The Viking and the Vendetta Page 14

  "Oh dear," said Julia. The corners of her lips tightened a little, as though she was supressing a smile. "Did you tell her about it?"

  "Yes," said Luke, looking virtuous. "I thought someone ought to let her know."

  Pagan hastily found a tissue and buried her face in it, pretending to blow her nose, so that her mother would not notice the huge smile caused by what seemed to be completely brazen lies from Luke.

  "I imagine she was rather annoyed," prompted Julia, obviously keen to find out what had happened next.

  "She thought I'd done it," said Luke, putting his hand up to his shoulder, feeling again the piercing grip of Meredith's nails. "But Ned didn't think so and he let me go."

  "I wonder who did," mused Julia.

  Luke was too grateful to the Vikings to drop them into trouble with Julia. "No idea!" he said cheerfully, but not quite convincingly. "Are we all ready to go?"

  Once Julia had dropped them at the shopping centre, he and Pagan were free to discuss the events of the previous evening. Pagan made him repeat the conversation he'd had with Meredith and Ned, word for word, several times.

  "He must have sent her packing," she said, gleefully. "Once he realised that she'd tried to talk to you before he'd a chance to, he must have been really annoyed with her." Pagan hugged Luke fiercely and gave him a smack of a kiss. "Well done! You're so clever. What made you think of the toothpaste idea?"

  The honest thing to do at this point would have been to admit that the toothpaste prank hadn't been anything to do with him. But in the face of Pagan's admiring look of total hero-worship, Luke found he was not willing to share any of his glory with the real perpetrators. Instead, he reflected some of Pagan's praise back to her.

  "It must have been the influence of my brilliant girlfriend."

  "But Ned's bound to know it was you that did it," continued Pagan. "What's he going to do?"

  "Oh, don't worry about Ned," said Luke, breezily. "I can handle him."

  *

  Julia dropped Luke back at school in time for the Sunday night meal. In his pre-dinner talk, Ned brought up the topic of the vandalism to Meredith's car, impressing on the assembled students the unacceptability of abusing the property of a visitor to the school. Luke kept his eyes firmly on his plate, although he was greatly tempted to glance across at the Vikings who must have carried out the minty misdemeanour.

  Ned hadn't gone into specifics about the nature of the abuse to Meredith's car and as the school filed away from the hall after dinner, speculation was rife as to what had happened to it. Apparently not many students had come back into the grounds last night between the time the Vikings had committed their daring offence and Luke's own arrival on the scene. Luke told the other year ten Romans all about the toothpaste graffiti as they climbed the stairs to their wing and within ten minutes the details had spread throughout the Roman quarter of the school.

  The following morning, Mr Wilmot called a house meeting for the Romans during the morning break. There was usually one of these each month, but this was a week earlier than usual and was being held in Mr Wilmot's classroom, rather than the usual venue of the Forum, with its more relaxed atmosphere.

  "Something's up," predicted Fred, gloomily.

  When the Romans were all assembled and seated at the desks in the classroom, Mr Wilmot threw open the drawer of his own desk and, with a dramatic flourish, pulled out a limp bouquet of empty toothpaste tubes. Heads around the room turned in Luke's direction to acknowledge that this evidence confirmed his story of the night before.

  Thanks guys, thought Luke. Mr Wilmot's frown and narrowed eyes demonstrated that he'd noticed everyone looking at Luke and was busy coming up with his own negative interpretation of the facts. Luke's sense of gratitude towards the Vikings shrank considerably as he endured the housemaster's glare.

  "Mrs Mould came to me this morning with these," began Mr Wilmot. "She found them in the bin in the Romans' bathroom."

  A small sound escaped Luke's lips: somewhere between a sigh and a groan. Mrs Mould was the hard-hearted cleaner of the Roman's wing; a woman whose sympathies lay completely (and inexplicably) with Mr Wilmot. She must have heard about the toothpaste incident and, as usual, was incapable of resisting an opportunity to land the Romans in trouble with their housemaster.

  "As the vandalism to Ms Morgan's car the other night involved toothpaste, perhaps you would like to explain what these were doing in your bathroom?"

  Luke raised his hand, deciding to take the offensive.

  "Brownlow." The tone of the housemaster's voice added an unspoken but clearly understood 'I knew you had something to do with this'.

  "Anyone could have put those in our bathroom, sir," said Luke, trying to keep his voice reasonable rather than aggressive. "I saw the car after it had been vandalised on Saturday night but I had nothing to do with it and I don't think any other Romans did, either." There was a general murmur of agreement from everyone else in the room but Mr Wilmot looked unconvinced.

  "I will be informing the headmaster of Mrs Mould's discovery," he said, importantly, waving the tubes of toothpaste in front of him. They clattered against each other like some sort of low-rent Newton's cradle and Luke had difficulty keeping a straight face. "You haven't heard the last of this. You may leave."

  Mr Wilmot strode out of the room and the Romans relaxed, a few muffled snorts of laughter breaking the silence he left behind.

  "Nice one, Brownlow," Oliver Samuels said as he left the room with the other year sevens. At this point it occurred to Luke that the other Romans assumed, like Pagan, that he'd been responsible for the toothpaste trick. The fight with Wharton seemed to have re-established his reputation as a troublemaker.

  Luke's inevitable summons to the headmaster's office came at lunchtime, announced over the school's public-address system as the year tens left their English classroom. He had been expecting this call all morning. Obviously Ned was going to want to talk to him about the whole Meredith thing. Luke got a few friendly pats on the back from his classmates as he left them and climbed the western staircase to the floor above.

  Ned's secretary was unsmiling, on this occasion, as she ushered Luke towards Ned's door. But Luke knew that she'd misread the situation once again. Ned just wanted a heart-to-heart; Luke wasn't in trouble this time, despite what the rest of the world seemed to think.

  His confidence began to seep away once he entered Ned's office. For one thing, Ned was sitting behind his desk, wearing his black robe and looking just as unfriendly as his secretary. For another, the empty toothpaste tubes were lined up on the desk in front of him like six small daggers. Some memory of naval court martial protocol popped into Luke's mind: if an accused officer was found guilty, he would know instantly on entering the courtroom because his sword would be pointing towards him. The narrow ends of the toothpaste tubes were all aimed at Luke as he crossed the room to stand in front of the discouraging desk.

  Ned did not waste time on greetings. "Did you deliberately set out to interrupt my meal with Ms Morgan on Saturday?"

  Luke had been all ready to deny responsibility for the toothpasting of Meredith's car and this question completely sideswiped him. Interrupting Ned's date was exactly what he had been planning to do on Saturday night. The denial that was lined up in his mind fell to pieces and left him without a complete sentence to deliver.

  "I-." Honesty and Ned's glare forced out the truth. "Yes."

  For the first time, Luke began to question the wisdom of interfering in Ned and Meredith's relationship. Actions which had seemed perfectly logical in the twilight of Saturday night were exposed as selfish and excessive in the stark Monday light of Ned's office.

  "Why?"

  Words failed Luke again. But Ned seemed to have plenty.

  "Nothing gives you the right to disrupt anyone else's personal life in the way you disrupted mine the other evening. Do you understand?"

  Luke nodded. The elation he had felt on Sunday morning when Meredith's car had gone had eva
porated. It was replaced by a growing realisation that he had meddled unforgivably in Ned's private life.

  "I defended you to Ms Morgan on Saturday night because I didn't think you were capable of pulling a stunt like that and then lying about it to my face. But I've since learnt what she told you on the way to the village and now Mr Wilmot has given me additional evidence that you were involved." Ned gestured to the shrivelled tubes in front of him. "And to cap it all, Mr Thomas tells me that you were in the central corridor of the school at an early hour yesterday. I presume you were checking to see whether your plan to scare Ms Morgan off had succeeded."

  Once again, Luke found himself admiring Ned's capacity for detective work.

  "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?"

  Tell him the toothpaste wasn't you, one side of Luke's conscience was saying, while the other was sneering: You deserve this, you should have left them to sort it out themselves and you lied to Pagan about the toothpaste being your idea. It serves you right. The conflicting voices prevented anything meaningful escaping from Luke's mouth.

  "I'm sorry," was all Luke could manage. A lingering (though rapidly dwindling) sense of gratitude towards the Vikings prevented him from telling Ned about how Meredith had nearly run the true culprits over, and there was no way that he was going to mention that most of the interference had been Pagan's idea, not his. There were so many things in his brain's 'Do Not Mention' list that he had trouble coming up with anything he could say.

  Luke searched Ned's face for some hint of the approachability he had shown on the previous Monday, but Ned stared stonily back at him, every inch the headmaster.

  "You're gated for the rest of the week," Ned told him.

  It was the last week before the half term break. This curfew meant he wouldn't be able to see Pagan for two weeks. Luke now regretting mentioning Pagan on Saturday night; Ned knew they were back together again and that gating Luke would be an effective way of punishing him.

  But Ned wasn't finished yet. "And you will write a letter to Ms Morgan apologising for the vandalism to her car. Hand it in to Mr Wilmot tomorrow morning."

  Luke flinched. Having to apologise to Meredith for something he hadn't even done was bad enough, but involving Mr Wilmot in the process was really rubbing Luke's nose in it. He swallowed down the objections which were piling up behind his teeth and forced himself to nod in acceptance of this ruling.

  "And in future, mind your own business," Ned finished. "Go and get your lunch."

  Luke escaped, resisting the temptation to run. He couldn't face the curiosity of his friends and wasn't hungry, anyway, so he went upstairs to the Romans' dormitory instead of downstairs to the hall. Here, he vented his frustration by punching his pillow, hard and often.

  Once he'd beaten his pillow into submission, Luke felt an urgent need to talk to someone who did not think he was some sort of criminal. He needed some moral support if he was to face the afternoon of lessons with Mr Wilmot. He unlocked his bedside locker and liberated his phone. At times like this in a young person's life, there is only one possible course of action.

  "Hello?"

  "Mum? It's Luke."

  "Are you OK?" Luke's normal time for phoning home was on a Sunday evening.

  "No, not really," said Luke, feeling his voice go slightly wobbly.

  "Hold on, I'll just put on a video for the girls and then you'll have my full attention."

  There was a clunk on the other end of the line, followed by background noises of Elsie and Molly chattering excitedly before the opening bars of The Jungle Book started up and then faded as Luke's mum left the living room for the peace of the kitchen. A wave of homesickness burst over Luke as he pictured the scene.

  "Right, I'm listening. What's the matter?"

  Now it came to it, Luke hardly knew where to begin. But his mum had known Ned for years; she might even already know who Meredith was.

  "Did Ned ever tell you about Meredith?" he asked.

  "His old girlfriend? Yes, we met her once, years ago, don't you remember? God, what a disaster that was."

  "No, I don't remember. What happened?"

  "I suppose you were very young, probably about the age the twins are now. Yes, that's right, it must have been just after the old man died, you know, Ned's dad. Ned came back to sort out the house and he brought Meredith with him. I didn't like her very much, to be honest, but you were at that age where you thought everyone must love you, even though it was fairly obvious to me that she didn't like children. She was wearing a beautiful cream-coloured summer dress and you climbed onto her lap, forgetting that you were carrying a cone of mint-choc-chip ice-cream."

  Luke's mum broke off at this point to laugh at the memory. "She ended up with a huge glob of green ice-cream on her lovely dress, right between her breasts. Oh dear, she was furious. We never saw her again."

  Luke was hugely cheered by this piece of family history and the knowledge that he had been responsible for another mint-related disaster in Meredith's past.

  "She's not back on the scene, is she?" asked Luke's mum

  "Yes," said Luke.

  "Oh, I don't like the sound of that."

  "Why not, Mum?"

  "Because she couldn't stand you when you were three, and I somehow don't think she's going to suddenly find you adorable at fourteen. Keep out of her way, Luke. And stay out of trouble."

  Thanks Mum, thought Luke. That advice is about a week too late. Out loud, he said, "OK Mum, thanks, I'd better go now. See you on Saturday."

  Now that his spirits had been restored somewhat, Luke became aware that he was hungry. He was going to need some food inside him if he was going to survive the afternoon without decking Mr Wilmot. He quickly texted Pagan to tell her about being gated, then locked the phone away (there was no way he was going to risk losing that again) and went downstairs to grab a sandwich.

  Everyone else had eaten already, meaning that the hall was almost empty when Luke entered it. By the time he had devoured the one remaining sandwich he was beginning to feel equal to the task of facing other people again. The bell rang and he steeled himself for an afternoon of being gloated over by a triumphant Mr Wilmot.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Luke's spirits took a nosedive again as he sat down next to Jay in Mr Wilmot's classroom.

  "You OK?" asked Jay, looking concerned.

  Luke just nodded, not yet ready to tell his friend about his conversation with Ned. The maths lesson went on for what felt like three hours. He was probably just imagining it, but Mr Wilmot seemed to be even more smug and self-satisfied than normal.

  When the bell rang for the afternoon break, Luke was first out of the room, making his way to the sanctuary of Julia's office. She was one of the few people Luke felt he could talk to openly about what had happened.

  "I thought I might be seeing you." Julia smiled at Luke and his mood ratcheted up a notch or two. He shut the door and Julia motioned him toward one of the green chairs and sat down in the other one.

  "Ned's not talking to me," Luke said, getting straight to the point which was troubling him.

  "But I thought you went to see him at lunchtime?"

  "Yeah, well he talked at me, but he wasn't talking to me," Luke said. He wasn't sure that he was making any sense, but Julia seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

  "Oh dear."

  "It's that Meredith woman," Luke said fiercely. "She's making me out to be some sort of delinquent and now Ned's treating me like one."

  Julia stayed quiet, letting Luke direct the conversation.

  "He's gated me for the rest of the week, so I won't be able to see Pagan. And I've got to write to Meredith and apologise for toothpasting her car."

  "But I thought you didn't do that."

  "I didn't," said Luke bitterly. "But everyone thinks I did. Even Pagan. And Ned thinks I did it just to mess up his date with Meredith."

  "But why didn't you tell him that it wasn't you?"

  "Because I did want to
mess up his date with Meredith."

  "Ah," said Julia.

  "But I didn't think he'd stop talking to me," Luke continued. "I thought he'd at least want to talk about going back to America, explain their plans, that sort of thing." Luke put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. "He just treated me like a naughty kid."

  "Oh, Luke," said Julia, shifting herself closer to him so that she could put a reassuring arm over Luke's shoulders. She couldn't think of any soothing words, but sometimes a simple hug is the best form of comfort. They sat in silence for a time, while Luke regained control of his emotions.

  "What should I do?" Luke asked, eventually.

  "I think you've got to just give it time, Luke. Keep a low profile this week, let Ned calm down a bit over half term and then try to talk to him when you get back."

  Luke nodded. "OK." Then he remembered his mother's story about the mint-choc-chip ice-cream and he related it to Julia.

  "Well there you go!" said Julia. "Maybe this is all some sort of karmic retribution for upsetting Meredith when you were three. Once you've written that letter of apology, everything will sort itself out."

  Luke admired Julia's optimism, but did not share it. Then the bell rang again. He thanked her for listening and hauled himself out of the chair to face another hour in Mr Wilmot's company.

  Julia held up her hand to stop him. "Hold on a second."

  Luke paused, his hand on the door handle, and looked back at her.

  "Did my daughter have anything to do with this idea of messing up Ned's date?"

  There was a brief pause. "No, no, of course not."

  "You are going to have to work on perfecting your ability to lie, Luke Brownlow," said Julia, giving him a hard stare over the top of her reading glasses. "You really are rubbish at it."

  Luke adopted a pleading expression of which any puppy would have been proud.

  "It's alright," said Julia irritably, waving him away. "I won't say anything to her."

  At the end of their IT lesson, Luke was just allowing himself to relax when Wharton reminded him that they were supposed to be making the captions for their display.

  "Oh yeah," said Luke. "I completely forgot about that."