The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) (3 page)

It
was here that legend had it that the ghost of the Wandering Monk was to be seen
meandering among the trees, hovering a foot above the ground, cowled and
cloaked so that his hands, feet and face were invisible, hunting eternally for
his old companion, the ghost of the dog buried here.  Every twitch in the
undergrowth and rustle in the breeze seemed to sound like his whispered prayers.

“But
Fred,” I said.  “What was this Doctor Boateng doing with Barrington and... and
where even were they?  It looked like they were behind the Library, next to the
Maths rooms.  Is there even a room there?”

“Actually,
do you know what?” said Freddie, rubbing his chin in thought.  “About a year
ago, I remember some Seniors at breakfast saying that before they left the
school, they were
determined
to find out how to get to the room behind
the false bookcase.  I’ve no idea whether or not they managed to.  But maybe
that’s where they were.  I guess it is rather odd.  Hey, maybe we should...”

I
raised my hand to hush him.  I was sure I had heard something nearby.  We
waited alertly for a few moments, trying to discern some sound in the silence.

Then
there was a sudden shuffling, followed by a startled squirrel darting out from
a bush.

“Hey,
Tom, look,” said Freddie after a few silent moments.  “If you look between the
trees, you can see St. Kats on the other side of the mustard field.”

I
tried to see where he was pointing, but the leaves were far too thick.  I
couldn’t even see the mustard field.  St. Kats was St. Katherine’s Ladies’
Academy, where some of my friends’ sisters were sent to learn how to cook, sing
and raise children.

“Rubbish!”
I said.  “It’s much too far away.”

“No,
look
!” he replied.  “If you squint and cock your head to one side...”

“Oh,
very funny!”  I chuckled.  “You know, we’re going to start having Germanic
Studies with them next term.”

“How
could I
not
know that?” he replied excitedly.

“They
won’t be interested, you know,” I said.

“What
do you mean?”

“Pontevecchio
told me that girls our age are only interested in boys in the Fifth Form.  It’s
just the way it is, so...”

Suddenly
footsteps were crunching towards us.  There was hushed talking.  Seniors were
here.

Freddie
looked at me urgently, beckoning towards him.  He was clutching the rope that
Milo, he and I had last week rigged up to one of the tree’s furthest branches. 
My heart leapt with fearful excitement.  I had half hoped that Seniors would
find us just so that I could see our plan in action.

I
crept slowly along the branch towards Freddie and took a firm grip on the rope.

The
footsteps stopped abruptly.  I could hear one of them clearly now:

“Oy,
what’s this?  Looks like someone’s come this way...  Right.  You two, go that
way, quick as you can.  Circle round and I’ll see you back here in five
minutes.”

I
recognised the abrasive, hoarse tone.  It was Hector Vanderpump, next year’s
Crusaders’ house captain.  He was a swarthy, hulking lad; England schoolboys’
boxing champion with a right-hook that could floor an ox.  He was also one of
those infuriating boys who would suck up to mothers and teachers, but, as soon
as their backs were turned, he was a swaggering brute who would sooner give you
a beating than a Detention.

I
didn’t like Vanderpump at all and I knew that he despised me.  I supposed it
was because his parents were rich, and so he looked down upon boys from more
humble families.  I was one of those boys.  Apparently the fact that my father
had been a solicitor in a nearby town meant that I was, according to Vanderpump,
a “nasty little plebeian” and that I should “crawl back to the gutter I came
from” so that I don’t “infect decent Aryans with rancid poverty” (it was a
woeful day when Vanderpump first got his hands on a thesaurus).  What was worse
was that, as far as many of the Masters were concerned, he could do no wrong
because his father worked for Von Ribbentrop and the Duke of Windsor in
Buckingham Palace.

We
waited, not moving, while footsteps crunched off back towards the direction of
the school.  Freddie hesitantly peered around as silence descended.  He drew a
breath as if he was about to say something, but the voice we heard was much
deeper.

“Well,
well!  A pair of parasites up a tree!”  Vanderpump was grinning up at us
menacingly and slapping a hefty stick against his left hand.  “So are you going
to make me come up there or are you going climb down and take your punishment
like men?”

Neither
of us spoke as Vanderpump stared up at us, becoming redder and redder with
anger.

“Well?”
he shouted.

We
continued to stare.

“Right. 
Enough.  You’re for it now,” he shouted, hauling himself up onto the lower
branches.

“Let’s
go,” whispered Freddie.

“Wait,”
I replied.

Freddie
looked at me urgently as Vanderpump climbed closer and closer towards us.

“Hang
on...” I whispered. 

Vanderpump
was right beneath us now, almost within grabbing distance of my ankles.  He
looked up at us, snarling.  “You two are going to regret making me come up
here.  Accidents can happen in the Forest and nobody can hear you...”

“Now!”
I shouted, just as Vanderpump was about to take a swipe with his stick.

Freddie
and I launched ourselves off of the branch, clinging to the rope for our lives. 
And then we were in thin air, with the ground plunging towards us.  It was only
then that I realised, forty feet up, that we had never tried out the rope with
two of us at the same time.  I looked up in an instant.  It was still slack
above us, arcing outwards like a bullwhip.  And we were still falling, crashing
through the leaves and branches, straight towards the ground.

Then,
mercifully, the rope jolted and we were swinging in an exhilarating blur across
a clearing and away from Vanderpump and the Black Dog’s Grave.  The air
whistled through my ears and brought water streaming from my eyes as the Forest
lurched sickeningly past us.  But suddenly something wasn’t right:  Where was
Freddie?

The
rope slowed and, just before I started to rise too high at the far side of the
clearing, I let go.  I tried to effect a smooth landing, but the momentum
hurled me like a rag-doll into the bushy undergrowth, where I eventually
tripped over a log and sprawled heavily into a patch of stinging nettles.

I
sat dazed for a moment before the pain set in: grazed knees, a throbbing ankle,
and angry red blotches appearing all over my arms.  Maybe a beating from
Vanderpump would have been a better option, but there was no way I would want him
to have the satisfaction.

Then
I heard his voice.

“Thought
you could get away from me, did you, Strange?  Not your lucky day, eh?”

There
was a muffled moan.  I turned on my hands and knees and crawled forwards to
peer out from the bracken.  Freddie was there, lying on the ground in the middle
of the clearing and I could see that he had caught his shoelace on a protruding
tree-root.  Vanderpump was standing over Freddie with his back to me, still
brandishing the stick, which looked about the size of a cricket bat.

Just
as Freddie reached out to release his shoelace, Vanderpump kicked him brutally
in the ribs.  Freddie cried out, his back arched in pain.

“You’re
howling like a woman,” mocked Vanderpump.  “And where’s your little friend,
Turnpike, eh?  Turn
coat
, more like!”  He was pleased with this.  “Turned
tail and left you like the coward he is, I shouldn’t wonder.  What would you
expect from the son of a
traitor
?”

This
last word he spat as if it tasted foul in his mouth.  I was used to hearing
things like this about my father and I didn’t care a jot.  It was only ever
from the boys whose fathers were active Party members. I tended not to like
them much anyway. 

Vanderpump
then raised his makeshift club above his head, ready to bludgeon Freddie’s
legs.  I scrabbled around in the mud for something to throw at him and my hand
fell upon something hard and jagged.  A hefty lump of flint.

I
stood awkwardly.  “Oy, Vanderpump!”  I shouted.  He turned briefly and snorted
indignantly as Freddie continued to struggle with his bootlace.  Then, just as
Freddie had freed his foot and Vanderpump turned back to bring his cudgel down
on him, I launched the stone as hard as I could.

I
was a terrible shot, always had been, and this rock could really have ended up
anywhere.  But incredibly, amazingly, it made such sweet and heavy, thudding
contact with the back of Vanderpump’s head that he stumbled forwards, tripped
over Freddie, who was now struggling to his feet, and landed on his face in the
dirt, dazed and bloody.

“Come
on, Fred,” I shouted.  “This way.”

Vanderpump
would be after us with a vengeance and there was nowhere left to hide.  But we
had one trick left. 

The
bell started to toll in the distance, but that would not stop him.  Freddie and
I ran as quickly as we could, forgetting our injuries in the excitement, along
a narrow deer-track towards the London Ride, the main path that led back to the
school.

Vanderpump
was bawling after us now.  “You two are dead! 
Dead
!”  His heavy
footfalls were bearing down upon us.

“There
it is,” I puffed to Freddie, pointing a few yards ahead of me to a particular
patch of mud and scrub on the track.  We leapt over it, one after the other,
hoping that Vanderpump, in his anger, would not notice.  We kept running, but,
just before we reached the London Ride, Freddie grabbed me by the arm.  We
stopped and turned to watch.

Vanderpump
was careering down the path after us.  “That’s right,” he shouted, waiving his
bludgeon in the air.  “You won’t get away from me, and when I get you, I’m
going to...”

The
rest of his threat was swallowed in an instant.  That certain patch of mud and
scrub, which Freddie, Milo and I had prepared a week ago to cover a thin layer
of sticks and twigs, cracked and buckled under Vanderpump’s enormous weight. 
And the expression of dramatic bewilderment upon his face as he plummetted into
the hole that had taken us a full afternoon to dig, just as he completely
disappeared from view, was perfectly hilarious.

Freddie
looked at me with blood crusting under his nose, and then burst out laughing.

“Come
on,” I sniggered.  “Let’s get back.”

three

Freddie
was vexed.

“
Pathetic
! 
I can’t believe all four of the boys who got caught are Crusaders.  The
Colonel’s going to be seriously angry.”

I
sniggered.  Freddie was a Crusader, Barrington was his Housemaster and always
took the Flucht very seriously.  My Housemaster, Caratacus, on the other hand,
had been delirious all afternoon; the Crusaders had won the House Competition
three years running, but now the house-points table showed that my house, the
Swallows, had just nosed ahead.

“Well,”
Freddie continued, “at least the Colonel wasn’t there to see it.”

It
was sunny in the late afternoon and that meant that all of the Juniors had to
be outside during the free time before Tea.  But Freddie was determined to show
me that there must be a false bookcase leading to the secret room where I had
seen Barrington and the mysterious Doctor Boateng. 

“If
someone catches us,” he said as we hurried through the corridor, “well, we’ll
be in the Library, won’t we?  What could be more innocent than browsing for
books?  The perfect crime!”

The
Library was a grand, dusty hall with ancient wooden tables and benches which
must have been sat upon by thousands of boys who had left the school, grown old
and died long ago.  Creaking bookcases clad every wall, stretching right up to
a frescoed ceiling of angelic babies with orchestral instruments and wings surely
too petite to carry their chubby limbs.

The
Library stretched from the door to Caratacus’ Latin classroom at this end down
to the Maths Classrooms through a door at the opposite end on the left.

Freddie
pointed.  “It’s that bookcase down there.  There's a false book and if you pull
it, the bookcase swings open and there’s another room behind...”

“And
you expect me to believe that?”  I shook my head.

“It’s
true
!” he insisted.

“And
how do
you
know?”

“Because...
well it
must
be.  You said that’s where you saw the Colonel with Doctor
Boateng, so it must be back there somewhere.  Anyway, have you got anything
better to do?”

I
shrugged.  “I suppose not.”  There was just no point in ever arguing with
Freddie Strange.  “Come on then.”

I
looked around.  The only person here was our English teacher, Mr. English, who
was, in fact, Irish.  He was crouching down to stick little gold stars on
certain books in the shelves by the door to the Latin classroom.  He was one of
my favourite teachers.  He probably would have been my favourite, above even
Mr. Caratacus, if he did not have such a volatile temper.  He wore a tweed suit
and had a head exactly the shape of an egg.  It was bald on top, but he combed every
strand of hair from one side of his head to the other in a hopeless attempt to
give the impression of having a full head of hair.  Sometimes, in a strong
breeze when he wasn’t wearing his mortar board, his hair would blow out to the
side and make him look like an angry palm tree in a hurricane.

“Hulloo,
fellas,” he called out in his lilting accent, peering over his thick, round
spectacles. 

“Hello,
Sir,” we replied.

“Master
Strange, fancy seeing you in a Library!  What would you be after then?  A bit
of Robert Louis Stevenson perhaps?”

“Actually,
Sir,” said Freddie, “we were just, um...  browsing, weren’t we, Tom?”

“Well
suit yourself, Strange.  I will cultivate you yet.”  He stuck a finger in his
right ear and wiggled it frenetically, with his eyes screwed up.  It was a
weird-looking habit which he said was to ease the discomfort of a piece of
shrapnel that had been lodged there since the War.

Freddie
and I headed over to the bookcases by the door that lead to the Maths rooms to
begin our search.   We began by running our hands along the shelves that we
could reach.

“There
must be a latch around here somewhere,” said Freddie.  “If there’s a door,
there must be a handle or some hinges somewhere.  You look here around D and E,
and I’ll go over to H, I and J.”

I
continued to scour the shelves for a switch or a lever, but with no success.  I
took a couple of paces back so that I could look higher up.

“There’s
really nothing here,” I said.  “Come on, let’s get outside.”

“It
is here somewhere, “Freddie insisted.  “I’m
telling
you!”

He
tugged on a handful of books, stepping back expectantly, hoping that the
bookcase would yawn open and reveal the secret chamber.

“Turnpike! 
Strange!” a voice shouted sharply.  “What on
Earth
do you think you’re
doing indoors?”

Barrington. 
And he was with Doctor Saracen.  Whilst Saracen loomed quiet and still,
Barrington was agitated and ran a hand shakily through his hair.  He looked at
the bookcases behind us and then fixed a piercing gaze upon me.  He must have
realised why we were here.  I felt so afraid, I didn’t know where to look.  The
last time he had seen me, and he
must
have seen me, was when we were
down in the Dungeon.  This was it, I thought.  He’s here to give me my
punishment.

Freddie
always grovelled pathetically when he felt trouble coming.  “Sir, we’re
terribly sorry,” he mewed, staring at the ground.  “We just wanted to find...
um...”

“
Turnpike
,”
blurted Barrington, glowering at me.  “I suppose you think that surviving the
Flucht entitles you to a
flagrant
disregard for the school rules.  Do
you, boy?”

“No,
I don’t,” I replied, looking directly up at him and with perhaps a little too
much defiance.

He
didn’t like this.  He glared at me, exhaling loudly from his nostrils, jaw
clenching.  “Well,” he said slowly and darkly, “I strongly suggest ...”

“I
say, Colonel Barrington!” interrupted Mr. English calmly, shuffling over.  “I
do
hope you don’t object, but I told these young fellas that they could spend a
few minutes choosing a novel each before they go outside.”

Barrington
paused, checking his wristwatch.  He looked at Freddie and me with his mouth
open as if he was about to say something.  “Very well then, Mr. English,” he
said.  Then he turned and stalked out of the room.  Doctor Saracen lingered
briefly, studying us both.  His eyebrows met in the middle, giving his stare a
dark, menacing quality.  Then, after a moment, he turned and followed
Barrington.

Freddie
and I looked up at Mr. English.  “Thank you very much, Sir,” said Freddie.

“Now,
look here, young fellas.  I think you’d better get yourselves outside before I go
upsetting any other Masters.”

We
turned to leave, but, just as we got to the door, Mr. English stopped us.  “Oh
and boys,” he called, not looking up from his work, “It occurs to me now that
the book that would suit you both is by Huxley, Aldous Huxley”.  He then looked
over the rims of his spectacles and nodded towards the bookcase which Freddie
had been searching and gave us a conspiratorial wink.