Room 13 (7 page)

Somewhere a clock chimed. ‘What time’s that?’ whispered Gary. ‘I forgot my flipping watch.’

Fliss looked at hers. ‘Twenty-three forty-five – quarter to twelve.’

‘Good grief, is that all? It feels like we’ve been
here
for ever.’ He withdrew from the doorway and walked up and down, hugging himself and shivering. Trot and Lisa drew back too, leaving Fliss to watch.

Nothing happened. After a while she said, ‘Hey, how about somebody else taking a turn here? I need to get warm too.’

‘I’ll do it,’ volunteered Lisa. Fliss went and stood on one leg beside the bath, resting a cold foot on its rim in order to massage some warmth into it. After a while she swapped over and rubbed the other foot.

Presently they heard the distant chimes again. Midnight. They looked at one another and drifted towards the door. As they did so, Lisa let out a stifled cry and pointed. ‘Look.’ They looked. The cupboard was room thirteen.

‘Oh, wow,’ moaned Gary. ‘It’s real. I thought it was a dream, but it’s real.’

‘You scared then?’ Trot’s words carried a challenge, but his voice came out a croak.

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ breathed Fliss. ‘I told you it wasn’t a dream.’

‘Oh, Fliss,’ whimpered Lisa. ‘Oh, my God, what am I doing here?’ Fliss put an arm round her friend and squeezed. ‘It’s OK, Lisa. Take it easy. It’s just a door with a number on it, right? We don’t have to go in there or anything. We
don
’t even have to go near it, for goodness sake.’ She looked at the others. ‘What now?’

‘Listen!’ Trot was watching the stairs. ‘I think someone’s coming.’

‘Oh, no!’ Gary crammed all of his fingers in his mouth and stood, gazing at the stair-top and shaking his head.

There came the unmistakable sound of footfalls slowly ascending, and a pale shape came into view. Trot grabbed Fliss’s arm. ‘It’s Ellie-May.’

‘Sssh!’

‘But shouldn’t we try to stop her? Look where she’s going for heaven’s sake.’

‘No!’ Fliss shook her head. ‘She’s asleep, I think – sleepwalking, and you’re not supposed to wake sleepwalkers. We’ll watch what happens and tell the teachers in the morning.’

Lisa looked at her. ‘That was part of the plan, was it?’

‘Yes.’ It wasn’t, of course. She hadn’t even considered what they might do if events reached this stage. She only knew she couldn’t leave this bathroom right now to save her life. Hers, or anybody else’s.

They watched. Ellie-May crossed the landing to the cupboard door and reached for the knob. She hesitated for a moment with her hand on it, then twisted and pushed. The watchers peered intently
as
the door swung inward, but from where they were they couldn’t see anything beyond it except darkness. They watched Ellie-May walk into that darkness and close the door.

‘Phew!’ Gary moved from the door again, shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it, Trot. What does she do in there?’

The other boy shrugged. ‘I don’t know, do I?’

‘Does anybody fancy having a look?’ whispered Lisa.

Gary looked at her. ‘Do you?’ She shook her head.

‘I think we should wait here till she comes out,’ said Fliss.

They waited. Half-past twelve came, and a quarter to one. They didn’t take turns now but huddled together, watching the door through eyes that burned, while their feet grew numb. From time to time, faint sounds reached them from beyond the door: sounds which might have made them shiver, even if they had not been cold. It was almost a quarter-past one when the noises ceased, and a few minutes after that when the door opened and Ellie-May reappeared. They watched as she closed the door, crossed the landing and slipped away down the stairs.

‘Well,’ breathed Gary, ‘what now?’

‘I vote we go get old Hepworth,’ said Trot, ‘and
let
him have a look in that cupboard.’

‘No.’ Fliss shook her head. ‘What if Ellie-May wasn’t sleepwalking at all? What if she’s been up to something in there – something she shouldn’t? We don’t know, do we? If we fetch Mr Hepworth we could land her in serious trouble.’

Lisa gazed at her friend. ‘Ellie-May’s always getting other kids in trouble,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we should worry too much about that.’

Gary nodded. ‘I’m with Lisa,’ he said.

‘Me too,’ growled Trot. ‘There’s something weird going on here, Fliss. We can’t keep it to ourselves. Not when Ellie-May might be in danger.’

Fliss nodded. ‘OK. I wasn’t suggesting we keep it to ourselves indefinitely – just till morning. I’ll have a word with Ellie-May before breakfast. Tell her we saw her. Ask her what she was doing. Then, if she doesn’t come up with a satisfactory explanation we bring in the teachers. How’s that?’

Gary shrugged. ‘Sounds fair enough to me. Give her a chance to explain.’

‘All right,’ said Lisa.

‘OK,’ sighed Trot. ‘I’m too shattered to argue anyway.’

They left the bathroom and tiptoed away to their beds, but dawn was breaking over the sea before any one of them slept.

‘FLISS – HEY, FLISS!’
Somebody was shaking her roughly. She opened her eyes to find Marie grinning down at her. ‘Come on, lazybones – you’re going to be late for breakfast and it’s the abbey today.’

‘Mmm.’ She pulled up the covers and turned her head away. ‘Leave me here,’ she mumbled. ‘I just want to sleep for ever.’

‘You’ll write apologies for ever if you make us late. Everybody else has finished in the bathroom and some have gone downstairs.’

Bathroom. Last night. Something she said she’d do. ‘Oh, crikey!’ She threw back the covers, leapt out of bed and grabbed her towel. ‘Listen, Marie – will you do me a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Make my bed while I get washed? I’m supposed to see Ellie-May. I wanted to catch her before she went downstairs. Please?’

‘OK.’ Marie smiled. ‘Just this once. Go on.’

Fliss ran across the landing, forgetting in her haste to check the linen cupboard door. She washed rapidly, splashing a lot of water about. It doesn’t seem two minutes since I was in here before, she thought.

When she returned to room ten her bed was neatly made and Marie had gone. She pulled on some clothes, dragged a comb through her hair and headed for the stairs. Five past eight. Breakfast was at eight o’clock. Ellie-May would be in the dining-room by now, with no empty place at her table, and Lisa and the boys would be cursing her for being last again.

The third-floor landing was deserted, which meant that Trot and Gary had gone down. The next floor was Ellie-May’s. Fliss ran down the stairs and nearly bumped into Mrs Evans and Mr Hepworth, who were talking in the doorway of room four. She slowed down and tried to creep past, but Mrs Evans said, ‘Stop, Felicity Morgan. Come here.’

‘Yes, Miss?’

‘Yes, Miss? I’ll give you “yes, Miss”. What time do you call this?’

‘Five past eight, Miss.’

‘Nearly six minutes past, actually. And what time’s breakfast?’

‘Eight o’clock, Miss.’

‘Exactly. So you’re six minutes late. And you were running. Why were you running, Felicity?’

‘’Cause I’m six minutes late, Miss.’

‘Don’t be cheeky! You’ve broken two rules already. Mrs Marriott will be in the dining-room. Tell her Ellie-May’s not well, and that Mr Hepworth and I will be down in a minute. Have you got that?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Off you go then. And think on – I’ll be watching you, Felicity.’

She hurried on down. She didn’t run, but her mind was racing. Ellie-May’s not well and there are two teachers outside her room. She’s in bed, then. That means I won’t get to talk to her, so what do we do – keep quiet about last night, or tell the teachers? Tell, I suppose.

Everybody was eating cornflakes. Trot gave her a dirty look as she walked in. Mrs Marriott was sitting alone at the teachers’ table, chewing watchfully.

Fliss delivered her message, and was sent down to the kitchen to apologize to Mrs Wilkinson for being late, and to ask if she might have some cornflakes. As the woman shook cereal into a bowl for her, Fliss said, ‘There’s an old lady sits in the shelter across the road.
She
seems to be there all the time. Who is she?’

Mrs Wilkinson smiled, pouring milk. ‘You must mean old Sal,’ she said. ‘Sally Haggerlythe. She’s mad, I’m afraid. Got some sort of bee in her bonnet about this place – mumbles on about fate and doom and dread and I don’t know what. I’d steer clear of old Sal if I were you.’

Fliss said nothing, but thought it might be interesting sometime to have a word with mad Sal Haggerlythe.

She carried her cereal bowl to the dining-room and slipped into the only empty place. None of the other three was at her table, but two tables away sat Gary, facing her. He was looking at her with an expression which was angry and questioning at the same time.

She began mouthing at him, voicelessly, exaggerating her lip-movements and pointing to the ceiling. She’s in bed, she mouthed. Sick. I didn’t get to talk to her. She spread her hands, palms upward, and shrugged. What do we do?

Gary might have been good at all sorts of things, but lip-reading wasn’t one of them. He glared at Fliss, scowling and shaking his head. She began again, even more slowly, stretching her lips and jabbing at the ceiling, then bent forward, goggle-eyed,
clutching
her throat and shooting out her tongue as if puking into her bowl.

‘What on earth’s the matter with you, Felicity Morgan?’ Mrs Marriott was looking at her as though at a lunatic.

‘She’s lost her marbles, Miss,’ said Gary, and some of the kids sniggered.

‘Nobody asked you, Gary Bazzard. Well, Felicity?’

‘I had a bit of cornflake stuck in my throat, Miss. It’s gone now.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ said the teacher, acidly, ‘because, you see, the rest of us have finished our cornflakes and Mr Wilkinson is waiting to clear, so that Mrs Wilkinson can serve sausages and bacon before they go cold.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

She spooned cereal into her mouth and chewed, keeping her head down. Everybody was looking at her. She could feel their eyes. She ate distractedly, thinking about mad Sal and the whispering voice of her dream. It seemed like hours before her bowl was empty.

When everybody had finished breakfast, Mrs Evans stood up and said, ‘Now – I want you all to go back to your rooms and get ready for our walk. We’re running a bit late, so you haven’t got long. I’d like everybody in the lounge, kitted up
and
ready to go, by nine o’clock. What time did I say, Felicity Morgan?’

‘Nine o’clock, Miss.’

‘Right. Table one, off you go.’

Felicity’s was the last table to be dismissed, but the others were waiting for her outside Gary and Trot’s room on the third landing.

‘What was that pantomime you were putting on for me down there?’ demanded Gary. ‘I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.’ He was holding the giant stick of rock, which he’d sucked almost to a point at one end. He sucked it now as he gazed at Fliss. She shuddered.

‘I don’t know how you can,’ she said, ‘straight after breakfast. Mrs Evans and old Hepworth were by Ellie-May’s door when I came down, so I didn’t get to see her. That’s what I was trying to tell you.’

‘The point is, what do we do?’ said Lisa.

Trot looked at Fliss. ‘There’s nobody by Ellie-May’s door now, is there? The teachers are all downstairs. You could go and talk to her, like you were going to.’

Fliss shook her head. ‘The other kids’re there. She wouldn’t tell me anything in front of them, would she?’

‘I reckon we’ll just have to tell about last night,’ said Gary. ‘She was poorly yesterday, and now
she
’s worse. Who knows what might happen if we keep it to ourselves? I think you should go to Mr Hepworth, Fliss.’

‘Why me?’

Gary grinned. ‘He’d never believe me, nobody does, but he’ll believe you. And anyway, the whole thing was your idea, wasn’t it – keeping watch and that?’

‘All right.’ Fliss nodded. ‘But I still wish we could have talked to Ellie-May first.’

She found Mr Hepworth in the downstairs hallway, handing out packed lunches. There was a queue. Fliss tagged on the end. When she got to the front she took the little packet he offered and said, ‘Sir, can I have a word? It’s about Ellie-May.’

‘What about Ellie-May?’ Kids were waiting in line behind her and he was anxious to give out the rest of the lunches.

‘It’s about what’s wrong with her, Sir.’

‘And what’s that to do with you, Felicity?’

‘Sir, I think I know why she’s ill.’

‘Indeed? It’s Doctor Morgan now, is it? Go on then – why is Ellie-May ill?’

‘She goes in the cupboard on the top floor, Sir. At night. I heard her on Monday night, and David Trotter saw her. And last night four of us kept watch and she went in again.’

Mr Hepworth looked at her. ‘Are you trying to
wind
me up, Felicity Morgan? Ellie-May Sunderland’s a sensible girl. Why on earth would she be creeping about in the middle of the night, getting into cupboards? I never heard anything so daft in my life.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Just as a matter of interest, who were the three who kept this watch with you?’

‘Lisa Watmough, Sir, And David Trotter and Gary Bazzard.’

‘Ah! I thought Gary Bazzard’s name might crop up. He put you up to this, didn’t he?’