House of Windows Read Online Free

pigeonholes.’
    ‘For post,’ Nick said, moving to his father’s side to peer at the names. His pulse kicked oddly as he looked for his own.
    ‘Remember to check every time you come through,’ Michael said. ‘Here we go.’
    Derran, N.
    Nick found himself smiling, reaching out to touch the name tag as if it were something extraordinary. ‘Is there always someone on duty in the pee-lodge?’
    His father laughed. ‘It’s pronounced “plodge”. And, yes,any time you’re likely to be here there’ll be someone on duty. Just remember that most of the porters are ex-military at TitHall and act accordingly.’
    Nick couldn’t help the snort.
    Michael rolled his eyes. ‘There’s no point sniggering every time someone says it.’
    ‘They seriously couldn’t think of something better to shorten it to? Like T-Hall? Or you could say you were “in THrall”. It’s a cheat but it would be funnier.’
    Michael sank on to one of the wooden window seats looking out into Front Court and took off his shoe, tipped a shard of pebble out of it. ‘You have to remember it’s pretty recently that the University opened up to more than a token number of students not from public schools, let alone girls , so you get what you’d expect from a language invented by Etonians.’
    ‘No wonder the locals mock the students.’
    Michael pushed himself back to his feet. ‘Townies, Nick. Students are gownies and locals are townies.’
    ‘I know. There was a “basic Cambridge vocab” list in my Induction pack.’
    ‘That’s practically cheating. You’re meant to spend at least the first term never quite sure what anyone’s saying.’ Michael turned from the window with a grin only to start when he realised that Nick was standing at his shoulder, beaming up at him expectantly.
    Nick’s smile faded with his father’s. ‘What’s wrong?’ His eyes darted away from his father’s sudden worried frown. ‘Did you remember something about work?’
    Michael coughed, dug his hands into his pockets. ‘No, no. Just thinking I’m … Well, I’m really proud to be here with you today. Pretty cool to be introducing my fifteen-year-old to College. Wonder if I’ll bump into anyone I know.’
    Nick moved his face into what should have been a smile, but somehow wasn’t.
    Michael ducked his head and pushed through the wood and glass p’lodge door into Front Court, hurrying down the central flagstone path while Nick dawdled behind, staring up at the stone buildings all around. To the left and right were two storeys of tall windows under grey slate roofs set with a third storey of matched garret windows. The stone blocks of the walls, a strange creamy golden-brown, seemed almost to glow. To the left and right, the courtyard buildings were broken on the ground floor by an arch: on the left side was the chapel, marked out by a pair of two-storey stained-glass arch windows, a third smaller one perched up in the far corner. On the far side of the courtyard, opposite the main gate, was a double set of dark wood doors; above, the walls rose up to a triangular apex, decorated by moulded scrollwork and a crest below a grey-painted hexagonal plinth bearing a little cupola: thin white pillars supported a tiny silver-blue dome surmounted by a finial spike emerging through a golden ball.
    The courtyard itself was quartered into neat little squares of lawn by a flagstone path edged in cobbles. Along the walls, narrow flowerbeds and window-boxes spilled over with geranium and lobelia and wallflowers. The girl in tiny pinkhotpants standing in the centre of the courtyard, tapping a message into her mobile, was jarringly alien.
    Nick had memorised the map of the College, but like everything else in Cambridge it was far more higgledy-piggledy than any plan allowed for. Michael cut right in the centre of the courtyard and through the low, narrow arched tunnel into North Court, all brown brick and black bike racks. He led the way up the steps to the left, past