Mystery at Silver Spires

Secrets, hopes and dreams… School friends are for ever!

Silver Spires is such a cool school, and best of all I get to live here with my five fab friends.

But there's something mysterious going on. We keep hearing these spooky noises in the attic above our dorm. I know it's against the rules, but I've got to go up there and investigate. Even if it lands me in a whole heap of trouble…

For Ali Bradley and Jacqui Marriot with love and best wishes

About This Book

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Bryony's Pet Quiz

About the Author

Want to know more about the Silver Spires girls?

Collect the whole School Friends series

Copyright

It was the middle of the night. I mean, the
very
middle of the night. Our dormitory was pitch black.

“Bryony, are you awake?” Izzy's trembling whisper came out of the darkness.

“Yes,” I whispered back.

“Did you hear that noise?”

“I'm not sure…
something
must have woken me up…” I switched on my little night light. Then I looked round the other four beds in the dorm, but the rest of our friends were still fast asleep.

After a moment, when my eyes had adjusted properly, I could see Izzy's pale frightened face. “Don't worry, Izzy. It's probably just one of those creaks you sometimes get in old buildings.” But even as I was talking, I was thinking,
What rubbish
, because our boarding house, Forest Ash, is only about forty years old. I mean, that's not exactly ancient.

“Where do you think the noise came from?” Izzy whispered. “I couldn't tell.”

I was about to say I wasn't sure when it came again – a soft bump. Izzy looked terrified and, though my heart was beating faster than usual, I felt sure there had to be an obvious explanation. “It could be a mouse or a bird,” I said, trying not to sound too anxious. “After all we're on the top floor here. There's only the attic above us and nobody ever goes up there. I wouldn't even know how to get to it.”

“But it didn't sound like a scratchy, scrabbly noise, did it, Bry?”

“Well no, but…let me go and have a look in the corridor. Maybe it wasn't coming from the attic at all. I'll be back in a sec.”

I got out of bed, tiptoed across the room to the door and opened it as silently as possible, so as not to disturb the others. Matron's room was just along the landing from our dorm and I didn't want to give her a fright either. I looked right and then left in the gloom of the single landing light – it's always on in case anyone wants to go to the loo in the night. There was no sign of any of the staff or students, which might make Izzy even more alarmed. As I crept back into the dorm, closing the door behind me softly, and tiptoed over to Izzy's bed, I felt her fear lightly brushing me.

“I heard it again, Bry. Like someone treading really softly. I'm sure it's coming from above.” Izzy fixed me with her frightened stare. “Do you think it's…a…a ghost?”

I frowned, then felt cross with myself for even considering it. “We would have known if there was a ghost at Forest Ash, Izzy. One of the older girls would definitely have said if the place was supposed to be haunted.”

Izzy nodded slowly, then spoke in a shaky whisper. “Do you…believe in ghosts, Bryony?”

I'd never really been sure whether to believe in them or not, but now that Izzy was in such a state I decided it was better to say I didn't. I shook my head. “No.”

She held my gaze. “
I
do. I stayed at my cousin's house one time and she told me the house was haunted. I definitely heard someone moving around that night and in the morning I checked and no one had got up for any reason. It really spooked me, and the thing is…” Izzy stopped and looked down for a moment.

“What?”

“You'll think it's silly.”

“I won't.”

“Well, the thing is, I got an e-mail from my cousin just today and she said they were selling the house because they'd all been frightened by noises in the night and her mum is convinced the place really is…haunted.” She bit her lip and I wondered if she was going to cry, so I sat down next to her and took hold of her hand.

“Well, that's your cousin's house, not Forest Ash,” I said firmly. It might have been because Izzy's eyes were big and round and full of fear, or because her face looked pale, but I knew I had to make her believe this definitely wasn't a ghost, or she'd spend the whole night wide awake and terrified. So I quickly told her something that my stepmum, Anna, had once said to make me feel better when I'd woken up one night and started worrying that I might get homesick when I came here to Silver Spires Boarding School.

“Izzy, things always seem worse at night-time. In the morning we'll wonder what on earth we were worrying about. It's not a ghost. It'll probably turn out to be…a mouse…a heavy-footed one.”

“You mean a rat!”

I could have kicked myself. Now she was sitting bolt upright in bed. “What if it finds its way into our dorm? I'd scream, Bry! I know I would!”

“No, it can't be a rat, because it would have to be really tiny to have got in through a little gap under the eaves or something like that. And there's definitely no way it could get in here. Honestly, Iz, don't worry. Try to get back to sleep.”

I climbed back up the little ladder to my cabin bed and switched my night light back off, trying to take my own advice, but it wasn't easy because I was straining to listen out for the faintest sound. Even the familiar noise of my best friend, Emily, snoring very gently in the bed next to mine seemed like it was magnified a thousand times. At last all seemed quiet and I remember wondering whether Izzy was asleep, but I never found out which one of us fell asleep first, because the next thing I heard was the curtains being swished back and Emily's bright, bubbly voice saying, “Rise and shimmer, folks!”

“
Shimmer?
” repeated Nicole in a sleepy voice. “What's that about?”

“I just thought I'd lower my expectations,” said Emily. “I mean there's no way you can actually shine first thing in the morning, is there?” She grinned round at us all and I blinked back at her dozily. “Unless you're called Emily Dowd, of course!” she added.

And that was the moment when I remembered what had happened in the night and my eyes shot open and flew across to Izzy.

“Did you hear it any more?” I asked her.

Immediately she sat bolt upright. “No. Did you?”

“Hear what? When?” asked Emily, her head flicking from one to the other of us.

“What are you talking about?” asked Antonia, Nicole's best friend, as she sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes.

“Bryony and I heard a noise in the night,” Izzy replied. “An actual noise. We didn't imagine it…” She was staring at Sasha, her own best friend, as though Sasha might not believe her. Then she looked up at the ceiling. “It came from up there!”

Immediately everyone looked up and if we hadn't been discussing such a serious subject, I would have felt like laughing.

“You can't
see
anything!” I said, rolling my eyes. “But we heard the noise quite a few times.”

“It was probably just a bird,” said Nicole. “They sometimes get into our roof at home.”

“Or a mouse or a vole or something,” said Emily, through a big yawn. “We get trillions of those on the farm.” Then she went off to the bathroom and Nicole and Antonia followed. We could hear Antonia asking Nicole what a vole was. Antonia is Italian and, though her English is pretty much perfect now she's been at Silver Spires for almost three full terms, there are still some words she's never come across before.

As soon as the sound of their voices disappeared, Sasha and Izzy looked at each other. “Did you think it might be a…ghost?” Sasha asked quietly.

Izzy nodded. “It just didn't sound like an animal. It was too…soft and smooth.”

Sasha's eyes widened. “Smooth like…gliding?”

I couldn't help feeling a tightness in my chest as though I needed to take a breath quickly. The common-sense part of me told me that there had to be some other explanation than ghosts. And anyway, I couldn't help going back to my first thought that we would have been told if Forest Ash was supposed to be haunted. No, it had to be an animal and I wouldn't let myself get carried away by any silly imaginings.

“Nicole and Emily are right. It'll just be a bird or a mouse or something,” I said, getting up briskly. And the more I thought about it, the more certain I became, because I was remembering a time when we actually did have a mouse in our attic at home, right above Dad and Anna's room. My stepbrother, Robby, who's just a few months younger than me, agreed with me that there had to be at least six big mice – or even rats – making all that noise, and Dad and Anna got a pest controller in. But it turned out to be just one teeny little mouse. I could still see the man trying not to laugh at the looks on our faces when he showed us what he'd caught in the humane trap. “That's what all the fuss is about!” he'd said. “It's never as bad as it sounds, you know!”