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streaked down and smashed into it. A great crack appeared in the stonework. Dust and rubble exploded out.
    And that was when he woke up.
    There were nine dormitories at Groosham Grange. The one that David slept in was completely circular, with the beds arranged like numbers on a clock face. Vincent had been put in the same room as him, his bed opposite David’s, underneath a window. Propping himself up on one elbow, David could see the other boy’s bed, clearly illuminated by a shaft of moonlight flooding in from above. It was empty.
    Where could Vincent be? David glanced at the chair beside Vincent’s bed. Wherever he had gone, he had taken his clothes with him. Outside, a clock struck four. At almost exactly the same moment, David heard a door creak open somewhere below and then swing shut. It had to be Vincent. Nobody else would be up and about in the middle of the night. David threw back the covers and got out of bed. He would find out what was going on.
    He got dressed quickly and crept out of the room. There had been a time when he would have been afraid to wander through the empty school in the darkness, but the night no longer held any fear for him. And he knew the building with its twisting corridors and sudden, plunging staircases so well that he didn’t even need to carry a flashlight.
    With the wooden stairs creaking beneath his feet, he made his way to the ground floor. Which door had he heard open and close? Ahead of him, the main entrance to the school rose up about thirty feet, a great wall of oak studded with iron. The door was bolted securely from inside so Vincent couldn’t have passed through there. Behind him, going back underneath the staircase, a second door led into the Great Hall, where meals were served.
    This door was open but the room behind it was shrouded in darkness and silent but for the flutter of the bats that lived high up in the rafters.
    David reached the bottom of the staircase and stood silently on the cold, marble floor. He was surrounded by oil paintings, portraits of former heads and teachers—a true collection of old masters. All of them seemed to be looking at him, and as he moved forward the eyes swiveled to follow him and he heard a strange, musty whispering as the pictures muttered to one another.
    “Where’s he going? What’s he doing?”
    “He’s making a mistake!”
    “Don’t do it, David.”
    “Go back to bed, David.”
    David ignored them. To one side a passage stretched out into the darkness, blocked at the end by a door he knew led into the library. There were two more doors facing each other halfway along the passage. The one on the left led into the office of Mr. Kilgraw, the assistant headmaster. As usual it was closed and no light showed through the crack. But on the other side of the passageway . . . David felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. A square of light stretched out underneath the door. This one was marked HEADS. The room behind it belonged, of course, to Mr. Fitch and Mr. Teagle.
    David was certain they weren’t in their study. Only that afternoon they had complained of the very worst thing they could possibly get—a headache—and had announced they were going to bed early. Mr. Fitch and Mr. Teagle had no choice but to sleep in the same bed (though with two pillows) and rather curiously both men talked in their sleep, often having animated conversations right through the night.
    But if Vincent was behind the door, what was he doing there? Going as quietly as he could—even the slightest movement seemed to echo throughout the school—David tiptoed along the corridor. Slowly, he reached out for the handle, his hand throwing an elongated shadow across the door. He hadn’t even worked out what he would do when he discovered Vincent. But that didn’t matter. He just wanted to see him.
    He opened the door and blinked. The room was empty.
    Closing the door behind him, David entered the heads’ inner sanctum. The room was more like a