The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Page 31

  Two flashes made me blink, and I turned to see people taking photographs.

  ‘Smile!’ one told me, still clicking. ‘Thanks!’

  Mysterious.

  But then Principal Hortense was speaking into a microphone: ‘Excuse me! Attention everyone! Take your places, please!’

  And the event began.

  It turned out that the school was holding a banquet and dance in my honour. I was to receive a school Merit Award for having saved the Kingdoms and Empires. Embarrassing. The local press had been invited, as had various officials, parents, and the Nicholas Valley boys: we needed them for dance partners.

  I was taken to the high table, where the teachers smiled, and my father jumped up and pulled out the seat alongside him.

  He looked tired and harried. His bowtie was crooked.

  ‘Hello, Esther,’ said a low voice, and I realised Mother was on the other side of Father.

  I had not seen her for the last two weeks. She’d been travelling around, coordinating the clean-up.

  Principal Hortense gave a speech, which I think was about what a hero I’d been, but I didn’t hear it. I was buttering a bread roll and watching my parents. Mother murmured to Father to pass her the water please, and Father reached for it and poured her a glass with such icy politeness it was as if he was pouring it over her head.

  ‘What happened at the meeting?’ I murmured to Father, to distract him.

  ‘Still blaming the Whisperers,’ he whispered back. ‘Tilla’s already ordered the Spellbinding back around the Whispering Kingdom.’

  ‘I would now like to invite Esther to accept her merit award and to say a few words,’ Principal Hortense declared, and I dropped my bread roll.

  I was supposed to make a speech?

  Reporters gathered closer, holding their pencils ready.

  My heart zipped about like a puppy dog.

  Then I looked back at my father, and knew exactly what to say.

  I shook Principal Hortense’s hand, accepted the Merit Award, held it up for the cameras—Flash! Flash!—and took the microphone.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I am very happy that the Kingdoms and Empires are not under water. Sometimes though, I think that happiness is made of sadness. Or that they run side by side, intertwined, like laughter and tears.’

  ‘Ooh, fancy,’ murmured a voice, followed by chuckles. I blinked, and looked back at the teachers’ table. Mrs Pollock. She winked. I cleared my throat and carried on.

  ‘I am happy that so many people survived, but sad that many were injured—and especially sad that some people drowned. I’m happy that the Fiends are now asleep but sad that one caused so much suffering these last years. Because of him, people have been killed. Fishing villages have starved without—’

  ‘Fish!’ Mrs Pollock interjected, as if this was a guessing competition. ‘Yes, that was a shame. Fish! Fry it up in a little flour and butter!’

  Laughter. A few teachers said, ‘Hush!’ to Mrs Pollock, but in good-natured voices.

  ‘Changes in tides meant that Shadow Mages moved around causing trouble,’ I continued. ‘I was happy that Autumn saved us from the Sterling Silver Foxes, but I’m sad that Katya, who is still at the treatment centre, will never laugh again.’

  ‘Happy, sad, happy, sad,’ Mrs Pollock called. ‘It’s a seesaw! A teeter-totter!’ She grinned and the crowd laughed.

  She’s awful, said a voice in my head. I shook the thought away.

  ‘I’m happy that Pelagia is free now, and will hopefully be able to find the family that lost her, but sad that—’

  ‘Make up your mind!’ called Mrs Pollock.

  Giggles.

  ‘Sad that—’ What had I been going to say? ‘Sad that her family must have lost her around ten years ago. When I was visiting Cloudburst not long ago, I climbed onto a roof and looked across—’

  ‘Trespassing, were you?’ Mrs Pollock chipped in.

  Bursts of laughter.

  She’s AWFUL.

  The thought was larger.

  For some reason, I glanced across at the Grade 6 girls again. Autumn Hillside was gazing at me. She blinked once.

  ‘Quite the dramatic pause!’ Mrs Pollock commented.

  MRS POLLOCK IS AWFUL.

  My eyes swept back towards Autumn. I needed to concentrate. I’d been going to say that I’d glimpsed Queen Anita and her expression had puzzled me, but now I realised it was a mixture of joy and heartbreak. Her son, Alejandro, was back. But she’d missed so much of his childhood.

  There was no point saying this. Mrs Pollock would only joke about me spying on a queen.

  I decided to get to my point.

  ‘It wasn’t just me who saved the Kingdoms and Empires,’ I said. ‘It was many brave people. Pelagia herself. Spellbinders. True Mages and Shadow Mages. Sailors, pirates, police, soldiers. Whisperers. Brave people who flew on dragons or reached out their hands. They all deserve Merit Awards. When I rose into the sky and saw so many working together to—’

  ‘Eh? You rose? Climbing buildings again, Esther?’ Mrs Pollock wheezed with laughter. Others joined in.

  I pressed my mouth closer to the microphone. ‘Two years ago, my cousin Bronte helped to free the Whispering Kingdom from a Spellbinding.’

  ‘Name-dropper,’ giggled Mrs Pollock.

  I ignored her. ‘Right now, there are people who believe, without any evidence, that a Whisperer helped the Ocean Fiend. They have imprisoned the Whispering Kingdom behind a Spellbinding again. They are—’

  ‘Ooh, she’s sounding very la-di-da lawyerly!’ Mrs Pollock observed.

  ‘They are—’ I tried again.

  But there was too much laughter. The room heaved with it.

  I fell silent.

  Mrs Pollock gave a cute little shrug.

  I waited until the laughter had quietened, then I raised the microphone to my mouth.

  ‘Mrs Pollock,’ I said. ‘You are awful.’

  Gasps around the room like steam trains setting off.

  ‘Esther!’ Principal Hortense scolded.

  Several girls in my grade half-rose, their faces furious.

  ‘She’s not awful!’ they clamoured. ‘She’s wonderful!’

  The audience muttered. Several teachers frowned at me.

  Mrs Pollock shot me a sly smile. ‘I think Esther might have lost her sense of humour,’ she crowed. ‘Perhaps she dropped it climbing a building!’

  A burst of laughter from the audience.

  Embarrassing. Confusing. I must be wrong.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. ‘Sorry, Mrs Pollock. Anyway—’ I’d lost my train of thought.

  Then a voice cried: ‘Oh, for goodness sake!’

  Mother was on her feet. ‘Don’t apologise to that dreadful woman, Esther!’ she commanded. ‘You’ve been making a very sensible speech and she keeps interrupting! She’s rude and nasty!’ She looked out at the audience. ‘You’re all ridiculous. Mrs Pollock is awful, and Esther is a hero.’

  With a sobbing sound, Mother slumped back down.

  Father blinked.

  There was a long, startled quiet.

  Mrs Pollock is awful, Mrs Pollock is awful, was drumming in my head again. All around the room, faces were bewildered—although Autumn, I noticed, was peering at me fiercely, and nodding along with the beat in my head.

  I spoke into the microphone. ‘Mrs Pollock is awful,’ I insisted. ‘She only pretends to be kind. But she stopped me going to the twilight picnic and erased my homework. She invented rules about a speech contest to prevent me competing and invented a disease to stop me playing in the poker competition. Worst of all, Mrs Pollock …’ I turned and faced her. ‘Your jokes are always at the expense of other people.’

  The audience fell silent.

  Mrs Pollock chuckled. ‘I think you’ll find,’ she said, ‘that your friends in Grade 6 disagree—’

  Autumn was no longer looking at me, I realised. She was gazing at Dot Pecorino, beside her—and Dot Pecorino suddenly leapt
to her feet.

  ‘Esther is right!’ she said—the room hushed to hear her soft voice. ‘Mrs Pollock makes fun of people! Of me for being shy. Of Durba for being tall! Of Katya, for her hair being curly and for being smart! Of Lee Kim, for her laugh! But Lee has a wonderful laugh!’

  Autumn had pushed back her chair and was gazing at the other girls in my grade in turn. They twisted shoulders and stretched arms like people waking up. One by one, their eyes widened, and they began to stand.

  Every girl in Grade 6 spoke up. Anita said that Mrs Pollock had told her she ought to stop sewing—that her stitches were clumsy. But Anita makes beautiful clothes! Sulin had been told she shouldn’t sing, Cora that her gymnastics was embarrassing, and Ildiko that her parents were only pretending to love her.

  This was what Mrs Pollock had been doing in her private chats with girls: gently and kindly crushing the things they valued the most.

  Mrs Pollock was still babbling, trying to make jokes of what the girls were saying, yet the dining hall took no notice.

  ‘You are horrible!’ Zoe Fawnwell cried. ‘Mrs Pollock, you made me feel that I was worthless unless I was friends with the Rattlestone twins, which is exactly what I’ve always secretly wondered myself! But at the same time you made the twins think they had to be friends with Autumn instead of me! And, as for the twins, you made them into the worst version of themselves!’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Hetty and Tatty complained—but even they were scowling at Mrs Pollock.

  ‘But she is nasty,’ Hetty added. ‘She made us think we were the most special people in the class—top of the class, selected for the speech contest—but deep inside we knew we weren’t. We couldn’t even do the work. I got the lowest results ever recorded in the speech contest. She made us think we had to cut Autumn’s hair, and then we really hated ourselves! Sorry, Autumn.’

  Autumn’s eyes were flitting around the room.

  Dawning expression rippled across the teachers’ table. One by one, they shook their heads or rubbed their eyes. It was as if they’d all been hypnotised.

  Pelagia was the only one who hadn’t spoken. She was blinking rapidly and staring, open-mouthed, at Mrs Pollock.

  And that’s when, like an upturned jigsaw puzzle that spills onto a table fully-formed, everything fell into place.

  I spoke into the microphone again.

  ‘Everyone,’ I began—and paused. I decided to hold up the puzzle pieces one by one. ‘This afternoon, I was in the library reading about Horseshoe Ogres,’ I said. ‘And there was a line that made my heart scramble to its feet.’

  Puzzled faces.

  ‘It’s a metaphor,’ I scolded them. ‘I mean the line shocked me. This is what it said: The Ogres of Horseshoe Island are just as huge as all Ogres. However, they are curious in this way: the older they get, the more they shrink. Very old Ogres can shrink to the size of ordinary children.’

  The audience carried on frowning, but I moved onto the second piece of the puzzle.

  ‘Horseshoe Island is close to where Jonathan J. Lanyard, the Ocean Fiend, lived deep under water. So any Ogres living in the sea caves there could have come into contact with him.

  ‘Mrs Pollock is from Horseshoe Island,’ I said.

  That was a small puzzle piece, and so was the next.

  ‘Autumn’s parents—Soren and Livia Hillside—met Mrs Pollock tonight, and they both felt like she was familiar.’

  A twisty piece.

  ‘Ogres have a history of helping Shadow Mages,’ I said. ‘That’s why I was reading about them in the library today—wondering if they might have helped the Fiend rather than the Whisperers.’

  People were staring at me, transfixed by their own confusion over all the little pieces. ‘What’s her point?’ somebody hissed.

  ‘That history,’ I continued, ‘means that Ogres have come into contact with Shadow Magic frequently. It has given them powerful handshakes. I know this because—’

  Well, there was no need to say I knew it because I’d eavesdropped on the teachers from the attic.

  ‘I just know it,’ I continued. ‘At first, I thought it meant that Ogres have very strong handshakes. Of course, most Ogres aren’t friendly, hand-shaking types, they’re more the kick-you-into-a-lake type.’

  A few chuckles.

  But I stayed serious: ‘I think the power of their handshake means something different. I think the touch of an Ogre’s hand makes people fall under the Ogre’s spell. I think it makes them love the Ogre, even if they have no reason to love them.’

  Now people were frowning in a different, thoughtful way.

  It was time to put the pieces together.

  ‘Mrs Pollock,’ I said, turning to her and speaking clearly so everyone could hear. ‘I believe you are an Ogre. You are tiny because you are elderly. I believe that you’ve been helping the Ocean Fiend, Jonathan J. Lanyard. I believe you’ve helped to raise Pelagia, that you brought her here, that you made sure she woke the other Fiends—it was you who gave Mr Dar-Healey the information about the swimming tournament that took her near those places. I believe you made Pelagia love you by using the powerful Shadow Magic in your handshake. And told Pelagia that she must not tell anybody.’

  I took a deep breath. I’d been talking very fast, and needed some air. Around me, the hall was silent.

  ‘On the first day of class,’ I continued, ‘you told us your job had been ferrying tourists across to Horseshoe Island. I believe you ferried Autumn’s parents—the Hillsides—and that’s why you were familiar to them—’

  At this, the Hillsides both murmured, ‘Oh yes! Of course!’—which was a relief.

  ‘It was on the trip back from the island that the Hillsides heard the Whisper from the future about a Weaver in Grade 6 at this school. You overheard this Whisper. You told the Fiend. That’s why he sent you to this school, along with Pelagia. You were to crush the spirit of every child in the class. He knew that becoming a Weaver requires strength and belief in oneself.

  ‘And all the while, you played your high–five game with us, and shook the teachers’ hands, and so, without any good reason, we loved you.’

  My father was rising to his feet.

  ‘You’re right!’ he cried. ‘Esther, that all makes sense! It wasn’t Whisperers who helped the Fiend. It was Mrs Pollock!’

  He seemed alarmingly happy. He jiggled about, peering across the tables until he caught sight of Pelagia.

  ‘Is it true, Pelagia?’ he called.

  Pelagia nodded slowly. ‘She’s the person who brought me here. She’s the one who taught me all about life on the surface. But I … I loved her. And she’s …’

  ‘She’s awful,’ several voices agreed.

  ‘What did Jonathan J. Lanyard promise you, Mrs Pollock?’ Father called. ‘Why’d you help him? I suppose you just wanted more shadow power? I mean, imagine how much power a Fiend could bestow on you. And Ogres like the ocean, so you wouldn’t mind if most of the place was under water. And—’

  But the dining hall was alight with astonishment, and Mrs Pollock was gaping like a fish.

  ‘This is utter nonsense,’ she babbled. ‘The most ridiculous pile of rotting, stinking garbage I ever heard!’

  Astrid stood up at her table and called: ‘I knew something was wrong with Mrs Pollock the first time I saw her.’ Then to the room: ‘Everything Esther said is true. Mrs Pollock’s face admitted it all.’

  Cameras clicked. Reporters scribbled.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ Mrs Pollock huffed.

  ‘She’s still lying,’ Astrid grinned.

  Principal Hortense, who had been watching all this with a dazed expression, rose. ‘Good gracious, Mrs Pollock!’ she cried. ‘You’re an Ogre! Why ever did I employ you? You’re fired!’

  Beside her, Mr Dar-Healey was grim. ‘Hortense, if Esther is right, I think we need more than dismissal.’

  Already, Tilla Tarpaulin had clicked her fingers at security guards, and they were marching towards Mrs Polloc
k.

  She shoved back her own chair with a squeal, flung herself sideways and sprinted down the passage between tables.

  Hands reached out to stop her, but she shoved them aside.

  Her mistake was running by the Grade 6 girls. Several legs stuck out, tripping her and sending her flying.

  While Mrs Pollock was flat on her back, Ms Potty from Nicholas Valley Boys strode over and got her in a headlock. She held her there, easily, ignoring Mrs Pollock’s struggles and squawks, every now and then shouting over to the boys’ table, ‘Cut that out, Ryan!’ or ‘Adam, so help me!’—until the guards told her it was all right, they had it.

  Later, after the guards had taken Mrs Pollock away, and the press had taken enough photos and quotes, and we had eaten our turkey and roast potatoes, and our ice cream and chocolate pudding—

  —we all marched from the dining hall to the gymnasium for the dance.

  I found myself walking beside Autumn.

  ‘Funny,’ I said, ‘that we’ve all been under Mrs Pollock’s high-five spells all year, but we snapped out of it tonight.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she agreed.

  Our footsteps continued, side by side.

  ‘I wonder how,’ I said softly.

  Autumn was silent. Her eyes darted sideways and caught mine. ‘Don’t tell anybody,’ she murmured. ‘I know I’m not supposed to Whisper.’

  ‘How did you do it? Aren’t you too young?’

  Autumn nodded. ‘Remember the morning the twins cut off my hair, when I was leaving for the poker competition? I saw you watching from the window, and I just really wished you knew about Mrs Pollock. I was thinking: She’s awful! And I felt that thought jump into your head. It was an accident. But that’s when I knew I could do it.’