reached the small landing where music books were stored on shelves, in boxes and in untidy piles on the floor. Between the rows of shelving a small oak door led into the music room. A message had been pinned to the centre of the door. Mr Pilgrim is away.
Charlie rummaged in the boxes, lifted the piles of music and searched behind the heavy books on the shelves. He found a flute, a handful of violin strings, a tin of oatcakes and a comb, but no trumpet.
Was there any point in trying the room next door? Charlie remembered seeing a grand piano and a stool, nothing else. He looked again at the note. Mr Pilgrim is away. It looked forbidding, as though there was another message behind those four thinly printed words: Do not enter, you are not welcome here.
But Charlie was a boy who often couldn’t stop himself from doing what all the signs told him not to. This time, however, he did knock on the door before going in. To his surprise, he got an answer.
‘Yes,’ said a weary voice.
Charlie went in.
Dr Saltweather was sitting on the music stool. His arms were folded inside his blue cape and his thick, white hair stood up in an untidy, careless way. He wore an expression that Charlie had never seen on his face before: a look of worry and dismay.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Charlie. ‘I was looking for my trumpet.’
‘Indeed.’ Dr Saltweather glanced at Charlie.
‘I suppose it isn’t in here.’
‘Nothing is in here,’ said Dr Saltweather.
‘Sorry, sir.’ Charlie was about to go when something made him ask, ‘Where is Mr Pilgrim, sir?’
‘Where?’ Dr Saltweather looked at Charlie as if he’d only just seen him. ‘Ah, Charlie Bone.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t know where Mr Pilgrim has gone. It’s a mystery.’
‘Oh.’ Charlie was about to turn away again but this time found himself saying, ‘I bumped into someone in the passage; I thought it might be him.’
‘No, Charlie.’ The music teacher spoke with some force. ‘That would have been Mr Ebony, your new form teacher.’
‘Our form teacher?’ Charlie gulped. He thought of the purple wings, the hissing voice.
‘Yes. It’s a little worrying, to say the least.’ Dr Saltweather gave Charlie a scrutinising stare, as though wondering if he should say more. ‘Mr Ebony came here to teach history,’ he went on, ‘but he turned up with a letter of resignation from Mr Pilgrim. I don’t know how he came by it. And now this – man – wants to teach piano.’ Dr Saltweather raised his voice. ‘He comes up here, puts a message on the door, tries to keep me out of a room in my own department . . . it’s intolerable!’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Charlie. ‘But he was wearing a purple cape, sir.’
‘Ah, yes, that!’ Dr Saltweather ran a hand through his white hair. ‘It seems that Mr Tantalus Ebony is in the Drama department, hence the purple.’
Charlie said, ‘I see,’ although, by now, he was very confused. He had never heard of a teacher being in three departments at once.
‘They are Dr Bloor’s arrangements, so what can I do?’ Dr Saltweather spread his hands. ‘Better run along now, Charlie. Sorry about the trumpet. Try one of the Art rooms. They’re always drawing our musical instruments.’
‘Art. Thank you, sir,’ said Charlie gratefully.
The Art rooms could only be reached by climbing the main staircase and Charlie had just put his foot on the first step when Manfred Bloor came out of a door in the hall.
‘Have you finished writing out your lines?’ asked Manfred coldly.
‘Er, no.’
Manfred approached Charlie. ‘Don’t forget, or you’ll get another hundred.’
‘Yes, Manfred. I mean no.’
Manfred gave a sigh of irritation and walked away.
‘Excuse me,’ Charlie said suddenly, ‘but are you still, erm, a pupil, Manfred?’
‘No I am not!’ barked the surly young man. ‘I am a teaching assistant. And call me sir.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The word ‘sir’ tasted funny when applied to Manfred, but Charlie smiled, hoping he’d said the right thing at last.
‘And don’t forget it.’ Manfred marched back into the Prefects’ room and slammed the door.
Charlie still hadn’t found Manfred’s study. He was now torn between looking for his trumpet and writing out a hundred lines. But then he remembered that he didn’t know the last line of the Hall rules. ‘Emma will tell me,’ he said to himself, and he began to climb the stairs.
Emma was often to be found in the Art gallery, a long, airy room overlooking the garden. Today, however, the room appeared to be empty. Charlie searched the paint cupboard and inspected the shelves at the back of the room, then he crossed the gallery and descended an iron spiral that took him down into the sculpture studio.
‘Hi, Charlie!’ called a voice.
‘Hey, come on over,’ called another.
Charlie looked round to see two boys in green aprons grinning at him from either side of a large block of stone. One had a brown face and the other was very pale. Charlie’s two friends were now in the third year. They had both grown considerably during the summer holiday, and so had their hair. Lysander, the African, now had a neat head of dreadlocks decorated with coloured beads, while Tancred had gelled his stiff, blond hair into a forest of spikes.
‘What brings you down here, Charlie?’ asked Tancred.
‘I’m looking for my trumpet. Hey, I hardly recognised you two.’
‘You haven’t changed,’ said Lysander with a wide smile. ‘How d’you like the second year?’
‘I don’t know. I’m in a bit of a muddle. I keep going to the wrong place. I’ve lost my trumpet. I’m in trouble with Manfred and there’s an er, um, thing in the garden.’
‘What d’you mean, a thing?’ Tancred’s blond hair fizzled slightly.
Charlie told them about the horse Billy had seen in the sky, and the hoofbeats in the garden.
‘Interesting,’ said Lysander.
‘Ominous,’ said Tancred. ‘I don’t like the sound of it.’ The sleeves of his shirt quivered. It was difficult for Tancred to hide his endowment. He was like a walking weathervane, his moods affecting the air around him to such an extent that you could say he had his own personal weather.
‘I’d better keep looking for my trumpet,’ said Charlie. ‘Oh, what’s the last line of the Hall rules?’
