The Serpent in the Glass (The Tale of Thomas Farrell) (11 page)

Penders nodded in agreement. ‘Yeah, though I’m not sure which is worse — maths or Miss Havelock.’

‘She doesn’t teach maths,’ Thomas said, looking at the teacher’s name on the timetable: a Mr Guber.

‘No, she’s our form tutor.’ Penders indicated toward the top of the timetable.

Penders was right: Miss Havelock’s name had been scribbled in small writing next to the form box. Thomas sighed as they turned down a corridor. Why couldn’t he have Mr Trevelyan as their form tutor? Thomas hadn’t paid too much attention to the classrooms on his first visit. Most of them sat in Block A, immediately to the left of the assembly hall. The cream-coloured corridors had no windows, being lit by fluorescent lights. At the end of the first corridor Thomas and Penders found the door to the form room — a cream door with a plastic
3A
affixed to it.

They walked in together and saw Jessica and Merideah sitting next to each other on the front row. The two girls turned as the boys entered, and Thomas said good morning before sitting down at the desk behind Jessica. Penders sat next to him and lifted the lid of the pine desk to see if there was anything inside. While Penders examined his desk, Thomas studied the room. A white clock hung on the wall above the teacher’s light-brown desk. A chair and small cupboard sat behind the desk, and on top of the cupboard lay a clean blackboard eraser that no doubt serviced the large rolling blackboard that covered the majority of the wall. The mousy-haired girl who’d been sitting next to him at the table last night, sat to his left. She stared out at nothing, seemingly unaware of anyone else’s presence. To her left sat a pretty girl with braids in her black hair. Three blonde-haired girls occupied the first row along with Merideah and Jessica. Two of these, the identical twins, wore a pink bow in each of their pig-tails.

The door opened and in walked a tall, handsome boy, his dark uniform a stark contrast to his curly, blond hair. He smiled, nodded his head and then smoothly sauntered into the seat next to Penders. Soon after, the last of the children Thomas had seen on the bus entered the room and took their places on the back row: the large Guth Roach, the red-haired Reginald Quaint, and a dark-haired boy whose name Thomas didn’t know.

When Miss Havelock walked in everyone stood up. Thomas and Penders quickly did the same. That must have been something else that he — and seemingly Penders too — had missed in the
Rulebook
. Miss Havelock, Thomas thought, glanced briefly at him before she spoke.

‘Good morning!’

‘Good morning, Miss Havelock,’ the class intoned as one.

Miss Havelock opened a thin, green book. ‘I’m glad to see you’re all on time. Now, please sit —’

Penders sat down and she glared at him. He stood up again, looking a little pinker.

‘Please sit down once you’ve answered your name!’ she finished briskly.

Miss Havelock took out a pen. ‘Melantha Avebury?’

‘Yes, Miss!’ said the blonde girl next to the twins and to Jessica’s left. She sat down.

‘Merideah Darwood?’

‘Yes, Miss!’ Merideah responded. She took her seat to patiently await the end of the roll call.

Miss Havelock rattled through the rest of the register with perfect efficiency. Thomas couldn’t remember all the names, nor did he try. When Miss Havelock called out ‘Treice Montague’ Thomas expected a girl to respond, but the tall boy with the curly, blond hair answered. The twins were named Jasmin and Bronwen Thistlethwaite, though which was which he couldn’t remember. The girl with the mousy hair sitting next to him was named Demelza Luard. Most of these names seemed very peculiar to Thomas. Perhaps a lot of people outside of Holten Layme had strange names. He wondered where names came from and how people got them. But he couldn’t even understand the origins of his surname let alone anyone else’s. He valued it though, and was glad his father had insisted it couldn’t be changed.

‘Well, now you all know each others’ names,’ — Miss Havelock put the registration book down on the desk — ‘welcome to the form. I expect you all to set an example for the school as exemplary first-year pupils. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Miss Havelock,’ the class intoned somewhat more urgently than before.

‘Good,’ Miss Havelock continued. ‘Now, we have registration promptly at half past eight in this room every weekday morning and every weekday afternoon at a quarter past one. Today I’d like each of you to stand up and tell us a little about yourself. Half a minute each should suffice.’

Most of the children looked quite shocked on hearing the announcement. Thomas noted that Jessica wasn’t one of them. She looked quite taken by the idea.

Miss Havelock glanced down at the register on the desk. ‘Melantha Avebury first.’

Melantha stood up quite hesitantly, and only after Miss Havelock motioned for her to do so.

‘Come to the front of the class, child. Face your fellow classmates.’ Miss Havelock moved to the side of the classroom and surrendered the floor to Miss Avebury.

However, it was Miss Avebury who looked like she was doing the surrendering. She moved slowly to the front of the class and turned around. She said absolutely nothing.

Miss Havelock walked to the blackboard. ‘Here, maybe this will help each of you.’ She took out a stick of chalk and scribbled a list of words on the board: name, home, family, interests. ‘Speak about these — your name, where you come from, a little about your family and your interests.’ Miss Havelock moved back to the side of the classroom and left Melantha alone again.

Melantha tentatively turned to look at the board before turning back to face the class. ‘Well,’ she began with a little more composure than Thomas thought she would, ‘my name’s Melantha Avebury.’

She went on to explain that she haled from Oxfordshire, had an older brother who also attended Darkledun Manor, and that she liked keeping both frogs and a diary.

Merideah reached the front of the class even before Melantha reached her own seat. ‘My name is Merideah
Constance
Darwood. I was born near Cambridge. My father is an explorer. I have no brothers or sisters. My mother died some years ago.’

Thomas thought about his own mother. He hadn’t known her at all, but he wondered if it was worse to know your mother and then have her taken away from you. At least there would be a memory, he thought. And memories could bring comfort, and quell fears. He focused on Merideah’s words so that he didn’t have to dwell upon his own growing fear of having to stand up in front of everybody.

‘I like research and exploring. One of my hobbies is archery,’ Merideah concluded before sitting down.

Archery? Merideah didn’t seem like she would be into something like that. He tried to imagine her shooting arrows at a target, but his thoughts were interrupted by the realization that he was up next. Pity, he’d hoped Merideah would take longer so that they’d run out of time for him. Thomas hated standing up in front of everyone. He had somehow managed to more or less avoid it at his former school.

Thomas stood up and took his position at the front. He could feel his face reddening. He swallowed hard and hoped no one noticed his shaking legs. ‘My name is Thomas Farrell.’

He could feel his heart pounding.
Run, run!
a voice inside his head shouted. It always did. He ignored it as best he could. ‘I was brought up in Holten Layme in Hertfordshire by the Westhrop family. I never met my real parents. Jessica,’ — he looked over at her, and the rest of the class did likewise — ‘is my sister, well as good as.’ Jessica smiled and lapped up the attention. Thomas was all too glad to share it. Indeed, it was partly for that reason he’d mentioned her. ‘And I like playing marbles,’ Thomas finished and sat down quickly, though not quite at a run.

He controlled his breathing and calmed himself down. His hand went to the bulge in the blazer pocket where he’d stuffed the pouch containing his marbles and the Glass. He forced his fingers through the opening in the pouch and touched the Glass. It seemed to reassure him in some way he couldn’t explain, maybe because it was his father’s. Perhaps that’s why he liked to keep it near.

The rest of the children had their turn, but Thomas felt too flustered to listen until Demelza spoke. She’d been brought up by her grandmother on a farm in Cornwall, and, like Thomas, she’d no living parents. He wondered if she felt like him, but at least she had a grandmother. Penders, when it got to his turn, said no more than Thomas already knew. The slow-speaking Guth Roach came from Yorkshire and said he liked to go hunting with his dad. The introductions finished with a boy named Drew Wishard, who said very little other than that he expected to do well here and be as successful as his father, who was some kind of businessman.

‘I’m glad that’s over!’ Thomas admitted as he walked out the room with Penders after registration.

Penders nodded wearily. ‘Yeah, me too. It was so boring.’

‘You should show more interest,’ Merideah said, as she and Jessica caught up with them.

Penders smiled awkwardly. ‘Oh, not your presentation of course, I mean the general erm — the general Miss Havelock experience.’

Jessica gave Penders one of her are-you-going-to-change-your-tune-or-will-I-have-to-do-it-for-you looks. She was good at those and, as Thomas well knew, she had a plentiful supply of them. In front of them Treice Montague had Melantha Avebury and the Thistlethwaite twins vying for his attention. The girls were doing a lot of smiling for some reason.

‘Well, maybe I should give her another chance.’ Penders laughed nervously as the two girls glared at him.

Jessica nodded. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘Yes,’ Merideah agreed, ‘and this afternoon we’ve got Miss Havelock for Cultural Studies, so you’ll get that other chance quite soon.’

Penders frowned and pulled out his timetable. Thomas did the same. The girls were right.

Using the map on the back of their timetables they found their way easily to room 5B, the venue for Mr Guber’s mathematics class. Other than learning that the girls were far better than the boys at mental arithmetic — Mr Guber had wasted no time in informing everyone that calculators were banned from his lessons — the class passed without incident until the bell rang. At that point Thomas’s pen decided to leak all over his hand. Perhaps, like Thomas, the biro had finally had enough of long division.

Telling Penders he’d catch up, Thomas all but ran to the washroom to clean his hands — he didn’t want to miss break. Inside the washroom he turned on the hot-water tap, squirted out some pink-coloured soap, and tried to remove the ink from his hand. The stain had formed itself into a shape on his palm that Thomas thought resembled the shape of the African continent.

Just as he tried to rub off what would have been Egypt, the door opened and Treice Montague backed in. He closed the door and pressed his forehead against it for a moment before he heard the tap running and realized someone else was in the room. He turned around quickly and seemed surprised to see Thomas.

Treice’s casual, cool look had gone and had been replaced with what Thomas could only describe as fear. Even his golden curls seemed subdued.

‘What’s wrong?’ Thomas asked.

‘Girls!’ he said.

Thomas turned off the tap. ‘Girls?’

‘Yes, everywhere! Smiling, whispering, giggling girls! I was even asked if I could help with their maths homework.’ Treice put his hand to his brow as if he had the troubles of the world weighing upon his mind. Thomas noticed that Treice’s crisp white shirt sleeves were fastened by silver-coloured cufflinks.

‘I guess popularity has its drawbacks,’ Thomas offered. It was pretty weak. Thomas knew it, but he really had very little experience with Treice’s problem. Though he did understand why he’d want to avoid girls; after all, they might try to take you shopping.

Treice shook his head. ‘I don’t want to be popular. I wish they’d leave me alone!’

Thomas looked at his palm. He’d given up trying to remove the stain. The soap had had little effect except to make his hand smell like perfume. ‘Well, you can always come and talk to Penders or me I guess, if you need an excuse to get away that is.’

Treice took his hand away from his head. ‘Really? That’d be a big help! I don’t know anyone here yet.’

Thomas wondered if Treice played marbles. ‘No problem.’

Treice offered his hand. ‘Treice Montague, at your service.’

‘Oh Thomas Farrell, at yours.’ Thomas shook the other’s hand and then apologised as he saw the look of surprise on Treice’s face. He hadn’t dried his hands. ‘Excuse me for asking, but isn’t Trace —’

‘A girl’s name?’ Treice interrupted.

‘Well, I was going to say it was a little unusual,’ Thomas explained.

Treice smiled. ‘Sorry, most ask if it’s a girl’s name. It’s spelt T-R-E-I-C-E. I’ve no idea why my parents called me that. I’m from Derbyshire. You said you were from Herefordshire, right?’

Thomas pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and dried his hands. ‘Hertfordshire.’

‘Right. Listen, do you think we could sort of keep what I’ve told you a secret? You know, about the girls?’

Thomas dropped the paper towel in the bin. ‘Of course. Now let’s see if we can find Penders. He doesn’t like being called Marvin.’

Treice nodded as Thomas opened the door. ‘Is the coast clear?’

Thomas stuck his head out and looked both ways. ‘Yes! Let’s go.’

Break consisted of all the students, apart from the Sixth Form, being ousted out into the small area of playground next to the field behind the Manor. It was here, backing onto the patio area, that the tuck shop opened its windowed shutter to the hungry students. It was manned by three overworked children who looked only a year or two older than Thomas. Penders appeared from the crowd around the tuck shop. He had a half-eaten bar of chocolate in one hand and two bags of crisps in the other.

‘Oh, hi Thomas!’ Penders looked from Thomas to Treice.

Thomas smiled. ‘Penders, this is Treice.’

‘Hi,’ Penders said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but isn’t Trace a girl’s name?’

After he’d eaten, there was little time for Thomas to visit the Headmaster’s office and ask him about his father. So, reluctantly, Thomas had traipsed back to his next lesson, history, and spent an hour learning about the Pictish peoples of ancient Scotland. At lunch he made his way to the Headmaster’s Office, but the room was empty.