things. They loped along easily, chatting among themselves. Today, they kept bursting into laughter.
Behind these again laboured an assorted group of legs: mauve legs, fat legs, bright white legs, legs with no muscles at all, and the great brown legs of Nirupam Singh, which seemed too heavy for the rest of Nirupam’s skinny body to lift. Everyone in this group was too breathless to talk. Their faces wore assorted expressions of woe.
The last pair of legs, far in the rear, belonged to Charles Morgan. There was nothing particularly wrong with Charles’s legs, except that his feet were in ordinary school shoes and soaked through. He was always behind. He chose to be. This was one of the few times in the day when he could be alone to think. He had discovered that, as long as he was thinking of something else, he could keep up his slow trot for hours. And think. The only interruptions he had to fear were when the other groups came pounding past him and he was tangled up in their efforts for a few seconds. Or when Mr Towers, encased in his nice warm tracksuit, came loping up alongside and called ill-advised encouragements to Charles.
So Charles trotted slowly on, thinking. He gave himself over to hating Larwood House. He hated the field under his feet, the shivering autumn trees that dripped on him, the white goalposts, and the neat line of pine trees in front of the spiked wall that kept everyone in. Then, when he swung round the corner and had a view of the school buildings, he hated them more. They were built of a purplish sort of brick. Charles thought it was the colour a person’s face would go if they were throttling. He thought of the long corridors inside, painted caterpillar green, the thick radiators which were never warm, the brown classrooms, the frosty white dormitories, and the smell of school food, and he was almost in an ecstasy of hate. Then he looked at the groups of legs straggling round the field ahead, and he hated all the people in the school most horribly of all.
Upon that, he found he was remembering the witch being burnt. It swept into his head unbidden, as it always did. Only today, it seemed worse than usual. Charles found he was remembering things he had not noticed at the time: the exact shape of the flames, just leaping from small to large, and the way the fat man who was a witch had bent sideways away from them. He could see the man’s exact face, the rather blobby nose with a wart on it, the sweat on it, and the flames shining off the man’s eyes and the sweat. Above all, he could see the man’s expression. It was astounded. The fat man had not believed he was going to die until the moment Charles saw him. He must have thought his witchcraft could save him. Now he knew it could not. And he was horrified. Charles was horrified too. He trotted along in a sort of trance of horror.
But here was the smart red tracksuit of Mr Towers loping along beside him. “Charles, what are you doing running in walking shoes?”
The fat witch vanished. Charles should have been glad, but he was not. His thinking had been interrupted, and he was not private any more.
“I said why aren’t you wearing your spikes?” Mr Towers said.
Charles slowed down a little while he wondered what to reply. Mr Towers trotted springily beside him, waiting for an answer. Because he was not thinking any more, Charles found his legs aching and his chest sore. That annoyed him. He was even more annoyed about his spikes. He knew Dan Smith had hidden them. That was why that group were laughing. Charles could see their faces craning over their shoulders as they ran, to see what he was telling Mr Towers. That annoyed him even more. Charles did not usually have this kind of trouble, the way Brian Wentworth did. His double-barrelled nasty look had kept him safe up to now, if lonely. But he foresaw he was going to have to think of something more than just looking in future. He felt very bitter.
“I couldn’t find my spikes, sir.”
“How hard did you look?”
“Everywhere,” Charles said bitterly. Why don’t I say it was them? he wondered. And knew the answer. Life would not be worth living for the rest of term.
“In my experience,” said Mr Towers, running and talking as easily as if he were sitting still, “when a lazy boy like you says everywhere, it means nowhere. Report to me in the locker room after school and find those spikes. You stay there until you find them. Right?”
“Yes,” said Charles. Bitterly, he watched Mr Towers surge away from him and run up beside the next group to pester Nirupam Singh.
He hunted for his spikes again during break. But it was hopeless. Dan had hidden them somewhere really cunning. At least, after break, Dan Smith had something else to laugh about beside Charles. Nan Pilgrim soon found out what. As Nan came into the classroom for lessons, she was greeted by Nirupam. “Hallo,” asked Nirupam. “Will you do your rope trick for me too?”
Nan gave him a glare that was mostly astonishment and pushed past him without replying. How did he know about the ropes? she thought. The girls just never talked to the boys! How did he know?
But next moment, Simon Silverson came up to Nan, barely able to stop laughing. “My dear Dulcinea!” he said. “What a charming name you have! Were you called after the Archwitch?” After that, he doubled up with laughter, and so did most of the people near.
“Her name really is Dulcinea, you know,” Nirupam said to Charles.
This was true. Nan’s face felt to her like a balloon on fire. Nothing else, she was sure, could be so large and so hot. Dulcinea Wilkes had been the most famous witch of all time. No one was supposed to know Nan’s name was Dulcinea. She could not think how it had leaked out. She tried to stalk loftily away to her desk, but she was caught by person after person, all laughingly calling out, “Hey, Dulcinea!” She did not manage to sit down until Mr Wentworth was already in the room.
2Y usually attended during Mr Wentworth’s lessons. He was known to be absolutely merciless. Besides, he had a knack of being interesting, which made his lessons seem shorter than other teachers’. But today, no one could keep their mind on Mr Wentworth. Nan was trying not to cry.
When, a year ago, Nan’s aunts had brought her to Larwood House, even softer, plumper and more timid than she was now, Miss Cadwallader had promised that no one should know her name was Dulcinea. Miss Cadwallader had promised! So how had someone found out? The rest of 2Y kept breaking into laughter and excited whispers. Could Nan Pilgrim be a witch? Fancy anyone being called Dulcinea! It was as bad as being called Guy Fawkes! Halfway through the lesson, Theresa Mullett was so overcome by the thought of Nan’s name that she was forced to bury her face in her knitting to laugh.
Mr Wentworth promptly took the knitting away. He dumped the clean white bundle on the desk in front of him and inspected it dubiously. “What is it about this that seems so funny?” He unrolled the towel – at which Theresa gave a faint yell of dismay – and held up a very small fluffy thing with holes in it. “Just what is this?”
Everyone laughed.
“It’s a bootee!” Theresa said angrily.
“Who for?” retorted Mr Wentworth.
Everyone laughed again. But the laughter was short and guilty, because everyone knew Theresa was not to be laughed at.
Mr Wentworth seemed unaware that he had performed a miracle and made everyone laugh at Theresa, instead of the other way round. He cut the laughter even shorter by telling Dan Smith to come out to the blackboard and show him two triangles that were alike. The lesson went on. Theresa kept muttering, “It’s not funny! It’s just not funny!” Every time she said it, her friends nodded sympathetically, while the rest of the class kept looking at Nan and bursting into muffled laughter.
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