“I didn’t. I need two myself,” said Fenella. “Why is Oliver growling up the stairs like that?”
“There’s a mouse up there,” Imogen said, still throaty.
“I’ll go up and catch it then,” said Fenella.
Sally could not face this. Ever since she read the letter, anger and panic had been swelling in her. Now those feelings swept her away, dissolved her through the wall, then over the field, turning and twisting and hardly knowing where she went.
The next hour or so was more like an unpleasant dream than ever. Sally found herself now here, now there, with very little knowledge of how she got to places or what happened in between. From the fact that everywhere she noticed was filled with the ringing mutter of boys, she thought she was mostly in school. First, she was among the smallest boys queuing up somewhere, each with a brown sticky bun in his hand. Next, she was in a dismal room, with grey ringing distances, in which two or three grey, dismal boys sat writing. Detention. Himself was there, grey as granite. He was sitting marking exercise books. Sally hovered round him, wondering if he was hating Detention as much as the boys did. He looked very grim. The way his hair bunched, iron grey, at the back of his head, put her in mind of the ruffled crest of an iron-grey eagle, brooding on a perch, with a chain on its leg.
“Please sir,” said a dismal distant boy.
Himself said, without looking up. “What is it now, Perkins?” His hand, holding a red ballpoint pen, swiftly crossed out, and out. Wrote “See Me” in the margin.
“I need to pee, sir,” said the boy.
“You went five minutes ago.” Himself slapped that book shut. Slapped another in front of him. Slapped it open. “I know, sir. I have a weak bladder, sir.”
Himself crossed out, crossed out. Made a tick. “Very well.” His eagle face lifted, and caught the boy half standing up. “You may be excused, Perkins, on the strict understanding that for every minute you spend out of this room, you spend half an hour in it. Off you go.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy hesitated and sat down again. He would have to go down two long corridors, and then come back up them, not counting the time in between. That was three hours more in Detention, even if he ran. He looked annoyed.
Himself lowered his beak and made three swift ticks. A slight moving under the iron skin of his face showed his satisfaction. He was enjoying himself. He loved detecting a try-on. Sally realised it, and realised she did not dare try to attract his attention just then.
A vague ringing while later, she was in a warm brown room, with thick brown lino on the floor. This room was provided with an iron bed, a white cupboard with a red cross on it, and a desk. Phyllis sat at the desk, dealing with a line of boys. She screwed back the top on a bottle and passed a small boy a pill. “There, Andrew. Are you still wheezing?”
The small boy put his head back, expanded his chest, and took several long croaking breaths. He seemed to be trying very hard to breathe.
Phyllis smiled kindly, an angel of judgement. “No wheeze,” she said. “You needn’t come again tomorrow, Andrew. Now Paul, how’s that boil?”
A large boy with a red swelling by his mouth stepped up as Andrew dwindled away. Phyllis put up a kind cool hand and felt the boil. The tall boy winced.
“I think we’d better get the school doctor to look at that tomorrow,” Phyllis said. “I’ll give you a dressing if you wait. Now, Conrad. Let’s have a look at your finger.”
Mother was very busy just now, Sally realised guiltily. She must not try to interrupt her.
Later again, she found she was with Himself once more. He was sweeping down a corridor among a crowd of boys. One of them was carrying a metal detector.
“We’re not going to use that again, Howard, unless we find ourselves in any doubt,” Himself was saying. “Untold harm has been done to archaeology by wild metal detecting and wilder digging. We must behave responsibly. Are you sure you marked the place, Greer?”
A boy assured him that he had marked it. Himself swept on, talking eagerly. He was in his whirling mood, when his coat fluttered behind him like wings and seemed to catch up and carry people in the excitement of his progress. He looked younger like this, Sally thought tenderly.
“Who knows what it may be?” said Himself. “Possibly a cannonball. Unquestionably, School House was once the site of Mangan Manor, where Cromwell’s army besieged the Royalist forces during the Civil War. We may have lighted on their camp. Yes,” he said, as they thumped through a door, whirling Sally with them, “I plump for a cannonball as the most likely thing.”
They were out in the gold-green of early evening. The playing field stretched towards faraway trees in faint white mist, flat as a lake, bright as water. The ringing mutter of School went suddenly distant.
“Neither can we rule out the possibility of something earlier,” Himself continued, whirling out on to the flat green space. “Round here, we have some of the earliest British settlements – but I doubt if those would yield much metal. It’s more likely to be metal from the Roman occupation. I must say I fancy finding a hoard of Roman coins. In which case it would be a treasure trove. Which boy knows the law about treasure troves?”
Sally paused. Once again, the wide open green space made her uncomfortable. In spite of the hurrying group, she was defenceless. She thought she might dissolve. Besides, Himself was still thoroughly busy.
“Of course,” he was saying, as they whirled away from her, “we mustn’t discount the possibility of a complete sell. It may be a cache of Coca-Cola tins.”
Sally faded back into the ringing, muttering school. By now, there was a strong gusting of gravy from the kitchen. Phyllis was hurrying towards the kitchen with a lady wearing a white overall and a bent cigarette stuck to her lower lip.
“Well, you must do what you think best, Mrs Gill,” Phyllis was saying. “Haven’t we a tin of processed peas left that we could eke it out with?”
The bent cigarette wagged. “Those all went last week,” said white-coated Mrs Gill. “Did you order more in, Mrs Melford? I can’t see how I’m going to manage for the Disturbed Course without, if you didn’t.”
“I’ll see to that tomorrow,” said Phyllis. THUMP went the silver door behind them both, and a gust of gravy.
Still busy, Sally realised, hanging heavily in the corridor.
But they must notice me! she was saying to herself before long. I must tell them I think I’m dead. I think it’s important. It has to he more important than cannonballs and processed peas. They have a right to he worried about me.
A battering bell shortly summoned battering feet and furious gusts of gravy to a high brown place full of tables. Sally was sucked in by the rush. And then hung quiet, because everyone hushed. Himself stood up to say, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.” Again he had a different manner,
