The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Page 24

  ‘Well …’ Imogen began.

  ‘Um …’ Astrid winced.

  A peculiar feeling, a twist, turned in my stomach.

  ‘We’re still going,’ Imogen said. ‘Sorry, Esther, but Principal Hortense asked if there was anyone at school who could replace you.’

  ‘And we suggested Autumn,’ Astrid said apologetically. ‘She practised with us a couple of times and she was really good. I think Principal Hortense is asking her now.’

  She pointed to the other end of the dining hall, where Principal Hortense was crouching to speak to Autumn. I saw Autumn nodding.

  All right, here are some of the things I should have said:

  ‘Great! I’m glad you don’t have to miss out.’

  Or: ‘Excellent idea! Yes, Autumn was good! Good luck!’

  Anything similar to that.

  Instead, I said: ‘You are not serious.’

  They both blinked. Blink. Blink.

  ‘YOU CANNOT TAKE AUTUMN INSTEAD OF ME!’ I blazed. (It really was a blaze—fire seemed to pour from my chest and out of my mouth.) ‘THAT’S NOT FAIR!!’

  Here, they both frowned. They have identical frowns, my sisters. Straight lines across their foreheads and tweaks at the corners of their mouths.

  ‘Esther,’ Imogen said. ‘I know it’s hard, but come on.’

  ‘NO, YOU COME ON!’ I blazed again. ‘YOU ARE BOTH BEING RIDICULOUS AND CRUEL AND UNFAIR!’

  I stomped out of the dining hall and missed morning tea.

  Everyone was staring.

  That afternoon, Mrs Pollock told the class that we should all congratulate Autumn Hillside.

  ‘She has been selected to join Imogen and Astrid Mettlestone-Staranise in the poker competition! They leave tomorrow!’

  Everyone glanced over at me—including Autumn herself, looking worried.

  I scowled at her.

  ‘Don’t worry about Esther! She’ll be fine!’ Mrs Pollock promised. ‘Look at Autumn instead! Hasn’t she come far? A girl from the Whispering Kingdom is now representing our school!’

  After that, Mrs Pollock babbled for a bit. Something about how we all had to help Autumn to be one of us. (What? I thought. But she’s not one of my SISTERS.) And how you could see that Autumn was a Whisperer just by looking at her very long hair (Could you? I wondered. We never noticed before she told us) but that hopefully people would not stare at her at the competition. And hmmm, would the long hair give Autumn an advantage at the poker competition, by allowing her to Whisper her opponents?

  ‘Oh,’ Autumn smiled. ‘No, I’m not old enough to Whisper yet.’

  But Mrs Pollock kept talking. She truly hoped Autumn would fit in. She knew Autumn’s friends—nodding encouragingly at Hetty and Tatty—would think of ways to help Autumn fit in. It was so kind of Hetty and Tatty to have welcomed Autumn, even though she was an outsider, a stranger, and how truly good friends help their new friends to fit in—think of clever ways, brave ways to do that, that they—

  I don’t know. It was boring and repetitive.

  It didn’t make sense.

  I stopped listening.

  My heart was just a fire burning fiercely.

  On my fifth day back at school, I woke in the morning to a scream.

  A scream like scalding water.

  It was Autumn. She was sitting up in her bed alongside mine, clutching her head.

  Her long hair was gone.

  All that was left was a ragged, short cut.

  ‘Who?!’ she shrieked. ‘WHO DID THIS?!’

  She looked directly at me.

  ‘No, no!’ I said frantically. ‘I would never—’

  But I could see why she might think it. The way I’d scowled at her yesterday. I’d known it was unfair of me, but my face had done it anyway.

  ‘Um,’ said a voice.

  Hetty Rattlestone.

  She and Tatty were in their nightdresses, standing by the door.

  ‘We did it,’ Hetty said.

  ‘In the night,’ Tatty agreed.

  ‘We cut it off with scissors.’

  A shock of silence.

  ‘But why?’ Autumn whispered.

  ‘Well, to help you—fit in … at the poker competition.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t look like a Whisperer.’

  ‘We were being … good friends.’

  The twins glanced at each other. A flash of uncertainty.

  Autumn stared at them.

  ‘We still have the hair,’ Tatty offered. ‘In a bag. In our wardrobe. If you … need it.’ She coughed.

  ‘I suppose it’s not much use anymore,’ Hetty admitted.

  There was a long, terrible quiet.

  After a moment, Autumn got out of bed.

  She glanced at me. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry to accuse you. Sorry to replace you in the competition, too.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I was angry. It’s not your fault that I can’t go. It’s not my sisters’ fault, either—’ I stopped. ‘Are you all right?’

  Autumn tried to smile. She was making her bed. ‘My hair doesn’t help me Whisper or anything yet, but it’s … well, a Whisperer’s hair is part of who they are. It grows along with us, it’s like the essence of us. So it hurts. It hurts not to—’

  She couldn’t speak. She was crying too much. She dropped the pillow she’d been straightening and ran from the room.

  I wrote a note to my sisters and, when Autumn returned, asked her to give it to them:

  Imogen and Astrid,

  Sorry I was angry. Say hi to Bronte for me.

  Have fun & win,

  E xxx

  Then I watched from an upstairs window as Autumn and my sisters climbed into the carriage. Mustafa was driving them to the port.

  Autumn glanced up towards me and even from this distance I could see that her eyes were puffy. Her fingertips kept reaching around, touching her own bare neck.

  Into my head sprang a thought: Mrs Pollock is awful.

  I shook myself quickly—No, she’s not! She’s funny!—and the thought fell away.

  On the ninth day back at school, another newspaper headline caught my eye as I walked into the dining hall for breakfast.

  FAMOUS OCEANOGRAPHER DEAD

  The same smiling photograph of Alfreda Reinozovski.

  In a tragedy that has rocked the oceanography community, Alfreda Reinozovski has been found dead in her submarine. Professor Reinozovski trialled her new, state-of-the-art submarine yesterday at 6 am, diving with it to the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. The submarine returned four hours later, but the professor was found to be dead. Doctors have so far not been able to ascertain the cause of her death.

  I turned around and walked straight back out of the dining hall.

  I wanted my father but he was out of reach again.

  I wanted my sisters but they were at the poker competition.

  Mrs Pollock had not said another word about my ‘Lire Syndrome’. When I asked her about it, she chuckled and waved me away.

  I was having trouble catching my breath; it kept jumping away from me.

  I realised I was muttering: Alfreda, Alfreda, Alfreda.

  I walked out of the back door of the school, into the gardens, telling myself, over and over: She would not have listened anyway.

  Even if I had telegrammed her and warned her about the Ocean Fiend, she would have smiled her friendly newspaper smile. I was just a twelve-year-old girl.

  But still: Alfred, Alfreda, Alfreda.

  I needed to go to the pond. To put my feet in the water.

  As I approached, I saw that Pelagia was sitting on the edge, leaning forward, head tilted.

  I breathed more slowly. Pelagia. She was my friend. More Imogen’s friend after the swimming tournament, of course, but she could be mine too.

  My only friend now.

  I would tell her—not the whole story, but part of it.

  Just as I reached the pond, there was a flash of light. It dazzled me. I blinked.


  ‘What was that?’ I asked.

  Pelagia jumped.

  She swung around to look at me.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘It was nothing.’

  Strange reply. I pulled off my shoes, peeled off my stockings and sat down beside her.

  Pelagia shifted a little to make room.

  ‘You didn’t see that flash of light?’ I tried.

  ‘No. What flash of light?’

  I frowned.

  A moment ago, she had said, ‘Nothing. It was nothing.’

  But there had been a flash of light.

  ‘It sort of zipped across the water lilies on the pond,’ I said. ‘It was so bright!’

  ‘You imagined it,’ Pelagia assured me. ‘Or …’ She paused, and pointed to the windows of the Old Schoolhouse. ‘Or maybe it came from there. Actually, yes, now I think about it, it was from there. It’s the people having a convention now. Filing clerks, isn’t it? They must be shining lights from their windows for some reason.’

  I looked at her closely. She was biting her lower lip.

  ‘Are you all right, Pelagia? Has your laughter been stolen?’

  She chuckled, so I knew it hadn’t been, staring fixedly at a water lily.

  I remembered again how Pelagia had started the school year with boxes of chocolates and stories of adventures. Where had that Pelagia gone?

  ‘Can you tell me one of your adventures?’ I asked. Maybe that would cheer her up? Bring her back.

  Pelagia was silent.

  ‘I remember once overhearing you tell a story to Hetty Rattlestone,’ I said. ‘It was while we were walking to our first swimming lesson. Something about hiding from Whisperers in a bowling alley?’

  Pelagia nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. There were twelve Whisperers. I hid in a cupboard.’

  She sounded listless.

  Also, the story had changed.

  When she was telling Hetty that day, there’d been seven Whisperers and she’d hidden in a shoe rack.

  We had a dance class that day.

  Arlo had stopped picking his nose, luckily, but he never spoke to me. Now and then he grinned—usually, when I made a mistake with a dance step, which I did quite often. He was pretty good at the steps himself by now and sometimes reminded me what to do by gesturing.

  I had an idea.

  The day we’d found out we’d be dancing with boys from Nicholas Valley, Pelagia had mentioned a boy from her hometown. I would speak to that boy. Ask him about Pelagia and her adventures. Did she make them up? Or get her memories mixed up when she was sad? Maybe I could even ask him to cheer her up?

  His name was … Charlie? Oliver?

  No.

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember.

  ‘Hello?’ said Arlo.

  I opened my eyes. ‘Sorry.’

  Arlo nodded once, and we started dancing again.

  Clive.

  That was it.

  ‘Which one of the boys here is named Clive?’ I asked. ‘Do you know?’

  Arlo stepped forward, stepped back, side, side, and swing, swing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually, looking worried. ‘I don’t know anybody named Clive.’ He spun me in a twirl.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said.

  He burped. Nearby, boys guffawed. Arlo grinned at them and at me.

  I found Arlo very confusing.

  Later, I saw Stefan.

  ‘How’s Katya?’ I asked. ‘Is she getting any laughter back?’

  ‘Not good,’ Stefan said gloomily, as usual. ‘Nothing’s working. She’ll never laugh again.’

  I scratched behind my ear, cranky.

  ‘Do you know somebody at your school named Clive?’ I asked. ‘Is he here? Can you point him out to me?’

  Stefan shook his head firmly. ‘There’s nobody at my school named Clive.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I know everyone. I know all the names.’

  Hmmm.

  Why would Pelagia invent a friend named Clive?

  Later that night, just as I was falling asleep, Katya’s voice spoke in my head: ‘Pelagia is not a Spellbinder,’ she had said. ‘But there’s something about her that I can’t—Esther, be careful of Pelagia.’

  I had completely forgotten. Or I’d set it aside. Katya’s illness was making her babble, I’d thought at the time.

  Now it was back again, chiming and clear: Esther, be careful of Pelagia.

  The fifteenth day back at school was my birthday.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ everyone chorused the moment I woke up. We always do that on birthdays, but it was a lacklustre chorus that morning.

  For one thing, ‘everyone’ was only three people. There were two empty beds in our dormitory: Katya was still at the treatment centre for stolen laughter, and Autumn (along with my sisters) was still at the poker competition.

  Dot Pecorino was there, only she is so quiet I wonder if she truly feels herself to be anywhere, if you see what I mean. And the twins had been subdued ever since they’d cut off Autumn’s hair.

  Both Mrs Pollock and Principal Hortense had scolded them about that, and when they tried to explain, Mrs Pollock had cried, ‘I certainly did not mean for you to do this! I told you to be a friend to Autumn, not cut off her hair! The idea!’

  The twins had also been shocked by Autumn’s distress. I think they’d assumed she would be quietly grateful, as usual, and say something like: ‘Oh, thank you for cutting my hair. Now I can fit in.’ Everyone else in the class was angry with them too—even Zoe Fawnwell—and the twins had become quite snappy with each other. It didn’t help that Hetty had scored lower than any other competitor ever at the speech competition. (Zoe had told me this in a hissing whisper that Hetty must have been able to hear.)

  There was a birthday card from my father in my mailbox, a few from various aunts, and one from my sisters.

  Father’s card said:

  So sorry I can’t take you out for a birthday tea,

  as usual. Enclosing money—buy yourself a treat.

  We’ll celebrate when my work quietens down.

  Much love.

  I’d never seen such a short note from Father. He likes to take any opportunity to talk, whether aloud or on paper. He must have been very busy.

  My sisters’ card said:

  We are smashing the competition.

  Wish you were here.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY,

  Imogen and Astrid

  PS Autumn says happy birthday, too.

  PPS Bronte not here either—we think she’s

  on some secret adventure? But we’re sure

  she’d also say happy birthday if she

  WAS here. Lots of love.

  So at least my sisters had forgiven me.

  There was nothing from my mother.

  In class, Mrs Pollock had everyone sing a birthday song for me but then she handed back a stack of tests. Every one of mine had a big red C–.

  One was an arithmetic quiz. It had been very easy. Here it is.

  Again, I don’t want you to have to do extra arithmetic, but I’m pretty sure all my answers were actually correct.

  I didn’t bother telling Mrs Pollock. She was busy anyway, having her quiet conversations with individual girls at her desk—as usual, they returned to their own desks, looking solemn.

  And then she got busy playing a game where she makes everyone stand at the front of the room, reads out each of our names along with the name of our new table, and you have to run to it. If you get there before she’s finished speaking, you get a sweet. Most people had shifted tables, but Dot Pecorino and I were still on the Endiva table. I didn’t run to it, I sighed to it, so no sweet.

  That afternoon, Principal Hortense took me and three other birthday girls to afternoon tea in town. Visits to town were allowed again at this point, although only with teachers. Principal Hortense said she’d been told that the area was ‘perfectly, mysteriously safe from Shadow Mages at the moment’. (Not a myster
y to me. An Old Schoolhouse filled with Spellbinders was the reason.)

  ‘You must all tell me an amusing anecdote!’ Principal Hortense instructed as we walked into the Orange Blossom Teashop.

  ‘Oh, brother,’ said the Grade 8 girl beside me.

  We pulled back our chairs, ready to sit down, and that’s when I saw them.

  They were pushing open the café door, chatting to each other. They paused, looking around for a free table—and their eyes landed on me.

  ‘Georgia!’ I shouted. ‘Hsiang!’ To the others at the table, I cried: ‘It’s my lost best friends!’

  At which, Georgia and Hsiang spun around and ran from the café.

  I chased them.

  But by the time I’d woven between the crowded tables to the door, pushed it open, ducked around other customers trying to get in, and burst out into the street, they were gone.

  I searched the street, the shops, the open-air stalls, and the lakeshore, sprinting in every direction, calling their names.

  Principal Hortense caught up with me in the bookstore. She was fairly cross.

  ‘It can’t have been Georgia and Hsiang,’ she scolded. ‘They left the school, remember? And you must not be running around town on your own!’

  But it was them. I was absolutely sure.

  Or anyway, I thought I was.

  Back at school, I checked the mailroom and the afternoon delivery had arrived. More birthday cards from different aunts. Nothing from my mother.

  I went around to Ms Ubud and checked whether any telegrams or telephone calls had come for me.

  ‘If they had, we’d have notified you,’ Ms Ubud frowned. ‘You know the system, Esther.’

  A peculiar thing happened at dinner that night.

  It was raining outside and the dining hall was warmly lit with lanterns. I was eating my roast chicken with carrots and peas, and as I reached for the gravy jug, I happened to glance at the teachers’ table. Mrs Pollock was pulling one of her curious faces. She was pushing her top teeth over her lower lip and going cross-eyed. She was making fun of Doctor Lanwish. He makes that face when he’s rummaging around in his briefcase, or picking bits of crisp from between his teeth. The teachers on either side of Mrs Pollock were laughing, and Doctor Lanwish himself, further along the table, was chuckling too. I was just about giggle when—