer School. They carried with them (along with the fuzzy contents of their bathrobe pockets) half a chocolate cake stolen from the kitchen, and they were discussing the exam.
"What about Hobson?" Harisford demanded, licking some fudge off his index finger.
"Hobson? Riiiight," Valmont sneered. "He stutters when he's nervous. 'Oh, m-m-my lady, allow m-m-me to defend your honor.' "
Both boys snickered.
"Leroy, then," Harisford said, now having licked a small patch of cake completely bare of frosting. "He's brainy enough."
"And wants to study physics at some specialized school in France, for God's sake."
"So who else is there?" Harisford asked as they turned a corner and passed by the great wooden doors to the library.
"No one." Valmont shook his head. "Worthington's an idiot, Porter weighs more than the whole kitchen staff combined, and Crewe's a coward. Of course I'm not worried, what with all my family connections. So I suppose, if you're not quite as dim-witted as usual when we sit the exam, it would be down to you and me."
Actually, it wasn't down to Harisford or Valmont, who, by the way, knew far more about the origin of the so-called curse and his intended role in breaking it than he professed. No, the most likely candidate was at that moment just ten feet away, on the other side of the library door, feverishly memorizing a stolen textbook.
Henry Grim awoke two hours before morning announcements and, yawning, dressed in his uniform. Tiptoeing past the still sleeping Sander, he collected the all-too-familiar bucket and towel and, starting with the astronomy tower, began cleaning the blackboards.
After the tower, he tackled the science laboratories, frowning as he remembered falling asleep every night over the bone-dry biology textbook last term. Next he moved into mathematics, where complex equations filled each blackboard with their exponents and limits. He'd suffered through this subject too. After that was history, all dates and names, and then languages, repetitive phrases written across the board in a half-dozen tenses. And finally, English. Usually, Professor Stratford was not awake before chapel, and often he dozed into his teacup at breakfast, but that morning, Henry found him sitting at his desk, nose deep in a popul
ar gossip magazine.
"Erm, Professor?" Henry knocked on the doorframe, not wanting to interrupt.
"Oh, Henry!" Professor Stratford looked up from his magazine--the front page of which screamed: deadly pies! daily gossip! and secret armies of the nordlands revealed!--and smiled warmly. "Come in, come in! I was just, well--oh, no need to erase the board today. We're continuing yesterday's discussion of Marlowe. Now, what was I saying?"
"You were going to tell me about the article you're reading," Henry said, biting back a smile.
"Quite right." Professor Stratford held his copy of the Tattleteller aloft. " 'Secret Armies of the Nordlands Revealed.' The most significant political news of the last century, right here, opposite an advertisement for wart removal cream."
"Really, sir?" Henry asked, failing to hide his smile. "Should we be expecting an invasion before tea?"
"Probably not. But you never can tell." The professor shrugged and grinned good-naturedly.
Professor Stratford wasn't yet thirty and, despite being a celebrated expert on the modern eighteenth-century poets, was largely regarded by the other masters as something of an overgrown schoolboy.
"I'll challenge you to raise the alarm, sir. This is serious news, indeed."
Professor Stratford nodded gravely, playing along. "Challenge accepted, Sir Henry."
Henry rolled his eyes at the professor's sarcasm. "Well, tomorrow's the exam. We'll find out who's accepted then."
"I have a feeling about this year," Professor Stratford said. "Sixth time's the charm."
"Really, sir? Where did you read that? In the Tattleteller as well?" Henry joked.
Professor Stratford burst out laughing and then nervously glanced toward the doorway, as if he really were a schoolboy and at any moment would be chastised for his outburst.
Reflexively, Henry looked too.
"There's no one coming, sir," Henry said, relieved.
Although he read the textbooks, Henry was not a student, and his friendship with Professor Stratford was dangerous to them both. For a moment, Henry thought the professor might change his mind and call off their secret tutoring sessions--taking away the only happiness that Henry knew. The silence hung there for an uncertain moment until Professor Stratford cleared his throat and, trying to pretend he was cross, grumbled, "Oh, get out of here, Grim! Same time this evening? And don't forget that essay I set you on the Greeks."
"If I forget, will you punish me by making me scrub the blackboards?"
"Don't be silly, Grim. We have servants to do those sorts of things."
Smiling at the joke, Henry said, "No, sir. I won't forget."
And, realizing that Cook might throw away his breakfast if he was any later, Henry dashed off to the kitchens.
***
At half past eleven that morning, a small black dot appeared in the distance. Upon further scrutiny, this dot gradually took the shape of an automobile, and finally the automobile began its clanging, spirited assent of the hill upon which the Midsummer School was perched.
"Move your arse, Porter!"
"Shove off, Hobson, you're standing on my foot."
"S-s-sorry, Valmont."
The year-eight students jostled their way into line, elbowing and pushing for the best positions. Each of the boys wore full academic dress, which itched in the heat. They sweated beneath formal tailcoats, pin-striped trousers, starched white shirts, high collars, black bowties, and traditional Midsummer School top hats.
The headmaster and professors stood behind the boys, pretending they were deaf to the complaints and bullying.
Suddenly, the chrome front of an expensive black automobile nosed its way over the top of the hill and through the centuries-old iron gates.
Everyone tensed.
A driver hopped out and ran around the front of the car to open the door.
The examiners had arrived.
A couple of the boys exchanged looks out of the corners of their eyes, not quite daring to stop facing forward. Instead of imposing, crusty old windbags, the examiners were cheerful-looking men in plain black suits, almost as young as Professor Stratford.
"Welcome," Headmaster Hathaway said, stepping forward to greet the examiners.
"Welcome, Sir Examiners," the boys chorused, touching their right hands to the brims of their top hats.
Valmont's hand trembled as he lifted it to the brim of his hat. These examiners weren't the ones he had been told to expect. But that was no reason to panic ... right?
"Thank you," the shorter of the two men said, crisply shaking the headmaster's hand as his companion stood silently by his side. "We're glad to be here at the Midsummer School."
Examiner the Shorter's silent companion snapped to life and, reaching into his leather briefcase, pulled out a sheet of paper and began to read in a sonorous baritone.
"Grand Chevalier Winter extends his warm greetings to you, the Midsummer School for Boys. Sir Frederick, his appointed chief examiner, has come to evaluate any and all desiring residents of this school for admission to Knightley Academy this approaching August. The examinations, to be held on fifth May at promptly eight o'clock in the morning in the Great Hall, will test both physical and intellectual accomplishments and aptitude. If granted admission to Knightley, a student will spend the next four years studying military history, medicine, languages, ethics, protocol, diplomacy, and fencing. Upon graduation, a student will become a Knight of the Realm and be assured a prestigious career as a police knight, knight detective, or secret service knight."
Examiner of the Baritone promptly folded this paper and placed it back inside his briefcase, which he closed with a snap. As he surveyed the faces of the boys and their teachers, he was puzzled to find a broad smile on the young, mustachioed professor's face.
Henry took his usual seat at the long mahogany table near the reference books in the library and waited for Professor Stratford to arrive. He'd finished his essay an hour earlier, after helping Cook wash a mountain of dishes. Henry's fingers had been so wrinkled from the hot water that he could barely grip his pen. Now he frowned at his essay, wondering if his usually elegant penmanship looked too sloppy.
The day had been thick with excitement--for everyone else. There was a new grand chevalier (a sort of headmaster) at Knightley for the approaching year--and a new chief examiner--and no one knew if this meant that the exam would be different from previous years.
Henry privately thought not.
After all, there had been only one change at Knightley Academy since its founding nearly five centuries ago, and tradition was tradition. Anyone familiar with the Midsummer School could tell you that.
Three short knocks sounded on the great cedar door to the library, marking Henry and the professor's secret code, and Henry unlatched the lock and heaved the door open.
Professor Stratford, in his chalk-stained trousers and rumpled shirtsleeves, slipped through, juggling an armload of books.
"I'll be finished tidying up in a moment," Henry said loudly, in case someone might be passing through the nearby corridors. "Are you returning some overdue library books, sir?"
Henry followed the professor to the antique table where he'd left his essay.
"Tout les livres sont les livres de la biliotheque," Professor Stratford said, raising an eyebrow as he waited for a response.
" Er, mais c'est tort, maitre, lorsque la conaissance dans les livres ne s'appartient a une place, mais s'appartient a la monde," Henry replied nervously.
"Bien."
Professor Stratford switched to Latin next, then Italian, before finally returning to English.
"Excuse me for asking, sir, but why are we reviewing languages?"
Professor Stratford sighed and slumped in his chair, looking every minute less like a teacher and more like one of the year-eight boys.
"I've been tutoring you every night for almost nine months, Henry."
"Yes, sir."
"Ever since I caught you returning that copy of Milton to my desk la
st September."
Henry cringed. "I'm still sorry about that--"
"Never mind the past, Henry. I'm not sorry about it. No, it's rather the contrary."
Professor Stratford pressed his fingers to his temples for a moment, and then began again. "You're by far the cleverest boy at Midsummer. I want you to know that."
"Thank you, sir," Henry said, flushing from the unexpected compliment.
"But all of this sneaking, all of these late nights spent reviewing material far beyond my own boys' curriculum, it has to add up to something."
"I'm not sure I'm following you, sir," said Henry.
"One must benefit from one's risks, Henry. And you never know when we'll be found out. That's why I want you to sit the Knightley Exam tomorrow."
"Sit the exam?" Henry nearly shouted. "Are you mad?"
"Hardly. I listened carefully to that proclamation the examiners made this morning, and it appears you're eligible. They did say 'All residents of the Midsummer School.' "
"Excuse me for being rude, sir," Henry said through clenched teeth, "but I highly doubt that they are going to let a servant boy sit the exam for becoming a knight."
"They have to," Professor Stratford said, emphatically thumping his fist against a textbook. "And so do you. I swear on my folio of Twelfth Night, if you don't take that exam I'll ... I'll report you myself for sneaking into the library every night and borrowing books."
"But," Henry said, his brain spinning to make sense of what was happening, "it'll never work. Even if I pass--and no Midsummer boy has passed in five years, in case you've forgotten--they'd never let me go. I'm a commoner. A ward of the Realm. I'm--"
"A perfect candidate," Professor Stratford finished. "They'd be mad not to take you. Unless, of course, you want to scrub blackboards for the rest of your life?"
Henry sighed. Of course he didn't. Why else had he struggled through math and history and that horrible Latin in his precious free hours? But Professor Stratford was only trying to help. They both knew that there weren't many prospects for a fourteen-year-old with a birth certificate that read, baby boy found on church steps on the grimmest day of the year.