The Roman and the Runaway Page 5

  A massive snowball battle ensued. The Romans and Normans forged a temporary alliance and fought against the combined forces of the Vikings and Saxons. The sheets of quadratic equations lay forgotten on their desks.

  *

  Ned, Mrs Lloyd and Mr Wilmot had ironed out the administrative problem that they'd been dealing with in the school office. As he went to leave, a movement outside caught Ned's eye and he went over to window to see the year nines' snowball fight in full fling. It was now spilling out from behind the west wing of the school and into the courtyard.

  "Do this lot belong to you, John?" he asked, gesturing through the glass.

  Mr Wilmot joined him at the window. His face flushed. "Yes, they're mine, headmaster. I did leave them some work to get on with…"

  "Perhaps you'd like to show them up to my office?" suggested Ned

  Ten minutes later, the year nine students were filing past Miss Croft on their way to the headmaster's office. Luke caught her eye and received a small frown in return; a stark contrast to the friendliness of her welcome in September. Mr Kelly was standing behind his desk, making eye contact with the boys as they came in and gathered in front of his desk. As he did so, they all dropped their gazes to their feet. Luke hadn't been able to meet the headmaster's eyes at all and fixed his own on the pattern of the carpet. When the last boy had entered the room, Mr Wilmot shut the door behind them.

  The spacious office felt crowded with the whole class inside it. The year nines were panting and were all spattered with snow which was quickly melting into dampness on their clothes and spreading into dark patches on the carpet around their shoes. Their faces were red with the cold and the sensation in their fingers was beginning to change over from numbness to burning pain as they started to warm up again.

  "I understand Mr Wilmot left you some work to do," began the headmaster. "Did any of you manage to finish it?"

  No-one moved or spoke. The bell for the end of school rang in the courtyard outside.

  "You had only a few minutes to wait before you could have been enjoying the snow quite legitimately," Mr Kelly pointed out. And as if to force the point home, the shouts of the rest of the school began drifting up to the office from the courtyard. "You will all return to your classroom and finish the work you were set. And none of you is to go out into the grounds until Monday morning." He stared sternly round at them. "Unless any one of you feels he is more to blame than the rest?"

  There's your cue, thought Luke miserably to himself. A slight change in the positions of the boys around him suggested that they thought so, too, although no-one was unkind enough to look directly at him. He took a deep breath and looked up at Ned's face for the first time.

  "It was my fault, sir. I climbed out of the window first and threw the first snowball."

  Luke had once thought that he would never be able to address Ned as ‘sir' and keep a straight face but the word had fallen out of his mouth automatically in this particular set of circumstances.

  Ned gave Luke a very hard stare indeed, while the attitudes of the other boys relaxed somewhat as they sensed the imminent lightening of their own punishments.

  "Right. The work will still be completed tonight and Mr Wilmot will stay with you all to see that you do it properly. The rest of you will stay in this evening but can go outside at the weekend. Everyone except Brownlow can go back to the classroom with Mr Wilmot now."

  The class filed out, ushered by the grim-faced housemaster. When the door shut behind them all, Ned came out from behind his desk and sat on the front of it, still treating Luke to a frowning stare. "What on earth were you thinking of?"

  Luke tried to explain what had happened. His face was still red although now it was burning with embarrassment rather than cold. "I – I was just so hot. I couldn't concentrate. It looked beautiful outside. I opened the window and then – I guess I just lost it. I couldn't resist jumping out into the snow."

  Ned sighed. "Well, don't. I mean it Luke. This sort of thing might make you popular with your peers but it won't do your school career any good at all. Trouble has a knack of attracting more trouble, if you're not very careful. I've seen it happen and it can be a rapid and slippery slope. Do you understand me?"

  Luke nodded. "I'm really sorry. It was just a moment of …"

  "Stupidity, yes, and one I'm sure you are not intending to repeat. I will look into the temperature issue but your punishment stands and I will expect to find you spending most of your weekend working in the library on some extra maths I'll get Mr Wilmot to set you. I don't want to see you in this office again, Luke. Or climbing out of any more windows, for that matter. Now go back to your class."

  Luke left and returned to Mr Wilmot, trying to ignore the fun that the rest of the school seemed to be having outside. By the time he had managed to finish the equations he was the only boy left in the classroom. He handed in his work and left quickly, before Mr Wilmot could pass any comment. He was, however, treated to a black look from the housemaster and knew their relationship had hit a new low.

  He got back to the Forum, where the Roman year nines had been temporarily joined by most of the year nines of the other houses, to find, as Ned had predicted, that he was extremely popular. The rest of the class seemed to think the whole affair had been an excellent escapade. He tried not to enjoy the moment but failed completely and eventually gave up, figuring he'd have the rest of the weekend in which to feel suitably sorry.

  Chapter Six

  Ned was true to his word and the temperature in the school was brought down to more reasonable levels over the next few days. By Monday the weather had returned to its more usual December state and the snow was turning to a wet slush. The term ended on the following Friday, by which time the snow had all melted and December had returned to its usual grey, damp nature. Luke's family came to take him home.

  On the first morning of the Christmas break Luke was supervising the twins' breakfast when the morning's post landed on the front door mat. Luke went to collect it and deliver the envelopes to his parents, who were enjoying a peaceful cup of coffee in the living room. He returned to the kitchen to find that in his brief absence Molly had taken it upon herself to feed her own porridge to Elsie, who was not co-operating. More porridge was making its way into her blonde curls than into her mouth. Luke laughed at the mess they were making and carefully moved Molly's chair to a safe distance from Elsie's before wiping Elsie's hair and face clean with a damp dish cloth.

  Once he had managed to get a sufficient quantity of food inside his sisters, Luke cleared up their breakfast things and took the girls to join his parents in the living room. A small pile of opened mail lay on the coffee table in front of them and Luke immediately recognised the coat of arms of Hawley Lodge on the topmost piece of correspondence. His parents were reading through a small booklet which bore the same emblem. His school report.

  Luke thought of the snowball fight and of the incident with Ned Kelly's wanted poster and his stomach clenched uncomfortably around his own share of the breakfast porridge. He scanned his parents' faces anxiously, anticipating a repeat of the row that had erupted over the last school report they'd received.

  Mum and Dad looked up as he came further into the room and both of them smiled at him.

  "This is good, Luke," said Mum. "Much better than the last one."

  Luke collapsed into an armchair in relief.

  "Still some room for improvement," said Dad, "but they think you're coming along well."

  They passed the report over to Luke. The first page was divided into three sections for overall comments from his form teacher, house master and from the head. Luke's eyes skipped over the precise and familiar handwriting of Mr Wilmot and went straight to the last paragraph, where a different, more loosely-formed hand had written:

  Luke has settled into Hawley Lodge very well and has already proven himself to be a tremendous asset to the school's Orienteering team. His progress in academic work has been rapid and I am confident that he
will sustain this level of achievement in the remainder of Year 9.

  Delighted with this endorsement from Ned, Luke went back to read Mr Wilmot's words. These were less full of praise but were, nevertheless, positive in nature. The remainder of the booklet gave more detailed analyses of his performance in each subject.

  "Are you happy?" asked Mum.

  "You bet," said Luke, with a grin.

  "I'm very pleased with this, Luke, and if you want to see Kyle or any of your other old friends during the holiday, then you can," Mum told him. A flicker of a frown flitted across Dad's face but he did not revoke this renewal of Luke's freedom to associate with his former school friends. Sensing that his father was about to start telling him how justified they had been in their decision to send him to Hawley Lodge, Luke excused himself.

  "I'll call Kyle now," he said.

  Two hours later, Luke, Kyle and a handful of other friends were mooching around the big shopping centre in the town where Luke's old school was. Luke did not enjoy the trip as much as he had thought he would. The excitement he'd felt when he'd met up with his friends in the summer was missing now that he had his parents' approval. The other boys spent a lot of time laughing about things that had happened at their school; things which needed to be explained if Luke was to understand them. After a while, he gave up saying "So what was that about?" because even when the joke was explained, it didn't mean much to him. He was teased about not having been expelled yet and the others were outraged at the fact that he had over a week's more holiday than they did. Luke didn't dare to tell them that he would have nearly a month off at Easter and two months over the summer.

  The teasing turned more unpleasant when the group went outside to smoke the cigarettes that Kyle had, as usual, stolen from his father.

  "No thanks," said Luke, as the packet was passed to him.

  "Gone soft, Brownlow?" Kyle asked. He didn't often call Luke by his surname.

  "I'm kind of in training," Luke tried to explain, "I'm on the orienteering team at school, so-"

  Jeers and snorts of laughter greeted this admission. "You're on a team?"

  Luke had forgotten this group's attitude towards joining any kind of organised school activity. His attempts to explain were shouted down and he subsided into silence. Shortly afterwards he left his former friends and took the early bus back to the village. He didn't call Kyle again.

  After the New Year, Ned came round to see if Luke was interested in going for a hike. Having spent three weeks inside the cottage surrounded by his sisters' sea of pink plastic and doing his best not to provoke his father in any way, Luke was glad to get outside and go for a walk with his neighbour. He thought things might feel a bit awkward between them but it was almost as though the intervening weeks at school were part of other people's lives. They seemed to pick up the relationship they'd had in the summer as if they hadn't seen each other since then and neither of them talked directly about anything that had happened at Hawley Lodge, although they did discuss the orienteering competitions in which Luke had been taking part.

  Term was going to start on a Tuesday and Ned had arranged with the Brownlows that he would drive Luke back to the school on the day before, to save them from making the journey. As they approached Hawley Lodge, the thoughts of both neighbours returned to school matters.

  "I understand you worked out who Ned Kelly was," commented Ned, recalling his half-term conversation with the housemasters.

  "Did you see the poster?" Luke asked.

  "No but I heard about it," replied Ned. "I don't think Mr Wilmot was too impressed."

  Luke laughed. "No, he wasn't. I should have told him it was all your fault for suggesting I look him up."

  Ned parked in the area reserved for staff cars on the eastern side of the school. As Luke got his rucksack out of the car's boot, he became conscious that he was being watched. He looked up to see Wharton on the steps leading up to the door on the east wall of the school, carrying a bag and looking curiously over at Luke and Ned. His heart sank. What would Wharton make of this situation?

  "Thanks for the lift!" he said to Ned, before shouldering his backpack and heading towards the school. Wharton had gone inside before Luke reached the entrance but he was waiting for him as Luke went through the door.

  "Doesn't Kelly trust you to get here by yourself, Brown-nose?"

  Luke ignored him and went to climb the staircase up to the next floor.

  "Or is it that your parents can't afford a car and so one of the staff has to come and pick you up?" Wharton continued, dogging Luke's footsteps.

  Luke said nothing, refusing to rise to his jibes.

  "So that's how you got onto the orienteering team, was it? You're best buddies with Kelly?"

  They'd almost reached the first-floor landing and were about to round the corner to the next staircase. This last comment needled Luke into making a response.

  "Piss off, Wharton," he said, just as Mr Wilmot came down the stairs in the opposite direction. He stopped them both.

  "That sort of language is unacceptable, Brownlow. Apologise to Wharton."

  Luke regarded the smug smile on Wharton's face and had great difficulty in forming the words of the apology. "I'm sorry I swore at you."

  "Next time, Brownlow, it will be a detention," said Mr Wilmot. "Keep a civil tongue in your head."

  "Yes, sir," Luke replied, thinking that the new term could hardly have started in a worse way. Was Mr Wilmot always going to be near him whenever he did something wrong? He continued up to his dormitory, with Wharton's unwelcome presence and mocking laughter accompanying him up the stairwell.

  Despite this unfortunate beginning to the term, it was good to be back with Jay, Taj, Fred and the other students. Luke soon got back into the routines of school life. Wharton was the only real nuisance; their rivalry in orienteering seemed to be spilling over into day-to-day life more regularly. In orienteering competitions they were well-matched and their determination to out-perform each other was proving beneficial for the school team, as their fitness and their speed and skill improved.

  At a competition shortly before the Easter break, Luke found himself at the start line with Wharton. Competitors set off at timed intervals and the person due to start before Wharton was a tall, slim, dark-haired girl of about their age who was from one of the other schools.

  Wharton appraised the girl's figure with an expression of distaste on his face. "God, they could have given me someone worth chasing. She's got no arse and probably no tits either."

  The back of the girl's neck flushed red.

  "Shut up, Wharton," said Luke, embarrassed on the girl's behalf.

  She set off and soon afterwards, Wharton, and then Luke, made their starts.

  Luke was making good progress around the course when he heard a whistle blowing. All the runners carried whistles, which were only supposed to be used in emergencies. Luke carried on running, as the noise was in front of him. In a minute or two, he was very close to the whistling, which was coming from somewhere just to the right of the forest path he'd been following. There was a steep slope on that side; Luke stopped and scanned the area to see who was sounding the alarm and why.

  The tall girl who had been at the start line in front of Wharton was sitting a short way from the path, her hands wrapped around her left ankle and her whistle in her mouth.

  "Are you alright?" Luke asked, although it was fairly obvious she was not.

  The girl removed her whistle and said, through clenched teeth, "Sprained ankle."

  It was one of the main rules of orienteering that competitors should always stop and help anyone who had been injured. Luke went down to the girl and offered her his hand. "Come on, let's get you back to the path and get some help."

  He pulled her upright and she put her arm across his shoulders, leaning her weight onto him as she hopped on her right foot. Like this, they made their way back to the path. Luke checked his map and saw that they were not far from the finishing point, although th
ere was still more than half of the course to complete.

  "Look," he said, showing the girl the map, "we've only got about four hundred metres to the finish. Do you think you can make that distance, walking like this?"

  The girl nodded and they started back down the hill Luke had just climbed. The next competitor was coming towards them. He was a year eleven boy from Hawley Lodge called Connor Reid, who was in the Normans' house. He stopped when he saw Luke and the girl.

  "Do you need any help?" he asked.

  "No, it's OK, I think we'll be fine like this," said Luke. "You carry on."

  "At least you two stopped," observed the girl. "That horrible boy who started in front of you just looked at me and laughed and then ran on without asking if he could help!"

  This was a serious breach of orienteering rules and Luke glanced at Connor, who was frowning.

  "It was Wharton, wasn't it?" asked Connor.

  Luke nodded but said nothing. He would leave it up to Connor to decide whether to report Wharton's failure to stop.

  "Good luck, Reid," he said and he and the girl continued their limping journey to the finish line, where she was whisked away by the event organisers to the first aid tent. Luke went over to Mr Pettit, the sports teacher and orienteering club leader, to explain why he had failed to finish the course.

  Wharton appeared twenty minutes later, crowing about his excellent time. Then he noticed Luke and his jubilation evaporated. "How did you get back before me, Brownlow? You didn't pass me on the course. Did you cheat?"

  Luke said nothing but gave Wharton a look of contempt. Reid came through the finishing line a few minutes afterwards and then went straight to talk with Mr Pettit. After a short consultation, Mr Pettit came across to Wharton and Luke.