The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School Read Online Free Page B

bearing cauldrons up and down the aisles, doling something which was either thick soup or thin stew into bowls. Frecks showed Amy how to hold her bowl up with one hand while taking a bread roll from a platter on the trolley with the other. Light Fingers made a show of being slow and clumsy, not wasting her Abilities at supper.
    Headmistress made a gesture. The Chaplain got up and mumbled a grace in Latin.
    ‘Bow, you savages,’ hissed the Fourth captain up-table, exciting suppressed giggles from acolytes.
    Grace concluded, everyone tucked in. Talking resumed and the Refectory filled with din again.
    The soup-or-stew was hot and had a distinct, not unpleasant taste. The meat wasn’t the best, but the bread was fresh and soaked up the gravy.
    Frecks introduced Amy to the rest of the Thirds. The guillotine-making girl, who only wore one pair of spectacles to supper, was Lydia Inchfawn. A bird-boned, pale American girl with long, straight, black hair suffered under the name Ticia Frump and planned to marry as soon as possible to alleviate the burden. The names Houri, Smudge, Peebles and Clodagh belonged to other girls, but Amy couldn’t fix which was which. Her head was overstuffed with new names, rules, people and language. Dinner at her old school was supper here, sweet was afters, Scripture was Religious Instruction, prefects were whips.
    Martine, the humorous Fourth Captain, took note of a new girl down-table, but her acolytes kept to themselves.
    Between courses, a squeaky-voiced, undersized Fifth slipped down-table, with notebook and pencil. She said she was from the
Drearcliff Trumpet
and wanted to interview the new girl.
    ‘Push off, Shrimp,’ said Frecks. ‘She’s not talking.’
    The reporter blinked and retreated.
    ‘Can’t let her get her hooks in you,’ said Frecks. ‘Be wary of Shrimp Harper. Girl’s a menace.’
    ‘Don’t let her sketch you,’ said Light Fingers. ‘You’ll be faint-headed for a week and she’ll be bright as a new penny. We tried smearing her cot with garlic, but no joy.’
    ‘Garlic and Shrimp?’ said Kali. ‘Sounds like a recipe for murder.’
    ‘
Unusual
isn’t always good,’ said Frecks.
    ‘Mother says it’s
never
good.’
    ‘Who’s Unusual?’ asked Inchfawn. ‘The new bug?’
    Questions were thrown at Amy by other girls. She wound up talking about moths. No one was perplexed, like grown-ups were, but no one was that interested either.
    ‘You’ll fit in,’ said a girl with black Indian braids. ‘You’re ga-ga already. We all go ga-ga at Drearcliff. After a while.’
    When afters came, Amy took Frecks’ advice and spurned the semolina. She ate an apple, instead.
    With the last bowl scraped, the servants returned to collect the crockery. Headmistress stood. Girls sat still and quiet again, as for grace. Amy realised the convention for quiet was not for religious observance but from whenever Dr Swan rose till she gave a nod for din to resume.
    ‘Girls,’ she began, ‘we must welcome a new sister among us…’
    ‘Oh no, she’s not going to…’ began Frecks…
    ‘… a new friend, a special gift to Drearcliff, a veritable
ornament…
’
    ‘She bloody is,’ said Frecks. ‘What a terror!’
    ‘… a shining beacon of potential, an Unusual Talent whose gifts should be nurtured till they reach full bloom…’
    Amy didn’t hear the rest of the speech. The flagstones had opened and she was pulled under the roiling earth. Everyone in the Refectory looked at her. Her face was flaming red.
    ‘Jammy crumpets!’ she exclaimed,
sotto voce
.
    ‘Worse luck,’ commiserated Frecks.
    ‘Poison Doll might as well a’ stuck a target on ya, kid,’ said Kali. ‘What happens next won’t be pretty. Not ah-
tall
it won’t.’

V: The Witches of Drearcliff Grange
    A F IRST WENT DOWN on one knee in front of Amy, hands clasped to her chest, ringlets rustling like silenced sleigh bells. The little she-beast declaimed dramatically…
    ‘Welcome, oh sister, oh