rope and escaped to the lighthouse deck. When he looked back down, the man was gone.
Simon didn’t tell anyone about him. He didn’t want the man thrown in jail; the poor guy probably just needed a few bucks. And he surely didn’t want anyone thinking that was his father.
But what if he was telling the truth? He wondered if it was possible. Why had he looked so run-down – didn’t he have plenty of money? And why couldn’t he prove his identity to the principal?
The questions nagged at Simon all day.
The answers came during the Halloween masquerade. The lighthouse had been surrounded with jack-o’-lanterns and orange lights had been put up all over school. The library had been transformed with ribbons and banners and decorations, and there was music, but nobody danced. Girls from the nearby private school congregated around one punch bowl, and the boys stayed at the other. All of them were nervous, even though they were disguised in their costumes.
Once Simon looked out the window and thought he saw the man staring back at him … but when he looked closer, it was just the reflection of his own black knight mask.
Simon noticed that the girl from the novelty shop had come to the gathering, but before he could approach her, other boys moved in and he heard them making fun of him. At first he thought they couldn’t see him under his mask. Then he realised they were joking about his costume. Someone said he was the shortest knight in history. The girl didn’t laugh, but Simon slipped outside to escape them all anyway.
He was going to head to the lighthouse or the stables, where he often went to be alone, when he heard voices. He peeked around the building and could see a man dressed all in pale white, along with other men, servants perhaps, talking to the principal. Simon leaned forward, hearing only pieces of the conversation.
” … Simon St George here?” he heard the man in white say.
“Is he in some kind of trouble?” asked the principal, but the man answered that his father was inquiring about him.
His father? Simon tried to hear more. Then he glanced down and saw several rats. They had been scurrying beside the building and were now stopped, staring at him. Very large white rats with red eyes.
Simon froze where he was, afraid of getting bitten, afraid he might scream and give himself away.
“I’m very sorry to bother you at this late hour,” he heard the man in white say. “My plane arrived late and I just desperately wanted to speak with the boy.”
Simon winced as a rat began to crawl on to his foot. He was going to scream after all, but something the man said stopped him: “Has the boy been doing well?”
He strained to hear the reply: that Mr St George had nothing to worry about, the boy was doing fine, acceptable work, but he was curious as to why the family had never come to see him in person.
At this the man in white sounded sorry, as if it hurt to explain. “If he ever asks about that, you just tell him his father would like to see him very much, but work has taken him far from home and, you know, as time has gone on, it’s become harder for his father to simply show up out of nowhere. It’s difficult, as I’m sure you realise. His father thinks it might be better to stay away than to stir up a lot of angry feelings, especially if the boy is doing all right without him.”
Simon leaned out to look at the man’s face, but he couldn’t see clearly, not in the dim light. All he could see was a coat, a hat, nothing more.
“I can tell you,” said the principal, “the boy is doing well; you can be sure of it.”
“Well, that’s good,” the man said. “Because I have concerns for him.”
“Concerns?” the principal asked.
“There is always a certain kind of rabble who are drawn to a boy from a family of means,” said the man. “Rotten, disreputable people. I just want to make sure you turn away anyone … unsavoury … if someone should come round, looking in on the boy. You know, I suppose I should probably talk to him myself. Is Simon around?”
“Yes, of course. He’ll be thrilled. He’s here somewhere,” the principal said. “Might take me a moment to find him.”
“Well, now, wait a moment. I don’t want to interrupt all this if he’s having a good time,” said the man in white. “I can’t imagine a worse way to meet him, come to think of it. I didn’t know you were having a party here. I’ll tell you what. I’ll be back tomorrow and maybe I can get away with the boy for a while.”
He smiled at the principal, shook hands and headed for an old white Rolls-Royce.
For a moment, Simon just stared. He had never heard a word from his father and now two people wanted the job in the same day? The well-dressed man certainly fit the part in Simon’s mind, but he had no time to weigh the matter – the rats at his feet were squealing murderously.
Simon stepped away from them, backing up into the field where dozens of masqueraders were now leaving for the library to hear ghost stories. The younger students were all carrying jack-o’-lanterns and a little boy handed one to Simon.
Simon stared blankly at the pumpkin, as above him the sky clouded over in a sudden desire to make a storm.
Panicked that he had missed his chance to see his father in person, Simon scrambled through the throngs of boys with their pumpkins, hurrying to catch the man in white.
Simon ran across the field, but the ground was slick with mud and he nearly fell.
As he hurried to catch the man, he did not notice the lizards – several of them – that had slithered out of the undergrowth to get to him, just missing. He did not see the bats that had gathered above him, swarming in a tangle of moonlit motion. The boy was focused completely on catching his father.
Simon ran down the lane from the building, but he could not see the landscape well, even with help from the lighthouse and the stern glow of the moon. There was no sign of his father. No sign of anything; the car had vanished. The awful emptiness of the night slammed into him with the power of the ocean wind.
Whoever he was, the man was gone.
Simon stood there, watching the boys continuing to pass over the field, and with a confused sort of feeling he joined them. He couldn’t think. He just started moving with them.
They began to walk across the dark field with only their jack-o’-lanterns, a few flashlights and the lighthouse itself lighting their way. The lighthouse beam would sweep across the field, and then it would spin round and light the ocean, so the field would go dark.
Flash. Flash. Light. Dark. For most of the boys, it was a weird and perfect end to a Halloween night.
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. The boys could hear the ocean rushing back and forth against the rocks. Simon thought he could hear something else too. Thunder. Not the usual kind of thunder from a rainstorm, but something somehow less real. Then he realised it was not thunder he was hearing at all. It was a horse’s hooves.
Walking at the end of the long group of boys, he stopped to listen. “Do you hear that?” he said to the boy in front of him. The boy turned, and then all the boys turned.
“What is it?” said
