Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker Page 9

  “No, sir, I – ”

  Whack! Whack! Whack! Mr Gibber jumped up and down, thrashing Septimus’s desk from all angles. Septimus shrank back as the blows just missed him.

  “Tell me, Trant! You think I’m a moron, don’t you? You think I’m a monkey-brain!”

  “No, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, I am! You don’t respect me, do you? I’m a clown and an idiot! Say it!”

  He had gone red in the face and seemed about to burst a blood vessel. Septimus kept shaking his head, unable to make himself heard.

  “And what about my nose?” Mr Gibber pointed to his nose. “It makes you want to laugh, doesn’t it? Like a squashed tomato! You think it’s the most stupid nose that ever existed! Yes you do, I can see you do!”

  He whacked so hard that his cane broke in two. One half went zinging across the room, until Lumbridge stood up in his seat and caught it. The class cheered.

  Mr Gibber quietened down, staring at the stump in his hand. “That was my Number Eleven. Look what you’ve done.”

  He sat behind his desk and ordered the class to write out lines. “Fifty times. The Thames Estuary is a very bad coastline.”

  The class groaned.

  “Yes, yes. Get started.”

  While Mr Gibber sulked, the class pretended to write lines in their exercise books. Fefferley tilted his book to show Col what he was really producing: a picture of Mr Gibber leading an army of firm outstanding coastlines against an army of weak and inward coastlines. The coastlines snapped at each other with balloon-cries of “Yaragh!”, “Hail”, “Take that!” and “Kersplunk!”

  Col was sorry he’d got Septimus into trouble. He understood the hierarchy well enough by now. Mr Gibber put on an exaggerated servility towards the elite group, ignored the blockies and showered his sarcasm on the crawlers and climbers. When he really wanted to bluster and perform, it was always a grindboy he picked on.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-One

  Col’s weekend was filled with social activities. On Saturday, he accompanied Ebnolia on three family calls, and attended a committee meeting of the Imperial Charitable Society and an evening of amateur theatricals put on by the Bassimors. His life moved at a different pace now that his diffident, dreamy mother no longer organised his days. There was never a spare moment with his grandmother in charge.

  For Sunday, she had arranged a picnic at a park on Thirty-Sixth Deck. She took the younger family members, Col, Gillabeth and Antrobus, and four Menials including her new favourite, Wicky Popo.

  The park was half an hour’s walk away at the back of Worldshaker. It was an enclosed court surrounded by high metal walls but open at the top. Col could see smoke drifting across overhead, though he couldn’t see the funnels from which it came. He had a much better grasp on the geography of the juggernaut now.

  A dozen families were already present. Respectable ladies under white parasols supervised children playing in the sandpit, or on seesaws, slides and roundabouts.

  Several ladies whose family status was not too far below the Porpentines’ came across to pay their respects to Ebnolia. Others from lesser professional families smiled from a distance and warned their children to play in a well-bred manner.

  Gillabeth took Antrobus over to the slides. She tucked his knickerbockers into his socks and helped him to the top of the lowest slide.

  “No flapping, no waving,” she ordered. “You know how Grandmother likes to see you slide.”

  Antrobus came sliding down, arms fixed at his sides like a wooden doll. There was no way of telling whether he enjoyed or hated the experience.

  “Now again,” said Gillabeth.

  Meanwhile the Menials had begun setting up the picnic things. Wicky Popo struggled helplessly with a fold-up chair. He had looked frail the last time Col had seen him, but now he looked downright sickly.

  “Poor Wicky Popo.” Ebnolia had finished with civilities and bobbed up beside Col. “Not well at all.”

  Grandmother was known for her soft heart and compassion towards Menials, Col remembered. They watched as Wicky Popo studied the chairs that other Menials had unfolded, yet still couldn’t work out the trick of it.

  “Look at the poor darling!” Grandmother hugged herself in delight. “So puzzled he looks! Did you ever see anything so sweet?”

  One of the other Menials took the chair from Wicky Popo and unfolded it. Grandmother was disappointed.

  “What a shame he couldn’t do it himself. How sorry he looks! Wrinkling up his nose. I just love his dear little nose! And those big, sad eyes!”

  The other Menial took a pile of plates from a hamper and showed Wicky Popo how to lay them out on the table.

  “Oh, he’s trying so hard.” Grandmother was all sympathy. “He wants to do it properly. If only he could speak and tell everyone how hard he’s trying.”

  Col frowned. “But they never do, do they?”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “Speak.”

  “No, of course not. They’re Menials so they don’t need to. They have very simple lives, with none of our worries.”

  “Are you sure? You said Wicky Popo looks sad.”

  “Sad eyes, dear. Not sadness as we’d feel it. He’s still contented because he doesn’t desire anything more.”

  Col remembered Riff’s view on the contentment of Menials. Haifa life, she’d called it.

  “What if a Filthy didn’t want to be made into a Menial?” he asked.

  Grandmother Ebnolia raised her eyebrows at the word Filthy. “Tch, tch, Colbert. Such silly ideas you have. Of course they want to be made into Menials.”

  “I heard of one who didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Ten days ago. Two officers came checking my cabin for a Filthy who’d escaped in the middle of the night.”

  “They told you that?” Grandmother clicked her tongue against her tiny white teeth. “Ah yes, I remember now. A very ignorant Filthy girl.”

  “The officers said she didn’t want to be made into a Menial.” Col bent the facts a little.

  “That’s because Filthies get frightened, Colbert. They’re not rational beings, you know.” Grandmother smiled brightly. “Anyway, that particular girl was found soon after. Now she’s a perfectly happy Menial, working in the kitchens.”

  By sheer force of habit, Col almost believed her. Throughout his entire life, anything that Grandmother told him was as good as if he’d seen it with his own eyes. But this time, he knew better!

  “Where did they find her?”

  Grandmother reflected a moment. “Ah yes, she was hiding under the stairs by the Warwickshire Lounge.”

  She was making it up! Yet she said it with such conviction, nodding her head like a little bird. Looking into her eyes, Col felt dizzy from the abyss yawning in front of him. How many other times had she been making things up?

  There was a crash of breaking china, and Wicky Popo stood looking down at a plate he’d dropped. Grandmother clapped her hands together.

  “Oh dear! Oh dear! Now see what he’s done! Isn’t he hopeless! I’ll have to give him a tiny treat to make him feel better. Something to eat, perhaps.” She tut-tutted sweetly to herself. “I know I shouldn’t, but he’s so adorable.”

  Col wasn’t listening. He was thinking back on all the things he seemed to have known forever, that seemed to have come from his own experience. But what if they were only things he’d been told? The more he thought back, the more his childhood disappeared into a strange obscurity. Perhaps his whole world was created out of things he’d been told…

  “I’m going to have a go on the swings,” he said, and hurried off to the other side of the park.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Two

  Col’s second week at school was much like the first. On Monday, Mr Gibber taught them the admirable qualities of proper nouns, but could hardly contain his contempt for indefinite articles. On Tuesday, he went into an apoplectic fit over an algebra equation
that refused to work out. On Wednesday, he picked on a grindboy called Swiddlington and hurled abuse at him like a monkey hurling coconuts.

  Col had always had doubts about Mr Gibber’s lessons. Now he suspected that his teacher was making things up, just as much as Grandmother Ebnolia. He stopped paying attention in class and let his mind wander.

  There were other things he didn’t believe at school, such as the mythology of the toilets at the far end of the yard. They were smelly, lightless cubicles, and the students went there as little as possible.

  “They go all the way down Below,” Fefferley giggled.

  “So whatever you do – ” Flarrow began.

  “ – drops onto the heads of the Filthies,” Hythe finished.

  “Then they try to come and get you,” said Haugh.

  “Wriggle up through the hole,” said Lumbridge.

  Col shook his head. “It’s too narrow.”

  But nobody was listening.

  “You wouldn’t want to be on the seat when a Filthy makes a grab for you,” said Pugh.

  They were half-laughing and half-shuddering. Col was amazed they could believe such nonsense. Did they think that Filthies were like snakes. But he didn’t argue. He couldn’t afford to let on that he knew what a Filthy really looked like.

  In the Tuesday lunch break, the group played a joke on a crawler called Weffington, who had gone into one of the toilets. Creeping up outside, they made sounds of grunting, gobbling and heavy breathing, supposedly like a Filthy climbing up the pipe. When Weffington tried to escape, Lumbridge held on to the outside door handle and stopped him from opening the door.

  Col felt a bit sorry for him when they finally let him out. After five minutes, he was obviously in a state of terror. For the rest of the group, his white face only made the joke better.

  When Col had started school, he’d felt like a beginner compared to other students; now he felt older and more mature. The silliness over the toilets was just one part of the general naivety. They could be naughty in a schoolboy way, but they had no idea of real wrongdoing…like hiding and helping a Filthy.

  He thought more and more about Riff. When his mind wandered in class, it was to her that it wandered. He remembered her changed appearance after she’d washed in his washbasin…her skin glowing, her blonde-and-black hair almost silky…and the fast, flickering dance she’d done. Then there was the time she’d tried to hold on to his book and the boast she’d made: “I bet I could read ten times better’n you.”

  Such an incredible few days…He felt guilty about his thoughts, but it was a sweet, melancholy sort of guilt that he didn’t want to relinquish. It spread all through him and made a strange tightness in his throat and chest.

  He’d actually touched her when he wrestled the book from her hands!

  He looked round the classroom and wondered what the students would say if they could see into his mind. Here he was sitting in the middle of them, and they could never begin to guess. Even that thought was oddly pleasing, oddly seductive.

  Although he had cut off from Mr Gibber’s lessons, his marks hardly suffered. He came first in a Physics test, second in a spelling test and third in a grammar test. But he was starting to have doubts about Mr Gibber’s marking.

  The thing that most puzzled him was that the grindboys always wrote the longest answers, yet always received the lowest marks. Septimus Trant, who wrote more than anyone, was usually bottom of the class. Col watched him in a History test on Wednesday afternoon as he filled up page after page. Was he writing complete drivel, or what?

  The paths of grindboys and the elite never crossed, and Col hadn’t talked to Septimus since his first day at the Academy. Today, though, he decided to quiz him after school.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Three

  “Wait!”

  Col had followed Septimus for a couple of corridors on his way home. Septimus stopped and turned. He seemed nervous, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

  “You shouldn’t be seen with me,” he said. “It’ll make trouble for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a grindboy and you’re a Porpentine.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should. The Squellinghams will drag you down if they get the chance.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Everyone knows it.”

  Col shook his head. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

  “I watched you write eight pages in the History test,” he said. “Why do you keep getting bottom marks?”

  Septimus shrugged and remained silent.

  “Is it because you don’t answer the question?”

  “Of course I answer the question.” An angry, defensive look came over Septimus’s face. “I get bottom marks because the Gibber never reads what I write.”

  “What?”

  His pale eyes stared full into Col’s. “You don’t get it, do you? The Gibber decides the marks with the Squellingham twins. They have meetings after school. They’re probably deciding the History marks right now. Sometimes they write in answers to fit the marks.”

  “But I beat Hythe in spelling. I beat both of them in Physics.”

  “Only because they wanted you to. They’ve probably decided to make you best in some subjects and second best in others.”

  “What about wanting to drag me down, like you said?”

  “They won’t do it that way. The system works for people like you.”

  “You ought to complain.”

  Septimus snorted. “Who to?”

  When he turned and walked on, Col still kept him company. He seemed to be teetering on the edge of a confession.

  Finally, he burst out with it. “I can prove Mr Gibber doesn’t read my answers. Because if he did, I’d be expelled.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my answers contradict everything he says.”

  “You don’t agree with his lessons?”

  “No. Do you?”

  Col grinned. “No. Moral right angles. Immoral coastlines. Pure elements and dirty compounds.”

  Septimus grinned too. “Proper proper nouns. Noah’s Ark as the first juggernaut. I contradicted that in my answer this afternoon.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “It’s rubbish. I’ve read books about the Crusades and the Spanish Armada and Oliver Cromwell. There were no juggernauts then.”

  Col knew nothing about Crusades or Spanish Armada or Oliver Cromwell, but he knew all about one historical period.

  “Not in the time of the Greeks or Romans either. Unless they were invented and then forgotten.”

  “Impossible. Like Noah being our Queen’s ancestor.”

  “What about the Filthies?”

  Septimus didn’t snigger over the word. “They weren’t around either. They didn’t exist in the seventeenth century.”

  “So where did they come from?”

  “Don’t know. I can’t find any books on later history in the school library.”

  “Maybe they arrived at the same time as the juggernauts,” Col suggested.

  “Don’t know,” Septimus repeated. “I don’t even know what Filthies look like.”

  It was on the tip of Col’s tongue to say he did know what they looked like. The urge to share his secret was overwhelming, he’d been holding it in so long. But no, too risky…

  They walked on again in silence.

  Then Col had an idea. “We could ask my old tutor to find out.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he loves research and finding out the truth. He’d do it out of interest. And he has the whole Norfolk Library to look things up in.”

  “The Norfolk Library?” Septimus’s eyes went wide. “That’s huge, isn’t it?”

  “Thousands and thousands of books.” Col knitted his brow. “I know. We’ll tell him we’ve got a school History project. For Mr Gibber.”

  Septimus laughed. “The Early History of Jugg
ernauts and Filthies,” he proposed.

  “Yes. Good. Let’s see if he’s in the Norfolk Library now.”

  Col led the way to Forty-Fourth Deck. Septimus had turned into a different person, almost quivering with excitement.

  He was even more excited when they entered the library. The sight of so many books made him gasp out loud. He veered at once towards the shelves, as if itching to touch the leather-bound spines.

  Col reminded him of their purpose. “Professor Twillip. Over there.”

  As usual, Professor Twillip was working at a table in the main reading room. His white hair gleamed under the single electric light. He looked up with surprise, then pleasure, as the two boys approached.

  “Well, well, Colbert. Revisiting old haunts, eh? And who’s this with you?”

  Col introduced Septimus. Professor Twillip clearly had no notion of the Trant family’s lower rank on the social scale.

  “We were hoping you could help us with a History project,” said Col.

  “History, eh?” Professor Twillip rubbed his hands together. “Not my speciality. But tell me, tell me.”

  “The Early History of Juggernauts and Filthies,” said Col.

  “Where they came from,” added Septimus.

  “Hmm. There were no juggernauts or Filthies at the time of the Roman Empire. So I suppose…” Professor Twillip drummed on the table with his fingertips, then broke out in a smile. “I suppose I shall have to look it up.” He surveyed the shelves in the gloom. “I wonder where to start.”

  Septimus gazed around too. “Isn’t there a list?”

  “No. These books are all very old. They’ve never been catalogued. Nor even arranged by subject matter.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  For the first time, Professor Twillip peered over the top of his glasses and took a close look at Septimus. “Yes, it does seem a little foolish,” he agreed mildly. “I usually know where to find the books I want. But history after the Greeks and Romans…”