The Viking and the Vendetta Page 5

  *

  The orienteers held their first training session of the year on Wednesday afternoon. Luke had kept up his running over the summer and it looked as though Wharton had, too: they were both equally determined to gain back the team places they had lost in the previous school year.

  In the changing rooms afterwards, Wharton wasted no time in returning to the attack.

  "So did you all know that Brown-nose has is going out with some slapper from the High School?"

  Luke said nothing, paying much closer attention to his shoe-laces than the task really required, trying to block out Wharton's words.

  "My brother told me that they used to have fights in the village with the High School boys," continued Wharton. Luke assumed that this was just a typical Wharton wind-up exercise, but Connor Reid, a Norman year 12 with no particular affection for Wharton, unexpectedly backed him up.

  "Yeah, that's right. My eldest brother was here the year that they all ended up in the village pond. The police got involved and everything. Caused quite a stir, back in the day. Of course, that was before Kelly's time."

  "Think it's a tradition that needs to be brought back, myself," announced Wharton.

  "Yeah, good luck with that," said Connor, in a sarcastic tone.

  Luke said nothing, but was pleased to note that there didn't seem to be much enthusiasm for Wharton's idea among the rest of the orienteers. It would be just typical of Wharton to resurrect the old feud now that Luke was making friends in the High School camp.

  The first meeting of the gardening club took place after school on Friday, in the school's library. Luke was relieved to see that he wasn't the only member: a fair few of the younger Romans had joined and there were three older boys from the other houses. Luke nodded a 'hello' to Guy Beeston, the only other year ten in the room.

  Julia had the sign-up sheet in her hand and was using it to identify the members of the club. "Of course we won't normally be meeting indoors," she explained, "it's going to be very much an outdoor, hands-on sort of club, but we need to do some research before we start. What I'd like to do is start building our garden on the site of the original kitchen garden for Hawley Lodge. And for that, we're going to need Mr Hannaford's help."

  Mr Hannaford was the school's librarian and Julia led the members of the gardening club along to the back of the library. Here, Mr Hannaford greeted them and showed them some papers and photographs which he'd laid out on a table for them to look at.

  "I found these at the local archives," he told them, "where they keep the old records relating to this area. Hawley Lodge was owned by an important local family once, and the archives has a number of documents and plans relating to the property. These are copies of the photographs and plans of the house from the early twentieth century, so they're about one hundred years old."

  Luke looked at one of the photographs, which showed a garden in front of a tall brick wall. A man and a girl in old-fashioned clothes stared at the camera, in front of several rows of precisely spaced leeks. The girl had a determined look on her face which reminded Luke of Pagan.

  "We think that's Jacob Turnham, the head gardener," Mr Hannaford said, pointing at the man in the photograph. "He was living in the head gardener's cottage here in the 1901 and 1911 census – that's the house where the headmaster lives now. The girl in the picture is his daughter, Violet."

  "A good name for a gardener's daughter," commented Julia. "Where was this garden, exactly?"

  Mr Hannaford pulled another paper out of his pile. It was a plan of the grounds of Hawley Lodge, dated 1900. "You can see the gardens as they were laid out around the house in this plan," he said. "The walled garden was between the gardener's cottage and the house, close to the kitchens which would have been on the west side of the main house in those days. Most of the walls were destroyed during the Second World War when a bomb hit the garden, but much of the north wall is still there. The path from the headmaster's house runs along the northern side of it."

  "I've talked to Mr Davey, the groundsman," Julia told them, "and he is willing to let us start our garden on the south side of the old wall. It's a bit overgrown with brambles and weeds at the moment, so our first job is going to be to clear some space. Let's go and have a look at it."

  The small group followed Julia out of the west entrance of the school. Guy and Luke fell into step together. "Did you bribe all these Romans to join the club?" asked Guy.

  "No," Luke said, "what makes you say that?"

  "Well, there seem to be rather a lot of them, that's all."

  "Nothing to do with me. What made you join?"

  "I like growing things. My parents own a garden centre and I miss helping them out with it, when I'm away at school."

  Guy's face and arms were tanned. His blond hair looked bleached and Luke supposed that it was a summer of working outdoors in the garden centre that had achieved this affect, rather than a trip to the hairdresser's.

  They had arrived at the site of the past and future garden. It did not look promising. Luke felt a pang of regret for the long-dead head gardener and his daughter as he looked at the overgrown patch of land they had once tended with such care. But Julia Randall did not seem discouraged. She waved at the area around them. "See how much sunshine this area gets," she told them. "No trees close by to shade it, and the wall to the north which will give the garden shelter from the worst of the weather. We're close to the school, so not far to carry any vegetables we grow. With a bit of work, this will make a lovely little garden, with room for expansion if we need it. We could even put up a greenhouse, perhaps."

  Julia was being wildly optimistic, in Luke's opinion. Nettles and brambles seemed to be the only things that this patch of land was willing to support.

  "It's too late to do any work on this today, and we're not dressed for the job," Julia announced, eyeing the school uniforms and polished black shoes of her team. "Mr Davey is willing to lend us some tools, as long as we return them to him clean, so I suggest that next week you meet me here after school, wearing clothes that you don't mind getting dirty, and we can start work on clearing our first bed. Is that OK with you?"

  She was answered with a series of nods around the circle.

  "Let's try that again with a little more enthusiasm. Will I see you here next Friday?"

  "Yes, Mrs Randall," came the reply.

  "You'll see, in just a few weeks this will look completely different. Off you go, then."

  The boys picked their way out of the bramble patch, dodging the stinging nettles and headed back to the school. Julia and Luke stayed behind and she gave him a questioning look. "What are the chances of any of them coming back next week?"

  Luke spread out his right hand and rocked it from side to side to suggest that the chances were a bit slim. "Fifty-fifty?"

  Julia's face registered her disappointment.

  "But I can probably put some pressure on those young Romans to turn up, if that'll help…"

  "Thanks, but I don't want to force people into taking part," Julia told him. "I know it looks a bit daunting at the moment." They stared at the nettles in silence.

  "I thought I heard your voices." Ned appeared from the direction of the school. "So this is the site for the garden, is it?"

  "Yes, although it doesn't look much like one at the moment," admitted Julia. "I think I've just scared most of my club off before we've even started. At this rate poor Luke will be the only active member."

  "I have every faith in you," Ned said, smiling. Julia began explaining her plans for the garden to him. Something about the close attention that Ned was paying to Julia's words made Luke aware that his own presence was surplus to requirements. He muttered an unheard excuse about having homework to do and went back into the main school building, feeling slightly disgruntled and wondering if Pagan had been right all along about the chances of a romance forming between her mother and Ned.

  *

  Luke turned up to the next session of the gardening club in some trepidat
ion, half-expecting to be the only person there. When he got to the site of the proposed garden, he was relieved to see that Guy was already there and that the four youngest Romans had still not lost their enthusiasm. Julia was handing out gloves, shears and garden forks. The six remaining gardening club members set to work with a will, carefully cutting back the brambles and nettles and then starting to dig out the roots. This was not an easy task. The roots of the nettles were long and yellow, with the texture and toughness of electric cables. By the time they had cleared a reasonably-sized bed, everyone was exhausted; their faces streaked with dirt and their shoes caked with mud.

  Julia was delighted with their progress. "Well done, guys. This is fantastic. Next week we'll be able to sow some seeds and garlic cloves. Maybe we'll be picking some lettuce and herbs before winter sets in. In later meetings we can build some cold-frames to protect the seedlings in the colder weather. But for now," she looked around at the circle of dirty faces. "For now, I think that you might all want to go and have a shower."

  The boys headed indoors. Guy peeled off to the stairs that led up to the south-west wing of the building, where the Saxons' dormitories were. Luke and the year seven Romans started to head towards the staircase on the other side of the school, which led up to the Romans' and Vikings' quarters.

  "Hold up," Luke said, suddenly noticing the state of their shoes. "I don't think we should go through the entrance hall – we'll coat the floor with dirt."

  Everyone stopped and looked at their feet.

  "Let's go up these stairs," said Luke. "Then if there are any awkward questions about the dirt, it'll be the Normans and Saxons that have to answer them."

  The younger Romans saw the sense in that idea, so they all changed direction and went up the western staircase.

  "Shame it won't be the Vikings that get blamed, eh?" asked the freckled, blonde boy who was climbing alongside Luke.

  Luke grunted in a non-committal manner.

  "Is it true that the Vikings raided your dormitory last year, and got away with it?" persisted the year seven boy, whose name, Luke recalled, was Oliver Samuels. Luke remembered the event all too clearly.

  "Yes, and they made a right mess of it. We were up half the night, cleaning up."

  "Did you raid their room, too?"

  "No," said Luke sourly, thinking of the plan to plant cigarette ends in Wharton's rubbish bin. "We were planning to, but it went wrong and I nearly got expelled over it."

  "Cool," said Oliver.

  They had almost reached the top of the staircase and Luke was about to explain that it had been anything but cool when he heard someone shouting on the floor above them. He held up his hand to stop the others from carrying on. It was Mr Garnet, the Saxons' housemaster, and he was berating Guy for walking mud into the school.

  "Go back," hissed Luke, and the small party crept quickly down the stairs again, doubling the depth of the trail of dirt they were leaving behind them. At the foot of the stairs, Luke spoke to the year sevens in a slightly louder voice than was strictly necessary: "I think we should take off our shoes here, so that we don't walk mud into the school."

  He was answered with grins by the younger boys. They all took off their footwear and resumed their original course across the entrance hall, leaving poor Guy to account for the quite unbelievable quantity of mud that was now plastered on the westerly staircase. Guy was in trouble already, reasoned Luke to himself; there was no point getting the Romans involved, too.

  Oliver and the other Romans were chattering and laughing about their narrow escape as they followed Luke back to their side of the school. Luke felt like a mother duck with a flotilla of ducklings bobbing along behind him. He had a strong feeling that he could head in any direction and this gaggle would follow, trusting him every step of the way. It made him feel uncomfortable, so he put on speed to put some distance between himself and the younger boys. He was feeling guilty about leaving Guy to take the blame for all the mess they'd made and wasn't in the mood to listen to the gleeful chatter of the year sevens.

 

  Chapter Six

  When the year nines left the Forum at their designated bedtime of 10.30pm, the year ten Romans usually had it to themselves. All the younger students were in bed and the older students (officially members of the Upper School) had generally gone off to the lordly privacy of their own study-bedrooms on the floor below. It was a peaceful half-hour and during the course of the autumn term, Taj had taken advantage of this rare private time to teach Luke and the others how to play poker.

  Part-way through their game on a Tuesday in mid-October, the door to the common room swung open and Mr Wilmot entered. It was rare for him to visit the Forum at all and almost unheard of at this time of day. He was not alone. Immediately behind him were the four newest Romans, pyjama-clad and sullen-faced. Luke and his friends scrambled to their feet and, under cover of their movement, Luke deftly swept aside the small pile of coins they'd been playing for and slid them into his pocket. If Mr Wilmot knew they'd been gambling there would be trouble and it looked like there was enough of that in the room already: the year sevens should have been fast asleep in their dormitory by now.

  The eleven-year-old boys were not only wide awake and out of bed, but were also carrying an incriminating array of items between them: a feather pillow, a Swiss-army knife and a can of shaving foam. They had clearly been intercepted on their way to raid one of the other House dormitories. Luke recognised all four of them as members of the gardening club. He caught the eye of Oliver Samuels, who was holding the knife, and pulled a sympathetic face at him. Then Luke realised that Mr Wilmot was glaring right at him, so he quickly replaced his expression with a more disapproving look.

  "Mr Thomas found these boys out of bed and in the Vikings' wing just now," Mr Wilmot informed them. "I think you year tens need to be reminded," (at this point he gave Luke a particularly sour look) "that as the senior boys on this floor, it is your responsibility to ensure that the younger students go to bed on time and stay there."

  Taj, Luke, Jay and Fred frowned down at the year seven boys. It was bad luck on them that they'd been caught by Mr Thomas. It meant that Mr Wilmot would be even more unforgiving than usual. He always was if one of the other housemasters intercepted a Roman doing something they shouldn't be. He took the knife and the can of shaving foam from the hands of the would-be raiders. "I will see you four in detention tomorrow evening." He turned back to the year tens. "And if there is any repetition of this sort of behaviour, you gentlemen will be joining them."

  A mumbled chorus of "Yes, sir," and "Sorry, sir," greeted these words.

  "You lot: off to bed," Mr Wilmot told the year sevens. Once they had trudged away, he closed the door behind them and came back to the older Romans. "Perhaps if you spent more time on your duties and less time on your personal entertainment, this situation might have been avoided." His glance rested upon the interrupted game of poker and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I presume you are all aware of the school's rules about gambling?"

  "Oh yes, sir," Taj assured him, enthusiastically. "We're just playing a game. Would you like to join us in a round?"

  The other Romans looked at Taj in alarm, but it seemed that he had hit on exactly the right thing to say. Mr Wilmot backed away from the table as though it had burst into flames. "Er, thank you, but no. I'm going to go and make sure that those year sevens are in bed." He managed to make this sound like a job that the year tens should be doing.

  When Mr Wilmot had gone, the boys collapsed into their seats and Luke pulled their pot-money out of his pocket and placed it back in the centre of the table.

  "Quick thinking, Luke," said Fred. "If he'd seen that cash we would've definitely been in detention tomorrow night." They turned their attention back to the game.

  "There's only one Viking dormitory they could have been raiding at this time of night," observed Luke. The others nodded.

  "Yeah," said Jay, "Wharton's. It's like they were getting revenge f
or that raid the Vikings made on us, last year, bless their little hearts."

  Luke remembered the conversation he'd had with Oliver Samuels after their gardening club meeting and his stomach gave a guilty lurch. Was this all his fault?

  "I particularly liked the feather pillow idea; that would be a nightmare to clean up," said Taj, gathering up the cards and starting to deal out a new hand. "A really nice touch. They deserve a medal, not detention."

  "I suppose we'd better not tell them that, though," said Fred.

  "No," agreed the others. They exhaled a collective sigh of regret, forced out by the new weight of responsibility on their shoulders.

  *

  Luke and Pagan were managing to see each other nearly every day, although both of them were finding that their homework load was increasing. When they couldn't see each other, they spent time phoning and sending text messages or emails to keep in touch. The rule at Hawley Lodge was that phones had to be kept locked away during the school day, so Luke got used to reading and sending texts to Pagan in the morning and again while he was doing his homework after school. It was a welcome distraction from the piles of maths that Mr Wilmot seemed to be heaping on the year tens.

  A more than usually exclamation-mark-heavy text arrived the morning after the year seven raid.

  Mum's going out on a date with Ned tonight!!!! He's taking her to the theatre!!!!

  xoxox

  Luke smiled down at the excitable message. He felt sure that Pagan wouldn't be completely happy until Ned and Julia got married.

  U picking out ur bridesmaids dress this wkend then? ;-) C U tonite. xxx

  He put his phone in his bedside locker and went downstairs for breakfast, sitting with Jay and Taj. Fred came in a few minutes later and Luke noticed him having a short conversation with Oliver Samuels, the would-be raider from year seven as they both loaded up their bowls with cornflakes. When he joined the other year ten Romans, Fred sat next to Luke and said "Looks like you've got yourself a fan club."