Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle (9 page)

“Can you go faster, Artan?” called Robin. “It's catching up!”

“I'm going as fast as I can with three passengers,” the bear bellowed back. “Let it get as close as you dare – then shout out a second before it hits.”

Alfie looked back to see the shape rapidly gaining on them and caught the smell of rotten eggs on the air. It seemed to be getting stronger as the shape drew closer. Suddenly a huge pair of yellow eyes glared at him through the mist. There was a screech as another pair appeared to the right.

“There are two of them!” he shouted up through the roaring wind. “They're really close!” With a sudden lurch the creatures were almost upon them. “Now, now, NOW!” screamed Alfie. Artan immediately stopped climbing and dove towards the ground. There was a loud screech as the creatures whipped past, disappearing into the clouds. Madeleine punched the air in triumph.

“Maddie!” screamed Robin. The quick turn followed by the downdraught of the creatures' wings sent the rug into a spin and Madeleine lost her grip. The bear pulled up out of his descent as Alfie grabbed for his cousin's arm, but Madeleine was sliding away from him. She clutched at Artan's fur and finally caught on to Alfie's shoe as she hung off the edge of the rug. Alfie reached down and grasped for her hand a second too late. The shoe slid from his foot. With a terrified yell, Madeleine dropped like a stone through the mist.

“Hold tight!” shouted Artan. Alfie clung on with hands and knees as they nosedived towards Madeleine. He could hear the creatures' frustrated screeches way above as they searched for their lost prey.

“We're not going to catch her in time!” shouted Robin as they cleared the clouds. The treetops loomed below as Madeleine tumbled towards them. She was falling too quickly. Alfie pressed his body against the rug, trying to streamline himself as much possible as he willed the bear to move faster. Robin followed his lead.

Artan shot through the air with a speed Alfie didn't think possible. He risked another look down and could hardly believe it – they were closing in on Madeleine. Her screams grew louder as they whistled through the air.

“Come on, come on!” he whispered under his breath, hardly daring to hope. In seconds that passed like hours, Artan was finally below Madeleine. Alfie and Robin rolled to the sides as her flailing body thumped down on to the rug between them, bouncing them into the air so that they almost fell off. As Artan skimmed the treetops and shot back into the sky, Robin threw his arms around Madeleine and hugged her as hard as he could.

“Careful there, lad,” called Artan. “You'll squeeze out whatever breath she has left.” Robin loosened his grip and Madeleine started to make a noise somewhere between coughing and hiccupping.

“Thank you, Artan,” said Robin in a quiet, serious voice, patting the bear's back. Alfie could see that he was as pale as Madeleine as they floated gently down towards the battlements of Hexbridge Castle.

“You're amazing, Artan.” Madeleine threw her arms around the bear's neck as they landed. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it, little one,” said the bear, looking a little embarrassed but proud at the praise being heaped upon him. The twins both looked a bit wobbly as they hopped off Artan's back, but Alfie was relieved to see that Madeleine was starting to get some colour back into her cheeks.

Alfie suddenly found the wind knocked out of him as Artan wrapped himself tightly around them and gave a squeeze.

“It's good to see you again, old friends,” he said in a serious voice before treating them to his biggest grin. “If you ever need me, just blow Orin's whistle and I'll come to you. We always have the greatest adventures!”

“But we've only just met,” said Alfie in surprise as Artan began to float back up to his tower.

“True, but also false!” Artan called down as he performed a little flip and disappeared through the window to his room.

Alfie puzzled over Artan's strange words as they flopped on to their beds, the twins still using their inflatable mattresses in his room. None of them were ready for sleep after their terrifying experience.

Alfie decided that it was finally time to tell his cousins everything that had happened recently – his timeslip on the last day of term, Caspian Bone's true form and Orin's letter. The twins listened in wide-eyed silence, wrapped snug in their duvets as Alfie read the letter through the talisman's lens.

“I'm not sure I'd have believed it all yesterday,” Madeleine breathed at last. “But after tonight…”

“So this is all true?” asked Robin. “You were really born here hundreds of years ago?”

Alfie nodded. “Dad told me that bit himself.”

“And the magic Orin hid inside you – you can create
anything
with it?”

“Maybe. But after reading that letter there's no way I'm going to try. It sounds as though he is going to send me more letters. Maybe he'll tell me more about it.”

“Those creatures,” said Madeleine. “What do you think they were?”

“I have no idea,” said Alfie. “Did either of you get a good look at them?” The twins shook their heads.

“They could have been white-tailed eagles,” said Robin. “They've got a wingspan of up to eight feet and there are quite a few up in Scotland. Maybe we got too near wherever they're nesting?”

Alfie began to tune out as Robin continued to explain away the strange creatures. Madeleine seemed happy to accept Robin's theory, but the twins hadn't seen the eyes of the things that had chased them. Alfie shivered despite his warm duvet. If they weren't birds, what were they?

 

Since their flight, Alfie had continued searching high and low for Orin's study, hoping it might contain information on the creatures that had attacked them as well as the magic inside him. Robin and Madeleine had helped him scour the castle, and Ashford seemed rather perplexed by the number of times he came across them investigating every inch of the walls in various rooms. The search was finally suspended as shopping expeditions for new school uniforms overshadowed even talk of flying beasts, bearskin rugs and a secret study.

Alfie was delighted when his dad bought him a brand-new uniform. He was used to ill-fitting second-hand clothes that had made him feel embarrassed and uncomfortable at his old school. Now he was given a new jacket, shoes, sports bag and expensive-looking trainers. The monthly allowance from Muninn and Bone must be good. His dad had even taken him to several hardware stores to buy all kinds of equipment for whatever he was building in his new workshop.

The morning of the first day of term finally came around, and Alfie was enjoying kicking a ball around the playground with Robin and Jimmy. Madeleine and Holly were under the trees at the edge of the playground searching for early conkers among the spiky green casings. Alfie was already impressed with Wyrmwald House. It was an old red-brick building that seemed huge in comparison to his last school: a flat-roofed building with ugly pebble-dashed walls.

“Why don't we play over there away from the fence?” he suggested, as the ball sailed over it for the third time.

“Would you listen to him!” announced Jimmy as he squeezed through the railings and threw it back over. “That's Murkle and Snitch's office. If we played in front of it they'd use it as reason to give us detention – or worse.”

“He's right,” added Robin. “Last year Billy Reynolds accidently hit their window with a football. They made him cut the ball into exactly a thousand pieces with a pair of blunt scissors. Then he had to thread the pieces on to a bit of string and wear them around his neck for the entire term. It's hanging in the Hall of Penitence now.”

“The Hall of
what
?” asked Alfie. He didn't like the sound of it one bit.

“Penitence. The whole corridor leading to the Heads' office is like a gallery showing off the weird punishments they give out. They frame their favourites for everyone to see.”

“No way!” Alfie still didn't quite believe the stories he had been told at the party. “The school inspectors would have them fired or shut the place down if they did that.”

“I told you what happens when our parents complain, didn't I?” said Jimmy. “The school inspectors just get taken straight to their office and then leave without bothering to look around. My brother Cormac thinks they're bribing them, but I reckon they're hypnotists or something.”

“I asked my mum if they were doing it when she was here with Auntie Jenny,” said Robin. “She couldn't remember. Maybe they were nicer then.”

“Mum?” said Alfie in surprise, all other thoughts dropping away as Robin mentioned her name. He had forgotten that she had been a pupil at Wyrmwald House nearly twenty-five years earlier. He felt a pleasant warmth at the thought of studying at the same school. He wondered if she had got into trouble with Murkle and Snitch very often.

A shrill whistle pierced the air, instantly silencing the playground.

“Keep still!” hissed Jimmy as Alfie looked around to see the older children frozen like statues. Miss Snitch was standing nearby with a whistle to her lips, her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the playground. Miss Murkle began to weave slowly between the frozen children. “Here she comes,” Jimmy muttered. “Don't move a muscle until you hear the second whistle.”

Alfie stood perfectly still as Murkle moved closer, scanning the playground for movement. The girl nearest to him had been playing hopscotch when the whistle blew and hadn't been quick enough to put both feet on the floor. Sweat started to glisten on her forehead as she balanced on one leg. Murkle stopped in front of her, cocked her head to one side and waited. Alfie winced in sympathy as he saw the girl's leg starting to wobble. The struggle to stay balanced under Murkle's unblinking stare was too much. Her leg finally gave way and she fell forwards into her friend.

“DEEEEEEE-ten-SHUN!” yelled Murkle, pointing a stubby finger victoriously at the girls before searching for another victim. After what seemed like an age, there was another sharp blast of the whistle. The whole playground finally relaxed and Alfie joined the stream of children flowing towards the main entrance to form straight lines facing the school.

“First years here please!” called a familiar voice through the commotion. Alfie saw Miss Reynard standing in front of one of the lines and fought his way through the crowd to join it. “Stand as straight and smart as possible,” she told the children. “The headmistresses will inspect you in a minute. Don't let them see anything out of place.”

She gave Alfie, Robin and Madeleine a smile and motioned to Jimmy to tuck his football into his bag. Alfie copied the other children, standing as neatly and quietly as possible, not daring to make eye contact with Murkle and Snitch as they approached.

“Hmm, a raggle-taggle bunch of strays and scoundrels by the looks of them,” said Murkle as she wandered down the line of trembling first years, her plump face screwed up as if she was sucking a lemon.

“Agreed,” replied Snitch keeping step with her sister on the other side of the line. She whisked a cap from a student's head and sent it whirling through the air, startling a family of sparrows as it caught in the branches of their tree. Holly Okoye was next. Alfie cringed as Snitch snatched an orange slide from her hair and used it to clean her ear as she continued down the line. “I believe some re-education on the correct dress code will be necessary during afternoon assembly today, Miss Murkle.”

After another achingly long minute of silence, during which Alfie hardly dared breathe, Snitch raised the whistle to her thin lips and gave it a sharp blast. With one last glare, she turned and marched up the school steps and through the large wooden doors followed closely by Murkle. Both teachers and pupils breathed a sigh of relief as they disappeared.

The form teachers took their places at the head of each line. One by one, they led the way to class, starting with the fifth years.

“I didn't think we'd have to do this in secondary school,” whispered Alfie as he watched the other lines marching through the doors.

“It's not every day,” whispered Jimmy as Miss Reynard led the first years into their new school. “My brother said that they do it now and then, whenever they fancy picking on us.”

Alfie found the school daunting, with its high ceilings and wood-panelled walls. The smell of wax, disinfectant and polish filled the cool corridors and seemed to be coming from everything from the tiled floors to the cast-iron radiators.

“The Doors of Doom!” said Jimmy dramatically as they passed the large double doors that led to the headmistresses' office and the ominous Hall of Penitence.

Miss Reynard's classroom was right at the back of the school looking out on to the hills. It was bright and airy with an array of interesting objects on the many shelves: fossils, replica swords, tribal headdresses, an old gas mask and model trains from Stephenson's Rocket to a Japanese bullet train. As Miss Reynard told them a little about her favourite objects, Alfie thought that she seemed to be just as excited by history as his dad was by the way things worked. He was very glad that she would be their form teacher for the year.

The morning induction passed quickly as they moved on to copying down their weekly timetables and reading through the school handbook. Miss Reynard had come up with a name game for the whole class to play while getting to know each other. Alfie enjoyed hearing from all of his new classmates, with the exception of Edward Snoddington and his mean-faced friend Hugo Pugsley who, Jimmy pointed out, had an expression rather like a pug dog chewing a wasp.

School dinner was a grim experience. Alfie had liked the dinner ladies at his last school, but the ones at Wyrmwald House were the surliest he had ever seen. His lunch consisted of a tough slab of boiled liver and a pile of carrots and sprouts that turned to mush as soon as he prodded them with his fork. Dessert was something wobbly and pink that tasted like antiseptic.

“Sorry, we forgot to warn you,” said Madeleine as she ate her packed lunch. Aunt Grace must have remembered the school lunches only too well and had prepared sandwiches for the twins along with a large slab of fruit cake. They donated a slice to Alfie and he ate it gratefully, savouring the juicy raisins as he decided to ask Ashford if he would mind making packed lunches. He never wanted school dinner again.

As it was the first day of term, an afternoon assembly had been called. The whole school filed into the hall and took their seats on rows of benches, each worn smooth by many years of fidgety bottoms. Alfie felt a little nervous when he realized the first years were in the front row right under the watchful eyes of the headmistresses. It didn't help that Edward Snoddington had chosen to sit next to him, apparently for no other reason than to look down his nose at him.

“Welcome back,” growled Miss Murkle from the school stage. “We hope that your brains haven't rotted completely through lack of use. Just to make sure, we have arranged tests in every subject over the next week.”

A few groans were heard but were instantly silenced as Miss Snitch stood up to take over from her sister.

“Any student scoring a C or below in any subject will spend two weeks in after-school detention brushing up on their studies.”

“That's me missing footie practice for two weeks,” Alfie heard someone mumble behind him.

Alfie flinched involuntarily as Snitch turned her unblinking gaze on to the front row. “Due to the disregard of the school dress code they exhibited today, first years will also have a test tomorrow morning. I suggest you all memorize the contents of the school handbook.”

Alfie groaned inwardly as the two headmistresses made everyone stand and recite the school rules after them. He had been planning on visiting Artan that evening and wasn't looking forward having to study instead.

“You may sit,” said Snitch, finally reaching the end of the huge list of rules. Alfie sank gratefully on to the bench then leapt up with a yell, rubbing the seat of his trousers. He turned to see a spiky conker casing on his chair and looked sharply at Edward who was staring straight ahead, a sly smirk playing around the edges of his mouth.

“You, boy!” Miss Snitch screamed at Alfie with the accuracy of a sniper. “What are you doing with your backside?” Some of the first years began to laugh. Edward and Hugo laughed particularly hard. Only a couple of nervous coughs were heard from the pupils who had been at the school long enough to know better. They needn't have worried: today Snitch was saving all her venom for Alfie.

“So, the king of the castle is also a jester, is he?”

“No, miss,” said Alfie, his cheeks burning white hot with embarrassment. “There was a conker case on my—”

“Silence, funny boy! Your mother thought she was funny too, with all her little jokes. She stopped laughing after a year of detention!”

The whole hall gasped. A
year
of detention with Murkle and Snitch? Alfie couldn't believe that his mum had got into trouble at the school and was furious at the thought of the headmistresses picking on her. He hated Murkle and Snitch.

“Are you a bad seed like your mother?”

Alfie glared back at her.

“Have you lost your tongue?”

He shook his head, biting his lip.

“Then answer my question, boy. Are you a bad seed too?”

Alfie felt his cheeks burning as Snitch barked at him.

“WELL?”

“No, Miss Snitch,” he burst out at last. “And neither was my mum!”

Snitch's face went purple with rage. The buttons on her jacket nearly popped right off as she took a huge breath to blast her wrath down upon Alfie.

“Look out, she's about to blow!” whispered Jimmy.

Just before she could let rip, Murkle scurried over and whispered in her ear. Snitch's chest slowly deflated like a punctured balloon. She straightened her jacket and smiled malevolently down at Alfie. “As this is the first day of term, and I have a forgiving nature, the punishment for your insolence will be mild.”

Alfie began to breathe a sigh of relief, but saw the frozen expressions of everyone else in the room and realized he had relaxed too soon.

“Before you leave tonight, Mr Wexford in the woodwork department will provide you with a square piece of board. You are to collect one hundred conkers. On each of these conkers you will
neatly
carve the words, ‘I shall not play the court jester while I am a student at Wyrmwald House'. You are to attach each of these reminders of your behaviour neatly to the board and present it to us in the morning.”