Groosham Grange (2 page)

Mrs Eliot walked back into the breakfast room holding the usual bundle of bills and also a large brown envelope.

“Groosham Grange…” she said in a puzzled voice.

“What?”

“That’s what it says on here.” She held out the brown envelope. “It’s postmarked Norfolk.”

Mr Eliot snatched up a knife and Mrs Eliot dived behind the table, believing he was going to use it on her again. Instead he slit open the envelope before pulling out the contents.

“Strange…” he muttered.

“What is it, my dearest?” Mrs Eliot asked nervously over the edge of the table.

“It’s a prospectus … for a boy’s school.” Mr Eliot wheeled himself closer to the window where the sun was streaming in. “But how could anyone have known that we’d be looking for a new school for David?”

“Perhaps Beton College told them?” his wife suggested.

“I suppose so.”

Mr Eliot opened the prospectus and a letter slid out. He unfolded it and read out loud.

Mr Eliot lowered the letter. “Good heavens!” he said. “That’s remarkable!”

“What is?” Mrs Eliot asked.

“I was saying exactly the same thing only a moment ago! Almost word for word!”

“Go on.”

Mr Eliot picked up the letter.

“Half-hour?” Mrs Eliot said. “That doesn’t give us very long to make up our minds!”

“Mine’s already made up!” Mr Eliot snapped. “Only one day’s holiday a year! That’s a sound idea if ever I heard one.” He flicked through the prospectus which, curiously, contained no photographs and was written in red ink on some sort of parchment. “Listen to this! They teach everything … with a special emphasis on chemistry, ancient history and religious studies. They have two language laboratories, a computer room, a fully equipped gymnasium and they’re the only private school in the country with their own cemetery!” He tapped the page excitedly. “They have classes in drama, music, cookery, model-making … and they’ve even got a class in astronomy.”

“What would they want to have a class in a monastery for?” Mrs Eliot asked.

“I said astronomy – the study of the stars you ridiculous woman!” Mr Eliot rolled up the prospectus and hit her with it. “This is the best thing that’s happened all week,” he went on. “Get me a telephone.”

There was a number at the bottom of the letter and Mr Eliot dialled it. There was a hiss, then a series of clicks. Mrs Eliot sighed. Her husband always hissed and clicked when he was excited. When he was in a really good mood he also whistled through his nose.

“Hello?” he said, once the connection had been made. “Can I speak to John Kilgraw?”

“This is Mr Kilgraw speaking.” The voice was soft, almost a whisper. “I take it this is Mr Eliot?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. You’re absolutely right!” Mr Eliot was amazed. “I got your prospectus this morning.”

“And have you come to a decision?”

“Absolutely. I wish to enrol my son as soon as possible. Between you and me, Mr Kilgraw, David is a great disappointment to me. A massive disappointment. For many years I hoped he would follow in my footsteps – or at least in my wheelchair tracks, as I can’t walk – but although he’s almost thirteen he seems totally uninterested in merchant banking.”

“Don’t worry, Mr Eliot.” The voice at the other end seemed to be devoid of emotion. “After a few terms at Groosham Grange I’m sure you’ll find he’s … quite a different person.”

“When can he start?” Mr Eliot asked.

“How about today?”

“Today?” Mrs Eliot was craning her neck to listen to the receiver. Mr Eliot swung it at her, catching her behind the ear. “I’m sorry, Mr Kilgraw,” he said as she went flying. “That was just my wife’s head. Did you say today?”

“Yes. There’s a train leaving Liverpool Street for King’s Lynn at one o’clock this afternoon. There will be two other pupils on it. David could travel with them.”

“That’s wonderful! Do you want me to come too?”

“Oh no, Mr Eliot.” The assistant headmaster chuckled. “We don’t encourage parents here at Groosham Grange. We find our pupils respond more quickly if they are completely removed from home and family. Of course, if you really want to make the long and tedious journey…”

“No! No! I’ll just put him in a taxi to the station. On second thoughts, make that a bus.”

“Then we’ll look forward to seeing him this evening. Goodbye, Mr Eliot.”

The phone went dead.

“They’ve accepted him!” Mr Eliot crowed. Mrs Eliot held the telephone out and he slammed the receiver down, accidentally crushing three of her fingers.

Just then the door opened and David came in, now wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Nervously he took his place at the table and reached out for the cereal packet. At the same time his father rocketed towards him and snatched it away, sending muesli in a shower over his shoulder. Mrs Eliot had meanwhile plunged her swollen fingers into the milk. David sighed. It looked as if he was going to have to give breakfast a miss.

“You don’t have time to eat,” Mr Eliot declared. “You’ve got to go upstairs and pack.”

“Where am I going?” David asked.

“You’re going to a wonderful school that I’ve found for you. A perfect school. A glorious school.”

“But it’s the end of term…” David began.

“The terms never end,” his father replied. “That’s what’s so glorious about it. Pack your mother and kiss your clothes goodbye. No!” He banged his head against the table. “Kiss your mother and pack your clothes. Your train leaves at one.”

David stared at his mother, who had begun to cry once again – though whether it was because he was leaving, because of the pain in her fingers or because she had somehow managed to get her hand jammed in the milk jug he could not say. There was obviously no point in arguing. The last time he’d tried arguing, his father had locked him in his bedroom and nailed up the door. It had taken two carpenters and the fire brigade a week to get it open again. Silently, he got up and walked out of the room.

It didn’t take him long to pack. He had no uniform for the new school and no idea what books to take. He was neither happy nor particularly sad. After all, his father had already cancelled Christmas and whatever the school was like it could hardly be worse than Wiernotta Mews. But as he was folding his clothes he felt something strange. He was being watched. He was sure of it.

Closing his case, he walked over to the window and looked out. His bedroom had a view over the garden which was made entirely of plastic, as his mother was allergic to flowers. And there, standing in the middle of the plastic lawn, he saw it. It was a crow, or perhaps a raven. Whatever it was, it was the biggest bird he had ever seen. It was pitch-black, its feathers hanging off it like a tattered cloak. And it was staring up at the bedroom, its glistening eyes fixed on him.

David reached down to open the window. At the same moment, the bird uttered a ghastly, gurgling croak and launched itself into the air. David watched it fly away over the rooftops. Then he turned back and got ready to leave.

David arrived at Liverpool Street Station at twelve o’clock. True to his word, his father had sent him on the bus. His mother hadn’t come either. She had gone into hysterics on the doorstep and Mr Eliot had been forced to break a milk bottle over her head to calm her down. So David was quite alone as he dragged his suitcase across the forecourt and joined the queue to pick up his ticket.

It was a long queue – longer, in fact, than the trains everyone was waiting to get on. David had to wait more than twenty minutes before he reached a window and it was almost one o’clock before he was able to run for his train. A seat had been reserved for him – the school had arranged that – and he just had time to heave his case on to the luggage rack and sit down before the whistle went and the train began to move. Pressing his face against the glass, he stared out. Slowly the train picked up speed and London shuddered and rattled away. It had begun to rain. The scene could hardly have been more gloomy if he had been sitting in a hearse on the way to his own funeral.

Half an hour later they had travelled through the suburbs and the train was speeding past a number of dreary fields – all fields look much the same when they’re seen through a train window, especially when the window is covered with half an inch of dust. David hadn’t time to buy himself a book or a comic, and anyway his parents hadn’t given him any money. Dejectedly, he slumped back in his seat and prepared to sit out the three hour journey to King’s Lynn.

For the first time he noticed that there were two other people in the compartment, both the same age as him, both looking as fed up as he felt. One was a boy, plump, with circular wire-framed glasses. His trousers might have been the bottom of a school uniform. On top he was wearing a thick jersey made of so much wool that it looked as if the sheep might still be somewhere inside. He had long black hair that had been blown all over the place, as if he had just taken his head out of the washing machine. He was holding a half-eaten Mars bar, the toffee trailing over his fingers.

The other traveller was a girl. She had a round, rather boyish face with short brown hair and blue eyes. She was quite pretty in a way, David thought, or would have been if her clothes weren’t quite so peculiar. The cardigan she was wearing could have belonged to her grandmother. Her trousers could have come from her brother. And wherever her coat had come from it should have gone back immediately, as it was several sizes too big for her. She was reading a magazine. David glanced at the cover and was surprised to see that it was
Cosmopolitan
. His mother wouldn’t even allow
Cosmopolitan
in the house. She said she didn’t approve of “these modern women”, but then, of course, his mother was virtually prehistoric.

It was the girl who broke the silence. “I’m Jill,” she said.

“I’m David.”

“I’m J-J-Jeffrey.” It was somehow not surprising that the fat boy had a stutter.

“I suppose you’re off to this Ghastly Grange?” Jill asked, folding up the magazine.

“I think it’s Groosham,” David told her.

“I’m sure it will be gruesome,” Jill agreed. “It’s my fourth school in three years and it’s the only one that doesn’t have any holidays.”

“W-w-one day a year,” Jeffrey stammered.

“W-w-one day’s going to be enough for me,” Jill said. “The moment I arrive I’m heading out again.”

“You’ll swim away?” David asked. “It’s on an island, remember.”

“I’ll swim all the way back to London if I have to,” Jill declared.

Now that the ice had been broken, the three of them began to talk, each telling their own story to explain how they had ended up on a train bound for the Norfolk coast. David was first. He told them about Beton College, how he had been expelled and how his parents had received the news.

“I was also at p-p-public school,” Jeffrey said. “And I was expelled too. I was c-c-caught smoking behind the cricket pavilion.”

“Smoking is stupid,” Jill said.

“It wasn’t m-m-my fault. The school bully had just set fire to me.” Jeffrey took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. “I was always being b-b-bullied because I’m fat and I wear glasses and I’ve got a s-s-stutter.”

Jeffrey’s public school was called Godlesston. It was in the north of Scotland and his parents had sent him there in the hope of toughening him up. It had certainly been tough. Cold showers, twenty mile runs, porridge fourteen times a week – and that was just for the staff. At Godlesston, the pupils had been expected to do fifty press-ups before morning chapel and twenty-one more during it. The headmaster had come to classes wearing a leopard skin and the gym teacher had bicycled to the school every day, which was all the more remarkable as he lived in the Midlands.

Poor Jeffrey had been completely unable to keep up and for him the last day of term really had been the last. The morning after he had been expelled, his father had received a prospectus from Groosham Grange. The letter that went with it had been rather different from David’s. It had made the school sound like a sports complex, a massage parlour and an army training camp all rolled into one.