The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Page 23

  ‘Oh, and look, everyone except the Rowan table—the top table—has chores. See that list at the front of the room?’ Tatty pointed. ‘Looks like you’ve got … cleaning the chalkboard dusters, Esther. You do your chores each morning right after breakfast.’

  That was good. I liked banging chalkboard dusters together.

  ‘Welcome back, Esther!’ Mrs Pollock cried from the front of the room. ‘You must tell us all about your trip this afternoon!’

  She beamed at me. I beamed back.

  ‘Oh, Esther, have the twins explained our new table system to you? Good for them! You’ll find your desk over at the Endiva table, all right? The right-hand corner there?’

  ‘The Endiva table?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tatty gave me a sympathetic pout.

  I decided not to mind.

  It must be because I’d been away when she set up the new system. She would move me to a higher table after the next test, surely. Also at my table were quiet little Dot Pecorino, tall Durba, and Pelagia.

  Hetty and Tatty Rattlestone, I noticed, were at the top table, Rowan, sitting either side of Autumn Hillside.

  ‘Homework booklets first!’ Mrs Pollock said, handing these out. ‘You all did very well! A pleasure to mark! Now, don’t leave this week’s homework until the last minute, will you? Do a little each night.’

  My homework booklet landed on my desk.

  I smiled and flicked through it.

  Mrs Pollock had graded the homework I’d done for the weeks I was away. There were no ticks or crosses, just a letter at the bottom of each page.

  C-

  C-

  C-

  Confusing.

  Our homework each week is just a few pages of spelling and mathematics exercises. They’re always simple—just for practise. I was sure mine had been correct. How had I got C- for everything?

  Well, I must have made mistakes, rushing to get it done before we left. Or maybe it was my messy handwriting.

  I turned the page to the next few weeks of homework, thinking I would check my answers before I handed the booklet in next week. We do our homework in pencil, rather than ink, so it would be easy to—

  I turned the page.

  Turned it back again.

  No answers. Blank spaces.

  No answers. Blank spaces.

  I stared.

  Turned the pages back and forth, forth and back.

  Had I imagined working ahead with my homework?

  No! I was sure I’d done it.

  I peered closely at a page—held it to the light—and caught glimpses of my own handwriting. Little pieces of letters. Indentations from where I’d pressed hard.

  And specks of eraser.

  My homework had been erased.

  Who would erase my homework?

  I looked around at the girls around me. Who would be so spiteful?

  ‘Oh, Esther,’ Mrs Pollock called. ‘Are you wondering why your homework has gone?’

  I blinked, clutching the booklet so tightly the pages crumpled.

  ‘I had to get rid of it. You cannot do homework in advance like that! Homework is meant to be done on a schedule! Now. This morning, we have a fun activity, we’re going to …’

  I don’t remember what she said, or what fun activity we did.

  My teacher had erased my homework.

  That afternoon, Mrs Pollock invited me to tell the class about my journey.

  I’d been looking forward to this.

  I started by describing how I’d fractured my ankle.

  Hetty raised her hand.

  ‘Wait, you fractured your ankle in the last two weeks?’ she asked, frowning. ‘But where’s the plaster?’

  ‘And why aren’t you limping?’ Zoe Fawnwell put in from the Kate-Bazaar table. She tilted her chair back so she was almost touching Hetty. ‘You’re walking normally, Esther!’

  ‘The plaster dissolved while I was sleeping,’ I explained, ‘on our journey home.’

  Mrs Pollock giggled. ‘The plaster dissolved,’ she repeated. She giggled again, and put her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry, Esther, it’s just—I’ve never …’ She collapsed into laughter again.

  The class all began to laugh too.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to make them hear me. ‘You see, it was a Faery doctor who treated my ankle, and he gave me a healing cupcake. So it recovered very quickly. He used Faery dissolving plaster. He was a Child of Spindrift, by the way.’

  As I said all this, Mrs Pollock kept repeating my words and shrieking. ‘A Faery doctor! … Shriek! … A healing cupcake! … Shriek! … dissolving plaster! Shriek! A Child of Spindrift! SHRIEK! SHRIEK!’ By this point she was howling with laughter. So was the class.

  ‘Esther!’ Mrs Pollock cried, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, but you are hilarious! There would not be a Faery doctor in the Kingdom of Storms, my dear. The place is surrounded by Wicked and Nefarious Kingdoms! Faeries never go there! There’s no such thing as dissolving plaster! What an idea! As for a Child of Spindrift treating you?! Your imagination really has got you carried away! Do go on. Tell us more.’

  I tried.

  I tried to explain about Doctor Eli, how he was one of the only Faeries in that region, having grown up in the Spindrift Orphanage, and about the party and the wave, and how we had taken a train through the Wicked and—

  I had to stop there, though.

  Nobody could hear me. The class were in fits of laughter. Mrs Pollock was pounding the table and bellowing. She kept shouting interruptions, and the class got into the spirit of the game and began shouting themselves.

  ‘Wait, so you’re telling us you never actually met the Stolen Prince of Cloudburst?!’

  ‘Well, I’ve actually met him already, a couple of years ago, but at the party—’

  ‘She doesn’t know the Stolen Prince at all! I don’t believe she even went to the party!’

  ‘And you’re saying there was a giant wave so you ran up a flight of stairs in a hotel? With a fractured foot!’

  ‘Not ran. I sort of limped, and—’

  ‘And you never even got near the King or Queen of the Kingdom of Storms!’

  ‘No, because—’

  ‘Oh, Esther!’ Mrs Pollock said, waving her hands at the class to quiet down. ‘What a great laugh you’ve given us. I must say, I should give you a demerit for lying like that—so many lies! I cannot believe you suggested your father took you on a train trip through a shadow realm. The worst one! No father would do that. That region is much too dangerous. You owe him an apology for suggesting it! Still I haven’t laughed that hard in an age. Come here and let’s do a high five for your comedy. All right, sit down, dear, and do make an effort to be better.’

  A curious thing happened that afternoon.

  I was walking by the front windows of the school, admiring the gardens. Deep red autumn roses were blooming, swaying gently in the breeze. A figure darted by the front gate and my heart jumped—Shadow Mage? But it wasn’t. The figure hurried on up the road. A girl.

  A girl in a yellow dress with a red coat.

  A girl with long dark hair.

  A brisk step, a straight back.

  A very familiar—

  I threw open the door of the school, tripped down the stairs and ran along the path, shouting: ‘BRONTE! BRONTE!’

  It was my cousin!

  My cousin, Bronte Mettlestone!

  Walking right by my school!

  She had not paused, although she must have heard me calling. In fact, she had picked up her pace.

  ‘BRONTE METTLESTONE!’ I shouted again, reaching the gate, and peering through.

  But the girl hurried on into the distance, and rounded a curve in the road.

  I must have been mistaken.

  It was not Bronte at all. Why would it be anyway? She lived far away in Gainsleigh! I would see her soon when we went to the poker competition. My imagination had picked me up and flown away with me.

  One final thing happe
ned that first day back.

  I found a large package in my mailbox. It had arrived in the afternoon post.

  Hsiang! I thought. Or Georgia? They’re sending me a gift to apologise for ignoring me for so long!

  Hmm, perhaps I wasn’t used to being without my best friends, I realised, as I drew out the package.

  But it was not from Georgia or Hsiang.

  It was from my Aunt Emma. A small stack of paintings, and a note.

  Darling Esther,

  So sorry! I only just got your request for paintings for your school auction! Had a spot of bother with the law (again) and your cousin Bronte was NOT here this time to spring me from the local jail as she did once before! It was just a misunderstanding. My darling friends Sugar Rixel and the Water Sprites sorted it all out in the end, and I’m free as a bird again.

  Here are some paintings for your school to auction.

  Hope I’m not too late!

  Love, love, love,

  Aunt Emma

  Just a little too late, Aunt Emma.

  I flicked through the stack. Aunt Emma lives on Lantern Island, and most of the paintings depicted her cottage there. (I recognised it because I’ve visited her with my sisters, and because she’s always sending us paintings of her cottage. Her art was in a ‘cottage phase’ for years.) There were also some landscapes I did not recognise—fields of flowers, and mountains with sun rising majestically between them. Another field, grassy, with a picnic blanket and a little group of women and children, bushy trees behind them, a rock shaped like—

  I stopped.

  Stared at the painting.

  A rock shaped like a turtle poking its head from its shell.

  It was the landscape from my dream again.

  The same one I had seen from the train in the shadow realm.

  Later that night, I gazed at the painting.

  It was twilight in the painting: streaks of orange in the sky, and the trees and the turtle rock were deeply shadowed. The picnicking people were only silhouettes—dark shapes in the dim light. Two women, two small children, and a baby in a pram.

  The picnic blanket was blue. When I peered more closely, I found a smudge of red on the blanket—

  Strawberry jam?

  I wrote to Aunt Emma.

  Dear Aunt Emma,

  I’m very sorry to hear you’ve had a spot of bother with the law. What a shame my cousin Bronte wasn’t there to help you this time. Bronte is a proper hero, isn’t she? So are my sisters, by the way. But I’m just Esther.

  Thank you for the paintings! I’m afraid they’re too late—we’ve already had the auction. Shall I post them back to you?

  Can I ask a question? One of your paintings is of a picnic. There are bushy trees and a rock shaped like a turtle. Do you remember where that landscape is? And who the picnicking people are?

  Love, love, love,

  Your niece, Esther

  I had the dream seven or eight times that night. Each time I woke more breathless and panicked than the time before.

  On my fourth day back at school, I was cheerful because—

  —the very next day I would be travelling to the poker competition with my sisters!

  A newspaper headline caught my eye as I walked into the dining hall for breakfast.

  DEEPEST, DARKEST OCEAN

  I stopped to read the article. The first paragraph was about the strange behaviour of the ocean lately. Currents awry, tides upside down, fish dressing up in suits and ties and taking the train to work. (Ha ha. No. It just said that fish were vanishing.)

  The article continued:

  Alfreda Reinozovski, leading oceanographer, explains, ‘To be honest, odd things have been happening in the ocean for the last thirty years or more—but lately it’s been getting out of hand. Whales migrating in the wrong direction. Ships sinking. Oysters floating on the surface. Surfing competitions cancelled because no waves. It’s so intriguing! My team and I are pretty sure the issues are coming from the deepest, darkest part of the ocean, not far from the Candle Islands.’

  The next step, Alfreda says, is a trip in a newly-constructed submarine. ‘It’s the first submarine ever built that can withstand the water pressure way down there,’ Alfreda gushes. ‘Once I’m down, I’ll see if I can figure out just what the problem is.’

  I looked at the picture of Alfreda. She had a friendly, smiley face and very curly hair.

  If my father was right, and the problem in the deepest, darkest ocean was actually an evil Fiend from a thousand years ago—well, Alfreda’s friendly, smiley face could be in serious danger.

  That was a strange moment for me.

  Ordinarily my father is right. That’s my experience of him, anyway.

  Which meant I should send an urgent telegraph to this Alfreda, saying: DON’T DO IT! DANGEROUS!

  But the experts at the conference had laughed at Father. They’d found his idea so silly, they’d made him swear not to repeat it.

  Fathers, even my father, must make mistakes sometimes.

  Alfreda and her curly hair would be fine.

  Later that morning, just before morning tea, a terrible thing happened.

  I suppose ‘terrible’ might be an exaggeration, but that’s the word I’ve typed, and I don’t want to go back now and change it.

  Mrs Pollock called me over to her desk and whispered, ‘My dear Esther.’

  At last! I thought. We are going to have our private chat!

  ‘Look at your hands,’ she said.

  I looked. My hands were covered in fine white powder.

  ‘It’s all over your face, too,’ she murmured. ‘Didn’t you say you travelled by train through the Wicked and Nefarious Kingdoms on your trip?’

  I nodded.

  ‘All right, you’ve picked up a serious shadow illness while there. I’ve read about this. It’s called Lire Syndrome—that’s L-i-r-e—sounds like liar, but not how it’s spelled. We are going to have to keep a very close eye on you. No poker competition, I’m afraid. Your father should never have taken you on that train trip!’

  My head went into a tumble.

  ‘But before, you said …’ I began—then stopped. She hadn’t believed me when I said we’d been on the train. She’d laughed at me.

  But that was missing the point.

  ‘The poker competition?’ I said. ‘But I have to go!’ Why did I have to go? It was—I just really wanted—well, actually, I did have to go! ‘My sisters need me! We need a team of three to compete!’

  ‘Shhhhh!’ Mrs Pollock lowered both her hands, trying to quiet me. ‘I don’t want to alarm the class. You could die from this disease, you know. That’s why you must stay at school, to be sure you don’t die. Your sisters will understand.’

  ‘I feel fine!’ I argued. ‘I’m perfectly healthy! Why don’t I go and see the nurse? I’m sure she’ll say—’

  ‘That I’m wrong?’ Mrs Pollock interrupted, little dimples in her cheeks. ‘Don’t tell me you’re suggesting that I’m wrong, are you, Esther?’

  ‘Well, no … I mean …’

  ‘I’m certainly not wrong. Quick high five to cheer you up.’

  That was brave of her, I thought—she could catch the illness?

  ‘Right, better now? Back to your seat. I’ll pop around to Principal Hortense to let her know.’

  Her chair squealed as she pushed it back, and she hurried from the room. ‘Back soon!’ she hissed to the class from the doorway. ‘Try not to miss me too much!’

  Everyone giggled.

  I looked at my hands.

  There was white dust sprinkled all over them.

  Maybe I was sick?

  But there was something familiar about—

  ‘Mrs Pollock!’ I shouted. I ran out of the room and chased her down the corridor. I caught her outside the closed door to Principal Hortense’s office.

  ‘Esther!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s chalk dust!’ I clapped my hands together. Dust flew into the
air between us, swirling in the light. ‘I’m not sick! It’s chalk dust! I was cleaning the dusters this morning! Remember? That’s my job now!’

  Mrs Pollock nodded, smiling gently. ‘Yes, that’s what it looks like,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s Lire Syndrome. Return to the classroom, Esther. Try to breathe slowly, dear, don’t pant like that. You’ll speed up the progress of the disease.’

  ‘I’ll go and wash it off right now!’ I said. ‘It will all just wash away! I promise you, it’s chalk dust!’

  ‘Esther, sometimes teachers have difficult tasks. This is one. I am giving you uncomfortable news and this is harder for me than for you. The news is this: you have Lire Syndrome. Yes, the dust may wash off. But that means nothing. The syndrome imitates chalk dust. Now please return to the classroom and allow me to speak to Principal Hortense. Another word—’ I had begun to argue again, and she had raised a finger. ‘Another word out of you, my dear, and you’ll get three demerits.’

  At morning tea-time, I washed my hands and face and of course, the dust disappeared.

  I bumped into my sisters just by the entrance to the dining hall.

  ‘You won’t believe it!’ I said.

  They both nodded sorrowfully. ‘We already know,’ Imogen said.

  ‘Principal Hortense called us into her office earlier,’ Astrid added. ‘She told us you can’t go to the poker competition tomorrow because they think you’ve got some strange disease.’

  ‘I don’t!’ I said. ‘It was just chalk dust! Look, it’s gone!’

  They both sighed. ‘It does seem ridiculous,’ they said. ‘You seem fine. What’s up with Mrs Pollock? She seems like—’

  ‘Oh, it’s not her fault,’ I said quickly. ‘She’s just made a mistake. She’s really lovely.’

  Imogen and Astrid both frowned at me. ‘Anyway,’ Imogen continued, ‘now that they think you have it, they’re not letting you go. Principal Hortense says she’s already contacted the competition organisers to tell them.’

  ‘It’s not fair!’ I cried, and then, remembering again. ‘It’s not fair to you two! Now you can’t go either!’