way Toby was going to find out what was going on and he was determined to try. His classroom opened into the oak-panelled hall that was the heart of the school. It served variously as an assembly hall every morning, a cinema on Sunday evenings, and a library. The wide steps that led from the hall were known as the Bloody Steps. Carpeted in deep crimson, with polished brass stair rods, they led to Rudolph’s apartment, Rudolph’s study. To be summoned up those dreaded steps meant only one thing – the cane. Everyone knew that if you stood at the bottom of the Bloody Steps, by the bookcases, and pretended to be looking for a book, you could often hear what was going on inside the study. But how was he going to manage to bluff his way into the hall in the first place? Mr Cramer may have looked doddery but he was wily, and you didn’t get out of his maths class that easily. He wasn’t going to be fooled by the usual lame excuses – they might prove effective with the younger, greener teachers, especially with the French mistress, Madame Lafayette who taught art too and who wore sandals and long flowery skirts. Either she believed anything she was told or she didn’t mind half the class being absent at the same time. Mr Cramer wasn’t like that. ‘Can I go down, sir?’ meant you needed a short trip to the lavatory and were expected back soon. ‘Can I go down successful?’ implied a need for a longer absence in the same place. Both had been tried already on Mr Cramer that lesson, and both had failed. Toby wasn’t the only one who wanted to find out what was going on. Greater ingenuity was needed. It took Toby half an hour to think up his scheme. It had risks but it was worth it. He would try it. He put up his hand.
‘Please, sir,’ he coughed and sniffed as best he could. ‘Please, sir, it’s my hayfever.’
‘I didn’t know you had hayfever, Jenkins.’
‘Only sometimes, sir. Matron says that if I feel it coming on I’ve got to take my tablets.’ He hoped he didn’t need to say any more. Matron was the key that opened most doors with most of the teachers. Just the mention of her name was often enough, and so it proved this time.
‘Very well, Jenkins. Two minutes.’
Toby closed the classroom door behind him and found himself alone in the hall. He was quite confident that Mr Cramer wouldn’t check his story with Matron. He could already hear voices from inside the study but could not make out what they were saying. He stole across the polished floor, unable to stop his sandals squeaking as he went. He peered round the corner. Christopher was sitting outside the study on the settle, motionless, his hands on his knees like the statue of an Egyptian pharaoh. The study door opened suddenly and Christopher’s mother was coming out. Toby had just enough time to back out of sight along the bookcase. He felt the piano behind him, crouched down and crawled under, backwards. There was nowhere else to hide. ‘One thing I’m sure of, Headmaster,’ he heard Christopher’s mother say, ‘is that once he has made a promise he keeps it. He has promised me and he has promised you that he will never again try to run away. Isn’t that right dear?’
‘Yes, Mother.’ Christopher’s voice was quite calm.
‘Don’t you worry, he’ll be all right now, won’t you, Christopher?’ It was Cruella, but Christopher did not reply. Christopher’s mother came down the steps. ‘I’ll see you at half term then,’ she said without even a glance at Christopher.
Rudolph and Cruella, only feet away from Toby’s hiding-place now, walked across the hall on either side of her and Christopher followed along behind them, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘I’m sure we shall all get along splendidly,’ Rudolph was saying. ‘Redlands is a friendly sort of place. Everyone gets on here. He’ll find that out soon enough.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ said Christopher’s mother, and then they were out of sight, down the hallway towards the porch and the front door. Toby heard the front door open and was debating whether he should make a dash for the classroom now or wait until Rudolph and Cruella had gone back into the study. He never had the time to make up his mind.
He heard a cough from behind him. There were two sturdy legs in dark stockings and flat shoes and one of the feet was tapping. Only Matron wore shoes like the police. ‘Jenkins,’ she said. ‘If I was a boy here that is probably exactly where I should spend as much time as I could, under the piano; but I am not a boy, I am Matron. Crawl out Jenkins, crawl out.’ Toby stood up before he should have done and banged his head on the piano. The strings reverberated. Matron smiled at him. ‘Well, that’ll knock some sense into you, won’t it?’
‘Yes, Matron.’ He was still rubbing his head and about to go back into the classroom when he heard Rudolph’s voice from across the hall. ‘Jenkins, what do you think you are doing out of class?’ Christopher was there with him.
‘He has a headache, Headmaster,’ said Matron. ‘I’ve given him something. It’s better now, isn’t it, Jenkins?’ She turned her attention to Christopher. ‘Back again then are we?’ Christopher nodded. ‘Staying this time are we?’ Toby never quite knew when Matron was being serious and when she wasn’t.
‘Oh, he’ll be staying, Matron,’ said Rudolph, ‘you can be quite sure of that. And I want no special treatment either. He’s in your class, Jenkins. Take him along. Matron, may I have a word?’ And the two boys were left alone in the hall.
‘This school, it smells of cabbage and polish,’ Christopher said sniffing. Toby had always noticed that too, particularly at the beginning of term.
‘I’m glad you’re back,’ Toby said as they walked towards the classroom, and he meant it. He didn’t know what else to say, but he thought he had to say something.
‘I’m not,’ Christopher said, and they went in together.
‘Now there’s a thing. You would have thought it a mathematical impossibility,’ said Mr Cramer, peering at them over the rim of his glasses. ‘One goes out, two come back.’ He pointed to the empty desk beside Toby’s. ‘Your desk I believe, Christopher. Sit down.’ Every eye in the room followed Christopher to his seat. ‘We are doing long division. Have you ever done long division?’
‘No, sir,’ said Christopher, ‘but I’ll learn. I learn very quickly.’
To everyone’s surprise – boys and staff alike – Christopher did learn very quickly. At his Council school he had never before done French or history or geography or Latin – a fact which amazed everyone at Redlands – but it seemed to make no difference whatsoever. Within a few days he appeared to have mastered what had taken Toby several long years of grinding learning. He could decline the first and second declensions in Latin and he already knew his way around at least a dozen French irregular verbs – all the tenses, even the subjunctive. He knew almost every capital on the globe, and had learnt by heart the names and dates of all the Plantagenet kings. He had, or so it seemed, a photographic memory. He could learn a poem on reading it and recite it without hesitation in class the next morning.
Yet in spite of all this brilliance, or perhaps because of it, Christopher had made no lasting friends or admirers except Toby. Brought up as they were to be wary of intelligent eccentrics, the boys kept their distance. Even the teachers were only grudgingly impressed. Toby overheard them once when he was waiting outside the staff-room door. Madame Lafayette was proclaiming enthusiastically that she had never had such a brilliant student, either in France or in England. ‘It’s just like as if ’e ’as the French blood in ’im,’ she said. ‘You say a word just once and ’e pronounces it like a French person. Mind you ’e can’t paint for toffee.’
‘Bright boy, maybe the brightest we’ve ever had, but surly,’ said Major Bagley.
‘If you ask me, he asks too many questions,’ Mr Cramer said. ‘Can’t stand boys who ask too many questions.’
