The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Read online

  And then a curious thing happened.

  He straightened up.

  He pressed the telephone closer to his ear.

  He crushed the handkerchief and shoved it into the pocket of his dressing–gown.

  ‘Gordon,’ he said, interrupting a rush of chitter. ‘Gordon, listen. This is important. The water around this orange patch you keep on about—is it a constant temperature or does it vary?’

  Chitter.

  Father listened.

  Right before my eyes, the pink in his cheeks and nose faded. His whole face turned the greyish-white of a late winter storm.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there tonight.’ He hung up the telephone.

  He stood very still, facing the kitchen tap, for a long moment. Then, abruptly, he swung around, crouched down and looked at me under the table.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ I said.

  ‘Esther,’ he replied steadily. ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘The whole time, then.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And how much of that did you hear?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘So, everything, then.’ He studied me a moment. ‘Do me a favour?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘Forget what you just overheard?’

  ‘Well, I’ll try,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But you know, if you ask somebody to forget something, they’re more likely to remember it?’

  Father nodded. ‘A fair point. Just don’t repeat it to anyone, then,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing, but—still, keep it to yourself, Esther. Promise?’

  I promised. There didn’t seem much in what I’d overheard to make an interesting tale anyway—just chitter, chitter and so on—so it was an easy promise to make.

  Father glanced with interest at my lemonade and I guessed that he was about to say, ‘Nice one! Where is it?’ but then his face paled again, and he straightened up and hurried from the room.

  There was a squabble with Mother then, something to do with Father being ‘Very foolish indeed! Dangerous beyond words! Don’t even think about leaving this house! And you, with a cold!’

  And so on.

  Meanwhile, Mother’s work colleagues were filing into the house ready to have meetings. These colleagues listened avidly to the argument between my parents, while pretending to be busy drinking lemonade.

  That afternoon, we saw Father off in the coach.

  My sisters and I chased it as far as we could up the road, waving madly, while Father craned his neck to wave back. Mother stood perfectly still.

  Two weeks later, we returned to the coach station, this time so that my sisters and I could journey back to Katherine Valley Boarding School.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Mother called, as the sun, shining like a diamond, lit up the buttons of her coat and the buckles on her satchel.

  Imogen, Astrid and I were in the back of the coach, our suitcases propped between our knees. Mother stood outside the coach. She had already made us recite how you recognise each of the major Shadow Mages, pretended not to hear us when we reminded her that there are never Shadow Mages in the mountains, given each of us a small tin of chocolate fudge, insisted that we win any competition we entered at school, waved twice, and that was enough farewelling for her, I suppose, because she banged on the side and called through the open window: ‘Off you go then!’

  We stared at her. Honestly, there was not much off-you-going we could do. That was up to the driver, surely, and he was outside, chatting with some pals, eating a pastry and offering water to the horses.

  Passengers in the other seats were also staring at our mother with puzzled expressions.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Mother repeated, ‘funny things,’ and she banged the side of the coach three times: Thwack, thwack, THWACK!

  The third thwack was so hard that it flung Mother herself back a step, and she stumbled, tripped, and landed on her bottom on the cobblestones.

  Imogen, Astrid and I hopped up from our seats, and pressed our noses to the windows.

  ‘Are you all right, Mother?’ Astrid called.

  Mother sat perfectly still, trying to appear as though tripping onto her bottom was exactly what she’d planned. But then she noticed that her satchel had landed upside down, with papers spilling out of it, and she gave up appearing nonchalant. She sprang to her feet, and hurried to collect the papers—just as a gust of wind blew across the square and scattered them.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ I shouted.

  ‘Hush, Imogen,’ Mother snapped. ‘Or who is that? Astrid?’

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Esther. The middle daughter.’

  But the wind was sending papers skittering this way and that, and Mother was busy chasing them. An envelope flew across the cobblestones and landed just by the coach wheel.

  ‘There’s one here!’ I yelled.

  At that moment, the driver crumpled his paper bag, shook his pals’ hands, and climbed up to his seat.

  ‘All aboard!’ he boomed.

  ‘You’d better hurry and grab this letter, Mother, before it gets run over!’ I called.

  Mother zipped forward and snatched up the envelope. As she did so, I caught a glimpse of block letters on its front:

  ESTHER METTLESTONE-STARANISE DIME HOUSE, FURIER LANE, BLUE CHALET VILLAGE

  ‘But that’s me!’ I cried. ‘I’m Esther Mettlestone-Staranise!’

  Mother frowned at the letter. She gave a startled gasp, rummaged through her satchel and drew out a small stack of additional envelopes.

  ‘Here you go,’ she called, reaching up to the window and handing the stack through. ‘I saved these as a goodbye surprise for you.’

  ‘Away then!’ boomed the coach driver, jiggling the reigns.

  Clip-clop, clip-clop, said the horses’ hooves.

  Mother stood back, satchel beneath her arm, and clasped her hands.

  My sisters and I settled back into our seats. All three of us looked at the stack of letters in my hands.

  ‘She didn’t plan to give them to you as a goodbye surprise,’ Imogen, my older sister, murmured.

  ‘She forgot she had them,’ Astrid, my younger sister, agreed. ‘I bet she’s been collecting them from the post office all summer, putting them into her satchel, and forgetting them.’

  ‘Who are they from?’ Imogen asked. ‘Georgia and Hsiang?’

  Georgia and Hsiang are my best friends at boarding school. I flicked through the envelopes. Four were from Georgia, five from Hsiang.

  All summer long I’d been writing to my friends, wondering why they didn’t reply. At one point, I’d sent them both postcards that said: ‘HELLO???’

  I’d begun to worry that I’d offended them somehow, yet they’d been replying to me all along.

  Well, soon I would arrive at boarding school where I’d see my friends and hear their stories in person.

  I tucked the envelopes into my suitcase and set them to the far side of my mind.

  On the first day back at school, Principal Hortense always holds Morning Tea in the gardens.

  It was already a quarter past ten when we arrived, and we hurried through the school. Other just-arrived girls were running along too, everybody looking shiny and sunny, the way people do after the summer break, and everybody calling, ‘Hello! Love the new haircut!’ to each other. Things like that.

  We hurried past the trophy cabinet and there were the gold medals my sisters and I had won in the Kingdoms and Empires Poker Competition. (Our mother taught us poker before we learned to read.)

  ‘When’s the competition this year?’ Astrid asked.

  ‘Last two weeks of this term,’ I said. ‘We get to start our holiday early.’ We all grinned.

  But actually I love my school. I hope that’s not strange. There are things I don’t like about it, of course, such as schoolwork and homework, rules and getting in trouble for breaking rules, which I do, fairly often—but let’s say your heart has a core, like an apple core, w
ell, right there amongst the seeds and chewy bits, I love my school.

  So at this point, as we ran panting into the gardens, I felt like a kite that is sailing in a clear blue sky.

  I couldn’t see my best friends Hsiang and Georgia anywhere in the garden, so I settled into a shady spot under the mulberry tree with a group of other Grade 6 girls. We ate orange-and-poppy seed cake and chatted about our summers.

  Meanwhile, something strange seemed to be happening.

  It was like this. Look at these words:

  The new teacher is an Ogre.

  Now imagine that those words keep brushing up against you, as if a ghostly cat is wandering the garden, brushing its fur against bare legs and then moving on.

  That’s what it was like.

  The first time it happened, I said, ‘Did I just hear that? There’s a new teacher this year? And it’s an Ogre?’

  The others giggled, as if I’d made a joke. They often laugh at me, even when I’m being serious.

  But the words kept drifting by with the breeze.

  After a while, the others stopped chatting about their holidays and began to ask: ‘Did somebody say there’s a new teacher who’s an Ogre?’

  ‘It’s not true,’ scoffed Katya Burla. ‘They’d never hire an Ogre. An Ogre wouldn’t even fit through a classroom door!’ (She’s very scoffy, Katya.)

  Hetty Rattlestone was nodding. ‘Our Aunt Cynthia saw an Ogre once. She said his arms and legs were like logs of firewood. He wanted to hire a rowboat, but the man said that his boats were too small for Ogres, sorry—so what did the Ogre do? He grabbed a rowboat, dragged it into the lake, hopped aboard—and it sank. Then the Ogre swam ashore and demanded his money back. Even though he’d never paid.’

  ‘Is Aunt Cynthia one of your royal relatives?’ Zoe Fawnwell interjected.

  Zoe is best friends with Hetty Rattlestone and her twin sister, Tatty. As far as I can tell, her main job as best friend is to remind everyone that the twins happen to have some royal relatives.

  Hetty ignored Zoe’s question, so Aunt Cynthia must not have been a royal.

  ‘Ogres have violent tempers,’ Tatty Rattlestone said. ‘Our mother was at a restaurant once when an Ogre who’d been wading in a swamp came tramping in, leaving mud and slime everywhere. The waiter asked him very politely to wipe his feet please, so the Ogre picked up the waiter and threw him through a window.’

  We were quiet, picturing the flying waiter and shattered glass.

  ‘Ogres only live in three different regions,’ Katya put in. As well as being scoffy, she’s excellent at geography. And at all the other school subjects. ‘The three regions are far from here.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Horseshoe Island off the coast of the Kingdom of Storms. The Fangaral Crescents. And Fox Valley in the Empire of Broken Leaves.’

  ‘So if the new teacher is from one of those places, we’ll know they’re an Ogre,’ Zoe Fawnwell breathed.

  ‘We’d know anyway just by looking at them,’ Hetty said sharply.

  DONG! DING! DONG!

  That was the sound of a bell being struck.

  Principal Hortense was standing very tall in the arbour, striking the bell and beaming around at us. Which meant she was about to speak.

  We all turned as one to hear.

  ‘Girls! What a delight to see you back again!’ Principal Hortense gave a general wave, and then began offering special little waves to individual girls. Her hand became like an excited butterfly jumping from flower to flower. Finally, the butterfly grew tired and settled down.

  ‘Such a delight!’ she continued. ‘Why, I was just saying to Mustafa yesterday, I said: Mustafa, the place is too quiet. And do you know what Mustafa replied?’

  We all looked at Mustafa, the gardener. His cheeks bulged with cake. When he noticed us staring, he began to chew very quickly. I saw him swallow.

  Principal Hortense continued. ‘He said: Too quiet? No. Not really.’

  Everyone laughed. Mustafa relaxed and took another bite of cake. He is famous for finding us students annoying. He’d prefer to take care of the grounds in peace.

  ‘I trust you’ve caught up on your summer stories by now, girls—’ Principal Hortense began.

  ‘No. Not really,’ a Grade 8 girl joked. Or not-joked, because we’d hardly begun to catch up. I hadn’t even seen Georgia and Hsiang yet.

  Principal Hortense chortled. ‘Well, classes don’t start until tomorrow, so plenty of time! At any rate …’

  Then she made her Welcome Back speech.

  ‘There are thirteen weeks in this term,’ she said. ‘Wait now, is it thirteen or twenty-five?’ She consulted with the closest teacher who said it was definitely thirteen. ‘Shame. Twenty-five sounds fun. And then two weeks of holidays?’

  ‘Yes,’ everyone agreed.

  I won’t tell you everything she said, mainly because I don’t know. I always drift off when teachers talk. They say many pointless things.

  ‘As usual, I will take girls to town for afternoon tea on their birthdays. You will work very hard, and you will all behave with respect and …’

  Do you see what I mean? Pointless.

  I did tune in when she said: ‘Bad news! Matron is away this year! She’s travelling the Northern Climes! But good news! We have a new nurse! Nurse Sydelle!’

  It was bad news that Matron was away. She’s part-Faery, takes care of us when we’re ill and bakes treats. I wouldn’t know whether this Nurse Sydelle was ‘good news’ or not until I’d met her.

  Eventually Principal Hortense listed our teachers, starting at the top—Grade 8—and working her way down.

  My sister Imogen’s teacher (Grade 7) turned out to be Mr Dar-Healey. He’s a lively man who does tumbles in the air whenever a child gives a correct answer.

  Principal Hortense skipped over Grade 6 and went straight to Grade 5. Strange, I thought. She’s forgotten how to count. But it was backwards counting, so maybe she found that trickier.

  My sister Astrid’s teacher (Grade 4) turned out to be Ms Saji. Gentle Ms Saji only joined the school last year.

  When Principal Hortense had reached the Kindergarten teacher and stopped, Hetty Rattlestone sang out: ‘You’ve forgotten Grade 6!’

  ‘Observant, Hetty!’ Principal Hortense twinkled. ‘But wrong! I did not forget Grade 6, I saved it on purpose! It’s the most exciting news! Are you ready?’

  We agreed that we were ready.

  ‘Professor Jonston has retired! So we have a new teacher at Katherine Valley Boarding School!’

  I was suddenly anxious. The ghost cat was slinking around my legs now, twirling between my ankles.

  Principal Hortense grinned so hugely you could see where her teeth grew from her gums. ‘A teacher from far, far away!’

  The ghost cat froze.

  ‘Her name is Mrs Pollock! She’s arriving tomorrow! And she’s from—now just a moment, what was the place called? Cattlefork? Donkeyslipper? Guess-what-Isles? No. It’s …’

  A pause. ‘What?’ various girls called.

  ‘That’s right. She’s from Horseshoe Island off the coast of the Kingdom of Storms!’

  The ghost cat leapt into the air and sunk its claws into my throat.

  There wasn’t really any ghost cat, to be clear. That’s just what it felt like.

  After that, I began to feel pale and important, as if I’d just been diagnosed with a rare and serious illness. The other girls in my grade felt similarly, I think, and we gave each other wild-eyed glances. Our teacher is an Ogre!

  Whispers and murmurs flew between us. ‘She must be an Ogre!’ ‘We don’t know for sure?’ ‘But she comes from Horseshoe Island!’ ‘Does nobody else live there except Ogres?’ ‘Nobody.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Hetty and Tatty announced, after a quick twin conference. ‘We’re going to the office to send an urgent message to our mother. She’ll never allow us to have an Ogre for a teacher. She’ll call on some of our relatives to help too.’

  ‘You mean your
royal relatives?’ Zoe Fawnell put in obligingly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the twins said, as if they’d forgotten for a moment. ‘Them.’

  That evening, we were in the dormitories, unpacking our suitcases.

  My dormitory this year had six residents, including me (obviously) along with:

  Katya Burla (as well as being scoffy, good at geography and all other subjects, Katya has wild curls, loves the colour purple and coaches the junior chess team)

  Dot Pecorino (a tiny, shy girl)

  Hetty Rattlestone

  Tatty Rattlestone (the twins—you remember them)

  A new girl, who had not yet arrived.

  The new girl’s bed was to the right of mine. A tartan suitcase sat on it, with a label that said:

  AUTUMN HILLSIDE

  New girls are rare at Katherine Valley, and I felt shimmery reading that label.

  Autumn Hillside. A name like a whisper or a song.

  Or like the side of a hill in the autumn, I suppose.

  I was very keen to make friends with this new girl. If I couldn’t have a name like Autumn’s, at least I could be friends with her. I felt panicky that the Rattlestones would get in first, and I kept looking over my shoulder as I unpacked to check that Autumn wasn’t standing awkwardly in the doorway. The moment I saw her I’d pounce. ‘Oh, hello,’ I would say, ‘you must be the new girl! Welcome!’

  Or something more interesting than that.

  Hetty and Tatty were unpacking very noisily. They were in a rage about the fact that their best friend, Zoe Fawnwell, was not in our dorm.

  ‘It’s all right, we already know you’ve got lots of royal relatives,’ I muttered.

  Katya giggled. Dot blinked.

  (The twins also annoy me because their name sounds like ours. Rattlestone. Mettlestone. See? Imogen says their name rattles around like a bunch of old stones in a suitcase, whereas ours is solid, like the gateway to a castle. Which helps.)