a mug of bitter malty tea, gratitude to Tacroy made him say yet again, “Oh, please can’t I visit you in your garret?”
“Oh, do stow it, Christopher,” Tacroy said, sounding rather tired of it all. “I’d invite you like a shot, but your uncle made a condition that you only see me like this while we’re on an experiment. If I told you where I live, I’d lose this job. It’s as simple as that.”
“I could go round all the garrets,” Christopher suggested cunningly, “and shout Tacroy and ask people until I found you.”
“You could not,” said Tacroy. “You’d draw a complete blank if you tried. Tacroy is my spirit name. I have quite a different name in the flesh.”
Christopher had to give in and accept it, though he did not understand in the least.
Meanwhile, the time when he was to go to school was suddenly almost there. Christopher tried carefully not to think of it, but it was hard to forget when he had to spend such a lot of time trying on new clothes. The Last Governess sewed name tapes – C. CHANT – on the clothes and packed them in a shiny black tin trunk – also labelled C. CHANT in bold white letters. This trunk was shortly taken away by a carrier whose thick arms reminded Christopher of the women in Series Eight, and the same carrier took away all Mama’s trunks too, only hers were addressed to Baden Baden while Christopher’s said, ‘Penge School, Surrey’.
The day after that, Mama left for Baden Baden. She came to say goodbye to Christopher, dabbing her eyes with a blue lace handkerchief that matched her travelling suit. “Remember to be good and learn a lot,” she said. “And don’t forget your mama wants to be very proud of you when you grow up.” She put her scented cheek down for Christopher to kiss and said to the Last Governess, “Mind you take him to the dentist now.”
“I won’t forget, Madam,” the Last Governess said in her dreariest way. Somehow her hidden prettiness never seemed to come out in front of Mama.
Christopher did not enjoy the dentist. After banging and scraping round Christopher’s teeth as if he were trying to make them fall out, the dentist made a long speech about how crooked and out of place they were, until Christopher began to think of himself with fangs like Throgmorten’s. He made Christopher wear a big shiny toothbrace, which he was supposed never to take out, even at night. Christopher hated the brace. He hated it so much that it almost took his mind off his fears about school.
The servants covered the furniture with dust sheets and left one by one, until Christopher and the Last Governess were the only people in the house. The Last Governess took him to the station in a cab that afternoon and put him on the train to school.
On the platform, now the time had come, Christopher was suddenly scared stiff. This really was the first step on the road to becoming a missionary and being eaten by Heathens. Terror seemed to drain the life out of him, down from his face, which went stiff, and out through his legs, which went wobbly. It seemed to make his terror worse that he had not the slightest idea what school was like.
He hardly heard the Last Governess say, “Goodbye, Christopher. Your uncle says he’ll give you a month at school to settle down. He’ll expect you to meet his man as usual on October the eighth in Series Six. October the eighth. Have you got that?”
“Yes,” Christopher said, not attending to a word, and got into the carriage like someone going to be executed.
There were two other new boys in the carriage. The small thin one called Fenning was so nervous that he had to keep leaning out of the window to be sick. The other one was called Oneir, and he was restfully ordinary. By the time the train drew into the school station, Christopher was firm friends with them both. They decided to call themselves the Terrible Three, but in fact everyone in the school called them the Three Bears. “Someone’s been sitting in my
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