Tom Tailor and the Scroll of Gramarye

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
(Home)

“Tom Tailor and the Scroll of Gramarye was written in 2005 and came from my love of writing fantasy. The aim was to take the readers through a journey alongside Tom as he passes from this world into a place of deep friendships and magic.”

After another two window-rattling warnings and an actual personal appearance by his mother, Tom crawled out from under the covers with the speed and haste of a sloth and clambered into his school clothes.  Narrowly avoiding an unplanned acrobatic back flip thanks to his abandoned skateboard, he made to walk out of the bedroom but stopped after catching sight of himself in the mirror.  Between the cards pushed into the frame showing famous footballers, a vision in crimson stared back.  Tom tutted – he even hated the uniform, he thought it made him look like an oversized pimple.  Flattening his brown hair against his head with one hand and wrenching his stripy crimson and black tie into a more acceptable shape with the other (which was pointless since Robert Clatterpan had cut the end of it off with scissors), he opened the door and passed through.

            ‘Well, I don’t believe it, good afternoon!’ joked his mother, as he appeared still looking dishevelled despite his best efforts.  ‘At this rate you will be back in detention before you even step foot inside the school gates, young man.’

Tom rolled his eyes and fell into a chair at the small kitchen table.

            ‘I think I am coming down with something, I feel hot and my throat is sore,’ he replied, trying to sound croaky.

            ‘Strange that; it seems you had the same thing last Monday,’ answered his mother giving him a cynical look, ‘I must go to the chemist and get you some Monday Syndrome tablets…’

Realising that he wasn’t fooling anybody, Tom gave up all attempts at derailing the course of education for another day and accepted that he would have to go to school.  The fact that Robert Clatterpan wanted to expand the schools collection of round kickable objects by donating Tom’s head was only one of his concerns; he had heard rumours circulating around the dilapidated corridors of St Williams that the school was haunted!  The increasing visitations of cloaked spectres were said to be pushing up the science teacher’s blood pressure to levels never before recorded in a human being.  Just last week Tom had overheard two fourth years describing how the queue for the after-school Crochet for Beginners class (not a very big queue by all accounts) had been scattered by the janitor, Cyril Shufflebottom, who’s mopping of the science lab was decisively disrupted by the shocking materialisation of a translucent figure, its attempt to grab him saw it fall straight through the terrified mans body.  Cyril was off with stress for a few days afterwards and subsequently refused to go near that room after hours.

            ‘Have you made any friends yet?’ His mother asked, breaking his thoughts.

            ‘No,’ he answered simply.  The fact was that in the six months that he had been at St William’s high school, the only interaction that he had managed to attract from other pupils usually ended in an attempt to flush his head down a school toilet.

            ‘Here you go, get this down you – and quick!’

She passed him a hot bowl of porridge and smiled with thinly disguised concern, but it was not just his lack of friends that was worrying her. 

            ‘I received this yesterday,’ she said reaching onto the old fashioned mantelpiece and picking up a letter.  Tom could see that it had the school crest on the front and guessed with a groan what it was.

            ‘It’s your mid-term report,’ she said, confirming his fears.  ‘It seems that your grades are low and that you are quiet in class.  Your head of year, Mrs  Hackleton, seems to think that you are smarter than you appear but most of the time your mind seems to be in an entirely different place.’

            ‘It would be nice to be in an entirely different place,’ Tom mumbled with a mouthful of porridge.

            ‘Really, Tom; where else would you rather be?’  His mother sounded exasperated.  She looked long at him before folding the letter back into its envelope and placing it back on the mantelpiece next to his solitary twelfth birthday card.  The card, signed “To my special boy, all my love on your birthday from mom” and showing a big blue shaggy dog playing football had been there some time.  She stared at it as she played absentmindedly with her cheap heart-shaped necklace, she felt loath to remove the card as it was the only one that he had received.  Walking around to the back of his chair she ruffled his hair lovingly and held up his coat for him to slide his arms into.

            ‘Come on my lad, better hurry or else you will have a long walk ahead of you!’

Tom shovelled the remains of his breakfast into his mouth before slipping his school bag over his shoulder and following his mother out of the apartment door.  Living on the tenth floor of a tall block of flats was always a challenge in the mornings, especially when the lift hardly ever worked (probably due to the sheer weight of the graffiti alone, thought Tom) and they were faced with a long decent to the ground floor.

            ‘I’ve had old Mrs Cocklefinch complaining,’ said Tom’s mother with a stern look as they plodded down the never ending stairs, ‘says you’ve been kicking your football against her door again and that you nearly ran her over whilst skateboarding down the corridor; what have I told you about that?’

            ‘She’s batty, that one.’

            ‘That’s probably because you have made her that way.’

When they reached the bottom, they walked down the pathway that lead between two other apartment blocks and onto the main road.  The sky was hidden by an impenetrable bank of endless grey cloud and the pavements were strongly resisting the skulking away of last nights rain.

            ‘Is this yours?’ Tom’s mother asked as they reached the bus shelter in time to see a big yellow bus approach.  Someone had ripped the cover of a St Williams notebook off and drawn a rude picture on it before sticking it to one of the buses windows.

            ‘Yep,’ Tom sighed before making to board the now stationary vehicle and for the first time that morning he acted with some haste for he knew what was coming.

            ‘Not so fast my little soldier,’ said his mother as she grabbed his fast departing shoulders, ‘don’t forget that I am working a late shift at the factory this evening so you will have to get your own dinner.’  She gave him a troubled smile, ‘Have a great day and try and find something exciting to tell me about tonight.’

Stooping, she kissed him on his head.  The shouts and laughter from the bus told Tom that it was time to get on and hide under a seat somewhere.

The jostling crowd swept Tom along through the school gates.  As they entered the playground, a banana skin arced through the air and landed on his head with a fladop.  With a nonchalant flick of his hand he knocked the clammy object from its perch, he was not surprised by this act – he was used to it by now.  Actually, he would have been highly suspicious if the morning had passed without finding himself the target of someone’s wayward behaviour.  As he approached the large wooden double doors with flaking paint that lead into the school, Tom stopped.  People flowed around him like water past a rock; an occasional thwack on the back of the head came his way until eventually he was alone. 

He looked up; the high arched windows with their patched leaded glass, the once bright brickwork now stained and crumbling, the multitude of fauna growing from the broken roof slates; this place is as depressing on the outside as it is on the inside, thought Tom.  With a pitiful clang the rusting hands of the clock perched in a lofty position at the apex of the building signalled nine o’clock.

            ‘Yes, yes young man, it’s a school and you should be inside.  Chop chop; it’s time for assembly.  Time and tide and all that…’

            Tom looked back to the doors to see Mr  Fumblewort, the head master, walking into the school.  With another sigh, Tom followed.

Assembly was as raucous as usual; the entire population of the first year had taken root on their chairs facing the stage at the end of the sports hall whilst a handful of teachers sat primly behind temporary desks.  Tom had found a seat at the back; this was usually best as it meant that there was nobody behind him to throw punches and sharp objects.

            ‘Okay, okay; settle down settle down boys and girls,’ commanded Mr  Fumblewort with a frown and a wave of his hands, ‘all eyes this way if you please, if you please.  Ms Harper, please remove your face from Master Francis’s, I don’t think that the Kiss of Life need be administered in assembly thank you.’  A ripple of laughter swept around the hall as Mandy Harper buried her head, which now matched her uniform perfectly, in her hands.  Mr  Fumblewort fiddled with the cuffs on his tweed jacket as he surveyed the congregation through his seventies style thick rimmed glasses; the bald patch on his head was still visible despite his attempts to comb his remaining hair over it and was beginning to show the beads of sweat that betrayed his discomfort with standing before so many.

            ‘Right then, I hope you all had a good weekend,’ began Mr  Fumblewort, ‘I would like to make a few announcements to start with.  Firstly, please note that those responsible for defacing school signs will be found out and dealt with; I can assure you that there is in fact an ‘L’ in “School Pool”.  Next, it seems we have a forged document doing the rounds; anyone in the possession of the homework sheet titled “Burning Compact Disks through the Application of Magnesium and a Microwave Oven” please hand these in to me before attempting the procedures outlined therein – for which I strenuously urge you not to follow.  Thirdly,’ Mr  Fumblewort looked uncomfortable for a second and cleared his throat, ‘thirdly, I have to announce the regrettable absence of Mr  Petri the science teacher, he – um, he has fallen foul of an unfortunate medical condition and won’t come back, ah, I mean won’t be coming back for quite a while.’

Tom watched with curiosity as the other teachers exchanged fleeting and anxious looks between themselves.

            ‘So, please be aware’ continued Mr  Fumblewort, ‘that today will see the temporary assignment of a supply teacher to fill the void left by our dear Mr  Petri.’

            ‘He is talking like the man’s dead!’ said a voice to Tom’s left where two girls were talking together at the back.

            ‘Yeh,’ replied the other with a grin as she secretively applied garish pink lipstick, ‘scared to death more like!’

Tom’s eyes flicked across the walls and high ceiling of the old hall as if he expected to see ghostly apparitions floating around the light fittings.

The rest of the assembly crawled by in the tedious manner to which Tom had become accustomed; no more was said about the absent Mr  Petri or the new supply teacher that would be taking his place and before long the pupils began filing out via the front rows.  Being the last one out, Tom slowed as he passed the front desks; the teachers had their heads together and were talking in hushed tones.

            ‘…I can assure you Monty,’ said Mrs  Hackleton, the first year head, to Mr  Fumblewort, ‘I have no idea where the man came from.  It was most odd; he came walking through the school gates, into the school and straight up to the staff room as if he had been there a thousand times.  I was the only one around but he addressed me by name.  He said that he had seen the advert for a supply teacher in the local news publication and wanted to apply; the strange thing is that the advert was still in my bag waiting to be posted.  I asked him for references and he looked at me puzzled and said “in due course”.  Well, what with the short notice and all, I thought it best to give him a trial.’

            ‘Well,’ said Mr  Digworth, the history teacher, ‘let us hope he doesn’t have a nervous disposition.’

            ‘Yes, yes,’ replied Mr  Fumblewort, ‘those children can be a handful.’

            ‘I wasn’t referring to the children, Monty.’

The teachers shared another knowing glance before the headmaster caught sight of Tom pretending to take an abnormal interest in the tied back climbing ropes overhead.

            ‘Can we help you, young man? Come, come; there’s a lesson with your name on it somewhere, move along now.’  Tom flashed them a nervous smile and sprinted out of the door and into the corridor.

            THUD!

Without warning he had walked directly into the path of someone rushing down the corridor and had been knocked sprawling onto his back.  The loose papers shoved absent-mindedly into his unzipped school bag were now fluttering down on top of him like giant rectangle snowflakes.  Then he heard it, the voice he least wanted to be speaking his name.

            ‘TAILOR!’ boomed the voice of Robert Clatterpan, ‘Can’t you watch where you are going you pathetic little runt!  I am so going to smash your head in for this!’  As Tom looked up at the bulky figure towering above him, his short spiky black hair that must have seen the best part of an entire tub of hair gel, his bulging grey eyes poking out from above his puffy red cheeks and his short fat tie that hung loosely around his neck like a medallion, a feeling of fear rose within him.

            ‘I didn’t think you needed a reason for that,’ replied Tom.

            ‘Ya know what? Y’right about that,’ said Clatterpan as he reached down and grabbed Tom’s crimson shirt with his one hand whilst forming a meaty fist with the other.  Tom looked him straight in the eye, resigned to whatever was coming his way; Clatterpan made to swing his fist but instead it was the swinging of the door that saved the day.

            ‘Clatterpan?  Tailor?  What’s going on here?’ asked the terse voice of Mrs  Hackleton.

            ‘What’s this then, eh?’ added the confused voice of the headmaster as he found his exit from the sports hall barred by bodies.

            ‘Er, just helping up Tom; he seems to have fell on his a-’

            ‘Yes, thank you Master Clatterpan,’ interrupted Mrs  Hackleton with a scowl, ‘just you move yourselves along now or you will both find yourselves in detention before the days out.’

 With a look of daggers Clatterpan pulled Tom up by his shirt; as he did so, one of the crimson buttons pinged off and struck Clatterpan right between the eyes.  Clatterpan emitted a strangled noise as a result of trying to suppress his now molten anger whilst still in earshot of teachers.

            ‘I will get you,’ mouthed Clatterpan as he stormed away from Tom and disappeared down an adjoining corridor.  The teachers from the hall were striding away in the opposite direction now that the unexpected blockage had been cleared from outside the doors.  Tom dusted himself down and picked up the ejected contents of his bag, shoving them back in with the force that he only wished he could use on Clatterpan.

The first lesson after lunch was sports and as Tom stepped out of the school gates along with the rest of his class that afternoon, the already grim day seemed to get worse just out of spite.  The half mile walk through mainly residential streets to the nearest playing field was hampered by more than just the usual problems presented by walking on smooth pavements with studded football boots.  As they clop-clop-clopped down the tarmac pathways, the thick grey clouds, heavy with shuddering cold rain, dropped their payload.  Following on at the back, Tom joined in the groans of misery that rose from the group as they walked, getting wetter and wetter.  By the time they reached the playing field, the grumbling had died down; they were all so wet that the rain could do no worse.

            ‘How are the boots, Tailor?’ said Mr Fosberry, the lean looking sports teacher who had just caught up with the group after sending them on ahead.  Tom looked down at the old fashioned and tatty looking objects strapped onto his feet with what looked like three meters of dirty lace on each boot.  Tom had forgotten to pack his own that morning and had to resort to picking some out of the spares box (or the ‘pox box’ as it was known) as Fosberry wouldn’t let him wear his trainers instead.

Tom’s heart sank when he thought of his trainers.  They were black with four white stripes.  Four.

            ‘What’s wrong with having four stripes?’ asked his mother when he had returned home from school one day looking more humiliated and stressed than normal.

            ‘Nobody wears trainers with four stripes, mum, everyone has three.’

            ‘Three?  What difference can an extra stripe make?’

            ‘About as much as growing another head that barks like a dog and dribbles like a camel, that’s what.’

He had received the trainers from his mother at Christmas; Tom was never one to be bothered about having the latest fashions – he knew that his mother could not afford it anyway – but there were times when it was really hard not having the same things as everyone else.  Once, during the first English lesson back after the Christmas break, Tom’s teacher had decided to ask everyone in turn what presents they had been given.  When it came to Tom’s turn, he was too embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t received anything like the things the others had and quickly made things up.  He had walked away from that lesson feeling lower than at any other time – not because he felt that he was missing out, but because he felt that he had somehow let his mother down and that hurt the most.

            ‘Well?’ said Mr Fosberry, ‘will they do the trick, eh?’

            ‘I would’ve been better off strapping concrete blocks to my feet,’ Tom mumbled to himself.

            ‘Ah, Geoff Hurst specials, those!’ said Mr Fosberry with a faraway look of nostalgia before jogging off to organise the session.  Tom harrumphed to himself and took up a position on the perimeter of the student gathering.

            ‘Now then,’ shouted Mr Fosberry over the muffling sound of the rain, ‘I don’t know how many of you are aware but every year in south east London there is a football competition which is open to all secondary schools.  Due to staffing issues, we have not been able to take part in the past but this year we aim to put in a team!’ 

A murmur of dampened excitement rippled through the crowd as students exchanged surprised looks.  Encouraged by the reception of his news, Mr Fosberry continued.

            ‘I aim to use these Monday sessions to form a team and get practising; we haven’t much time as the first rounds are in a couple of weeks.  Now, who here are interested in a trial?’  Without exception, all hands shot into the air – none more vigorously then Tom’s.  Tom simply loved football; it was the only thing that seemed to keep him sane in this world.  At night, he would often lay awake in bed and dream of being a player-manager for his own team, of scoring the winning goal and lifting the cup to a screaming crowd.

            ‘Right then; good; excellent!’ said Mr Fosberry happily and carried out a quick head count. ‘Seventeen.  I am going to need two captains,’ Tom kept his hand in the air and tried to push forward through the crowd but was pushed back so hard that he fell backwards onto the muddy floor with a squelch.

            ‘Bagshot and, er, Mullins,’ said Mr Fosberry pointing out two tall boys, both dressed in the latest strip of their favourite football teams and with expensive looking boots.  Tom cursed to himself as he clambered up from the mud and looked towards the two chosen who were standing along side Mr Fosberry and slapping each other on the backs in a sickening display of smug bravado.

            ‘Good, now you two take it in turns to select your team members and then join me in the centre circle,’ said Mr Fosberry as he picked up a cracked looking leather football and trotted off the middle of the pitch.  One by one Bagshot and Mullins called out the names of their dream team, occasionally swearing out of earshot of the teacher when the other took someone that they wanted.  Eventually only two were left, Peter ‘porky’ Davies and Tom.  Bagshot tutted to himself and turned to Mullins.

            ‘Any preference?  You can have them both if you want…’

            ‘Could they be boot cleaners d’ya think?’

            ‘Nah, wouldn’t want either touching my boots!’ said Bagshot with a snigger.  ‘Okay, Porky – over hear with me.  Tailor, you’re spare – go sit on the bench or summut!’

With that, both teams turned their backs on Tom and sprinted off to join Mr Fosberry.  Tom felt a pang of emotion as he was left standing on his own in the rain, watching the others spread out into disorganised looking formations and kick off.  If his boots had felt heavy before, they truly felt like anvils now.  Trudging over the sodden grass, he squatted down on an equally tatty looking football and used it as a wobbly seat.  For much of the session Tom played the spectator; Mr Fosberry seemed too caught up in the rather amateur looking game to realise that he was sat out on his own and it wasn’t until Peter Davies, after breaking his glasses, ran into a fence thinking that the pigeon he was chasing was the ball, that Tom was spotted as a likely substitute.

            ‘Come on Tailor, don’t just sit there – you’re on.’ Shouted Mr Fosberry before blowing the whistle for a blatant and painful looking foul by the keeper who had ran out of the goalmouth and kicked the legs from under a player nowhere near the ball.  Tom jumped up and sprinted onto the pitch.

            ‘Defence,’ growled Bagshot with a look of contempt.  He and Mullins had both taken the more glamorous striker positions, that was exactly where Tom liked to play but even defence was better than nothing.  As he took his place, he suddenly realised who was in the opposition goal – Clatterpan.

After twenty minutes of frustrating play, Tom lost all enthusiasm for the game.  His theory that having the right football kit did not necessarily mean that you knew how to organise a team of misfits was proven correct.  The midfield players were giving the ball away so frequently that they may have well gift-wrapped it with a ‘happy Christmas’ tag and personally handed it to the other side.  The strikers dribbling skills were less developed than even that of a three-month-old baby and Tom was sure that if he had asked his team-mates what they thought fancy footwork was they would have said ‘multi-coloured toenails…’

Then a moment came that tested his resolve to stay in position – a test that he took and failed!  Bagshot had ran with the ball up the field to the opposition goal and from eight yards out had scuffed his strike so badly that it nearly hit the corner flag.  The other side then punted the ball back down field to their striker, Mullins, who was now running at Tom with a demonic look on his face.  With a drop of the shoulder, Tom ran past the shocked Mullins and with a swift flick of the foot stole the ball clean away from the striker.  As he ran up the field with it, Bagshot was running backwards toward the opposition goal, waving his hands in the air shouting ‘over here! Me, ME!’

However, Tom was tired of watching Bagshot waste all his chances and went it alone.  Skipping past one, passed two, passed three defenders, he was now clear on goal.  Clatterpan leered at him from the goalmouth, punching one tight fist into his palm and mouthing words that Tom could only guess at.  Tom wasn’t sure if his next move was deliberate or not but when he thought about it afterwards, he decided that it probably was.  Coming to a sudden stop on the five-yard line, Tom stood on the ball and nudged it into position.  Taking a short step backwards, he swung his right foot at the ball with a swoosh.  The ball left his foot with tremendous speed and struck Clatterpan full in the belly.  With an ‘oof’ Clatterpan caught the ball as it buried itself under his ribs, the force of the blow causing him to fly backwards off his feet and fall into a heap in the goal.  A whistle blew from behind Tom.

            ‘Goal!’ shouted Mr Fosberry, ‘Right, that’s it boys; not a bad start, we need to work on tactics and discipline but now it’s back to school.’

            People drifted towards the gates looking tired and dirty whilst Bagshot made a beeline for him, an angry look hammered into his face.

            ‘You should have passed to me you little twerp!’ he spat, pushing a finger repeatedly into Tom’s chest, ‘Think you can play the entire game on your own do you?  Well, don’t even think that you are going to get selected for the competition squad – I’ll make it my life’s purpose to ensure you don’t even get to hand out the halftime oranges, Tailor.’

Bagshot stormed off; Tom’s eyes began to fill with salt water.  As he took up a straggler position at the back of the line, Clatterpan turned around from up ahead and mouthed ‘your dead!’

Tom didn’t have to wait long to see what affect his goal would have on Clatterpan.  After changing back into his uniform and walking down a crowded corridor towards his last lesson of the day, he felt a hand take a firm grip on his shoulder from behind.  Turning around he saw who it was that had grabbed him.  Clatterpan.  Only, this time he wasn’t alone, he had his sidekick Geoffrey Gibbs looming over them both.

            ‘Grab his arms Gibbo,’ commanded Clatterpan staring at Tom with a look of pure hate.  Before he could avoid it, the lanky arms of Gibbs had both of his arms locked tightly to his side.

            ‘We’ll see how much he likes struggling for breath shall we?’ said Clatterpan; a wide smirk spread across the greasy skin of Gibbs’s face.  Clatterpan grabbed the two parts of Tom’s tie and pulled it tight so that it closed in on his neck.  Tom started to splutter and, having been released by Gibbs, was grasping at his neck.

            ‘What’s that you say, Tailor?’ asked Clatterpan with a derisory laugh, ‘I’m sorry, can’t quite hear you!’

Other students had stopped walking now and were pointing and laughing as Tom struggled to free himself from his own clothes.  A chant of ‘scrap, scrap, scrap…’ rolled down the corridor.  With seconds to spare before Tom passed out, he managed to loosen the tie and took in a deep, gulping breath of air.

            ‘You’re gonna wish you hadn’t been born, Tailor!’ spat Clatterpan as he raised his fist and stepped towards Tom.  Still trying desperately to recover from his near choking, Tom tensed up as he saw the fist being pulled back.

            ‘Mr Clatterpan!’ boomed a voice from further up the corridor.  Clatterpan froze as Mrs Hackleton stormed towards them; a look of extreme anger was emblazoned across her lined face.  The head of year, it seemed, had saved Tom from a beating for the second time that day.

            ‘Clatterpan, Tailor; this is the second time today that I have had to pull you two apart, you must have quite an affection for each other.’

            A murmur of laughter rippled around the gathering.

            ‘Move on now, on to your lessons the lot of you,’ she shouted to the onlookers who were eager for some action of some sort.  Tom and Clatterpan made to move away.

            ‘Not so fast you pair,’ she said turning to them looking very stern.

            ‘He started it Miss,’ insisted Clatterpan with a whining voice, his finger pointing viciously at Tom.

            ‘Somehow, Clatterpan, I doubt that.  However, I don’t know – or care – what this little tussle was about but I will not allow this type of behaviour to carry on in my school without repercussions.’

Clatterpan’s whining cranked up a gear as he attempted to talk his way out of his punishment but Mrs Hackleton was having none of it.

            ‘Detention, tonight – both of you!’

Chapter Two

As the home time bell reverberated throughout the school corridors, Tom’s geography class crammed their books and pencil cases into their bags and made for the swarm of students charging out of the school gates.  Tom wasn’t so hasty; Mrs Hackleton had told him that he was to report to Fumblewort’s office at the end of school so that his detention could be arranged.  After uncharacteristically organising and arranging his bag’s contents into size order, he eventually rose from his seat and stepped into the now deserted corridor.  As he walked past the empty classrooms, the sound of his footfalls on the worn brown tiles seemed to echo all around, bouncing off walls and swooping back at him as he continued.

            It’s quiet, he thought.

            Deathly quiet… added a sinister sounding voice inside his head.  Tom gave a little shiver and pressed on quickly to Mr Fumblewort’s office, nervously whistling to himself as he went.  As he approached the headmaster’s room, he saw Cyril Shufflebottom, the janitor, who appeared to be vigorously scrubbing the sign on Fumblewort’s door, muttering to himself as the soapy suds from his scrubbing brush leaped high into the air with every thrust and landed onto his almost bald head with a plop.

            ‘…no respect, kids…in my day…pha! The cane, that’s what they’d get…a taste of the old slipper, that’d see ‘em right…’

            ‘Excuse me,’ interjected Tom, ‘I’m here to see Feablesquirt,’ Tom immediately screwed up his face as he inwardly berated himself, ‘um, I mean Fumblewort – uh, Mr Fumblewort, that is,’ added Tom quickly, rolling his eyes at himself.  Cyril stopped his scrubbing and turned and looked at Tom with a critical eye.

            ‘That’s it sonny,’ said Cyril with an angry tone, ‘maybe I’ll go get you a shovel and you can keep digging yourself deeper.’  Tom had the distinct impression that the janitor was blaming him for what ever it was that had him standing outside the head’s office, covered in foamy bubbles.

For a few seconds they simply stood there and stared at each other in stony silence until an extra large drip of soapy water descended from Cyril’s shiny dome and crept into his left eye causing him to curse under his breath whilst dancing around in pain.  Quickly pulling up the bottom corner of his faded grey shirt, Cyril dabbed his now bloodshot eye with it; Tom grimaced as Cyril’s large hairy belly protruded from above his overworked leather belt and jiggled like a huge pink jelly as Cyril staggered around, one finger in his eye socket.  To Tom’s relief, Cyril eventually removed his shirt from his eye and pulled it back down over his gut.  With a glance back at the door Cyril let out a moan of exasperation.

            ‘This’ll never come off in a month of Sundays,’ he said as he threw the scrubbing brush into a bucket of what looked to Tom to be entirely bubbles.  As the brush entered the bucket with force, a tidal wave of warm soapy water gushed out and drenched Cyril’s shoes.  The look on his face told Tom that the janitor had reached the end of his tether; without a further word, a defeated looking Cyril picked up the bucket and stormed off up the corridor.  Tom watched him go before turning to knock on the door.  Reading the sign he chuckled to himself – on the end of the brass plaque that displayed “School Head”, someone had added the word ‘Case’.

            ‘Enter,’ said a voice in reply to Tom’s knock.  Turning the round handle, he pushed open the door and went inside.

As he entered, Tom came to a sudden halt in the doorway.  Standing behind the desk at the other side of the room was not Fumblewort but someone that Tom had never seen before.  Dressed in a mismatching black suit jacket and blue trousers, the middle-aged man was wearing a loud tie adorned with smiling cartoon characters that clashed violently with his violet shirt.

            ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed in a friendly tone as he beamed at Tom from across the room, ‘you must be Master Tailor, is that correct?’

            ‘Er, yeh’ answered Tom, who was feeling a little unsure.

            ‘Come in, close the door – take a seat!’

Tom pushed the door too and sat in a chair in front of Fumblewort’s desk.

            ‘Now, I am guessing that you have no idea who I am, is that right?’ the man asked smiling as he perched himself on the edge of the headmasters desk, his wavy fair hair shining in the orange glow of the departing day, spilling in from the sash windows behind him.

            ‘Yes, I mean no’ replied Tom, a look of slight confusion on his face.

            ‘Well, my name is Mr Connell, I am the temporary science teacher; I only started today so have not managed to meet everyone as yet.  I did intend to introduce myself at assembly this morning but I managed to get a little delayed as it turned out – you know how it is – but never mind.

            ‘So, Tom, you’re in the first year hear at St Williams are you not?’

Once more Tom nodded his reply.

            ‘Good; so, how are you getting on?’

            ‘Okay,’ replied Tom unconvincingly, looking down at the floor and absentmindedly kicking his chair leg.  The man on the desk hummed to himself knowingly.

            ‘As I am sure you are aware, I was told to expect you here, Tom.  Mr Fumblewort has already taken the other boy, Clatterpan, to the detention room.  He told me a little about you; he says that you are a quiet lad, that you don’t have many friends at school.’

Tom shrugged; he wasn’t going to correct him by pointing out that, in fact, he felt as welcome at St Williams as a hedgehog in a bouncy castle.

            ‘Not to worry; I don’t know about you, Tom, but I tend to choose my friends very carefully – you never know when you are going to have to rely on them!  Mr Fumblewort is concerned that you could be doing better at your school work; is there anything you are struggling with in particular?’

Once again Tom shrugged his shoulders.

            ‘I don’t know really;’ he replied, ‘sometimes school can be a bit, you know, boring.’

            ‘I’ll be honest with you, Tom,’ said Mr Connell, leaning closer and pretending to look around in case he may be overheard, ‘I always found school a little boring too, I was a bit of a prankster you see – always in hot water; rules were for wimps – lessons for losers!’  Mr Connell winked and smiled; a wide grin grew across Tom’s face.

The science teacher rose from the desk and, ambling over to a tall oak bookshelf, studied the rows of tatty looking books on display.

Most of the furniture, Tom thought as he looked around, seemed old and worn.  The desk was heavily scratched from years of use, the leather chair that sat behind it was patched and cracked and all around the heavily over-painted walls were hung pictures of old war planes.  From somewhere in the musty room came a tick-tock-tick-tock but Tom couldn’t locate the source, it felt like his visits to his grandmother’s house in the days when she was still alive – just without the jam tarts and bristly kisses.

From off the shelf, Mr Connell picked up a plastic object, no doubt confiscated from an inattentive student.

            ‘Humm, “game boy”,’ he murmured to himself as he studied it closely, ‘So, Tom,’ he continued in a rather distracted voice as he pushed and prodded the buttons on the front, ‘how did your sports lesson go today?  It looks like you had the worst of the weather.’

A spark seemed to ignite from within Tom as he thought about his favourite subject.

            ‘Oh yeh, great! We had football; I stole the ball from Mullins and weaved through three players before scoring a goal!’  Mr Connell looked up and smiled.

            ‘There you go!  You are passionate about at least one aspect of school.  It’s good to see, you need to hold onto that for the love of something can make all hard decisions seem easier – especially getting up for school in the mornings!’

Suddenly, the object in Mr Connell’s hand let out a loud (and bad) rendition of Waltzing Matilda.  With a look of surprise, Mr Connell desperately jabbed at the buttons in an attempt to shut it up but was eventually forced to pull open one of the heavy draws in Fumblewort’s desk and hide it under a pile of papers.  Thrusting the draw closed with a bang, he looked up at Tom with a look that was an equal mix of shock and mirth; simultaneously they both started to chuckle.

            ‘I may have only just met you, Tom,’ said Mr Connell trying to stifle his humour, ‘but you don’t seem the type to be a troublemaker.  This Clatterpan, he has a look about him that I have seen before; I’ll warrant that he was the cause of your detention today, is that near to the mark?’

Tom was a little taken aback by Mr Connell’s openness for a teacher but he found it hard to hide the fact that he was delighted that here at last was someone that seemed to walk around with his eyes open.

            ‘Yeh, more than anybody else he seems to have it in for me.’

            ‘Well don’t you worry, sooner or later the tables will turn on people like this; being honest, caring and true to your word is always the best way, Tom.’  Mr Connell walked around the desk, which was still playing a muffled Australian tune, and clapped Tom on the shoulder.

            ‘Well, best get you down to the detention room; I’m going to be looking over the pair of you,’ said Mr Connell looking down at Tom, ‘I’ll try and make it a quick one!’ he added with a grin.  Tom beamed; he would never have expected to actually like a teacher at St Williams but Mr Connell appeared to be entirely on his own wavelength; such a pity, he thought, that he was only temporary.

On the way down the darkening corridors to detention, Mr Connell and Tom talked about lessons and teachers at St Williams; the science teacher seemed to want to get an inside scoop on what his colleagues were like from a student perspective and Tom was more than happy to fill him in.

            ‘Feeblesquirt! That’s a good one! – Probably best not to let Mr Fumblewort hear you say that though,’ said Mr Connell with a smile as he tapped the side of his nose in a just-between-you-and-me sort of way.

            ‘Right, here we are,’ he declared as they approached an ageing door at the end of a particularly dark corridor, ‘I was concerned that I would forget the way.’

Tom didn’t need to read the sign on the door to know where he was.

            ‘The science room…’ he said, his voice heavy with trepidation.

            ‘Yes, come on in, Tom; the quicker we start the quicker we can all go.’  Mr Connell twisted the door handle and walked into the classroom, Tom following in behind.

The room was long and thin; along the far wall were four high windows that let in a surprisingly small amount of light whilst in the middle were two rows of desks that ran from left to right and ended at a large bench where Mr Connell would be demonstrating the practical elements of his lessons.  On the side where they had entered ran a set of smaller windows that looked out onto the corridor, each one separated by sagging posters depicting science related information such as the periodic table and notice boards with class and exam timetables pinned to them. 

Outside, the sun had dipped out of sight beyond the concrete horizon and despite the yellowing white paint on the walls the science room was becoming decidedly gloomy.

            ‘A bit on the dark side in here,’ said Mr Connell as he studied the room with dissatisfaction.

            ‘I’ll put the lights on,’ said Tom as he turned and flicked the switch by the door.  To their disappointment only one light at the back and one at the front of the class came on.  As the rear of the classroom was illuminated, the hunched figure of Clatterpan was outlined against the back wall.

            ‘Ah, Mr Clatterpan – up to the front please,’ said Mr Connell gesturing to the front row tables.  Clatterpan let out a moan and pushed his chair back with a screech before loping up the centre between the two rows of tables to the front, muttering as he went.

            ‘No headmaster?’ enquired Mr Connell as Clatterpan slumped down in an old plastic chair before him.

            ‘Nope,’ replied Clatterpan looking utterly uninterested.

            ‘Did he say where he was going?’

            ‘No, urm wait – said something about cheering up Shufflebutt; apparently he’s sick of being treated like an old scrubber.’  Clatterpan let out a cruel laugh.  Mr Connell looked down at Clatterpan in bemusement.

            ‘Not to worry,’ said the science teacher as he turned and walked to the front of the classroom, ‘all are here that are required to be.  Mr Tailor, take a seat over there please,’ he said pointing to the first row.  Dragging his feet and huffing to himself, Tom sat in a chair at a table adjacent to Clatterpan’s.  As he dropped his bag onto the desk, Tom glanced over to his left and found Clatterpan glaring back; one of his hands was stabbing his pen into the desktop whilst the other was doing a cut-throat gesture.

            ‘Dead, Tailor,’ mouthed Clatterpan with an obsessive look on his face.  Tom shook his head with exasperation.

            ‘Honestly, Clatterpan, if intelligence was height then you’d be a hole in the ground,’ retorted Tom in a voice that only Clatterpan could hear.  Clatterpan’s face flushed with anger, both hands turning into tight fists.  ‘If cleverness was weight, you’d be a scrawny chicken’s feather,’ added Tom, his usual caution giving way to reckless abandonment, ‘…In fact, if wit was money then you’d not even have enough to buy a bus ticket to the nut house.’

Clatterpan made a snarling noise and made to leap at Tom from where he sat.

            ‘Right,’ said Mr Connell, who had until now been sidetracked by the various science implements arranged on his desk, ‘I could quite easily insist that you write out one hundred lines for you punishment tonight; like “I should not be such an overbearing bully” for example,’ Tom was sure that Mr Connell had flashed him the most fleeting of smiles before continuing, ‘but just handwriting practice only is probably not the best use of your time.  So, I think it better if you get a head start on your next science lesson by writing out the notes in the text book.’

            ‘Yeh, but I’ve not – ’

            ‘Don’t worry, Clatterpan,’ interrupted Mr Connell, ‘I have two here,’ he said throwing a copy of the curriculum science book onto both Clatterpan and Tom’s desk; Clatterpan let out a moan as the book span across his table and fell onto the floor.  For a few moments he just stared at it with defiance.

            ‘Pick it up then, Clatterpan; there’s a good boy,’ said Mr Connell, the edges of his mouth twinging ever so slightly.  Clatterpan had trouble hiding his ever-increasing anger as he stooped and retrieved the book from the ground.

            ‘Now, turn to page ninety-eight; I want you to copy out the sections entitled “Shadows” and “Plane and Diffusion Reflection”.  You should have enough time to complete both sections.’  With that, Mr Connell sat in the chair behind his desk and intensely studied a third copy of the science curriculum; his brow deeply furrowed as he pored over the text.

For the next thirty-five minutes, all three sat in near silence with the quiet punctuated only by Clatterpan’s occasional huffs of protest at being made to remain at school after hours.  Outside, the last wisps of daylight had now been completely extinguished from the evening sky leaving just two dim pools of light at either end of the old science lab to fight back the pitch darkness, the gentle rocking of the hanging lamps as the draft from the windows tussled with them cast darting shadows in the high roof space.

Movement passing the corridor windows caught Tom’s eye, disturbing him from his study.  He wasn’t sure if it was due to the lack of the normal class-time distractions but he was actually enjoying the work he was doing, it seemed to be going in.  Looking to the door he watched as the slightly stooping figure of the headmaster entered the classroom.

            ‘Ah, hello, hello, Mr Connell, every thing okay here, yes?  I see that you managed to find our Mr Tailor.’

            ‘Yes, Mr Fumblewort; all present and correct.

            ‘Good, good.  Yes.’  A large pause grew as the headmaster stood near the front desk, his hands clasped behind his back as he seemed to sway slightly on the spot.

            ‘Is there anything you needed me for?’ prompted Mr Connell eventually, with a look of mild concern.

            ‘Oh! Yes, Yes, silly me.  Would it be possible for you to take a few minutes to talk with Mr Shufflebottom – he is the school janitor by the way – we need to discuss the cleaning schedule for the science lab,’ the headmaster leaned a little closer and dropped his voice, ‘It seems that he is not very keen on cleaning the lab after hours so we need to discuss alternative arrangements.’

Tom pretended to continue writing as he secretly eavesdropped on the conversation.

            ‘That would be good; I am very interested in talking with Mr Shufflebottom as it happens.  Right, you two,’ said Mr Connell turning towards the detainees, ‘I am going to be gone for just a few minutes; please continue to make your notes – I will be right back.  And behave!’ he added casting a warning look at Clatterpan.  With that, Mr Connell and Fumblewort strode out of the door, closing it behind them.  Tom felt tension rising within him; if ever Clatterpan was going to inflict retribution upon him then surely now was going to be the time.  As soon as the two teachers had passed beyond the last of the internal windows, Clatterpan jumped to his feet, sending his chair tumbling over behind him.

            ‘Right you little git, Tailor; I am going to smash your skull in!’

Clatterpan launched at Tom who had already risen from his desk and was backing away defensively.  As Clatterpan made a grab for Tom’s shirt, Tom leapt backwards to avoid being captured but as he did so, he collided with a desk and fell sprawling across its length.  A cruel smile spread across Clatterpan’s round face as he bore down on his helpless prey; his great fist grabbing a handful of Tom’s collar and twisting it tighter around his neck.

            ‘There ain’t no one ‘ere to save you now; you’re history, Tailor!’

Tom tried to struggle out of Clatterpan’s vice-like grip but it was too tight; as one hand throttled him with his shirt, the other was pulled back ready to strike.  As the punch unleashed itself, the light at the back of the classroom suddenly flickered and crackled violently; its already dim light reduced to barely a glow before going out altogether with a loud crack.  Tom’s head span in surprise to look at the dark lamp that was now swaying even more than normal; the change in position caused Clatterpan to miss his mark and plunge his hand into the desk.  Clatterpan cried out in pain and released Tom in order to nurse his bruised hand.

            ‘I AM GOING TO GET YOU!’ he screamed with white-hot rage and made to pounce once again but releasing his grip had allowed Tom time to pull himself off the table and sprint to the front of the class where the only remaining light was casting a yellowy pool of light onto the teachers desk.

            ‘It’s going to be hard to explain to Mr Connell how I came to be sprawled out on the floor when he turns up in a few seconds,’ pointed out Tom as they circled each other around the top desk like two male lions fighting for dominance over a pride.

            ‘I couldn’t give a damn, Tailor; he can put me in detention for a whole year if he wants – it’ll be worth every minute t’squash you like the pathetic bug you are.’

Seeing an opportunity, Clatterpan shot out an arm across the desk, sending many of the items on its surface crashing to the floor.  Tom backed off but not quite quick enough; Clatterpan managed to get a fist full of crimson tie and yanked Tom over the desk towards him.

            ‘Go on, squeal little piggy – I know ya wanna!’ spat Clatterpan as he tried to reel Tom in like a big, flapping fish.

            ‘That rich…coming from you…Glitterpants,’ stammered Tom under the strain of being hauled across the table by his neck.

Then it happened again.

The solitary light above their head gave a loud crackle and then a hiss; its light grew dimmer and flickered abnormally.  This time Clatterpan was deeply concerned; still holding onto Tom’s tie he turned his eyes up to the faltering lamp and stared as it blinked and fizzed.

            ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he demanded but whether he was talking to him or the light fitting itself, Tom had no idea.

Tom, however, was in no mood to make conversation; all the corridor talk of ghoulish goings on was now running over and over in his mind at a million miles per hour.  Clatterpan, it seemed, was also thinking the same thing for his mood changed in an instant.  Releasing Tom’s tie, he took a few clumsy steps back away from the light as if it were going to leap from the roof and strangle him with its cord.

            ‘What…what do ya reckon all that’s about, then?’ he asked in a very uncharacteristically timid voice without taking his wide and scared looking eyes from the ceiling.  Tom did not answer but simply shook his head slowly; he too was unable to take his gaze from the failing lamp.  With a noise that made them both jump, the light went out with a bang, plunging them into sudden darkness.  Tom could hear Clatterpan’s breath accelerate as fear started to work its way into the bully’s bones.  More crashes broke the silence as Clatterpan started to panic and kept stumbling into desks, scattering them around the classroom.

            ‘Calm down, Clatterpan; wait for your eyes to become accustomed to the dark,’ said Tom, but despite his own advice he too was finding it hard to keep calm.

After a few seconds, the now disturbed layout of the classroom began to become a little clearer.  The clouds outside had parted to allow the strong light of the moon to clamber through the old and dirty windowpanes and cast an eerie silver glow across the desktops and floor.

            ‘It’s alright,’ said Clatterpan, giving a small and nervous laugh, ‘just a fuse or summut, Shufflebutt will have it fixed really soon…’

            ‘Yeh, I expect so, as long as – ’ but Tom’s reply was cut short as the vision that was now manifesting at the back of the room was freezing his lips into an open-mouthed expression of shock.

            ‘What? What’s wrong?’ asked Clatterpan almost desperately before turning to look in the direction of Tom’s rigid stare.  What he saw emerging from the wall at the back of the class made him let out a high-pitched shriek.

The white painted bricks at the end of the room were now shining with a bright green light as if the reflection of a shimmering swimming pool of acid were playing across its surface.  The bricks in the centre of the wall had faded away, dissolving before their very eyes leaving a black void in their place.  Both Tom and Clatterpan were frozen where they stood, neither of them dared move an inch despite an overbearing urge to run.

Then, from within the void, an image started to form.  Closer and clearer it became until the unmistakable shape of a short, cloaked figure appeared floating towards them, making for the newly formed gateway.  As it came level with the wall, the ghost paused but Tom couldn’t make out any features, its face was hidden by impenetrable darkness beneath a hood.  As it stood at the threshold, its unseen head scanned the room before fixing on the two boys.

Tom and Clatterpan held their breath.

Slowly, a rolling bank of green mist entered the room, issuing from the void.  As the mist tumbled into the class, the cloaked spectre passed through the wall.  Staying enveloped within the shroud of mist the blurry figure glided towards Clatterpan who screamed and fell backwards to the floor.

Just as if a switch had been flicked in Tom’s head, he snapped out of his state of rigid fear and gathered his wits.

            ‘Come on, Clatterpan – let’s move!’ he shouted at the whimpering lump on the floor.  Clatterpan’s head span around between Tom and the hooded ghost before them, his eyes appeared to be in danger of popping clear out of his head.

            ‘W-w-w-what…how…Mam!’

            ‘COME ON!’ bellowed Tom.  Clatterpan clambered to his feet; they were now almost engulfed by the green mist.  As they backed away the ghost raised a gloved hand and pointed at them.  

They froze once again.

From beneath the hood came the sound of harshly spoken words; Tom tried to make out what they were saying but it was like the speaker was deep underwater, they were coming out all garbled and unclear.  The translucent figure began to get agitated, gesturing forcefully with its hands.

            ‘I think it’s getting angry, definitely time to go!’ said Tom who turned towards the door and attempting to pull Clatterpan towards it.  But Clatterpan didn’t budge.

            ‘Clatterpan, we – ’ Tom turned back and saw what it was that had Clatterpan rooted to the spot – the ghost had reached into his cloak and pulled out a short bladed dagger which it was now waving around with vigour.  Without warning, the ghost lunged at Tom who recoiled as the blade swung toward him but the weight of supporting Clatterpan slowed his reactions; the blade reached his arm just below the right elbow.  With a shout of surprise, he instinctively went to hold his wound – but there was none.

            ‘It…it went straight through!’ said Clatterpan, who had watched in dumb silence as the ghost had lashed out.

            ‘Yeh – it did,’ replied Tom in astonishment, rubbing his limb.

Turning on its heel, the figure suddenly sped back towards the gateway.  Tom watched dumbfounded as the running figure’s blurry presence left a streak of fading after images in its wake before disappearing back into the wall.  As it hurtled through the hole in the bricks, the green mist suddenly retreated back into the void as if it was being sucked back in by a giant vacuum cleaner and with a bright flash that caused Tom and Clatterpan to hide their eyes, the shimmering green light vanished from the bricks returning them to their everyday yellowing emulsion.

Having been thrown back into complete darkness again, Tom waited for his heart to stop pounding painfully and his eyes to become accustomed before attempting to make for the door.  Clatterpan, however, was wailing to himself as he stumbled into tables and chairs in an attempt to get completely off the school premises.

A sudden electrical crackle above their heads signalled the return of the two dim lamps, which once more cast their small and innocent pools of light into the science classroom.  As the power came back on, Clatterpan turned his head up to the lamps in surprise whilst still running for the exit; no longer looking where he was going, he tripped on one of the test tubes that he had previously sent flying from the teachers desk and with the skill and grace of a drunken ballerina, ended up falling into a heap against the old wooden door.

The sound of running footsteps filled the corridor outside and two shadows passed quickly behind each of the small internal windows.  The door to the classroom was flung open causing Clatterpan to fall out at the feet of Fumblewort.

            ‘We heard shouting and banging,’ said Mr Connell.  As he looked from Clatterpan sprawled on the floor to the disarray of the tables and chairs, his eyes widened.

            ‘Tom, what exactly happened here?’

            ‘So, Tom, tell me again what happened when the lights went out,’ asked Mr Connell as he sat down heavily in the headmasters chair and refilled his tea cup with hot tea, his face was pale and his voice slightly unsteady.  Tom explained how the wall at the back of the class had turned green before the cloaked figure had glided out surrounded in mist.

            ‘The figure was cloaked?  Could you see a face?’

            ‘No, nothing,’ replied Tom, still a little unnerved.

            ‘It, urm, didn’t affect anything did it – move chairs, touch you…’

            ‘No,’ replied Tom with a blank expression.

            ‘No,’ echoed Mr Connell, ‘of course not.’

He sat back in his chair and stared in deep thought at the ceiling, his elbows resting on each arm of the tattered looking seat and his fingertips together at his chin.  Tom looked at him and wondered what he was thinking; the whole thing sounded very far fetched, even to him, so what were the chances of anybody else believing him?

            ‘Sir, you do believe me don’t you?  You could always ask Clatterpan.’

            Mr Connell looked down from the ceiling and gazed long at Tom before replying.

            ‘Robert is with the headmaster.  You know, Clatterpan has denied that anything other than high spirits – okay, maybe not a good choice of words, rowdy behaviour shall we say – was to blame for the disruption in the science lab tonight.’

Tom looked at Mr Connell aghast.

            ‘But…but you don’t believe him do you?’ stammered Tom.

            ‘If I was any other teacher and this was the first report of such happenings here at St Williams, then I would have to say that your version of events sounds more than just a little unlikely, Tom.’ 

Tom’s heart sank into his socks.

            ‘But I am not just any teacher,’ Mr Connell continued, ‘and, between you and me, even on my first day here I have already heard the rumours around the staffroom.’

            ‘So you do believe me?’ asked Tom with hope.

Mr Connell studied Tom closely.

            ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Tom?’

            ‘No, well, yes – after today.  Do you, sir?’ asked Tom with an almost imploring look.

            ‘No,’ said Mr Connell directly, causing Tom’s rising hopes to be dashed once again.  ‘But that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe what you’re saying, Tom,’ he said with a faint smile whilst still holding Tom in a considering stare.

            ‘So, why do you think Clatterpan would lie about it all?’ said Tom who was now thoroughly confused about what to think.

            ‘Tell me, Tom; how did Robert Clatterpan react to your situation?’

            ‘Well, he kind of cried a lot; freaked out if you know what I mean.’

Another smile flicked briefly across Mr Connell’s face.

            ‘I think I know what you mean.  What you have got to remember is that Robert thinks of himself as tough, someone who would not go to pieces like that.  The fear that you could expose his reaction to the rest of the school is not one that he relishes.  To him, it would be better that this never comes out at all or, if it does, to either deny it or turn the tables and try to imply that it was all in your head, Tom.’

            ‘But it wasn’t all in my head!’ insisted Tom, feeling exasperated.

            ‘I know, Tom,’ said Mr Connell kindly.

            ‘So what was it that I saw, sir?’ said Tom, pleadingly.

            ‘Despite what you may have been told, Tom; I am just a teacher and we don’t have the answers to everything.  It’s been a tough day; you need some rest and I need to lock up for the headmaster.  Do you live close by?  I can walk you home.’

            ‘No, I don’t live too far away,’ said Tom with a sigh, ‘I’ll be okay.  I can get the bus from just outside school.’

            ‘If you are sure, it’s no problem…’

            ‘Nah, I’m fine, honestly; thanks anyway,’ said Tom; the truth was that Tom would have liked Mr Connell’s company on the way home, he had so many questions and for some reason Tom thought that he may be able to provide him answers.  But, he didn’t want Mr Connell to see where he lived; he was sure that everyone else lived in big houses with posh cars and were not stuck half way up a crowded tower block.

Mr Connell walked around Fumblewort’s desk and opened the door.  As Tom passed through, Mr Connell placed his hand gently on the boys shoulder.

            ‘You’re a brave lad, Tom; there are not many that could have a day like you’ve had and keep such a level head.  Take care – I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said with a caring smile.  Tom simply nodded but was secretly pleased at Mr Connell’s evaluation of him.  Slinging his bag over his shoulder with a wave he headed off down the corridor towards the main exit.

As he walked the short distance to the main foyer, Tom could see the dim strip lights above reflecting in the heavily mopped floor; it seemed to Tom that Shufflebottom had quite literally done a slapdash job before leaving the keys with Mr Connell.

Turning the corner into the foyer, Tom groaned as he found that the main light had not been left switched on.  The glow from the moon as it passed through the glass panes in the top of the doors was now projecting squares of white onto the parquet tiled floor, each square getting larger and more stretched as the distance from the door increased.  After his far from usual detention, Tom began to get nervous at being back in the darkness and pressed on towards the doors.

Then, out of the corner of his right eye as he almost jogged towards the exit, he saw the faintest slither of golden light flicker from the tall, dark wood panelling that flanked either side of the foyer.  Coming to a sudden stop, he turned and looked back at the wall where he thought he had seen the light – nothing.

            ‘Come on, Tom – you’re loosing the plot!’ he said out loud to himself but his curiosity had got the better of him and he started to walk slowly back up the hallway, studying the wall intently as he went.

Still nothing.

            ‘That’s it, your going to see the head doctor, Tailor,’ he said before turning to leave.

That’s when he saw it again, a thin outline of golden light that burnt steadily and brightly in the corner of his eyes vision.  Snapping his head around to stare at the wall extinguished the light from view immediately.  Cursing under his breath he paused, gathered his thoughts for a second and then, moving just his head, turned very slowly towards the main doors.

The light sprang once more into the peripheral of his vision.  The golden glow flooded into his body making him feel suddenly warm and safe; a feeling that, although he couldn’t explain why, felt almost familiar to Tom.

The sound of voices entwined in deep discussion coming down the adjoining corridor snapped Tom from his almost trancelike state.  Deciding that further interrogation by Fumblewort was the last thing he wanted to experience that night, Tom tore himself away from the wall and ran out through the school exit.

The night outside was clear and chill; Tom’s breath was turned into light mist which tumbled over his shoulder as he ran across the playground and out of the school gates.  He had missed the regular school bus due to his detention and would have to try and catch one of the regular busses from the ‘Piles Bus Service’ stop just over the road.  For the first time in what seemed a long while Tom smiled to himself as he thought of the message that was always printed on the back of the bus ticket:

“Thank you for travelling with Piles!”

Who in their right mind, he thought to himself whilst chuckling, would want to travel with piles?

As he sat waiting on the low wall between the bus stop and the door to the laundrette, movement in the school grounds over the road caught his eye.  As he watched, Mr Connell and Fumblewort stepped out of the school gates that Mr Connell then locked behind them.  For a short while they continued to talk in an agitated manner before saying their farewells and departing in opposite directions from each other.

Tom sighed as he thought back over the events of the day.  How was he ever going to explain all he had been through to his mother?   Maybe she too would think that it was all in his head – maybe she would arrange a visit for him to the head doctor…

A further ten minutes crawled by before Tom eventually saw his bus slowly approaching from further up the road.  Digging into his pocket he pulled out all the loose change he had – including a crimson button, a pen lid and a piece of fluff.

            ‘Why’s there always a piece of fluff?’ he asked himself before casting it aside and watching the tedious arrival of the number nine which pulled in at every stop along his road.

Just as the bus finally shuddered to a halt before him, Tom saw somebody walking hurriedly down the path on the opposite side of the road.  Before the man passed beyond the front of the bus, Tom saw to his surprise that it was Mr Connell.  Hesitation gripped him, what was he doing heading back towards the school?

            ‘Are you gerrin’ on or not?’ demanded an irritable voice from above Tom’s head.

            ‘Uh? Oh, yeh,’ replied Tom in answer to the drivers question.

Climbing quickly onto the bus and paying the harassed looking driver his fare, Tom sprinted to the back and stared out to see where Mr Connell had gone.  Cupping his hands against the window to block out the reflections, Tom could see the teacher slipping back through the gates and locking them behind him.

What’s going on?  Why is Mr Connell sneaking back into the school grounds for?  Is he going inside?  Scenarios raced through Tom’s mind but none seemed to make any sense.

The bus made to pull away from the stop.

            ‘No, don’t go yet – I need to see…’ moaned Tom under his breath as he switched windows to get a better view, his odd behaviour causing an old woman to gather up what appeared to be all her worldly belongings and move towards the front of the bus away from Tom, scowling back at him as she went.

With a jolt the bus stopped again – a gangly youth running down the pavement had managed to flag down the departing number nine much to Tom’s surprise given the mood the bus driver was in.  As the exhausted youth climbed aboard, he delved his hand into his pocket and, on pulling it out again, managed to scatter all his change over the floor.

Tom turned back to the window and stared out towards the school.  Mr Connell was standing at the main entrance and was fiddling with a big bunch of keys.  Eventually, he found the one that he required and pushed it into the lock on the big double doors before darting into the school and pulling them closed behind him.  For a few seconds, Tom just stared at the school entrance, his brain hammering along like a steam train.

With a crunch the bus was pushed unceremoniously into first gear and started to pull off.  Tom went to turn away but just as he did he was stunned into amazement once again.  From within the school foyer came a bright flash of golden light which thrust out from the small windows in the top of the schools double doors and, for a few brief moments, sent a beacon of wondrous light streaking across the playground.  Tom gawped at the sight before it snapped off again, leaving the grounds in its usual darkness; then, with the bus rounding a corner at reckless speed, the school disappeared out of sight behind Percy’s Pizza Palace.

As Tom stepped off the bus, his mind was reeling; so much so that he had nearly missed his stop altogether.  Walking down the pathway between the two looming apartment blocks opposite his own, all that he could think about were the awful occurrences of the day.  But surely things were not all bad, he thought; he had met Mr Connell who was the only teacher that he had ever actually liked.  But was he all he seemed?  With his own eyes he had seen the man behave very strangely indeed.

A pang of sadness pulsed through his heart – he really wanted Mr Connell to be the friend that he hoped he would be.

Without realising, he had walked right up to the entrance to his apartment block.  Pushing the buzzer for his home, he waited for his mother to unlock the door.

He continued to wait.

After a few more desperate jabs at the button it dawned on him that she must still be working her late shift at the factory.  Reaching into a pocket in his bag he rummaged around before pulling out a solitary key.  Tom groaned to himself, he had only bought the key for his own door and not the main entrance – he would be locked out until his mother came home.

From above came the heavy splat of rain.  Tom leant back against a brick wall and slid down into a crouch; the glow from the streetlamp above cast a pyramid of orange light and raindrops over him.  Thoughts tumbled through his head until he felt sure it would burst under the strain.   His first near-fight with Clatterpan in the morning; his ridicule by almost the entire school during his actual fight with Clatterpan in the afternoon; Bagshot ending any hope that he could play in the football competition; and – unforgettably – his encounter with the infamous school ghost during yet another detention.

He thrust his head into his arms, finally it became all too much and he sobbed, his body convulsing with the effort.

            ‘I DON’T BELONG HERE!’ he shouted out loud.  The sound of his despair bounced from wall to wall as the tears and rain streamed uncontrollably down his face.

            ‘Who really does?’ came an unexpected reply over the thrum of the storm.

Tom looked up, his eyes puffy and red.  Standing a few feet to one side of him was Mrs Cocklefinch.  In her right hand she held the skeleton of an umbrella above her head, the missing material allowing the rain to pass through and soak her tri-cornered sailor’s hat.  Draped over her bony shoulders was a long yellow rain mack which she was wearing inside out whilst just visible on her feet were a pair of bright pink stiletto shoes with lace bows pinned to the front.

            ‘Personally, I belong with the Heffalumps my dear.  Come; let’s get inside before it starts to rain…’

After beckoning Tom with her free hand she attempted to retrieve her door key from her inside-out raincoat pockets but to no avail.  As Tom walked over to join her at the door, Mrs Cocklefinch let out a small exclamation of remembrance and pulled a slim silver chain from around her neck.  In the dim light, Tom could see two old keys hanging together alongside a pendant that looked like the head and wings of a dragon cast in gold.  Mrs Cocklefinch yanked the chain towards the keyhole in the door and opened it with a clank, nearly throttling herself in the process.

As soon as he was inside, Tom hurriedly thanked Mrs Cocklefinch and made to sprint up the long stairwell but Mrs Cocklefinch held him back.

            ‘Not so fast, sonny; I’ve got something for you.’

Reaching into her raincoat and retrieving an old red purse from a pocket, she unfastened the snapper and pulled out not a coin but an old pebble.

            ‘Er, thanks…’ said Tom as she dropped it into his hand with a smile.  Thrusting the small stone into his pocket, Tom took off up the staircase, leaving Mrs Cocklefinch staring after him with a rather vacant expression.

Having got changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed with the light still on, Tom’s eyes began immediately to get heavy.  Sliding down under his worn out Spiderman covers, he rolled onto his side and tried to fall into a dreamless sleep, yet he couldn’t for something was irritating him.  Pulling up the sleeve on his right arm his brow furrowed – a thin line of dried blood ran across his arm as if from the glancing blow of a dagger…

Chapter Three

It wasn’t the usual earth-shaking verbal alarm call that woke Tom the next morning but rather heavy clanging and crashing of frequently dropped and clattered utensils from the kitchen.

Stumbling out of bed and walking out of his room to investigate, he came face to face with his exhausted looking mother who had only been in bed for a few hours before making herself get up to make Tom’s breakfast.

            ‘Oh, hello-’ she said before pausing mid sentence and giving in to an irresistible urge to yawn, ‘-Tom, how are you this morning?’

Tom flopped down into a chair at the table and dropped his tired head onto his arms.

            ‘Exhausted,’ he replied.

            ‘You should try working in that factory most of the night; after twelve hours of packing plastic brooms, brushes and mops you start to think that they are Morris dancing down the conveyor.’

            ‘You didn’t have to get up; I could have made my own breakfast,’ said Tom trying to be sympathetic.

            ‘The last time you did that you nearly burnt down the entire building.  No, better for my mental and physical health if I do all the cooking.’

Tom wasn’t about to argue.

            ‘So,’ she said as she placed a plate of scrambled egg on toast in front of him and took a seat opposite, ‘how was school yesterday?’

Tom felt as if he had just swallowed a lead weight, which was now nestling deeply in his stomach.  In the grogginess of the morning, he had completely forgotten about the events of the last day but now they suddenly came flooding back in glorious and disturbing detail.

            ‘I, err,’ Tom paused; in his mind he saw a scene of himself insisting to his mother that the tale he was telling about his trials and tribulations really were true whilst she simply nodded unbelievably and pulled the straps tighter on his straight jacket.  ‘urm, it was okay – nothing special’ he said whilst he pushed his eggs around his plate and watched his mothers face carefully to see if her uncanny knack of sensing a lie was about to be used again.  To Tom’s relief she didn’t press him any further on the subject and he was able to quickly finish his breakfast in silence and slink off back to his bedroom to get ready for school.

            ‘Listen, Tom,’ said his mother as he made to leave for the bus, ‘it looks like I may be working the nightshift for a bit longer.’  Tom let out a moan of disapproval, ‘Apparently Marjory Dawkins tripped down the stairs at home and got her head well and truly stuck in the foliage of her Yucca plant which was in a pot at the bottom.  It seems that her parrot then took her noggin for a coconut and its relentless pecking has given her a headache to go with her sprained back.  Still, no permanent harm done.’

            ‘That’s lucky,’ replied Tom.

            ‘Absolutely – she nearly bought a Madagascan Cactus.  It’ll be okay,’ she said with a smile as she saw the look of disappointment on Tom’s face, ‘We will see each other in the mornings before school and we will have a great time at the weekend, I promise.’

Tom’s journey into school that day was relatively uneventful; he was only subjected to four projectiles during the bus ride (almost unheard of), three of which were of a rigid nature whilst the fourth was decidedly more liquid.  It was clear that the schools latest visitation – and his involvement with it – had not yet become general knowledge and for this he was grateful; he was sure it would not bring him any attention worth having.

As ever, he was the last to enter the ominous school doors; standing outside, he waited until the old, but accurate, clock at the top of the building struck nine with a resounding clang.

Slipping in passed the doors Tom found the foyer empty.  Walking through, he slowed and studied the panelling to his left, searching for any clue that what he had seen as he had passed out that way last night had not been a figment of his imagination but he could see nothing out of the ordinary.  With a sigh, he walked off in the direction of his first lesson.

The day slid by with the speed of a retreating glacier.  There was no sports lesson on Tuesday to help him through the monotonous classes on quadratic equations, photosynthesis and tectonic plate movements.  However, there was one lesson that he was looking forward to last thing – science with Mr Connell.

He had remembered to pick up his course textbook from the shelf in his bedroom that morning but as he approached the science room door with it tucked firmly under his arm, he started to get nervous at the thought of being back in that room.  For a while he hesitated outside, not sure if he could push the door open and step in. 

This is stupid, he thought as he gathered his nerve; it’s just a room full of students, nothing else.  With that, he turned the handle and went inside.

The class did not have to wait for long before their new teacher entered the classroom and introduced himself to the boisterous first years.

            ‘Okay, calm down; let’s have some quiet please,’ he said gesturing with his hands, ‘your making enough noise to raise the dead.’  At Mr Connell’s last comment, the hubbub from the class fell abruptly to a mere murmur, all eyes were pointing in his direction, some of them as wide as dinner plates.  Mr Connell continued quickly: ‘For those that have not met me yet, I am Mr Connell and I will be taking your science classes for a while.’

Tom watched the reactions of the other students as Mr Connell continued talking; to his annoyance, most were no longer paying him much attention and some, including Clatterpan’s sidekick Gibbs, were pointing and laughing at what Tom could only guess was Mr Connell’s admittedly unorthodox style of clothing.  The absence of Clatterpan at school that day had not gone unnoticed by Tom.  He had already overheard Gibbs saying to some other simpering first years that Clatterpan had beaten up three big fourth years yesterday and had told Mrs Hackleton that he was having a day off to go shopping as he needed to replace his scuffed trainers.  Tom laughed to himself; probably still gibbering under his duvet, he thought with a smile.

Tom tried to catch the teacher’s eye; it felt strange to him that the last time they spoke was to discuss the bizarre happenings that had occurred in this very room almost twenty four hours before but Mr Connell made no attempt to communicate on a personal level with Tom, which upset him greatly.

Had he just imagined Mr Connell’s kindness and understanding?  Tom inwardly chastised himself; he was so desperate for some kind of companionship that he was trying to befriend a teacher – a temporary teacher at that.  Tom could already see the look on his mother’s face when he brought Mr Connell home to play Monopoly…

            ‘Right, today we will be experimenting with light; how to reflect it, how to split it and how to concentrate it.’

Tom doubted that even half the class were concentrating as it was.

            ‘Starting with the front row,’ continued Mr Connell, ‘can you each collect a small mirror, a prism, a convex lens and a torch from the cupboard at the front of the class – and do it carefully, we don’t want any breakages.’  As the students rose from their seats and jostled to get to the front, Mr Connell walked in a roundabout sort of way to Tom’s table.

            ‘You okay, Tom?’ he asked with a warm smile.  Tom felt a sudden jolt of happiness.

            ‘Yeh, fine Mr Connell,’ he replied with a grin.

            ‘Did you manage to get home okay last night?’

Tom’s mind flicked back to his wait at the bus stop and seeing Mr Connell creep back into the school.  For a second Tom’s brow furrowed as he went to answer Mr Connell’s question with one of his own, one about why he had gone back into the school that night and what the golden light was that he had seen.  But he thought better of it, especially in the classroom.

            ‘Oh, yeh; no problem.’

            ‘Listen, if you ever need to talk about, well – you know, then just come and find me, or anything else of course,’ he added, ‘okay?’

            ‘Thanks,’ said Tom genuinely.

            ‘No, they are not to help you pick your spots,’ said Mr Connell marching back up towards the front of the class and tapping Julie Valentine on the shoulder (who nearly dropped the mirror in surprise), ‘if you open your textbook at page ninety eight you will find the intended use, which does not include the reduction of prepubescent pustules!’

When the bell went at the end of the lesson, the class scattered as quickly as a herd of hunted antelope, leaving the room in almost as bad a state as when Tom had seen it last night.  Tom stayed back and helped put away all the equipment used in the lesson.

            ‘Thanks for that, Tom,’ said Mr Connell as he closed the door on the equipment cupboard, ‘I need to get away as soon as I can as I need to find Mr Shufflebottom and return his keys; he is back on locking up duty.’  He pointed casually to a large key ring on his desk.

As Mr Connell hurriedly packed his papers away, Tom tried to find the courage to ask him about what he had seen from the bus but something inside was preventing him from forming the words out loud.

            What if Mr Connell isn’t the genuine person that he makes out to be?  What if he has some devious motive and is up to no good?  Maybe I should tell the headmaster what I saw?

Yet despite all his concerns, something told Tom that, although Mr Connell really was okay and that there must be a good explanation, he was probably not going to tell Tom what that explanation was.

            ‘Well,’ said Tom eventually as Mr Connell picked up the bunch of keys and reached for his old leather bag, ‘I guess that I will see you tomorrow.’

            ‘Yes, I am sure, Tom,’ he said with his normal smile, ‘you go and have a good evening.’

            As Tom went to open the door to the corridor, he was startled by a small bang from behind him.  Turning, he saw that Mr Connell had dropped his bag and that half the contents had spilt out over the floor.

            ‘Woops…been a long day…’ mumbled Mr Connell as he crouched down and started to shove the loose items back in but not before Tom had noticed with shock that he appeared to have his own set of freshly cut school keys.  Without looking up, Mr Connell hastily thrust the bunch out of sight in his bag and clambered back onto his feet.

            ‘No harm done!’ he said with a grin.

            ‘No,’ replied Tom but deep down his suspicions had resurfaced.

As Tom ambled down the corridors towards the foyer all he could think about was the keys that Mr Connell had had duplicated.  It could only mean that his secretive return to the school last night was not to be a one-off, he must be coming back again – maybe even tonight!  Tom’s insides squirmed at the conflict within between his strong feeling of loyalty to the new teacher and his desire to see what it was that he was up to.

Reaching the large double doors that lead out across the playground, Tom saw the big yellow school bus that was now being boarded by the very last of a large crowd of excitable school children.  If he ran, he would just about make it; but what was the rush?  He would have nobody to go home to, his mother was on the late shift and, as usual, there was nothing worth watching on television. 

The rumble of a loud car exhaust hailed the arrival of a shiny Porsche that pulled up behind the bus.  Tom watched as a tall man dressed in smart clothes got out and waved at Timmy Needham, a small first year boy with curly red hair.  Timmy ran over to his dad and gave him a big hug whilst his friends looked on with admiration.  A lump formed in Tom’s throat as he watched the father and son beam at each other, his dad probably most proud of his son’s popularity at St Williams and Timmy ecstatic at being taken away from the school in his dad’s sports car.  Without taking his bleary eyes of the two of them, he watched until the car pulled away and disappeared.

            ‘No,’ he said to himself with resolve, ‘I’m not going home yet, I’m going to stake out the school!’

His mind whirred; where was he going to hide?  If Mr Connell did return, how was he going to follow him in?  After a bit of quick thinking, Tom turned away from the departing bus and went back into the school.  With his brain on ultra-high alert for the sound of any approaching staff, Tom crept his way down the foyer, turned left into the adjoining corridor and slinked halfway down to where the door to the boy’s toilet was to be found.  Pushing it open with a loud creek of its rusty hinges (which made Tom panic for fear of being heard), he slipped in and closed the door behind him.  Picking one of the cubicles that had an outside window, he went in and carefully lifted its latch whilst attempting to make it look as if it was still firmly closed although he knew that Shufflebottom’s recent experiences had somewhat dampened his enthusiasm for his job and chances were that he wouldn’t check the windows at all.

Satisfied that he had done all he needed, he walked out of the cubicle and through the screechy exit to the corridor.

            ‘Tailor?’ inquired a voice that made Tom jump almost out of his skin.  Whirring around, he saw Mr Digworth, the history teacher, walking towards him with a deep frown on his face.

            ‘What are you doing still in the school?’

            ‘Urm,’ said Tom, his mind racing once again.  ‘It’s…it’s my stomach – must’ve eaten something rotten,’ he said, clutching at his belly for effect and puffing out his cheeks.

            ‘Well, okay; if you are up to it then you had better make your way home – and quick, I would suggest!’ said Digworth before bidding Tom goodbye and striding off.

Tom heaved a huge sigh of relief and made for the exit.

When outside Tom cast around for somewhere that he could hide and get a good view of the gates without being too obvious.  Finally his eyes fell across the large oak tree that stood in the far corner of the playground at the boundary of the school property.  From there, he could see both the gates and the main doors and, if Mr Connell did not turn up, there was a missing bar in the railings behind it that would allow him back out of the school grounds.  Trying not to look conspicuous, Tom took a right out of the school doors, crossed the playground and hid behind the great oak’s trunk.

Tom had leant up against the rough bark for what seemed like hours before anything happened at all but when it did, it was all very quick.  From where he was standing in the shadows, Tom saw one of the doors into the school open and the portly figure of Shufflebottom waddle out.  As he watched, Tom saw the janitor lock the doors and run (or what passed as running) across the playground to the large iron gates.  When through, Shufflebottom lifted the large ring of keys to the padlock, opened it with a large brass key, passed it through two hoops on the gate and snapped it closed.  Throwing the school a loathsome look, Shufflebottom then made off down the street.

As soon as the janitor had passed out of sight, a figure appeared from just beyond the end of the railings next to where Tom was hiding.  Realising with shock that it was Mr Connell, Tom quickly slinked around the tree trunk so that he could not be seen from the footpath and watched warily as the science teacher walked quickly towards the school gates.

This is it, thought Tom; he is going to go in.

Sure enough, with a nervous glance around, which sent Tom ducking back behind the tree, Mr Connell pulled out the new set of keys from his bag and unlocked the padlock before slipping through.  Tom’s heart began to pound in his chest; what was he doing following a teacher into the school after hours?  If he were to get caught he would be expelled for sure!  But what if Mr Connell was doing something really bad?  What if he was somehow responsible for the ghostly goings on at St Williams?  It sounded stupid but Tom simply had to find out – he would just have to think up a good reason for his expulsion for his mother.

As the science teacher crossed the concrete and stopped at the main doors, Tom seized his chance.  When Mr Connell’s eyes were checking the opposite direction, Tom sprinted as fast as he could across the far end of the playground and round the side of the school, out of sight.  With a cursory glance around, he climbed on the ledge of the toilet window that he had unlatched earlier and pulled it open.

In a rather ungainly manner, which closely resembled a fish flopping across a table, Tom squeezed through the small aperture and almost fell into the toilet bowl.

            ‘Urgh,’ he exclaimed as he managed to stop himself plunging in headfirst, ‘it’s just like my first day all over again…’

Pulling himself clear of the window, Tom stepped out of the cubicle and slowly opened the creaking toilet door that lead out into the school.  Peering through a small gap, Tom had a good line of sight all the way down to where the foyer joined this corridor.

Any minute now, he thought as he knelt on the hard floor, his face pressed to the wooden doorframe and his blood pumping like a lawn sprinkler.

But Mr Connell didn’t appear.

Tom cursed to himself for missing him entering the school.

            ‘If only I had taken lessons in being a cat burglar,’ he muttered to himself ‘then maybe I would have got through that window a little quicker.’

            After waiting a short while longer, curiosity once again got the better of Tom and he crept out of the toilets and down the corridor towards the foyer. 

Even if Mr Connell was just inside the doors, he was going to have some explaining to do, thought Tom as he approached the corner.

            ‘Caught you!’ he exclaimed as he jumped out – but the foyer was empty.

            Tom felt both annoyed and relieved at the same time.

            ‘This is stupid,’ he said to himself, ‘I’m going.’ But as he made to turn back towards the corridor, he saw it again – a thin crack of golden light spilling out from the dark oak wall panels.  Just like last night, if he turned and looked at the panel, the light vanished but this time he was not going to be deterred.  With a deep breath he walked slowly towards where he had seen the glow and reached out a trembling hand.  As his fingers touched the wood, brilliant golden light burst suddenly out from the wall making Tom jump backwards with a shriek of surprise.  As he watched, his mouth hanging open, the vague outline of a doorway formed, framed in the golden light which was now starting to shimmer across the foyer walls.

For a few moments, Tom did not know what to do; his brain told him to get out of the school by the nearest available exit but deep down in his heart, Tom was being beckoned by the light.  He began to wonder what lay beyond the doorway; although he could not explain it, something told him that it was safe for him to pass through – that the door had appeared especially for him.

Do you want to enter? asked a voice inside his head.

            ‘Yes,’ he replied out loud with determination, and he stepped forward.

Tom could never remember taking those tentative first steps towards the hidden door; he had no recollection of placing a foot into the blinding light and stepping in but what he did remember was the amazing feeling of rejuvenation and calm that engulfed him.  As he became wrapped in a blanket of pure gold, he felt as if he had slept the best night’s sleep that he had ever had; all the aches and tiredness of the day slipped away and he felt more charged than at any other time in his life.  With a smile on his face he walked on.

After just a few paces, although it seemed like much more, the intensity of the light started to diminish.  Tom strained his eyes; a vision of what looked like a room was forming just up ahead but it was blurry and insubstantial, like trying to see under water.  The closer he went, the clearer the image became until eventually he was able to make out detail.

With a gasp he stopped dead in his tracks.

He was not sure what he had expected to happen once he had stepped in through the door, if he was honest he thought that maybe it would lead him to a secret room within the school or a small passageway of some kind but what he saw now took him completely by surprise.

He appeared to have stopped just short of walking into a long, high-roofed room.  Looking around he had an increasing feeling of confusion of time and place.  He was no longer in the foyer of St Williams; in fact it would seem that he was no longer at St Williams at all!

It was obvious that he stood in an entrance hallway for to his right stood two large arched wooden doors, black studs covered the surface of each and they were held firmly in place by four huge iron hinges that thrust out from the sides before curling back at the ends.  One of the doors was open wide enough to allow through a shaft of what appeared to be bright morning sunshine.  The rustic looking walls were made up of thick pillars of rough-cut wood that rose from the floor at set intervals and climbed to archways above where a large candelabra full of white candles and wispy cobwebs was hung.

Tom marvelled at the sight; it reminded him of the old Tudor buildings that Digworth had shown them in history lessons – he could even detect the musty smell of old wood that he always imagined these places would have.

Then movement caught his eye; the large door that was open a jar was suddenly pulled wider still and as he watched, a stream of children of varying ages spilt in through the gap.  Tom’s heart gave a huge lurch – what if he could be seen?  But as the crowd jostled their way across the hall and passed him, not one looked over.  Tom glanced down at himself; a soft light seemed to be radiating from his outline.

I must still be inside the secret passage – I’m not visible, he surmised.

The throng of bodies was growing steadily thicker as he watched when a loud voice from near the doors boomed over their heads, causing them all to freeze and turn towards its source.

            ‘STUBBINS, get here NOW!’

From near the entrance, a large youth pushed his way roughly up the hallway through the pack, closely followed by two skinny boys who both wore smug grins.  As they reached the halfway point they came to a halt, the rest of the hall’s occupants forming a circle around them and another boy who looked utterly petrified.

            ‘What do you call this rubbish that you are peddling as quality?’ spat the large boy who thrust what looked to Tom to be an old fashioned looking ink pen almost into the face of the cowering youth.  ‘This joke of a pen has ruined my best shirt you little twerp – I want my money back or else I’ll shove this twig up your left nostril!’

As the others looked on with silent concern, Stubbins pointed at the object that he may be trying to sneeze out for the next three months and frowned.

            ‘But let’s be fair,’ he stammered, ‘after all you did steal it from me in the first place…’

            ‘And your point is what, you little worm?’  The two skinny lads standing just behind him guffawed between themselves.

            ‘Well,’ he continued with a gulp, ‘that means that I can’t give you your money back, cos I never took any from you to begin with.’

The eyebrows on the already furious face of the towering boy seemed to contract so far towards each other that they almost joined in the middle.

            ‘YOU-WILL-GIVE-ME-ALL-YOU-HAVE!’ he demanded as he grabbed Stubbins and shook him violently causing a multitude of ink pens to fall from his pocket onto the wooden floor with a clatter.

As Tom watched with great pity, having himself been in this situation a thousand times before, the shape of another person charging through the gathering from the direction of the main doors took his attention.  A girl with short almost spiky hair and a face of thunder had burst into the centre circle and pulled Stubbins out of the big boys grip.

            ‘You leave him alone, Brimstone, you bully!’ she roared with venom, ‘Go find some other runt to lock antlers with.’  Stubbins cast the girl, who still held his arm in a vicelike grip, an offended look.  Brimstone laughed a short and humourless laugh.

            ‘Oh look what’s turned up, if it’s not wormy’s backbone!’ once again the two rake-like sidekicks let out an exaggerated laugh, ‘If I have to beat you both senseless to get my money back then so be it!’

Tom heard the watching group give a collective gasp as Brimstone made to move towards Stubbins and the girl.  Tom could look no more; he knew very well what was coming and could not stand to watch.  Deep inside Tom felt guilty for wanting to leave, he should not let this happen – but whoever they were, this was not his fight and wherever he was, this was not his place.

Turning around, Tom made to walk away from the scene and back in the direction that he had came – but he could not.  Every time he attempted to step forwards he found that he was pushed gently back; it was like walking into a wall of thick sponge.  With a feeling of rising desperation, Tom shoulder charged his way forward with all his might.  For a second he thought he had succeeded for he made ground, but suddenly he felt his entire body being flung backwards towards the arched hallway.

            ‘This,’ said Brimstone with a look of pleasure as he pulled back his fist, ‘is really gonna hurt, Stubb-’

BANG!

Tom had been catapulted out of the secret passageway, over the heads of the nearest onlookers and had landed – fist first – onto the jaw of Brimstone.  With a cry of shock and pain, Brimstone was knocked completely off his feet and sent sprawling backwards into the crowd – who parted rapidly to allow him to crash to the floor unhindered.

As Tom clambered to his feet, the hallway erupted with cheers and whistles.  Looking around wildly Tom could see all faces were pointing towards him, smiling and laughing, hands either clapping vigorously or being thrust into the air in triumph.

Brimstone, it would appear, was not a popular person.

            ‘Wow!  That was cool!’ said Stubbins who was looking at Tom with awe.

            ‘Thanks,’ replied Tom despite the fact that he new little of what had just happened.

            ‘If you had not stopped him, Brimstone was totally going to kill me…’

            ‘Well,’ impatiently interrupted the girl who had come to the defence of Stubbins, ‘if Brimstone doesn’t then the headmaster certainly will – he is coming this way!’

Beyond the ring of children came the sound of a raised voice over the excited crowd, doubtless attracted by the unusual amount of noise in the entrance hall.

            ‘Come on, let’s get out of here!’ said the girl.

            ‘What!?  Get serious, Tess; we can’t skip school!’

            ‘Fine, suit yourself; it’s a nice day and I don’t intend to spend it in detention for starting a fight with bricks-for-brains over there.  I’ll see you later!’  With that, Tess turned and marched deliberately back down the hallway and out of the great doors.

            ‘Oh, Tess,’ moaned Stubbins looking between the doors and the direction of the approaching headmaster with anxiety, ‘why can’t she just do as she is told?’

Tom looked down at Brimstone who was getting slowly to his feet.

            ‘He’s getting up.’

This seemed to have a decisive affect on Stubbins who stooped to pick up his fallen pens and made hurriedly for the exit.  Halfway out he turned and gestured to Tom.

            ‘Come on – the headmaster will have you too!’

Tom looked back at the wall where he had come through – the portal to the secret passage was closed without trace.

Better to be out of here than in, thought Tom and having no idea what he would be facing, he sprinted desperately after the disappearing shape of Stubbins who had slipped out of the hallway and into the glorious light of a morning sun.

(Home)