The Spin (20 page)

Stormy gritted his teeth. ‘They find it, don't they – on their own land?'

‘But what do they want with it? Nothing. I think the world would be a much better place without them,' she added. ‘And we could have all the gold.'

The group clanked over the stones and out of the gate.
His
convict was not amongst them; hopefully it meant he was still free.

The littles swung the gate shut with a clang, then went rolling and cart-wheeling merrily back into their gatehouse as if they were in a circus act, and slammed the door shut.

‘All gone,' Petra said. ‘Wonder where they –'

‘So here you are!' It was Lizzie. ‘I've come to show Stormy the way to the stables,' she said, linking her arm through his spare one.

‘We don't need you,' Petra said, pulling him the other way.

Stormy didn't like to remind them that he had worked here and knew the way.

‘West or East?' Lizzie went on. ‘Which are you?'

‘Oh.' He hadn't given it any thought, but surely, yes, surely it would be West. ‘West,' he said confidently.

Lizzie led him down a wide corridor that opened onto a small disc-shaped terrace facing due south. Circular steps led down from here to the terrace. These south steps had been out of bounds for the servery staff.

Stormy paused, looking round at the wide view of mountains, slopes covered with pine trees and craggy rocks. He filled his lungs with the cool, fresh air. Down in the kitchen he could never have believed he'd ever get to breathe this high-altitude air again. Never see this view. He felt full of energy, purposeful and hopeful. He was desperate to get to his spitfyre.

‘Are you sky-riders too?' Stormy asked as they walked towards the caves.

‘Yes,' Lizzie said. ‘My spitfyre is Daygo. I'm going to major in psychiatry – study the mind of a winged horse, you know; though I adore flying too.'

Stormy remembered Lizzie now from her visits to the lovely green spitfyre; he also remembered, unfortunately, how she had wacked the spitfyre with her riding crop when it didn't behave to her liking.

‘I want to study every bit of their life,' Stormy told her, ‘but more than anything I want to ride.'

At the bottom of the steps they turned right and so came onto the West terrace. In a few paces they had reached cave thirteen. Stormy forced himself not to turn and look at it.

‘This is Kyte here in twelve,' Petra said, ignoring the thirteenth cave as if it wasn't even there. ‘Mine is further on. Polaris.'

Stormy knew Polaris. He was a member of the Star Squad, a golden-brown colour with greenish tints and very bad-tempered.

‘So, which is yours?' Petra said. ‘When did it come?'

Stormy stopped dead.

When did it come in?
He had no idea!

‘If you didn't bring it,' Lizzie said, laughing, ‘someone else did. You can't
not
have one if you're a sky-rider.'

‘I am a sky-rider. I mean, that's what I'm supposed to be.' He stopped breathing. Why had he not thought of this before?

‘So where is it?' Lizzie persisted.

‘I don't know!' Stormy felt the tightness give way to a great emptiness in his guts. Dread and disappointment mingled, making him weak and sick. ‘It must be somewhere,' he said, looking around desperately. ‘I must have one, mustn't I?'

There was the noise of the dragon-wagon trundling over the stone slabs and Purbeck and Ralf appeared. They were chatting, and their shoulders bumped together as they walked. When Purbeck suddenly burst out laughing, Stormy felt as if he'd been stabbed. For an instant he was jealous of them; he'd loved that job, he'd truly loved it. For a second he wished he were still cleaning out spitfyre stables instead of trying to be something that he wasn't and hobnobbing with the likes of Hector and these girls whom he didn't understand at all.

‘Purbeck! Ralf!' he shouted.

The girls winced. ‘We don't talk to them,' Lizzie hissed.

Stormy's ears were ringing and his heart was banging painfully against his ribs. ‘Ralf! My flying horse? I do have a spitfyre, don't I? Don't I? Do I have one?'

‘Not as far as I know,' Ralf said.

He spun round. ‘Purbeck?'

Purbeck shrugged. ‘I don't think so. I haven't seen one, Stormy. Sorry, mate. Maybe there's been some sort of mistake . . .'

The girls looked amazed and vaguely amused.

‘Is it some sort of joke?' Lizzie asked, but Stormy had already spun on his heel and was running to the servery.

Al was standing outside the servery door, beside the low wall, throwing crumbs into the air. A cloud of tumbling, swooping birds surrounded him, squawking and piping.

‘Al!'

The tall man pivoted round slowly.

‘Hi, Al! It's me! Stormy!'

Al's face had become more cadaverous than ever. The deep creases in his face were so black they looked like they'd been drawn in charcoal. There was no smile, no sign of recognition. He turned back to the clamouring birds.

‘Al, you remember me! You do! It's me, Stormy.' He tugged his Academy jacket off as if that would make Al see who he really was. ‘Stormy.'

‘
Stormy?
'

‘Yes. Hell's bells, Al, don't do this to me!'

‘What?'

‘Don't be so cold and distant, please. I haven't told anyone what you did – the mouse thing. I won't. Al, please, I need a spitfyre. I'm a sky-rider. You're the spitfyre keeper. Don't I have a winged horse?'

Al smiled, but there wasn't a jot of humour in it. ‘You do not have a flying horse.' He sat down on the low wall and faced Stormy. ‘I would know if you did. I would have logged it in and it would have a new stable. Not that any are empty . . . Your benefactor doesn't know much about the Academy, does he? What sort of a fool wouldn't know you need a spitfyre? Too much money and no sense, I expect.'

‘But,
you
could have said!' Stormy roared. ‘When you knew I was coming, why didn't you tell them what was needed? You could have told Mrs Cathcart or that Mr Topter. Why are you against me?'

‘I'm not against
you
in particular, Stormy, just the whole world.' Al looked down at the crumbled squares of toast in his hands.

‘Well, all right, Al,' Stormy said bitterly. ‘So where can I get one? I'm sure I've got enough money. I'm sure my benefactor will pay for one. He must if he wants me to be a sky-rider.'

Al was staring up at the circling birds, crying for more food.

‘You can't. Oh, no, Stormy, you can't just buy one, I'm afraid,' he said. ‘No. No.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Just that; winged horses don't get bought like cakes.'

Stormy smashed his fist on the wall. ‘Rot your bones, Al!' he yelled.

He was about to head back into the Academy, when he stopped as an idea struck him. Turning, he flew past Al, past Purbeck and Ralf and past all the spitfyres, down the whole length of the great terrace. He passed thirteen.
There
was a spare spitfyre, he knew, but what use was it? He wanted a proper one.

He went on, right round along the circular steps and on to the East side.

Most of the day the East side was in deep shadow, which made it much colder than the West, but right now it was bathed in morning sunshine. He didn't want a gloomy East-side spitfyre, but who was he to pick and chose? It would do. It would have to. Anyway, he'd make it good, the best.

The tightness in his chest was worse than ever. He stopped, bent double, trying to get his breath.

‘Hello!' Troy – or was it Roy; he didn't have the time to look for the earring – came towards him. ‘Is that you, Stormy? Heard you were back.'

The other brother popped out from the next cave and grinned at him. ‘Look at him, the fine gentleman!'

‘Posh, eh?'

‘I'm not posh. I –'

‘We heard you're so posh you can't even speak to poor old Purbeck.'

‘No. Yes. I can. I just – I just had some luck, that's all.' He breathed deeply. ‘I was just wondering,' he went on, fighting to keep himself under control, ‘if by chance my spitfyre was here? I'm a sky-rider and I must have a spitfyre to fly, but it isn't on the West side.'

The twins looked at each other, identical faces smiling identical smiles.

‘Flying horse?'

‘Do you have it here?' Stormy asked.

‘Do we have it here?' one said.

‘Do we have it here?' said the other one.

‘I don't think so,' the other said, without a shred of regret in his voice.

Stormy looked along the row of caves. There were spitfyres here just as there were on the West side, blue and silver and red and green: large and small and fierce and smoking. He needed one. Any one at all would do.

‘Is there –'

‘Oh, put him out of his misery,' one twin said and Stormy's heart leapt – they were teasing him! An East-side spitfyre wouldn't be so bad . . .

‘The truth is, no. Sorry, no.'

‘What?' He looked from one to the other desperately. ‘Are you sure?'

They shook their identical heads.

‘Absolutely sure.'

‘You do not have a spitfyre here.'

‘No spitfyre.'

Stormy turned away to hide the distress and despair that surely showed in his face. He went slowly back the way he'd come, his feet like lead. Something was broken inside him.

No spitfyre.
No spitfyre!

Somehow he made it back to his bedroom, shut the door and lay down on his bed.

What was he going to do?

Stormy didn't move for a long time.

His thoughts kept returning to cave thirteen. There was a spitfyre in that cave; a flying horse no one wanted. He wanted one . . . But it was crazy to think of it – the creature was ill and useless and he wanted a really fantastic one. No, he wasn't even going to consider it.

He had been staring, unseeing, at the wall of books above his desk, and now one particular title stood out:
Owning Your First Flying Horse
, by Professor Georgie Blink. He had not seen it before. He took it down and began to read.

Hatchling? Egg? He had no hope: he was doomed.

He stared out of the window at Hector and Bentley flying past, one silvery spitfyre and one dark blue. They swooped and glided and tipped and twirled, using the thermals to rise and fall, almost as if they were performing on purpose, to mock him, to show him how much fun it was. He watched the ease with which they could turn their spitfyres, sail down invisible air currents, and rise, circling higher and higher. How skilfully Hector commanded his spitfyre – to fly, to dive and soar.

There was only one hope left. The Director. If he explained the situation to him, the Director would surely help.

Maud opened the door of the tall house.

‘Oh, Maud! Hello!'

She didn't look surprised to see him. She didn't look
anything
for a few moments, or even speak.

‘Hi. It's me, Stormy.' And he knew he should have sought her out and spoken to her earlier and went a guilty, embarrassed red. She'd helped him before; she'd been a friend and he'd ignored her. ‘You do remember me, don't you?' he said. ‘You've grown, Maud. It's nice to see you again.'

That little sparkle that he remembered so well glinted in her eye and he felt suddenly cheered to see her. After a few seconds the dimple appeared in her cheek too. ‘You do remember me!' he cried.

‘Of course I do,' she said. ‘I've been expecting you, but then I realised that now you're so grand and so rich you'd never want to speak to me.'

‘Oh, no, that's not it!' But she was a little right and they both knew it.

She glanced behind her at the long corridor. ‘Araminta will be furious if we chat!'

‘Don't worry, I'm sure she won't . . . I've got a problem.'

She smiled shyly. ‘Go on.'

‘I don't have a flying horse and I'm supposed to be a sky-rider. I'd buy one, I'm rich enough, apparently, but I can't. I mean, the books say you can't just buy a flying horse.'

She shrugged and smiled again. ‘I don't know anything about them.'

‘I thought the Director might help.'

‘He might not,' said Maud.

‘Well, there's no one else. I need to see him.'

‘You'd better come in, then.'

Maud led him to the Director's room and Stormy knocked on the door and went in.

‘Good to see you, young man. How can I help you?'

‘I'm sorry to bother you, Director, but there is something . . . The thing is, I need a flying horse and I haven't got one.'

The Director sat at his desk. He touched his fingertips together, pursed his lips and nodded. ‘That is unfortunate. I see. No spitfyre. Who is responsible for this? Is it our fault – the Academy's? Or your benefactor's?'

Stormy wished that just for an instant the Director would crack and let on that
he
was his benefactor, but the Director's stare was cool and gave away nothing.

‘Well, I wouldn't like to say exactly, I mean . . .'

‘Are you able to get in contact with your benefactor and discuss this?'