The Spin
Authors: Rebecca Lisle
Contents
For fan-tastic Maud Mellish
1
Compost
Stormy felt as if he were being cooked â steamed like a pudding, baked like an apple pie. The kitchen was
so
hot he could barely breathe. He yawned. Scooped up the eggshells and onionskins into the bucket of scraps, yawned again.
Uh-oh. Otto the cook had spotted him.
âYou! Stormy! Wakey-wakey!' A sieve sailed through the air towards his head. Stormy ducked. âNo yawning in here!' Otto yelled. âTake that bucket to the compost heap! And be quick about it! No snoozing in my kitchen! Zero yawning! D'you hear me?'
âYes, sir. No, sir.'
Stormy picked up the heavy bucket and got a whack on his ear. A
size five
whack
.
Otto was tall, and as wide as the black stove, and when he hit you with a size five spoon it felt as if your head was splitting open, like a conker bursting out of its shell.
âOuch! Yes, sir.'
He ran to the door as Otto reached for the number six spoons.
Stormy perked up in the fresh, cool air. He staggered across the yard, down the path and past the crooked beanpoles and rows of shrivelled sprouts, the bucket bumping against his thin legs.
If I were taller and stronger I'd give Otto what for! I'd show him. If I didn't
have
to do what he told me to do, I wouldn't do it!
The steaming compost heap at the very end of the path was hidden behind bushes. Beyond it, the garden sloped away in rocky terraces and giant boulders down the side of the mountain.
Stormy tossed the contents of the bucket onto the pile, set it down and stood a moment.
In the evening gloom, every edge and outline was beginning to fade.
The twilight sky was a beautiful purple, with tiny brilliant stars just beginning to appear like holes in the dark. Two spitfyres were wheeling around the Academy castle on the summit of Dragon Mountain. They were looping, tilting and swooping like birds, as if they were searching for something on the mountainside. It was unusual for winged horses to be out so late. He wondered what they were doing. Lucky things, those sky-riders. They weren't orphans like him; they had rich parents who paid for them to go to the Academy. He looked up at the spitfyres adoringly. If only he could get close to one, touch one â it was what he most wanted in the whole world.
A sudden chink of metal against metal made him spin round.
âWho's there?'
A man leapt out of the shadows, grabbed him and without a warning, locked his hands together round his neck and began to squeeze.
âSilence!' said his terrible voice. âDon't move. Not a word!' His grip on Stormy's throat was like a metal claw, cutting off air, pushing him to the ground.
Stormy stopped breathing.
The man was strong, but no taller than Stormy. His long grey hair hung in rat-tails around his grizzled face. Inside his beard his few teeth were broken into yellow spikes. He was shivering and wet.
âI won't say a word!' Stormy managed to say, terrified. âI'm not moving, only you're just about throttling me â sir!'
The awful hold on his throat lessened but did not go away. A dank, damp, marshy smell, a smell of wet undergrowth, cloggy soil and worms, crept into Stormy's nostrils.
âName?' The man's voice was a croak, as if it hadn't been used for years or had been strained by shouting.
âStormy. Sir.'
âGod help us! What sort of name is Stormy?'
âThe one the orphanage gave me, sir. Found on a stormy night, thunder and lightnâ'
âYou a norphan?' the man interrupted, looking around in a distracted manner as if he expected someone to appear.
âI am.'
âListen then, norphan, and you'll not be hurt. I've a gang back there in the bushes and if I give the sign they'll leap out and rip you limb from limb and chuck the pieces over the cliff for the vultures. They would, soon as butter a slice of bread.' Stormy nodded to show he understood. âBut I won't give the sign if you â' he looked about nervously and gave Stormy a shake, âyou bring me food. And a file for the chain. A coat if you can find one.'
âFood and a file and a coat if I can find one,' Stormy repeated. His heart was beating madly. The man held him so tight his toes barely touched the ground.
âA big file, mind, for this here big leg chain.' He rattled it softly. âStrong. Come back at midnight. If you're not here by the time the clock strikes the last of the twelve, we'll be in that place there two ticks later.' He nodded towards the kitchen. âI know where you sleep; know your very bunk. We'll come to you and slice your throat. Got it?'
Stormy gulped. âGot it.'
The squat man pushed him away roughly, then he turned and limped away, holding his chain from the ankle cuffs so that it didn't clank.
Stormy stood frozen for a few minutes, waiting for other figures to rise up out of the dark. No one appeared. What a terrible man! Escaped from the Academy dungeons, no doubt â a convict, a
murderer
, probably, and he knew where Stormy slept . . . His very bunk!
Stormy crept ever so quickly back to the kitchen.
Otto
Otto's few strands of long grey hair were drawn over a scabby, turnip-shaped skull. His eyes were like two burnt potatoes and his nose was a knobbly ancient parsnip.
The only time Otto had left the kitchen was when his sister ran away to the circus. He went to bring her back, but before he could coax her home, she died in an accident. It was after he returned that he started throwing pans and counting the strawberries in a bowl, daring anyone to steal one.
Stormy was one of Otto's kitchen skivvies, the lowest of the low. They washed, cut, peeled, cored and mashed. They prepared plain food for the orphanage and fancy casseroles, puddings and tarts for the Academy.
The convicts in the dungeons got what was left.
Brittel ran the spitfyre kitchen, a much smaller place than Otto's kitchen, hidden away down a narrow corridor. Brittel was as thin as a stick and as mean as a snake. He prepared all the spitfyre food. He used strange ingredients â rare herbs, minced bark, molluscs, special flowers and copious amounts of grass which he combined in mysterious, secret ways.
The food was sent up through the core of Dragon Mountain in lifts. The Winder, always the strongest boy in the orphanage, had the job of wheeling it up.
Stormy hoped to make it from skivvy to under-cook in Brittel's kitchen by the time he was thirteen or fourteen. He could never expect to get closer to a real spitfyre than that.
Stormy opened the kitchen door nervously, hoping no one would notice how long he'd been at the compost heap, or that he was shaking. His friend Tex gave him a wink.
âWhere have you been, you little worm?' Otto yelled. He was a simmering pan with the lid off. âIt's taken you an hour to empty a bucket. Is our compost five miles away?'
âI â'
Otto picked up a size six wooden spoon and ran at Stormy, waving it. âI'll show you, you cheeky little slice of sausage! How many ounces of flour in a three-egg cake? What ingredients in a chocolate sauce? Wasting my time, lingering and loitering! Time is food, Stormy! Lobster pancakes! How d'you make puff pastry? Crème caramel? Food comes first!'
The other skivvies sniggered. Stormy didn't mind â he'd laugh too if it were someone else being chased round the kitchen.
Sponge, Otto's old dog, staggered up on his stiff legs and pretended to nip at Stormy's ankles. He and Stormy were friends; Sponge would never really bite anyone.
Otto battered Stormy's back and shoulders with the wooden spoon, whooping every time he made a good, loud sound. âSplat! Whack! Crack!' he cried. âBatter! Smash!'
Otto was large and slow and Stormy was small and quick. After the first few blows, which didn't really hurt, Stormy escaped under the kitchen table. Sponge joined him, grinning.
âSorry, Mr Otto . . . sorry, sir . . . sorry, Mr Otto, sir â'
âMoron!' Otto yelled at Tex, seeing him about to sweep bits of bread into the bucket. âKeep those! Crumbs is food. No waste here! Don't forget the little birdies!'
âNo, sir.'
Stormy was forgotten. He stayed under the table. His encounter at the compost heap had chilled him to the marrow, and despite the warmth he was shivering. Otto could be scary, but it was the wild man outside he was most scared of. There had been anger and misery in the bones and hard flesh of those hands around his throat.
The old dog sank down and snored, and Stormy crawled out, picked up a knife and began chopping.
Otto was standing by the window that looked over the mountain track, slurping a mug of mint tea. He watched that stretch of path a lot, as if he were expecting someone.
Stormy worked all evening, anxiously watching the time slip away. Ten thirty. Eleven o'clock. Eleven thirty . . . How was he ever going to get out to the convict with the food and the file by midnight?
At last the kitchen was tidied and cleaned, the food prepared, ready for breakfast. Team by team the staff left; the skivvies were the last. Stormy glanced at the clock. Oh, if only they would all hurry up! He let the other boys go out ahead of him, then went back to pick up an imaginary speck from the clean floor before following them, making sure he was the last to leave the kitchen. But he didn't climb the stairs up to his dormitory as they had done. He slipped quickly into the darkness at the bottom of the stone stairs, where Otto kept his coats and wellingtons. He pushed his way through the heavy mackintoshes and tweeds and slippery leather until he felt the cold stone wall. He was well hidden. He stayed very still, waiting. The smell of Otto was all around him.
The clock struck quarter to midnight. Sweat broke out all over his body.
Come on, Otto!
At last the cook shuffled out, Sponge padding beside him. He slept in a damp stone-flagged room beside the kitchen, dreaming of piecrusts, brandied cherries, apple crumble and cake.