by Joan Aiken
School! He had forgotten all about the place. It seemed a thousand miles away.
‘Goodnight, Cosmo,’ Cousin Eunice said. Unexpectedly, she gave him a brief hug, and added, ‘Don’t start worrying too much, if you can help it. Things always turn out differently from what you expect.’
‘And that’s true,’ said Mrs Tydings.
Cosmo went up to his room. But he did not immediately go to bed. He leaned on the low windowsill looking out, listening to a screech owl going whit-whit-whit, and the river sighing to itself in the distance, and the vague mutter of the weir. Strange to think of ancient Britons in a temple somewhere up in the woods – perhaps where Mr Marvell had been ploughing the chocolate earth with Prince and Blossom; the river and the screech owl must have sounded just the same then. Two thousand years wasn’t so very long ago when you thought of the Pleistocene Age.
At last he stepped back from the window, and, as he did so, something whitish, about the size of half a banana fell out of his jacket sleeve on to the floor. What in the world could it have been? A tissue, a bit of Mrs Tydings’s wool? He switched on his table lamp and put it down on the mat, but the thing seemed to have vanished totally. Could it have blown away? Or run? It must have been his imagination, but it had seemed to scurry off under the desk as if it had embryonic legs – like a white lizard. But there were no lizards in England – not that size, anyway, or at this time of year – and anyway, how could it have been up his sleeve? He must have imagined the whole incident.
I’m tired, he told himself, and bothered by all that stuff about the curse – can Cousin Eunice seriously believe it? I’ll have my bath and go to bed.
He had his bath and got into bed. He wrote in his diary, ‘Cousin Eunice told me about the family Curse.’ He put the light out and shut his eyes. But his mind went on working. Because, firstly, it was plain that Cousin Eunice did believe in the curse; and so did Mrs Tydings; and so, for that matter, did he; and secondly he knew that he had not imagined the white thing that fell out of his sleeve.
So where could it be?
3. Little Con
Stepping out of the Rolls into the Woodstock Road on Monday morning, Cosmo found it hard to take school very seriously. He had done all his homework – written a pretty good piece on Roman Britain, actually – but, apart from that, the weekend had been a million light years removed from school. Despite Eunice’s amazing revelations and the shadow of the family curse, the two days had been full of good activities. Mr Marvell had taught Cosmo how to use the harrow, and he had been introduced to the foals of Blossom and Duchess, and allowed to choose names for them – he had chosen Juno and Punch; Mr Marvell had also found him some steel pitons, and he had started the long tough job of hammering them into the walnut trunk to make a spiral stair. So far he had put in three; it was not a job you could work at for very long at a stretch. And he had begun to make a camp on the island among the elder bushes which had grown up into a forest, and had helped Cousin Eunice lay a paved path with big slabs of Oxfordshire stone along by the yew hedge. And he had written a long letter to his father, whom he wanted to talk to very badly indeed – though it certainly was going to be strange meeting him again with all this stuff about the curse between them. Poor Dad, Cosmo thought; he must feel terribly lonely over there, waiting for the man to come and take over his practice; waiting for news that won’t come. Mark and Ma were always the ones who were close together; now I understand why Father used to look so sad and left out sometimes. I wonder if I shall ever feel like that?
Does it make it easier, knowing that something is bound to happen? Or does it make it worse?
Occupied with these ideas, he walked into school, and the atmosphere suddenly hit him like a bucketful of salt water in the face.
For a start, it seemed that, all of a sudden, everybody in his form hated him.
‘Oh cripes, look who’s here,’ Charley groaned, as he walked into the Remove room.
‘Oh-oh,’ said somebody else. ‘The Boy Wonder is with us again. Our hero of the kangaroos.’
Cosmo pretended he hadn’t heard these remarks, and dumped his homework exercise books on the piles laid out to be collected.
But as the day wore on he could not pretend to ignore the hostility any more. It was too open. People continually made sour or sharp remarks, obviously aimed at him; everything he said was greeted with acid comment or withering silence; people ostentatiously moved away from him as if he were contagious.
‘What the dickens is all this?’ he was finally provoked into saying. ‘What’s the matter, have I got the plague, or something?’
‘No,’ said Charley coldly, ‘we have just decided that you are disgustingly stuck up, and that as well as being a swank you are a liar and a cheat. So we just don’t want to have anything more to do with you than we absolutely have to. You’re lucky actually – last year, when we were in third Preparatory, we’d probably have hung you upside down by your feet out of the window; but this year as we are halfway up the school, we’ve decided just to send you to Coventry.’
‘Gee, thanks!’ He was so angry, that was all he could say for a minute or two; then, sickened at the sight of all their smug, waiting faces, he burst out, ‘What the blazes do you mean, I’m a liar and a cheat! I am not!’
‘You cheated at dodgeball. We all saw you.’
‘I did not! Anyway, everybody cheats. I saw a lot of you cheating,’ he said, fatally weakening his case.
‘And you’ve told a whole lot of lies about Australia. For all we know, you’ve never even been there. In fact, nobody here believes a single word you say.’
‘Too bad,’ he said coldly.
‘So we’ve decided we aren’t going to speak to you any more – except in lessons or when we absolutely have to.’
‘I doubt if I’ll miss your charming conversation! Good grief, how childish can you get,’ he muttered. ‘And how long, might I ask, do you intend to keep that up?’
Nobody answered.
The day thus badly begun went on worse. He had done the wrong lot of maths prep (‘Just to show off,’ somebody whispered), and he got a black mark for that, and another for going across the garden in the rain without his raincoat. The lessons were a strain, since he knew that, if he answered a question, somebody would be sure to murmur, ‘Swank! Know-all!’ and if he said he didn’t know, the teachers would think he was a dumb fool. In between lessons, he had to endure all the pointed remarks aimed at him.
‘Too bad there isn’t room for you at this table, Meredith. It’s pretty hard on you having to sit at a table with that pair of smelly dumbheads.’
‘It’s going to be awkward when the autumn term comes and we have to split up for studies. Who’d want to share a study with him?’
‘Gabby will have to find him a special room by himself.’
‘Even Bun wouldn’t want to share with him – would you, Bun?’
‘N-No,’ said poor Bun, and gave Cosmo a nervous, propitiating look.
The Intermediate forms, Cosmo had already learned, to mark their advance into the upper school, were given the privilege of small, cell-like studies, which were shared between three or four people; he had observed that, months ahead, the social problem of who was going to share with whom was a matter of terrific importance, much discussion and a lot of careful, anxious arrangement, since, once you were fixed up in a study with somebody, it was not easy to change, unless one of you left the school. So you might find yourself, up at Senior level, cumbered with some ninny who had seemed congenial when you were younger; or you might, in your haste to get yourself respectably paired off, not left out in the cold, snatch the first offer, and so miss the person or people you would really have liked to share with. Cosmo had already wondered rather apprehensively who his study-mates were likely to be. Charley and Moley would obviously share with each other, and probably with the other boy, Chris, who went round with them a good deal; Andy and Lot would probably join up with Rebecca, they seemed to like the big cheerful
German girl and all shared an interest in stamp collecting, of all boring things; Sheil, Tansy and Meredith might all go together; that left him the dismal prospect of sharing with Bun. But suppose even Bun wouldn’t have him?
‘He’ll never find three friends to share with,’ Charley remarked, as if listening to Cosmo’s thought. ‘I’m afraid poor old Cosmo Curt-oise will have to go up in the attic by himself.’
‘What a name to be saddled with,’ giggled Tansy – for such a giggly girl, she was very spiteful, as Cosmo had already discovered. ‘Cosmo! It sounds like cough mixture.’
‘Cosmic. Comic. Comic Curt-oise.’
‘Hey, Comic? How d’you like Morningquest School?’
‘I thought you weren’t supposed to be speaking to me,’ Cosmo said sourly.
He looked at their hostile, mocking faces, and hated the lot of them – supercilious, freckled Charley, sycophantic Moley, dull, self-satisfied Andy and Lot, dumb Rebecca, surly Chris, spiteful Tansy, stupid Bun, moody cross-eyed Sheil, and cool sarcastic Meredith. How in heaven’s name was he going to put up with a week of this? A week, a month, a term?
It went on, and it grew worse. During prayers everybody in the form shuffled about, making it plain that they were trying to avoid standing next to Cosmo, until sharply reprimanded by Mr Cheevy; at meals his own form kept well away from him; in football the boys refused to pass to him, even when he was well placed for a pass, although they were bawled out for this by Mr Breadbury; and, at other times, such as eleven o’clock break, when everybody was supposed to go out into the garden, he was left conspicuously alone and had to walk round by himself; he stuck his hands in his pockets, hunched his head between his shoulders, and tried to look as if he had a tremendous lot on his mind, maybe working out the theory of relativity. Well, he had a lot on his mind, damn it! Little did those dumb oafs know what problems he had to worry about. Anyway, that was one thing he would never, never tell them; for if he breathed a single word about the family curse, they would be certain to label it both outrageous swank and lying to get attention – as if he wanted their horrible attention! As a matter of fact, compared with this sudden and disconcerting unpopularity, the thought of the Curtoys Curse was almost comfortable, and at least interesting; certainly thinking about it took his mind off his present troubles. And he thought about it a great deal in the course of the week. There were all kinds of things he wanted to ask Eunice – for instance, had Father talked to her about it when they were young together at Courtoys Place? Had she known about it then? At what stage had Mark been told, as he obviously had; and why was Mark told when he, Cosmo, had been kept in the dark?
Perhaps some new boys would come to the school in the autumn term – or girls – and he could share a study with them.
Or perhaps Father would decide not to come to England after all, and would summon Cosmo back to Australia. It would certainly be good to leave this hateful, spiteful school, but as against that, he already felt rooted in at the mill house, with Eunice and Mrs Tydings; he really didn’t want to leave it. If only he didn’t have to go to school!
Midway through the week – which went on just as badly as it had started – Mr Gabbitas sent for him again.
‘Poor old Comic’s going to cry his eyes out on Gabby’s lap,’ whispered Tansy audibly to Rebecca, who laughed heartily.
‘Well, Cosmo, how is it going?’ inquired Mr Gabbitas with that sweet smile which crinkled up his eyes but didn’t seem to get to the middle of them. ‘Feeling more settled, are you? Making friends, hmn? Mr Cheevy seemed to think that you were looking a little troubled – any problems bothering you that I can help you sort out?’
Well, sir, I’ve just heard about this ancestral curse, and as well as that my form has decided, for no particular reason, to send me to Coventry. And a nasty little white thing like an outsize tadpole fell out of my sleeve and I haven’t seen it since, and the thought of it keeps bothering me, I can’t help wondering where it got to.
‘No, thank you, I’m quite all right,’ he said. ‘Sir.’
‘It does take a while getting used to a new place,’ said Mr Gabbitas. ‘I daresay in a couple of months’ time you’ll look back and be quite amazed at how differently you feel about things.’
‘Yes sir,’ said Cosmo politely.
‘Not finding the work too hard, eh? Mr Cheevy reports that you are well up to your age level – in fact rather beyond it here and there – still, I expect the others have plenty to teach you in different ways?’
‘Yes, they do.’
Mr Gabbitas sighed. ‘Very well, Cosmo, run along then.’
Outside the door he found the pale Meredith waiting her turn to see the headmaster.
She, at first, had seemed a good deal more sensible than some of the others in the form, and on an impulse he said to her quietly, ‘I say, isn’t this Coventry business a bit stupid?’
She shrugged her shoulders and answered in a toneless little voice,
‘Everyone has to go through it when they’re new. We all did. It’s supposed to help you find your level.’ And she went on into Mr Gabbitas’s study.
‘Ah, Meredith,’ the headmaster said, much more warmly than he had to Cosmo; then the door shut.
After lunch, between half-past one and two, people were allowed, if they had any pocket money, to buy chocolate and sweets from a store presided over by silly Miss Gracie the music mistress. In Australia, Cosmo had never eaten sweets, but now he had a sudden passionate craving for things that were chewy and gooey, Mars bars, Crunchies, whipped-cream walnuts. Eunice had given him a pound for pocket money, so he went up to Miss Gracie’s cupboard after lunch and bought three Mars bars.
‘Getting some for your friends too, are you?’ smiled Miss Gracie – obviously it hadn’t occurred to her that a person could eat three Mars bars all by himself. Cosmo heard Chris murmur to Charley in the line behind,
‘What a hope! He must be going to guzzle them all on his own. I don’t suppose Comic Curtoise has a single friend in this hemisphere.’
‘As a matter of fact you couldn’t be more wrong,’ remarked Cosmo coldly, surprising even himself. ‘I have three friends out at my cousin’s place, which is why I don’t give a rap whether any of you stuck-up lot speak to me or not.’
‘Just imagine! He has three whole friends! And what might be the names of these lucky, lucky persons?’
‘Percy, Bert and Oscar.’ Where had those names come from? They had flashed into his head like lightning. But they had the wrong effect on Chris and Charley, who fell about laughing.
‘Percy – Bert – and Oscar! Oh, hold me up, someone! Percy the Penguin. Burlington Bertie, the Kernel of the Nuts. And Oscar! What about Cedric? What about little Lord Fauntleroy? Isn’t he there?’
‘Move along, move along, please,’ said Miss Gracie, getting flustered. ‘You’re holding up the line.’
Chris and Charley followed Cosmo downstairs.
‘I suppose you and Percy and dear Bertie and Ossie all play ring-a-roses with that nice lady who brings you in the Rolls. Your aunt, is she?’
‘No, as a matter of fact she’s a vampire – she’s Dracula’s aunt.’
Chris and Charley looked at one another solemnly. ‘Oh-oh. Wonder Boy’s getting uppish.’
Cosmo left them abruptly and walked away towards the cloakrooms. As he went, he heard them reporting the exchange to Moley, and Moley’s sudden engaging bubble of laughter. ‘I say, Dracula’s aunt – that’s rather good!’
Cosmo locked himself in the loo, intending to eat one of his Mars bars, but was confronted by a pencilled notice on the wall that said, ‘Cosmo Curtoys is a Swanky Ass’.
He suddenly felt sick, and discovered that chocolate was the last thing he wanted.
By Friday, when Eunice came to fetch him, he still had not eaten the Mars bars.
The nickname Dracula’s aunt had somehow stuck to her. People said to each other, ‘I say, do you know that Cosmo Curtoys lives with Dracula’s aunt? He has a nice basin
of blood for breakfast every Saturday.’ This had gone the rounds of the lower forms, and by four o’clock on Friday afternoon quite a number of people were hanging about the front steps, interested to see the Rolls and its driver. Lob was in the car too – he came in on Fridays as Eunice spent only half a day in college; somebody murmured, ‘There’s Dracula’s dachshund.’
Eunice – who had come straight from a lecture and was still wearing her black gown – looked keenly at the assembled spectators, and said,
‘Hullo! Could somebody tell Cosmo Curtoys that I’m here for him, please?’
But at that moment Cosmo himself came out of the door with his duffel bag and got into the car.
‘Goodbye,’ Eunice said politely to the watchers on the threshold. A faint cheer of hip-hip-hurray went up as the Rolls crunched out of the gateway.
‘Were those friends or enemies?’ Eunice asked.
‘Enemies.’
‘Heavens. You certainly seem to have made plenty.’ She sounded quite calm about it. ‘What did you do – fight them all?’
‘No, they just sort of – sort of appointed themselves.’
‘Oh well, if it happened as unreasonably as that, they’ll probably dis-appoint themselves equally fast. It’s tough while it lasts though. How’s work going?’
He started telling her, and she asked a number of questions about his science and maths which made the journey home pass in a flash.
Cosmo felt peculiarly nervous when he first went up to his bedroom; try as he would, he couldn’t get out of his mind the memory of that little whitish thing. In the course of last weekend he had hunted for it very thoroughly several times, and found nothing, but the room was old and cornery – in fact it had a small square trapdoor in one corner that led straight into the roof – there were lots of places where the thing could have hidden itself, a cupboard that held a water tank, and the huge wardrobe at the end of the room.
