Instalment 2 of The Blight of Beacon

end of Chapter 1: An Invitation to Oodles

Miranda and Katie had only to wait three more days until the school term started. Soon enough, they were standing in their almost-new uniforms at the door of their first class. Miranda was small with fair hair and serious grey eyes. She looked neat and cautious as usual. Katie somehow managed to make a stiff blazer and skirt look scruffy. Ellie and Felicity greeted them both in a friendly way. While they stood in line, Ellie pointed out a girl with long blonde plaits. The girl had a snub nose and an air of complete poise and confidence.
“That’s Elspeth Richman-Snood,” she told Miranda in a low voice. “And those two girls with her are her flunkies. Mishka Moylan and Star Kennedy. They think they’re the in crowd at Oodles.”
“I don’t even want to think about it, Star,” Elspeth was saying airily. “It’s enough for me to get Best Girl once. I’ve done my duty by my family. It doesn’t really mean anything, and truly, I don’t mind who gets it this year. As long as it’s not one of the leeches.” Elspeth looked around herself suspiciously.
“What does she mean, leeches?” asked Miranda.
“Well,” Ellie said rather reluctantly. “Don’t worry about it, but that’s what she calls the scholarship girls. Honestly, Miranda,” Ellie added when she saw the dismay on Miranda’s face, “don’t even give it a second thought. That’s just Elspeth.”
“I think you’re really clever to have gotten a scholarship,” Felicity said, her eyes round. “It’s ever so hard to get into Oodles on scholarship.”
“Elspeth says she doesn’t care,” Ellie added in a mutter, “but she’d burst a blood vessel if she didn’t get Best Girl this year as well. And her mum’s just as bad. She’s a shoo-in, too. She takes all the extras and does ballet at the Exhibition Night each year. And she sucks up to the teachers like nobody’s business. I know, because one of the girls from ballet told me all about it. I think it’s nauseating, personally.”
“How do you win Best Girl?” Katie wanted to know.
Felicity knew the answer. “You have to win the highest number of points out of all the girls in your form. But before they even add up your points you need to get at least a hundred points in three different categories. The first one is Academic – you know, schoolwork, the second one is The Arts and the last one is School Spirit.”
“What’s that?” asked Miranda. “School Spirit, I mean.”
“Who knows?” chuckled Ellie. “All I know is Elspeth got her points for that category last year by having her mum donate the money to do up the staffroom. They got cushy new chairs and a coffee machine.”
Miranda curled her lip in disgust.
“You should try for Best Girl, Miranda,” Katie told her earnestly. “You could win it easily.”
Miranda laughed. “Thanks Katie, but I think I’d have to hold up a bank before Mum could donate new furniture to the school.” She said this without thinking, and then she looked anxiously at Ellie and Felicity to check their reactions. They didn’t seem to be exchanging meaningful glances, but Miranda couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t meant to let on to the other girls at school about how little money her family had. Miranda scolded herself silently for slipping up.
By recess, Elspeth had sniffed out who was a scholarship girl and who wasn’t. She and her friends started to snub Miranda and Katie immediately. Miranda thought that the unconventional Katie was a more obvious target for Elspeth’s snide remarks, so she was surprised to find herself the victim of choice. They had history with Miss Goody after recess. Miranda saw, to her intense scorn, how Miss Goody simpered over Elspeth and her friends. It seemed Elspeth could never get into trouble with the history teacher, no matter how she sniggered with her friends or passed notes around class.
The first few days merely increased Elspeth’s dislike of the scholarship girls. On Thursday, she managed to ruin Miranda’s day before the end of lunchtime. Oodles lunches were held in the dining hall, where the girls sat in their forms at old varnished wooden tables. Miranda was thrilled to see that the food actually looked edible. She’d endured a year of limp fish fingers and cold peas at Drivell Comprehensive. On this day, she was carrying a tray of food carefully back to the second form table. When she walked past Elspeth and friends, Elspeth pushed back her chair suddenly – and Miranda, small and thin as she was, nearly went flying. She managed to save her tray of food, but only by clutching it to her chest. A good portion of gravy and mash ended up on her school blazer. She gazed from her dripping blazer to Elspeth in angry astonishment.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Elspeth said sweetly as Mrs Huffington hurried over to help Miranda clean herself up.
“Do be more careful, Elspeth,” Mrs Huffington told her evenly.
When the teacher had gone and Miranda was sitting in her place with her blazer stuffed under her chair, Star and Mishka let out the peals of nasty laughter they had been suppressing. Still pretending to be sorry, Elspeth said in a fretful voice,
“Clumsy me! Gravy all over your brand new blazer!”
“Oh, it’s not brand new,” Katie piped up innocently. “We got it second hand. Mine too. They look just like new, though.”
The entire second form stared. Then the giggling began. Miranda gazed at Katie in complete amazement, hardly able to believe that she had said such a thing. She thought she would shrivel up under the embarrassment. Didn’t Katie realize that Elspeth was not their friend? Or that cheap second hand clothes were not something to be proud of? Miranda, glowing a bright pink, stared at her food furiously. Elspeth, Star and Mishka muttered and tittered together about leeches not even being able to afford their own school uniforms.
“Belt up, you lot,” Ellie told them authoritatively. She continued to eat her lunch, making a determined effort at conversation with Miranda.
Miranda was grateful but still mortified. She could barely reply to Ellie’s remarks. She hated to be pitied. What was more, she knew that it was a only matter of time until Ellie would abandon her as well. It was too much to expect from any friend to keep sticking up for her with the likes of Elspeth Richman-Snood determined to make her look pathetic. Katie was eating her lunch obliviously. She was unaware of Miranda’s suffering.
More was to come. Miranda tried to be quiet and inconspicuous. She avoided all the other girls in her form in hopes that they would forget about her. She even steered clear of Ellie and Felicity. Ellie tried to talk to her a few times, but she hardly answered. Ellie eventually gave up. It was a week after the blazer incident, during art class, that Miranda next drew Elspeth’s attention.
The art teacher reminded Miranda of her father. She wore an enormous rainbow coloured shirt and countless pieces of mismatched jewellery, and had great enthusiasm for things like dead leaves and the shape of a puddle. As the teacher raved about a pine cone, Miranda reflected gloomily that Miss Spotswood would probably have considered the gravy stain on her blazer an absolute masterpiece.
Miss Spotswood had the girls working on self-portraits with charcoal. They all sat drawing with mirrors in front of them, most of them giggling. Felicity’s portrait was very amusing – she had made the eyes too low on the forehead, and the shoulders too high. These, combined with an attempt to draw her hands folded, made her look rather like an evil hunchback plotting revenge – or so Ellie remarked. Star Kennedy’s attempt to capture her light blue eyes had simply resulted in a rather stupid expression. Miranda thought it was actually a pretty close resemblance. Much to Ellie’s amusement, Katie’s self-portrait appeared to have two noses. Miranda looked into her own grave grey eyes and pale thin face in the mirror rather unhappily. Drawing was about the last thing she felt like doing at that moment. The thought of drawing a picture that Elspeth was likely to ridicule was even less appealing. She heard Mishka Moylan’s voice raised in fawning enthusiasm.
“Elspeth, that’s absolutely brilliant. Gosh, you’re so talented! How on earth do you do it? You ought to use your art folio instead of your ballet for the Arts category of Best Girl this year. Your art is even better than your dancing.”
Mishka had meant it as a compliment, but Elspeth narrowed her eyes.
“You obviously don’t know a thing about ballet, Mishka, if that’s what you think,” she snapped.
“Oh, I didn’t mean – I mean, I just meant…” stammered Mishka.
“You’d better get on with it, Miranda,” Katie chose this moment to say quite loudly. “If you want to use an art folio for the Best Girl award, you’ll need to have something to put in it.”
Elspeth stared at Katie, and then Miranda, with cold eyes.
“You’re trying to win Best Girl, are you, Miranda?” she asked nastily.
“Of course not,” muttered Miranda, cursing Katie silently.
“Oh, she’ll win it no problem at all,” Katie told Elspeth. “She’s very smart and arty – well, her dad’s a sculptor, so it runs in the family. And the School Spirit category is a bit of a doddle, from what I’ve heard.”
Elspeth went an unsightly shade of purple.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said between clenched teeth.
“Oh, you know – your mother paying for those things in the staff room last year,” Katie said blithely.
For once, Elspeth had no reply. Ellie barely concealed a snort of mirth.
“Go on,” Elspeth told Miranda with a tight smile. “You just try for Best Girl, leech. It will be a good laugh to watch you fail.”
“I’m not trying to win Best Girl,” Miranda insisted desperately. “Katie’s the one who said it, not me.”
Elspeth wasn’t listening. She had already turned back to whisper with Star and Mishka. Mishka looked quite grateful for the distraction. It had taken Elspeth’s attention off her own blunder for the moment. Miranda thought that she would give Katie a good ticking off when they got home. Didn’t she care how much trouble she was getting Miranda into? Did she even realize?

* * *

Miranda and David had been adopted by the Crundles. Miranda was adopted before she was two years old, and David was taken in as a foster child at eight. She had taken the Crundles’ name, as they were the only family she had ever known. David did remember his family, but it seemed he would rather forget them. He too became a Crundle by name when he turned ten years old. Now, he was fifteen. David was scrawny, but he was tall. He had dark hair that he often wore in huge spikes all over his head. He was pale and always wore black, he listened to depressing music, and he loved anything supernatural. Sometimes Miranda suspected that he only talked about ghosts, vampires and aliens as much as he did to annoy her, especially as she absolutely refused to believe in anything of the kind.
One Saturday morning a couple of weeks after school had started, David appeared in the kitchen with a book in his hand.
“Look at this, M,” he said, slapping it down in front of her.
“Is this another one of those true ghost stories things?” she sighed, rescuing her toast from underneath the book.
“No, just look at it.”
She did so. It was a curious-looking book, with soft, thick pages and a cover made of cloth. It was entitled Dragoon’s Guide to Commonwold, and had a drawing of a woman smiling as she pressed buttons on what appeared to be a microwave oven. But it was the oddest microwave oven Miranda had ever seen, being made of wood and nails, with an hourglass instead of a digital clock. She opened the book and looked at the contents page.
“Clothing and dressing,” it read, “Manners and gatherings; Work and school; Home and household science; Glossary of terms.”
“What is this?” asked Miranda. “Is this a library book?”
“No,” said David. “It fell out of Katie’s bag as she was going upstairs.”
“David, you ought to give it straight back!” Miranda admonished. But she was already flicking through the pages, her amazement growing.
“For the…the Oldenwolder who wishes to clean his clothes, there are a number of options,” she read aloud. “Washing machines operate by adding water and soap to a tub into which one places one’s clothing. The tub uses Science and Electricity to slosh the clothes until they become clean. Do not be alarmed if the machine becomes very noisy. Then the clothes can be hung on a line suspended from two posts. Oldenwolders should note that these washing lines do not move the clothes out of the way when one walks underneath the line. What on earth?” Miranda exclaimed.
“Do you think Katie might be from another country?” David said doubtfully.
“How could she be?” Miranda answered bluntly. “Okay, she’s a bit odd and sometimes she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on. But how could she be from another country? And her accent – well, it’s just like ours.
“I know,” said David. “Hey, perhaps she’s from one of these little communities that don’t use any technology. They’re always building barns with ropes and wood – you know.”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Miranda said absently. She was still reading as she flicked through the pages of the book. “Listen, David. Children in Commonwold are generally regarded as neither useful nor knowledgeable. Many consider them a nuisance. They are sent to large buildings called Schools for much of their lives, where they are taught how to be adults and introduced to concepts of Science.”
At that moment, Katie came into the kitchen. When she saw what Miranda was doing she leapt across the room and onto her book with astounding speed and an ear-splitting shriek. Miranda jumped up in shock.
“What’s all this?” exclaimed Mr Crundle, hurrying into the kitchen. “Katie, are you all right?”
“She stole my book!” Katie gasped, her face white as a sheet. “Out of my satchel!”
“No, I didn’t!” protested Miranda.
“No, keep your hair on, Katie,” David put in quickly. “You dropped it on the stairs. I showed it to Miranda.”
Katie was trembling. Miranda couldn’t tell if it was with fear or anger. She gazed from Miranda to David as though she expected them to turn her in to their father at any moment. They simply stared back, mystified. Miranda had no idea what exactly she was supposed to be turning Katie in for.
“Sorry,” David added belatedly. “It’s just a book, though, Katie. It’s not like it’s your diary or anything. And I was going to give it back.”
Katie stormed off. Mr Crundle looked at his children sternly for a moment. But their obvious bewilderment made him think twice.
“It seems that Katie is very protective of her private things,” he said after a minute’s thought. “Perhaps this is something to do with her memory loss. We’d better be respectful of the way she feels. Try not to touch anything of hers.”
Miranda rolled her eyes at David. Their father’s approach was to encourage all his children in their interests and support them in their actions, no matter how bizarre. Mr Crundle returned to his studio. David helped himself to the remainder of Miranda’s toast and sat down opposite her.
“Something odd’s going on with Katie,” he said knowingly.
“Really?” said Miranda in mock amazement. “You should try going to school with her. All my new friends have done a runner already.”
“Bad luck,” he said sympathetically. “That’s the problem with girls,” he added. “They’ll abandon the one who hangs about with the oddbod – not just the oddbod herself.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Miranda. “Katie keeps saying stupid things in front of Elspeth Richman-Snood. She absolutely hates me now.”
“You haven’t got Cynthia’s daughter in your class, have you?” snorted David. “I met her once. James Dufty brought her to the school formal last year. Stuck up little nouse.”
“She’s awful to us,” Miranda confessed glumly. “Because we’re scholarship girls.”
“Hah! Because you actually had to show a glimmer of intelligence to get into Snootles, you mean?”
Miranda didn’t reproach David for mocking her school because at least he was being kind to her. She didn’t dare tell her parents that she wasn’t enjoying Oodles. Not after the fuss she had made about wanting to go there in the first place. Although David teased her constantly, at least she could be honest with him. She knew he wouldn’t betray her to their mum and dad.
“What do you think that book was, really?” he asked Miranda thoughtfully.
“Probably just a joke,” she answered. “One of those books that pretends to be serious, but it’s really just poking fun at something.”
“A satire, you think?” he said.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wonder.”
“What else could it be? There’s no country called Common… Common-whatever it was.”
“Commonwold,” David supplied. “It almost sounds like the name of a planet—”
“For goodness’ sake, David!” Miranda cried impatiently. “Katie is odd, I’ll give you that. But she’s not an alien. Don’t you think it’s hard enough for the poor girl? She’s lost her memory – and here you are saying she’s from another planet. Leave it out, will you?” Miranda surprised herself by defending Katie.
“All right, all right.” David shrugged. “But I wish she’d blinkin’ well remember who she was. It would solve a lot of mysteries around here.”
“I suppose she will remember eventually,” Miranda said. “Until then, we just have to put up with her being a highly imaginative individual.” This is what their father called Katie whenever they described her odd behaviour.
“If she was an alien,” David said cheerfully, “she could just vaporize that Elspeth Rich-and-Snotty.”

“If only it were that simple,” Miranda sighed.



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