Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan
They sat in silence again.
Then Millie said, “Sanchez . . . what was it like, being kidnapped?”
“Look, Millie, please don’t wind me up about that.”
“I’m not. I’m serious; I’m interested.”
“I’m sure you are interested. You want to know, so you can laugh? Make fun? Okay, I tell you: it was a very happy time for me, like a holiday. I meet interesting people, I—”
“What was it like, Sanchez? I want to know.”
“It was . . .” He paused, hunting for the words. He said quietly: “Okay, I’ll tell you. You ever have nightmares?”
“No.”
“Never? Not when you’re sick?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“So you never get scared?”
“I’m not trying to show off, but, no . . . I don’t get scared.”
“You’re lucky. I got taken away, okay? By someone I thought was a friend; it was our driver. I thought I could trust him and all he wants is money. You realize then that your life is nothing. Just some money. We had been in a restaurant and he said he had to take me home.”
“What did he do?”
“You want to see?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Hold the torch. If you want to see, I’ll show you.”
Sanchez had pulled on his school shirt. He undid the cuff of his right arm and rolled the sleeve. Millie shone the light and watched as he revealed his forearm. Just below the elbow was a patch of mutilated flesh: it was scar tissue, not unlike the remains of his father’s hand.
Millie touched it gently. She whispered: “Oh my, what did they do to you?”
“You want to know? I’ll tell you. There were three of them. One man, he telephones my mother. The other two are holding me and they put me on the phone, talking to her. One man takes a cigarette and puts it out on me, here. On the skin. So I am screaming. Okay? They do this five, six times: they make my father listen also. The police . . . Everyone gets to hear me screaming.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Then they say, ‘We are very serious, Mr. Sanchez,’ and they hold me and one man—he cuts off my toe.” Sanchez paused. “My father says . . . Ah, but you don’t need to know.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to know, I don’t need to tell you.”
“Yes, you do. What did your father say?”
“My father says it’s what killed my mother. That’s what he says.”
“Oh.”
The children sat in silence. Millie tried to think of something to say, but it was Sanchez who continued, very quietly.
“So I’m not a coward,” said Sanchez, “but my father says never to take risks. It’s why he sends me here, he doesn’t want me to die. I’m the only son.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“You don’t have to be sorry, it’s fine. Let’s try the door.”
They got up onto their knees. The toothbrush looked ridiculous sticking out of the keyhole: it was stripy purple and green. Sanchez knelt beside Millie and trained the torch up close; Millie—carefully, and oh so slowly—gripped the brush and twisted it.
Nothing.
She counted to five. Once the weakened plastic had snapped. Once it had jammed. She twisted, just a little harder . . . “Go on,” she whispered. And with a rolling click, the mechanism turned.
“Wow,” said Sanchez.
“Thought I was crazy, didn’t you?”
“I think you’re very crazy. Truly amazingly crazy.”
“I’ll go first,” she said, pushing the door open. “Welcome to my office, Mr. Sanchez. Come and sit down.”
They crept inside. They closed the door. Moonlight flooded in through high windows and soon they could make out the desk, the chairs, the sofa.
“The tricky bit now,” said Millie, “is where on earth do we start to look for a map? Let’s try his desk.”
Chapter Twenty
The desk was a mass of paper. Sanchez held the torch, Millie did the sorting. She was brisk and efficient. She moved to some trays and pulled out plastic wallets. “Bills . . . bills.” She read quickly. “Look at this, the bank manager seems a bit upset. Ooh, a solicitor here, getting involved. More bills: final demands, look.”
“Be quick, okay? This is not our business.”
“Letters . . .” she muttered. “Oh.”
“What?”
“Look. Who’s Miles Seyton-Shandy? I’ve heard that name. Letter for Mrs. Seyton-Shandy, about a Miles Seyton-Shandy.”
“Yeah, he’s very bad news. He was kicked out. He’s the one who set fire to the library last term.”
“Bad boy. Oh, listen to this though: poor Mrs. Seyton-Shandy. Listen. ‘Dear Mrs. After lengthy consultation . . . blah-de-blah . . . I’m afraid it will not be possible to accept Miles back at Ribblestrop. We have considered our position most carefully, and feel that in Miles’s own interests . . .’ That is such nonsense!”
“What?”
“They kick you out and then say they’re doing you a favor. Poor boy, passed on to some dogs’ home somewhere.”
“He was trouble; he was dangerous.”
“I like the name Miles. Look, this is his file. Look at the photo!”
Millie was staring at the passport-size photo of a young, blond boy. He was grinning happily; his eyes were wide and luminous. His hair was tangled over his forehead, his tie was off center. He was blazing with energy and laughter.
“I’m in love,” said Millie. “He’s beautiful!”
“For Chrissake, Millie, I tell you, if he ever came back here, I would leave. I swear to God I wanted to kill that boy.”
“You do have a temper, don’t you?”
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the letter, Sanchez. Shine the flashlight.” There was a pen in a jam jar. “I know it’ll look a bit strange, but a good lawyer could say it’s a contract. Here we go, we cross out the ‘not.’ There we are: ‘in Miles’s own interests’ he should ‘return immediately.’ ” Millie scratched and wrote and laughed. She held up the letter and waved it, to dry the ink.
Sanchez snatched at the letter and the flashlight beam spun crazily.
“Hey!” Millie held it away from him. “Give him a chance!”
“He is totally psychotic!”
“He sounds interesting and this is a school for freaks, so let’s have a handsome one. I’ll post this tomorrow.”
She stuffed the letter and its envelope into her pocket. And that was the moment they heard a jangle of keys.
Freezing involves the heart turning to ice and fear spreading over the entire body, toes to brain, in one split second.
Both children froze.
“Good Lord, it’s a toothbrush,” said a voice.
“What?”
“Oh, this is so silly, it’s jammed as well. What possesses them? Why would anyone . . . ?”
“Let me see, stand back.”
The children recognized the voices immediately: the headmaster and the new deputy. They were fiddling with the toothbrush, trying to remove it. It took a full minute, and that’s what saved Millie and Sanchez. Flashlight off, papers hurriedly stuffed back into trays, they hid in the only place they could see: the cubbyhole under the desk. This meant easing limbs together and, by the time they were hidden, their noses were nearly touching.
The headmaster said: “Oh Lord, and I didn’t even lock the door!”
The light clicked on. “You didn’t lock the door?” said the other, more penetrating voice. Definitely Miss Hazlitt—they could hear the queer blend of grinding gravel and the hyenalike bray at the end of the question. “Security, Headmaster . . . is anything more important in a well-run school?”
“Well . . .”
“That’s two lapses and the term has barely started. Video surveillance in due course, I think; one would like to have all the central areas covered and a camera over the mai
“I trust all the children here, but I was foolish mentioning the map to Millie. I bit my tongue when I said it.”
“Foolish isn’t the word—you’ve opened a can of worms. I’ve met characters like that one before, you know. A doctor would say medicate, but parents are always reluctant. She’ll be challenging everything we do and say, it’s her nature . . . Where’s the map?”
“Right here.”
“The only cost-effective thing now is opening the door and waving good-bye; she’ll infect the others. Influence is what she has, and—”
“I think we may have different views of young Millie. I was chatting to her the other night and I think she’s got a lot to offer.”
“Attention is what she feeds on. It’s all documented, the ego fighting for dominance because the amygdala is in constant stimulation—”
“What on earth is the amy—?”
“It’s a part of the prefrontal cortex, the brain. Like I say, ritalin, methahydroxane—it would have some effect, it was all road-tested in the fifties. We could put her in for a scan but you’d be throwing good money after bad: you have to work on these children at an earlier stage. It was her on the train, I’m sure of it. She’s a very accomplished liar—you look at her eyes and watch the pupils. Eighteen hundred pounds in less than two hours—a rather desperate spending spree, I’d say. Perfume—she wants attention. Earrings, fur coat—she knows she’s unattractive, that’s a desperate insecurity. You could try a course of methotaxadil, that’s another possibility, just to get some of the adrenaline down. Otherwise you’d have to be a little more drastic—cut and remove.”
“Well, that’s not my field at all, and I’m reluctant to assume anything about the credit card episode. If the police come back to us—”
“I’ve had a word with our local man, Cuthbertson. He’s on our side, we can count on him. He suggested I search her room, which I should have done as soon as I arrived, or you should have done. Soon as she’s off at breakfast, I’ll turn that little shed upside down. I’m tempted to wake her up now, that’s when interrogations work, you know. You shake a lot more out at midnight.”
“No, I honestly think we have to respect privacy.”
“I don’t. I have to show that I mean business, and this country will thank you in the end. Children like the Roads girl—they’re a kind of viral infection and we’re losing our resistance. Where are the parents?”
“London, though the mother no longer shares the family home.”
“It was a rhetorical question, I’ve read her file. I’ll tell you about the parents: the mother refuses to see the child. The father’s remarried and his new wife won’t have her in the house. She spends half her life in hotels because the family’s imploded. It’s a social problem, this legion of unwanted, unloved pyschomaniacs and—like I said—it’s sinking the country. I want a school that offers solutions.”
“When will you be able to restore our license, do you think?”
“How long does this thing take to warm up? Not yet. Rules and uniform—it’s an old combination, but my goodness it works.” The cell phone bleeped. “Diet, with appropriate medication—I’ll introduce that sparingly at first. Hello, Hazlitt? And plenty of sleep. I’m with him now, down at Ribblestrop, I’ll call you back. Yes, it’s logged.” Her thumb danced over the keypad. “You get the basics into place and everything else follows. If I do my job we’ll have it sorted by Christmas. You’re going ahead with the building program, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes, but—”
“Good. I’ll ask for an inspection next year, my people will insist upon new buildings. We can’t show stinking ruins, not if we’re to attract proper funding. Third note to self: update and cross-reference building program, revisit schedule.”
“The roofing is important, yes. I firmly believe if these boys help rebuild the school, there’ll be a real sense of ownership.”
“Till the little girl burns it down again. I liked the brochure, I have to say that. You’re undercutting everyone at the moment and the pictures look good. What we need is a stall at some of the international fairs, and a few charities onside. One or two children to smile: proper, smart uniform, night and day. That’s what sells a school. I’ll need to run a course on basic manners, so I’ll need a couple of classrooms and this office, as well. Ah, we’re in business . . .”
From under the desk, Millie and Sanchez heard the photocopier come to life. It buzzed and hummed for a little while. Then the headmaster said, “That’s that. Oh, I’d better lock the door this time.”
“We need a proper isolation block. Did you get my fax about a removal system? It’s been trialed in some very difficult American schools on the basis of rat behavior. If you surround one child with a limited set of stimuli and bombard it with selected messages—”
“After you, Miss Hazlitt.”
“The results as published are breathtaking—I’ll find you the journal. I think the first job is to weed out the dead wood. Turn the light off . . .” The voice faded into darkness.
The door was shut and locked, firmly. The children remained utterly still.
“Count to a hundred,” whispered Sanchez.
They did, slowly. Then Sanchez turned the flashlight on. Still they remained crushed and hidden.
“You okay?” said Sanchez.
“Yes.”
Sanchez could feel Millie trembling. He squeezed out of the recess and stood. “That was close,” he said, awkwardly.
Millie said nothing.
“Funny, eh? He hides the map away from you; you come looking. He’s not so dumb.”
Millie still said nothing. She remained under the desk.
“Come on,” said Sanchez. “She’s got a big mouth, that woman. She said stupid things. Millie?”
“She’s dead,” whispered Millie.
“What do you mean? Stand up.”
“What she said about my mother . . . I’m going to kill her.”
“Hey . . .”
“I’ll do it slowly. I’ll make sure she suffers. She has just made the biggest mistake of her life. I hate her.”
“Look,” said Sanchez. He knelt down close to her. “Hang on. She jumps to conclusions. She loses a credit card, she thinks she saw your face on a train—”
“Oh, she did,” said Millie. She stood up slowly. “She’s right about that. She left her purse on the seat, she was bending down looking for something. I robbed her blind, she was asking for it. I just wish I’d spent more. I wish I’d bankrupted her!”
“Look, she’s upset you.”
“No she has not!” Millie wiped her eyes savagely and crossed the room. “She’s just made me angry. Oh, this school! An inspection coming up and she’s been brought in to sort it all out. She’s the boss, isn’t she? She was bossing him around and he doesn’t have the spine to stand up to her. Right, I’m staying. I’ll help her make a few changes, I’ll show her manners—I’ll show her a viral infection. Me and Miles when he comes back . . . Hey.”
“What?”
Millie’s hands had needed to hold something. They were trembling and, in her wandering, she had settled them on the lid of the photocopier. For no reason, she had opened it. She didn’t need a flashlight to see that there was a paper on the glass.
“Sanchez.”
“What? What have you got?”
“They’ve left the original,” she said. She started to laugh quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“So thick. Look: when they copied the map. They left it on the glass.”
“Millie,” whispered Sanchez. “They may realize. They may come back any minute.”
Millie was laughing still, quietly and bitterly. “We’ve got what we came for,” she said, sniffing heavily. “And I know I’m abo
“We’re locked in,” said Sanchez.
“Big deal. We climb out of the window. Down the drainpipe.”
“We’re on the third floor, Millie.”
“Yes?”
Sanchez said, quietly, “I can’t climb anymore. You may have to help me.”
*
They eased the window closed after them and climbed down the drainpipe together, Millie leading. She took Sanchez’s weight and helped him to the ground. Sanchez took her hand and shook it. “I think you’re very brave,” he said. “I think you’re very strong.”
“When do we go down?” said Millie.
Sanchez closed his eyes.
“You promised, Sanchez. We’ve got a map, there’s no excuse now!”
“Friday night. After soccer training.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The changes to the school were immediate. There were new rules, a new timetable, and a new sense of scrutiny. The medicals were prioritized, just as Miss Hazlitt had promised. The very next night, every orphan was ordered to a dusty, charmless classroom where two neon tubes had been strung from the crumbling ceiling.
The orphans had heard rumors that they were to be examined and they were quivering with excitement. Not one of them had ever been weighed in his life. They hadn’t been timed, probed, listened to, or even poked—the thought of anyone paying careful attention to their chests and their tongues filled them with such joy that they couldn’t keep still.
Once they’d been through the first series of checks, they simply went to the back of the line and, inventing new names for themselves, managed to go through the whole procedure again. This led to confusion, of course, as Miss Hazlitt couldn’t yet put faces to names and had to keep changing her glasses. Her briefcase contained folders full of complex-looking grids that folded out over the table, some of them three meters long; soon the papers were utterly confused. She had been told there were twelve orphans when there appeared to be twenty-one. The roll calls she attempted were chaotic as she couldn’t get the children to stay in one place, and Asilah—being as excited as the rest—exerted no control. Miss Hazlitt abandoned the first medical at three o’clock in the morning, looking haggard, and Anjoli boasted that he had been examined four times with four different hairstyles.