School for Skylarks Read online

  Cat’s mouth hung open, astonished, and Lyla, heartened by the impression she seemed to be making, continued.

  ‘So Winnie has to do all the things men won’t do, like picking up dirty socks.’

  ‘Are there lots of socks in your house?’ asked Cat, rather arch.

  ‘That’s a very literal-minded thing to ask,’ said Lyla, equally arch.

  Cat laughed. She shoved her book beneath a mattress, grabbed Lyla’s hand and together they slipped out into the file of girls, and Lyla realized she still hadn’t found out if Faye knew about her uniform or not.

  Double geography was very disappointing, and after that came break-time, and once she’d stood in line for milk and biscuits Lyla saw that Miss Trumpet, who seemed to be in charge of mail, was standing beside Old Alfred and handing out letters, so she lingered nearby, hoping there’d be something from Mop. But Miss Trumpet got to the end of the Mail In tray and there was nothing for Lyla.

  Everyone else was chatting in groups, and no one was including her in their group, so Lyla went to a corner of the hall, turned her back to the room, tore a sheet from her exercise book and sat down to write another letter to Mop.

  Furlongs

  Ladywood

  North Devon

  Dearest Mop,

  The Pinnacle (she is the headmistress) is in Sir Walter Raleigh’s Room, which is even bigger than Aunt Ada’s, but she needs a big room because she has all the company of heaven with her and that needs spacious accommodation. Solomon is very protective of Furlongs and very concerned about the Laundry being used for domestic science classes, the Orangery for art classes, the Music Room for French and history, as well as upset that all the corridors smell of cauliflower.

  Faye laughs when she sees me because I clop around a bit in my shoes as they are too big. When Faye laughs, everyone else laughs too, because everyone wants to be friends with Faye.

  We did games yesterday. Pigeon teaches games and history but she is even worse at games than she is at history because of her head going in and out when she walks. That is what happens to you if you have a surname like Pigeon, but if you giggle at her she threatens you with Black Jake. Black Jake is actually only an outdoor plimsoll.

  By the way, Garden Hill girls do algebra, but I told the Pinnacle you can get along quite well without algebra because you don’t ever use it in your whole life, so maybe I won’t have to do it. I did double geography, but it was no good because there were only estuaries in it and I can’t see why they’re interesting at all.

  Do you ever worry about me? I know worrying can make you ill and I know I should just flick worries away, sort of like flicking a fly from my shoulder. I do try to do that but they just come back again.

  One worry that won’t go away is that I almost made a friend. She is called Cat, but she doesn’t like me any more, all because of Bucket. The other girls who are my age who I know so far are:

  1. Edith, who is wet and weedy.

  2. Flea (actually Felicita), who faints on purpose to get out of playing a thing called lacrosse, which happens to be the silliest game ever invented.

  3. Brenda, who never has anyone to talk to.

  4. Elspeth, who is even worse than me at everything and always moaning about her chillblains.

  5. Faye Peak, who sucks up to everyone especially the head girl. Faye is dorm prefect and I don’t like her.

  6. Imelda, who you wouldn’t like because her feet are made of clay.

  7. Mary Masters who is the head girl and she is horrid but not as horrid as Faye.

  I have to eat lunch and tea with the Lower School in the Red Library. Now Prudence has to make school things like sago and semolina and they taste horrid because Prudence is NO GOOD AT PUDDINGS and because she has no one to help her because she won’t allow the school staff into her kitchens.

  No one talks to me and they all stare and I am really very unhappy, and they all whisper about me and laugh at me behind my back. The only person who likes me is Bucket. I gave him a ping-pong ball and he was very delighted about that.

  Every day Imelda says there will be bombs in London any minute now, and I do so hope you will write and tell me that everything is all right, because it’s very hard to be worried about your mother all day. Have we been bombed? Is home still there?

  Every day I hope there’ll be a letter, but there never is, so please, please write.

  Lyla decided not to say anything about putting her hands on her head in history as she wasn’t sure at all what Mop would think about that and wrote instead:

  Don’t worry because soon I will get a new plan and it won’t go wrong and soon I will come home.

  All my love,

  Lyla

  23

  THE ANCIENT GREEKS

  Art had looked as if it might be fun because the teacher, Miss Primrose, might actually have been born in the current century and was really quite young and pretty. Not as pretty as Mop, Lyla decided, but still. She expected that art would be even easier than history because she was quite good at drawing, even if doing it with a Ferret up your sleeve was a bit tricky.

  Another thing that was nice was that Cat had chosen the easel next to Lyla, and all was going well until the Pinnacle appeared at the door. She paused there and surveyed the Orangery. Her eyes focused on the statues that lined the room, which were perhaps plundered from an acropolis or other ancient place. Pinnacle’s lips tightened.

  ‘Put down your charcoal immediately. This will not do; it is most improper. Your scarves girls, quickly, around the lower parts of those statues. They must be covered.’

  Lyla’s hand-me-downs had not included a scarf, but when the rest of the class returned from the makeshift cloakroom in the lobby of the Orangery, she helped Cat tie hers around the lower parts of Odysseus, and as they did so they caught each other’s eyes and both giggled.

  ‘Lyla Spence, you would do a great deal better at this school if you were to behave a little less like a small child,’ said Pinnacle.

  Lyla’s cheeks burned. She hurried back to her easel and lowered her head.

  Pinnacle continued to watch Lyla intently. ‘It is high time that you grew up.’

  ‘Nonsense, Pintuck.’ Great Aunt Ada had drifted into the Orangery. ‘The problem with the world –’ she took Pinnacle by the elbow – ‘is that there are too many grown-ups in it, don’t you think?’ Ada released her grip and looked around, her gaze alighting on the Ancient Greeks, and with a twinkle of amusement she said. ‘My word! What on earth has happened to my marbles? Do my Romans and Greeks have a chill? Marvellous, Pinfish, marvellous, very fetching. I wonder Phidias never thought of scarves.’

  That night, still stinging from Pinnacle’s instruction to grow up, Lyla paced about her room and eventually decided that she must write to Mop once more, because there were some things she needed to know and she had no one else to ask.

  Furlongs

  Ladywood

  North Devon

  Dearest Mop,

  People are always telling me to grow up and maybe I am growing up more slowly than other people – but most of the time I actually feel already all grown up on the inside so perhaps its only on the outside that I look young. Great Aunt Ada makes me feel like that because somehow she’s got all inside out, all young on the inside but crumpled on the outside.

  Anyway, I don’t know how to grow up any quicker. I do lots of grown-up things with you, but perhaps doing grown-up things isn’t the same as being grown up. Anyway, I don’t think you can rush growing up. It takes longer than people say. That’s true, isn’t it?

  I so wish you were here to tell me that and lots of other things that one needs to know. How to make friends, for example. Everyone else knows how to do that but I don’t, and they don’t teach you any of those useful sorts of things in schools – they only teach you about dim people like Celts; that’s how I know you’re right about there being no need for school.

  All my love,

  Lyla

  24

/>   THE MAIL IN TRAY

  It was break-time again, and once again Lyla went to join the group around Miss Trumpet. Poor Old Alfred was a little overshadowed now by the great pile of mail that seemed to arrive every day in the Mail In tray, but somehow Lyla still seemed to feel his steely gaze on her as she waited. The pile was diminishing, and Lyla began to tense. Surely Mop would have written by now. Cat had a letter from her parents and so did Mary Masters. It was normal for parents to write.

  ‘Elspeth Gibbs, Elsie Flynn, Liza Durham . . .’

  Miss Trumpet rattled off names – every name, it seemed, but that of Lyla Spence.

  ‘Lyla Spence.’

  Lyla spun round and leaped towards Miss Trumpet, almost snatching it from her hands. Only then her hand hesitated over the envelope. She froze for a second, then raised her chin a little and stepped back.

  ‘Actually, I don’t want it.’

  ‘And what am I to do with it?’

  ‘Well, you see, I don’t read letters from my father. The letters that come from Father have to be given to Solomon,’ said Lyla. ‘He makes them into fighter planes and sends them off.’ She made a meandering gesture with her arm, then turned her back and stalked out as everyone stared after her.

  25

  A VICKERS WELLINGTON LN514 IN THE DAMSON

  My darling Lyla,

  Things are not going well for us in France. The troops in the north east are surrounded and we are forced to retreat and must somehow hope to get the rest of our men safely home, but it will be a race against time.

  Thank heavens Churchill is at last in power. Thank heavens too for South Africa and Canada who have come in on our side. Things may well, one day, take a turn for the better.

  Enough of this. I imagine that at Furlongs the war will seem very far away to you, but perhaps you will think sometimes of me, and perhaps one day you will think more kindly of me too.

  You will always be everything to me.

  Yours always,

  Father

  26

  THE QUEEN’S HORSES

  Lyla heard a knock. Cautiously she opened the door, and there was Cat, facing Lyla through the half-open door. Cat paused, then asked, ‘Why won’t you read letters from your father?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Did Trumpet give the letter to Solomon?’ demanded Lyla.

  ‘Yes, but why did she have to give it to him?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Because he has a gift for fighter planes, and fighter planes are what you turn letters into if you don’t want them,’ answered Lyla.

  ‘That’s not at all normal,’ said Cat.

  ‘I don’t care if you don’t think I’m normal,’ responded Lyla.

  ‘Not just not normal, Lyla – peculiar. That’s what you are.’

  ‘Certain things have made me that way,’ replied Lyla. ‘Things and people,’ she added darkly, turning away. ‘Anyway, I don’t care if everyone stares and talks about me behind my back.’ She whirled back round to face Cat. ‘You wouldn’t read his letters either if he was your father.’ She paused and saw that she had Cat’s full attention, and because she so rarely had anyone’s full attention, she continued, ‘He left us. That’s why I don’t read his letters. He left us, then he stole me and dumped me here.’

  ‘Stole you?’ said Cat, walking to the bed and sitting on the edge of it.

  Lyla was pleased Cat had done that, so she went over and sat by her.

  ‘Yes, you see, Mop – Mother – doesn’t know where I am. She isn’t answering my letters and that might be because someone is taking them or the post is losing them, because none of them arrive, and so that’s why I have to actually go to her in London and it’s very, very urgent because I’m worried about her.’

  ‘I see. Well, you could go by train?’ suggested Cat.

  ‘I did try to go by train,’ snapped Lyla, ‘but the trains don’t stop here unless Great Aunt Ada tells them to. And there’s no getting through to Great Aunt Ada because she eats dinner with her horse, keeps dead armadillos in her hall and knights in her corridors and goes about with a pistol in her pocket and a canary on her shoulder, and because she has a butler who puts his head in the jaws of Asiatic lions . . . so you see, nothing here is normal –’

  Cat, bemused, hesitated. Then, presumably deciding one thing at a time, asked, ‘Does she really eat dinner with her horse?’

  ‘Yes, Violet eats Welsh rarebit every night off a silver salver that comes up in a dumb waiter.’

  Cat looked bewildered, so Lyla thought perhaps she should elaborate.

  ‘Yes, every night at seven. And that is one of the many symptoms of her dottiness and why she doesn’t understand at all how urgent it is I go home.’

  ‘But why don’t you just tell your father to take you home?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Of course I can’t, because he’s the person who put me here in the first place,’ snapped Lyla. ‘You can’t ask for help from people who leave you and then steal you and put you somewhere you’re not supposed to be without ever asking your feelings on the matter. Besides, he’s at war.’

  Cat nodded slowly. Then, as if for inspiration, gazed about at the hares and the unicorns on Lyla’s walls, and after a while said, ‘I think I’ve got an idea . . . You have to hide someone or something from your great aunt that she loves very much so she knows what it feels like not to have it. Then, when she’s upset, you do a trade. She has her thing back and you go back to your mother.’

  That was actually quite a good idea, but in fact Lyla was disappointed Cat should be so willing to help her leave, because if Cat were her friend she would surely want Lyla to stay. So instead she just answered quietly, ‘I’ll have a think.’

  However, having thought about the matter, Lyla couldn’t think of any person that fitted the bill, because it was too dangerous to lock a lion tamer up and too cruel to lock Prudence up. So eventually she reached a decision.

  ‘Violet. It’ll have to be Violet.’

  Cat grinned. ‘The horse?’ She giggled, then jumped up, reeling with laughter so that Lyla wasn’t sure she was entirely serious when she said, ‘Come on, let’s look for somewhere to put her.’

  They decided in the end on the Maharajah’s Room because it was unoccupied and near to Lyla’s and because, anyway, Aunt Ada would never know where Violet was because in a house like Furlongs you could live in the West Wing and have no idea that the whole Household Cavalry was in any other wing.

  ‘Is it actually possible to make a horse climb a flight of stairs?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Oh yes,’ answered Lyla, who wasn’t in fact sure at all. ‘The Queen’s horses go up stairs all the time.’

  ‘Do they?’

  Lyla nodded.

  ‘I don’t believe you’d really do it,’ said Cat, eyes sparkling.

  Because Lyla wanted Cat to admire and like her, she answered, ‘Of course I would.’

  Delighted by the absurdity of the notion, Cat took Lyla’s hand and whispered, ‘You’ll have to wait till tomorrow. After lunch it’s gymnastics and we’re going to do that in the Undercroft, and that’s good for two reasons. First, you can’t hear anything down there; and second, it’s really easy to skive gymnastics because Pigeon doesn’t notice anything.’

  27

  THE MAHARAJAH’S ROOM

  Lyla entered the State Dining Room at lunch the following day hoping to sit next to Cat, but because she was late as usual there was only one place left in the room and that was opposite Faye Peak. Lyla slowly walked over to it and reluctantly pulled out the chair. As she sat, Faye pulled a face. Lyla glanced around the room, wondering where Cat was.

  No one at her table said hello or smiled at Lyla and she couldn’t see Cat, so she looked down at her plate. There was an uncomfortable silence. Sitting opposite Faye made Lyla feel guilty about going into her wardrobe. She glanced up at her and felt annoyed that Faye’s hair was so tidy and blonde and that she did everything perfectly, even drawing perfect Celtic round houses just because Pigeon wanted her to.

&n
bsp; Slowly the rest of the table resumed their talk, but it was only among themselves, and Lyla, not for the first time, had the sensation that her loneliness was a thing made visible by the space and the silence around her, the bubble of emptiness that went wherever she went.

  After a while she shrugged and made a conscious effort to turn her thoughts to the matter in hand: the task of getting an elderly horse up a large set of stairs.

  She ate her chicken but pushed the carrots carefully to one side. She wasn’t entirely sure that horses ate boiled carrots, but she brushed that concern away because now there was something else on her mind, and that was Bucket.

  Bucket was in fact very clever about things like school timetables and always started to get wriggly at meal times, and now because of the proximity of chicken he was doubly excitable and trying to turn around inside her sleeve. Lyla sighed; it was so difficult trying to be just like everyone else if you were the only person with a restless and greedy ferret trying to do a U-turn in your sleeve. When apples were handed round, Lyla peeled her one, cut it into eight precise segments and then slipped them along with the carrots into her pocket.

  ‘Gross,’ said Faye. ‘Did you see what she did?’

  Faye wrinkled her face so much that she suddenly became rather plain, and Lyla wondered if she ought to tell her about getting lines because Mop said you got wrinkles from grimacing, and if Faye could wrinkle her nose about just a small thing like boiled carrots being in pockets she’d be as lined as a crossword puzzle before she was twenty.

  Bucket began to hiss and Lyla tried to shush him.

  ‘Ughhh!’ screeched Faye, struggling frantically to extricate herself from the bench and the table. ‘She’s got that thing with her.’

  Then suddenly everyone around Lyla was standing up and scraping their chairs, moving hurriedly to join Faye at the door, all looking disgusted.

  Left alone at the table, Lyla scowled.

  She didn’t care if Faye became a crossword puzzle when she was twenty and she didn’t care what Faye thought about soggy carrots in pockets or about ferrets at meal tables, because she, Lyla, would soon be leaving. Nevertheless, Lyla’s eyes were brimming and she bent her head to hide them.